Spoilers here for Principles of Coral and Pigmote Isle
The Principles calls the Bazaar its "cousin" and talks about coming from Axile along with the flukes and assorted other aquatic riff-raff.
The coral is its body - breaking off pieces of living coral from the "reef" is a potentially disfiguring activity and possibly even life-threatening.
The various individual reefs have names like Chatranic Lobe and Noctic Lobe and other less suggestive names. Now, "lobe" is an actual kind of reef-building coral. However - it’s also a part of some higher level entities - The Cladery Heart is literally a piece of the Bazaar; it’s "Cladery Lobe". In a nice little double-entendre, the names of the reefs both describe a "coral" reef and a part of a space-faring entity from another world that’s disguising itself as a coral reef. One might wonder if the Principles has its own sort of Stone Pigs stowed away somewhere that might become restive once it achieves dissolution.
The Principles wants to commit a kind of suicide, but in order to do so, it needs to drop lower on the Great Chain, or so it seems to imply. Its descent is balanced by the ascent of the idol from a Watchful Idol to a Wakeful Idol to a Vigilant Idol.
In the end, you receive a bunch of scintillak and four chunks of particularly precious blue scintillak.
Now, where is the only other place in the game that you can get scintillak?
Pigmote Isle.
What’s smack dab in the center of Pigmote? Like, literally in the center, until the rats steal it?
A chunk of blue scintillak, with "ordinary" scintillak growing all over the chamber and reaching out into the Unterzee around the island.
It might not be an "egg", strictly speaking, but I think it’s a reasonable stretch to speculate that it is a fetal form of whatever sort of entity the Principles represents.
A Zee Captain with a sense of moral responsibility might feel a need to find a safe place to "plant" his blue scintillak; a place where it would be likely to grow into a new coral entity in peace without being fought over by lesser beings for its metaphysical benefits.
On a different note, it seems to me that one solution to Pigmote’s problems would be for a particularly magnanimous Captain, one who had completed the Principles questline, to bribe the invaders by offering EACH of them their own chunk of blue scintillak to leave the island in peace. The odds of that situation ever occurring are pretty slim so I doubt it exists but it would be kind of cool if it did.
The Coral Priciples are a coral, a single lump of blue scintillack is an isolated polyp. The Coral Principles are a brain, a single lump of blue scintillack is an isolated neuron. Each polyp or neuron is indepentently alive, but in a colony of their brethren they become something else which exists on an entirely different scale. The Principles wished to sleep, to disperse the singular brilliance which emerged from the mass of individually minuscule lights. The lights still live, but their collective mind is gone.
Oh, I so enjoyed that story. I found it among the most emotionally powerful story in all of Sunless Sea, after only Nuncio. The only downside is that I also got rather attached to the Bandaged Chef-Paramount, so I had to pay the Fathomking to resurrect the Outcast and immediately turn them over to the Fathomking as a willing guest.
P.S. This post gave me an idea, of sorts. The Principles has an entirely mental goal (the death of consciousness), and encourages persons nearby to intellectual pursuits (hence the population of chess-players). The Bazaar has an entirely emotional goal (the pursuit of love), and encourages those nearby to passionate pursuits (hence the love-stories). In a way, the Bazaar is a heart with blood of lacre to the Principles’ brain with neurons of scintillack.
On Pigmote, the blue scintillack was effectively reproducing; like a seed that had found its soil. It’s something more than an isolated neuron, IMO.
Scintillack is pretty (and also parasitic if the descriptions of Port Cecil’s elder residents is any indication). Blue scintillak has metaphysical properties. The cavies and ratus fabers feel it. The visagers and drownies feel it and value it enough to have named it. That one bit of blue scintillack may even be the only bit there’s ever been; up until the dissolution of the Principles. Each side in the Pigmote struggle recognizes that it is THAT bit of blue coral that is legendary to them.
I think it’s fair to say that despite the “going rate” of 1000 echoes, give or take, four chunks of blue scintillack are basically priceless.
Certainly, from the standpoint of the player, it’s one of the most valuable pieces of equipment one can acquire; however one acquires it.
The point of the above being that, IMO, blue scintillack is more than just an isolated chunk of coral. You wouldn’t take some random chunk of dead scintillack and plop it in water and expect it to grow into a reef. Blue scintillack has a spark of life in it, and some amount of metaphysical power as well.
Maybe when the Principles chose to dissolve, it also took steps to insure the continuation of the species.
I’m pretty sure that the normal Scintillack on Pigmote was specifically washing up on the beaches, not growing.
Also, there is no species to continue. The Principles was the eldest Lorn-Fluke and decided it wanted to end, so it became something else. The Fluke species will continue just fine without the Principles doing anything.
[quote=Optimatum]I’m pretty sure that the normal Scintillack on Pigmote was specifically washing up on the beaches, not growing.
[/quote]
[quote]
Those of us who’ve been to the Cavy side of the island and lived to tell of it say that there’s plenty of glow there, plenty of bright in the water all round, but nothing like this. We took this from the island’s centre, Mount Ararat - only it’s not a mountain, of course, any more than this is a star! It’s hollow - there’s sweet water inside, and coral crawling all up the walls of it. But nothing that glows, save this. It’s ours now and no one can take it from us![/quote]
Granted, there’s no way to draw a direct connection but it is awfully circumstantial coincidence that the only other island that has scintillack is an island that has a blue scintillack core.
The Principles a fluke? Is there some textev for that? It doesn’t appear to be a fluke. Just coming from Axile doesn’t make it a fluke.
[quote=slickriptide]
The Principles a fluke? Is there some textev for that? It doesn’t appear to be a fluke. Just coming from Axile doesn’t make it a fluke.[/quote]
Here you go :)
[spoiler][i]
Give the Principle of Coral a Fluke Core.
[/i]"O my cousin, my enemy! I was of their kind before I began my descent. Now you see me as I am. But I would be so much less. I would dissolve on the waves like old foam. Help me end. Kill my emissary… but not until we are ready."
[/spoiler]
Hmmm…
I took a look today at all of the Principles events, in the events.json file.
It appears that I misunderstood that passage and another reference to “cousin”. I presumed “cousin” referred to the Bazaar and that the passage quoted above was metaphorical rather than literal. Probably a result of turning in several quest items at once and not reading carefully between each.
That leaves the question as to why the Principles wants so badly to become nothing at all by descending the Chain until it becomes something that can’t support a consciousness rather than just dying. Apparently, it believes in some kind of fluke after-life and it doesn’t even want a soul that could participate in that. To sleep, perchance to dream and all that.
All that said - While the Principles may have been a fluke at one time, it isn’t one now. It’s a lower life form now, though one still capable of consciousness. So, whatever it is, the blue scintillack could still be its manner of reproduction. In fact, since it’s not a fluke any more, it really is a singular species.
All that’s neccesary is for it to produce its seeds/embryos/eggs/whatever before it dissolves its consciousness and leave them behind as part of its “treasure”.
A super-villain would find a way to reproduce the Principles’ descent on the Great Chain and use it to make himself ascend.