Primal Directive

Man, this song has such an amazing atmosphere, I feel like I'm traveling through space, especially during the clean vocal parts. Clean vocals really had no harm on these guys, it made them so much better.

To be perfectly honest these lyrics are to smart for me, I have no idea what they mean

This is completely a concept album, but this is my interpretation:

"Bridge to analyst; access the secondary plasmic dataholds. Now viewing all current planetary bodies. Move to constrain your results to newest sentient life. Scan the surface. Bring up vitals."

** The plasmic datahold could be another body or dimension, where you can view all life that exists. You would need to expand your consciousness to advance.

"Local life thrived much quicker than anticipated. We are pleased."

** Not sure about this, but maybe means that you can excel at life if you gave it all you got.

"Focus shifted. Save the organism through implied relocation. Inferior understanding limits options and adaptation will be necessary for the specimen to survive."

** To change priorities to whats important, which will lead the body to salvation through transformation. Ignorance keeps your mind closed to the possibilities of life, and you would need to expand your perception to advance.

"As we map out this universe, all that can be seen is an ocean of emptiness. This is primal directive."

** Don't really understand this.

"Now we execute standard protocol. As these cycles are nearing completion, initiate solar cleansing. Move on, time never waited on its occupants. Live on, by any means and every technology."

** The planet/bodies will commence its transformation/birth, because the cycle/shift of ages is coming to an end/beginning. Just keep on moving forward not worrying about the past, and enjoy your experiences.

"You have been defined."

** It is our destiny combined with free-will.

After looking around for what "Primal Directive" means in google, the closest thing I could find was the definition of prime directive, which is a term from star trek. Prime directive is sort of a set of laws that apply to advanced civilizations that are part of a universal organization on how to deal with less advanced civilizations upon encounter. They're not supposed to interfere with cultural development of these civilizations or interfere in the wars of less advanced civilization.

I think the "As we map out this universe" part means that they've been looking around for a planet/civilization for so long, that they broke the prime directive and interfered with a species in some way.

Just a thought. Fucking love this album, and the story behind it.

I don't want to analyze the entire song, that would be a lot of work. But I wanted to take a tackle at "primal directive"

two words "primal", "directive"

I'd just like to think it's our instinct. The very essence of our nature and what compels us to do what we can to survive. Eating, sleeping, drinking, recreating. "as we map out this universe, all that can be seen is an ocean of emptiness" another natural instinct of human beings is to explore. maybe he's talking "we" as in the aliens or maybe "we" as in the human species..but whoever is mapping out the universe, they're driven by their natural, or primal, directive, or instinct to explore and understand. THIS IS PRIMAL DIRECTIVE!

This album is entirely a concept album. BornofMaya (Veil of Maya and Born of Osiris are both excellent bands ;] ) hits on some pretty good points and The Spoon kind of hits on it directly but I don't think he noticed...

This song is entirely about another species, organism, race..whatever who are watching us from space. "Bridge to analyst; access the secondary plasmic dataholds." Imagine a spaceship watching Earth. This sentence is the observer communication back to his base or whatever.

"Now viewing all current planetary bodies. Move to constrain your results to newest sentient life. Scan the surface. Bring up vitals. Local life thrived much quicker than anticipated. We are pleased."

They are checking on the statistics of life on Earth (specifically humans). They are happy with the way things are going with human life. I think the interpretation is that these are early human life forms...Egyptians, Mayans, etc. I think this because these civilizations had an imense grasp on interstellar workings. They worshipped stars and believed their gods didn't lie in a mysterious invisible heavnly body but rather they were simply superior beings from other planets. The Pyramids of Giza are built to replicate Orion's belt. Stonehenge is an amazingly accurate picture of our planets in our solar system orbiting around the sun.. There are many other instances like these. They were simple people with amazing beliefs and understandings of how our world works.

"Focus shifted. Save the organism through implied relocation. Inferior understanding limits options and adaptation will be necessary for the specimen to survive."

Then, humans as a species shifted their goals...towards money, power, etc. Instead of an understanding of oneself and ones surroundings we are mainly left with people struggling to obtain worthless crap.We have displaced other humans, species and parts of our environment for personal gain. Our inferior understanding of the world we are a part of limits what we have available to us in both thought and exploration. We will need to adapt to survive which could mean adapt to deal with the way things have gone or to change ourselves completely.

"As we map out this universe, all that can be seen is an ocean of emptiness. This is primal directive."

Them there aliens think we are a waste as a species now.

"Now we execute standard protocol. As these cycles are nearing completion, initiate solar cleansing. Move on, time never waited on its occupants. Live on, by any means and every technology. You have been defined. "

The alien civilization monitoring us has given up and will initiate its protocol...which means probably ignoring us and never sharing the secrets of the universe but could also mean death to humans! Live on because we are worthless, time won't wait for us to better ourselves...and it's my uinterpretation that the beings monitoring us think we are hopelss and time will only end us. Live on by any means we can to survive because no one else will help us now since we are a pretty crappy species. We have been defined by our greed and desire for things not valued on a universal scale.