Could be whatever those giant rib cages belong to in the bone desert. Or those could be dead Behemoths. The wreckage in Mourne could be a crashed orbital or starship. TBH, there's no definitive answer until the developer gives one. Lot's of conjecture out there already.

Wait for more reveal Kenshi 2?

Originally posted by Bandy:

Wait for more reveal Kenshi 2?

Anxiety kicks in*

Originally posted by jynx:

Could be whatever those giant rib cages belong to in the bone desert. Or those could be dead Behemoths. The wreckage in Mourne could be a crashed orbital or starship. TBH, there's no definitive answer until the developer gives one. Lot's of conjecture out there already.

I saw those once in a playthrough, and I've wondered the same thing. Like @Bandy said, hope that the sequel gives us some info on what really happened. I was hopping a note somewhere scattered around the wasteland but I think that doesn't exist (Or people didn't find yet, it's a thought)

That is all what is known from observing hints in the game:

https://kenshi.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_Kenshi

It is not much but might give you a better idea.

Only thing that makes sense to me given the contexts, just from a logical standpoint, would be that this enemy was some form of alien invasion. The enemy of the First Empire, pulled a "Pacific Rim" and sent kaijus. Thus the "War of the Behemoths."

Originally posted by jynx:

Could be whatever those giant rib cages belong to in the bone desert. Or those could be dead Behemoths. The wreckage in Mourne could be a crashed orbital or starship. TBH, there's no definitive answer until the developer gives one. Lot's of conjecture out there already.

I would put some suspicion that those could just be massive former sea-life before the seas essentially boiled off in huge portions of their ocean, however that happened. If that is what turns out the case, makes sense. But,
I'm not willing to fully write off that theory those things could indeed be the remains of some form of invading enemy bio-weapon, though.

Reasoning to my thought process... the idea the first empire civilization got to the tech point they were? How could that happen if the enemy that they fought were just sapient indigenous giant creatures native the moon? They'd surely wipe the First Empire out far sooner than before they got to full demi-god tech status they had reached, where they could churn out mile tall robots in untold numbers if the threat had always been lurking about.

I also just don't think a few massive random creatures alone would be that threatening to them. Unless they were guided in some way. I mean, leviathan sized creatures on kenshi exist even to current time. They aren't entirely docile beings yet they didn't get wiped out.
It likely wasn't just massive pest control that made for this supposed apocalyptic war.

They wouldn't need innumerous Stobes then later did as they did, if the enemy in the War of Behemoths was just the occasional upset Godzilla rising up to stomp about.

Also many of the calamities that coincided with the fall of the First Empire? Maybe a good portion of them were the result of sheer sour grapes from the aliens. They couldn't win their invasion. They lost. So the invaders played their own portion in ruining the moon into it's current state.

Already unbalanced, the world in ruin in the aftermath of the war, the skeletons and stobe ect. resulted in toppled it all over fully into the age of chaos.

But that is just my suspicion how it could've happened. (that I just kind of don't like the idea of indigenous godzilla hidden giant molemen suddenly rising from the sea being the Ancient BigBad in what is termed a war)

I heard on a spanish video that one of the reasons why the first empire came was because they were chased by some bigger civilization and that the enemies were the civilization pursuing them, of course, there's probably nothing supporting that, but it's a kinda cool theory

As for a personal one, I think they were either a rival civilization, alien or not, who got in a war against the first empire for god knows what reason, maybe (assuming the first empire controlled multiple planets, which I think is very likely because well, it was an space-faring civilization) it was some sorts of civil war, until Kenshi 2 comes out, maybe we'll finally know

Hmm... either 2 things:
1: A Judgement Day happened and the Skeletons went all Terminator on their human masters.
2: Human First Empire colonized and partially terraformed Hivers homeworld. Shek Space Empire attempted conquest. Behemoths and skeletons were unleashed by Humans to combat Shek.

Originally posted by Lasershadow:

Hmm... either 2 things:
1: A Judgement Day happened and the Skeletons went all Terminator on their human masters.
2: Human First Empire colonized and partially terraformed Hivers homeworld. Shek Space Empire attempted conquest. Behemoths and skeletons were unleashed by Humans to combat Shek.

#1 happened, that covers what happened leading through the 2nd Empire. The humans culled the mega skeletons like Big E did the Thunder Warriors,and the skeletons rebelled. The 2nd empire was them consolidating power, and playing at benevolent godhood till the leader lost a few terrabytes of reasoning.
#2 It's hinted in lore that Shek are creations of 2nd Empire skeletons. This was done because skeletons lost the tech to make more of themselves, and they couldn't replace combat losses.

Kenshi is a moon, and has very little biodiversity. At least the map we're shown, there could be more landmass, considering all the Ancient maps not looking like anything local. Some of the wreckage, those flying drones up north, and the giant walking terraformers suggest that Kenshi was terraformed at one point and is reverting (loss of fertility, seas retreating, acid rain, etc).
Even Greenlanders are hinted at being engineered, leaving only Scorchworlders as Survivors of First Empire (I'm ignoring cannibals and screamers, since they're devolving).
As for hivers, they can be either another experiment (since they can't reproduce naturally, and don't have the tech to create whatever let's the Queens reproduce) or holdovers from whatever invasion the First Empire fought off using the Megaskeletons.

I believe the invaders were skeletons from another planet/moon which would explain why the humans freaked out about the skeletons and decided to kill them all.

maybe the first empire began this behemoth war because they tried exploring the inner ocean and the behemoths
1: were agressive and began attacking submarines or whatever the empire used to enter the ocean below water
1.1: the behemoths were also capable of leaving the ocean and climbing unto the surface and putting up a fight, which why the skeleton behemoths in obedience were created (or just to go into the ocean as well)
2: the behemoths still exist but now do not breach into the surface anymore (either due to first empire agression or lack of food in the surface)

i have no evidence i just think a first empire underwater construct would be cool and maybe if there were any, surviving behemoths could've destroyed those by accident or even incidentally (if behemoths were sapient, which is more complexing)

although if there was something noticeable underwater most skeletons would discover it at some point. there is a bunch of deactivated iron spiders in the coast of the iron trail though, not sure if that is ever dialogued by a character.

Originally posted by 🅱ule:

I believe the invaders were skeletons from another planet/moon which would explain why the humans freaked out about the skeletons and decided to kill them all.

Nope. Thats Cat-Lons doing. It had quite some consequences for the humans when he started to lose his mind.

@Piderman, nope, you are wrong, it was before Cat-Lon, after the war, the First Empire saw how destructive the Behemoths were against their enemies and so were very afraid that the behemoths deicide to ♥♥♥♥ around and find out (except its the First Empire which would hypothetically find out) and so the First Empire decided to destroy the behemoths before they caused some funny business and then that was probably when Cat-Lon was made, like his brothers in gears they revolted against the First Empire and caused its destruction when a few of them found out that the Behemoths were genocided and So Cat-Lon wanting to restore order creates the Second Empire.

Originally posted by Piderman:

Originally posted by 🅱ule:

I believe the invaders were skeletons from another planet/moon which would explain why the humans freaked out about the skeletons and decided to kill them all.

Nope. Thats Cat-Lons doing. It had quite some consequences for the humans when he started to lose his mind.

I do not think we see any real evidence Cat-Lon has suffered degradation. In fact its choice to self isolate shows quite a bit of wisdom and recognition that it does have the sanity to feel remorse for its extreme actions.

It is just a machine in the end, one we have no reason to consider truly sentient. Who programmed Cat-Lon originally is the question we may need to answer to truly know the source for all that slaughter.

Originally posted by TheRealPepe:

@Piderman, nope, you are wrong, it was before Cat-Lon, after the war, the First Empire saw how destructive the Behemoths were against their enemies and so were very afraid that the behemoths deicide to ♥♥♥♥ around and find out (except its the First Empire which would hypothetically find out) and so the First Empire decided to destroy the behemoths before they caused some funny business and then that was probably when Cat-Lon was made, like his brothers in gears they revolted against the First Empire and caused its destruction when a few of them found out that the Behemoths were genocided and So Cat-Lon wanting to restore order creates the Second Empire.

That does sound right, and correct me if I am wrong, but it was protecting the humans from Cat-Lons would be genocide, that ended Stobe, the last Behemoth. Possibly from some kind of rocket/bomb as we see something like that in the terrain near Stobe.

Though we do know Cat-Lon apparently does have the tech to create the death ray we see in Venge, the functional counterpart to the Eye which Skeleton members will comment on recalling when it still flew. And the cleanser units seem to be something he could have produced as well. Considering Cleansers spawn in and are the only really endless source of AI cores, suggesting either they are meant to be seen as very prolific, or infer there is a place making them still.

Cat-Lon was not genocidal during the fall of the First Empire, that we know of. He was trying to help humanity after the fall. The Second Empire was made to help humanity, not oppress it. As the madness set in over 1,000+ years he became harsher and crueler, but he was not always this way.

Originally posted by JediKnightSky:

It is just a machine in the end, one we have no reason to consider truly sentient. Who programmed Cat-Lon originally is the question we may need to answer to truly know the source for all that slaughter.

We have no reason to doubt their sapience. The game very clearly tells us in the character creator that they are fully sapient beings, capable of feeling the full array of emotions, just incapable of visually expressing them.

The lore does lie to us a lot, but there is no reason to doubt the character creator. As that is meta information provided by the devs directly to the player, not in universe characters that can be lying or wrong.