Theories about plot? [SPOILERS!!!]

[Zillen]

So, this is what I've been able to piece together so far. Please feel free to add your two cents or give your own hypothesis. I'm all ears - love this game :D

--Academy of Sciences
After unrest in the Telluric Republican government, the Nationalist proletariat and their leader, Chancellor K., are pledged the military force of the country. The outbreak of the plague leads to mistrust of the scientific community, and the Chancellor soon begins to discredit their work and the germ theory. Shortly after a gathering outside the Academy of Sciences, Telluric's citizens are angered and form a violent mob, destroying the Academy. In a bid to continue their plague research undisturbed, the survivng scientists plan to sail to the island Eden, where they suspect a cure can be synthesised.

--The Scientists & Herbert--
The scientists arrive at Eden with such classy names as Dagless, Sanchez and Cornelius embarking to different parts of the island to conduct their research and find the components of the cure.
(I haven't been paying much attention to individual stories apart from Herbert, Oswaldt and Sanchez - feel free to supplement if you think there's other stuff that needs telling :)

Progress goes well for some time; the men tackle the challenges of the island as they come, finding each ingredient over an unknown period of time [bold] with a conspicuous lack of monster tracking them down [/bold]. All three of the primary cure ingredients were at some point successfully produced, though there is no remnant of these "prototypes" by the time Robert Hughes shows up...

One researcher, Herbert, stationed at Outpost Vega in the West, begins to suffer due to his (perhaps undiagnosed) affliction with the plague. Despite his attempts to continue his work, even successfully locating one key specimen, he begins to suffer from auditory and visual hallucinations manifested in the form of an unreal, deformed "dervish" of a beast. He begins to look into anti-hallucination drugs, synthesising them from such common flowers as the Sunflower Variant found throughout the island.

(NOTE THAT THE SUGGESTED PLANTS [bold] DO NOT [/bold] PRODUCE ANTI-HALLUCINATION DRUGS (AT LEAST FOR ME - NEED CONFIRMATION)

Whether due to malfunctioning, inept anti-hallucination drugs or simply the continued madness of the plague, Herbert takes his obsession with the beast up a notch from paintings, and engages in a killing spree throughout the island for motives unknown. He tracks down his fellow scientists and kills them, showing brief moments of horror and lucidity throughout, before disappearing from Eden, leaving no trace but a trail of blood and words.

--Robert Hughes--

A plague-ridden man named Robert Hughes washes ashore on Eden. Hoping to find the enclave of "enlightened men", he instead finds the remains of countless murders and the notes the deceased left behind. Haunted by the same plague-induced monstrosity as Herbert, Robert must connect the dots and escape his fate as the beast grows ever stronger around him...

[Zillen]

I think some of the issues you are seeing with leaving may simply be due to the restrictions of the game area :P Swimming away from Eden is difficult if devs haven't designed content outside of it. Also, please use spoiler tags, just in case you reveal something (e.g. Hi

[Elthar]

I have a theory of my own here, and it includes why there is no need to eat in this game and what diagnose Herbert might have REALLY had.

I think that Robert/Herbert had no plague in the first place, he certainly did not kill himself and lacks reason to do that, and in fact it can even be read as a "kind of" a happy ending for him.

I'll begin with the plague, everything else bundles up to that.

We think Robert is sick with the plague because HE thinks so. But what are signs in his case? Out-of-shape hands, lack of strength, fits of fever, dehydration. By the end of the game we learn that he had mental problems as well.

- Fever never comes by itself, only if he is hit by the Creature or going through some physical straining like running, swimming or falling. Otherwise, you could go on for weeks without any need to take medicine.

- There is a picture of a plague victim, its caption reads that this person was dead after a week. Perhaps not every victim is dead in a week, but this plague must be a grave illness nonetheless, certainly not one to allow anyone to run around sick for over a month. Robert has been sick for at least several weeks before the game starts, and in my case survived for additional 27 days.

- The same picture shows distinct marks on the victim's face. Yet, there is no mention of Herbert being sick with the plague, showing any signs of it, etc. I'm sure all the scientists in the group had seen those and would have recognized them easily, it's a lethal illness after all, I don't think they'd let a carrier run around unnoticed.

- There is a diary entry describing Herbert when he was already ill. The entry says there was no sight of him for weeks - no one knows where he's been or what he's doing, and that he was acting weird - like ignoring the person speaking to him, but acting like if he hears an animal someplace nearby. And those paintings at Herbert's place - he probably had hallucinations for weeks by then.

- His hands are cut, red and swollen. There is this writing on a chalk board - "Did i kill them? Look at your hands". First thing Robert does when he wakes up - he looks at his hands. He sees a giant horned cat monster all the time, might as well see his hands bloody.

- Using the cure in the end makes Robert go back to normal health (no red hands whatsoever) in a wink, when in the very first note it says the cure should work between 4 to 12 hours.

- Also, he has lots of other hallucinations. He sees the aforementioned monster cat in all forms possible (hence the drawings). He sees his journal a hundred times a day, yet never acknowledges his own name written on it. He also certainly sees his own face all the time and won't recognize it as well. There is a note about anti-psychotic potion, but he fails to find any medical properties in the plants mentioned in it, could be due to hallucinations too. I know the potion were removed, yet it fits the plot nicely.

- The guy who wrote the diary (forgot his name) also mentions telling Herbert he should eat better. Why would he say that? Was Herbert gaunt or something? He was in a bad shape already, so he could have stopped eating at all.

- I was wondering why is it that player has to drink all the time, but can't eat - even while there are rotting fruits almost in every shack, you can only throw them. Now, I think Robert didn't eat anything in all the time he spends in the game, and he's literally running on drugs by the end (with all those permanent injections). That is the reason why he's so weak and dehydrated. A person can go on without food for a prolonged period of time, but they need a lot of water.

- Herbert himself writes at least 3 pages (that's what i found, at least) - crazy note and two diary pages. He writes about not remembering what he was doing or saying for days in a row, and that even when he's aware of himself he can't control his actions, it's like he has a "master" doing things instead of him. He writes about sabotaging his collegue's work on the cure and feeling very guilty about it, but the "master" made him do it and how then he felt "elated", which he reads as a way of reward from his "master".

What Herbert really had looks like acute schizophreniform psychotic disorder.

Wikipedia:
Schizophreniform disorder is a mental disorder diagnosed when symptoms of schizophrenia are present for a significant portion of the time within a one-month period, but signs of disruption are not present for the full six months required for the diagnosis of schizophrenia.
The symptoms of both disorders can include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized or catatonic behavior, and social withdrawal. While impairment in social, occupational, or academic functioning is required for the diagnosis of schizophrenia, in schizophreniform disorder an individual's level of functioning may or may not be affected. While the onset of schizophrenia is often gradual over a number of months or years, the onset of schizophreniform disorder can be relatively rapid.

To that I can add that victims of this disorder, in a bad case scenario, can reach a stage where they are not aware of who or where they are, and would completely cease to function, including eating and drinking.

So, for whatever reason Herbert had a mental meltdown, his consiousness became divided between several personalities, one of which took over and killed all of his friend and another one - whom probably created to get away from the first one - we guide to freedom.

In fact, there might have been even more personalities that those two. After all, SOMEONE wrote those questions "did i kill them?" and "am i [some name i forgot]?", and someone ELSE wrote "look at your hands" and "you are being watched". It's like he's been having a dialogue between his different selves for a while.

Creating and using the cure might have worked as a trigger, or he ate pills made from the right mushrooms, or maybe enough time passed for his mind to heal itself, whatever. At the end, his consciousness becomes undivided again, he goes back to his original self.

"You peer over the edge of the boat to find your reflection on the surface of the water. You see the man you hoped to see and you smile".

For him, all the killings, blood and madness happened to another personality, whom he could not control and who is finally gone now. The nightmare has ended. He can finally sleep well.

He had found his Eden.

[Kanharn]

I agree with the Theory that he had no plague. I believe After he created the Plague cure it worked like a placebo, ending his madness. That's why he didn't use the cure on the boat, His journey, retracing his steps and facing what he had done was part of the healing cycle.

I also believe when he wakes up on the beach at the start, He has just finished his killing spree and is coming out of his trance like state, that was described in his notes. The trail of death leads from the final boat island to where you start. Also the way the Doctor is dead at the start Suggests that Robert/Herbert stabbed him in the back and then headed to the Shore. The boat was just misdirection or part of his new persona's story. Maybe it was just misdirection for the player.

[snTaxsar]

CubicusBoxfish uncovered the poem in the bottle held by Isabella that I was unable to recover.
I now believe that the poem was a suicide note left to be recovered by r/h. I also believe that the previous descriptions of r/h's insanity pushes Isabella to kill herself. unlike the other deaths she plunges the knife into her abdomen (sepuku) in dispondence over r/h's withdrawal and apparent loss of his love for her. I do not believe that r/h killed her. I now believe that they were lovers, and believed that they were meant to "flower" in the new society.
the note in the bottle reads;

"I dreamt a dream a thousand times;
A life we two adore
but then your color paled to grey;
so dreams I dream no more"

r/h leaves no suicide note, but he does recover his sanity at the end and like "Romeo and Juliette" joins his love in Eden.

A love and a Fascist society ended by insanity; what irony!!


I believe the graph at Draco on the blackboard may be colonies of the plague bacteria(100) on blood agar petrie dishes vs time in days or hours(15) that vacine/antibiotic/adjuvent eliminates; showing that the v/a/a worked.
There are also unused blood agar dishes at Draco for experimentation.

I also read John Milton's bio on wiki. Milton was very politically active in his time, his bio and it's relation to this game is well worth reading.

[Elthar]

where did that poem came from? i clicked like a hundred times on that bottle, but all i've been able to pick up were stones

[snTaxsar]

Publicado originalmente por Elthar:

where did that poem came from? i clicked like a hundred times on that bottle, but all i've been able to pick up were stones

According to CubicusBoxfish under Discussions jan. 2 2013 *Matching names to the bodies on the island(SPOILERS)" It's a snippet from a poem. (an original poem, according to Google)

I cannot account for its authenticity, as I was also unable to retreive it from the bottle myself.

[Zephyr]

I've picked up that note several times and can verify that IS what it reads. :)

[Stinkflipper Incarnate]

Yeah, I also found the poem in the bottle. I think the note stuck out a bit.

What an unbelievably good game this was. I think it will be some time before I fall asleep tonight.

[JRCOBRA]

Probably correct about Isabella. Her body is positioned in such a way that it does not appear that she was mudered also she appears to be smiling and the position of her hands kinda indicates suicide,

[Jack "Muscle" BonerHard Sr.]

I bet the creature is a byproduct of the plague. Some sort of mutated cat.

[Kanharn]

Publicado originalmente por crazyman6699:

I bet the creature is a byproduct of the plague. Some sort of mutated cat.

He never had the plague, Thats the hole point of the story. The Creature was not real.

[Catgirl Rika]

The beast was just something that the main character sees and no one else believes him.

[Psycho]

Having finally completed the game (33 days, was mucking around) and strenuously avoiding this forum, I can finally speak.

Nice work guys, lots of great discussion abounding and I think the story of Miasmata still retains it's sense of mystery even once the game is over.

Imho, Robert, aka Herbert, murdered everyone on the island and the creature is his own imagination punishing him for his guilt. This is pretty clear from the very first instant when he wakes up and sees his own bloodstained hands, which strangely enough are never cleaned, no matter how much water he uses. Note also his hands instantly become clean after he takes the Cure and (presumably) becomes sane. This is further confirmed by the blackboard messages such as "Look at your hands, did I kill them?" When everyone else is dead, who else wrote that but Robert? ...and in first-person perspective, no less. It is even more conclusive when you find absolutely no other reference to the cat in notes you find, which is very unusual - you would think it would be at the top of any list of things to write about.

The capstone to this theory is that every single dead person you findwas murdered with knives or other weapons, not clawed to death by a large cat.

An imaginary cat also fits in logically with the events on Eden, in that it explains why it behaves so strangely when encountered, and why it doesn't appear or attack Robert in safe zones. A 'real' cat would have no trouble whatsoever in sneaking into a door-less hut in the dead of night and killing someone, so there must be another reason why it does not. The paintings at Outpost Vega[miasmata.wikia.com] are also a pretty clear indication that someone was obsessing a lot about this cat fiend, which ties in nicely with Elthar's diagnosis of schizophreniform disorder. Herbert needed to create Robert to escape, if only mentally, from what he had done.

Thanks to Elenebeth for the almost-final clue, the title of the book by the boat. (Milton's 'Paradise Lost') I will have to read this and see what light it sheds on Miasmata's story. Due to poor performance and low settings, I wasn't able to read this myself, which was rather frustrating, as I'm certain it has some relevance to the story.

I'm pretty happy with the ambiguous ending. I think it can be taken equally one way or the other. Maybe Robert sails back to the mainland to distribute the cure, (remember that his peer's notes indicate it is a cure), or perhaps Robert realises, there is only one way to destroy Herbert, and in shared guilt, he finally accomplishes what the monster never did.

I don't have all the notes yet, so I'm pretty keen to keep going from last save/restart and see what else I can find to explore the mystery. I'll probably end up loading them onto the wiki[miasmata.wikia.com], so keep an eye on it.

[ClopPlop]

SPOILER!

The plague is a real thing. it spreads back in the real world.The uprising goes against the scientific community and leads to the deaths of his colleagues , which he feels responsible for. He catches the plague, and falls ill. The island is all in his mind. It is his last glimmer of the real world. his washing up on the shores of the island represent the shores of his mind. and he is lost on this island. But more importantly he is trapped. there is NO escape.. or is there? The notes and scribles as you go through the game are snippits of memories. The dead colleagues and the hints towards them being his doing is his subconsciousness feeling responsible for their deaths in the real world (he tampered with the results because of the plague that he was incubated with. it controlled him and was the cause of the deaths, but he still feels responsible). The ruins are the falling of civilization. The monster is his bigger self, his fighting consciousness, and he is afraid to confront it (it would mean waking up to the guilt of his dead colleagues that he could have saved if he did not tamper with the results). When he confronts the monster he "dies" ( in the sense that confronting is a fate worse then death) It shows up when near the ingredients for the cure. in a way, the cures parts represent the attributes of his former self. Where as the cure is not actually going to fix him, but rather rid him of his suffering. its going to silence his mind. all thinking will cease, as his mind drifts off into the abiss. The beast is there trying to confront him - to ward him from ending it, its his last glimpse of conscious - trying to wake him up. Once the cure is made, and you take the cure, the monster is gone. He has gone past the line of no return. It has silenced his mind. From here, he journeys out along the cause way , with the last glimmers of reality fading into the distance behind him. This is the loosing of reality as the sickness in real life takes his life. The book on the table is closed and represents the end of the line. he cant pick it up and access it because he has left the island. It is now history, and what is done is done. The opening of the chest and finding many cures (and placing his in the box with them) is the accepting of his fate and joining the rest who fell to the disease. The final scene takes him out in the boat, with him looking left and right and seeing nothing (his mind is a bleak and empty land scape with little left to grasp on to). The bleakness of his mind is becoming apparent. The only things left now is the guilt (represented by the knife in one hand) and the idea of consciousness (or the ability to choose ones fate) represented by the bottle of alcho. Its a false sense of security, the appearance that he still has a choice to either end it, or forget about it with the alcho. However these soon fade as the the last glimps of the world fades off into black. He doesnt kill him self, but rather looses sight of whats real. It would be assumed that he lost the battle with the plague in real life.

[passe_riviere]

Don't do that again, please. I can't read this. Hit ENTER, HIT IT !
Or perhaps it's written on a cellphone, my bad then.
Anyway this game is amasing, one of my favorite of all time. Why ? It has so many problems ! I don't know really.