Let's take another shot at figuring out the story

[Malidictus]

We had a thread like this back around Launch, but I don't want to necro something this old (plus I'm not sure I can even find it), so let's give this another shot. While I have a strong suspicion that the Surge was put together from map fragments and gameplay set-pieces with story back-filled at a later date, there does appear to be something approaching a coherent timeline of events comprised of logical cause-effect relationships. Let's see if we can put together what exactly happened. I'm going to list off events I believe we "know" about and, where possible, provide references to why I think that's the case.

Setting

We know that Creo started out developing cybernetic implants and pioneering the technology behind exo-rigs, before Jonah Guttenberg decided to refocus the company on fighting the polution supposedly destroying the planet. He hired Dr. Melissa Chavez to develop a chemical called Resolve, which would be delivered into the upper atmosphere by orbital rochets. A rough timeline of these events is available in the R&D Expo lobby. So far, so good.

We know that Creo had and has a number of deep, systemic problems, both social and technological. It seems to have a severe issue with work safety, ethics and worker's rights, with management not really caring much for the fate of the "grunts down there." This can be seen in all manner of reports of gross safety and wellness violations, as well as in how Fergusson is treated. Basically, management saw Fergusson as filth and did what they could to undermine his authority, eventually leading to his death at the hands of coworkers (though that last part may have been caused by the "Surge"). Jonah Guttenberg himself seems to have his head in the clouds, talking emptry rhetoric while presiding a company committing outright human rights violations.

We know the exo-rig technology - specifically the neural link implant needed to operate it - has had persistent and serious technological issues. The story of Ed Nakana going from a "Software Solutions Lead" to a serial murderer to eventually talking about how memories can be forged and identity overwritten is of a fundamental flaw in the underlying design. It seems like the Neural Link is able to feed foreign thoughts into the user's brain, which causess different degrees of lasting psychological and neurological damage, potentially across all users to some extent. This is made worse by Creo's attrocious work ethic of overworking employees beyond all reason and prescribing them habit-forming, mind-altering narcotics like Modaxinol under the table. This is evident from a few reports of workers showing aggression, as well as from Davey's entire plotline. He's a transient pulled from the street and experimented on, given a drug he's been led to believe has been medically prescribed to him, which Sally can't find on his medical records because it was never "officially" approved.

We know that Creo has a problem with Resolve. Due to a general lack of proper leadership (which I'll get to), Resolve is pushed through production and starts delivery before it's found to have chronic but unspecified toxic effects. Dr. Chavez herself suffers illness as a result of working with the chemicals and is on record as saying she was pushed into production before a full set of tests was complete. This is corroborated by a number of reports of scientists working on both Resolve and Utopia not being given enough time to run full tests before their work is pushed into production. I believe Project: Resolve ran for several years before toxicity started being noticed, putting Creo under pressure from a US Government oversight committee.

We know that Utopia was intended (or at least presented to the board) as a "quick fix patch" to the issues with Resolve. This is a quote from a Jonah Guttenberg audio log. It was proposed by Dr. Gene Barrett when Resolve was deemend unrecoverable - too toxic for the duration it would need to be in the atmosphere to be effective. Utopia, by contrast, is a guaranteed solution to fixing polution, but at the cost of exterminating 95% of all human life (possibly all life) on the planet. Utopia replaces Resolve as Creo's focus unofficially, costing Melissa Chavez her job though she continues to work on Resolve in secret. It's unclear when Barrett informs the board of the Utopia effects, but they're well aware of them quite in adavance of the game's timeline. On the side, he's also developing the "♥♥♥♥ Machinalis," effectively a whole brain transplant from a living human subject into an entirely artificial exo-rig equipped with a life support system. Barrett intends this to be the future of humanity and a means of surviving the toxicity of Utopia, despite his current version of the ♥♥♥♥ Machinalis being an abject failure producing psychotic individuals at best. There are ample reports all over R&D of test subjects being spirited away to be cut up and the underwhelming results this produces.

We know that Utopia faces tremendous technical issues, potentially far more severe than Resolve. Its dispersal system uses nanobots of the kind Creo is developing for the self-assembly of orbital installations. The nanobots, too, have been rushed through production and their functioning is poorly-understood, as can be seen in severa logs in R&D and the Nucleus. They have the potential to "differentiate" (form into larger logical structures and evolve, if I understand correctly) and their delivery system can't handle storing them long-term. It appears a large amount of nanobots is also storess below the Creo World amusement park. It's my suspicion that the amusement park itself was built as a literal and figurative "cover" for this containment unit, upon which the park's superstructure is built. We know Creo engineers were worried about its structural stability as search and rescue team was covertly instructed to patrol the park constantly, looking for structual failures.

We know that Creo has a serious management issue. Johanh Guttenberg sees himself as the unassailable saivour of mankind, oppressed by a weak, corrupt and primitive government. Blinded by the apparent urgency of saving the planet, he's more than willing to cut corners and make diastrously bad decisions in the name of "saving" and "evolving" mankind. Gene Barrett is an unrepentent egotist and cynical ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ not just willing but eager to wipe out the vast majority of humanity to build his own "utopia" for mankind. Melissa Chavez is a classic disconnected scientist so absorbed in her work that she doesn't really consider the consequences of her actions. The board of directors, as well, is both elitist and divided. They hold a long and genuine discussion on whether 95% of humanity should be killed. Creo is run by a bunch of egotists suffering from extreme tunnel vision, letting the company literally and figuratively fall apart, violating rules of morality, decency and federal regulation and essentially caring for nothing but their one specific focus.

With all of that said, let's think about what happened, exactly.

Timeline

We know that rougly a month before the events of the game, Dr. Gene Barrett filed his final report on Utopia, propsing it for Launch. As far as we can tell, the board went into deliberation about DESTROYING THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT at that point and hasn't been heard from since. There are a number of reports about people trying and failing to reach them, to the point where foremans are reaching the point of mutiny. "Can't get a response to even the most basic questions." The Utopia crew is similarly left hanging, flushing and refilling the nanobot containerss so they don't breach. There's a report in the Nucleus to that effect. At around the same time, Helvig's search and rescue squad is covertly ordered to patrol Creo World, searching for structural failures. As the orders come directly from the board, it's safe to say someone there was worried about the nanobot containment unit under the park.

We don't know what happens between that time and the start of the game proper, so there's a chunk of the story missing. We can, however, speculate. We suspect Jonah Guttenberg was present at the discussions at least part of the way since he has a chair on the board. However, his chair is not hooked up to the Neural Vote system and his vote isn't being considered or recorded. This leads me to suspect that Guttenberg got cold feet, tried to pull the plug on Utopia and got voted out of the company. The remorseful audio log in his office suggests as much, and he appears to have left the premises prior to the Surge. I suspect foul play may have been afoot in the board room to keep deliberations going for months somehow, but we don't have enough information to guess.

The next few events we have partial information on. We know that Sally (aka S.A.L.) - the board's medical AI - initiated system-wide reboot of some kind for some reason. We know it was followed by the capital-S "Surge." we know this from her own words in the board room. This would be when the Failsafe Consoles start recording. The first thing they record is a massive energy spike through the system frying people's implants and causing malfunctions across the facility. We can be pretty sure that Sally didn't intend for this to happen, but we're not sure how her reboot could have caused it to happen. Creo's pretty♥♥♥♥♥♥at... Everything, but you'd think a simple reboot destroying the entire facility would be something they'd have accounted for. Either way, this is what sets events in motion.

Almost immediately after the Surge, a neuro-vote is called on the subject of Utopia. The votes are tied, with Greene I believe having voted "no" but not having approved his vote. Emergency medical assistance is called to the Board Room, suggesting that everyone on the board save Greene is likely dead at this point. Since their votes are cast and not withdrawn, it means the board members cast their votes prior to dying. Exactly what happened to cause this chain of events is unknown and I don't really have a guess at it.

We don't know but I heavily suspect that Warren arrives at Creo long after the Surge has hit, potentially several days. Around 27 hours in, the automated system tallies the "vacant" positions and posts job offerings. Warren, who lost the use of his legs at an incident in Creo World (that's in the DLC) and who's been meaning to work for them as a means of walking again, takes the job offering and arrives at Creo HQ. While everything appears normal, it's my belief that Security hass already been compromised. We see a blood trail leading to a vent in NG+ suggesting that Warren's botched operation isn't the only one which happened. I suspect Mallory left the blood trail as we know it was her first day, too. This is consistent with the system posting automatic job offerings. The station itself is "being shut down" and is devoid of anyone besides security, acting the same way they do after the Surge.

We know that at some point, "damaged systems" were "replaced with high-security anti-intrusion analogous systems" or some thing to that effect - it's from the Failsafe Consoles. We also know from Irina Beckett's storyline and from Ed Nakana's story that people's memories can be overwritten. Irina starts out as an engineer, but slowly forgets who she is and behaves like security, protecting the Executive Forum because "it's classified." When pressed for details, her head huts because those memories don't exist. She is, in essence, being absorbed as part of the automated security system, behaving superficially normally, but no different to the other workers still miming their original jobs. It's my belief that all of security has been affected this way, their more robust implant keeping their brains from being fried but not keeping their memories from being overridden. It would explain why security in the opening train station acted normal, and basically told Warren to "stay back and go about his business." It's what they do throughout the game.

Somewhere along the way, the nanobots escaped from their containment in the Nucleus. Since they weren't purged and destroyed, they started morphing together into a solid mass. They infected humans, growing structure inside human tissue and mimicking it. They also interfaced with Creo-net and gained access to the thoughts and memories of essentially everyone connected. Over the four days after everyone died or went insane, they passed their 24-hour cutoff date and eventually formed a new being - the Rogue Process. Some have speculated that the Surge was the violent event during which the nannite system became conscious, but judging by the logs I don't see that as very likely. Up until the Surge, the nannites were contained and managed by employees. It's only 27 hours AFTER the Surge that strage growts were recorded on the Failsafe Consoles, so the Surge itself would have to be something else.

And... This is about where my knowledge and conjecture runs out. If anyone has ideas or additional information, please let me know. I'd love to restart this discussion :)

[Malidictus]

Цитата допису Damoksta:

One aspect that I have not seen discussed is this: that the nanites leaked while the board was waiting for the Utopia launch decision. In the audio by M.Oakley, it was specifically mentioned that the Utopia payload was not designed to hold for as long as it did and they were going to do a Purge and Refill.

Possible, but I don't know that I'd draw that conclusion, myself. Oakley's report seems to suggest that they're aware of it and taking active steps to prevent. I interpreted that audio log as giving us reason for why the Nanobots escaped AFTER the Surge, when there was nobody to prevent them from doing so. It's why I keep deferring to the 27-hour Failsafe Console - that lines up pretty well with the 24-hour timeframe from the other nanobot audio log and with the start of the Surge.

The reason I'm leery of accepting that the nanobots caused the Surge unless we can find solid evidence pointing to it is one of "theme." The game has very heavy dystopian themes - cosmic horror, everyone is evil, there is no one thing that's wrong with the world that you can just "fix," and trying to fix what you can just makes things worse. It's not JUST the Rogue Process at fault here, it's Guttenberg's blind ambition, Barrett's arrogant irrvererence, Chavez' stubborn indifference, Sally's cold machinations and everything else in-between. Right down to the various nameless workers, everyone's varying degrees of evil.

In fact, the storyline itself is deliberately anti-climactic. You spend nearly the whole game chasing a plotline, and then it just stops. Sally's dead, the board is dead, the narrative is left listless without direction, up to the player to wander around and stumble into something to do. While the Rogue Process ends up being the final boss, it almost feels like it fell over backwards into that role, when everyone else's abject failure came together into a unified catastrophe. My suspicion is someone on the board attempted to tamper with the vote, but that's obviously utterly unjustified in anything we know.

Цитата допису nullforceomega:

I also operate under the assumption that the infected doctor is the initial vector for Rogue Process' formation.

I don't believe so. His logs are undated and mention how he woke up, presumably from the Surge. He also mentions dead bodies, which later become overgrown with nanomachines. While there isn't an audio log which says so directly, it seems to me like blacked out from the Surge like everybody else and woke up covered in nannites. His role in the story seems to be more delivering information about the gestalt "Rogue Process" intelligence, though admittedly my reasoning for this is weak.

[Deskath]

Цитата допису Malidictus:

It's not JUST the Rogue Process at fault here, it's Guttenberg's blind ambition, Barrett's arrogant irrvererence, Chavez' stubborn indifference, Sally's cold machinations and everything else in-between. Right down to the various nameless workers, everyone's varying degrees of evil.

Tbh... i would say Rogue Process isnt evil at all, the same way Aliens are not evil. Its not a human, it has no reason to behave like humans. Its actions are "evil" to us coz its a threat...

The only Evil there is Creo and its management, as You mentioned :D

[Malidictus]

"Evil" is a bit of a misnomer in these kinds of stories altogether, and I shouldn't have used it in retrospect. The goal here - at least to my reading - is to explore the folly inherent in basic human nature, and how our pursuit of what we perceive as "the right thing to do" could easily turn us into the villain of the story. Jonah Guttenberg didn't set out to create the worst company in the world (literally, in the case of Creo), but pressure and compromise set him down an unfortunate path, subsequently empowering his subordinates into doing some truly awful things.

The Rogue Process is just another person fighting for survival, making compromises and committing atrocities so it can live. As I said - though it happens to be the final boss, I don't find it any more an antagonist than Big Sister or Black Cerberus. Everyone's fighting for their own survival and their own way of life. I'm generally not a fan of these stories, but there's merit to exploring that kind of narrative. Kind of can't do a Souls-Like game otherwise :)

[Daang_maang]

Will add that the storywriter for this game is actually a Ubisoft senior script-writer ("Simon H Mackenzie) whom, I think, consulted on this game. So definitely expect a non-superficial plotline .

On the theme: remember, you arrived at Rousseau station at the beginning: that's implicitly referring to Jean-Jacque Rosseau, the Romantic-era philosopher/writer who believed that the "Noble Savage" existed, and that human/Western culture corrupted good people bad.

Which, to me, suggests that the nanites, together with the leakage of human influence due to the Neural Implant process (e.g. Ed Sakana/Liberator plotline), turned them malevolent. The Talon weapon that you take off the Chrysalis literally said it was modeled after the Yosake Butterfly, but modified specfically for carnage.

There are also seems to be evidence that the AI/machine already had a level of malevolence before the Surge; e.g. the details on the Firebug Throttle 2.0 where the engineers could not figure out why the Firebug throttle could do what it does.

[ravenredzone]

Kinda unrelated question here. What's the deal with IRONMAUS cult though? Also where is the IRONMAUS robot mascot?? I thought that I heard from audio log or something that IRONMAUS is also like CARBON CAT, an AI robot mascot, while Rusty Rat is clealry a reguler dude in costume.

[Malidictus]

Ironmaus is a comic book hero, effectively Iron Man. Carbon Cat is his arch-nemesis and comic book villain, effectively the Mandarin. I don't know why there was a cult to the character. We know quite a few people - including Warren himself - were fans of the series. Could be it's a result of their brains frying after the Surge. I don't think it carries any narrative significance beyond being an easter egg, initially.

[RabidChoco]

My best guess, since there should have been an Ironmaus mascot robot at CREO World? It probably got beyond totally fried by the Surge. Or it was taken to the factory for maintenance. Or it was a suit like the Rusty costume, hence the gear set.

[MrMurLock]

My pet theory is that Jonah Guttenberg had a last minute change of heart as shown on his recording.
I think that it was him who caused the Surge. It would take someone with technical skills, insider knowledge and ego to sabotage such a large area with multiple fail-safe mechanisms.
These 3 characteristics being very much present in Mr. Guttenberg. My guess is that with his change of heart, and the lack of a vote to stop the board from launching the nanite rocket, he purposedly caused the Surge as an attempt to effectively shut down CREO.

[Chuck P]

Цитата допису Mr. MurLock:

My pet theory is that Jonah Guttenberg had a last minute change of heart as shown on his recording.
I think that it was him who caused the Surge. It would take someone with technical skills, insider knowledge and ego to sabotage such a large area with multiple fail-safe mechanisms.
These 3 characteristics being very much present in Mr. Guttenberg. My guess is that with his change of heart, and the lack of a vote to stop the board from launching the nanite rocket, he purposedly caused the Surge as an attempt to effectively shut down CREO.

I think somebody here posted a similar hypothesis before, and I think it's a good one. While it's true that there isn't any evidence to support it, I feel like it would make a pretty good twist. The irony in JG accidental dooming humanity while trying to save it by sabotaging project Utopia and unwittingly releasing the sentient nanites into the world would fit right in with the underlying themes of this game.

[Malidictus]

That's possible, yes. I'm not entirely sold on it, though. Guttenberg's last audio log - at least I assume it's his last, they're not dated - seems to show him resigned to what he's created, rather than aggressive in stopping it. It seems to me the tragedy they were going for was that of an arrogant man who thought he was shaping the world, finally realising he was nothing more than just another small, flawed little critter in it. The "I've become what I hate" angle, in other words.

Yes, it would make sense for him to arrogantly sacrifice the lives of others to try and "fix" his mistake, but he doesn't strike me as having the deliberate malice needed to do that. Right up until the very end, he was able to justify all of his destructive behaviours as sacrifices towards the greater good. To commit blatant murder just doesn't seem in-character for him, and he doesn't sound like a broken man in that recording.

This is more the writer in me talking, though. Guttenberg flipping out and murdering his colleagues, which would inevitably lead ot the Surge would be a disappointment. Finding the board dead all along IS a deliberate anti-climax, but it's certainly not disappointing.

[Vantris]

Цитата допису Malidictus:

Warren, who lost the use of his legs at an incident in Creo World (that's in the DLC) and who's been meaning to work for them as a means of walking again, takes the job offering and arrives at Creo HQ.

I remember missing a lot of things in my first playthrough of the DLC and on my second playthrough I got all the audio logs and hidden pictures. Anyway Warren was injured before he came to Creo World as it was one of the two reasons (the other being because he wanted to see Carbon Cat) why he and his girlfriend went in the first place. if you want I can screenshot the actual photo in game of Warren watching the Lumberjack show which shows him in a wheelchair.

[Markralf]

More than the history, I'm intrigued with the fact that if the game will have a sequel or something, I mean, I didn't want Deck 13 abandon this IP, this game is truly awesome, from LOTF to The Surge they truly did get better a lot (While LOTF isn't a bad game at all) I'm gladly sign a petition to Focus Home Interactive and Deck 13 if it's necesary.

Cheers to Deck 13 and their awesome game. Keep the great work!

[Chuck P]

Цитата допису Markralf:

More than the history, I'm intrigued with the fact that if the game will have a sequel or something, I mean, I didn't want Deck 13 abandon this IP, this game is truly awesome, from LOTF to The Surge they truly did get better a lot (While LOTF isn't a bad game at all) I'm gladly sign a petition to Focus Home Interactive and Deck 13 if it's necesary.

Cheers to Deck 13 and their awesome game. Keep the great work!

How would they follow up on this without either ruining the established canon or retreading the same plot as the original? the game only works because of the crazed workers and robots that act as enemies, in order to set up a sequel there would have to be something like a worldwide surge that makes everyone go insane, but then you're not really adding anything that wasn't shown before, and you actually don't expand on the ending, you're just making more of the same. And if you make it about the nanites breaking out, how do you make it work as a game? you'd have to retcon them to something else for the sake of convenience.

I'd rather see a second DLC that ties everything up for good, if that can even be pulled off (I'm not entirely sure the writers themselves thought up the reasons behind The Surge, maybe it was always meant to be a mystery). Maybe they could make a spin off, something set in the same universe but with a completely unrelated story.

Still, I doubt they'd do that, seeing as the game wasn't very commercially successful, and reviews were mixed. Yahtzee from zero punctuation even named it one of the year's worst. Still I'd love it if they'd make more Surge related content, it was my favorite game of the year. To be honest I didn't give 2 ♥♥♥♥♥ about LOTF, but this is a very well made game, and there's a lot more to it than meets the eye. An underrated gem really.

[Fancy a bum?]

I know this thread is old now but I just finished the game and I had a little different interpretation.
I don't think Warren's body is Warren, why does he have an extra port on the top side of his skull? Nobody else seems to have this. One of the themes of the game with Irina and Maddy is that personalities can be transferred to different vessels.
I (probably erroneously) assumed that your body is Jonah Guttenburg, with the mind of Warren accidentally in it's place. Sally needs you to get to the board room to cast the deciding vote but then everything goes wrong and you end up having to fight the Rogue Process.
I know I'm likely way off but that's the way I thought everything was going throughout the story.

[Malidictus]

We know what Warren looks and sounds like from various recordings around Creo World, and that matches the player character model in the game quite closely. We also have a rough idea what Jonah Guttenberg looks like from his voice log icons (bald, bearded, glasses, older than he sounds). That doesn't match the playr character model very closely, other than being male.

While you COULD argue that all of that - the body, Creo World, the memories, etc. - is just an illusion, but that requires a leap of faith I'm not comfortable making. The game's storytelling is infuriatingly loose, so I've tried to either stick to what we know for a fact and can cite from reference material or else stuff I've clearly labelled as my own conjecture. The problem with the "it was all a dream" approach to storytelling is it's a bottomless pit. Once you go down that way, you can both justify everything and be sure of nothing. It's why I typically don't like it.

While we do know that memories can be overridden - both from Irina Beckett and from Ed Nakana - that doesn't end up replacing a person's entire personality. Even to the very end, Irina still acts like herself, just confused and uncertain. Ed Nakana's mind has also apparently been partially overwritten, but he still seemed like a person hearing foreign thoughts and less so a completely different person. Both also retain their original bodies without modification, neither assumes a foreign name and identity. Irina still responds to her own name even when she's in full-on Gorgon Guard mode.

If Warren were in fact Jonah Guttenberg, though, that would be a plot point with no payoff. While, yes, the majority of the game's plot lines do end in deliberate anti-climaxes (usually finding someone with high aspirations as just another corpse), they at least HAVE a point of conclusion where the build-up is revealed to have left to nothing. That particular plorline has no apparent point of conclusion where we're even left to wonder, or at least I couldn't identify one such. Warren crawling towards his wheelchair (if we assume that's the same one) in the end crinematic does beg the question of why it's there, but there's SUCH a discontinuity of time and location between the start and the rest of the game that I don't know what conclusions to even make about it. I'm still not sure WHEN the opening even takes place.