"Understanding" ending theories? (SPOILERS).

[Fracture94]

I really want to know more about this. I obviously used a guide to obtain it, but there is something that really intrigues me: there seems to be a hidden language based on the colours blue, red and purple, and what we are doing at the end of the game is comunicating with those giant creatures by using color sequences. Most people think that you have to repeat what they are doing, simon says style, but apparently that isn't the case. What does that final conversation means? How do you even find what each colour means? Perhaps learning from the tiny balls you can rescure along the way? So many questions...

[Hunter Bidens Laptop.]

I just read online, the hints are the in the colours the smaller helpful balls use as you find/help them. I noticed it but not enough to see value in it till I read it up.

[Williander]

I really, REALLY loved the final conversation. It's a dialogue about the future of mankind and aliens, where Blue means Peace/Submission, Red means War/Assimilation and Purple means Power. It is basically a back and forth dialogue about who has more power and what they want to do with it. My favorite is how it's depicted in the Family First ending, where aliens say Blue, Blue, Red, which basically means "accept your defeat or there will be violence", to which the player answers Blue, Blue, Blue, a complete surrender, followed by the player character literally giving away their abilities and life in order for their family to live. The Understanding ending features a wonderful complex dialogue about the power balance, where humanity proves to be stronger than the alien menace.

[Pink Ranger]

I got confused even before that - who actually were those colored dudes? What were those "flashbacks" in the pods, of the children? What actually happens from after we get launched from the cannon thing?

[Williander]

From what I understand, the Blue and Red dudes (as well as the Purple one) are a part of army research program dedicated to controlling the aliens. Before dying, Blue and Red give their powers to us, and then the army finds us and send us (and Purple) to the alien mothership as humanity's best chance of survival. Everything after the cannon happens inside the mothership, where the aliens try to soothe us with images of our loved ones, and a some kind of matrix where assimilated humanity will reside from now on.

[Spiegel]

Originally posted by Williander:

From what I understand, the Blue and Red dudes (as well as the Purple one) are a part of army research program dedicated to controlling the aliens. Before dying, Blue and Red give their powers to us, and then the army finds us and send us (and Purple) to the alien mothership as humanity's best chance of survival. Everything after the cannon happens inside the mothership, where the aliens try to soothe us with images of our loved ones, and a some kind of matrix where assimilated humanity will reside from now on.

Thats a good interpretation of the story and probably the correct one. The problem seems to be how they translated that into the game. Its way to abstract from what most players are used to. Especially since the gameplay is so weak there is not much incentive to even bother understanding whats going on. Atleast thats how it is for me. I think it would have worked better as an short animation movie.

[Williander]

I'll add my understanding (pun intended) of the final dialogue, just because I really can't stop thinking about it:

1.
A: Blue, Red, Blue - there was your peace, and there we came with a war, but now we offer peace.
H: Blue, Red, Blue - we agree that now is the time of peace. (This is why this is the first part of the dialogue, and why the aliens want us to repeat it - so that we understand each other and start negotiations).

2.
A: Blue, Blue, Red - surrender to us, or there will be violence.
H: Blue, Blue, Blue, Purple, Purple, Purple - you got it wrong, it is us who offer peace, because we have power now.

3.
A: Blue, Blue, Blue, Blue, Purple, Purple - surrender, because we have power (they sound unsure of their power, there's less of it then they expected)
H: Blue, Blue, Blue, Red, Purple, Purple - again, we offer peace, but we are not afraid of the war and we will be a powerful enemy.

4.
A: Purple, Purple, Purple, Red, Purple, Purple, Red, Red, Red - we have the power, and we will destroy you (they sound nearly hysteric, too verbose, too unsure, long pauses between "words")
H: Purple, Purple, Purple, Blue, Purple, Purple - from a position of pure power, we offer you peace.


What I really love about it, is that our last answer is basically the last possible option before starting a war. Adding Red to it sounds hysteric, adding Blue is pointless, and pure Purple is literally the War of the Worlds ending.

[Williander]

Originally posted by Socrates:

I still haven't wrapped the plot in my head. So, does anyone have thoughts about:
1. Why alien aircrafts attacked "sky rods" at the beginning if they're essentially same side? Why "red" guy helps us with the alien centipede creatures? And "purple" lady covers our retreat to church?
2. Why "blue", "red" and "purple" aliens gave their power to us?
3. What aliens are doing at the sunset sequence? Celebrating their victory?
4. Basically, what's the short summary of the story? "Aliens tried to destroy humanity by putting everyone into simulation, but changed their mind midway due to player actions"?

1. I don't think Blue, Red and Purple are aliens - they are humanoids with human faces, something that is never attributed to aggressive aliens. I think they are just army soldiers who use alien technology. In the beginning of the game we see them fighting against the invasion, and Blue dies in the process. Why they have access to the alien technology before the invasion is an open question - maybe humans knew about the invasion beforehand, or maybe these three are aliens themselves but disagree with the invasion and support humanity. I don't believe this is answered anywhere in the game, but I like to think of them as humans.
2. Blue and Red were killed in action, but had us nearby to pass their abilities to.
3. What do you mean by the sunset sequence? Is it where Purple meets Red and Blue on a platform? If so, this is Purple meeting their comrades who have passed some part of themselves to the player (and who may be assimilated by aliens by now).
4. Yeah, that's basically it, but there is a counter-offensive from humanity that we're being a part of. In the end we choose how to address the aliens, be it surrender, war or diplomacy.

[Socrates]

Thanks for answer.

Btw, I deleted my post because your post above summarizes plot pretty well and already answers all of my questions, but thanks for detailed explanation!

[Socrates]

Originally posted by Williander:

maybe humans knew about the invasion beforehand

They definetely knew about it - one of the game's sequences is to travel through ruined rock festival, and it has that tiny UFO on it which we use to light the way. Also, many walls in the game have UFO signs on them. I guess people expected aliens arrival in the same manner as Independence Day ("Bring back Elvis").

I guess the aliens are that "programmable matter" itself, so the military research was about controlling them.

Also, I think you're right that blue, purple and red guy are human - their aircraft strongly resembles ordinary human interceptor design with alien technology built on top of it.

[pmle]

Originally posted by Williander:

Originally posted by Socrates:

I still haven't wrapped the plot in my head. So, does anyone have thoughts about:
1. Why alien aircrafts attacked "sky rods" at the beginning if they're essentially same side? Why "red" guy helps us with the alien centipede creatures? And "purple" lady covers our retreat to church?
2. Why "blue", "red" and "purple" aliens gave their power to us?
3. What aliens are doing at the sunset sequence? Celebrating their victory?
4. Basically, what's the short summary of the story? "Aliens tried to destroy humanity by putting everyone into simulation, but changed their mind midway due to player actions"?

1. I don't think Blue, Red and Purple are aliens - they are humanoids with human faces, something that is never attributed to aggressive aliens. I think they are just army soldiers who use alien technology. In the beginning of the game we see them fighting against the invasion, and Blue dies in the process. Why they have access to the alien technology before the invasion is an open question - maybe humans knew about the invasion beforehand, or maybe these three are aliens themselves but disagree with the invasion and support humanity. I don't believe this is answered anywhere in the game, but I like to think of them as humans.
2. Blue and Red were killed in action, but had us nearby to pass their abilities to.
3. What do you mean by the sunset sequence? Is it where Purple meets Red and Blue on a platform? If so, this is Purple meeting their comrades who have passed some part of themselves to the player (and who may be assimilated by aliens by now).
4. Yeah, that's basically it, but there is a counter-offensive from humanity that we're being a part of. In the end we choose how to address the aliens, be it surrender, war or diplomacy.

re: sunset sequence. After the player and Purple crash into the alien mothership, I think Purple was captured and placed into one of the simulation pods. The sunset sequence is the player making their way into Purple's simulation, where Purple dreams of being reunited with Blue and Red over a gorgeous sunset (remember the theory that the pods give its prisoner a happy simulation). After one last collective group hug, Purple accepts that only the player can save humanity, and willingly sacrifices herself by passing on her power in the same way Blue and Red did.

After she passes on her power, you see the player breaking free from a simulation pod. Only at that stage do you have the requisite Purple power to actually free the captured children from their pods.

[[ZSU] Dave247]

I find myself feeling somewhat irritated having finished the game and all of it's five endings. Maybe I'm just not a fan of deliberately obtuse storytelling as I used to be, but this game really rode that line with how much I was willing to tolerate, possibly due to my love of sci-fi.

I feel Limbo works a lot better as it's story is a lot more straightforward in nature compared to this game, where there is just far too many moving parts where using the same formula doesn't work anywhere near as well due to the risk of leaving so much misunderstood and/or unexplained.

Limbo I actually want to put the work in to learn more about the world, where here with Somerville while I still want to know, I could not be bothered trying to figure it out myself lest I run of risk of driving myself insane due to having more questions than answers.

[jespertheend]

I think ‘blue red blue’ just means ‘hello’, you see the tiny balls around the game saying this all the time. For instance, at the beginning of the game near the tractor. When one of the balls joins the others, it says ‘blue red blue’ to which the other balls respond with ‘blue red blue’ also.

A bit later, when you go to the hidden spot in the forest, you see one ball on a rock talking with four others. When you show yourself everyone flees except for one, and it also says ‘blue red blue’

[Flint]

I went through the trouble and recorded all alien balls' interactions, and I still don't understand the language aside from BRB which means 'Hello'. Lol. The "good ending" dialogue is totally inexplicable, how could anyone figure that out is beyond me.

[jespertheend]

So did I, I think I may have found at least some that seem to make sense, but it's possible that I missed some.

This is what I've got so far.

Talking with the balls

At the beginning of the game you can only say BBB, to which the balls always respond with PPP. I think BBB might mean 'me' and PPP 'you' but I'm not sure, BBB could also be 'human' and PPP 'alien'.

At the fence

Right after getting out of your house, you arrive at a ball kicking against a fence. It is saying RPP, which seems to mean 'help' because it is used in similar places as well.
Once you open the fence, it says RPP which means thanks, I think. This is used in several places as well.

Near the tractor

When one of the balls joins the others, they greet each other with BRB.

In the forest on a rock

There's several things happening here.
- First the ball on the rock says BPP, then the others move close to one of the trees
- Then it says BRP, the others start moving in a circle, they keep going until the one on the rock says BBR, which means 'stop' I think, because the balls stop moving in a circle.
- PBBBB, the other balls look at each other and respond with PPP. No idea what this is supposed to be, also note that PBBBB is the only combination I've found that is not in pairs of three.
After that the cycle repeats.

When you show yourself, they all say 'help' (RPP), and then one says 'hi' (BRB)

stuck in a car

At the part with the tents, there is a ball stuck in red car, repeatedly saying 'help' (RPP). Once you release it, it responds with 'thanks' (PRR)

cardboard cutout

After the part with the tents, you see a ball behind a fence circling around a cardboard cutout of a human repeatedly saying BRR. I'm not sure exactly what this means, I think it may be a curse word, but it's hard to tell.
Once you come closer, the ball looks back and forth between you and the cardboard cutout. It then says BBB BPP (me sorry?), it then kicks the cardboard man.

A bit later, before you walk in the tent with one of the enemies with a red light, it says RBB (danger?), and flees.

stuck in toilet

Another where balls are stuck, but this time when you release them they respond with PRR BBB. This might confirm that BBB means human, (thanks human).

That's what I've found so far, let me know if I missed something.

[jespertheend]

Yooo I think I got it