Finished the game - story questions

[Useless]

I finished the game on Ward path - initially I had planned to do a couple runs so just picked them first, but 60 hours later I don't have it in me. I feel like I've missed big chunks of the story somewhere, but I talked to everyone about everything I could and did the side missions I could find, etc.

1) Boss fights - these were terrible. I had to spend like an hour on Strelok because any time I aimed he's vanish. Scar wasn't horrible but wasn't fun either. And the slog after that, with Granite squad, just sucked all the fun out.

2) What the heck is Agatha? I'm assuming some type of C-consciousness construct, but the game never addressees it aside from mentioning Skiff can't smell her cigarette, despite him smoking it.

3) The chip you lugged from the shining zone...what even was it? Why would the shining zone chip be used to access the C-suite at the end of the game?

4) Ward ending is...controlling the zone? Or turning it off? I wasn't really clear on that.

5) I wondered the entire game why Skiff was so adamant about doing any of the story stuff, since he supposedly was just in it for money, and grabbing some anomalies then dipping would have set him up pretty well. I'm assuming from the TV footage at the end that the game is saying he was an agent the whole time?

Can't really say I was surprised by that, since the game hit you over the head with that time and again. But does that change if you go down a different path?

But aren't agents supposed to have the stalker tattoo? Wouldn't the game have mentioned it if Skiff did? They made a huge deal about it halfway through.

6) What is a 'mediator'? The game just threw that out, when they were explaining that colonel woundsface was going to sacrifice himself, but never explained what it did or why

7) What is 'class 5 psi-protection' and why/how did it involve 'sacrificing all his men'? The game just seemed to throw that out and let the voice actor go nuts, but I don't get the meaning. I also don't get why it would be required for his new job, or why it wasn't required for the scientists who boiled themselves.

8) What was up with the whole 'subtle matter' thing? Did I just miss out on the game exploring that since I went ward? But it was an entire cut scene after that stupid boss fight with the guy who clones himself, and then another talk with Strider, but nothing before or after that.

[Mr. Fusion]

#1 Boss fights, uhh, yea I hate those. Not there yet, but I know I won't enjoy them one bit.

#2 Like many other things, it feels the question if Agatha is real or not is deliberately left vague. The main issue with a story element like this is that a recurring theme is the C-Con being able to induce any kind of illusion, anywhere, at any time... which then undermines literally everything you have experienced. Was this or that real at all, or just an illusion? Since you can't know, ultimately you have no idea what in fact did happen, or if any of the events did happen at all... And since you can't be sure what was real and what wasn't, did any of it mean anything at all?

#4 The Zone was created and maintained by the "anomalous energy" that was channeled in by the Generators. By taking control of them, the Board (represented by Agatha, regardless if she was real or not) could alter it so that the Zone itself disappeared, but the energy could be used. The Zone was "turned off", but they controlled the energy that created it, and also created a link to the noosphere that allowed them to tap into the consciousness of pretty much anyone who lives or ever lived.

#5 That's another fairly weak point of the story. Supposedly Skif did all this just because he wanted someone to pay for blowing up his apartment, and in this case, Agatha promised him a new home if he sticks with the Ward and SIRCAA. Yes, he could have made a tidy sum from just going full stalker, but it's not likely that he would have made nowhere near enough to buy a house.
Supposedly (but see #2, plus the reframing of agents) Skif never have been in the Zone before so there should have been no way for him to have been a stalker who got captured and reprogrammed by the C-Consciousness. Plus, the Ward/SIRCAA ending is not in the interest of the C-Consciousness, who were the ones making the agents for their own purpose (which was, more or less, to stay in control of the Zone as it existed), not the Board.

#6 I can't tell if this information is available on the path that leads to this ending, but basically a mediator is a person who has a physical body whose consciousness is connected to the noosphere via the OCT-A pod tech, because this was found to be the only feasible long term way to transfer information between the noosphere and the physical world.

#7 Again not sure if this info was supposed to be found on this prticular path. SIRCAA was secretly experimenting on Ward personnel to develop high psy-immuinty levels by exposing them to psy-radiaton as part of their after action decontaminatination and testing procedure to find an exposure type that can permanently increase resistance. Most of the time this resulted in mental instability to various degree (if it was detected in time, they removed that particular person from the tests, if not, they eventually went insane), but eventually they got to the point where they could reinforce Korshunov to level 5, which meant the person can survive even the emissions that would normally fry the human brain, and completely resist lesser psy-sources such as controllers.

#8 Yes, Subtle Matter is essentially the Scar ending, and you get most of the explanation from Scar if you side with him from early on. In short: supposedly everyone who ever lived and lives leaves a mental "echo" behind in the noosphere after their physical body perishes. This is called the Subtle World. The anomalous energy that created the Zone can also manifest this Subtle World through something called Subtle Matter, and this whole process, the Shining, would "invert" the Zone from the current "dark" version to a "shining" version, an idyllic and peaceful world where everyone who died in the Zone is resurrected in a physical form made of Subtle Matter. And further on, it supposedly would mean that people are basically immortal and they can come back to the real word from their noosphere echoes through Subtle Matter.

[Geilsaft Joe]

Don't bother too much. They want to make Stalker 3 and Stalker Universe and Stalker The definite extended Multiverse etc. so it's deliberatly about nothing really. And you will never really know what's going on and who's actually bullshitting you. All ends are vague.
I stopped thinking too hard about the story when I first entered Noontide base and talked to Dunby while Faust stood in the background arguing with him and they have a make shift monolith standing around.
When it came up that Faust is preaching to his fellow ex-Monolith friends I was like: "OK, can we just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ shoot him now". Every since the quest after the Sircaa mission I wanted to just shoot everyone in the face for being stupid.