The story/ending explained

[BlueRaja]

• Anne Tarver (you) graduates from FBI academy. She gets assigned a partner, Maria Halperin, and to her first case: investigating a missing boy, Lucas. Anne is also told to secretly investigate her partner for illicit activity, though she's not told why.
  
  
• At Lucas's house, Anne finds a secret darkroom with photographs of various places. They go to the cave from one of his photos and discover it's a popular party spot - Anne finds some LSD, and steals a strip before filing it into evidence. They go to the observatory from another photo and discover Lucas's Dad having an argument with a woman who is not his wife. They later break into Lucas's house and discover a film reel that shows Lucas's dad was having an affair with the woman. They bring Lucas's dad + the mistress in for questioning, but have to let them go because adultery isn't illegal.
  
  
• Meanwhile, Anne investigates Maria. She discovers her real name is Maria Ortega, daughter of Judith Ortega. Judith was a former FBI agent, who was suspended indefinitely after digging too deep into department corruption. Maria now lives in her mother's old apartment, and is illegally investigating the FBI on her own (from the inside) in an attempt to prove her mother's innocence. She believes the current head of the department was responsible. Anne breaks into Maria's apartment and discovers confidential FBI files that Maria had stolen. However, she goes to confront Maria, and decides to throw away the evidence rather than turn her in. A grateful Maria then returns the LSD envelope that she had stolen from Anne's house.
  
  
• Maria and Anne are arrested for some reason. From here the story splits into two, and it's not clear which is real and which is imagined:
  
  1. Anne decides to rat out Maria. In the subsequent years, she makes her way up through the department by ratting out all her coworkers and friends. She eventually becomes the department head, where she gets to be the one telling subordinates to rat each other out. She's old, with no friends, and her first case (Lucas's disappearance) was never solved.
  
  2. (Seems more likely to be the real one) Anne decides not to rat out Maria. She gives Maria back her missing necklace, and takes the LSD for some reason. Then there's a long non-sensical LSD-trip with lots of forced attempts at symbolism. Then in the end, both Maria and Anne are free (having not ratted out each other), friends, and having coffee. They see Lucas hitchhiking down the side of the road.
  
  
• The one probably-not-imagined part of the drug trip is a flashback to an older dying man, presumably Anne's father. She shows him her new FBI badge, and he gives her a key to a box in his closet. She opens the box, then burns it, but keeps the key as a reminder of what she's done. At the end of the game, when Maria and Anne are friends, she finally gets rid of the key.
  
  The only explanation of this I've seen that makes sense is Anne's father was in the FBI too, and was a part of the coverup that ruined Judith Ortega's career. He's kept evidence of it all this time due to guilt, and now that he's about to die he wants the truth to finally be known. However, Anne doesn't want this to ruin her own career, so she burns it, causing her to carry guilt of her own.
  
  
• I won't attempt to analyze the symbolism; it's all so ambiguous you could make a convincing argument for literally any meaning.
  
  ---
  
  Shameless plug: See First Person Exploration and Puzzle Games for more games like this

[zchshen]

so the officiers under masks surrounding a bison may represent their corruption. And eventually Anne give up the mask, which means she rejects to join them.

[animaniac]

The silent narrative worked and it felt like it was building a compelling story, it's a shame they went the "do whatever you want with it" route at the end. I even suspect rushed development at the end.

[werewolf Gubli]

Thank you for the explanation.

[DoubleD]

Thank you. I like your explanation and I had similar conclusions. I think Anne's father was in military and she burns box at start of game not knowing what it means. He particpated unwillingly in the action against Maria's mom. It's only later Anne realizes it was about Maria's mom. By that time it no longer matters so she throws broken key as they start anew. I think the whole LSD trip sequence is symbolic of the "cult of power" she could be dragged into with the establishment men. She rejects that, they are released from jail for lack of eveidence, and perhaps they both leave the FBI for life together. The game is intentionally made to be open to interpretation so many player conclusions will be correct. A lot of things made more sense to me after second playthrough. Many confusing scenes such as "cult" men battling with their concsciences? the young people battling with the FBI women because they represent the 'powerful'? It all represents choice and consquences, maybe sometimes the lack of... really interesting and beautiful game!

[nachums]

This game just seemed like nonsense. Any game which you can put virtually any interpretation into is pointless.

[Baelin]

Thanks! like nachums said... its a strange experience and i had no glue about the story.

[[DSDIZZT] Lalle75(GER)]

I'd like to know, if there was a kind of conspiracy involving aliens. Not because if the UFO, because that was a part of the drug trip.

But what about the military convoy driving to the observatory? How is the mayor (?) connected to this? The guard in front of the observatory isn't part of the army, but he seem to stand higher then the FBI. So is it NSA or something like this? But why do they involve the smeary mayor candidate?

Questions and questions...

[nachums]

Originally posted by -St3v0-:

This is an absolutely horrendous game, that looks beautiful. Whoever the hell decided that they'd lead to the ending sequence of the game by the player taking LSD...

The entire game is basically discounted at that entire moment. It's gone from a maybe servicable game, to something someone in High School writes about "and then they all woke up from their dream."

I couldn't agree more

[Adidas]

Completely disagree, but to each their own. The devs stuck with a 'bad ending' with no possiblity of redemption. Everyone gets their comeuppance, good guys, bad guys, everyone.

You need to start thinking of the world as 'grey'. This game depict this perfectly.