Considering the zombie plague, i think matpat’s interpretation would make even more sense probably. After the illagers left the village, they started to do what they liked without the villagers shunning them, eventually discovering magic. With this knowledge, the evokers make totems that save you from dying. It is important to mention that they were also obsessed with their bretheren the builders, and wanted to return some fallen warriors from the dead, you can see evidence of their obsession with these rooms that they made filled with wool matching steves clothes. So they tried to use the totem to bring people from the dead, but instead they rose up not healed just dead like they were eventually infecting everyone. Anyways this was matpats theory, at least thats how i read it from him. I also think Wifies one is viable as well and it doesn’t make much of a difference in the end. Thank u for reading this to the end!

2:06 "The structures don't just appear randomly" Java programmers and speedrunners be like, "yeah, it's pseudorandomly."

There was an ancient race but there were only two builders, their names were Steve and Alex, and they doomed everyone in exchange for the ability to respawn.

Here's my interpretation: The ancient builders died off in stages. Firstly: Zombies. The virus came- they ran. Some fled to the Nether, some to the End, via the Stronghold, all who escaped were likely immune anyway, as they had been keeping zombies to try and turn them back. Skeletons come as the remains of those who fled to the nether. Forced to contend with Piglins, they created grand fortresses to protect themselves in, and attempted to raid the bastions of the piglins, to little success. Supplies finally dwindled, and as such the skeletons were born. Those who had been afflicted by the wither, whether in combat with it, or fleeing it, became withered skeletons, those who didn't, decayed into normal ones. Endermen came from thos who ran to the end, forced to flee the dragon, they built their cities and hid. Food ran scarce, so they resorted to chorus fruit, which eventually turned them into the endermen we know today.

Wifies: "the wither isnt that hard to kill" Bedrock edition wither: *laughs in double the amount of health*

the fact that he just made a nutshell version of the whole game's lore is just, amazing

What I think is it’s a mix of all three, there was a war where one side was desperate enough to summon one or more withers. This backfired and brought the builder population to its knees. While the wither threat was indeed defeated the zombie virus emerged from wither effects and destroyed the already crippled race of builders, this explains the strongholds and nether fortresses

Considering the zombie plague, it could be true as some zombies spawn with armour and tools like the players.

"The wither isn't that hard to kill" We will assume the ancient builders are in Bedrock edition

I feel like instead of just a normal wither being created, it was a series of giant withers that eventually died off and left behind those giant skeletons found in the overworld and the nether, those would be much harder to kill and would have probably killed off all the builders

9:28 I have an idea. The skeletons were neutral until a builder attacked one of them and they reacted like zombified piglins. However, unlike zombified piglins, there's no way to calm them.

I know this is older but I really like the idea of builder summoning the wither and defeating it, while they did defeat it they were left weak without enough materials or strength to defend against the zombie plauge so they fled to the end and were turned to endermen over time.

These are questions I never thought to ask, this is so good!

Wifeory is probably one of the best Minecraft lore series I’ve ever watched

"Ancient Builders" and "Testificate Empire" Theory are the main explanations for the structures around the game, sadly few ever explore the later.

I think for the skeleton theory maybe the ancient builders tried to revive long dead people and maybe use them as sentinels, but then they used them on freshly dead people and created the zombie plunge? Super fun video! Really cool!

I’m 100 percent sure that the ancient race of builders is the the old builders for MC story mode

"The wither isn't a hard mob to kill" Me, a bedrock player: He says things that he doesn't understand

In my head canon i have two theories mostly interconnected: I imagined the old builders as a group of unbelievable advanced crafters, they were able to construct even the ender portal, a thing we can't, wo only can activate it, we have no possibility to reverse engineer or recreate the portal-frame blocks for example. I think their civilization advanced enough and was greedy for progress so they first explored the nether and found there ingredients, that they combined with artifacts they gathered from the enderman a species from a other dimension able to do dimension travel. So they used these to power a new variant of portal, expanded there civilization beyond it and get trapped there cause of the dragon or reached transcendence. This sometimes get blurred with a other theory, more likely developed from the lore of my own minecraft world, that faced (the world existed since Beta-Days) mutliple occasions of "Ruin" so "Ruin" is some sort of arch devil opposing to the creative forces, that created the World and we as players inherit some of its creative, crafting powers. Ruin symbolizes corruption (to see in old minecraft worlds getting more and more unstable or damaged by changing versions or even mods installed and uninstalled in the flow of time) and Wither or Decay (the world degrades in mining or griefing) one player after the other left and left his creations on own terms, abandoned settlements, lonely unfinished or damaged mega builds etc... the world get forgotten, outdated or in the worst case lost or deleted. So it's a fight for a world and its people to face "Ruin" of some sort and is agents like the wither or the ender dragon. So the Old Builders of my world seeked a chance to overcome or flee ruin and took great deals to find a way out. Seeked other dimensions to avoid death in their world and left behind, what they had created and found death or transcendence in the end for at least one group to give possibiliies for other gouops of old builders to have other ideologies and prefer to settle in alternative dimensions or leave their old world behind and settled on a new seeded world.

I don't even play Minecraft anymore but you get me to sit down an watch hours of content about the game. Props for that subbed!

1:55 The builders probably just used cobblestone to build the temples, and the moss grew over it after some time. They probably didn't use already mossy cobble to build them.

“A technologically advanced race doesn’t just disappear” Ancient_Builder left the game

Are we not gonna talk about how much AWSOME EFFORT WAS PUT INTO THIS. (Another great video Wiffls)

i abosolutely love these types of videos i would love a minecraft movie that covers EVERYTHINGG!

“The wither is weak” Bedrock wither: imma end this mans whole career

The ancient builders are just us playing hard-core(probably on Realm)

I think these theories and MatPat's tie into each other, making a generational long story, incorporating ALL of the ancient structures to date.

Good theory! Loved the in-depth look . Thanks, glad I subbed!

Unsloved mystery: who made paintings

Who built these structures? “Proceeds to show a woodland mansion”

"We are the only players in this vast world" Multiplayer: You sure about that one chief?

Also gotta take into account that the player of the world is the games anime protagonist. We are capable of not only defeating every mob in the game but also create technologies the ancient advanced civilizations probably didn't even come close to (redstone computers, different types and sizes of missiles, giant slimeblock mechs/robots, flying machines/bomber planes,working tanks, nuke missiles, command blocks, can farm almost every mob including wither for loot, probably more) and the fact we can make mega structures and build/collect resources alot faster. We can easily beat pillagers and consider raids fun. The ancient builders are technically NPCs the player doesn't see. We are OP asf compared to any other thing in Minecraft (considering we probs singlehandedly advance much quicker and would most likely singlehandedly win a war against either side.) With how powerful the actual player is in the Minecraft world in mind, all of these theories (especially the one you made combining the other theories) make alot more sense when you think of it like that.

I would love if Mojang created a Progression update which could have storytelling elements and subtle world changes when the player gets achievements.

I was here before the "Introducing amazon dream 75k special" and i am so proud of your improvement in making quality content. Keep it up man. Ur manhunts were legendary and i am glad i stayed for that, because i found something more remarkable in ur channel overtime. Srsly, u r an absolute GOAT

Congrats on one mil! we ALL wish you a happy new year!

My theory about why soul sand makes bubbles is that the souls in the sand are bored, so when you put water over them, they blow bubbles, creating the bubble column.

“The wither isn’t that hard to kill” Me on bedrock: (‘-‘)

In german there is a saying: "Mir sind die Hände gebunden" which translates to "My hands are tied" It means that you can't do a favor for someone, because you must do something else. So my thought is: what if being a Villager is actually a punishment? Never being able to build again, being restricted to go anywhere else. And maybe even having a different or no language.

I ADORE that idea of wither creation being discovered via a mysterious painting. Like the dormant wither's spirit manifested that painting to trick them into summoning it

Keep making videos man I LOVE IT!😀

This guy is like Newton, standing on the shoulder of giants and completing the work oncebleft behind.

Nobody: Wifies: ,,For one thing the Wither isn't that hard to kill." EVERY Bedrock Player: ,,Something's wrong, I can feel it."

This is my theory: The piglins wanted to discover a new dimension since the nether was kinda getting boring. They finally constracted the portal and entered. The place was filled with life and nature, but then one of the piglins started to get dizzy and the piglin turned green, its because piglins have a sensitive body and can get easily infected, but why they cant get infected in the nether. Well its because due to the extreme hot temperature viruses and parasites cant survive long and die and since the overworld isnt really that hot unlike in the nether the piglins got infected and all of them turned to zombie piglins. Some went back to the portal and infected other piglins And the others in the overworld began infecting the ancient builders and of course the villagers. Mean while the ancient builders were developing a cure they decided to do it in the cold snowy biome underneath their igloos. They manage to make the cure but it wasnt enough to cure all the infected. The illagers or what i like to call them the illager tribes developed a body paint, it wasnt a cure but it help prevent the zombies infecting them. They created a grey-ish body paint and thats why zombies dont attack illagers. Now the ancient builder weren't able to coop up the rise of the zombie pandemic. All of the ancient builders died and a very few survived. Everything went back to normal, but for what did it cost?

Here’s how things might’ve probably played out, considering the Wither theory and a bit of the Zombie virus: During a zombie virus outbreak, a Builder paints a depiction of three white-eyed heads atop four brown blocks, he then falls very sick and turns into a zombie. The player, Steve, sees the painting and decides to replicate it, making some sort of ceremony out of it. No one had come prepared for a battle, and when the Wither was summoned, it killed hundreds. Our character and others survive, running and seeking escape and safety in the Deep Dark. They build cities under the ground and began experiments on the nearby Sculk and its redstone capabilities. It didn’t take them long to find the Shriekers, of which they didn’t pay much attention to. But eventually, booms were heard outside the cities from explosions: the Wither had found them. Again, hundreds were killed, but then, a huge beast arose from the ground. It slaughtered the Wither and the Ancient Builders began to worship it. They made statues depicting the Warden’s head, but it wasn’t long until more chaos found them. Builders started dying, but, still seeking the safety of the Warden, the Builders continued to stay, lining the floors with carpets so their footsteps wouldn’t alert the Warden. They used snowballs to distract it, but still, the Warden eventually found the Builders and chaos broke out. The Builders, now being massacred, fleed to the Stronghold. They built winding passages to make sure the Warden would have a hard time chasing them in such a maze. Still fearing the Warden, they constructed a portal to a new dimension. Without checking that everyone was there, they jumped through to the End, accidentally sealing Steve on the outside. Steve ended up jumping into the lava once the portal deactivated, he died but the Gods were displeased. Meanwhile, the Builders are turning into the Endermen thanks to the parasites: Endermites, swearing revenge on Steve for starting all of this. The Gods bring Steve back, giving him the power to respawn constantly, so he could finish what he had started. The Builders were trapped by the dragon, and when Steve eventually kills it, he finally frees his ancestors from the End. During the dragon fight, the others that Steve left in the Stronghold, leave the Stronghold to go and do their own thing I guess? Probably turning into the Villagers?

Wifies: says the wither isn't that hard to kill Bedrock Players: "ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?!"

I think skeletons could actually have their origin in the soulsand valleys in the nether. In soulsand valleys, a lot of skeletons (exclusively skeletons, no zombies) spawn, and there are giant bone structures there as well. This combined with the faces in the sand and the name "soulsand" could mean that the ancient builders used soulsand valleys as a mass graveyard where they buried large amounts of human corpses, possibly after some catastrophic event. After all these corpses were buried, their souls formed the faces in the soulsand and gave soulsand its "magic" properties, while the soulsand also turned the bones of these corpses into undead creatures, the skeletons. The skeletons in the overworld could have wandered there through abandoned portals. Maybe besides humans, some giant unknown creatures were also buried there which formed into the giant bone structures in soulsand valleys. This theory would explain why skeletons don't infect/attack villagers, unlike zombies, as this means that skeletons probably aren't just further decayed zombies, as the zombies seem to be infected by some kind of virus that the skeletons don't have. For the wither skeletons, if you look at their height difference and their color I think they are actually the skeletons of endermen. Maybe a lot of endermen corpses were buried in the nether fortresses and this is why the wither skeletons are there.

I have a theory about how the wither appeared: Once upon a time,a person dreamed a weird three-headed creature in their dream. In that dream,the creature would destroy everything in its way. The person became obsessed with the creature they saw in their dream,everything they could think of was that creature they kept dreaming. The person grew with their thoughts on that creature,and so,the person decided to become a painter and share the creature that haunts their dreams with the world. This painting became popular and it came to the attention to the researchers. The researchers investigated the person which kept dreaming the wither and they decided that they should conduct research on this weird creature. Eventually,the researchers managed to develop dimension travelling. As soon as they entered the portal,they saw a brown block. This block was weird looking,with weird faces on it and making weird sounds. After some research,the researchers found out this block was full of souls. They thought what would happen if they would use these souls to create the creature in the picture. But one thing was missing. They needed the black skulls. After conducting some research,they found out something weird. They managed to create a weird potion that turns humans into alive skeletons. This discovery was terrifying. The researchers locked the skeletons up in some cells. But then,they realized something. They were planning to burn the skeletons in the lava that was existent in the Nether. But they noticed that as soon as the skeletons entered the nether,some of them changed shape. They became taller,stronger and most importantly...their color changed to black. The researchers were shocked. The found the black skulls. They quickly murdered the black skeletons but something was not right. The black skulls dissapeared as soon as they would be de-attached from their original bodies. The researchers were troubled by this issue. Finally,when they were so close,their dreams were shattered. But then,when they killed the last black skeleton,it happened. The skeleton's head did not dissapear. They realized that few of the heads do not dissapear. They started turning more and more people into black skeletons and they established the Nether Fortresses to make their research easier. But something started going wrong. The normal skeletons stopped becoming black. The researchers could not understand why. But then,they nailed it. They figured out the skeletons were growing familiar with the harsh conditions of the nether,that being the reason why they stopped changing shapes. The researchers left the fortresses and returned to the overworld to continue their research in proper conditions. After years of trying,they finally had the 3 skulls. They decided to summon the weird creature in the Nether. However...things went bad. After placing the 3 skulls on top of the 4 soul sand pieces,they were shocked that it actually worked. After a tough battle,the researchers not only managed to learn the attack patterns of the wither,but they also managed to beat him. They noticed that,after the wither died,it left a weird star behind. They conducted research on this star and found out it can be used to craft a beacon. This beacon helped the civilization grow rapidly,and the popular painter which had the dream with the wither became even more popular after making a picture of how the wither was made. Four soul sand pieces and 3 wither skulls. But,the greed struck the humans. After seeing this painting,they wanted the beacons all for themselves. They started turning other people into skeletons and forcing them to die just to get wither skulls so they can summon the wither and get their own nether star. Nether Star being the name given to the weird star. The researchers named it "Nether Star" because it was all thanks to the nether they managed to get it. Soonly,the nether was full of withers,some of them going wild. The most elite researchers restricted anyone who is not a royal warrior/researcher to enter the Nether. But this filled the greedy humans with hatred. They started crafting withers in the overworld. And so,chaos began... Anyone want part 2?

"The wither isn't even that hard to kill." Bedrock users: *Are you sure about that?*

I personally feel that the "real" one should somehow involve the ender dragon, since the whole goal is to kill it.

The wither was probably a god of destruction as they are engraved in sandstone which probably says they were prayed to

A quick hypothesis on how skeletons could've appeared: I believe skeletons were reanimated by the enemies of the builders perhaps they were fallen warriors mainly archers who were reanimated by some sort of necromancer ( perhaps this could've been a prototype for the totem of undying ) the newly revived skeletons were given a new mission to slay any builders they could find. skeletons do spawn quite a lot in soul sand valleys so maybe soul sand was used to create them ?

I think it could be a combination of all three. There was a great war between two races, the ancient builders and another race. The ancient builders discovered how to create the Wither, and unleashed it on their enemies. However, this didn't go as planned, and the wither that they created was bigger, stronger and much harder to kill then it is nowadays. It wiped out all of the ancient builders, but the more advanced other race was able to defeat it. However, with so few survivors, a zombie virus was able to wipe them out in a matter of months.

This is a great theory, and i totally agree with this HOWEVER! I do believe that the wither may still play a part in this, maybe in an effort to bring back the dead from the plague they accidentally summoned the wither! Thats just what i think, and again this is a great theory! You’ve earned a sub! Edit: i had no idea i would get this many likes! Thanks. And all this theories are great!

The ancient builders died out because there were more than one of them and that creates a society and society creates politics and politics destroys all. The player is immune to politics because the player is on their own in single player. However what do we see in multiplayer? Let’s take a look at 2B2T, the oldest anarchy Minecraft server that is still going. The ancient builders were not as strong as our Steve is, but there were no mods, making ancient Minecraft anarchy

I don't think the wither completely caused extinction to the ancient builders, but I think that the wither made the ancient builders retreat to the either the mines and create strongholds and eventually make the end portal, or retreat to the nether. I'm only gonna talk about the end, the only problem is that the portal sound when the end portal is created, it's so loud that the wither can hear that from the surface of the over world. Then the ancient builders went through the portal in time, there was no Enderman but there was a dragon that might kill them. So the ancient builders collected endstone and placed blocks into somewhere away from the ender dragon. They found land but the only living things were Shulkers and chorus fruit plants, they built endcities and sometimes a ship in the air with a dragon head on them and the elytra wings on a picture frame on the inside. The ancient builders prepared for longer than they expected because time passes much faster in the end than in the over world than in the nether. Because of that, the ancient builders that were in the endcities shape shifted from only eating chorus fruit and had parasites in them, so they transformed in a species called endermen. Even though if they didn't transform yet, they had to face the ender dragon and they have to study this creature quick before transforming into endermen.

I have a theory about the Illagers: They and the villagers were actually one and the same, the Illagers were actually the military force of the villages, and the inventors of the Iron Golem, who would attack any threats to the village. And one day, the Golems started attacking the Illagers, knowing they were a threat because they were conspiring against their villages and they ended up being banished from their villages. They tried to get revenge, but the Iron Golems were too much for them to handle and were forced to flee to the forests, were they found a creature that they knew could equal the Iron Golems in power: The Ravager. They found a way to tame these and started to plan coordinated attacks on the very villages that shunned them in the first place. After some time, they started to split up. Their potion brewers settled in swamps and became the modern day witches that we know. Their archers and foot soldiers stuck together and became the current Vindicators and Pillagers. The wizards started studying forbidden magic like summoning Vexes and conjuring large rows of jaws out of the ground, and became the Evokers that we know, and started settling in woodland mansions, were after some time the Vindicators and Pillagers started coming as well. Since then, they have been raiding the villages that shunned them, still hungering for revenge. What do you think?

It's interesting to me how multiplayer worlds are still possible within the lore. Not being the only remaining descendant of the builders has certain implications within the story which I would love to see being explored further.

“A race of ancient builders with diamond armor could defeat the wither.” NOT ON BEDROCK EDITION BABY

In your video about the fossils, you talked about nether fossils and listed them as being giant wither fossils. That seemed very likely to me and I completely agree with this theory. But then why didn't you use it in this video ? First, the wither can't go through the nether portal, can it ? So why would they have needed to protect themselves from the wither with the fortresses, when it couldn't follow them ? Unless of course, there were *already* withers in the nether, and way more dangerous ones. To me the builders didn't go to the nether to flee from the wither, they were there in the first place and then they were attacked by giant withers. Besides, you can't argue the fact that withers of this size, especially in herds, would have had no problem eliminating a whole human race. I'm not going to go on a theory of the builders origins, I don't say they would necessarily come from the nether, especially because that would be a nonsense. But I don't think the nether fortresses were built to protect their inhabitants from overworld withers. Btw about the illagers, they are officially considered as villagers banned from villages because they were using dark magic. If the ancient builders were as smart as the player is, it seems unlikely that mobs with the same intelligence level as villagers (which is pretty low compared to ours) would have won the war. Illagers may have the ability to build structures and coordinate attacks, but they obviously don't get out of their mansions and outposts, and they always stay in small groups, not trying to trade with illagers from other mansions or raid groups. They don't look like they once were a united race - and let's be realistic, how could they have defeated the ancient builders by staying in small, separate groups ? No way. BUT, I admit that the idea that they were at war with the villagers, and created the zombies in this goal, and the zombies accidentally infected the ancient builders is not completely unlikely. Though it doesn't explain the zombies' look and clothes, and why would they need zombies to defeat the villagers, they are already defenseless once you have killed the golem.

I think that the Wither was the reason for their demise as many people would die in the nether when it was first discovered, the souls of the dead would merge with the ground to become soul sand and the corpse would reach an advanced state of decay due to the smoldering heat which would char the bones of the skeleton. The builders were happy to find the soul sand as they believed that if the soul and body were combined alongside a bit of magic from their advanced wizards who were responsible for enchanting and brewing, the people could be revived. The wizards and known about the possibility of this creation from their studies (which were saved in paintings and carvings) and they decided to go through with it. Due to their advanced magical capabilities, they were able to create a Wither that was much stronger than anything steve could have created with his primitive knowledge of science and magic, and after all, Steve is likely just some random guy who survived, not an almighty wizard or genius scientist. Anyways, the “Mega Wither” caught the builders off guard and began to level their society, some survived in the over world and devolved into the villagers (and some became illagers) who lacked the same knowledge that their ancestors had. Others decided to retreat to the nether as a zombie plague had started to assist the Wither in taking over the world, the zombies were people who got infected by the plague that was being released into the air from the Wither and the skeletons were soldiers and weapon owning civilians who died fighting the Wither which is why they still carry bows and why they are so much more decomposed (the enchanted bows are from skeletons who were originally soldiers). The rest of the military and civilians left to the nether as they would be safe from the airborne virus. They guarded their portals with all their might against the infected who who shambled in and started trying to help take over the nether for the Wither. The builders fought against and lost against the onslaught of the infected and eventually turned into wither skeletons due to the nether conditions, these wither skeletons were taller than their normal skeleton brethren as the wither skeletons were elite sword wielding warriors who had to be stronger than the normal skeletons due to them being dead soldiers and being melee fighters. The wither skeletons finished reanimating after the builders had already fled the nether fortresses as reanimating takes time. The builders had fled to other parts of the nether while being chased by the undead mob. They fought in certain areas which soon became the soul sand biomes as so many soldiers fell in those parts of the nether that all of their souls melted into the floor in that spot. Some souls couldn’t fit into the ground anymore as the soul sand biome had became saturated with souls and thus the souls merged together to become the ghasts, the ghasts were only able to feel pain and despair as those were the last things that the builders felt when they were fighting for their life while watching their entire civilization collapse. The soldiers who had survived long enough to reach the soul sand biome were only those who had experience in traversing the nether and thus they were made up primarily of nether fortress guards, these dead soldiers marched back to the nether fortress to join their comrades again in the afterlife no to continue their sworn duty in life, defend the fortress. The skeletons who remained in the soul sand biome were the previously mentioned dead civilians and over world soldiers who stayed there after the builders managed to escape back into the over world. Their escape was assisted by a new prototype invention which is now known today as the elder pearl, the pearl was magically fused into the bodies of the surviving builders and mutated them into the endermen, the builders had technically died out now as they had turned themselves into the endermen, some of these endermen stayed in the nether due to accidentally breaking off from the main groups of builders and then decided to try living in the warped forest due to its peaceful conditions and they would occasionally leave the forest in search of a way home, these endermen didn’t have to worry about food anymore as the energy of the ender pearl inside them would keep them fed. Some endermen decided to stay in the over world after the builders returned there due to the over world still being their place of birth and they believed that with their new powers, they could stay away from the Wither and it’s army. Most of the endermen used the power of the ender pearl and the power of pure flame (which was found in the nether) to create the ender eye while other endermen worked on creating the end portal frame, their project was complete, the endermen had entered the end and had closed off the portal by having a timed removal for some of the eyes that would take place after they entered the portal, they didn’t want anything to follow them after all. The endermen entered the end and were greeted with the ender dragon, it was a much weaker creature than the Wither and thus the endermen weren’t troubled by it as the dragon was somewhat scared of the endermen, the endermen eventually looked into the distance and saw massive islands that they could live on, they used all the power in their bodies and managed to teleport to those distant islands. Once they reached those islands, they noticed that after all this time, they had finally found somewhere safe and peaceful to live. They built cities that they guarded with a creature that was made by the surviving scientists and wizards, the shulker. The endermen had finally found peace, the endermen had actually found too much peace and found themselves with nothing to do other than to build cities and stare into the endless void. The endermen began to lose their minds, started forgetting how to talk, and finally just began wandering around as a shell of their formed selves. Some may ask, why do the endermen attack us when we look into their eyes? They are likely taking it as a form of mockery, a normal and happy builder is looking into their eyes, looking at what they have done to themselves just to end up in a state worse than death, malformed, insane, bored, and depressed. So, why do the endermen let us look into their eyes if we are wearing a pumpkin? They simply see it as a nice and calm reminded of the olden days when they would relax with their family in a warm house, they would sit there and share their pumpkin pie, everyone was happy and the people who weren’t were often unhappy for the funniest of reasons like losing a tool, tripping and hurting themselves, failing at making a pumpkin pie, seeing that your neighbor was richer than you, or even seeing their loved ones die. None of these things mattered to the endermen anymore, most of them were contemplating on killing themselves so not even death mattered. So when they look at steve wearing a pumpkin, they see the good old days, how funny their troubles used to be, and how comical it was to see someone wearing a pumpkin which was something funny and new as nothing else in the end was funny and nothing ever changed, this was a change, a nice change. Thank you for reading this garbage, a lot of it was head canon mixed with a bit of logic. I hope it was fun to read though!

Nice slo-mo effect for when the wither killed Steve! "The ancient race"

Another theory about the skeletons: The skeletons were part of Steve’s generation and that’s why they are immune to zombification. They may be hostile to Steve as he may have done something bad we don’t know about prior to spawning.

Hi! I love the effort you put into making your videos! I have a comment tho XD When the ancient builders built the jungle temple, wouldn't it make more sense if they used only regular cobble stone and not mossy cobble stone? It's a small detail, but I think it would make more sense if the cobble became mossy over time.. 1:49

Very true showing how there are mineshafts in minecraft showing people(ancient builders) have been in caves or ravines we now explore

This theory nicely wraps the previous theories together, I feel like outside of a direct explanation from mojang we arent gonna get much more cannon than this.

The “ancient builders” are still alive. They’re on a different plane of existence (my guess is the aether). They’re talking to you when you complete the game. If you read the entire of the end dialogue it actually reveals a lot of lore and how they’re still alive. (This is just my guess)

I watched some of your theory videos and in those videos i saw mobs randomly teleporting after getting hit what does that mean and is it intentional that you added it in to give us a hint

i like all the theories because they make me keep wandering which ones right

Wifies a month ago: The ancient builders turned into endermen. Wifies now: I think I should change the story...

I'm imaging a sort of multiplayer server where "generate structures" was turned off and the players started building things identical to Mojang-generated structures, often in the same places and conditions, right down to the locations of each and every Stronghold.

here's my theory, it's not perfect because i'm on 1 cup of coffee and no sleep but anyways, here: Supporting the fossils video, I think the giant wither fossils in the nether were bigger meaner withers that they made, the more it devoured the bigger it got. maybe the bastions have the achievement "those were the days" as a reference to the builders when they were succeeding in the nether. maybe wither skeletons are remains of the builders that were withered away and simply turned into the wither's soldiers sort of like the zombie virus. the overworld which was too cold for nether creatures to survive in was taken over by the zombies which just turned into normal skeletons. as for the piglins, the piglins were possibly minions used by the builders for crops and building and harvesting etc. which formed a resistance or something. they don't like the sounds of chests opening possibly because it was the sound of builders putting the materials they worked for in their storage. the fact that they all attack after one is attacked sort of supports the theory that they were a resistance. they only survived because they took shelter and hid while the builders tried fighting the wither. they all are half skeletons from being nearly rotten away by the mega wither most likely. the armor the brutes have and the weapons were most likely stolen from dead builders, the soul sand being made of the ashes any creature that didn't escape was reduced to, the soul energy still in it. it is slow to walk on because imagine walking through a big puddle of ashes, it would be difficult. as for what killed the mega withers, it could've been death or them dying from starvation after killing all edible creatures.

So I think there are 3 or 4 main intelligent races in Minecraft: Ancient builders (overworld) Piglins (nether) Illagers and Villagers (overworld) Endermen (end,they could be the descendants of the ancient builders) So we know that the llagers (I will call both villagers and illagers like that) built the mansions,outposts,villages and possibly other structures that we think were built by the ancient builders like trail chambers or even possibly ancient cities (this is unlikely but there are some theories of why that),but likely before that,the piglins and ancient builders were the only inteligent races,piglins built portals,bastions and perhaps other now destroyed structures,they discovered netherite and used it so much there is none now (not real netherite),the ancient builders separated in different civilizations (maybe the piglins too but that could just be division of works in the bastions) like the jungle ones,desert ones,the aquatic ones and that as they progressed,the jungle one built the jungle temples and possibly the trail ruins,the desert one built the desert temple AND,possibly created the wither and the nether fortress,they were the first to enter the nether,they discovered potions,made blazes and probably traded them to other civilizations like the aquatic one,which with the help of water breathing potions made the monuments,but the desert civilization also made contact with the piglins and possibly started a war,the wither didn’t help much and most of the nether builders became wither skeletons or just skeletons,that’s why the piglins kill the wither skeletons,and with all the dead piglins and builders they made the wither,likely the piglins killed the wither and this is why they absolutely hate the wither skeletons,then the wither virus evolved into a variant in the overworld which made everyone turn into zombies,this is why piglins become zombies when entering the overworld,the ancient builders what survived entered into the end and found a dimension,according to your theory the ender dragon is a robot in which I agree,so they made the ender dragon but the ender dragon became aggressive and they fled into the outer islands in which there was possibly very little food,only the chorus fruits and possibly other extinct plants that won’t exist anymore,they created the end cities and shuckers and then slowly became endermen. After that the llagers evolved or descended from the ancient builders and created their civilization,then the Pillagers became evil for strange reasons and created mansions,outposts and possibly other structures.

Minecraft Lore, ahh yes we love these series.

As someone who played since 1.7.2, the zombification theory has always been my headcanon even if I never really thought about it too much. Heck, I even thought that each zombie was a player's corpse returning to remind them of their mistakes.

the withers that was summoned might be huge when summoned by ancient builders, since there are huge fossils that can be seen. and also it took a great numbers of ancient builders to defeat it, narrowing down the villager population into small.

If there is one thing I'd like to see... is why the Dragon even exists and prevents escape as it is. Not to mention it's resistances and seemingly otherworldly power and strength. Not to mention the unholy amount of experience dropped, however that last one could just be attributed to gameplay rather than lore but it's up to you how you wish to see it.

For the last theory. The woodland mansions have a prison/dungeon like room. So that could be where the zombie virus was tested and created.

Mojang : * Just makes a simple blocky game * Theorists : "OOOOOOOO NEW LORE"

OMG please make more please I love watching these kind of videos

The ancient city opens so much possibility now. The lore is gonna be more intense

2:28 Yo using pressure plates to hide item frames is a cool effect.

I think that the ancient builders were scared of the plague and builded the stronghold. Then they went to the end,got trapped there and adapted to it. Turning there eyes purple to see better, getting more hearts to protect them selves from the dragon, and got teleportation by harnessing the power of the end dimension. Which explains why enderman can pick and place blocks.

Personally I think that they were 2 Factions of ancient builders who fought each other, and one of them summoned multiple withers to combat the other one (Originally the king's experiment to bring his son back to life). This would lead to most of them being wiped out, so one of them built the stronghold underground and held prisoners of war. After the war, one of the factions was victorious however a zombie apocalypse broke out somehow so many civilians built an underground city in the deep dark while their leader/king fled back to the stronghold were anyone with him who turned into a zombie was locked up. The king and a few others built a portal to the End were they were killed by the Ender Dragon, so the Enderman deactivated the portal. The survivors in the deep dark city worshipped the Warden so they summoned the Warden however he killed them all. After that, the villagers (A Neanderthal-like humanoid species) started to build their civilization after the fall of the ancient builders. Witches, Illagers, and Pillagers were originally villagers but they became social outcasts and built mansions and outposts. One of the villagers discovered a painting of the wither so they recreated it however this would lead to a village being destroyed. Steve and Alex are the last survivors of the Ancient Builders. I came up with this theory from RetroGamingNow, Sipover, and Game Theory. Personally I think that the Enderman and Ancient Builders are separate species. Piglins were slaves for the Ancient Builders and Villagers and Illagers are more primitive ancient builders.

i honestly think rgn's timeline is pretty interesting because it seems villagers and illagers where way later than the builder extinction and how builders and endermen were once close allies but builders turned on them later in panic of the virius

Everyone: sees minecraft as a block game Wifies: now THIS is some deep, heart wrenching lore btw love the content keep it up wifies

"Then how would those structures get here?" *_"Proceeds to show off the second worst example of a structure with unknown origin in the game"_*

"The Wither isn't even that hard to kill" Bedrock Wither: *And I took that personally*

If Steve actually is the last of the ancient, yes, ancient builders who sees Herobrine as illusions of his lost friends?

I'm with the wither theory because the fossils in the game can be formed to make a huge wither which could of been what ended them, i mean 1 regular wither is hard enough, but a mega wither that killed everything would be tough. And since they are fossils maybe it killed to much and couldn't "eat" anything anymore.

If the "ancient builders" were so strong as a normal player, i don't think they would easily die for normal zombies, and i was thinking, a good theory would be that there was the mob "giant" in the past, and some of those would had killed most of the builders and transformed them into the normal zombies, them, after decades they would have eventually died. That theory would work with the zombie apocalipse theory, answer the fossils mistery (It would be their body and heads), as the question of why this mob exists at all (for the ones who don't know this mob, its a giant zombie, that you can summon with commands, but don't do anything. In previous versions, it moved, and had an enormous health and damage)

The end of your story you came up with gave me an intresting theory: What if that last builder in some way through the dragon or some over force became an enderman and began to multiply. If you look at the outer end you see buildings and air ships. Like you said the buildings in minecraft had to be built by someone. So what if that builder became an enderman, in some way multiplied still having the knowledge of picking up and placing and build these structures.

MatPat: mentions ancient builders Everybody else: *L O R E* (and I love every second of this)

3 things that are very entertaining: Game Theory, Dive Theory (by RetroGamingNow) and Wifeory

How the wither killed a whole race: They were playing bedrock.

In my view, there were at least two ancient Builder civilisations, likely 3. Or at least two or three factions. And they were at war. One created a/the zombie virus (which is why zombies look nothing like zombified villagers and more like the player) that turned the opponents into zombies (or drowned in the case of those at sea), the second faction created a virus that turned the other faction into skeletons (or stray for the more remote ice-dwelling folks), the third was basically draggined and fighting against both to survive. The villagers and illagers were just primitive civilisations that were not yet able to achieve much and thus were basically just collateral. During their war, they created terrifying inventions, like the Withers, Creepers, Blazes, Ghasts, Underwater Guardians and so on, all in the quest to win over the other faction, but also more defensive and supportive creations, like the Iron Golems, Wardens (yes, to me the Warden was an initial defense-mob much like the Golems, just more powerful), Sniffers, Mooshrooms and Striders. Which faction made what is irrelevant, each just focussed on what they were better at manipulating. And some of them were captured by another faction and turned into a twisted version of themselves, like the Allay/Vex, Slime/Magma cube, Spider/Cave-spider. Some of them going down a far more sick and perverted path and created true abominations. The faction in the overworld decided to do experiments on the villagers, taking their higher-reasoning and curiosity away and replacing it with aggression. This created the illagers. And some more experiments down the line this lead to the Ravager, a terribly mutated (v)illager turned into a terrifying warbeast. Other modifications were the Vindicator, Witches and Evokers. Some other Builder-scientists infused a pig with Builder-DNA and created the Piglins (which is why they do not look like pig-villagers) and eventually mutated that into Hoglins. The reason why zombies and skeletons have no quarrel with the illagers is simply the underlying connection. Both zombies and skeletons were Builders, the "creators" of the illagers. The zombies and skeletons simply see the illagers as their creation, and in return, the illagers still see them as their creators. Just like the Creepers do. And after the destruction of the ancient Builder-factions, the villagers just didn't want their twisted brethren back among them, so they cast them out, causing the deep-rooted hatred between the two groups. The illagers try to emulate what little they gleamed from the ancient Builder civilisation in its waning days, trying to mimick portals, maps and beds, but since they are just imitations, they do not work. They also use left-behind tech, like the Totem of undying, or the (now sacred and arcane) knowledge of alchemy and enchantment. Latter two also done by villagers, who just as well managed to gain some little knowledge from the Builder-benefactors. But where the ancient Builders (and the player) could do that on a whim and out of boredom, the villagers and illagers need specialisation, training and long years of study. All factions ended up wiping each other out except for a few surviviours, leaving the villagers to resettle the world on their own accord. Meanwhile, the few surviviours managed to escape into the End, starting to rebuild a civilisation there, only to eventually fall prey to the End-Dragons (keep in mind that there are ender-dragon heads on many ships, so there must've been far more), eventually turning into Endermen (which is why Endermen also look more like an elongated and blackened Steve-models rather than a villager). Or their hunger was the cause and they just genetically modified the Chorus-fruit and made it so that they can direct the teleportation, but this modification had a backlash that caused them to slowly degrade and devolve into Endermen the more they ate these modified Chorus-fruit. Either way, the few surviving Builders eventually died out, the stockpiles of modified Chorus-fruit long since rotten and turned into ash, which was swished away by the passed time. Only question left there, then: Who the heck is Steve, aka the player? Well, unless you use a skin, the Steve-model is neither village, illager or piglin, so he has to be someone else. And the only other kind of people we know about were the ancient builders.... How did an ancient builder suddenly get reborn? And not just reborn natural but reborn as an adult with all faculties enabled? Who knows. My best guess is that the end-screen with the two "people" talking holds a cue to that.

"The wither isn't that hard to kill" coughs in bedrock edition

Wifies is like the 5 in 1 shampoo of Minecraft KZfaq, yet still manages to be original. I love it! :D

I think it's combination all theories. Superior race of ancient builders in one moment in past splited in two countries between which starts world war. During the war some used potions as bio-weapon and the others tried to make some kind of robots like iron golem or the weather. After the spread of zombie virus and the destruction of their civilization by the war (meinly because of losing control over the weather), the survivors whose descendence are the villagers and the illagers have rebuilt the villages (and maybe the mansions) and that's it.

I think as the 🆎 got more advanced, they invented a new technology w/ the sculc and the energy from the warden, and flee to another dimension. The structures are just what remains of a thriving civilisation, the 🆎 sometimes come back to do experiments on Illagers and Villagers but their experiments have gone wrong and a disease is spread via contact or being killed by zombies. Villagers turn into zombies as they are easyer to brainwash and convert. The Illagers however, are more advanced and their intelligence kills them as they try to escape their zombifyed form but their soul is trapped in their remains and thus creates skeletons and their will to kill. This will is more of an instinct as they aren’t agressive towards Villagers -> due to the disease? Fill by this theory please Anyway, thanks for reading to the end and goodbye. Cookie

When talking about this war, I feel that there is one option you didn't mention, or may have overlooked. You're looking for another race/species for the builders to war against, but what's stopping them (or any intelligent race) from warring among themselves?