Typhon lore question - spoilers

[TSP]

Let me start off by saying that I don't own the game. I watched Markiplier's videos and ended up watching a dozen of other random video's afterwards about Prey and its lore (Especially Subject 37 since that bugged out on Markiplier's playthrough.

While I found most of the answers I was looking for, I am still left with one question, and I couldn't find it on the forums in here either (Searched for "Typhon" and found 44 pages worth of results, went through the first 4 pages that were not relevant to my question...)

My question is, how did the Typhon outbreak/containment breach start?


The first real thing you see is the scientist picking up his cup of coffee and all hell breaking loose, only to wake up later and the rest is history. Markiplier ended up skipping pretty much all sidequests and I assume therefore also a lot of lore - and perhaps even the question I ask myself.

I know the Coral ends up being the neural link to the monstrosity at the end, but it doesn't seem to be a portal itself, thus the experiments people did with Typhon creatures and allowing them to create the Coral (I'm not even sure if they ever could contain the Coral at all) doesn't seem to be the start of the containment breach.

People were getting symptoms of going crazy with all the experimenting, but none of their heads actually blow up (As far as I can tell) until ♥♥♥♥ already went down. Even subject 37 wasn't all that infected (If at all noticable) even with the dozens if not hundreds of experiments on him were done. Of course, the lines he has with how he could look into the future (Which as far as we know, happened to be fact) is not possible without a supernatural power, such as Typhon modding.

So what actually happened and how many Typhon were there on the space station in the first place? Did they multiply from portals somewhere? Why did we never see portals? The density of them definitely seems to be increasing, as was the grow of Coral during Markiplier's playthough.


I'll happily watch a video or article as long as it's based on in-game source (And not just wild conjecture such as even the very ending being a simulation in a simulation in a simulation)

What did I miss? Who really caused the katamari ball to get rolling?

[JRavens]

Well you are in luck because I happen to know the actual answer! (No really. I found it in the game files)

This is how the outbreak *started* -

ArkCharacter ID="4349723564911779006" Name="Trevor J. Young" Label="@loc_15373294129892759804" JobTitle="@loc_15373294129891703563" Group="15659330456312989362" VitalSigns="Nominal" IsAlive="true" HasTrackingChip="true" Notes="This is the worker who walked into an experiment in psychotronics without a psychoscope. He was touched by a telepath and open a containment cell that contained a mimic, starting the outbreak on Talos. He was put under observation in psychotronics, determined to not be suffering under any adverse effects, and had his neuromods uninstalled, wiping his memory. He was put into the quarantine in trauma for further observation until Alex can figure out what to do with him. " Location="1713490239377285936" Voice="13680621263353094521" IsPlaced="true" RosterLocation="11824555372632688907"

PS - Trevor is I believe the one quarantined inside of the Trauma Center at the start of the game.

[Morgian]

I found the info that the outbreak started in Psychotronics, but not the details.

The russians and americans encountered the typhon in the 50ies and started the Kletka mission. They have been experimenting with the typhon for almost 70 years with one incident in the 80ies. There are no portals, because the typhon were found aboard a small vessel and contained by humans since then.
They increase in numbers easily, because they have no cycle of life like us. A mimic can quadruple itself from one human. The weavers (who are something like insect queens) can create phantoms out of corpses and also make the tele- and technopaths. A botched attempt creates a poltergeist.

I made a small experiment in the Lobby on my second playthrough. I had always fresh phantoms in the Lobby when I came back, and they usually had a name. After finding out that weavers use the genesis ability I piled up the bodies and recycled them. And later on there were no new phantoms in the lobby. So the game does track some events in game (and monstercreating resources) and doesn't just place a new phantom.
In other places it just spawns fresh typhons every time you enter the zone, like the Hardware labs in the hall with the elevator.
But I wonder a little. There were 276 people on board plus the 16 (?) volunteers. Does the game actually work with this number of resources, plus whatever typhons were in containment? Could one actually clear the station?

[TSP]

First of all, thank you both for your answers, they're very useful and food for thought.

@JRavens

I suspected him a lot because of how he was the first example we got of a mindcontrolled human being (At least, in Markiplier's video it was the first one, it might be that there's different ones in other places that you can encounter before Trevor)


@Morgian

Of course, what actually happens in-game might be bending the rules of what lore actually would be. I don't think the devs calculated that exactly that many human beings had to be on the station to spawn X typhons.

The weavers can spawn things out of thin air (Those Cysts) as well as the Nightmare spawning randomly and out of nowhere is either an indication of portals or just bending the lore a little bit. The final boss at the end clearly opened a rift in space, indicating that at least one form of Typhon is able to create portals.




Furthermore, I think it is weird that Morgan Yu (the original) developed the Psychoscope before they knew what terrible things they could do if you didn't use one (Since evidently, if they knew what Trevor went through when he got infected, they'd have killed him outright and NOT sent to trauma). It seems a bit of a chicken-egg story?

[Breach]

Originally posted by JRavens:

Well you are in luck because I happen to know the actual answer! (No really. I found it in the game files)

This is how the outbreak *started* -

ArkCharacter ID="4349723564911779006" Name="Trevor J. Young" Label="@loc_15373294129892759804" JobTitle="@loc_15373294129891703563" Group="15659330456312989362" VitalSigns="Nominal" IsAlive="true" HasTrackingChip="true" Notes="This is the worker who walked into an experiment in psychotronics without a psychoscope. He was touched by a telepath and open a containment cell that contained a mimic, starting the outbreak on Talos. He was put under observation in psychotronics, determined to not be suffering under any adverse effects, and had his neuromods uninstalled, wiping his memory. He was put into the quarantine in trauma for further observation until Alex can figure out what to do with him. " Location="1713490239377285936" Voice="13680621263353094521" IsPlaced="true" RosterLocation="11824555372632688907"

PS - Trevor is I believe the one quarantined inside of the Trauma Center at the start of the game.

That's cool. Yes, he's the one in quarantine in Trauma. What do you use to extract the PAK files?

[Hash]

My theory is that, since we're playing a simulation, not everything in it happens the way it really did. Alex really wanted to "recreate" his original brother/sister who changed during the experiments and that's why he really put him in the simulaton loop, thought he'd flip back to normal at some point. I think the real break of containment was that they gave Morgan to much Typhon material, it changed his brain more than they anticipated or opened him up to mindcontrol by the Apex Typhon. Since the Typhon seem to exists mainly outside our reality but can profit from/need physical neural connections to live/evolve, I think it's entirely possible that changing Morgan's brain is what causes the existence/evolution of the Apex Typhon in the first place and summons him to the station. Since all Typhon might be connected via the coral, it's also possible that the Typhon who get's put through the simulation you see at the end is also the Apex Typhon who adapted to pretend he's really Morgan Yu or at least equipped with memories of that experience. In the end I think the simulations formed a feedback loop that ultimately created the Typhon conscience that tries to talk to you and destroyed humanity.

The Psychotronics accident with Trevor Young did not release Typhons onto the station.
It merely illustrates that the Telepath Typhon is capable of controlling the mind of everyone who does not wear a Psychoscope. It's implied the only exception is volunteer 37 who even the Typhon mind seemed to find disgusting.

A second possibility is that mimics can only enter our reality though the special gravitational properties of a LaGrange Point (which the Russians disturbed with the original sattelite they sent up) and the radius they could appear in increased unnoticed by the scientists on board the station as the mass of the station slowly increased with additional facilities. That way the mimics would've never really escaped because they were never really confined to the "cage".

It's definitly worth mentioning that a few logs talk about suspected mimic sightings days before the events of the game (mimic in the vent over the lobby security office, mimic pretending to be a piece of electric equipment on the reactor level)

[TSP]

Originally posted by Hash:

My theory is that, since we're playing a simulation, not everything in it happens the way it really did. Alex really wanted to "recreate" his original brother/sister who changed during the experiments and that's why he really put him in the simulaton loop, thought he'd flip back to normal at some point. I think the real break of containment was that they gave Morgan to much Typhon material, it changed his brain more than they anticipated or opened him up to mindcontrol by the Apex Typhon. Since the Typhon seem to exists mainly outside our reality but can profit from/need physical neural connections to live/evolve, I think it's entirely possible that changing Morgan's brain is what causes the existence/evolution of the Apex Typhon in the first place and summons him to the station. Since all Typhon might be connected via the coral, it's also possible that the Typhon who get's put through the simulation you see at the end is also the Apex Typhon who adapted to pretend he's really Morgan Yu or at least equipped with memories of that experience. In the end it think the simulations formed a feedback loop that ultimately created the Typhon conscience that tries to talk to you and destroyed humanity.

This is just extreme conjecture with barely any (If any) basis.

I could add a theory that it's just another simulation in a simulation that some random dude made in his E3 2958 conference. We could all make a million theories but they have to have solid foundation and evidence to support it (And not conjecture based on conjecture)

Originally posted by Hash:

The Psychotronics accident with Trevor Young did not release Typhons onto the station.
It merely illustrates that the Telepath Typhon is capable of controlling the mind of everyone who does not wear a Psychoscope.

According to the second post in this very thread this is in the game files:

Notes="This is the worker who walked into an experiment in psychotronics without a psychoscope. He was touched by a telepath and open a containment cell that contained a mimic, starting the outbreak on Talos. [...]"

Well, if you want to refute something the devs themselves put in this very game, you better make for an extremely good case as to why.

Originally posted by Hash:

A second possibility is that [...]

If the game files themselves say Trevor was the start of the outbreak, then - unless the devs changed their mind during the development of the game and they explicitly state so - it is the best evidence we have to the "truth" of how the outbreak happened.

[Hash]

Well, if you want to refute something the devs themselves put in this very game, you better make for an extremely good case as to why.

Well, for starters, there is a note in the game that states Trevor walked into the experiment but the note you talk about isn't actually in the game. Meaning they probably removed the note you talk about because it contradicted something that remained in the game and you just found the leftover object just like there are still a lot of unused survival mechanics in there you can unlock with mods. The vision of creators changes while they create, y'know, that's what the games plot is all about. I think they wanted you to think about this across possibly multiple playthroughs. The books in your appartment give IMHO the most important clues as to how the story wants to be read.

And my first point is less conjecture if you heard Alex say that "all he wants is his brother/sister back". There is also no discussing the point the game consists of the results of 2 different simulations: one with a real Morgan manipulated by Typhon and one with a real Typhon manipulated by Morgans remaining memories.

I guess what I'm really trying to do here is emphasize the importance of the book on engineering you find right at the start next to the TV that says that good engineers or control systems learn from the past.

[Hash]

But I don't wanna sound too critical here. I don't think the whole Typhon breakout ever made full sense with the Technopath already at the top of the arboretum elevator when you wake up after the tests (there is a variation of the plot though if you prioritize your Looking Glass over trying to use the elevator). Looking at the bodies it makes total sense to think the initial threat came from the Psychotronics Division and even January said that. Then again Bellamy was successfully brought to the Trauma Center and then again brought to the Psychotronics Morgue right after your tests end and you wake up shortly thereafter (looking at your computer screen you will notice no time passing between you falling unconscious and waking up again in your apt.) meaning that that area of the station can not have already been devastated. At the very least it would seem that the Typhon that kill everyone must've escaped days before the events of the game and spread over the entire station. I think they've decided to keep it purposefully vague so the decisions you have to make in the game have more meaning, like the shuttle you can destroy from the bridge. You're not supposed to be certain whether the thing is clean or not (probably isn't).

[Breach]

OK, I managed to extract the files and it's cool to see so much background on many characters. I think these were the storywriter's notes to guide the Dev team. So I think it's quite possible to believe that the incident indeed started with Trevor Young as it says there. However, I also wouldn't take these notes as pure canon - e.g. one of the notes says the Yuri Kimura is not on the station (she is in release version), some notes say TBD, etc

[TSP]

Originally posted by Breach:

However, I also wouldn't take these notes as pure canon - e.g. one of the notes says the Yuri Kimura is not on the station (she is in release version), some notes say TBD, etc

The point I was trying to make - and I can only repeat myself here because I already tried explaining it on as low a level I could - If the game files themselves say Trevor was the start of the outbreak, then - unless the devs changed their mind during the development of the game and they explicitly state so - it is the best evidence we have to the "truth" of how the outbreak happened.

So in the case of Yuri Kimura, it's officially shown that she's in the game. Therefore the best evidence is still from the devs themselves. So as long as there's evidence from devs, it would - from a logic standpoint - be smart to stick with what the devs have laid out until proven otherwise (In this case, again, it was the devs).

Without this very simple concept, anyone could make any conclusion or statement about anything in any game, leading to a million "theories".



So to answer the quote truthfully, it is best to take the official notes as pure canon until shown otherwise by the devs themselves (As evident in the Yuri example).

[Breach]

Dude chill. These are internal dev notes not meant to be seen by anyone outside the dev team and things may have changed in the meantime as often happens during a development lifecycle. As far as the official narrative is concerned the only sure thing is that a typhon broke containment in psychotronics. You are free to believe what you want though.

[TSP]

Originally posted by Breach:

You are free to believe what you want though.

That's how religion started. I thought we were men and women of science and facts, logic processing demands references close to the source are more reliable than the wily rabbithole thoughts any one random person might or might not have.

[Lamb Sauce]

How did the Typhon break containment anyway? In the game itself it just says that Trevor tried to open the containment chamber. Did he succeed? Which containment chamber are they talking about? The one with the Weaver in it or are they talking about the two glass room test chambers next to the big chamber with the Weaver?
And when did that happen? Because I read a lot of mails where people talk about seeing something black in the vents/moving chairs/hear voices in their heads/etc. There are even several transcribes recordings where people talk about their "encounters" with something strange like the one in the Power Plant where apparently a mimic mimicked a grounding resistor and "melted" when the engineer picked it up to install it. How much time has passed since the outbreak?

So many questions...

[Breach]

Originally posted by RITUALISTIC:

How did the Typhon break containment anyway? In the game itself it just says that Trevor tried to open the containment chamber. Did he succeed? Which containment chamber are they talking about? The one with the Weaver in it or are they talking about the two glass room test chambers next to the big chamber with the Weaver?
And when did that happen? Because I read a lot of mails where people talk about seeing something black in the vents/moving chairs/hear voices in their heads/etc. There are even several transcribes recordings where people talk about their "encounters" with something strange like the one in the Power Plant where apparently a mimic mimicked a grounding resistor and "melted" when the engineer picked it up to install it. How much time has passed since the outbreak?

So many questions...

1) Containment refers to the entire Psychotronics area where a pyschoscope is required - labs, Kletka, etc.

2) All it takes is one mimic - one kill, 4 mimics, then a Weaver, then a phantom, etc.

3) Timeline is more or less as follows: first incident reported 30 minutes after Shuttle Advent leaves for Earth and it's about to land when you reach the bridge. A shuttle makes the Talos I round-trip in about 24 hours (ref. Volunteer Flight Schedule log of Shuttle Exalt). So it's been more or less 12 hours since the first accident took place.

[Lamb Sauce]

Originally posted by Breach:

Originally posted by RITUALISTIC:

How did the Typhon break containment anyway? In the game itself it just says that Trevor tried to open the containment chamber. Did he succeed? Which containment chamber are they talking about? The one with the Weaver in it or are they talking about the two glass room test chambers next to the big chamber with the Weaver?
And when did that happen? Because I read a lot of mails where people talk about seeing something black in the vents/moving chairs/hear voices in their heads/etc. There are even several transcribes recordings where people talk about their "encounters" with something strange like the one in the Power Plant where apparently a mimic mimicked a grounding resistor and "melted" when the engineer picked it up to install it. How much time has passed since the outbreak?

So many questions...

1) Containment refers to the entire Psychotronics area where a pyschoscope is required - labs, Kletka, etc.

2) All it takes is one mimic - one kill, 4 mimics, then a Weaver, then a phantom, etc.

3) Timeline is more or less as follows: first incident reported 30 minutes after Shuttle Advent leaves for Earth and it's about to land when you reach the bridge. A shuttle makes the Talos I round-trip in about 24 hours (ref. Volunteer Flight Schedule log of Shuttle Exalt). So it's been more or less 12 hours since the first accident took place.

Ah, so Psychotronics = containment, got it.

I know that mimics quadruple after killing one human, it's just kinda weird that the employees have the time to talk about their sightings in so many different departments at once. That would mean the Typhon (only mimics in this case I assume) spread lightning fast without anyone from security or Psychotronics knowing/doing something about it. I also know how phantoms are created, but how are telepaths/technopaths created? I saw a graph implying that Weavers "produce" them, but I never actually saw it. I don't even know under what conditions a telepath/technopath is created.

12 hours sounds really short, but I'll believe it until someone else proves it wrong.