Rachel's Story Theory - Spoilers -

[WhisperFire26]

Yup, I'm putting a spoiler tag here. This is what I put together based on the following in-game details:

The decorations on the sealed hallway door next to the bathroom
Random things Sara said
Trailed off, or incomplete sentences of what Rachel said
The tooltip during the sync test, that states the year 2317
Suspicious sound effects while investigating the train

James is widower when he lost Rachel 12 years ago during his third life. He never got over the grief and he couldn't accept it so this trauma passed over into his fourth shell (which was of poor quality and had severe sync issues) -- more on that later

It appears that James and Rachel had a child named Bryan. There is no information on Bryan's fate but based on the actions of James and Rachel, they lost him while Bryan was still young enough to need a crib.

Based on what Sara said, Rachel killed herself. HOWEVER.... to prevent being put into another shell, Rachel took a substance, that James refers to as a poison, to make her ichorite unusable. James said in the beginning of the game that "This was the second time he saw someone's ichorite melted," .... could Rachel be the first? I think yes.

James lived in a society whose concepts of life and death are different than ours so instead of properly dealing with the stages of grief with Rachel's death, it consumed him. In his third life for whatever reason, he believed he found the individual that sold Rachel this poison. James chased this person down on a train and caused the events two weeks before the game started.

In that last part of the train scene, Seth briefly tells James that an "anti-terrorist squad is coming and that they can straiten it up with the chief." .... It was clear that Seth was trying to get James to stand down and leave the scene but James wasn't hearing any of it. Seth seemed to know that something was wrong with James.

In the final scene with Salma, she spoke of psychosis. I think that James was already dealing with unhealed trauma with Rachel and it caught up with him when he transferred to his fourth body. It was as if he lost his ability to keep those memories buried for the sake of functioning and he turned into a ticking time bomb that made ANY of the endings presented in the game plausible.

So that's it. My theory on Rachel based on a few pieces of info that I got from the game. I just wanted to bring it out there and if you agree, simply say "Yes" or if you disagree, then simply say "No."

I don't know what the devs would feel if we, the community, decided to dive this deeply into the story.

Anyway, if you are reading this far, I would like to thank you for your time. It took a while for me to mentally piece this together and I just wanted to get it off of my chest.

[WhisperFire26]

I'm thinking about posting a store/lore guide but I want to see what others think before I go through all the trouble so any feedback is appreciated.

[Mardak]

If I remember correctly, Ichorite meltdown is extremly rare, because it's supstance is very hard to come by.

So how would Rachel be able to get the substance? Your main character things that the dealer gave Rachel that substance and he wants to know from the dealer who gave it to him. The dealer doesnt know about that.

This is never cleared out and makes the plot weird.

[WhisperFire26]

The "poison" that was identified is called Atropine..... if you do a quick Google search, you'll find that it's actually a life-saving medication and if you go to a hospital, it's not that hard to come by.

So, stretching the logic to the fictional world, I don't think that the substance is that hard to come by, but perhaps just forgotten.

You do have a valid point about ichorite meltdowns being extremely rare, but how many occurred that was not recorded or covered up? Remember that Green is a high-profile elite dude so anything on him would be considered news like a tabloid celebrity.

As for what James thought with the dealer, I think it was a case of mistaken identity.... he thought that this was the guy who sold something to Rachel, but the truth is, we don't know. Sure, the guy may be a dealer of other substances, but we have no idea if he interacted with her.

I acknowledge that the story does have many unknowns and it is up to the player to put the pieces together.

[Mardak]

I think you are wrong because a lot of things is hard to come by in the game, even real food. It makes therefor sense that Atropine is also very hard to come by in their future.

Everything about Rachel is just to shallow explained and leaves a lot to interpret. She could also have had contact with Mr. Green, who knows.

[WhisperFire26]

I could argue with the use of synthetics, but the bottom line is that we just don't know.

This is just a theory that happens to fit the facts in the original post, nothing more.

[Silver]

Thanks, bro, your article was really helpful <3