A little tad of lore that I found interesting when someone pointed it out.
When it comes to 5P dumping the rot out the window, he didnt just dump only the rot. He threw an entire memory conflux out the window as well as the cooling towers in order to try to save himself, this is shown in how the underwater rot room in garbage wastes has the conflux hole, as well as how 5P is missing one conflux ingame, having 15 instead of 16. Which raises the question.

how the hell can an iterator perform a lobotomy on itself?

One note on hydrocarbons this stuff also includes sugars and similar stuff so it can be just for nutrtition purposes and not burned

I always thought the abstract convergence manifold was possibly the subconscious of an iterator. Or the “personality” they seem to take on. The names of the 5P organisms are: wall mycelia (wall hair thingies), coral neurons (red noodles)and coral stems (the tentacles) according to the files and in game dev tools

Hydrocarbons are kind of the basic building blocks of most biological structures, so if the iterators are biological in nature it'd make sense that they'd have a good amount of them. When we refer to life as "carbon-based" its usually referring to carbohydrate chains, which are basically hydrocarbons with oxygen at the ends.

As an addition to the elemental discussion: Silicon is also often known as "sand" and is probably provided by water and whatever else is being taken in, and likely forms majority of the slag with sulphuric compounds.
Sulphuric compounds are likely provided with water as well; most sea grasses are generally composed mainly of hydrocarbons and sulfates with some phosphates, and I would say that it's more than likely that intake of various marine flora with the seawater is how iterators 'eat'.

I hate to be this person, but the umbilical proper is actually the super long cord with all the red and blue wires that is tethered to the bottom of the puppet chamber. Moon consistently states that she was "neutered" i.e. her umbilical cord was severed in the collapse, indicated by all the loose short wires sticking out of her head. She's still attached to the large mechanical arm-like thing that's meant to rotate around the chamber, so I think technically that's a puppet (and umbilical) rig .

Yes it's confusing because the wiki and game sometimes refer to the whole setup as an umbilical, but for a lore video I think it's an important distinction to make and I hope you can clarify that

i love for loops, i love iterating over an array

I assumed the Abstract Convergence Manifold was the iterator's consciousness/subconsciousness

For the Sulfur and Silicon in Moon's systems, it's likely with her facilities taking such a shock and such damage, she took in mass amounts of unfiltered water which contained Sulfur and Silicone, the unhealthy components would be like.... Well, having those same things in her blood! She'd essentially be having blood clots from material build up in her systems, like, all sorts of sand and soot is presumably where the silicon is coming from. And Sulfur is likely present in the ground water. So when she was being starved of water, her systems took major damage, and the next cycle she was able to get water, her systems were too damaged to properly filter it all and she took in all sorts of unwanted poisons from the ground water, which only messed up her systems even more.

To better understand what exactly would happen; many houses without a water filter will find their pipes both corroding and becoming caked with sediment, like Calcite, which will cause even more damage to the pipes over time and fuck with water pressure, as well as making the home owner unknowingly use water that is way too high in chemicals and minerals. This is essentially whats happened to Moon.

18:27 In regards to "rapid cooling" emergency regulation, it's description in the text indicates to me that it's similar in function to a modern nuclear reactor's Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) that's used to shut down a reactor so it doesn't end up having a meltdown.

Man, I'm so happy there's more people besides me who are interested in the Iterator technical details! I had an alternate proposal in my head about the Recursive Transform Array(I don't mean to upstage you).

I was thinking that the name "Recursive Transform Array" could also refer to a type of mathematical operation called a transform. They transform one function f(x) of one set of inputs into another function F(s) of another set of inputs, almost like rephrasing a sentence in different terms. For example, a Fourier Transform can convert a waveform (e.g.: pressure defined over time) into its component frequencies and how "loud" these frequencies are; expressing something defined as a function of time f(t) into something as a function of frequencies, F(s). My idea was that Recursive Transform Array might take the looping, recursive, iterated computations of the Iterator and convert them into concrete, singular thoughts. This might also fit with how similar RTA and Abstract Convergence Manifold are, what with the "electrical equipment" featured in both, as well as the apparent correlation in their location between Pebbles' and Moon's structure.

This is just an idea in my head, and I'd be glad to hear any counter-evidence or counter-arguments.

Iterators, like igloo, not eye. 15 social credits have been deducted from your honorary balance with the biomechanical collective.
In lieu of this mistake I am obligated to inform you that yes, the background of the puppet chamber is indeed off to the left by one tile, and was not properly centered within the room.

If going by the theory that the memory conflux is a bunch of testing chambers, the red grids the spiders are making could be the physical version of all the simulations that the iterators are said to run. Also the silicon mentioned in the broadcast is most likely just another part of the slag cloggage the same as the sulfur.

9:13 Rarefaction is actually explained by Moon in the Pipeyard Pearl:
"The early ages of the Void Fluid revolution were an explosive period of innovation and industry. By creating a vacuum of empty space, and inducing a flux in the energy fields around the singular null point you've created, you can cause a fuel mass of base elements to decompose into energy. This process is called mass rarefaction. Of course this undertaking required extremely pure samples to properly craft rarefaction cells."

Now, this is just my theory, but I think rarefaction cells use Void Fluid to convert mass (in case of Iterators, probably water) directly into energy. To understand how much energy this will create: 1 cubic meter of water (264 gallons for Americans out there) would be enough to power our whole current civilization for almost a year.

20:52 these guys are actually called wall mycelium so it may be a type of fungus or smth, not very important just food for thought ( they are called that in the code)

Babe, wake up. Now Das…wait…where are you?
There’s a note here! Could it be her?

“If you’re reading this, this is not the first time you’ve read this. Go to the doctor and get treated, because I don’t know what’s happening to you! To me! Please! I don’t know how long this has been going on for, and I don’t know how long I’ll last.”

Huh, I guess I will…

What was I doing? Oh! A new Daszombes vid dropped, I guess I’ll tell the ol’ missus.

Hey babe, new Das…wait…

The Memory Conflux rooms are labeled as being “Labs” in game so I always assumed they were for doing experiments. Part of 5P’s “LAB” rooms are inside of Unfortunate Development, which implies that’s where his Rot started.

17:03 like with most things in chemistry, things that will kill you instantly become vital if reacted with one or two other things(ex: explosive metal and caustic gas react to form table salt) so just because you shoudlnt rub elemental sulfur on your skin doesnt make it non vital for some functions in your body.
basically most chemicals are bad for you if theyre at the wrong level, not just sulfur.


that being said we have no idea if life in RW is anywhere close in similarity to life on earth, so biochemical processes could be completely different.

18:37 imo rapid cooling could be an endothermic chemical reaction that cools things down, but i would assume creates toxic byproducts(slag)

4:18 Anythin' but the metric system /j

What's heartbreaking is, in a way, Pebbles succeeded. The rot is a self-destruction. It's just not instantaneous. It's slow. Slowly infecting him and taking him over. And by the time he is in shambles, he doesn't want to circumvent the taboo anymore.

And I think that is the most heartbreaking thing about his story.