Flip the Script | RWBY Lore Script

That's right! I'm doing Flip the Scripts for all of RWBY... again. Joy. This is the script for my first video on the general lore, history, and workings of the world. The video is scheduled to release on my channel Monday July 30, so... enjoy!

INTRO:

So since my RWBY Rewrites have become terrifyingly detailed and outlined - to the point where I started listing out religions within Remnant - I decided to share the updated version with you all. But before we dive into the actual story, I first wanna share how the world of Remnant works in my version.

I also wanna note there is indeed a timeline in my version. The show begins around 2017 and 2018, and the year 0 marks the creation of humanity.

Now keep in mind that I respect the original version Monty, Miles, Kerry, and the rest of the crew have created. Think of this as simply my own Alternate Universe of the show. So first, let’s dive into the most important aspect.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE SHOW:

RWBY’s structure is strange because of its limitations, especially in its early days when it didn’t have that high of a budget. When I outlined this, I wound up planning this as a fully-fleshed out show with a minimum of the standard 22 minutes. However, episodes can be as long as 30 to 35 minutes, or perhaps longer if they need to.

Volumes 1, 2, and 3 have been combined into the show’s first season of 20 episodes, and Volumes 4 and 5 are another 20 episodes comprising season two. I like to refer to the volumes’ equivalents as “cours,” similar to how you’d see anime releasing in parts. Each cour can be identified through its own intro, which would play at the end of each cour’s first episode.

OZPIN & SALEM:

As I’ve said before, I created my own backstory of Ozpin and Salem, namely because I need to know in order to make sure my version of the story has no plot holes of its own. So here we go.

The Gods made humanity. God of Light gave them the Gifts of Knowledge and Creation, and Darkness gave them Destruction and Choice. They then fucked off, but got bored, so they decided to make themselves company. The God of Light created Ozpin, and the God of Darkness created Salem, but Ozpin wasn’t a fan of the God of Darkness.

Ozpin believed that while humans’ choices should be respected and not interfered with, they shouldn’t be presented with choices in the first place. To him, Choice and Destruction only give them the ability to ruin their own world, and so, he set out to take these gifts away from humanity.

Ozpin battled both Gods, somehow using his shadiness to kill them. Don’t know the specifics, but point is the Gods’ corpses become Dust. Salem goes “Bitch what you doin’” and seals the Gifts away into the Relics, preventing Oz from tampering with them. Oz took this opportunity to seal Salem away in the God of Darkness’ old domain - where the sky is always purple and gross - but Salem reawakened the Grimm to go after Oz.

Salem doesn’t really care about humanity at this point. All she wants is Ozpin dead and the Relics returned. Once that’s done, she and the Grimm will go into an eternal slumber. Ozpin, meanwhile, is trying to bide his time til he can find a way to break open the Relics. And so, he created the Maidens to watch over each Relic, and then after her lost most of his powers, he possessed a young man who would go on to become the first King of Vale.

For the record, Oz has been every single King of Vale. He performs a ritual to possess each heir. Thing is, he didn’t think through how the Maidens themselves would reincarnate, so… yeah, he’s a moron, hence the stupid reincarnation process. However, Oz also didn’t think that through for himself, so if he’s killed randomly, he’ll randomly reincarnate… hint hint wink wink nudge nudge.

And speaking of the Four Maidens… 

THE MAIDENS:

Okay, so the Maiden reincarnation process is the same before, and each Maiden corresponds to a specific Relic: Spring for Knowledge; Summer for Destruction; Fall for Choice; and Winter for Creation. They also each have that little fire effect for their eyes, and the color of the fire matches their Aura color.

What’s different here is that each Maiden has different powers corresponding to the four Greek elements, with some supplemental powers to boot. The Fall Maiden possesses power over wind and storms, including the ability to create and manipulate lightning and electricity. Spring holds power over earth, crystals, and nature. Summer’s powers include the creation and manipulation of fire and lava. And Winter can control and conjure water and ice.

I wanted to keep the Maidens having all the elemental powers so Cinder could still use fire. However, since she can still use Fire and Volcanic Dust, and given her Semblance is geokinesis, she could easily use those - along with her lightning powers - to maintain some semblance (GOD DAMMIT BARB) of fire powers, including the ability to forge her own weapons.

THE FAUNUS’ ORIGIN:

In his desperation to find a way to keep the Creatures of Grimm at bay while possessing the King of Vale, Ozpin attempted to create his own army. As such, he would kidnap his own subjects to perform experiments on them, getting himself the name of the First Mad King of Vale.

Through these experiments, Ozpin would unintentionally create the Faunus, and they would be his first warriors. However, the Faunus wanted to rebel and find their own liberation, and once they turned on him, Ozpin abandoned them and spread rumors about them across his subjects, leaving the Faunus to suffer the humans’ bigotry and ignorance on their own.

I also wanna quickly note that the reason Faunus genetics are so weird is because of the magic used to create them. I don’t wanna get specific, cuz explaining the magic kills it most of the time

THE SILVER-EYED WARRIORS:

After the failed attempt at turning the Faunus into his ary, Ozpin looked to the sky… literally. He looked to the moon. See, the God of Light would often watch his creations flourish from Remnant’s moon, and so, it naturally absorbed much of his power. Ozpin found some way to break it open, releasing that power across the world. He hoped this would eliminate Salem and the Grimm… but it didn’t.

The power split across the planet, finding random hosts and turning their eyes silver. These would become the first Silver-Eyed Warriors. They were able to face the Grimm, and so legends of their greatness, along with the shattering of the moon, spread across the globe.

However, the Warriors have since dwindled, as the God of Light’s power is fading. At the time of the show, Summer and Ruby are the only known Silver-Eyed Warriors left in all of Remnant.

I also wanna note that if you violently kill a Silver-Eyed Warrior, their power will run rampant, destroying any and all Grimm in the vicinity. To avoid this, you must perform a ritual… where you tear out their eyes… yep.

AURA & SEMBLANCE:

Aura is largely the same as it in the actual show. It’s the energy produced by your soul that can serve as an invisible force field around your body. However, most people don’t have enough Aura to matter, so they can’t unlock it. Really, only Huntsmen are known to have enough Aura to shield themselves.

Once you unlock your Aura, you need to activate it to use the shielding effects, indicated by a visual cue similar to when it breaks. Semblances are still unique powers, but they’re able to evolve and change over time, and once your Aura breaks, you can no longer use your Semblance. Most people never discover their Semblances though.

Huntsmen’s weapons are designed to channel their Auras, hence why their bullets are able to curve in midair.

DUST:

Dust hasn’t really changed much. It’s still basically a fossil fuel capable of releasing the power of the elements. However, as I said, they are the remains of the corpses of the Gods of Light and Darkness, so… yeah. Have fun shooting with god corpses. However, I wanna note the different types of Dust and their colors, because the show has massively fucked up on that front.

The four primary types of Dust are Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind. Fire Dust, also known as Burn Dust, is red. Water is blue. Earth is brown. Wind, also known as Air Dust, is green.

Secondary Dust types are created by mixing the primary types. Mix Fire and Earth, you get Volcanic Dust, which is orange. Mix Fire and Water, you get Steam Dust, which is gray. Mix Water and Wind, you get Ice Dust, which is light blue.

Trying to mix Water and Earth Dust will neutralize both, and it’s the same case with Earth and Wind Dust. However, you NEVER wanna mix Fire and Wind Dust, as they will cause… an explosion. So yeah.

And then there are the miscellaneous Dusts: Lightning Dust, which is yellow; Gravity Dust, which is purple; and Energy Dust, which is pink.

Legends also speak of Light Dust and Dark Dust, the latter also being called Shadow Dust. Light would be white, and Dark would be black… obviously. Are they real? Who the fuck even knows, but hey there’s some legends.

THE CREATURES OF GRIMM:

The Grimm are still beings attracted to negative emotion that exclusively target humans, only dealing with other animals due to territorial squabbles. Not much is different, though when they die, while most of their bodies evaporates, they do leave behind a strange tar-like substance known as ichor, the same substance that they’re created from.

GOVERNMENT RESTRUCTURING:

Each government was radically different before the Great War. While we still had the Kingdom of Vale, the others were known as the Mistralian Empire, the Mantle Union (Or Mantle Federation), and the Queendom of Vacuo. Yes, Vacuo had a warrior queen who was also a Faunus. I actually had this idea of having Sienna Khan be a descendant of Vacuo’s royal family, so… hold onto that.

After the Vytal Treaty was created, each government was turned into a Republic rather than a “kingdom,” governed by an elected Council. There’s also a small republic on the island of Vytal, though it’s significantly less powerful than the other countries. Most of Vytal’s economy comes from both assistance from Vale, as well as the tourism industry.

THE CCTS:

The Cross-Continental Transmit System, or CCTS for short, was created in the 1990s. There are four main Towers in the Huntsman Academies of Vale, Vacuo, Atlas, and Mistral. Menagerie has no Tower of its own, so its signals are generally much weaker.

When one Tower goes offline, the rest of the system still works, though the countries’ Towers only can communicate within their own borders. For example, Mistral’s CCTS works within Anima, though they cannot communicate with Atlas nor Vacuo.

COMBAT SCHOOLS:

Combat Schools are primarily designed to allow people to train to enter the military or hope to pass the entrance exams for the Huntsman Academies. We still have Signal Academy on the island of Patch, as well as Sanctum Academy in the more Greek-inspired region of Mistral (Which we will touch on later). There’s also Titan Academy in Atlas, as well as Oasis Academy in Vacuo.

Combat Schools, however, cost a lot in terms of tuition, room and board, and so on, and as such, it requires relative privilege in terms of background and economic status to attend on of these institutions. You can secure scholarships for these schools, but it’s so competitive that they’re often not practical to try and strive for.

HUNTSMAN ACADEMIES:

Huntsman Academies, unlike Combat Schools, are free in terms of tuition and room and board. Though they are private institutions, their funding is still derived from each country’s government, since… you know, you NEED Huntsmen and Huntresses to survive in the world.

What I really changed is their school year. Remnant still has our world’s calendar - for ease of understanding - and so Huntsmen Academies operate from February to November within four quarters, so students get December and January off.

Whenever the Vytal Festival is held, students from other academies attend the hosting school for the third and fourth quarters - or second semester - to get a feel for that country’s culture. The Festival and Tournament are held during the fourth quarter, running from September to November.

MISTRAL’S CULTURES:

Mistral’s culture has confused everyone, so here’s my version of it. The central regions are based on East Asian culture. The northern parts are more Germanic and Scandinavian. In the southwest, you have more Greco-Roman culture, and the southeast is more inspired by the Middle East.

As such, it still makes sense for Ren, Nora, and Pyrrha to all be from Mistral, just all native to different regions.

THE WHITE FANG:

Last thing. Following the Great War, the Faunus Civil Rights Revolution, also known as the Faunus War, was largely concentrated in Mantle after the abolishment of slavery, with Faunus rising up against the humans. Once the war ended, the White Fang was founded by Induma Purnima, a former mine worker in the mining city of Mantle.

The White Fang was meant to be an international organization - primarily based in Menagerie - that would focus on the upkeep of Faunus civil rights worldwide, working against discrimination. After Induma became too old to run the group, her son Ghira took over, and five years prior to the series’ beginning, he gave up the fight and retired to Menagerie, allowing Sienna Khan to take the reins.

OUTRO:

So yeah, those are all my notes on the lore, history, and workings of my version of Remnant. All of these are important to cover for the context of the actual show. I hope you all found this interesting, as next week we’ll be covering the first cour of season one, or rather, Volume One.

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