Let's Talk About: Fripp

Fripp has been introduced to us as the Leader of the Druids, a talking blue squirrel with otherworldly powers, and a friend to the Soulriders. But what is he, where did he come from, and what does he really want? Let's review what we know about him.

"It all started thousands and thousands of years ago, when my people and I traveled from star system to star system with a terrible cargo."

- Fripp, SSL:TLOP

It is quickly established in the original Starshine Legacy games (particularly episode 3, The Legend Of Pandoria) that Fripp is an ancient being from beyond the stars. Literally from outer space. After capturing Garnok, Fripp and his people traveled via starship, heading toward the end of the galaxy to leave Garnok imprisoned for eternity, but their plan was foiled when Garnok's henchmen broke free and attempted to take over the ship, leading to the crash in the deep ocean off Jorvik's coast.

But not only is Fripp thousands of years old, he is eons old. Seemingly immortal, without requiring any kind of sustenance, as the entire crew and cargo lay on the bottom of the ocean passed out for years. They then left Garnok and his henchmen on the ship, trapped there, and have been guarding them since.

"We were four guardians, four powerful heroes, each holding one of the locks that held the monster Garnok imprisoned. Over the centuries the Generals have made many attempts to free their master, but we have stopped them! We have chosen four champions who share our powers... these champions are called the Soulriders!"

- Fripp, SSL:TLOP

And so we find that Fripp is one of four creatures from a distant star, who has split his power with a champion in order to fight Garnok by proxy. So the Soulriders are not their own entities but rather a part of the soul or power of each guardian, reincarnated over the centuries to fight a never-ending war. Who are the other three? We may never meet them.

So this explains, at least, how Fripp so easily recognizes each of the Soulriders when they come into play. Throughout the Starshine Legacy comics and games, Fripp recognises each girl by name and knows her power and destiny, without ever having met her before.

"One day we hope to find the book because it will make the ceremony more powerful and it contains secrets written by ancient druids which we have forgotten or don’t know the meaning of today."

- Fripp, What Is The Book Of Ceremonies?

Fripp is ancient, incredibly powerful, able to bridge the gap between our world and Pandoria on his own. He can recall details of centuries past, but... how could he not remember the details in the Book Of Ceremonies? A ceremony he must have used hundreds of times, as his entire reason for being here is to use it to keep Garnok at bay. He and his three fellow guardians could not have forgotten how to perform their duties, unless they are actually starting to go insane over time. Fripp does not always talk as a sane person should.

And he does not recognise our main character in Star Stable Online. She is not a reincarnation of a Soulrider, we know that much. There is debate, based on the opening sequence of Star Stable Online, whether our character is Aideen reborn. But Fripp is eons old, hugely knowledgeable, and seems to worship Aideen himself. How could he not recognise the incarnation of his Goddess when he sees her? Or even a prophet of Aideen incarnate?

But enough of that. What do we know about Fripp for sure? We know the powers of he and his kind are directly drawn from Pandoria.

"We have activated the four seals! They are gathering the energy needed to release Garnok! [...] Little do they know that these seals are linked to their powers. We're stealing their own powers to unleash our glorious master!"

- Mr Sands, SSL:TRODC

The Soulriders were created by the guardians, given a share in the guardians' powers. And in Starshine Legacy: The Riddle Of Dark Core we face a new threat in that the minions of Garnok have put seals on the Soulriders' link to Pandoria. With these seals in place, Garnok's minions are able to leech the powers of the Soulriders in order to feed their own agenda, which establishes that the Soulriders and, by extension, Fripp and his kind pull their power from Pandoria.

"You can be sure that Dark Riders, being the opposite in every way to our Soul Riders, must have some connection to Garnok."

- Elizabeth, Meeting In Dark Times

If the Darkriders are the perfect opposites to the Soulriders, then it stands to reason that the Darkriders were created by Garnok and his minions as their own champions. Perhaps Katja and Sabine are not the original henchmen, but created by them, as the Soulriders are not the original guardians. And if the Darkriders are perfect opposites, it stands to reason that they pull their own powers from Pandoria as well, which Fripp only supports in his own comment.

"There are enemies out there with powers just like yours. Good luck, Alex!"

- Fripp, SSL:TLOP

Just like hers, drawn from Pandoria, with abilities to travel to Pandoria or to Soulstrike. The idea that the Darkriders are not the original guardians but created by them is only supported further by Fripp's origin story.

"Garnok is still trapped in the ship with his Generals, but they are doing everything they can to release him from his prison. These creatures are not human. They have powers beyond your imagination! The Generals use their mental powers to materialise in Jorvik - like Mr Sands, the girl Jessica, and even your enemy, Katja."

- Fripp, SSL:TLOP

What seems scarier to me is the idea that Garnok and the Generals share the same powers and interstellar origin as Fripp and his guardians. Could they all be the same? Two sides of a war from the same galaxy, a civil war within the same species. Can Fripp really be trusted if he is of the same origin as Garnok? Can we trust the Keepers of Aideen, a faction that does not even recognise their own Goddess incarnate, who seem to have mysteriously "forgotten" how to do their job, and who barely trusts their Goddess with her own powers?

If you know me, you know my opinion of Garnok's capture. Who's to say that Fripp is as trustworthy as we're told, or that Garnok is as guilty? Could Fripp feel threatened by us?

"And who really are you? Really? Who are you? [...] Do you know who you are…? No. Who could even answer such a question anyway…? [...] I suppose it’ll be quicker for me to just give you a wand rather than spend time telling you all the reasons why you shouldn’t have one."

- Fripp, A Trip To Fripp

"As desirable as the powers [she] has, they still need to be trained and controlled."

- Fripp, Meeting In Dark Times

Let's Talk About: Garnok's Capture

In the third Starshine Legacy game, Legend of Pandoria, we take Anne's role and travel to Pandoria. In Pandoria we find a room filled with 8 gigantic runes, telling the story of what seems to be Garnok's capture and subsequent crash on Earth.

"Those creatures look like horses. And a little bit like guards, as well. I wonder if that's supposed to be their planet?"

Anne is kind enough to interpret the runes for us. Note that the horse-people's planet has a horse head on it, and the human and Garnok planets just look like targets - just ambiguous planets.

"Yikes! There's this evil monster attacking the horse-people! He looks horrible!"

But I would disagree with her very strong bias against a tentacle-monster she's never even met. Who says he's evil?

This is the first rune that I find truly interesting. Note that while before the center planet had a horse head, here that part is omitted. Who's to say that we're looking at an invasion by Garnok?

What if we put aside our bias for a moment, and entertain the idea that we're seeing the horse-people invading Garnok's planet, instead of the other way around? This story becomes much more concerning.

"The horse-people are fighting the monster! It looks like they're winning!"

Garnok is being beaten into submission, and we're back at the horse-people's planet. What if they captured Garnok and brought him back by force?

"Hey, the horse-people captured the monster! Serves it right, it looks evil!"

Let's be honest, we don't know that Garnok did anything wrong. We've only seen the horse-people brandishing weapons in these runes - we've not seen Garnok doing anything that comes across as truly sinister.

"Hmm... this looks like it's a ship... a starship! The monster is imprisoned on it! The horse-people are sending the evil thing away!"

And now they're taking Garnok away on a ship, away from their planet and, presumably, away from his own, with a horse-person guard in the ship with him.

"Something's gone wrong! The starship is crashing... on a planet... could it be earth?"

Is it crashing, or is this just it landing as expected? Could they be using Earth as a prison for Garnok intentionally, because it's the nearest planet that belongs to neither the horse-people nor Garnok's kind?

"Let's see. The horse-people are making friends with a horse and its rider... and the evil monster is buried under the sea! Maybe it's escaping?"

Our first glimpse of Aideen, I believe. It seems that Aideen did not inherently have her own light - here we see the horse-people giving a light to the horse and rider, which presumably gets used to populate the nearby island, to guard against Garnok's return.

"Oh no, the monster is free! But wait, here are four horses and four riders... they're driving the evil thing away! I wonder what all this means?"

Garnok is out, and he has a few of his own kind with him. Did they follow him, or are they spawned from him? Either way, the soul riders and Garnok are at odds, and I have to say I could understand why Garnok might be feeling violent.

This is the first glimpse we get of Garnok being violent at all. In the initial invasion rune, the lightning above can easily be brought down by the horse-people, as the lightning is directed at Garnok. But here we see the lightning directed at the riders, presumably by Garnok or his minions.

Could it be that Garnok was attacked without reason? The leader of his world taken captive and sent to a strange planet to live in isolation, kept down by his enemies at every turn he takes. I can understand why Mr Sands and the generals are so hateful of the soul riders and Druids. These minions of Garnok just want their leader back, and revenge for an injustice wrought on them centuries ago.

We can't say that the Druids are totally innocent themselves, with what they've done - drugging employees, banishing people's souls?

Garnok's minions may be cruel, but I think I understand their cause and why they're lashing out.

I say to ye, Garnok is innocent!

Let's Talk About: The Unfortunate Dews

"The family who live here are called the Unfortunate Dews. They used to own a beautiful farm on the other side of the island, but after an epidemic struck their cows they were forced to sell their farm for a pittance. Now they have begun a new life in the Forgotten Fields."

 - The Unfortunate Dews' Farm, SSO area description

The Dews don't seem to exist, except in location descriptions. The Unfortunate Dews' Farm in the Forgotten Fields looks to be abandoned, populated only by the animals the Dews seem to keep. It's a curious setup at this farm, to say the least, and let me outline a few of the odd features.

Firstly is the evidence that there are humans living there, despite evidence to the contrary:

We have a working horse trailer, which would be an odd item to abandon. A chicken coop, which to abandon would be cruel. A house with full crates of cabbages, whereas there are no other full containers on the rest of the farm, suggesting that this is their home. And a mailbox, which is an odd feature to find in the middle of nowhere.

So it makes sense that the farm is occupied, even if the residents are in hiding. The oddest part of the farm is actually the barn, which is the only cobwebbed building. And the only building to light up at night:

"The Dew family once occupied this farm. They left Jorvik after they became bankrupt, and nobody has moved into the farm to take over. It now lies dilapidated and unused."

 - Dew's Farm, SSO area description

"Owned by the Dew family, as part of their ownership of the largest farm on the Eastern slopes. Since the family disappeared, the paddock has fallen into disuse."

 - Dew's Paddock, SSO area description

The Dew's Farm, on the other hand, is a beautiful farm in Epona that lies entirely unused. It may not be cobwebbed, but it is covered in weeds. More interesting, however, is the Moses Lighthouse nearby.

"Every night, the lighthouse shines into the darkness, but nobody's seen the lighthouse keeper for years..." 

 - Moses Lighthouse, SSO area description

So the Moses Lighthouse is still regularly attended, even if nobody has seen the keeper. Somebody is hanging around, even if they don't live on the farm. Who would keep the lighthouse running?

"Someone used to live here, but it was a long time ago." 

 - Seahorse Point, SSO area description

"There used to live an old couple up at Seahorse Rock up until a couple months ago. They had such bad luck with everything. In a couple weeks their animals got sick, the water turned black, and the entire farm was quarantined. Eventually they couldn’t afford it and Ms Drake at the G.E.D. bought it for a pittance. I don’t know why she wanted it, but the G.E.D. is up there now, digging in the ground all the time."

 - Susanna, Roof On The Track

Seahorse Point is an interesting case in which we find that the farm is likewise abandoned and now occupied by GED, though some animals were left there.

These three farms seem to be linked.

It's a common belief that the Dew's Farm and the Unfortunate Dews' Farm are/were both owned by the same family, but note the spelling in the names: Dew as opposed to Dews. It could be that these two separate families just have similar names, and their farms aren't linked at all except in circumstance. Or the name difference could be a typo.

Another odd link is use of the word pittance. Seahorse Point was bought for a pittance, and the Unfortunate Dews sold their old farm for a pittance.

Then we see that the Dews are called Unfortunate, and the couple from Seahorse Point was said to have bad luck.

"I’m going to give you errands to run every day from now on. Make them and show some diligence, and I might promote you to be my personal assistant. I really need a new one, my old one forgot I’m not using milk in my coffee so I was forced to fire him and banish his entire family from their family farm. Ha ha, good times!" 

 - Ms Drake, Black Coffee For A Black Heart

And lastly we find, only a day after we're set to clean up Seahorse Point, that Ms Drake sabotaged her last assistant, driving him from his family farm. With Seahorse Point currently overrun by the GED, it's possible that her assistant lived on that farm.

What conclusions can we draw here?

I would suggest that the common themes of pittance and misfortune might suggest that Seahorse Point and the Unfortunate Dews' farm are linked. I believe that the family from Seahorse Point was sabotaged by Ms Drake, forcing them to sell up and move into a dilapidated farm in the Forgotten Fields, where they still live in fear.

And in this, it's possible that the Dew's Farm is unrelated to this situation. Their bankruptcy could have been entirely unrelated to anyone else, and they truly have left Jorvik island as the description states. Perhaps the lighthouse keeper was never a member of the Dew's Farm, but a hermit.

Let's Talk About: The Doors

Across the mystical island of Jorvik, there are so many questions to be asked. So many oddities and mysteries to be unraveled. One such mystery is in the form of a white door.

Four of them.

Four white, square doors leading into the ground.

I'm sure you've seen them around - one in the Hollow Woods, one on Moorland Road, one in Golden Hills, and one in Greendale. They emit tall beams of yellow light at night, and their existence has not been acknowledged, let alone explained, in the game at all.

One facebook post on April 22, 2013, claims that "those are lights for when it's dark", but does that really make a lick of sense? We have signposts for directions, and half these doors are hidden in bushes.

In March 2015 I sent Star Stable a support ticket asking if the doors had any relevance, and was told that they "cannot reveal any information about the future updates and what is going to happen in the game", effectively dispelling any idea that these doors really are just decorations.

So, with no information on them from Star Stable Entertainment AB themselves (unsurprising, because spoilers), nor any in-game mentions, let's review the doors and perhaps elaborate on what they could be.

As I've already said, there's four doors. They're large, square, white, and have some odd symbols on them. They all share a window, a strange piece of lineart that resembles a letter mashup, and a star. In particular, they each have this star symbol, and on this star is a dot. This dot is on a different point of the star on every door.

This says to me that each door is at a particular location, in a star pattern on the map. But this star has five points - we're missing the fifth door, with the dot on the point facing the symbol. So if we map out where each door is, and overlay a star outline, can we find the fifth door?

The star outline fits perfectly with the locations of the doors, and we can see that the fifth door must be in the northern valley. In the original games, this place is called Pine Hill Valley. Fun fact! This valley has Pine Hill Mansion - Mr Sands' mansion!

Now to quickly dispel some doubts - no, the final point doesn't mark the Secret Stonering. Let me show you exactly where the Stonering currently is on the map:

That said, I've heard reports that the Stonering has changed locations on this map in the past. But if we review the original Season Riders games - in particular Winter Riders, the same game that features Pine Hill Valley - we can travel to the Stonering, and it's located in roughly the same original part of the map as it is shown here.

And unfortunately, this is where the similarities to the original games in this context ends. The doors were never present in the originals.

And so unfortunately, we can't speculate further on Pine Hill Valley or the fifth door's location without attempting to glitch into that area, but we won't be doing that.

So what can we speculate on?

The reason the doors exist! Let's take a quick look at what interesting features are inside this star, and what they might relate to.

I've marked four major locations of plot significance. North Link, the Oil Fields, Silverglade Village, and Steve's Farm.

Why are these locations important, you ask?

Silverglade Village is a major location where the Pandoric rifts appear. Although the rifts started above Jasper's pumpkin farm, it is Silverglade Village which faces the first Shadowseeker infestation. In other locations, the rifts appear in single instances, but it was in the village where we faced multiple rifts at once, putting an entire village in danger. A major plot point. Something about Silverglade made it a target for these rifts to appear in bulk. Why is Silverglade Village so fragile?

The Oil Fields are where we find Mr Kembell drilling for oil, but in the oddest manner. In a normal situation, we'd assume that he's drilling for oil in order to sell it - oil is a major commodity, after all. But in this field, the oil being pumped up is not being stored. It's being dumped back onto the grass, ignored. Instead of collecting oil, we find the area is filled with bags of cement, with no apparent purpose. What is the real purpose of this oil field?

North Link is where GED is tunneling North through the mountains. It's the worksite of one GED Trainee, a personal favourite character of mine. North Link isn't entirely odd, but its location and the quest line involving the GED Trainee is curious.

Steve's Farm is... well, it'll come later.

Now, I have an idea on what these doors could be, so let me link it all together for you.

This is the GED Trainee, Conny. Back in early days, we get a quest called This Isn't North Link, in which we first meet him and discover why he's in the Baroness' wine cellar.

"Let me tell you all about it. This is how it is. Today is my first day as a trainee at G.E.D. by North Link and the first thing they did was show me their new drilling machine. Here is your new job they said, just drive it straight. Then they said good luck and walked off to drink more coffee.
"So I figured I’d better do what they tell me to… But it seems like I drove the machine a little crooked. If the boss finds out I’ll get fired right away. I’m so unlucky."

- Conny, This Isn't North Link

North Link is set to drill directly North, directly towards the fifth door. What if there's tunnels linking the five doors?

The Oil Field is just draining oil from underground, and we find that the Oil Field is on a direct line from the middle of the star toward the Golden Hills door.

Silverglade Village was under attack from Pandoric rifts and Shadowseekers, and we can see that the village is on another direct line from the middle of the star to the Moorland door.

Even more interesting is that Steve's Farm is along this same line. In a quest called The Cat Substitute, we get a strange tidbit of information thrown haphazardly into the dialogue:

"Don’t understand where the mice are coming from. On the nights I can hear strange sounds from the underground… I wonder if G.E.D. is drilling out the island of Jorvik from the inside? Now we just need something to use as bait."

- Steve, The Cat Substitute

North Link is drilling up. Steve is hearing underground drilling. The oil fields are draining the underground, and collecting cement. I believe this is strong grounds to suggest that an underground tunnel system between the doors is being built by GED.

But for what purpose?

All we can do is wonder, but I have a theory.

"You fight for the same cause as I do. Lisa persuaded me. My roots reached her in her abominable prison, she needed help, and she promised to help me."

- The Sleeping Widow, A Promise Is A Promise

Given Silverglade's Pandoric invasion, are we seeing GED tunneling into Pandoria? The rifts, and the Sleeping Widow's ability to reach her roots down into Pandoria, do make it seem like Pandoria is just under our feet.

Given the star shape, is it possible that this is turning into a summoning circle?

I would like to believe, personally, that this ties into the Light Ceremony - in particular the reverse Light Ceremony to be conducted by Dark Core. With co-operation from GED, I believe the dig itself is for Mr Sands to get closer to Pandoria to either physically reach the pink hell itself or to use its energy to fuel his ceremony and, perhaps, to raise Garnok.

But still, the map begs the question.

What exactly is at the center?