My Summary Of The Events [SPOILERS]

[Nuggmet]

This will probably be my last post/discussion on this game as i have unlocked pretty much all the achievements and have fulfilled the story in my own way, of course with this type of game i will be following any news and such from the devs but it was a fun ride with everyone! that being said lets get into what my summary is (Keep in mind im taking things from all over the forums and the 1000 thread discussion along side others that make really good points, also settle in for ALOT of reading...):


:Starting with the start of everything related to the game we have to go back to when Ariane was first born, either during or after the war, either or is good as it makes sense with the timeline, During this time Ariane lives with her mother in a isolated radio station high up in the snowy mountains or thats what its made to seem like, fast forward to when Ariane and her mother move to ROTFRONT a big city with tons of people in it, Ariane having a hard time getting friends due to her liking Music and art never really fit in with the other kids, this paired with her white hair her only friends were the Itou family, Erika and Itou alongside their mother. During this time she worked in a little shop on ROTFRONT and came across a picture of Alina Seo and an Unnamed Soldier (Her name is never clarified though there is a list of names in Alinas squad from the war we'll delve into later) seeing this she found Alina to resemble herself an uncanny amount even saying to her mother that she could have a twin sister which arianes mother declined and shut down, causing a negative impact on Ariane, Fast forward again to where ariane meets Alina herself and befriends her, now its not specified if the unnamed soldier is here as well but im under the assumption she was and ill explain why later. Seeing Alina and said unnamed soldier get along so well and even seeing how the two might be lovers, Ariane gets somewhat jealous, wishing she had her own Unnamed soldier that she could have to herself and that loved her, however sometime in the future Ariane becomes ill, more then likely the cause being Cancer or some kind of tumor or plague.


(Heres where things start to split off into two routes or "Theorys" first ill go over the "Everything Is Real" Route)


:Seeing as she has no one that understands her and she's practically all alone by this time as either all her friends had died during the war or had left to go somewhere else she finds an escape, the penrose program, a program where a gestalt officer is sent into space to explore and find new worlds to colonize, with this in mind she enlisted, seeing as there was no where else for her to go and this provided an escape from the world she hated so much, however if she didnt pass an exam of sorts she would be sent to the mines on Sierpienski S-23. However passing the exam she made it into said Penrose program and was sent on her way to the stars, here during her flight she met her LSTR unit LSTR-512 Or ELSTER as she came to name her (She also calls her Magpie but we'll get into that later) And after cycles of time together, ELSTER and Ariane came to grow closer and closer together even becoming Lovers along the way, However what ariane was doing was subconsciously driving ELSTER mad, Letting her watch movies of war, letting her listen to music, bonding with her, it was all leading to ELSTERS Degrading mindset. Fast foward once more and the signs of severe radiation poisoning has began setting in to both Ariane and ELSTER seeing this Ariane made ELSTER promise that when the time came and it was her time to die that ELSTER would pull ariane out of cryo stasis so that both ELSTER and Ariane could die together as that was her last wish. However this didnt happen as ELSTER sadly dies before she could wake Ariane up out of cryo, resulting in the Penrose ship crash landing on some unknown planet where the ship eventually completely shut down, waking Ariane up, she'd come out of cryo and find her dead LSTR unit, departing in a orange EVA Suit she'd search the land before finding a strange hole in the ground, descending she would come across a strange blue stone artifact that seemed to resonate or amplify arianes Bio resonance powers, allowing her to manipulate reality in seemingly ways she so deemed, with this power she'd send her LSTR units memories to a new LSTR unit, however it seems that before this ELSTER somehow woke up from the penrose ship and found an empty cryopod and a photo of her and ariane before departing in a EVA suit and finding a room with a TV in the same hole reminding ELSTER of their promise before finally dying for good. (I dont exactly know how the very start of the game would fit into this theory so i will just put it here, let me know if you have any thoughts on this)


:This starts the game, we start in front of a mirror in a bathroom on the medical floor of an underground facility on S-23 Sierpenski, seemingly nothing has changed but we'll soon come to find thats not the case, exploring the facility we come to find another replika unit STAR, she warns us that something has gone wrong and we should leave immediately, however determined to find Ariane, ELSTER continues on, not heeding the warning, as she continues on she comes to find most of the replikas have gone insane, their flesh and armor being rotten and decayed as they no longer spoke human or coherent words, they just screamed and tried to kill her, eventually finding a replika named ADLER she'd be shoved down an elevator shaft by said replika, ending up in the residential area, however upon entering this area, dozens of LSTR units are piled in the elevator, ELSTER dosent seem to comment on this as she seems to know why those units are there and chooses to ignore them (This is up for debate but it makes the most sense to me) continuing on though ELSTER makes her way through the residential area and finds a keycard allowing her to descend into the mines where as earlier told by ADLER that all the gestalts we're forced down into the mines for unknown reasons.



:Arriving in the mines ELSTER would search, eventually finding a type of pure pit made of throbbing flesh, deciding to keep going ELSTER would drop down and enter a place of unknown origins, exploring said unknown place she would eventually arrive at a strange hole leading upwards, going up she would meet a ADLER stabbed in the eye with a knife from a previous fight with Iso a gestalt in the base, going past the large black gate ELSTER would see even more dead LSTR Units, all seemingly failed attempts at trying to complete ELSTERS promise to Ariane, finding the penrose ship she'd attempt to open the hatch before having her arm ripped from from the force and falling off the ship, landing in the red sand before slowly dying and ending that ELSTERS run. But this ELSTER wasnt dead yet as it turns out, she wakes up and enters the penrose ship, stumbling to the cryo room she'd see a dead armored LSTR Unit and a ball of mass and flesh in the cryo pod (This mass of flesh will be covered later) Stripping the armor and an arm from the LSTR Unit, she would continue on, ELSTER dropping down a hole into a strange abandoned version of ROTFRONT Arianes home.


:Arriving in a strange ROTFRONT, ELSTER would make her way through the place, learning of Arianes life and how it was before the penrose program, even finding Arianes patient room where she spent most her time on ROTFRONT, eventually solving the mural puzzle ELSTER would meet a FALKE Unit, the daughter and descendant of the revolutionary, engaging in a fight with FALKE and beating her, FALKE would utter the words "Now we are one" maybe signaling that she herself was infected with ELSTERS Memories as well? Going past this and arriving once again at the giant red desert gate and seeing a horribly mutated ADLER, she'd attempt to go past before getting stabbed in the eye and shooting ADLER, Leaving him to die as she continued on to the final penrose ship, opening it she would enter and find the cryo room with finally Ariane laying inside bathing in a red liquid she'd kneel next to the pod and awaken Ariane, Ariane recognizing ELSTER would once again ask her to keep and fufill her promise, to which ELSTER was hesitant but out of mercy, eventually killed her lover before curling up next to the cryo pod herself and finally dying for good this time, ending the cycle and ending whatever horrid nightmare that was being projected onto the planet the penrose crashed onto.


(Hoo boy that was alot of typing but i aint done yet- plus that ending is just the PROMISE ending which dosent cover the other two but PROMISE is the most "Real" ending so i thought it'd make the most sense here, now moving onto the other theory "That its all a dream")


:On arianes death bed, ariane would dream of a fantasy where she herself was loved and cared for by her own unknown soldier, not having any bio resonance powers and with no penrose program to turn to in reality, she dreamt of this all, a program where she could get away and forget the pain and cruel reality of the real world, creating her own unknown soldier named ELSTER, once again they would come to grow close and eventually lovers before Arianes health declined once again, the ship crash landing on a unknown planet and the events of the game continuing before once again ELSTER kills Ariane, killing her on her real death bed and ending the Hellish Dream Reality.


(Yes i know this dosent cover nearly everything in the story and game but this is my simplified summary of everything thats happened, as for the LILY ending im leaving that up to everyone else, as it could mean so many things that i dont feel like one answer is enough for it, also congrats if you read through all this, i admire ya and feel free to post your own answers or comments on what i got wrong or you'd change)