PRCLore:Rat Skip
Rat Skip is an alleged glitch in which a Rat can successfully be used to Boost Jump. Many have claimed it to be pseudoscientific in nature, likening it to the ongoing search for UFOs and cryptids, while others perpetuate the legend through repeated claims of evidence.
Etymology
Rat Skip is vaguely worded, often resulting in it being mistakenly interpreted to mean that a Rat is being skipped. In fact, Rat Skip refers to a Rat being utilized to skip another part of the game.
The cult-like atmosphere surrounding supporters of Rat Skip has led to them branding themselves as "Rat Skippers" while labeling outsiders as "Rat Skip Deniers" or "Booster Babies" in reference to their favoring of the existing Rat-less Boost Jump strategy. "Rat Skipper" has garnered a derogatory connotation amongst those outside the Rat Skip community.
History
Origin
Rat Skip's origins can be traced back to Version 2 of the Oblivion 100% Completion Speedrun. During the Map Exploration split, Ben was attempting to navigate the Ayleid Ruin Wenyandawik in order to get one of the 10 required Ayleid Statues. In the second zone, which requires a tricky Boost Jump off of a bad slope along the edge of the wall, a decent amount of time was being lost due to repeatedly failing the jump. A Rat had spawned nearby and was killed during this process, which resulted in Max insisting that a Rat corpse would allow Ben to perform the jump with ease. An argument ensued about the validity of the claim, with Ben showing Max that the Rat corpse had no collision and just happened to be on top of a sloped part of the ground. Max refused to back down, going as far as to say "We call this Rat Skip." to socially pressure Ben into attempting the glitch to fulfill the implication of the gameplay commentary. "We call this Rat Skip." is a parody of Speedrunner culture's tendency to uniquely name every little optimization that gets discovered for runs, in addition to sardonically imitating the dry and awkward tone of speedrun commentary that is commonly seen at family-friendly livestream events such as Awesome Games Done Quick.
Pseudo Rat Skip
On January 23rd, 2021, MeemawHustlin discovered a new Saddle location that saved approximately four seconds in every official speedrun category for Oblivion, most notably providing one the few significant improvements to Any% in months. This new Saddle location was the stool by the fire pit in the goblin cave area of the Tutorial. When Saddling this stool save into the final sewer cell, the player is placed out of bounds near the end of the tunnel. By swimming SE and slightly downward, the player is Void Warped directly to the final sewer grate at the end of the Tutorial, skipping the entire walk to the end of the sewer. Within three hours after MeemawHustlin posted a video about the new strategy, speedrunner sandyX achieved a new world record in the Any% category.
MeemawHustlin quickly realized that the save file thumbnail for this stool save had a Rat corpse in it, leading him to dub the new strategy "Rat Skip" and insist that the community start calling it that as well. He excitedly reported his findings to Max, claiming to have finally solved Rat Skip. While Max was initially amused by the events that had transpired, he quickly doubled down and said "That isn't Rat Skip." The name was later changed to "Pseudo Rat Skip" as per Max's wishes, but the community at large still erroneously refers to it as simply "Rat Skip" much to the dismay of Rat Skippers.
Utility
Rat Skip is intended to be performed in Wenyandawik, specifically in the second zone (Wenyandawik Edesel). This zone is typically very obnoxious to navigate the intended way, so routers have found that Boost Jumping up to a bridge allows skipping the majority of the room. This Boost Jump is very difficult to perform due to the sloped edges of the walkway being very inconsistent to jump off of, which is where Rat Skip allegedly is able to assist in making the jump. The overall purpose of making this jump is to get to one of the 10 required Ayleid Statues for The Collector quest.
Criticism
Rat Skip is often the subject of criticism due to its lack of clear purpose. While promoters of Rat Skip argue that it could potentially be a more consistent strategy than a normal Boost Jump, no data has surfaced to back up this claim. Many say that Rat Skip in actuality would take longer to set up the proper Rat positioning, resulting in a net time loss. Rat Skip's most adamant detractors cite the enemy spawn RNG as the main reason to discount this strategy since it is not guaranteed that a Rat will always spawn in the room. Rat Skip's complicated and highly political history has lead many researchers to avoid investigating or verifying these timing data considerations altogether for fear of social alienation.
Alternatives
Although nothing has been confirmed, many objectors to Rat Skip have cited Saddling and the Duplication glitch as ways that Rat Skip could be obsoleted. Saddling could theoretically place the player at the exact location of the statue, but would result in the player being the "wrong" version of their character. This means that extra time would need to be spent setting up a Saddle save with the most recent version of the character prior to entering Wenyandawik. Discovering some method of duplicating Ayleid Statues would also allow for no longer needing to get the Wenyandawik statue at all, negating Rat Skip's original purpose.
Die hard Rat Skippers assert that the glitch is multi-purpose, possibly allowing for further Boost Jumping potential in many other problematic areas of the game.
In Other Elder Scrolls Games
Rat Skip theorists have further extended their dogma to include the possibility of Rat Skip in other games. Since Bethesda games are typically made using revisions of the same game engine every time, it seems plausible that if Rat Skip could be proven in Oblivion, it could potentially exist in other Elder Scrolls games as well.
Below is a list of Elder Scrolls games and their likelihood to contain a version of Rat Skip.
| Game | Rats | Jumping | Rat Skip Potential |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arena | ✔ | ✔ | Arena contains Rats and jumping, so it is possible Rat Skip exists in this game. |
| Daggerfall | ✔ | ✔ | Daggerfall has Rats and jumping, making it highly likely that Rat Skip exists in this game. |
| Battlespire | ✘ | ✔ | No Rats, therefore no Rat Skip. |
| Redguard | ✔ | ✔ | While this game has both Rats and jumping, the Rats in this game appear to be purely cosmetic and unable to be interacted with. |
| Morrowind | ✔ | ✔ | Morrowind's existence of Rats and extremely overpowered jumping mechanics makes it a prime candidate for Rat Skip. |
| Stormhold | ✘ | ✘ | No Rats, therefore no Rat Skip. |
| Dawnstar | ✘ | ✘ | No Rats, therefore no Rat Skip. |
| Shadowkey | ✔ | ✔ | Rats exist, but jumping seems extremely limited in use-cases. |
| Oblivion | ✔ | ✔ | The origin of Rat Skip stems from this game, therefore it is the most likely to exist. |
| Oblivion Mobile | ✘ | ✘ | No Rats, therefore no Rat Skip. |
| Skyrim | ✘ | ✔ | There are no "Rats" explicitly in this game, but there are an equivalent enemy called the Skeever. Skeever Skip may exist but remains untested. |
| ESO | ✔ | ✔ | High possibility of Rat Skip, although jumping is generally not particularly useful in most areas of this game. |
| Legends | ✘ | ✘ | This is a Rat-less card game that has no equivalent gameplay that would allow for a Rat Skip. |
| Blades | ✘ | ✘ | Like Skyrim, this game has Skeevers, but no Rats. You cannot jump in this game either, making Rat Skip non-existent. |
Cultural Impact
Philosophy
Many say that the pure visual spectacle and panache of performing this feat would validate its usage in the run even if it is at the cost of time. This is akin to the Tool-Assisted Speedrun community's preference for entertainment value over execution time, making Rat Skip a prime microcosm of speedrun philosophical debate.
Conspiracy Theories
Conspiracy theories surround Rat Skip have become prominent in public discourse. One theory suggests that every time the PRCLive wiki crashes, it is because Rat Skip deniers are attempting to prevent people from learning of Rat Skip's existence in the first place.