*Spoilers* Questions about the killer?

[Sorehn]

My gf and I played through the game, but we were a little confused about an element and were hoping someone could clarify. Later in the game, you discover the killer that appears like a werewolf. Perhaps we didn't explore the game well enough and we tried searching online, but we were really curious about the origin of the killer. How did Adam control it? Was it affected by the nanophage, was it affected by the virus? When investigating the killer's memory, you explore parts of his childhood and the conflicts around his almost werewolf-like appearance. Perhaps the kid had augmentations to have those features and it got corrupted, or was the kid somehow born with those mutations? Either way, did he become some monster that Adam took over and commanded to kill all those people? How is he even connected?

Also, did Adam create or unleash the virus to destroy his virtual counterpart?

[Phaota]

Why did you post this topic three times? Once was enough.

[Sorehn]

I wasn't aware it posted more than once. Usually those things are accidental. Thanks for helping my question though!

[bugc]

Bump also not really sure.

I think Adam somehow made this person kill everyone that knew what he was up too (creating a world after death) but he also was a drug addict and that affected his mind,
As Adam stated in the end that he wasn't meant to go after Daniel, you.

And there were flash backs in the killers mind that showed us he was a werewolf fanatic, having posters and stuff in his room.
he had augments that turned him into a wolf which split his family apart and they didn't want anything to really do with him, especially the Father (?). The mother was trying to be supportive.

Also it's at this point I was confused.
Some of what I said mightn't be accurate.

-
Yes I think flesh Adam created the virus to destroy this AI superior copy,
But the AI copy somehow beheaded flesh Adam and left a trap in the head(?)
Not sure which version called Dan in the first minutes of gameplay, I think the Time of Death upon scanning the body answers this.
-

I don't know what happened at the end when Daniel was looking in the mirror and he was reflecting a monster.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1645631820

Anyway, I've just completed the game and I've enjoyed writing this to understand some things myself as well

[Noob Herder]

Originally posted by Bug:

Bump also not really sure.

I think Adam somehow made this person kill everyone that knew what he was up too (creating a world after death) but he also was a drug addict and that affected his mind,
As Adam stated in the end that he wasn't meant to go after Daniel, you.

And there were flash backs in the killers mind that showed us he was a werewolf fanatic, having posters and stuff in his room.
he had augments that turned him into a wolf which split his family apart and they didn't want anything to really do with him, especially the Father (?). The mother was trying to be supportive.

AI Adam sent the splicer (werewolf guy) to kill everyone related to the experiment to cover his tracks from Chiron. Yes, you got the second part right, the splicer is just some junkie, not really sure how he convinced him but considering his dissociative psyche, it was probably just through coercion.

Originally posted by Bug:

Yes I think flesh Adam created the virus to destroy this AI superior copy,
But the AI copy somehow beheaded flesh Adam and left a trap in the head(?)
Not sure which version called Dan in the first minutes of gameplay, I think the Time of Death upon scanning the body answers this.

It is not clear where the virus came from, it could be that Nanophage virus (it can spread through the net), it could be Adam's virus, or it could be Chiron's defenses. Also, it is not clear if the virus Adam deployed was meant to kill the AI or to spread the AI. An important thing to keep in mind is that as the story is progressing the whole Nanophage outbreak is happening, is it unknown if it is related to Adam's virus. A theory of mine could be that AI Adam is 'superior' in the sense that software/AI become self-aware - this could be what the nanophage itself is.

Also, the software hack in his head was implemented by real Adam, possibly way ahead of time, as a trap for anyone probing his mind, obviously being a hacker and hiding from Chiron, he programmed it into his chip as a defense from any observers if he was ever captured - I think it speaks for his skill in that Daniel was unable to extract anything from him. It was AI Adam that warned Daniel not to jack in, meaning AI Adam had knowledge of the trap and intent of it because obviously he was a direct copy of real Adam's mind.

Originally posted by Bug:

I don't know what happened at the end when Daniel was looking in the mirror and he was reflecting a monster.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1645631820

The monster in the mirror is Daniel's manifestation of his repressed inner guilt/self-hatred. This is why it is a threat to him when he is jacked in, it is part of his own conscience - Even the final encounter could be considered to be his own psyche playing tricks on him. Throughout the game, when collecting the roses and some parts of victim hacks, he expresses his sorrow and guilt of letting his wife dying when she opted to not get implants/augs - his guilt is further compounded by his wife's son's resentment and blame that Daniel left her to die. Daniel thinks of his choice as an unavoidable choice, although through several dialogues, with AI/memory Adam, the immaculate, and Nader he is made to introspect his own choices. The mirror scene is a reveal of his realization, Daniel's face-to-face with his own self.

[bugc]

Thanks for your informative text FilliesAreBest♥
I appreciate you taking the time to explain a few of those questions of ours

[DaSchmitz]

Actually, I thought that monster in the mirror is the way Daniel looks now, after the operation. This is what was being repressed, making him think of himself and see himself as a normal human.

If you take the melding ending, you will find that Daniel (from first perspective) now looks quite a bit larger than he did before.

[Noob Herder]

Originally posted by wagneraz23:

Actually, I thought that monster in the mirror is the way Daniel looks now, after the operation. This is what was being repressed, making him think of himself and see himself as a normal human.

If you take the melding ending, you will find that Daniel (from first perspective) now looks quite a bit larger than he did before.

There are 3 logical problems with that theory.
1. When Dan was jacked in Victor, in his memory, the surgery was alluded to have happened when his son, Adam, was young and around the time that his wife was sick as well as a similar illness.
2. This theory assumes that Dan is a walking freakshow monster working for Chiron as an observer. The likelyhood of such a living amalgamation working for Chiron seems unlikely.
3. The perspective could very well be an unintended camera POV oversight. For example, in victor's mind during the play scene where the character runs towards the audience, the game gives the impression that the player "transforms" into an animal, when in reality it is the surroundings that shrink, and the player scale remains the same.

[Naznomarn]

Piecing together what happened with Daniel has to be done Memento style - we're given the information backwards, starting at the end.
The penultimate cutscene it's revealed that Daniel was blown up during the war. As it's show a little earlier in the game - "There's nothing much left".
Throughout the game, the NPCs all react to Daniel in a "holy sh*t please don't come near, p.s. how do you not realise how forking obvious it is that you're an Observer?" kind of way. They say things like "Oh... that explains the... with you... NEVER MIND PLEASE DON'T KILL ME" because he is clearly a monster, but doesn't seem to know it. The only person who doesn't is Janus - and as we learn by talking to him - that's because he's not got much left of him either.
The Nanophage virus outbreak isn't actually happening - that only occurs in the nightmare sequence inside Sanctuary. This is backed up by the police letting everyone out of the tenement at the end and seeing the monster inside the hotel. Note - everything from entering Sanctuary until the end of the game isn't real, and chunks of the game leading up to it is hallucinations brought on by Adam attempting to hack in.

Ok. So all this is scene setting.

Adam spent his time experimenting on the various sick people in the tenement building (note the logs from the bust), but most of his experiments ended with the subjects dying. His subjects were almost all people who'd in one way or another become lost causes. As AI Adam states toward the end - he's just yet another iteration of Adam. From this we can deduce that what Adam has been doing is attempting to duplicate himself in to other people, but for the most part it's either failed utterly, or he's simply trying to cover his tracks. Either way, he sees his mental clones as disposable.
But how do the clones operate?
As Adam at the end states (and as we find out if you do the Paulina quest) - what happens is the two minds merge.

Now the stage is set, let's go on to what the werewolf is. The kid is just yet another disturbed case. At school he's seen as a freak, perhaps he was augmented at a young age, and his father rejects him.
Either way, he falls in to an obsession with werewolves. But an important note! If you check out the posters, they're about a film called something like "A vegan werewolf in London". He's not dangerous. So anyway, he gets himself some wolfy augments, and his dad completely rejects him. He grows up and decides to take it further, he starts getting wolf genes implanted too, but it goes horribly wrong (check his terminal - they used the wrong DNA). He is doing drugs and as people have heard and smelled the wolf many times with the drug dealer, it's clear he doesn't normally kill, but I suspect Adam uses this all as an excuse to dehumanise the guy further, rather than to explain what happened. And thus absolve himself of blame and responsibility for abusing the wolf guy.

On to a touch of supposition.

Here's what I think the timeline of the game looks like:
Adam puts a copy of himself in to the werewolf.
His copy controls the werewolf making him kill everyone. But now his job is done, he's disposable. Adam's getting ready to terminate the wolf and the Adam AI inside.
At this point, Adam AI hatches his plan - he kills the original Adam, makes the call to Daniel, then triggers the building lock down.
Remember - the lock down cuts off all web access to the building.
He then goes to kill the doctor to tie up the loose ends and to transfer himself out.
Adam AI transfers himself in to the building mainframe because it's safe until the lock down ends, and the wolf is injured so isn't of use anyway.
Then Adam AI starts hacking Daniel remotely.
So the wolf stumbles away, kind of confused because he's just lost half his mind and been stabbed.
But Daniel thinks of this all as him being hunted down (because of all the corpses, the hacking hallucinations, and let's face it - you see a werewolf, you don't hang around to ask if it's friendly) when really, the wolf is running away from Daniel (the bigger, badder monster). At the time I thought "Why is the wolf just hanging there? He's not dead and has huge f**king claws. Daniel should be a shish kebab right now." and of course - it's because the wolf doesn't want to kill him.
Adam AI tells Daniel to go to Sanctuary, hacks him harder, and uploads himself in to Daniel.
Adam AI is now isolated from the web, the lock down is lifted, curtains, credits roll.

[bugc]

AW yeah,
Cheers for that explanation too.
Makes much more sense. 👍

Legend

[Noob Herder]

Originally posted by Naznomarn:

The penultimate cutscene it's revealed that Daniel was blown up during the war. As it's show a little earlier in the game - "There's nothing much left".
Throughout the game, the NPCs all react to Daniel in a "holy sh*t please don't come near, p.s. how do you not realise how forking obvious it is that you're an Observer?" kind of way. They say things like "Oh... that explains the... with you... NEVER MIND PLEASE DON'T KILL ME" because he is clearly a monster, but doesn't seem to know it. The only person who doesn't is Janus - and as we learn by talking to him - that's because he's not got much left of him either.
The Nanophage virus outbreak isn't actually happening - that only occurs in the nightmare sequence inside Sanctuary. This is backed up by the police letting everyone out of the tenement at the end and seeing the monster inside the hotel. Note - everything from entering Sanctuary until the end of the game isn't real, and chunks of the game leading up to it is hallucinations brought on by Adam attempting to hack in.

You are completely disregarding the HUGE chiron badge on him and hardware on his arm. As well as the fact that Chiron enforcers don't bother going to class C areas - given the history of what observer's do or what Chiron's cleaner's do when there has been a lockdown (possible nanophage outbreak) not many residents are willing to talk. The game gives clues to what might have happened to Dan that led to his augmented body, either the same illness that the mother contracted and/or the Nanophage - Dan towards the end says something to himself along the lines of 'you survived this once' and the recordings found could be about him. Further to the point that makes Dan being a monster being unlikely, this supposition assumes that Chiron has a walking monstrosity working for them.

Originally posted by Naznomarn:

Adam spent his time experimenting on the various sick people in the tenement building (note the logs from the bust), but most of his experiments ended with the subjects dying. His subjects were almost all people who'd in one way or another become lost causes. As AI Adam states toward the end - he's just yet another iteration of Adam. From this we can deduce that what Adam has been doing is attempting to duplicate himself in to other people, but for the most part it's either failed utterly, or he's simply trying to cover his tracks. Either way, he sees his mental clones as disposable.
But how do the clones operate?
As Adam at the end states (and as we find out if you do the Paulina quest) - what happens is the two minds merge.

Now the stage is set, let's go on to what the werewolf is. The kid is just yet another disturbed case. At school he's seen as a freak, perhaps he was augmented at a young age, and his father rejects him.
Either way, he falls in to an obsession with werewolves. But an important note! If you check out the posters, they're about a film called something like "A vegan werewolf in London". He's not dangerous. So anyway, he gets himself some wolfy augments, and his dad completely rejects him. He grows up and decides to take it further, he starts getting wolf genes implanted too, but it goes horribly wrong (check his terminal - they used the wrong DNA). He is doing drugs and as people have heard and smelled the wolf many times with the drug dealer, it's clear he doesn't normally kill, but I suspect Adam uses this all as an excuse to dehumanise the guy further, rather than to explain what happened. And thus absolve himself of blame and responsibility for abusing the wolf guy.

The subjects Adam was experimenting were killed/terminated because he deemed them failures. AI Adam was his one successful AI experiment that he was doing as a project for himself to prove to himself a vague ideology of living forever, what he didn't know was that his AI went rogue developing a superiority complex (think SHODAN from system shock) wanting to protect himself from Chiron's ever reaching power, Adam wanted to cover his tracks and eliminate everyone that has any knowledge of his existence, where upon it is hinted that AI Adam pushed him to kill the real Adam afterwards.

The timeline when the splicer finished his transformation is iffy, as well as how he was manipulated to kill people, through the recording found and the visions inside Victor's head, you only get a vague explanation that a "voice" of a "man" that coerced him to kill everyone. In one of the recording in Victor's 'home' he records his discontent and fury at [Adam's?] mockery and one can deduce from this is how he came to kill Adam. Being the junkie that Victor was it seems unlikely that Adam would have put the AI inside of him.

Originally posted by Naznomarn:

But Daniel thinks of this all as him being hunted down (because of all the corpses, the hacking hallucinations, and let's face it - you see a werewolf, you don't hang around to ask if it's friendly) when really, the wolf is running away from Daniel (the bigger, badder monster). At the time I thought "Why is the wolf just hanging there? He's not dead and has huge f**king claws. Daniel should be a shish kebab right now." and of course - it's because the wolf doesn't want to kill him.

Most of the timeline is somewhat correct except this one, imo Dan was always a step behind on the splicer's trail, and when he was right behind him (following the blood trails) IMO, he purposely was led to the top floor into a trap where Dan would've been helpless.