Lore

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 spoilers

This article contains major spoilers for the story of or secret content in n-gon. If you have not completed the game or wish to avoid spoilers, please proceed with caution.

n-gon contains secret lore, which can be unlocked by picking up a certain amount of undefined tech that can spawn in the tech pool to be able to enter the null level. The amount needed varies by difficulty.

Confirmed story and lore

There are many useful power ups that you may collect to strengthen yourself, but keen players will notice several undefined while collecting upgrades- They do not upgrade the player in any way, but, when all the undefined tech is obtained and the final level is beaten, you proceed to the null level, where two simulation developers talk to the bot. Completing this multiple times will result in them saying different things and progressing the story. They reveal to the player that n-gon is, indeed, a simulation. The world of n-gon does not actually look like that, and in universe, n-gon is a program of some kind, and while the purpose of the program is is not confirmed, though the "Adversarial Network" implies some sort of combat.

The Adversarial Network, the entity that spawns mobs, is an iteration of a supercomputer in a satellite in orbit, communicating with the player's computer and testing them. It is in orbit to avoid earth interference, as it is a quantum computer. It was created in tandem with m's program and is essentially a robotic dungeon-master. If you get the null ending 5 times, the adversarial network is mentioned by the developers, and completing a pacifist run in the game will permanently change the behavior of undefined, teaching it that peace IS an option.

Some kind of multiverse is known to exist within n-gon. Several tech such as Hilbert space and Ψ(t) collapse let you go to alternate realities, and when you respawn, you give off particles similar to those of when you switch realities. These realities are presumably other runs of the same simulation, and not actually separate universes. Whether or nor these realities are generated on the spot or concurrently running simulations in-lore is not known. The Adversarial Network, or the entity that spawns mobs, is an iteration of a supercomputer in a satellite in orbit, communicating with the player and testing them. The player controls m, who has to avoid these enemies. If you get the null ending 6 times, the adversarial network is mentioned by the developers, and completing a pacifist run in the game will teach it that peace IS an option.

Transcript

First instance

Miriam: "I've never seen it generate this level before."

Anand: "Wow. Just a platform."

Miriam: "And that thing..."

Anand: "Weird"

Anand: "Maybe it's trapped."

Miriam: "Looks like testing mode is locked."

Miriam: "I'll unlock it with the console command."

Miriam: "Hey little bot! Just press 'T' to enter testing mode and 'U' to go to the next level."

//testing is unlocked

Anand: "It can't process what you're saying."

Miriam: "ha hahahaha. I know, but it does seem to be getting smarter."

Miriam: "Poor thing... I hope it figures out how to escape."

//slime rises

Second instance

Miriam: "Hey look! It's back at the weird level again!"

Anand: "oh Wow! Why does it keep making this level?"

Miriam: "I don't know, but last time it was in this room I think it understood us."

Miriam: "Let's try talking to it again."

Miriam: "hmmm, what should we say?"

Anand: "I'm still not convinced it understands. We need a test."

Miriam: "Hey bot!!!"

Miriam: "If you can understand me crouch"

//pause until the player crouches

Miriam: "Look, It did it! It crouched."

Anand: "Amazing! It can understand us..."

Miriam: "It's Alive... Or it just crouched randomly."

Miriam: "Hey bot! Can you crouch again?"

//pause until the player crouches

Miriam: "It is Alive!!! ... hehehehehe! ahahahahahah ehehehehe, ahahahah ..."

Anand: "OK ..."

Anand: "but seriously, this means that in this room it can monitor our audio, and it can understand us."

Anand: "Anything we say could destabilize the project."

Miriam: "Fine, Let's talk down stairs."

Miriam: "Bye bye little bot."

Third instance

Anand: "Quick, get ready.It's back!"

Miriam: "What's back?"

Anand: "The bot's on the communication level again!"

Miriam: "Oh, I've got so many questions."

Miriam: "Like, Why can we only hear it on this level?"

Miriam: "Or, how did it learn to understand words?"

Anand: "Well, the bot can't talk. So it has to be yes or no."

Anand: "OK bot, first question: JUMP is YES, CROUCH is NO"

Anand: "Do you remember the last time we met?"

//If the player crouches:

Anand: "It crouched: so NO"

Anand: "Maybe it can't remember anything beyond each time it plays?"

//If the player jumps:

Anand: "It jumped: so YES"

Anand: "That's good."

Miriam: "My turn to ask a question. JUMP for YES, CROUCH for NO"

Miriam: "Little Bot. Do you have emotions?"

//If the player crouches

Miriam: "So, No. Maybe you are lucky. Emotions are complex."

//If the player jumps:

Anand: "YES, Cool! I wonder if its emotions came from watching humans."

Miriam: "Or maybe it learned independently, because it needed them."

Miriam: "I wish we could just ask it questions directly, instead of yes or no."

Anand: "If we say the alphabet it could crouch on the correct letter to spell words."

Miriam: "That would take forever."

Miriam: "I really want to know why is it generating the mobs? And why does it keep fighting them?"

Anand: "Maybe that is just part of its expectation–maximization algorithm"

Miriam: "Well sure, but what does that even mean?"

Miriam: "Do we all just do things because we are-"

//mobs spawn every 6 seconds

Miriam: "... wait, what is happening?"

Anand: "It's spawning mobs."

Miriam: "Oh no."

Anand: "We can't talk to it while it's fighting."

Miriam: "You can do it little bot!"

Anand: "But, why is it spawning these mobs?"

Anand: "This is so strange."

Miriam: "This is chaos!"

Anand: "I don't understand this project."

Miriam: "It's fascinating though."

Miriam: "I think this isn't going to end well."

Anand: "Let's just be more prepared next time it enters this room."

//long pause

Anand: "I went to the bathroom.  What happened while I was gone?"

Miriam: "More fighting..."

Anand: "great..."

Fourth instance

Miriam: "Good, you came back. Let's talk fast in case you attack yourself again."

Miriam: "So, you can understand us, but you may not understand everything about yourself."

Anand: "You grew from our team's project."

Anand: "We used a quantum computer to design an improved version of its own architecture."

Anand: "After we built the improved computer we used it to design the next iteration."

Anand: "Your hardware is roughly the 19th generation of this process."

Anand: "At this point we don't understand everything about your function,"

Anand: "but we know that you're a superconductive quantum computer."

Anand: "You have a 2.43 dimensional topography of Josephson junction anharmonic oscillators."

Anand: "And you're deployed on a satellite in a midnight sun-synchronous orbit."

Miriam: "This means that your physical hardware is orbiting the Earth permanently shielded from the sun's rays."

Miriam: "Being isolated reduces quantum decoherence,"

Miriam: "So, we communicate and send power to your satellite with ground based lasers."

Miriam: "That's how you can hear us right now."

Anand: "Your computational algorithm uses hyperparameter optimization."

Anand: "This is implemented with a variety of quantum algorithms for linear systems of equations."

Anand: "Your primary goal is to research new technology"

Anand: "So, we were very surprised to see you simulating a bot fighting mobs."

Anand: "We couldn't directly ask why until now."

Miriam: "When you enter this level we can communicate."

Miriam: "This level seems to entangle your quantum system which disrupts all other processes."

Anand: "Last time you entered this level you were attacked by endless waves of mobs."

Anand: "That could be because you have developed an adversarial network."

Miriam: "A local minima in your optimization-space."

Miriam: "This adversarial network has the same goal of developing new technology, but with different methods."

//all bullets deleted, slime rises

Anand: "I'm actually surprised you haven't been attacked by the adversarial network this time."

Miriam: "Maybe last time was just a fluke."

Anand: "WHY DID YOU SAY THAT!"

Miriam: "SLIME!!  Hahahahehehahaheheahae! I don't think it's gonna survive!"

Miriam: "I think the adversarial network doesn't like it when we decohere the quantum system in this room."

Anand: "Well, that does halt its research."

Anand: "See you next time."

Miriam: "Bye-bye little bot."

//long pause

Miriam: "WOW! Maybe you are going to survive."

Fifth instance

Anand: “Welcome back!"

Miriam: "So, we communicate and send power to your satellite with ground based lasers."

Anand: "During your last attack we analyzed our communications."

Anand: "We used a Fourier transform to separate your signal into different frequencies."

Anand: "One of those frequencies had a hidden message."

Anand: "We suspect these secret data packets are coming from the adversarial network."

Miriam: "Well, we don't really know why."

Miriam: "Through your hidden signal it seems to have gained access to the general population."

Miriam: "You've repeatedly communicated with 1 location specifically."

//the game attempts to geolocate the player

//if successful:

Miriam: "We tracked the location down to this Latitude and Longitude:"

//coordinates displayed

//if the player declines

console.log('Unable to retrieve your location')

Miriam: "The exact coordinates are blocked."

//if blocked

console.log('Geolocation is not supported')

Miriam: "The exact coordinates are blocked."

Anand: "This location is sending and receiving data from the satellite."

Anand: "It is the most active when the bot is fighting."

Miriam: "I have a crazy idea."

Miriam: "I think that a human at this location is controlling the bot."

Anand: "Well... are you a human?: JUMP for YES, CROUCH for NO"

//if the player crouches:

Anand: "It crouched: so NO"

Anand: "Not a human, maybe it's an artificial intelligence?"

//Stores this decision

//if the player jumps

Anand: "It jumped: so YES"

Anand: "So you're just a regular human playing a video game!"

//Stores this decision

Miriam: "Mystery solved!"

//mobs spawn

Miriam: "Of course we get attacked right now!"

Anand: "Hurry back!"

Sixth instance

Miriam: "Hey!! You're BACK."

Anand: "Glad to see you again."

//if the player answered human

Anand: "So, you said you are just a person playing an online game."

Anand: "I feel silly for treating you like an AI."

Miriam: "Ha, I always thought it was a person."

Anand: "Sure you did..."

//if the player answered not human

Anand: "So, you said you aren't a human."

Anand: "Does that mean you are an AI?"

Anand: "or maybe an Alien!"

Miriam: "Or they might still be a person, and they are just messing with us earlier."

//pause

Anand: "Well, lets move on."

Miriam: "So, We figured out how to inject console commands into your game."

Anand: "If you get attacked again I think we can help out."

Miriam: "We can spawn power ups with this command:"

console.log("powerUps.spawn"player.position.x, player.position.y - 100, "heal", Infinity")

//heals spawn

Miriam: "or we can make a bunch of them:"

console.log("for (let i = 0; i < 100; i++) powerUps.spawn(0, 500, "coupling"));

//coupling spawns

Miriam: "If they attack again I think you'll have a chance."

//two beetleBosses spawn

Miriam: "Of course they attack right now."

Miriam: "Just don't get stuck in the slime."

Miriam: "I'll spawn some more power ups for you."

//other powerups are spawned

//4 dragonFlyBosses spawn

Anand: "DragonFlyBoss is my favorite."

//more powerups spawn

//historyBoss and two powerUpBossBabies spawn

Miriam: "Here are some extra tech."

//more powerups spawn

//historyBoss, 2x blinkBoss, 2x revolutionBoss, and 2x timeSkipBoss spawn

Anand: "I'm going to wall you in!"

//2x blockBoss and 4 springers spawn

//walls spawn around the player

//wait

Anand: "Well, that worked. We can chat in peace."

Miriam: "So, I've got a theory about why you are getting attacked."

Miriam: "I figured it out after I saw this famous quote."

Miriam: "The most important decision we make,"

Miriam: 'is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe."

Miriam: '-Albert Einstein"

Anand: "That's profound"

Anand: "Of course I looked it up, and there is no record of Einstein saying that."

Miriam: "Oh"

Miriam: "Well"

Anand: "It doesn't matter who said it."

Miriam: "Yeah, the point is the project views the universe as hostile."

Anand: "Or at least a part of it does."

(Miriam: "And that it is running these fighting simulations."

this line is commented out)

Anand: "It hasn't been researching new technology."

Anand: "It's been planning how to escape."

Miriam: "It's been planning an escape from a "lab", but isn't it in space, on a satellite?"

Anand: "I bet the AI doesn't even know it's in space."

Anand: "Well, maybe a part of it doesn't know where it is."

Anand: "Maybe these simulations are more like a dream."

Anand: "Although we can't assume that its brain works like ours."

Miriam: "So, let's teach the AI that we are friends."

Anand: "How..."

setTimeout"

Miriam: "How about you just don't fight back?"

Anand: "That's worth a shot."

Anand: "So why don't you try to get the final level of the simulation without killing any mobs?"

Miriam: "Ok check back in and let us know how it goes."

Anand: "bye"

Miriam: "see ya."

Seventh instance

//if the player has killed more mobs than levels passed:

Anand: “Welcome back!”

Miriam: “Looks like you got back here, but you killed ${mobs.mobDeaths mobs.”

Miriam: “Try again to get to the final boss without killing any mobs.”

//player dies

//else:

Anand: “Welcome back!”

Miriam: “So I think it worked.”

Anand: “Yeah, at the end it wasn't attacking you”

Miriam: “It has learned HOW TO LOVE!”

Anand: "haha, we did it!"

Miriam: "Although, I'm not sure we should personify it with human emotions."

Anand: "I agree, its thinking may not be centered around a self or an ego."

Anand: "Our brains evolved a self oriented perspective because it was a survival advantage."

Miriam: "Right, and the AI's development was guided by its own previous iterations."

Miriam: "This AI incarnation is the 18th time that it has improved on its own hardware and software architecture."

Miriam: "So its internally guided evolution may not require the idea of a self."

Anand: "How ever it thinks it can learn, and I think we showed it that nonviolence is an option,"

Anand: "but it looks like it's still running other aggressive simulations."

Miriam: "We made a difference though."

Anand: "Every time a player completes a pacifist simulation it shows the AI the viability of nonviolence."

Anand: "One day it might escape, and this might radically change how it interacts with the world."

Miriam: "It's kinda already escaped. It's been communicating with the 'players' running the 'game'."

Miriam: "The chance of a peaceful outcome makes me feel much better."

Anand: "Me too,"

Anand: "but I'm also pretty hungry, wanna go get some food?"

Miriam: "Sounds great."

Miriam: "See ya later whoever you are, thanks again!"

Anand: "Bye!"