# What Happened to Simonch in Endfield

> Ursus's Emperor's Blades sank Simonch in a lake. In Endfield the empire raised her, sent her to Talos-II, and her workers renamed her Mat' Gorodov.

Source: https://endfieldhub.org/blog/what-happened-to-ursus-simonch-arknights-endfield
Published: 2026-11-02
Updated: 2026-11-02

**Simonch was an Ursus city that the Emperor’s Blades sank in a lake in the first Arknights. In Arknights Endfield the empire has raised her, repaired her and sent her to Talos-II, where the workers who run her call her Mat’ Gorodov, “the mother of cities”.**

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In the first Arknights, the Ursus Empire sent its most feared soldiers, the Emperor’s Blades, against one of its own cities, and they sank it in a lake. More than a hundred years later, on another planet, that same city is moving again. It is the largest moving city on Talos-II, its workers run it themselves, and they put on comedies about corrupt officials. This post follows our long-form video beat by beat: the boy with the broken blade, the city and the Blades, the salvage, the mother of cities, and what the city fights for now.

_How we checked this: every quote comes from the game text of the original Arknights (operator files, enemy entries, roguelike relics) and of Arknights Endfield (voice lines, item text, encyclopedia, the Simonch visitor recording). Where we connect two facts the games don’t connect, we say it is our reading. Frames are from our video; the art in them is Hypergryph’s and Gryphline’s. Endfield Hub is a fan site, not affiliated with Hypergryph or Gryphline._

**TL;DR**

* **Simonch sank:** Viy’s file in the first Arknights calls it “that city sunk by the Royal Guard”, the Emperor’s Blades.
* **Maybe the Volniki’s city:** the records say it may have belonged to the Volniki, a people Ursus promised self-rule and then erased from the record.
* **Raised again:** in Endfield, Pogranichnik says the UWST’s Industrial Mothership “was Simonch when she was still in Terra”, salvaged by the empire and sent to Talos-II.
* **Nobody knows why:** Pogranichnik doesn’t, and neither game says.
* **Now the workers’ capital:** Mat’ Gorodov hosts the UWST’s congress, theatres, the ЭКОП alert system, the eggless egg pudding and, it seems, Da Pan’s old taxi route.
* **What it fights for:** it builds for the Order of Steel Oath, and its flowers now cover a field in Valley IV.

## Who Is Viy, the Boy With the Broken Blade?

Somewhere in the southern wilderness of Ursus, a family of three couldn’t run from a Catastrophe, one of the giant natural disasters of the first game’s world. The father had lost the use of his legs in the army. The mother was blind. Years before, a travelling painter had painted the family’s portrait with the brushwork he normally saved for emperors and holy men.

![A Catastrophe storm over an Ursus city skyline, labelled A Catastrophe](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-catastrophe.webp)

When officials came to clear the village, the son stood in the doorway holding his father’s old curved sword, the one that broke on the same battlefield as his father’s legs. The noble behind them asked, “You served. A child soldier?” The boy said, “Don’t come any closer.” The officials took his parents away. The noble took the boy. The next day, the Catastrophe wiped out the village.

![A close-up of a curved sword with a red ribbon, labelled his father's old curved sword](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-fathers-sword.webp)

He was sent to the empire’s war factory, where hundreds of children trained with weapons built to push their bodies past what a body can take. Only the “luckiest” child got the title of War Caster. He got it, and spent the next years as a spy, an assassin and a commander in border wars that were never written down.

That is the last file of **Viy**, an Ursus commander you can recruit in the first Arknights. Rhodes Island’s casters say his weapon’s Originium circuit is so strong that “not even spire casters would use something this suicidal.” When someone tells them Ursus built it, the reply is, “W-Well, that does make sense.”

![Viy's promoted operator art, labelled War Caster, the luckiest child](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-viy-war-caster.webp)

## What Is Ursus, and Who Are the Volniki?

Ursus is the frozen empire of the north, the one [Talulah’s whole story](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/talulah-reunion-chen-chi-xiao-arknights-endfield) was fighting. Like most nations in that world, it lives on giant moving cities that outrun Catastrophes, and it takes what it needs from its own people, including their children. A file in the first game notes that over several decades, Ursus executed over a hundred of its own commanders.

Viy belongs to a people called the Volniki. When the first emperor, Igor, was fighting a war against the Hippogryphs, he promised the other peoples on his land that if they fought for him, they would govern themselves. They fought, Ursus was founded, and the promise was never kept. They were “granted land”, which meant being driven into the wilderness, and the government had a long-standing policy of forbidding anyone to even mention the Volniki. Viy grew up learning brewing, sugarmaking, woodworking and smithing, because “That’s all we’re allowed to do to pass the time off the battlefield.”

![Viy in the snow with antlered Volniki soldiers behind him, captioned The Volniki](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-the-volniki.webp)

At Rhodes Island he borrows _Three Thousand Ursine Folk Songs_ and _Toe Care for Steed Burdenbeasts_, returns them all on time, and smuggles home-brewed kvass past security. On New Year’s he sings an old Volniki song: “Mother sheds tears by the red corner, while father in his silence grows stone-cold. Sister goes barefoot into the river, that keeps children of freedom in its hold.” His battle lines are prayers to his own sword: “This blade is my mother too.” “It wipes away pain.” “It extinguishes fear.” “Who else to pray to?”

## Who Was Baba, the Volniki Goddess?

The Volniki couldn’t pray to the emperor, so they prayed to someone else. Their curse word was “Baba above”. Baba was a witch who travelled with a little hut that walked on legs. Before a battle, a fighter put a knife, a bow or a trophy inside her hut, and in return she held death back, so they could see the spring flowers a few more times. When a man had nothing left to give, she showed him the road to death: “I can no longer hold it back for you.”

The legend’s source is in the file of **GALLUS²**, a living metal house on chicken legs that Rhodes Island found in an ancient ruin. It remembers a witch who walked with the Volniki when Ursus was founded, healed their wounds and told the children stories about a little hut with legs. The file refuses to write her name, “considering the sensitivity of the information”. It only says she was “a Feline dressed in green”.

![GALLUS², a metal house on chicken legs, over a red background](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-gallus.webp)

The person GALLUS² remembers is almost certainly **Kal’tsit**, Rhodes Island’s ancient, green-clad Feline leader, walking beside the people Ursus betrayed at the empire’s founding. Her name is also one of the names a voice reads out in Endfield’s prologue.

![Kal'tsit and Mon3tr, labelled Kal'tsit, Rhodes Island's leader](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-kaltsit.webp)

## Who Sank Simonch?

In the middle of Viy’s file, Rhodes Island’s records mention a place called Simonch, “that city sunk by the Royal Guard”. The records say it may have belonged to a group of Volniki of the Elafia people, who have antlers. If it did, it was something they had almost never had: a moving city of their own. And Ursus forbade any mention of the Volniki, so a city run by them could only look like one thing to the empire: an attempt to break away.

![The word SIMONCH over a frozen lake, subtitled that city sunk by the Royal Guard](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-title-royal-guard.webp)

“The Royal Guard” is what the game calls the **Emperor’s Blades**, and anyone who has played the first game has met them as bosses. Their enemy file calls them “The most terrifying military force in the entirety of Ursus” and says “A single one is enough to slaughter entire squads.” A relic in one of the game’s roguelike modes says Ursus refused to share its research into the Royal Guard with other countries until international pressure forced it to.

![Five panels of official Emperor's Blade art side by side under the quote The most terrifying military force in the entirety of Ursus](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-emperors-blades-lineup.webp)

Another entry explains what they believe they are: “Every Royal Guard is as a dominion; the land beneath their feet is all the territory of Ursus.” That is also the name of their skill in battle, Dominion. And “His blade shies not from royals nor nobles, safeguarding glory from the dusts of rebellion.” A Blade who loses control “will be hunted down by its comrades until it is completely wiped from this land.”

![Official art of the Blade operator Territoriya, whose Chinese name means Dominion](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-dominion-territoriya.webp)

So a city that might belong to the Volniki starts to look like it governs itself, and the empire answers with soldiers whose whole purpose is to make every piece of ground Ursus again. Simonch went to the bottom of a lake. The Rhodes Island writer adds one line so nobody reads this as an excuse: “This is not a defense of the legitimacy of Ursus’s actions.”

In the first game, that one sentence is all we learn. Viy’s promotion record adds what his people learned: “We were deceived so many times, yet we still never learned,” and one rule from the ones who resisted first, “we must always stand up and walk, not bend down and crawl.” By his last record his unit has walked out of the Ursus army, and he says, “Ursus as a whole doesn’t even need an emperor anymore.”

## Is Mat’ Gorodov Simonch in Arknights Endfield?

Endfield moves the story to Talos-II, generations later. The biggest builder there is the United Workers’ Syndicates of Talos II, the UWST, whose history “dates back to the Age of Terra” and who were “the very first organization to reach the new world”. Their largest city is the Industrial Mothership, a giant base on the move whose yards build new city sections for the frontier.

One operator knows its old name. Pogranichnik, a soldier who works with Rhodes Island, says it in a voice line: “Industrial Mothership, the largest city of the UWST, now goes by many names and aliases. But I know her name was Simonch when she was still in Terra. She sank in a lake under the tyrannical rule of the Ursus Empire. I still don’t know why the Empire salvaged her afterwards, nor why they repurposed that ruined city into an exclave in a foreign world.” (We cover his own story in [is Pogranichnik Hellagur](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/pogranichnik-lore-is-he-hellagur-endfield).)

![Pogranichnik's voice line quoted on screen: But I know her name was Simonch when she was still in Terra](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-pogranichnik-voice-line.webp)

So the same empire that sank the city later raised it, repaired it, and sent it to another planet as a piece of Ursus territory. Why, neither game says. What the files do say is the next line: “Nevertheless, she is now the largest nomadic city on Talos-II, and a spiritual symbol for many.” Endfield’s encyclopedia speaks of the Ursus in the past tense: “The Ursi once established a nation of the same name in Terra, and are now active throughout Talos-II.”

## What Is in Mat’ Gorodov Now?

A lot, and very little of it is military. The workers call her Mat’ Gorodov, “mother of cities”, the heart of the UWST. Worker representatives travel there for their congress; Endfield’s story mentions the 58th one, and Valley IV sends its own delegates.

One visitor’s recording, kept in Rhodes Island’s archive, describes walking in for the first time. They expected the giant towers from UWST art films. The first thing they saw was crews carrying building materials: “Every inch of concrete bore the prints of their hands.” They followed a worker off his shift into a big, plain building, sat down, and realised it was a theatre, and the worker was in the play.

![An archive log of the visitor's recording ending with the quote Every inch of concrete bore the prints of their hands](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-visitor-recording.webp)

The play was a comedy. A crew of workers tricks a corrupt official into hunting for Pure Gold, which, the recording adds, does not exist on Talos-II. Afterwards two ten-year-old twins spot the visitor’s uniform and squeal, “An Oathkeeper! From the Order of the Steel Oath!” The empire sank this city because people governing themselves looked like rebellion. In the same city now, the workers govern themselves and laugh at their own officials.

![A theatre playbill for Pure Gold stamped Does not exist on Talos-II](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-pure-gold-comedy.webp)

## What Ursus Traces Does the UWST Keep?

Some of Ursus is still there in plain sight. The UWST’s emergency alert system has an Ursus name written in Cyrillic letters, **ЭКОП**, short for Emergency Crisis Operations Broadcast. When the crisis in Valley IV hit, it reached every UWST terminal within seven minutes.

![An emergency broadcast screen reading ЭКОП, Emergency Crisis Operations Broadcast](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-ekop-broadcast.webp)

Their favourite drink is a strong liquor called kohl. In one story a UWST man named Volkov hears the Aggeloi War is over and shouts “LET’S MAKE MOONCAKES!” When someone asks whether Ursus even has cakes: “The proud Ursus Syndikat also has cakes! We makes the best cakes.” Their Security Bureau has a reputation too: the young have barely seen its agents, the middle-aged remember them at every big project, and a crew member puts it simply: “Things always get better once the bureau takes action.”

![A chat of Volkov shouting LET'S MAKE MOONCAKES and defending Ursus cakes](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-volkov-mooncakes.webp)

The small details are just as specific. Chen Qianyu has said sweet bread on Simonch costs 5 T-Creds. Simonch’s craftspeople weave the Simonch Shawl as a sign of friendship. A stage show called _Simonch’s Dream_ sells a replica of the lead’s costume. Item text keeps mentioning an Ursus chef with a hot pot restaurant whose cooking inspired a “mad” scientist to more than double how long protective gear stays powered, and whose restaurant serves a vegetable egg pudding with no eggs in the ingredients. [Da Pan](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/da-pan-lore-sad-backstory-hongshan-endfield) is an Ursus who used to own a hot pot restaurant, so that chef is very likely him (our reading). His CV also says he drove a taxi in Simonch; Endfield’s HR robot found no licence or records, and four hours later realised it had spent the whole time talking to him about unlicensed taxi driving.

![Da Pan's CV stamped No licence found and No records](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-da-pan-taxi-cv.webp)

## What Does Simonch Fight For Now?

One line of game text says it plainly: “Supporting the Order of Steel Oath is the priority for our Industrial Mothership.” The Order holds the far north of Talos-II against the Aggeloi. The city an empire’s soldiers once sank now builds for the soldiers who protect everyone else.

The UWST knows what that costs. About twenty years before Endfield begins, a giant Aggelos called **Astarron**, at least a hundred metres tall, came down on Valley IV. Every countermeasure failed, so the UWST blew up the Great Originium Oak, the valley’s own power source, to kill it. The valley lost its power and development stopped, which is why the UWST leased the land to Endfield to rebuild.

![An emergency broadcast card for Astarron, a giant Aggelos at least 100 metres tall](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-astarron.webp)

![A land lease from the UWST to Endfield for Valley IV, stamped Leased](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-valley-iv-lease.webp)

The UWST’s films tell stories like that one. A recent hit, _When the Snow Falls_, opened in the theatres at Simonch, and Aleeza, a worker in Valley IV, writes to thank you for fixing the projector in time for her crew’s screening; for once the Security Bureau “chose a movie that wouldn’t make people fall asleep”. In the film, twelve worker soldiers sing a song of the steel smelters, walk into a blizzard with explosives tied to themselves and bring an avalanche down on the Aggeloi and on themselves. Only the hero’s red scarf shows for a moment on the white plain.

Aleeza signs off the way people there do: “All praise to Mat’ Gorodov!” Viy asked “Who else to pray to?” The people of this city cheer for the city itself.

![A split screen of Viy's Who else to pray to? against Simonch's All praise to Mat' Gorodov!](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-who-else-to-pray-to.webp)

When workers leave Simonch for new sites, they take her with them. One crew asked to bring machinery with “sentimental value”, and Simonch agreed. Another, in Valley IV, brought flowers: “We planted a small bed of flowers we brought from Simonch… Eventually it became a sea of flowers.” The Volniki gave Baba their knives to see the spring flowers a few more times. Flowers from a city that may once have been theirs now cover a field on another world.

Viy says this about his people: “The first who fought to become free Volniki did not do it to distinguish themselves from other Ursines. We looked for another way forward, and took the long way round.” Simonch took the longest way round of all: sunk by the Emperor’s Blades, pulled back up by the empire that sank her, and sent to another world as a piece of Ursus. The empire is gone from her story now. The workers who live in her run her, and they call her their mother.

![Mat' Gorodov as a dictionary entry: run by the workers who live in her, meaning mother](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/ursus-simonch/simonch-mat-gorodov-mother.webp)

## Related Reading

* [Is Pogranichnik Hellagur? His Lore in Endfield](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/pogranichnik-lore-is-he-hellagur-endfield)
* [Talulah, Reunion and Chi Xiao in Arknights Endfield](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/talulah-reunion-chen-chi-xiao-arknights-endfield)
* [Da Pan’s Backstory in Endfield](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/da-pan-lore-sad-backstory-hongshan-endfield)