Just finished the game: my choices and toughts about the ending and the story (SPOILERS)

[DOOOODGE]

WARNING: BIG WALL OF TEXT INCOMING


So, I finished this game last day and I wanted to take a (not quantum) break before going back to see the other choices.
The obviosus strength of QB is the story so that's why I'd like to discuss it.
In my first playthrough here are my choices and why I made them:
- Junction 1: I chose the PR line, mainly because i took at liking at Amy and didn't want her to get killed. I still do, so I don't think I will go back to choose the hardline option.
- Junction 2: Less straight choice for me, bu I chose the personal line, mainly because in Paul's vision I saw him talking with Jack and I was hoping he would finally explain why he acted the way he did. About how he saw the End of Time and how the Vonikov's principle made him believe that was unavoidable, to the point he decided to sacrifice Will. I was let down as the actual dialogue was short and Pauld didn't really reveal anything. I already knew about Hatch's treason (i collected 100% of the documents) but the hope of Paul and Jack sort of making up won over that. Ofc now that I see that was just a bait, in my 2nd playthrough I will choose the business line.
- Junction 3: Amaral / Hatch: easy choice: as I said, I collected 100% of the documents so I already knew not to trust Hatch. Poor Sophia Amaral is just in love with Paul and wants to heal him. Ofc later she will condemn Beth to a horrible fate without a second tought so my empathy towards her basically died with that. I'm still unsure to make her pay or stick with the mistrust towards Hatch (since I see him as the true bad guy of the story).
- Junction 4: I chose for Paul to surrender to paranoia. I know the majority of the players chose the other one, but at this point I developed a theory about Paul: I think his motives are less noble than they seem. Yes, he wanted to save mankind, but... His ego is the problem. He never ever considered that Paul and Will may be right, not even once. He was 100% convinced that what he saw was going to happen and that Will's countermeasure would not have worked because it was his conclusion. HIs ego is so big he killed for it. It's not like he foguht to save mankind, he fought and killed to prevent anyone to doubt his conclusion. His conclusion must be the right one because it's his one, and Will must be wrong because he isn't Serene. If he stopped even once in his tracks and tried to listen what Will and Jack had to say in the matter, about what was their plan to stop the End of Time (I mean, we're talking about William Joyce here. He's the one who created the Time Machine. He's also the one who built tthe RC, that very same RC that's the key to the Ark protocol. The Serene in charge of Monarch should've known by now that the Fracture started because the scientist who built the university Time Machine screwed up where Will wouldn't have), they would've fixed everything with no casualties. Will is aware of Novikov's principle too so Serene shouldn't have any reason to make him an enemy other than refusing to show humility.
I didn't want someone like him sto stay in control of things any longer so I chose for him to surrender to paranoia. Sadly, this led to Burke's death, but as things were, casualties had to occur. I also chose paranoia because I hoped for Burke to side with Jack, whereas the control timeline seemed to lead to them fighting (and supposedly for Burke to die anyway). Maybe I'm going to choose control in another playthrough, though.
About Burke: I'm not sure if I like him or not. On one side, he's a heartless assassin, a "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir" guy who never questions order and follows them no matter how dark they are, that kills innocent people (like Amy in the hardline choice) without remorse if ordered. That kind of blind obedience and lack of self tought, I truly hate. On the other hand, since episode 1 of the series he's clearly been sucked into a tornado of events way bigger than him, and, full of confusion, focused only on protecting his wife and future child, and in that sense can't say I blame him. He's not used to think with his own head so protecting his family is the only path he can take. I can sai I don't fully dislike him, but I also don't like him enough to be saddened by his death.
Same goes for Charlie: he's a total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, but in the end he finally manned up and went through a selfless path. Since he never killed nor intended to kill anyone (aside from Hatch), i maybe like him a bit more than Burke.

HATCH
Speaking of Hatch, who or what you people think he is? Here's my theory: we know that, turing stasis episodes and after the End of Time, the world is populated by creatures with wave funcion disjointed from time, a.k.a. Shifters. Those creatures are the reason Monarch developed military equipment against stasis. These seem to be extremely hostile creature who live in multiple quantum states at the same time. One document found in the Monarch HQ states that firearms are useless against them, because if you kill them, you killed just one version of them among the many selves in the domain of quantum possibilities, so in order to kill them with weapons you have to continuously shoot them until you've killed every version of them. Shifters seem to be the sole inhabitants of the post-End of Time world and they react to every glimpse of movement in an otherwise static world.
You also find an interesting document called "unnamed note" before entering Paul's office at Monarch, during act 5. The author is unknown but I think chances are it's Martin Hatch. He describes how there are natural fluctuactions in the Meyer-Joyce field, so "natural" time machines are a thing. It's not like you can't go back in time past the date of the time machine's creation, it's that you can't go back past the first activation of the time machine you're currently using. So going even further back in time is possible.
So here's my theory: there's a future where the End of Time has arrived, the Ark Protocol started but the chosen scientist failed to find a permanent solution to the fracture (after all, Monarch's scientists are the same ones that screwed up the equations regarding the time machine, leading to the university incident and to the fracture to be opened, so it's safe to assume they can't fix that). Then they either died all of old age or were attacked by the Shifters, who managed to destroy the RC. Then centuries or even millennia pass in a frozen time. Shifter are the only creatures that live, and they evolve. They evolve to the point of being sentient (or rather to go back to being sentient). One of them is Hatch: he not only finds the "natural" time machine, but manages to "fixate" himself in one of his quantum states, thus being able to live outside the frozen time. There will be a major event, a quantum ripple, one so big and so weird it violates Novikov's self-consistency principle. Hatch went back in time to ensure said event goes in a way that the End of time happens, leading to a world dominated by Shifters. My proof of the fact he's a shifter comes when he was killed by the CR's security protocols and then by being stabbed in the eye by Burke's wife (in the paranoia timeline), yet he's alive and in the lead of Monarch in the ending. I think that can only mean just some of his quantum states were killed and he still has plenty left.

QUANTUM BREAK 2
Speaking about the ending, it obviously hints to a QB2. Jack promises to a frozen-in-time Beth that he would go back to save her. I don't know if it's because he has feelings for her or out of a mix of empathy and pity. I mean, who wouldn't want to save Beth? She hasn't had a life: from age 8, all she did was to save the world: she never had real friends, she trained and devoted herself to enter Monarch, under them did things she probably hates, fighting them from the inside. Then she meets Jack, helps him but is sent in the future to see that very same traumatic End of Time that ruined Paul, then ends back to 1999 where she lives 11 years in total isolation, with only anguish and fear to keep her company. And after that she gets a bullet in the head. Jack must think she doesn't deserve that.
Anyway, after that there's the dialogue with Hatch, and the screen goes red with 2 figures on Jack's left and 2 on Jack's right. That looked a lot like Paul's power to foresee the consequences of a choice during junctions, and I think that's exactly that: the Chronon Regulator didn't remove Jack's powers, it just temporarily depleted them. But they came back, and they grew. I don't know if this means Jack will suffer the same disease as Paul (which, as we know, wasn't exactly a disease but more him slowly turning into a Shifter).
What I know is that this suggest a QB2 where you have to save Beth and stop Hatch and with choices leading to different paths much like QB1, only with Jack seeing them instead of Paul.
Googling a bit, I discovered that Remedy has its hands tied because the IP is in the hands of Microsoft, so unless they give a go, QB2 won't see the light. Things recently started moving for Alan Wake though, so there is hope.

Sorry for the wall of text

[Vile]

No need to apologize. In my thread I explained my choices.

I enjoyed all of my choices and I chose to trust Hatch because in my story, he never existed. He was a dual personality of Paul and Paul was subconsciously sabotaging himself as part of his disease to see the outcome to every solution. Hatch is supposed to be a shifter cause he appears out of nowhere, but I liked my interpretation more.

I chose PR, Just Business, I chose Friends over Love, I chose to not give into the madness as Paul sees himself as a God that must do whatever is necessary to protect the whole. However his dual personality also must sabotage himself to act upon every possible solution. It’s why he let Jack go from the interrogation room cause he sees Jack as his equal. He wants to fight Jack at a later time and sees killing him with a gun is not Jack’s destiny.

[DOOOODGE]

The Hatch being another personality of Paul is an interesting view, but it doesn't hold. As i stated, I collected 100% of the documents around. Most of them refer to Hatch as a real person people talk and look up to. There's even been a cutscene with Sophia Amaral talking to him.
On the other hand, it could very well be that Paul is able to alter himself even phisically when switching to his "Hatch" self. A hint of this could be that the only time we saw them together was when they were alone, however if I recall right when Jack surrendered himself as a plan to get to Dr. Amaral, there were both of them talking to him.
I find it unlikely that Hatch doesn't exist as a separate person. This could lead to another hypothesis: when Jack and Will activated the countermeasure at the end, it apparently vaporized Paul, but maybe it did not. Maybe it interacted uniquely with Paul's status as a soon-to-be-Shifter and sent him forward (or back) in time, while also altering his physique to the point he became something halfway beteeen a human and a shifter, turning him into Hatch. So Hatch may be another Paul Serene who already went through the QB events and worked to end up as the leader of Monarch while assuring the countermeasure would be activated, turning Paul into him.
I still find my first theory to be more likely, but this is valid as well.