What is the Core?

Note how it turns a different colour after being out of the water for so long.

I always thought that was because of different lighting in the room, or possibly because of what the Doctor may have been doing to it. The Core isn't actually in the water when you find it in Cave Story - it remains above water level. The Core only touches the water (and quite briefly at that) during the boss fight when it floods the place.

And for all we know, it might not have been that long between when the Core was teleported to the lab and when you find it in the Black Space. The unconsciousness before waking up with Curly's air tank, before waking up in the Mimiga Village after the Waterway, and in Jail No. 1 could have been some time, but they also could have been brief for all we know (I've never seen any extensively solid implications that any of them were very long).

 

I have. The blackout in Jail No. 1 is long enough to get the flowers at least close to maturity, and sleeping in the Hideout finishes their growth. It's reasonable to assume that they have the growth cycle of regular flowers, and therefore take a reasonable amount of of time to grow.

 

The blackout after the core battle cannot be more than a few minutes, seeing as curly would not wait hours before she helped you, also after the waterway could not have been long either, seeing as you see booster immediately upon entering Arthur's house

 

The blackout in Jail No. 1 is long enough to get the flowers at least close to maturity, and sleeping in the Hideout finishes their growth. It's reasonable to assume that they have the growth cycle of regular flowers, and therefore take a reasonable amount of of time to grow.

I had your post in the "what happened to the Colons?" thread in mind when I made that post. The sprouting flowers is a good point, but you'd be really stretching it to say that it was really long. While the Red flowers probably took some time to bloom, throughout the whole time between your arrival at the Plantation and right before you take a nap while Momorin finishes the rocket, Professor Booster remains in his same spot at Arthur's house with no different dialogue, and all the Mimigas in the Rest Area remain in the same positions, save for Kanpachi who stays out fishing once you talk to him. You'd think some of that would have changed if the unconsciousness in Jail No. 1 were as substantial as you believe it is.

 

It's possible Misery could have helped them sprout faster, or since we don't know anything about Cave Story ... um floriculture, perhaps Demon Flowers bloom quickly... [Magic Beans in fairy tales are FAST!]

...
Logically, I would think the amount of time Quote is unconscious in the cell, couldn't have been longer than a day... but you never know I suppose... so it's worth keeping an open mind~

Also, Mimigas are probably experts of flower cultivation, since it seems like that is one of their main food sources? And then there's the Doctor's scientific knowledge... And the unknown powers of the Demon Crown. ...And there is the Core, which is connected in some way to the Red Flower's power.

Lots of possibilities to choose from...! (or none!)

EDIT:
Oh and what is the Core? It is a miserable pile of secrets!

 

We may never know, as it appears to be covered in seaweed or such.

 

Is it ever said that the Flowers are connected to Ballos? I always thought they were just seperate entities that the Crown could control.

 

Is it ever said that the Flowers are connected to Ballos? I always thought they were just seperate entities that the Crown could control.

To my knowledge, there is no connection between the flowers and the crown, Just the Doctor taking advantage of a free power source aka army of rabid mimigas.

Though I could be wrong...

 

...I'm surprised that no one suggested that the Core was a robot!
When you defeat the core, Misery teleports in and says "Do you even know what this is?!" "Hmph. This is what I hate about robots." After the last part, she explains what the Core is. If she was directing it towards Curly, she would have added something like "They don't know anything!" which would make sense. Without that, it makes it feel like she's calling the Core a robot. What sort of living creature would be able to raise water levels? If the Core is wirelessly connected to whatever sustains the water level, it could raise and lower it at will.
Unlike the other bosses Quote defeats, the Core doesn't explode instantly, and instead floats up while smoking. The other bosses instantly die, disappear or explode once they're defeated, and the Doctor supports this by saying "What are you doing?! Bring the core to the laboratory at once! There's still time!" which could imply the Core takes a long while to explode, so they needed to get it to the laboratory ASAP to prevent it from exploding before they could modify it to their needs. If it really was dying, then how could it have survived to the Black Space room, in the time-span of nearly a day and a half? Living beings don't survive long after taking swords/missiles/whatever to the face, and when you shoot anywhere BUT the damageable area, it just... clings! Nothing else does this, so it must be some sort of robot or rock - and I say that it is a robot.
Of course, this means that it is a giant floating almond.

 

Well I consider the red flowers to be a side-effect of this process, where some of Ballos' power bleeds out and the flowers are formed. The source of their power must be Ballos as there is little other explanation for their link to the crown. When the core is destroyed and the bleeding power effect stops then the red flower altered entities lose their link to Ballos' raw unchanneled power and insanity and revert back to their original state.

Thus it can be assumed that the Core is giant pinecone.

I totally agree with this. I also believe Jenka created the Core as a random living organism which had the ability to counteract Ballos' negative energy. I also believe that the joke at the end had already gotten cliched by the time you posted.

 

@kayya it makes a lot more sense for misery to mean quote and curly, and she doesn't need to say anything extra. Also it's good foreshadowing. Plus you can fix things that aren't machines, even if it's organic they can still tend to it (especially with magic and the crown on their side)

 

...I'm surprised that no one suggested that the Core was a robot!
When you defeat the core, Misery teleports in and says "Do you even know what this is?!" "Hmph. This is what I hate about robots." After the last part, she explains what the Core is. If she was directing it towards Curly, she would have added something like "They don't know anything!" which would make sense. Without that, it makes it feel like she's calling the Core a robot. What sort of living creature would be able to raise water levels? If the Core is wirelessly connected to whatever sustains the water level, it could raise and lower it at will.
Unlike the other bosses Quote defeats, the Core doesn't explode instantly, and instead floats up while smoking. The other bosses instantly die, disappear or explode once they're defeated, and the Doctor supports this by saying "What are you doing?! Bring the core to the laboratory at once! There's still time!" which could imply the Core takes a long while to explode, so they needed to get it to the laboratory ASAP to prevent it from exploding before they could modify it to their needs. If it really was dying, then how could it have survived to the Black Space room, in the time-span of nearly a day and a half? Living beings don't survive long after taking swords/missiles/whatever to the face, and when you shoot anywhere BUT the damageable area, it just... clings! Nothing else does this, so it must be some sort of robot or rock - and I say that it is a robot.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with this...

Misery is pretty clearly referring to Quote and Curly. When she mentions disliking robots, it's because she saw the war and the killer robots that inhabited it. From her perspective, the two were acting the same way - blindly charging in and killing everything in their path. She didn't know that Quote and Curly were just trying to escape and were forced into engaging the Core. Also, when she talked about the Core, it was to elaborate on her own question, and the whole thing was to point out how ignorant the two robots were of what they had just done. I don't see how that's meant to imply that the Core is robotic.

You may have something with the fact that it raises and lowers the water level. I don't think that's ever explained. However, the Core keeps itself, and the entire island, floating in the air, which means it must exude some sort of force or have some level of power over gravity (or something else that lets it defy that gravity). Whatever that force is, that may be what allows it to repress the water, because once the Core is teleported away, the water level shoots up and stays that way, which must be its natural state. This power to keep the water down may be the same thing that pushes you away when it fires its strongest attack. Of course, it's also entirely possible that the water level goes up and down so drastically independent of the Core. Hard to say, really.

The reason it's leisurely in exploding is that the Core is one of three major bosses over all of Cave Story:the others being the Undead Core/Date and Ballos. Of the three, Ballos wanted to die, and the Undead Core had already been nearly destroyed and may have been less stable after being brought back by the Doctor. The Core is simply very sturdy and powerful, and probably has some concept of self-defense/self-preservation. Alternatively, cutscene power. Also, it didn't need to survive for a day and a half - teleportation is instantaneous. They all got to his laboratory less than a minute after it started to die. Where did you get a day and a half from, anyway?

It seems to be more likely that it's rocky or has a very tough hide, rather than being a robot.

 

Where did you get a day and a half from, anyway?

I got the day from when you went to sleep in Momorins and the half from the other inconviences (waterway, egg corridor, outer wall, fetchquest, ma pignon, jail, ect)
Though, maybe I shouldn't have said a half, more like a quarter.

 

Admin of an rp server?

 

uh

 

The core has to be a MIND CONTROLLING...






STAR DESTORYER.
Nuff' said.