Aenwithe

*"Ssstranger, you might not want to look at thisss now..."*

This article contains important spoilers that can ruin your experience while playing  FTL: Multiverse! Read at your own risk.

## Aenwithe

### Species

Obelisk (Ancient)

Aenwithe is a Multiverse-traveling Ancient encountered in the Ancient Questline. He leads the Ancient Resistance, the band of Ancients who aim to overthrow the Ancient Royals planning to invade the Multiverse and retake control.

Aenwithe is first found unconscious aboard a wrecked Ancient vessel at a Harmony Link, where they assume it's merely a robot that they bring aboard. At the Ancient Recovery Site, they learn from The Anointed that it is actually a living, sentient creature. Once Aenwithe is activated using the device given to them by the Anointed, he offers some exposition to the player on the Ancient race, and requests their assistance.

Despite being a major plot character for the questline, it *is not* necessary to keep Aenwithe alive during it, the only thing the player needs from him is to accept his proposal and get warped to the obelisk sector, he can be disposed of safely afterwards if the player so desires.

## Stats

Aenwithe has very similar stats to regular Ancients, but uses the teleporter tech as the duskbringers.

* 200 Max Health
* Immune to fires and suffocation
* 0.5x Repair and extinguishing speed
* 0.75x Move speed
* 1.25x Damage
* Moves by teleporting

## Dialogue

### **Exposition Lore Dump (Start)**

*The creature beings to speak in the same garbled way as the auto scout before but stops. It scans the area where your translator is located, and the device lights up. You look at your translator to find it's database entries have been updated even further - expanding on the entries given to you by the augmented.*

*The alien speaks again. "Language Calibration: Complete. Hello, strange creature. I have taken the liberty of updating your translator to understand our spoken language. You have done me a great service, though I know you probably had no idea what you were doing. The closest pronunciation of my name in your language is Aenwithe, but I suspect that might be a mouthful. I recommend you call me Wither, as my true dialect would make your head explode if attempted to be pronounced.*

*"I am sure you have plenty of questions, and I would be happy to answer any I can. Would you care for the long story, or the short story? I assure you, the long one is much more interesting than the short one, and I only recommend listening to the short one if you've heard this all before. Er, forgive me for my fourth wall breaking, I am not quite sure how else to say this."*

### **Exposition Lore Dump (Long)**

*"Ok then, well where to start... As I have said, my name is Aenwithe. Though my species's given name would translate to something similar to 'Obelisk', its probably easier to refer to us as the Ancients. Our race has been around for far longer than most, the only other competitors we had in our glory days were the Crystals and Lanius."*

*"We have been divided culturally by centuries between the Commoners and the Royals, who are much biologically stronger than us and as such the natural leaders, a fact which most of us accept without complaint. We were not always these cubical mechanical things you see now, but the Royals' drive for perfection lead to our need to perfect everything we had. Our organic bodies were left behind in favor of these, factoring out any weaknesses like disease or aging."*

*"Though our new bodies struggle at repairing or construction due to a lack of limbs, we've already come to rely mostly on drone technology to serve us. Though our society might sound Utopian, its anything but. Most of our population is sick and twisted, their egos so large they've come to believe that we are actual gods. This desire to play with life has lead to some technological achievements you probably couldn't comprehend."*

*"The Engi race with which you are so familiar is merely a byproduct of an Ancient cognitive AI, one which is truly sentient, known as the Harmony. When our civilization fell the Harmony was released into the world and eventually became what it is today. Several other achievements of ours I've noticed have found their way into your society, such as the Zoltan's beloved Great Eye, which is merely a malfunctioning reality manipulator of ours. I might even had repaired it for them, had my fleet not been decimated."*

*"However, our biggest and grandest achievement beyond all else is none other than the Multiverse Drive themselves. See, after our exploitative nature of the universe around us started to catch up to us and we suddenly found our reality dry of the resources we had used up, we sought a way to fix it... by invading other realities for their resources instead. We didn't expect much resistance, until we found more of ourselves on the other end."*

*"Perhaps if we had been different we could have achieved some grand inter-reality civilization, but instead we followed through with our intent and waged war against ourselves. This was devastating, and within only a few decades our species had been reduced to a shadow of its former glory. The survivors realized the futility of continuing to battle, and so we sealed ourselves away with the use of a waystone, a device which can disconnect a sector from the usual grid that FTL drives operate with."*

*"And so, this brings us to where we are now. We have remained locked away for centuries, slowly rebuilding our empire. The Royals have built several planet-sized vaults around some of our ruined sectors, and intend to use the supplies inside to launch a massive invasion of the reality you've deemed Universe 0, and eventually the rest of the Multiverse as well."*

*"I am part of a resistance group who aims to prevent the Royals from going through with their plans. To do this we intend to use a specialized bomb called the Paragon. The force of its detonation should be so powerful it will not only decimate the Ancient Homeworlds, but severe the connection between realities, rendering MV tech useless. That's why my fleet came here, to recover the last part we need to construct this weapon. However, the Lanius you saw destroyed it when they attacked us."*

### **Exposition Lore Dump (Short)**

*"If you say so. I am part of an ancient civilization from long before any that you know of. Our species doomed ourselves to a point of near extinction after the Multiverse tech we invented lead to a massive intraspecies war. We disappeared from the galactic scene ages ago, but now we've managed to crawl back. Our leaders, the Ancient Royals, are planning to invade and retake Universe 0, and inevitably the rest of the Multiverse using massive stockpiles of supplies kept in several planet-sized vaults. I am part of a small but competent resistance group, and we are working on a prototype bomb called the Paragon. Its detonation will be so powerful that it will not only decimate the entire Ancient Homeworlds, but collapse the Multiverse itself, shutting down MV drives everywhere. I came here to collect one of the last fragments needed, but those lanius destroyed it along with my fleet."*

### **Exposition Lore Dump (Question)**

*"Not all is lost however. There's another sector whose vault is suspected to contain a similar component we can use. From what I have gathered from my stay here, I believe my goal is mutually beneficial for both of us. This bomb will save this reality from Rebel invasions, and could be the key to ending this war of yours. I understand if you don't wish to help however, you have already done more than enough by just awakening me. Should you decline, I will find some other way to pay you."*

### **Empty Beacon Dialogue**

* *Wither is frustrated that half of the lines mentioning him say "Wither" and the other half say "Aenwithe."*
* *Wither promises you that if his name was to be an easter egg, the guy it refers to is very cool. You have no idea what that means.*
* *Wither asks you what version number we're on. You're confused, but he seems to realize something and apologizes then leaves the room.*
* *"Wouldn't it be funny," begins Wither, "If there was a third Ancient Cruiser? Hah, not like that exists..."*
* *Wither misses Larry. When you ask who Larry is, he mumbles something about slug popcorn, mantis bishops trying to breathe, and the great eye.*
* *Wither will never forgive the augmented for what they did to his fleet. At least, not until you start a new run and do the quest all over again.*
* *Wither complains about the rendering time for 1080p videos to render. The things that this guy says will forever be a mystery to you...*
* *"I wonder what Wither thinks when he reads these. Assuming he reads them, of course." You aren't sure how to respond, considering you thought HE was Wither.*
* *Wither complains about the intricacies of time travel and the danger of paradoxes. He's already destroyed a couple realities because he accidentally said hello to himself.*
* *Wither thinks he'll become a youtuber in some alternate timeline. You nod your head, though you have no idea what youtube is.*
* *Wither encourages using his ability to race him against the other crew. Not that its practical, but it is fun for a couple seconds.*
* *Wither wonders why the corpses disappear when crew die. If they're being taken, then for what purpose...*
* *Wither encourages you to join the Discord. You don't know what a Discord is, but if you did the invite link would probably be on the subset forums, under the mod category, on the Multiverse page. Not that you would know.*
* *Wither claims he once dared utter the phrase "MLG Pro." Even you hate the sound of that, and you don't even know what it means.*
* *Wither apologizes if all of his dialogue goes over your head. You just aren't cultured enough to understand it.*
* *Wither wants you to promise never to press the panic button, ever, under any circumstances. If you don't know what this means yet, you will eventually.*

## Trivia

* Though his real name in the Obelisk lanuage is Aenwithe, he asks the player to refer to him as Wither. This, along with many of his dialogue options, are references to Witherbottom, the first content creator to play Multiverse.
	+ Despite the nickname, events will refer to him as either randomly.
		- This is also referenced in the dialogue line: "*Wither is frustrated that half of the lines mentioning him say "Wither" and the other half say 'Aenwithe.'*"
* Aenwithe breaks the 4th wall a multitude of times. It is implied he knows that the player exists, and that failure during the run ultimately means nothing.
* Aenwithe starts on a secret cruiser, 'Makt-Lithe GaethPro'. This player ship is unlockable by unlocking a very large set of other cruisers.
* If the player already has Aenwithe, whether though playing Ancient C or cheating, there will be an additional blue option when waking up Aenwithe to greet him with himself. This presents no benefits other than some additional dialogue for flavor.