Story Discussion: What's the deal with Faust? All the spoilers.

[Nahkuri]

Tl;dr: what did Faust want?

Foreword: Spoil everything if you like. Stalker 2's story is driven by characters. As it is people with a variety of motives telling the story to you, you don't get the truth. You get what they perceive to be the truth, or half-truths, or lies. Therefore it seems to me that a full picture requires multiple playthroughs. Until the game's development is actually finished, I'm good with the one. So Spoil away.

So I played through the game once, giving the finger both to the Ward and the Spark, and sided with Strelok. Who I guess became the Monolith of everyone starving to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ death with his genious complete isolation plan. I then watched the Skif ending in youtube, where it is revealed that the Doctor was good old sneaky Faust all along. This was kinda cool, because I liked Faust as a villain. Except for one thing: what the ♥♥♥♥ was he on about?

First he is introduced as a raving extremist priest kinda character within the Noontide. A person who wants them to go back to being the very best servants of the Monolith. And he apparently got back the ability to hear them, according to the flashbacks you listen to in the swamp. Ok, so far so understandable. We have a motive. Not long after, he got what he wanted. SIRCAA does an oopsydaisy, and the Monolith is back. Or a ghostly echo of it. Noontide is back to being Terminator zombies once again anyhow, with a lucid Faust leading them. I'm still on the trail.

Then you attack Duga. I did so with Spark. We bombed the ♥♥♥♥ out of the thing, and I seemingly killed Faust. Who then teleported me on top of the giant radar, and then did a silent re-enactment of LONG LIVE THE KING. After a particularly sweary save reload, he gave me an esoteric speech and a weird vision. Then he was seemingly dead. Ok, big bad gone. I guess the Monolith also were just a random threat after that too, without any clear motive.

Now: I know now that he started masquerading as the Doctor, but I can't figure out why. If the Skif ending has the Zone spreading all over, I guess that is a motive. Why go about it in such a roundabout way, though? How is Skif entering the capsule a surefire way for that to happen?

Oh, and is the Skif ending even the Zone spreading all over? What if it is just a flashback to the second caribbean experiment that lead to his precious little studio apartment/drunk training center being blown to bits?

I don't know, I'm confused. What are your thoughts?

[Vi'ir Jul K'hane]

It is not a strong story like the prior series.

The F.E.A.R. storyline is a more complex version of the Controller Project that created Faust. This is the same boss fight as Faust:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG7nJgetiSo

[Nahkuri]

Originally posted by Vi'ir Jul K'hane:

It is not a strong story like the prior series.

Eh, I don't know. I've not played CS, but it definitely feels stronger and deeper than SoC and CoP.

[Vi'ir Jul K'hane]

Originally posted by Nahkuri:

Originally posted by Vi'ir Jul K'hane:

It is not a strong story like the prior series.

Eh, I don't know. I've not played CS, but it definitely feels stronger and deeper than SoC and CoP.

Much of what is going on in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was already established in the first series and continuously regurgitated to address players who did not play the first series. The Shining Zone; The Monolith being a trap; The C-Consciousness 'imprint' is still alive; etc. The fact that the Monolithians reactivate and go right back to the first series gameplay is monotonous. You have Spark and the Ward taking up the same conflict Duty and Freedom had. Strelok still has the same ideals and wants to do the same thing he did previously. The super soldier 'Faust' is just a rip off of other MK Ultra type mind control stories. If you know about this stuff then the Faust storyline is anti-climactic and rather boring. Shadow of Chernobyl brought a unique and suspenseful story that left you curious, hungry and anxious that a bloodsucker or controller would pop out. Now bloodsuckers are everywhere and there is no suspense when they appear. You just jump on a car or box and kill the three or four that spawned 30m from you. It takes the horror aspect away from the game.

[Nahkuri]

Originally posted by Vi'ir Jul K'hane:

Originally posted by Nahkuri:

Eh, I don't know. I've not played CS, but it definitely feels stronger and deeper than SoC and CoP.

Much of what is going on in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was already established in the first series and continuously regurgitated to address players who did not play the first series. The Shining Zone; The Monolith being a trap; The C-Consciousness 'imprint' is still alive; etc. The fact that the Monolithians reactivate and go right back to the first series gameplay is monotonous. You have Spark and the Ward taking up the same conflict Duty and Freedom had. Strelok still has the same ideals and wants to do the same thing he did previously. The super soldier 'Faust' is just a rip off of other MK Ultra type mind control stories. If you know about this stuff then the Faust storyline is anti-climactic and rather boring. Shadow of Chernobyl brought a unique and suspenseful story that left you curious, hungry and anxious that a bloodsucker or controller would pop out. Now bloodsuckers are everywhere and there is no suspense when they appear. You just jump on a car or box and kill the three or four that spawned 30m from you. It takes the horror aspect away from the game.

While I agree that there is a lot of obvious retreading of established themes, this feels more like a "old yay! New boo!" kind of rant rather than a proper critique. For instance, was Strelok obsessive about protecting the zone before? COP started crashing on me when trying to return to Pripyat in the last part of the game, so I never finished it, but I understand that at the end he offered himself up as an advisor on the scientific research of the zone. Not as an unyielding protector of the sanctity of it.

[Vi'ir Jul K'hane]

Originally posted by Nahkuri:

Originally posted by Vi'ir Jul K'hane:

Much of what is going on in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was already established in the first series and continuously regurgitated to address players who did not play the first series. The Shining Zone; The Monolith being a trap; The C-Consciousness 'imprint' is still alive; etc. The fact that the Monolithians reactivate and go right back to the first series gameplay is monotonous. You have Spark and the Ward taking up the same conflict Duty and Freedom had. Strelok still has the same ideals and wants to do the same thing he did previously. The super soldier 'Faust' is just a rip off of other MK Ultra type mind control stories. If you know about this stuff then the Faust storyline is anti-climactic and rather boring. Shadow of Chernobyl brought a unique and suspenseful story that left you curious, hungry and anxious that a bloodsucker or controller would pop out. Now bloodsuckers are everywhere and there is no suspense when they appear. You just jump on a car or box and kill the three or four that spawned 30m from you. It takes the horror aspect away from the game.

While I agree that there is a lot of obvious retreading of established themes, this feels more like a "old yay! New boo!" kind of rant rather than a proper critique. For instance, was Strelok obsessive about protecting the zone before? COP started crashing on me when trying to return to Pripyat in the last part of the game, so I never finished it, but I understand that at the end he offered himself up as an advisor on the scientific research of the zone. Not as an unyielding protector of the sanctity of it.

I explained how the storyline is repetitive of the first series with Faust as a F.E.A.R. game boss; and that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 lacks new or otherwise unpredictable gameplay. You can interpret what I'm posting however you want if it helps you sleep better at night.

Yes, Strelok wanted to kill the C-Consciousness to stop it's influence from reaching the rest of the world and keep The Zone isolated. It is the final ending of Shadow of Chernobyl. In Clear Sky you play as Scar disabling Streloks psionic shielding before he enters CNPP; which starts the events of Shadow of Chernobyl. In Call of Pripyat Strelok has become a legend and is hunted forcing him to flee the Zone. After the second Caribbean Experiment Strelok returns to the Zone to continue his work in Heart of Chernobyl. He shares the similar belief with the Ward that the mysteries of the Zone are actually mirages meant to confuse and mislead those attempting to get close to the C-Consciousness or information relating to their experiments.

The Zone is a rat trap designed by the scientists of the C-Consciousness.

[Nahkuri]

I've not played any of the FEAR games so I can't comment. STALKER 2 to me feels like not at all a repeat of SoC or CoP, even if it treads similar thematic paths at times. You've not at all offered anything to my initial question.

It could very well be that my enjoyment of STALKER 2 is due to me being a witless monkey who enjoys bashing rocks together. You've not offered any explanation why rock make funny sound, though. You've just come in to explain why the rocks completely suck as toys. That is not the attitude of a pleasant person.

[Vi'ir Jul K'hane]

Originally posted by Nahkuri:

I've not played any of the FEAR games so I can't comment. STALKER 2 to me feels like not at all a repeat of SoC or CoP, even if it treads similar thematic paths at times. You've not at all offered anything to my initial question.

It could very well be that my enjoyment of STALKER 2 is due to me being a witless monkey who enjoys bashing rocks together. You've not offered any explanation why rock make funny sound, though. You've just come in to explain why the rocks completely suck as toys. That is not the attitude of a pleasant person.

Ya, as you stated at the end of your OP 'you're confused.'

Originally posted by Nahkuri:

I don't know, I'm confused. What are your thoughts?

[Nahkuri]

For a fact, and about many things that fill my small mind with wonder. Such as what makes you act so miserably towards random people online. Well, whatever is causing it, I hope you'll be rid of it sooner than later, and that you'll have an enjoyable weekend.

[Othobrithol]

I love the FEAR series as well, and while they are in the same genre and share similar themes, I don't agree Faust is some sort of carbon copy of our dear older brother from FEAR.

Reading up on the actual philosophical underpinnings of the Noosphere makes a lot of the subtlety more apparent ,imho. Every view point expressed by a major character in the story is actually an accurate, if only partial, explanation of what is going on.


Faust, in many guises, has sort of been protecting the zone by manipulating its enemies. I don't think Faust was ever an actual monolithian - he just saw the big picture due to his unique nature. Better the zone use them as soldiers than just leave them as zombies.

As the Doctor, he did his best to constrain Strelok. He also willingly plays his role in shaping Skif. I also think he's Dr. Newman and Agatha (with their scene foreshadowing the one with the Dr and Strider).

Skif needs to be gotten into the right mental space, rejecting 3 alternate paths that don't lead to the desired outcome, so that when he steps into the pod he finishes the little boot strap paradox that the zone is playing. And part of that is to be so untrusting as to not take the hand of enemy when offered. Or maybe he just wouldn't respect you if you did.

Both the intro and Skif's ending show the calendar - 2021. It's the same event. But what changed? First the anomaly - it was fire, now it's a teleportation/temporal bubble. But also the artifact - it carries new instructions. Instructions that then lead to the experiment that expands the zone. Who knows how many repetitions it took? But eventually the loop closed and the essential changes were made to the artifact such that it worked.