Disturbing Secrets of the Piglins | Minecraft Deep Dive

[Music] the game of minecraft contains a wide variety of things to discover some of the more interesting aspects of the world are the mobs there are of course simple beings like bats and cows but then there are more complex groups those which have a societal structure the villagers are one as well as the scheming pillagers but there's a third society that exists in minecraft and it may just be the most interesting of them all these are the piglets they live a brutal existence in the nether trying to survive amongst the harsh elements it's clear that there's something strange about them why do they live in decrepit structures are they actually related to pigs are they even from the nether or somewhere else welcome to deep dive a series where i explore some of the stranger and more obscure elements of games such as minecraft throughout this series we've slowly been developing a master lore of the game piece by piece i should mention that this video will reference previous deep dives but i'll do my best to get you caught up if you haven't seen them the deep dive lore has a big puzzle that we've yet to solve and that is the story of the piglins tonight we're going to try and understand who the piglins are and how they fit into the context of the world join me for a dive beneath the [Applause] waves [Music] to understand piglens we must first understand the place that they live piglens are a mob that are found exclusively in the nether the nether is one of minecraft's three dimensions including the overworld and the end these dimensions are found in different planes of existence with unique environments and rules different dimensions are connected through portals which teleport someone from one dimension to the next it's important to recognize that these portals are the only way to get from one to another the nether doesn't literally exist beneath the overworld for example rather it's a completely different place connected only by portals this may seem obvious but it's actually quite important although it's possible to travel between dimensions it requires knowledge of how to build a portal in the case of the nether the portal can be built by constructing an obsidian frame and heating it this will connect to a nearby portal in the nether if one exists or spawn a new portal if one doesn't the nether portal operates two ways teleporting to the nether automatically creates a path back home there's something really interesting about the construction of the nether portal it requires pure obsidian which does not spawn naturally in the nether it is however abundant in the overworld what this means is that the first connection between the two dimensions had to have originated in the overworld since the nether has no obsidian it's impossible that the reverse happen this is important because it allows us to put the nether in a different context the modern day nether is not the natural version of the nether instead it's the dimension after it was explored by foreign beings an important distinction that we'll need to keep in mind is whether or not something is native to the nether has it always been there or was it introduced through a portal the nether is quite a diverse place both in flora and fauna there are flying ghasts fungal forests and lava walking striders however there's a big trait that unites them these mobs are immune to fire and lava this makes intuitive sense in a scorchingly hostile dimension perhaps no ability is more key to survival than immunity to heat we see examples of this on earth many organisms have adapted to extremely tough environments typically known as extremophiles the same has happened in the nether to truly thrive a mob must be resistant to fire fire immunity can serve as a basic test as to whether or not something is native to the nether an easy example is the striders fire resistance is crucial to their lifestyle they're so adapted to walking on lava that being anywhere else is uncomfortable they become cold and shivery on solid ground thus striders are almost certainly native to the nether the same could be said for the magma cube although there is a similarity to slimes magma cubes have perfectly adapted to the environment in which they live they can use their hopping abilities to navigate the sharp rocks of the basalt delta's biome with ease they're also fireproof useful for the random pools of lava that are found scattered about these traits show that magma cubes are also native to the nether how about a foreigner let's examine the endermen they are not fire resistant they're also found in multiple dimensions including the end which is full of them so although they might wander around occasionally endermen are not native to the nether finally let's think about the piglens are they natives the answer is probably no they are not immune to fire in fact they're quite weak to it in that case where are they from to answer that question we need to take a closer look at them piglens are probably the most intelligent creature in the nether they're the only group in this dimension that lives as a society they can be found in the nether wastes and crimson forest biomes as well as in bastian remnants piglens carry gold swords and crossbows sometimes using them to hunt hoglins they've developed some sort of economy centered around gold willing to trade for various types of items it's an advanced trait that reminds us of the villagers a similarly intelligent species another similarity is that the piglens have developed specializations they're split into two categories that are distinct enough that they're separate mobs the first is the standard piglen which we've been talking about so far but there are also piglen brutes a more aggressive variant with a higher total health since they spawn in bastion remnants only it seems clear that their job is to act as a line of defense preventing unauthorized enemies from entering the home base piglens appear to have developed in ways somewhat similar to villagers but there's a big difference they don't have their own houses instead they live in huge bastion remnants scattered about these structures are pretty interesting let's take a closer look at them and see if we can figure out what they're for bastion remnants exist in a state of decay with broken down walls and treacherous pathways the name tells us that this is a remnant of a once great bastion that has since fallen apart the advancement those were the days confirms this suspicion bastions are but remains of an ancient past it's not particularly strange to see broken down structures in minecraft sunken ships and jungle temples both show signs of decay what's weird is that these ruins are inhabited by the piglens why wouldn't the piglens repair the place they call home blackstone and basalt are common materials in the nether it should be easy for the piglens to fix things up right the fact that the bastion remnants are not repaired tells us something important it implies that the piglens did not build the bastions if so then they would be more than capable of repairing them rather the piglens are merely using the bastions this leads to a question who built the bastion remnants as i mentioned earlier bastions are made mostly of black stone and basalt however there are a few building materials which should raise some eyebrows these are lanterns and chains they both require iron a material which is not naturally present in the nether furthermore if we explore the chests we can find a wide variety of foreign items including diamond equipment carrots apples and books all of these require some component that cannot be found in the nether they had to have come from the overworld let's make things a bit more interesting we've already established that the only way to travel between dimensions is to use a portal we don't have to look too far to find one ruined portals exist in both the overworld and the nether so a connection did exist at one point these portals also have chests presumably so that travelers could stock up before they left at this point it should be pretty obvious that travelers from the overworld came to the nether and built the bastion remnants yet the question remains who if you've watched any other videos in the deep dive series you probably know the answer throughout the minecraft world there's extensive evidence that there used to exist a humanoid species called the ancient builders they constructed the pyramids and monuments they sailed in sunken ships however they don't exist anymore something catastrophic happened a mass extinction event of sorts now they can only be found in their undead form as zombies and skeletons there's strong reason to believe that these are the same beings who built the bastion remnants the chest loot is characteristic of these builders including humanoid equipment as well as foodstuffs found in other chests in the overworld so what purpose would the ancient builders have for building these bastions a superficial answer would be that they needed a base to protect against the hostile elements and while that's true the reality is deeper than just that although i've been referring to bastions as a group there's actually quite a bit of variety to them there are four separate types of bastions each with a different use the first type is the bridge and its purpose is perhaps the most obvious the nether is full of dangerous lava lakes having a bridge to cross over them would be incredibly useful the second type of bastion is the housing unit its usage is also self-explanatory having a secure place to live would be crucial for anyone who spent an extensive amount of time in the nether the third type of bastion is the stables food is hard to find in the nether and it's impossible to grow crops because water cannot exist it would make sense that meat would be the best source of renewable food what we're discovering is that the ancient builders constructed quite a bit of infrastructure in the nether bastion remnants are huge what were the ancient builders doing with them they certainly weren't going to the nether for a nice vacation they were here long term capable of self-sustenance there's something in the nether worth an extreme amount of effort to obtain the fourth type of bastion gives us our answer it's the treasure bastion it has a huge cavern with many gold blocks at the bottom where would all this gold come from the nether itself gold is quite common in netherrack much more so than the overworld we're a better place to mine gold than the nether but that's not all another major reason to mine in the nether is netherrite it's the ultimate minecraft material more durable and more effective than diamond crafting netherrite requires gold if the ancient builders were trying to get a vast amount of netherite they would need an equally vast amount of gold there's further evidence for this netherright scrap ancient debris and gold can all be found in bastions however they are far more common in treasure remnants it's also the only place in minecraft to find another ingot this implies that both gold and netherice scrap were important but the true goal was to obtain pure netherite this all seems to make sense the ancient builders journeyed to the nether and set up a mining operation to obtain gold and netherright but there's still a big question we haven't answered how do the piglens fit into this after all the player discovers piglets at bastion remnants not ancient builders to find a solution we need to travel to an unexpected place the overworld thus far we've talked about how the piglens live and exist in the nether but it's actually possible to find a piglen in the overworld without ever going to the nether if lightning strikes a pig it transforms into a zombified piglen this is interesting it tells us that under certain conditions a pig can turn into a completely different species so what exactly is the lightning doing to the pig one notable property of lightning is that it's extremely hot in real life lightning can reach 50 000 kelvin many times greater than the surface of the sun this extreme blast of heat may be what transforms the pig into a piglen we already know that heat has bizarre properties in minecraft it's required for interdimensional teleportation as both nether portals and imports require something hot to work who's to say that extreme heat doesn't have even more strange properties this leads us to a somewhat intriguing question could it be possible for this transformation to occur without a lightning strike is there any other way to use heat to create a piglen from a pig what would happen if a pig found itself in a place that's well known for its excessive heat i'm sure you can see what i'm getting at if the heat from the lightning is indeed what causes the transformation then it seems at least plausible that heat from the nether could do the same thing maybe it wouldn't be quite so quick but surely the mechanism could still work but we're getting ahead of ourselves why would there even be pigs in the nether since they only spawn naturally in the overworld the answer is of course the ancient builders we already know that they have bastion specifically designed to be stables their main food source may very well have been pigs it makes sense they're small easy to transport into the nether simple to breed and provide a rich source of food they can't farm plants so pigs are a great alternative the ancient builders did not know about the pig's susceptibility to heat after years and years in the nether the pigs began to transform one day the ancient builders awoke to find their stables filled with not pigs but a new species of piglens something they had never seen before this was probably quite shocking to them but if there's one thing we know about the builders it's that they were creative they like to think of new ideas explore new places and find new ways to get the job done and the builders had just stumbled upon something very useful an unlimited supply of beings that could use the same type of tools and equipment that they did with the discovery of the piglens the builder saw a tempting opportunity why should they bother mining when there was a brand new workforce that could be created from mere pigs wouldn't it be better to train these piglens to mine instead then the builders could sit back and relax while the piglens did the hard labor in the mines why should they put themselves at risk in the dangerous nether when someone else could do it for them so the ancient builders began to implement their plan they showed the piglens how to mine they taught the piglens the value of gold and that they should be jealous protecting it from thieves the piglens went to work in the filthy mines hauling up gold and netherright when they could find it the builders expanded their bastions to accommodate this influx of piglens building special housing units and greatly increasing the number of bastions the piglens mined so much that eventually no raw netherite remained just debris of the valuable ore yet the builders were still not satisfied and they instructed the piglens to even mine some of these scraps but there was a problem the piglens are not mechanical golems they are living breathing rational beings we know that piglens can go on hunting parties they can understand the abstraction of currency they have different skill sets in the form of specializations piglens are smart possibly even as smart as the ancient builders or endermen and unfortunately it's hard to imagine that the builders didn't realize this disturbingly it seemed as though they made a concerted effort to suppress the piglens there are no nether portals in the remnants this is not an accident it's a deliberate choice by spreading the portals around the nether it would prevent piglens from easily escaping since piglens were not immune to fire they could easily die trying to make their way to the portals this effectively trapped them in the bastion remnants but even if the piglets did find the portals it might not have even mattered nearby chests often contain fire charges and flint and steel i have to wonder if the builders closed the nether portals as they left reigniting them whenever they needed the builders did not want piglen's escaping they did not want their mining operation to be disrupted by a piglet revolt so they ruled them with an iron fist the piglens toiled away in an environment for which they were unsuited but then one day the extinction event happened in the overworld vast numbers of builders died and became undead some tried to escape back to the nether zombifying several piglens before their ultimate demise the piglens fought back and were able to prevent their entire species from falling as the builders did zombified piglets still exist but the piglens as a whole were not overwhelmed but with the builders gone life began to change the pigeons were no longer forced to work in the mines however that also meant that the constant stream of items from the overworld had dried up there were no more resupplies of food armor or other necessities as their reserves began to empty the piglens realized they needed to find a way to live in the nether without help from the overworld when their iron and diamond tools broke they replaced them with gold variants they sent out hunting parties to find hoglands bringing some of them back into the stables where they used to live they trained piglet bruce to protect and defend those who couldn't yet the piglens were ultimately still trapped in the bastion remnants the builders did not teach them the art of construction only how to mindlessly dig years and years passed and the bastion remnants began to decay the piglens seized mining having accumulated vast reserves of gold however the piglens still held gold in high regard they began to use it as currency trading in much the same way as villagers with emeralds time continued to pass by the modern day the ancient portals had completely decayed and the piglens eek out a miserable existence in a hostile world they still keep some relics of their past willing to trade these bizarre items for more gold but unfortunately the piglens as a society were never able to thrive when the player finds them they're too far gone this is the only life they know the only thing that keeps them going is the prospect of finding just a little bit more gold the piglens may have survived longer than the ancient builders but it was these very builders that prevented them from truly flourishing through no fault of their own they're cursed to live in the decaying bastions in the hell that is the nether this is one of the more depressing theories we've covered on this channel we tend to think of the ancient builders as a positive influence leaving many interesting things to explore but in this theory we learned that they had some serious flaws dominating the piglens for personal gain when making a theory we always need to be on the lookout for things that we might have missed or assumptions we've made as with every video i ask that you don't take these ideas as absolute truth rather think about the theory critically and come up with your own conclusions there are certainly a few things we need to discuss a big component of this theory is the idea that the heat from lightning causes transformation of pigs to piglens in reality we don't know for sure if that's the case it could very well be the electricity or something else entirely another thing is that pigs struck by lightning become zombified piglets and not regular piglens if that's the case then why wouldn't pigs in the nether also become zombified piglens this is a good point to mention we know that a piglen can't exist in the overworld without becoming a zombie one explanation is that the zombie plague is airborne if that's true then it would make sense that any transformed pig would suddenly become a zombified piglen i think it's plausible that the same wouldn't happen in the nether no airborne plague means that a pig turns into a regular piglen not a zombie since lightning doesn't strike in the nether we can't really know for sure but this line of reasoning makes sense to me i've heard many theories suggest that the piglens built the bastions they often point out that there's a block that looks like a pig used in its construction but i don't see any reason that the ancient builders couldn't have done this after all the bastions were used by the piglens so it would make sense to indicate that somewhere on the structure it could have even been a warning to other ancient builders to be cautious this theory definitely doesn't explain everything for example are hoglands derived from pigs it does seem so and one explanation could be that the fungi and the crimson forest have transformed them there is precedent for this cows can be converted into mooshrooms by spending enough time in mushroom biomes however this is sort of beyond the scope of this theory it doesn't matter too much even if we can't explain it either way so there we go i hope you enjoyed this deep dive i know a lot of people have been asking for it but i didn't want to release a video until i was pretty sure i had the right idea i've been thinking about the piglens for several months now and i'm really curious to hear what you think about my theory as always the rg and discord is a great place to share your ideas oh and i started a subreddit come post your theories there it would be cool to slowly build up a compilation of all your ideas and the subreddit makes that convenient the link is in the description i hope to see you there by the way i wanted to show you this since i didn't have it in time for the special once again thanks so much for a hundred thousand we'll go ahead and end with that this has been retrogaming now thanks so much for watching and i'll see you all in the next video [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: RetroGamingNow

Views: 685,637

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Keywords: Retro, Gaming, Now, RetroGamingNow, RGN, Let's, Play

Id: yS3q8Tnbg7o

Length: 19min 59sec (1199 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 19 2021