SPOILERS - Story of DS Remake

[Nate]

I didn't read any of the text logs because I didn't think they were interesting, and I didn't follow the story because I was focused on surviving the Ishimura. But it seems there is alot of backstory that leads up to the events of the game. I resorted to a Gamespot youtube video explaining the entire plot from beginning to end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD7fsS6z4go

The Story

In 2214, an alien artefact (dubbed the "marker") is discovered in the Gulf of Mexico by the Sovereign Colonies (predecessor of EarthGov). This marker emanates a signal that can be harvested as a sustainable energy source. The signal also creates hysteria, hallucinations, dementia, and psychosis for everyone within a certain vicinity of the marker. It also reanimates dead tissue which forms into necromorphs who all function in accordance with the will of the Hivemind seeking to gather more dead tissue to increase it's own mass.

Deeming the benefits of sustainable energy worth the risk of a necromorph outbreak, the Sovereign Colonies reverse engineer the marker, create a new one, and send it to a colony on Aegis VII to test it's functionality. Lo and behold, a necromorph outbreak occurs, everyone dies, and the Sovereign Colonies cover up the incident and seal off the system.

Meanwhile back on earth, geophysicist Michael Altman investigates the original black marker and publicises it's existence as well as the government cover up. Altman dies "under mysterious circumstances" and being considered a martyr for a greater cause, the church of Unitology is founded in his name. Unitologists believe that the reanimation and amalgamation of dead tissue into the Hivemind is a form of ascendance otherwise known as "Convergence". They have built Mausoleum ships for believer corpses to send to a marker for a great ascendance in the form of convergence.

In 2508, CEC Executive Warren Eckhardt sends the Ishimura on a planet cracking mission to Aegis VII. However, it turns out that Eckhardt has strong ties to Unitology and is really in search of the marker. As per standard planet cracking protocol, a colony is established on Aegis VII while Captain Mathias focuses on obtaining the marker. As the marker is found and acquired, the colonists and ship crew start experiencing symptoms of hysteria. Kyne and Brennan deduce that the marker is somehow causing the hysteria among the crew. They petition Mathias to increase safety protocol of the mining operation, but Mathias ignores all admonition, singularly focused on getting the marker as quickly as possible treating the crew as expendable. Kyne deems Mathias unfit for duty and attempts to arrest him, but accidentally kills him in the process.

The death of Mathias causes a breakdown in leadership leaving the crew to fend for themselves. Mercer forms a "Pro Marker" faction consisting of Unitologists and people suffering from hysteria caused by the marker. Mercer conducts experiments on his followers to create stronger necromorphs and help himself to achieve ascendance. The remaining crew try to sabotage the ship to prevent Mercer from bringing the marker back to earth. Kyne believes that returning the marker to Aegis VII is the only way to pacify the Hivemind.

The Ishimura sends out a distress beacon and the Kellion is dispatched to investigate. Among the Kellion crew is Kendra Daniels who is really a secret agent for EarthGov and her assignment is to cover up the incident once again by destroying the Ishimura (with the help of the Valor) and burying the marker on some other planet, like before. Everyone underestimates the scale of the problem including Kendra, the Valor, and EarthGov, and everyone dies...... except Isaac.

I'm Confused

• What happened to the original marker and why didn't it cause mass hysteria on earth where it was originally found?
  
• What does the Hivemind really want? Why does returning the marker pacify it? I thought the Hivemind wanted dead flesh to expand its mass and necromorph army. And if that's the case, it would be far more interested in sending the marker to earth where it can acquire more flesh from the enormous human population. The values, interests, and motivations of the marker and the Hivemind are unclear to me.
  
• I assume Mercer was under the influence of the marker when creating innovative new necromorphs. Most victims experience hysteria but a select few, like Mercer, serve more specialised purposes?
  
• Why was Nicole not effected? Assuming suicide wasn't part of the marker's plan? Everyone experiences the marker's influence in different ways? Or some are more naturally resistant to it?

Is all of this really necessary?

I think the story is unnecessarily convoluted. It's really about government, religious, and corporate conspiracies, which isn't scary. I think simplicity in story telling is more effective. The benefit of Dead Space is the feeling of isolation, encountering an unknown entity that humanity has never seen before.

They could've removed most of the backstory and just focused on Aegis VII as humanity's first encounter with the marker. In that scenario, you're truly off marked territory, in a place you're not suppose to be, dealing with a problem you don't understand. It's the unknown that makes fear so effective. Too much is known about the marker, especially if it started on earth, which makes no sense to me. Kendra, Unitology, EarthGov, CEC, and the Valor could all still play a role in the story, but I would reduce it significantly and focus mainly on Isaac trying to survive.

Obviously there's no point changing it now, but those are my thoughts for how I would've done it differently.

[calyxman]

The hivemind seems to have gone rogue against the Marker, so the Marker needs to go back down to the planet and be placed onto its signal-amplifying pedestal so it can give the order to the hivemind to stand down while the Marker injects its blueprints into Isaac's head.
The hivemind wants to start Convergence, but it's doing so inefficiently and doesn't seem to be aware that the original makers of the Marker must be absorbed to begin.

Mercer seemed to be operating out of part insanity, part genius. He was a Unitologist even before, and he IS a doctor, so..

It didn't cause mass hysteria because Michael Altman in fact destroyed the Marker. He was immune to the Marker's signal and destroyed it before it could begin its' full rampage on Earth. He was initially treated as a prophet by the deranged crew excavating the Marker until he objected to all of the insane things they were saying and doing. So they killed him by locking him into an arena-like room with a makeshift spoon shiv and a Brute made out of his own crew.

Nicole was affected - in the comic detailing her story, she kept seeing necromorphs where there were none. Presumably, her suicide was slightly steered by the Marker. Oh, did you know she used up all the medpacks healing people and to make a cure for the necromorph outbreak she needed one more medpack?

The horror of Dead Space is the body horror and the implications of the Marker signal. Isaac could be killing innocent humans, for example.
Oh, did you hear about the Convergence Events and the Brethren Moons of 2 and 3?
Fun stuff.

Edit: Also, Kendra took the Marker which may have cut the Hivemind off from the Marker - explaining the second boss fight - and returning it to its mindless slaughter.

[Nate]

Originally posted by Janitor:

The hivemind seems to have gone rogue against the Marker, so the Marker needs to go back down to the planet and be placed onto its signal-amplifying pedestal so it can give the order to the hivemind to stand down while the Marker injects its blueprints into Isaac's head.
The hivemind wants to start Convergence, but it's doing so inefficiently and doesn't seem to be aware that the original makers of the Marker must be absorbed to begin.

Mercer seemed to be operating out of part insanity, part genius. He was a Unitologist even before, and he IS a doctor, so..

It didn't cause mass hysteria because Michael Altman in fact destroyed the Marker. He was immune to the Marker's signal and destroyed it before it could begin its' full rampage on Earth. He was initially treated as a prophet by the deranged crew excavating the Marker until he objected to all of the insane things they were saying and doing. So they killed him by locking him into an arena-like room with a makeshift spoon shiv and a Brute made out of his own crew.

Nicole was affected - in the comic detailing her story, she kept seeing necromorphs where there were none. Presumably, her suicide was slightly steered by the Marker. Oh, did you know she used up all the medpacks healing people and to make a cure for the necromorph outbreak she needed one more medpack?

The horror of Dead Space is the body horror and the implications of the Marker signal. Isaac could be killing innocent humans, for example.
Oh, did you hear about the Convergence Events and the Brethren Moons of 2 and 3?
Fun stuff.

Edit: Also, Kendra took the Marker which may have cut the Hivemind off from the Marker - explaining the second boss fight - and returning it to its mindless slaughter.

Sounds like they've really gone all out in the expanded universe stuff. I guess the benefit of a convoluted backstory are comics and other entertainment mediums.

[Da_Gamer]

Originally posted by NateDogg:

What happened to the original marker and why didn't it cause mass hysteria on earth where it was originally found?

It is never explained where the original marker went. Somewhere placed in a super secret research facility? Perhaps in the cancelled DS4 it would have played a role to stop the brethren moons, but who knows.
Why didn’t the black marker cause mass hysteria on Earth? It caused it but only in the area where it was located. Every marker has an effective reach of its influence otherwise, the marker on Aegis 7 could influence people on Earth. And let’s be honest that would be f*ing stupid.

Originally posted by NateDogg:

What does the Hivemind really want? Why does returning the marker pacify it? I thought the Hivemind wanted dead flesh to expand its mass and necromorph army. And if that's the case, it would be far more interested in sending the marker to earth where it can acquire more flesh from the enormous human population. The values, interests, and motivations of the marker and the Hivemind are unclear to me.

It should be noted that the concept of convergence and the brethren moon came up after DS1 was made. The markers influence other races to build more markers, which means spreading their influence and sooner or later triggering a convergence event by having enough necromorphs. That’s it… the markers themselves are just tools nothing more (at least they were in the OG game). The hivemind is just amalgamation of corpses to focus the biomass (of dead creatures). The hivemind doesn’t have a will on its own. And the marker can only trigger convergence when enough biomass is around it.

Originally posted by NateDogg:

I assume Mercer was under the influence of the marker when creating innovative new necromorphs. Most victims experience hysteria but a select few, like Mercer, serve more specialised purposes?

This is something where the remake differs greatly from the original. In the og game mercer tested out some of the necrotic substance on people that are alive – creating the hunter more by accident. In the remake he gains his knowledge by the marker directly, which is weird because Mercer never came in contact with the marker.
[the marker is basically the operator in Matrix. It can charge up your brain with any knowledge you need – that’s a joke btw.]
What exactly triggers the marker blueprints to appear in your brain instead of going nuts is unclear. The general rule of thumb that exist is that intelligent people will be able to decipher the marker code as instructions, others will go insane. Isaac seems to be intelligent enough, as was Stross in DS2.

Originally posted by NateDogg:

Why was Nicole not effected? Assuming suicide wasn't part of the marker's plan? Everyone experiences the marker's influence in different ways? Or some are more naturally resistant to it?

There are people in DS that are completely immune to the marker influence. Lexine Murdoch and Ellie never showed any signs of influence. Lexine even seemed to have an reverse effect – being able to negate the marker influence around here (but this isn’t an active ability she can turn on/off at will). The marker needs dead biomass to spread its signal. How you died doesn’t matter to it. In the OG comics, at the Aegis 7 colony, many people committed mass suicide in the name of the church, creating easy corpses for the marker to be reanimated as necromorphs.

[Nate]

Originally posted by Da_Gamer:

Why didn’t the black marker cause mass hysteria on Earth? It caused it but only in the area where it was located.

Then why does everyone make such a big deal about preventing the marker from going back to earth? They make it sound like the necromorph outbreak would spread worldwide, but it sounds like it would be contained to a small area, so it's not THAT dangerous. It's not threatening humanity as whole. It's overstated and kind of lame.

Originally posted by Da_Gamer:

It should be noted that the concept of convergence and the brethren moon came up after DS1 was made. The markers influence other races to build more markers, which means spreading their influence and sooner or later triggering a convergence event by having enough necromorphs. That’s it… the markers themselves are just tools nothing more (at least they were in the OG game). The hivemind is just amalgamation of corpses to focus the biomass (of dead creatures). The hivemind doesn’t have a will on its own. And the marker can only trigger convergence when enough biomass is around it.

That makes more sense, but I remember Kyne saying "the only way to get the marker to stop is to return it to Aegis VII". Does the marker really 'stop'? Or is it just left alone on a desolate planet where it can't harm anyone because there's nobody nearby? The verbiage is a little confusing. And they made such a big deal about making sure it's on that pedestal. Why not just drop it into the atmosphere of Aegis VII and leave? Why go through all the trouble of landing on the surface and fighting necromorphs to get it on the pedestal?

Originally posted by Da_Gamer:

Isaac seems to be intelligent enough, as was Stross in DS2.

I thought Stross was loony toons, but maybe even dumb people can pick up a few points about the marker code during their hysteria.


The rest of your input makes sense, thanks for the clarification.