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This topic has been pinned, so it's probably important 
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Feel free to point out any flaws you find in the story as well as what you think works well.
We are definetly going through all tha main characters' memories. We have Scott's memories of movie sets (jungle, castle, mansion) Strazh's memories of various institutions (museum, university, Winter Co), Davies' memories of his life (apartment, hospital, lighthouse). The only person who we're missing is Lily, so unlike the other three she might not be stuck in Elysia.
I'm still trying to evaluate whether the fact that there are four levels in each stage means that each level is attached to a different one of these four characters. Somtimes I think yes, sometimes no. I'm waiting for the content to be finished to decide.
If the mythos of Soul Axiom really is based around these four then it might be worth having some content early on in the training levels (before hubbuilding) or in the hubbuilding itself which makes this blatent. That way you'll have the players solving levels not just for the fun of doing the puzzles but for the satisfaction of putting together the story.
We'll take onboard your comments about making it more obvious to the player that these are relevent to the story. We hope to have you back here when you've read some of them to hear your thoughts :)
I suppose we could also be a 5th party to all these. Strazh doesn't seem like the type who would like those cymbal-banging monkies. And the only real reason we have to be Strazh is based off Davies' memories (where he assumes the toy monkey is from Strazh) and just order of elimination.
I haven't collected all the PEMOs yet though.
I think that we are playing as Davies. Why do I think that? Because a PEMO at the HUB said, that there are three type of angels, and their task is to cleanse harmful souls. And in Chapter 1 and 2, we get attacked by one of them. Also Strazh said at a speech, that Elysia is rejecting these harmful souls too.
If I understood the Winter HQ memory cutscene correctly, Davies wants to destroy Elysia, but at the same time, transport all three of them to his own Project Persephone.
I think that the game will end with the intervention of Strazh, so this time we are playing as the bad guy.
EDIT: It's hard to remember Chapter 1 and 2, since they are not replayable, and since I played them, it must have been changed.
EDIT 2: No, we can't play as Davies, because of the black shirt. So it has to be Strazh. However, if that's true, why'd be Strazh attacked by Elysia's guardian angel? Can it be, that Winter has salvaged Madison's conscious, while they were building Soul Sync? Or have Davies already taken over Elysia?
If I understand it correctly, it MATTERS in which way you choose the characters, right? Because I first took the doctor, and I discovered he is apparantly the only one who survived.. But then I took the politician/warhero, who then again had to fight this angel. THEN I picked the actress and in the end I faced the doctor again, who, I believe is the version that was stuck all those 40 years already. What I mean it seems like it all sort of clicked, dependent on the choices I made.
The only thing I didn't understand is why the actress can fly into a beam at the end yet after the credits I again see a short video of Solomon (as written on his bracelet) that uses the destruction power. That last bit is what kind of made me confused, as it doesn't seem to be explaining anything to me :'(
Solomon's body was preserved, and Strazh had been monitoring the whole thing. If you choose Solomon, you get re-bodied(?) a few hundred years later, and only Strzah's memory is talking to you. If you choose Davies, Strzah can finally have her revenge. However I'm in trouble with Dana. I guess she died (that's why you have to fall down - accept your fate and let yourself pass away), but at the same time she didn't. I guess we have to uncover more, because their ending isn't that satisfying, nor is it full. I have only unlocked one level for Solomon, 2 with Davies and 1 with Dana. There is something we have to do. Also there is an achi, which suggests, that Strzah has an an ending too.
After the downfall of Mysteri, Winter aquired the technology and expanded it.
Davies was working on a way to save the real human soul (which he proved existed as what he calls deus energy) in contrast to just creating an AI that kinda acts like the person.
Solomon ran for president and helps Davies in his research by legitamizing the infinity bill.
Davies gets fired and plans to sabotage the Winter servers at their big release event of their soul sync studio, transporting himself as well as Dana and Solomon into Elysia via his own Persephone project.
This explains why they "survive" inside the simulation, even though Davies set fire to the servers and why they can be resurrected in the end. At this point in time Winter does not have the ability to really save a real soul on the cloud.
This is the first time one of the souls splits from the other two and manages to download in their former body. Dana wakes up in what is essentially a dead husk and can overhear Strazh' vow to finish Davies Persephone project. Then, before anyone actually notices her return her soul leaves her body again and either gets thrown in again with the others or dies for real.
I don't understand how she could download to her old body though, since a Elysium connection would be pretty much required, or maybe her soul just escaped Elysia and "found its way back to the body" or something like that.
40 years later Davies manages to free himself and downloads to his original, burned body where Strazh is already awaiting him to send him back.
A few thousand years later Solomon is the last to finally break free of Elysia and gets resurrected into a new body. As Strazh' hologram tells him, he is the first human soul to ever be brought back to life and is therefore baically the Jesus of her own Oroubos religion.
As we can see in the little clip after the credits though, Solomon is still inside Elysia, as both the Angel and the soul-likeness of Dana are there, none of which could exist outside in the real world. That Dana is probably a recorded soul-AI instead of the "real" Dana he was sharing his soul with. (Dana, Solomon and Strazh would have the Elysium-membership as employees and recorded AIs after their death).
Retaining, for what reason soever, the powers he accquired in Persephone he decides to burn the whole thing down.
This is what we play in the game. The Elysia servers cannot handle the simultainious access of three souls so it compresses all three of them into one avatar. Albeit being white and male I do not think the player character is actually Davies. Maybe it is a preset appearence, set by the server or maybe it just assigned something that best represents the conflicting information given to it (2/3 are white and 2/3 male).
Similar to Master Reboot the Player (I will just call him then from now on) loses his memories and must sift through the recorded memories in his soul hub to recollect the events.
There are PEMOs that suggest, that Power Hands and the Soul Cleanser are inventions of Davies that got rejected for Elysia, which furthers the theorie that this is not the Winter-main-server but one of Davies own.
So the Player falls through the sky and lands on Davies cherrished and enhanced ship. The first thing he does is to touch a soul cleanser to power up the ship.
As the Dana ending suggests, this might have split the avatar into one "good mix" which remains the Player and one "evil mix", the Preacher we will encounter a bit further on.
There are more characters now then in the previous game which had only two. Two, Player and Preacher are accounted for. The Gelert security system seems to do it's job pretty well this time around and does not seem to have its own character.
In the endings for Davies and Solomon we get a confrontation with Strazh who most likely got access to the sever via Davies Hospital room.
The last charakter I can think of is the angel. It seems to mainly be on the hunt for the Preacher. It appears first shortly after the Player and the Preacher seperate and sinks the ship without further attacking the Player (presumably because the corrupted part got already seperated at this point). The only other time Angel attacks Player is during the bossfights. In the case of Davie we might assume that killing Strazh again corrupted his soul enough for the angel to attack and during Solomons fight it itself got corrupted.
The Eyes are most likely a personification of Davies Insanity as they seem to echo the words we can find in his PEMOs and cutscenes.
I think that should explain most of the stuff going on, but there are still some things I simply can not answer.
First and foremost, Earthbound's breakdown of the story makes the most sense after going through all of the completed memories, so I'm not going to elaborate on any of that since they already did. What I AM going to elaborate on is the boss fights.
In the order of when each of the main characters "Emerged" from Elysium, the first one to emerge, interestingly enough, is Davies and not Dana. I say this because of what happens to Dana when she emerges herself (More on that Later). After breaking free of Soloman and Dana, Davies finds himself in the office when he is confronted by Strahz. After she tells him of her plans for her own revenge, Davies stabs her with a trophy and pushes her out the window. THIS is when the angel comes in and the boss fight proper begins.
To note, I'm explaining all of this again to point out two things and Two things only. 1) The "Angel" has blue cracks all around its body, which weren't initially on her when you first encountered her in the beginning of the game and 2) The "Angel" in this fight is speaking in Strahz's voice. Both in the Office fight AND in the Ship fight.
Cut to when he finally escapes and Strahz, who is waiting for him, tells him that forty years have passed since the fire and his attempt to murder her before forcibly sending him back.
When Dana finally broke free and was transported to The Office, she is confronted, not by Strahz, but by a Corrupted Davies claiming that he had been "Trapped there" and cursing, assumedly, Strahz. He then states that he should be the only one to survive and she should die. It is HERE that the Angel comes in.
To note, The Angel STILL has blue cracks in her.
The Angel grabs Davies and drags him out the window. There is no Boss fight after this.
When Dana wakes up in her own body in the morgue she is presented with an odd sight. Strahz is in there talking about how crazy Davies was and vowing to continue his research, but in the right way. you can also see one of the crystals that Davies was using in his research floating next to the X-Ray display (Which is most likely how Dana managed to return to her body at all, if only for a little bit. Dana knocks over a scalpel and alerts Strahz before the scene ends.
Soloman, naturally, is the final one to emerge. After he goes to The Office he is confronted by Strahz who informs him of the situation. Before she can even begin to pull him out though, the Angel attacks.
To note, the "Angel" NO LONGER has blue cracks but, instead, she has Purple Cracks, a clear indicator of being "Corrupted". Not only that, but she also speaks in Davies Voice
the entire fight.
After beating her(?) Soloman is "Resurrected" in an entirely new body and is informed that he is the first human being to have transcended death and that he is needed to stop tha radical cult/church known as Oroborous.
So... yeah.
What DOES that mean?
Simply put, it means that Davies is a bastard who's really hard to kill.
Davies "Boss Fight" was against an Angel "Possesed" by Strahz, or perhaps her Soul Axiom version of herself instead. She wanted to get revenge on him for trying to kill her forty years ago, but he, of course, beat her angel form in the end (Before her real self sent him back herself)
Dana's "Boss fight" isn't even that, but is still important in what is happening here. Davies, probably seaking to steal her real body for himself, confronts her in the Office before being dragged away by the Angel. Whether or not this is the actual angel, sensing his corrupt person and going to eliminate it as is her duty, or Strahz possessing her again I have no idea.
Dana then Wakes up in the morgue with Strahz. It is here that we get to assume that, through this fleeting meeting, Strahz gets the idea to bring back Soloman so that he can help fix the issues that Davies started (To note, When Davies is trying to "emerge" you can see the Oroborous symbol in his apartment. This might mean that he is responsible for creating Oroborous)
Soloman's "Boss fight" is the natural conclusion to all of this. He fights against an "Angel" that has been corrupted by Davies and is, essentially, Davies himself now trying to stop Soloman from resurrecting. An unknown amount of time has passed since he took control of the angel (Which he probably did after being attacked by it when Dana "Emerged") but he is clearly weak as Soloman only fights him once before he destroys Davies for good.
The Final cutscene is a bit of a wildcard in all honesty, but we can safely assume that it is, indeed, Soloman who looks around himself, sees the corrupted Oroborous members, the Angel, and Dana before burning everything with the Destroy power, which just makes things so much more confusing than it needs to be.
And now for those pesky questions:
1) Why did both Soloman and Dana get rejected?
A) In a PEMO we can see that Dana got rejected because her psychologist realized that she was a spoiled, priviledged brat. There were timestamps on the PEMO but I forgot what they were, so this was probably long before she became the Face of Elysium, which what got her into the system in the first place.
I forget if there was a PEMO for Soloman, but we can most likely assume that he was rejected because of psychological damage from his helicopter crash which made him much to unstable to go to Elysium at the time.
2) How did Dana get to her body and where did she go?
A) As I stated before, there was one of those crystals in the morgue in her ending cutscene. This probably acted as a reciever for her soul once she managed to escape. This might have been shortly after Strahz "Dealt with" Davies earlier, so the equipment for soul transfer was most likely still operating at the time. (This is a huge stretch, but it makes sense in this case)
As for where she went...
Who knows? She might have truly died here and moved on, or she survived while her soul cloud memeories lived on as a separate being... but the latter here is unlikely. Since her body was in the morgue... might not have even been her body to be frank. It could have been some random schmoes body, and even then it was in the morgue for a reason. Even if a soul could go back to a body here, her body, or whoever's she ended up in, was in no condition to support it. Afterall, it had been forty years since she died, so her body wouldn't have lasted anyway.
the Dana that shows up in the after credits scene though... is most definitely her soul cloud version. No denying that.
3) Why can we hear Strahz's voice in the beginning?
A) I'm not sure what you're refering to here to be perfectly honest. To be frank though, it's probably been at least a few years if not decades since all three characters were mushed into one avatar. Forty years is a long time and a lot can happen. the game itself takes roughly ten hours to get through if you really take your time, so it makes perfect sense for Strahz to have healed and to start the Player on their journey.
4) Whats going on with the "Time Traveller" and "Stalker" PEMOs?
A) The "Time Traveler" PEMOs were for Dana's movie "The Timeless Spirit" or whatever it was called. The Movie, judging from the PEMOs, was about a time traveling woman who came to the castle for some adventure and wound up in an ordeal with Werewolves. Cheesy I know, but it certainly made the Castle creepy as hell!
The "Stalker" PEMOs was more to show what her personal life as an actress was like. The Stalker in question though... I have know idea who it was. It might have been Davies to be frank, but there's no real evidence towards this I don't think.
5) Why do PEMOs only appear in monkey-form?
A) This is because of Davies actually. As you (Earthbound) stated before, there is lcear evidence that points to the server the Player is in being Davies personal one that he made for his "Research". The monkey itself is actually in the Apartment's memory. It was a gift from Strahz that he then dumped into the trashcan.
6) How can PEMOs from after the event appear in the server?
A) Most likely Strahz's doing. Strahz wanted to get revenge on Davies initially, so she probably commandeered his personal server farm in an effort to do just that. I think all of the PEMOs that appear after the event can be found in The Office just before the Angel fights, so Strahz most likely put them in there herself to give the player (And whoever you chose to be) some context before confronting them. She probably put in different PEMOs for each of them to be prepared for whoaver emerged first, but then again that's just speculation.
7) Power 4 says it redirects Deus Energy, which is the energy of the human soul. Where does that come from?
A) The Player is inside of Elysium so this can have one of two answers. the obvious first is that, because Elysium stores souls, Deus Energy is all around you already. The conduits that shoot that energy are merely harvesting it and directing it.
This answer makes no sense though because the Souls in Elysium are all artificial except, of course, the Player being comprised of three different ones (Alternatively the source could be the Player themselves, but that's a bit of a stretch)
The second answer makes a bit more sense because the Deus Energy, much like the rest of the world around the Player, could be articial. Since the world is a massive simulation so, too, is the Deus Energy. A Simulation of the real thing.
I hope that answers those questions nicely and thank you to anyone who bothers reading this whole mess.