Lore question *SPOILERS*

[Zonum]

If the Elster enters the well in the beginning of the game, and that is the same location as the ending.

Where, on the planet is the facility? Did she imagine the whole thing? Was it a playback video from previous Elsters working there? (Hence all the bodies later)

[Nuggmet]

Автор сообщения: Muscarine

Автор сообщения: neo2157

Adlers knowledge of previous cycles seems to have holes in it so while he does know he's done it before he doesn't seem to recall exactly how otherwise he would know Isa's hiding place. my guess is half the time he kills her and half the time she gets the jump on him.

It's not exactly that, as far as i understand from his diary, for once he doesn't exactly remember since he can't even tell he really wrote most entries (which are dated on the same day), but he also believes every repetition is slightly more corrupted, slightly altered

Which again, goes against the idea that every Elster is a different unit

I don't believe in this theory anyway

There's like hundreds of Elster bodies scattered around, i doubt Adler single handedly took care of all of them one after another, just to get stabbed in the eye by a single knees shaking Isa

The elster bodies are for sure the same LSTR, it makes the most sense given the proof, Ariane is most likely giving elsters memories to another LSTR unit after she dies, or something like that anyways- regarding the Adler thing, its possible he remembers CERTAIN parts of the loops/cycles but not all of it,and maybe as the game goes on he learns more and more.

[Muscarine]

Автор сообщения: LSTR-???

Ariane is most likely giving elsters memories to another LSTR unit after she dies

I still don't understand where you guys get that from

Why an actual different, physical LSTR body every time, why not just the same Elster in the same loop, like the movie Triangle for example

I'm more inclined to believe this

I don't think anything supports the existence, in our story, of other Elster units
Even when you die, at which point, unless i'm mistaken, is the only time you get to see Elster's serial number, it's always LSTR-512

The Penrose Elster

And it's more like a reboot screen than a death screen by the way

[neo2157]

Автор сообщения: Muscarine

Автор сообщения: neo2157

Adlers knowledge of previous cycles seems to have holes in it so while he does know he's done it before he doesn't seem to recall exactly how otherwise he would know Isa's hiding place. my guess is half the time he kills her and half the time she gets the jump on him.

It's not exactly that, as far as i understand from his diary, for once he doesn't exactly remember since he can't even tell he really wrote most entries (which are dated on the same day), but he also believes every repetition is slightly more corrupted, slightly altered

Which again, goes against the idea that every Elster is a different unit

I don't believe in this theory anyway

There's like hundreds of Elster bodies scattered around, i doubt Adler single handedly took care of all of them one after another, just to get stabbed in the eye by a single knees shaking Isa

They are all the same elster, there is just a body left behind whenever she dies. Adler killed all the ones in the elevator shaft but the ones in nowhere seem to die from various reasons like tearing themselves apart trying to open the door to penrose, leaving and dieing from exposure, getting shot, etc. special note in particular to the one who destroys herself opening penrose is that the next one that reach's nowhere finds the door half open and with the new reinforced arm from another attempt is able to finish forcing it open, another example of previous cycle's failures helping her current one.

Автор сообщения: Muscarine

Автор сообщения: LSTR-???

Ariane is most likely giving elsters memories to another LSTR unit after she dies

I still don't understand where you guys get that from

Why an actual different, physical LSTR body every time, why not just the same Elster in the same loop, like the movie Triangle for example

I'm more inclined to believe this

I don't think anything supports the existence, in our story, of other Elster units
Even when you die, at which point, unless i'm mistaken, is the only time you get to see Elster's serial number, it's always LSTR-512

The Penrose Elster

And it's more like a reboot screen than a death screen by the way

I believe there are two elsters, the original old model with the "Iconic" white armor and the elster we play as who has the newer design and neural pattern that is being overwritten like Falke's.

[Muscarine]

Автор сообщения: neo2157

They are all the same elster, there is just a body left behind whenever she dies. Adler killed all the ones in the elevator shaft but the ones in nowhere seem to die from various reasons like tearing themselves apart trying to open the door to penrose, leaving and dieing from exposure, getting shot, etc. special note in particular to the one who destroys herself opening penrose is that the next one that reach's nowhere finds the door half open and with the new reinforced arm from another attempt is able to finish forcing it open, another example of previous cycle's failures helping her current one.

But...

That's not how it works

You're looking at it as a simple linear addition of cycles

There's already an Elster body inside the Penrose, how do you explain that if they're all a succession of different bodies slowly nibbling at the objective until one makes it through

It's not an actual Penrose which somehow crash landed under the mine

This is all just metaphoric

[Nuggmet]

Автор сообщения: Muscarine

Автор сообщения: neo2157

They are all the same elster, there is just a body left behind whenever she dies. Adler killed all the ones in the elevator shaft but the ones in nowhere seem to die from various reasons like tearing themselves apart trying to open the door to penrose, leaving and dieing from exposure, getting shot, etc. special note in particular to the one who destroys herself opening penrose is that the next one that reach's nowhere finds the door half open and with the new reinforced arm from another attempt is able to finish forcing it open, another example of previous cycle's failures helping her current one.

But...

That's not how it works

You're looking at it as a simple linear addition of cycles

There's already an Elster body inside the Penrose, how do you explain that if they're all a succession of different bodies slowly nibbling at the objective until one makes it through

It's not an actual Penrose which somehow crash landed under the mine

This is all just metaphoric

If this is going with the idea that the entire game is happening within ariane/elsters dying minds then yes you would be correct, its the same elster, just somehow someway, more and more elsters are coming back, i suppose they just appear in sierpenski at the mirrior, the start of the cycle.

[neo2157]

Автор сообщения: Muscarine

Автор сообщения: LSTR-???

Ariane is most likely giving elsters memories to another LSTR unit after she dies

I still don't understand where you guys get that from

Why an actual different, physical LSTR body every time, why not just the same Elster in the same loop, like the movie Triangle for example

I'm more inclined to believe this

I don't think anything supports the existence, in our story, of other Elster units
Even when you die, at which point, unless i'm mistaken, is the only time you get to see Elster's serial number, it's always LSTR-512

The Penrose Elster

And it's more like a reboot screen than a death screen by the way

There are two elsters, the Older model with the white armor and venitian neural pattern that crashed on the orange penrose and the newer model with the neural pattern copied from another unit that crashed on the white one.

Автор сообщения: Muscarine

Автор сообщения: neo2157

They are all the same elster, there is just a body left behind whenever she dies. Adler killed all the ones in the elevator shaft but the ones in nowhere seem to die from various reasons like tearing themselves apart trying to open the door to penrose, leaving and dieing from exposure, getting shot, etc. special note in particular to the one who destroys herself opening penrose is that the next one that reach's nowhere finds the door half open and with the new reinforced arm from another attempt is able to finish forcing it open, another example of previous cycle's failures helping her current one.

But...

That's not how it works

You're looking at it as a simple linear addition of cycles

There's already an Elster body inside the Penrose, how do you explain that if they're all a succession of different bodies slowly nibbling at the objective until one makes it through

It's not an actual Penrose which somehow crash landed under the mine

This is all just metaphoric

The one inside Penrose I don't think is one of the cycles, Elster recognizes it as herself and refers to it as "I", i think its more of a placeholder memory that she was suffering to much from radiation sickness to complete her promise. (also being a newer model elster she projects it as one rather then the older model.) Kinda like how she manifests items that should not exist like the Gold key. (fun fact if you inspect it elster makes mention that it feels not of this world. I assume reality broke down so much the actual gold key ceased to exist or is in some room blocked by flesh tumors.)

[Muscarine]

I'm not referring to the ending orange version Elster, most likely the only one who's real btw

I'm referring to DAS ENDE white armor Elster, who's already inside the Penrose, next to the cryopod

Exactly the same Elster YOU are in the endings

This Elster is already inside, implying the cycle has already been completed, but more importantly regarding our conversation, that means we're not opening the Penrose for the first time "because another Elster already damaged the door"

That's not how any of this works

As far as i know you're also misremembering the sequence of events, Elster repairs her arms with that same Elster, the one inside the Penrose, she doesn't repair her arm before opening the hatch

Elster takes the white armor, from herself, and brings it to another ending, and so on, and so on

And i don't think there are any reference regarding Elster suffering from radiations, hence why she's trying to fix the reactor with her feet deep in radiated water

She shuts down because it's the end of her lifespan, as implied in the official documents, and that happens to her before she kills Ariane, probably because she just didn't want to let her go and kept trying to fix the Penrose until it was too late

The entire idea is that she tries to wake up one last time, for Ariane

These are literally the game's first words

[Nuggmet]

Автор сообщения: Muscarine

And i don't think there are any reference regarding Elster suffering from radiations

There is, if you press on Elsters body in the penrose, she says "Eventually i fell ill too, i did my best to keep the reactor running, it had to end this way" or something like that, i just know she confirms herself to have gotten sick as well.

Here's what im talking about
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2887500141

[neo2157]

Автор сообщения: Muscarine

I'm not referring to the ending orange version Elster, most likely the only one who's real btw

I'm referring to DAS ENDE white armor Elster, who's already inside the Penrose, next to the cryopod

Exactly the same Elster YOU are in the endings

This Elster is already inside, implying the cycle has already been completed, but more importantly regarding our conversation, that means we're not opening the Penrose for the first time "because another Elster already damaged the door"

That's not how any of this works

As far as i know you're also misremembering the sequence of events, Elster repairs her arms with that same Elster, the one inside the Penrose, she doesn't repair her arm before opening the hatch

Elster takes the white armor, from herself, and brings it to another ending, and so on, and so on

And i don't think there are any reference regarding Elster suffering from radiations, hence why she's trying to fix the reactor with her feet deep in radiated water

She shuts down because it's the end of her lifespan, as implied in the official documents, and that happens to her before she kills Ariane, probably because she just didn't want to let her go and kept trying to fix the Penrose until it was too late

The entire idea is that she tries to wake up one last time, for Ariane

These are literally the game's first words

Its not the same penrose, in DAS ENDE Elster very clearly die's and a new cycle begins so its back to the penrose crashed in the snow, this time though things are very different as you see elster injured dragging herself inside, reality is in way worse shape then the previous time as evidenced by the OG elster being inside and a cryo pod full of cancer. Not sure if you've seen the leave ending but it gives you a pretty good view of the orange penrose being stuck in mud rather then snow. eventually you make your way to nowhere again and find the orange penrose's door half forced open from the last cycle. (the side that is half open is also the same side of elsters body that her arm breaks off causing her to fall to her death so this would have had to happen linearly to work.)

Автор сообщения: LSTR-???

Автор сообщения: Muscarine

And i don't think there are any reference regarding Elster suffering from radiations

There is, if you press on Elsters body in the penrose, she says "Eventually i fell ill too, i did my best to keep the reactor running, it had to end this way" or something like that, i just know she confirms herself to have gotten sick as well.

Here's what im talking about
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2887500141

Of particular note is elster doesn't acknowledge she died of the radiation, my own theory is that she put ariane into cryo and changed coarse to the nearest planet which I assume was were the mining colony was at and they crashlanded. I don't think after they recieved that last message that they decided to continue the doomed mission of finding another planet particularly with Elsters Replicant persona completely degraded via doing all the things the note said not to do so she definately abandons her post, (You can actually see two Replicants in the mines do this, a Star and Eule abandon their post's and setup defences with monofilament wire, the star says she remember her gestalt name and they are clearly in a relationship with eachother.) message was sent cycle 3000 and ariane's last journal entries appear almost cycle 6000 so plenty enough time to reverse course.

This theory also adds credibility to not being able to fulfill the promise, if they were just going to continue drifting aimlessly in space there would be no reason not to kill ariane.

[Muscarine]

Автор сообщения: neo2157

Its not the same penrose, in DAS ENDE Elster very clearly die's and a new cycle begins so its back to the penrose crashed in the snow, this time though things are very different as you see elster injured dragging herself inside, reality is in way worse shape then the previous time as evidenced by the OG elster being inside and a cryo pod full of cancer. Not sure if you've seen the leave ending but it gives you a pretty good view of the orange penrose being stuck in mud rather then snow. eventually you make your way to nowhere again and find the orange penrose's door half forced open from the last cycle. (the side that is half open is also the same side of elsters body that her arm breaks off causing her to fall to her death so this would have had to happen linearly to work.)

But it's the same Elster

You're confusing the change of scenery with a change of character

That hatch simply refers to getting closer to the truth, kinda like the three seals on the book

This is why i'm telling you it's all visions of the mind, Snow Penrose or Red Penrose, they don't actually exist
We're not changing character, it's still the same Elster missing an arm, and she does open the Penrose, but it's only symbolic of her will to continue

And we're just talking in circles about one scene but there's so much more

There's a high probability none of the Replika other than Elster are real models
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2887508635
This doodle from Ariane you find in what is possibly the only real memory / scene of the entire game, and it suggests Kolibris are just an Ariane fantasy

I guess we can assume Elster still fell to radiations, i personally just understood she fell ill as in, she basically ran out of batteries

And another thing about your theory on multiple Replika
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2887508677
Why would Elster need hundreds of bodies to advance, when Adler knows and confirms he is looping ?
If we follow your reasoning, that means there's also hundreds of Adler units, somewhere

[Nuggmet]

Автор сообщения: Muscarine

Автор сообщения: neo2157

Its not the same penrose, in DAS ENDE Elster very clearly die's and a new cycle begins so its back to the penrose crashed in the snow, this time though things are very different as you see elster injured dragging herself inside, reality is in way worse shape then the previous time as evidenced by the OG elster being inside and a cryo pod full of cancer. Not sure if you've seen the leave ending but it gives you a pretty good view of the orange penrose being stuck in mud rather then snow. eventually you make your way to nowhere again and find the orange penrose's door half forced open from the last cycle. (the side that is half open is also the same side of elsters body that her arm breaks off causing her to fall to her death so this would have had to happen linearly to work.)

But it's the same Elster

You're confusing the change of scenery with a change of character

That hatch simply refers to getting closer to the truth, kinda like the three seals on the book

This is why i'm telling you it's all visions of the mind, Snow Penrose or Red Penrose, they don't actually exist
We're not changing character, it's still the same Elster missing an arm, and she does open the Penrose, but it's only symbolic of her will to continue

And we're just talking in circles about one scene but there's so much more

There's a high probability none of the Replika other than Elster are real models
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2887508635
This doodle from Ariane you find in what is possibly the only real memory / scene of the entire game, and it suggests Kolibris are just an Ariane fantasy

I guess we can assume Elster still fell to radiations, i personally just understood she fell ill as in, she basically ran out of batteries

And another thing about your theory on multiple Replika
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2887508677
Why would Elster need hundreds of bodies to advance, when Adler knows and confirms he is looping ?
If we follow your reasoning, that means there's also hundreds of Adler units, somewhere

I dont think the kolibris are just her imagination, we can find somewhere that their are protektor units on rotfront (forgive me i cant find the exact document) so their is definitely more replika units other then LSTRs, maybe kolibris arent real and it could be a set line of replikas, but the running theory is ariane likes kolibris and is fond of them hence the little doodle and funny name, i dunno though, i dont really have an answer for this myself.

Regarding the ADLR question, he really wouldnt, other then maybe the fact we dont see any ADLR units is we dont see Adler die, therefore there would be no bodies, the cycle would just put him back in sierpenski wherever he starts off at, and thats the one thing i dont know, just WHERE does the cycle start? When the penrose 512 first launches? crashes? when we look into the mirror in the mines? from what it looks like the loop/cycle gets more and more distorted with each cycle EG, Cancerous fleshy blobs, replikas falling Ill, Things being destroyed and out of place, even nowhere dosent line up in reality.

[Muscarine]

So you can imagine Adler just loops without the need for a new body, but somehow Elster can't ?
That's weird

I know i might be creating some confusion but just to be clear again, i don't deny the Signalis universe exists and there are other Replika models "in the real world", i'm saying the world we do see is not real, including Sierpinski and its Replikas, it's all Ariane fabrications - hence the doodle

I think just waving that off under the assumption that Ariane finds them cute is a bit cheap, plus this piece of evidence is somewhat hidden
The green head thing even resembles the corrupted Kolibri version rather than the cute human version

For the beginning of cycle that depends on what you mean

There's this word play right at the beginning of the game
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2885590085
To me that puts the start of the cycles after Elster shuts down, and either her "systems" still try to wake her up one last time, or Ariane communicates with her through bioresonance and tries to wake her up

But there's also this brief flash before entering Nowhere
https://i.imgur.com/UkZ8A4i.jpg
Zyklus is a musical composition, with all involved instruments organised in circle around the percussionist, and (in theory) no predefined starting point

Anyway i gotta sleep, thanks for the interesting conversation though

edit - I need to add one last thing though, i do believe the Elster bodies we see outside the red plane Penrose are the LEAVE ending Elsters
As opposed to white armored Elster next to the cryopod who is the MEMORY/PROMISE Elster
Also, she doesn't get shot, idk who came up with that but she just gets shocked by the messages

In my opinion the elevator filled with Elster bodies isn't due to Adler, it's due to the Mynah boss fight right before, for which probably the devs assumed players would die often, so in a way, another ending
There's another rather hidden Elster body right under the iron circle in the last area, it's practically impossible to see without the flashlight, this one symbolizes attempting to grab that piece by stepping on the roof thingy (forgot the name i'm not english) and collapsing in the process, the game prevents you from doing so

[neo2157]

In regards to Adler we don't really see him ever die, or any of the other NPC's outside of ISA who obviously isn't a real person since you find out in rotfront she and her sister were dead before Ariane even boards the penrose, on top of that the loops seems to be focused on Elster so maybe she's the only one who's remains stay intact every new cycle which I assume starts anew the second she dies.

and yes Elster does get shot in nowhere, there is a very badly distorted scene that you can see something impact her arm and in the next there is blood spatter behind her, I have no idea who did this as non of the mutated replicants use firearms and Adler refuses to actually enter nowhere. later on this same arm tears off when trying to open the penrose.

[Mute]

Автор сообщения: neo2157

In regards to Adler we don't really see him ever die, or any of the other NPC's outside of ISA who obviously isn't a real person since you find out in rotfront she and her sister were dead before Ariane even boards the penrose, on top of that the loops seems to be focused on Elster so maybe she's the only one who's remains stay intact every new cycle which I assume starts anew the second she dies.

and yes Elster does get shot in nowhere, there is a very badly distorted scene that you can see something impact her arm and in the next there is blood spatter behind her, I have no idea who did this as non of the mutated replicants use firearms and Adler refuses to actually enter nowhere. later on this same arm tears off when trying to open the penrose.

Bioresonance, in some way, possibly related to Eslter's memory of Ariane or smth. Corrupted Kolibris damage you if you get too close to them, with bioresonance.

[neo2157]

Автор сообщения: Mute

Автор сообщения: neo2157

In regards to Adler we don't really see him ever die, or any of the other NPC's outside of ISA who obviously isn't a real person since you find out in rotfront she and her sister were dead before Ariane even boards the penrose, on top of that the loops seems to be focused on Elster so maybe she's the only one who's remains stay intact every new cycle which I assume starts anew the second she dies.

and yes Elster does get shot in nowhere, there is a very badly distorted scene that you can see something impact her arm and in the next there is blood spatter behind her, I have no idea who did this as non of the mutated replicants use firearms and Adler refuses to actually enter nowhere. later on this same arm tears off when trying to open the penrose.

Bioresonance, in some way, possibly related to Eslter's memory of Ariane or smth. Corrupted Kolibris damage you if you get too close to them, with bioresonance.

The only character I know if that has a ranged bioresonance attack is Falke, now that I think about it wasn't there a weird scene transition showing Falke standing above adler while injured after Elster enters nowhere? I assumed this was a flashback but now ill have to rewatch that scene, if Adler has a knife lodged in his eye dureing it then that opens the possibility falke woke up and attacked Elster in nowhere before she reach's the penrose.

Edit: Just rewatched the scene, its up for a split second after elster gets attacked and while due to the low poly nature of the game its impossible to see if there is a knife in adler's eye he is clearly in the exact same position elster last saw him in. there are some other interesting scenes to you would miss unless you watch it frame by frame like the same ship Elster boards leaving the island of the dead painting and one of elster covering an eye injury BUT in her new models black armor plate and one of those obelisk things in nowhere clearly in the background, due to the vague nature of the game it isn't entirely clear but i think the signs do point towards Elster getting into a fight with Falke in nowhere leaving her damaged to the point she actually falls apart from trying to force the penrose door open.