Storyline discussion (SPOILERS)

[prodigy.54]

So I beat the game yesterday and really enjoyed it (just wish it was longer). I'm still a little confused about the storyline. You play as Mandus who is being lead by the guy on the phone (who is also Mandus?) against the Saboteur (who is also Mandus). So Mandus is the one who built the machine and then was trying to destroy it?

Did he build the machine before or after the events in Mexico? If its after its kind of confusing because thats only a few months time. Not nearly enough time to build all that. Also, what is it exactly the machine is suppose to do? Did it start as a regular slaughterhouse then evolved into this monstrosity or has this always been Mandus' vision. Its seems like Mandus was collecting homeless/hookers/orphans to then turn into Pigmen to kill everyone (cleanse the world for his children). Was the machines only purpose to create Pigmen? Im also unsure about what happend to his sons?

The ending Im a little puzzled by. What was with the giant stone temple at the bottom of everything. Did he build that or unearth it after excavating? Im assuming he kills himself because its the only way to stop the madness but why the way he did it? Whats with the electrified metal arms. You see electrified pigs breifly so were they doing nazi-like experiments?

Anyway I have alot of unanswered questions. Definatley going to have to do a second playthrough but in the meantime, discuss!

[Cygon]

One of the notes in the game made me believe that Mandus has somehow split his evil side from the good one. At the very end, before you walk to the Mayan pyramid, you see a man lying in a tube which I believed was your evil side and the mind of the machine.

I think Mandus developed a hatred for humanity (did it have something to do with his wife?), killed his children to spare them this oh so horrible world and built a machine that would turn humans into food (and pigs that service the machine, because pigs are simpler to satisfy and more loyal than humans, one note said). He tried to make it seem like a simple pig-slaughtering machine as a cover.

Later he got second thoughts and sabotaged the machine, but then, for some reason, he lost his memory and restored the machine.

I didn't quite understand when happened in the ending:

There was a note that explained how the piggification worked - first the teeth are removed, then something is administered that makes them vomit and sh*t blood, lose their hair and fingernails. I think the chair you sit in at the end was part of that process - the four metal arms would remove your teeth. But how does that stop the machine? Does your evil side die when you die? Won't you just become a pig servant?

[h8]

As i have seen the whole game ( i haven't played but i was just watching) there is a lot more than this. The way i understood it Mandus believed that industrialism was destructive for the world and especially society and that he didn't want the new century to come and see the upper classes growing because that will made the poor, poorer so he as i have interpreted the story, he creates the machine in order to sacrifice the rich. I may be wrong but the whole thing about the classes and the rich - poor was mentioned a lot so there must be something around it.

[Ceegore]

What about the boy (his son) at the end? Did you guys see him? He was "hung up" on one of the metal arms to the right of the chair. You can see him as Mandus sits down. My biggest question is what was the deal with all the pig masks? I get the whole pigman monster thing....but why the masks? And why'd they show up everywhere?.....Some sort of simple madness perhaps?

[h8]

It seems that the story is not that simple and confused many of gamers-viewers of others playing etc. The masks that were all over the places is one of my questions too. Also we didn't get who was the one in the tube near the ending of the game. Also why the mansion at the sstart had secret passages ? And what happened in Mexico ?

[panfoot6]

Originally posted by Poisonocracy:

It seems that the story is not that simple and confused many of gamers-viewers of others playing etc. The masks that were all over the places is one of my questions too. Also we didn't get who was the one in the tube near the ending of the game. Also why the mansion at the sstart had secret passages ? And what happened in Mexico ?

From my understanding, while in Mexico he got a fever, which is how he got the vision in his head of everyone suffering and dying horribley in the future. Because of this he makes the plans for this machine, and kills his twin sons by removing their hearts(inferred from them holding their hearts when you see them, and the not about the aztecs sacrificing people). When he got back, he buried his children in the garden at the mansion and begun work on the machine/turning his servants and workers into the first pigmen.

While all this was happening he was still suffering from the fever, so he isn't really "there" when this his happening, and then eventually wakes up with no memory of what has been going on for the past few months(start of the game).

The voice that you are hearing through the phones, and the guy in the tube at the end, "The Engineer", was a representation of his "evil" side that denounced god and created the machine. So for half the game he in unwittingly helping the dark side of himself activate the machine. After it's activated he starts to remember what happened, and regrets what he's done, leading to destroying the machine, and by redeeming himself by destroying himself along with it.

What is real and what is simply a manifestation of his mental state is where it becomes a little unlcear.

[h8]

And what about the upper class and the poor ? Didn that play any role in the story ?

[Cygon]

The "destroying the machine and redeeming himself by suicide" would sound plausible, but then the words of the machine while you climb the pyramid confuse me, because it's still pleading for its live and for you not to do this - as if sitting down on that chair and getting turned into a pig servant would somehow kill the machine.

[Cygon]

@Poisonocracy: If the voice of the machine is Mandus evil self, then it has decided to kill everyone

The dialogue while you walk in the flooded section: "But how do you spare the innocent?" - "Innocent? Show me those innocent, I say show them to me." (from memory, not an actual transcription)

[panfoot6]

I think all the talk about the upper class and the poor feeds into his ideas of how humanity is terrible, and how they will cause this dark vision of he future he had. I think the most interseting note/journal to go with that is about how he would use the orphans and the hookers and the poor for his machine, as the rich don't care about them, nobody will be worried or sad when they are gone.

As for the suicide part, I think thats more of the machine itself being his dark side that wants to destroy humanity, pleading with his good side(the player) not to end it all and take their life, as they are one being. On your way back down, all those puzzles to destroy the machine were doing just that, he succeeded in destroying the actual machine(whether it was to late is another story), the very end was really just Mandus attempting to redeem himself. At least that was my interpretation of the ending.

So the actual scene of seeing the engineer in the tube, and walking up to the stairs and having his heart ripped out on the chair next to the bodies of his sons, was just all apart of his madness, it was all in his mind. For all we know he could have actually just killed himself by jumping a catwalk or stabbing himself, only it didn't look like that to him.

[JasonGreene]

There are way too many plotholes in this game unlike TDD you did know what's going on. I guess the story on this is way too confusing to understand what's going in both past and the future.

[Cygon]

That's an interesting interpretation and it makes a lot of sense!

Like why there is a Mayan pyramid in the cellar and why he encounters himself in a tube. All that, right after losing consciousness for a moment.

Now I'm just wondering if he ended up in that tube as part of the machine and killing himself symbolically means giving up his will to live, or since what point he's been in it, or if it's just a hallucination, too :)

[Stu]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/239200/discussions/0/864978110256751612/

[Htimez2]

Originally posted by panfoot6:

Originally posted by Poisonocracy:

It seems that the story is not that simple and confused many of gamers-viewers of others playing etc. The masks that were all over the places is one of my questions too. Also we didn't get who was the one in the tube near the ending of the game. Also why the mansion at the sstart had secret passages ? And what happened in Mexico ?

From my understanding, while in Mexico he got a fever, which is how he got the vision in his head of everyone suffering and dying horribley in the future. Because of this he makes the plans for this machine, and kills his twin sons by removing their hearts(inferred from them holding their hearts when you see them, and the not about the aztecs sacrificing people). When he got back, he buried his children in the garden at the mansion and begun work on the machine/turning his servants and workers into the first pigmen.

While all this was happening he was still suffering from the fever, so he isn't really "there" when this his happening, and then eventually wakes up with no memory of what has been going on for the past few months(start of the game).

The voice that you are hearing through the phones, and the guy in the tube at the end, "The Engineer", was a representation of his "evil" side that denounced god and created the machine. So for half the game he in unwittingly helping the dark side of himself activate the machine. After it's activated he starts to remember what happened, and regrets what he's done, leading to destroying the machine, and by redeeming himself by destroying himself along with it.

What is real and what is simply a manifestation of his mental state is where it becomes a little unlcear.

Best summary yet, Thank you, really brought things together for me in a clear way, was still a little confused at the end of the game, but not now.

[mooner]

He also seemed to have a big interest in the anatomy going by the two way mirrors in the bathroom with all the pics and sketches of human beings. Did he somehow get the rich party goers drunk and cage them up in bed and then the wall would fall away and the bed would lift up?? something I remember from the notes/dialogue.

[VººDºº|2ª¥]

Originally posted by mooner:

He also seemed to have a big interest in the anatomy going by the two way mirrors in the bathroom with all the pics and sketches of human beings. Did he somehow get the rich party goers drunk and cage them up in bed and then the wall would fall away and the bed would lift up?? something I remember from the notes/dialogue.

Yes, there was a note that described exactly this. When they went to sleep, the cage would be lowered over the bed, and would transfer them under the mansion, ready for processing. It was all powered by the same energy that the victim themselves would later contribute to generating.