Plot Discussion (Mostly my questions)

[Ghastly]

So I feel like I get a generally good idea of what's going on in the game, and while I understand there is a lot that is up to interpretation, there are some bits of information that I have a hard time fitting into the timeline. So, without further ado, here are some of my questions! Also, beware the spoilers!

- I remember Dutch mentioned we were stuck on a ship for "centuries" after finding some artifact, and then I began to hack people up, and it was wild. So, am I to believe this is where Rimanah (you) goes nuts and kills everyone with him in the ship, therefore absorbing the.? But if that's the case, then what about...

- When you were sent to assassinate Mentor in a cave? Did Rimanah not kill Mentor on the ship and instead in the cave, like the rebel reports suggest? I mean, Rimanah is the rebel who detests Mentor and does his best to remove him and the Jians from power, I would be led to believe that is how the character originally got stuck in the cave, but then I get confused... wasn't Mentor also on the ship too? I would like guidance with this aspect! And, lastly...


What's with all the Shinji♥♥♥♥♥♥I kinda like to imagine M/c was able to kill and absorb the other two dream characters (Mentor and Huan) after having already succumbed victim to (and also somewhat become) the wolf spirit, because the three Synicle demons do mention how the wandering spirit who's name shall not be mentioned (Shinji) met with the suffering spirit (can't remember the term they actually used, but they mean Rimanah I am sure). But then the cave stuff gets me all confused...

So, let's get to discussing the possibilities! I am eager to hear what everyone thinks, feel free to tell me I'm wrong and shove some other version into my face, I just wanna get some amswers- however sparse they may be!

[Zergem]

Oho, plot discussion! First off: have you reached the true ending yet?

I've not heard others talk much about the story where you go berserk on a ship with a runed damocles... it seems strange because I don't think anything else in the game references it. I'm not sure how much I want to believe Dutch because I think he is a character invented by your imagination to protect yourself from the truth. I think this because he acknowledges that your mentor is alive, no one else but Rimanah (You) mentions him, and at the cave, he somehow made it ahead of the Jian at the end of the mission, in order to hide whatever happened in the cave and your consciousness.

Your second point... "It is true that I killed my mentor, yet I am not his murderer." Mentor's body is in the dreamscape. Rimanah's body is in the dreamscape too. I think that Rimanah, You, and Mentor are the same person. As for why you were in the cave, the true ending might give some sort of answer, maybe. Or maybe you were just in there to commit suicide.

Perhaps there's a parallel with the cave and the ship. There was blood in both cases and they're shrouded in mystery.

[Ghastly]

Originally posted by Zergem:

Oho, plot discussion! First off: have you reached the true ending yet?

I've not heard others talk much about the story where you go berserk on a ship with a runed damocles... it seems strange because I don't think anything else in the game references it. I'm not sure how much I want to believe Dutch because I think he is a character invented by your imagination to protect yourself from the truth. I think this because he acknowledges that your mentor is alive, no one else but Rimanah (You) mentions him, and at the cave, he somehow made it ahead of the Jian at the end of the mission, in order to hide whatever happened in the cave and your consciousness.

Your second point... "It is true that I killed my mentor, yet I am not his murderer." Mentor's body is in the dreamscape. Rimanah's body is in the dreamscape too. I think that Rimanah, You, and Mentor are the same person. As for why you were in the cave, the true ending might give some sort of answer, maybe. Or maybe you were just in there to commit suicide.

Perhaps there's a parallel with the cave and the ship. There was blood in both cases and they're shrouded in mystery.

Interesting take! Perhaps you aren't wrong, and Dutch is merely hoping to misguide me, but I can't help but wonder more about Mentor! Do you think it was possible that you (Rimanah) killed Mentor in the cave, like everyone mentions, and that was what lead to y/c's death? I can also see this as a way of entering his cycles of guilt, sort of damned for being a scumbag to all these people who only ever helped him succeed in life! I mainly ask about Mentor because I want to try and understand at what point I killed him, because everyone else hints that all those sent to assassinate the Jian temple in the caves died. I quite like the parallel though, perhaps his wife's execution, the murder of the people on the ship, the assassination of the Mentor and the overthrow of the Jians were all part of Rimanah's exaggerated need for power that was only heightened after coming into contact with the artifact used to pacify his village?

Wordy stuff, thanks for the patience!

[Ghastly]

Also, I must know more about Shinji! I want to know the background behind him and how exactly he came to Rimanah, I know the Synicles reference Shinji and Rimanah meeting but I have a hard time understanding at what point or why. Could it have been after Rimanah attempted to seize the artifact and use it against his village? Waaaah, so many questions!

[abcd]

Originally posted by Monolord:

So I feel like I get a generally good idea of what's going on in the game, and while I understand there is a lot that is up to interpretation, there are some bits of information that I have a hard time fitting into the timeline. So, without further ado, here are some of my questions! Also, beware the spoilers!

- I remember Dutch mentioned we were stuck on a ship for "centuries" after finding some artifact, and then I began to hack people up, and it was wild. So, am I to believe this is where Rimanah (you) goes nuts and kills everyone with him in the ship, therefore absorbing the.? But if that's the case, then what about...

The combined Wolf/Shinji/Metastreumonic entity predates Rimanah (you.) It follows Secreta around because they're both psychic and walking entropy-machiens. So they generate a lot of the psychic energies that attracts the Wolf/Shinji/Metastreum (mostly negative emotions, if nothing else the dying regrets of everyone you murder (Manduco,)) and because they are powerful psi-catalysts themselves those emotions are amplified.

So killing metastreum usually just generates more of them, like some sort of stable psi/biomass. If you got stuck on a ship full of them it could go on for a long time. Particularly if you or one of your partymembers had especially low mental balance stats.

- When you were sent to assassinate Mentor in a cave? Did Rimanah not kill Mentor on the ship and instead in the cave, like the rebel reports suggest? I mean, Rimanah is the rebel who detests Mentor and does his best to remove him and the Jians from power, I would be led to believe that is how the character originally got stuck in the cave, but then I get confused... wasn't Mentor also on the ship too? I would like guidance with this aspect! And, lastly...

You killed a separate Jian mentor in the cave. This creates the power-vacuum that Huan later fills. Your actual mentor is non-factional, but Rimanah (Culter) and Huan (Jian) are both his protege. I think Dutch might be too? He kinda knows everybody, honestly.

The Jian/Culter divide is of unclear origins. The Culters say the Jians horde power and they exist to oppose them, but I don't know what the Jians say. Honestly it just seems to be an aesthetic difference that both sides are making a big deal out of while the usual power-mongering and glory-hogging takes place anyway.

It may or may not be due to a schism regarding what to do with the artifact, based on talking with the Exile. The ship may have been like some sort of mobile temple dedicated to carrying the artifact around such that it didn't pool enough energy to cause streum outbreaks, and you/Rimanah, Dutch, Huan, and the Mentor may be the only people who survived the inevitable in-ship outbreak. Presumably after that the artifact was broken up and/or buried in various places.

I'm just guessing though, I don't think there's any clues regarding the ship in particular. But, it's interesting that Dutch only brings it up when you're standing outside an arms-manufacturing plant that probably got built on top of an artifact piece. Also, it may have been hundreds of years for your group, but keep in mind metastreum usually means some space/time warping is happening, so it could have been just, say, 3 days for the outside world.

What's with all the Shinji♥♥♥♥♥♥I kinda like to imagine M/c was able to kill and absorb the other two dream characters (Mentor and Huan) after having already succumbed victim to (and also somewhat become) the wolf spirit, because the three Synicle demons do mention how the wandering spirit who's name shall not be mentioned (Shinji) met with the suffering spirit (can't remember the term they actually used, but they mean Rimanah I am sure). But then the cave stuff gets me all confused...

Shinji was a mythical human psychic who pacified a chaotic, war-torn world through mind-control, transformed the human race into a spacefaring race of peaceful cybernetic people, and then left. He eventually merged with The Wolf after fighting with it for a while. He was the first entity not to become completely annihilated and consumed by the Wolf. The two of them represent equal-and-opposite expressions of The Force, which is basically the universe as it understands itself, and when they encountered eachother they merged into some sort of self-aware metaphysical expression of The Force. Shinji's long absence and technical 'death' caused the people to eventually break out of the mind control and start fighting with eachother again, leading to the chaotic social conditions necessary to create another Shinji (Rimanah).

Also there's some sort of artifact that an alien race buried on Mars that attracts Shinji/The Wolf/The Force whenever it's turned on. It may or may not represent a piece or series of pieces of esoteric knowledge, or it may be a physical object. Maybe both. Rimanah discovers where the artifact is kept, dispatches his lover to acquire it, and uses it to become Shinji-esque. His lover is executed for treason. At the same time, there is another massive physical outbreak of the Metastreumonic Force. The metastreums are an amalgamation of everyone and everything that's ever become a part of its self-expression, but Rimanah was the most recent person to merge with it so the most powerful expressions tend to be humanoids.

That might be a matter of opinion though. Deus Ex are clearly non-human, most likely Karakul(/some off-shoot Warrior-race of whatever Manduco (miners) and Karakul (nobles) are) with tons of cybernetics, but I find Synicles and Transcendant a lot more threatening personally.

Rimanah also created a period of looped space-time centered around the 'moments' when he was encountering the artifact. Mostly because he doubted himself, and felt guilty about his lover dying. Sort of a pyrrhic victory that he refuses to accept, constantly shifting through the infinitely limited possibilties of his layers of guilt.

The Synicles tell three different sides of the same story regarding what Rimanah is going through. I think they each tell in turn: Shinji's perspective, The Wolf's perspective, and The Force's perspective. However, they're each talking as a part of the same entity The Rimanastreumonic Force while giving their perspectives, so it's hard to say who's who here.

The delineation between these three perspectives leaves open the possibility that you are not, infact, Rimanah. You might be a psi-clone of his, some mind-controlled Transcendant, the exact inverse of his thoughts, or just some 'body' he raised from birth to do his bidding. But even if you are literally him, you are nonetheless working for/against him in a manner so total as to become his shadow and he yours. At that point, your identity becomes difficult to ascertain, particularly after you kill Rimanah. Even Rimanah's lover would get you two confused, maybe even refuse to see the difference (if any.)

That's when the player becomes a part of The Force, once again limited to either replaying those scant moments of existence for eternity or contenting oneself with the nonexistence of the background noise of the universe.

Personally, I like shooting bandits, and they're always hanging out in historically-important places, so...any more questions?

[Ghastly]

Originally posted by tausoldier:

Originally posted by Monolord:

So I feel like I get a generally good idea of what's going on in the game, and while I understand there is a lot that is up to interpretation, there are some bits of information that I have a hard time fitting into the timeline. So, without further ado, here are some of my questions! Also, beware the spoilers!

- I remember Dutch mentioned we were stuck on a ship for "centuries" after finding some artifact, and then I began to hack people up, and it was wild. So, am I to believe this is where Rimanah (you) goes nuts and kills everyone with him in the ship, therefore absorbing the.? But if that's the case, then what about...

The combined Wolf/Shinji/Metastreumonic entity predates Rimanah (you.) It follows Secreta around because they're both psychic and walking entropy-machiens. So they generate a lot of the psychic energies that attracts the Wolf/Shinji/Metastreum (mostly negative emotions, if nothing else the dying regrets of everyone you murder (Manduco,)) and because they are powerful psi-catalysts themselves those emotions are amplified.

So killing metastreum usually just generates more of them, like some sort of stable psi/biomass. If you got stuck on a ship full of them it could go on for a long time. Particularly if you or one of your partymembers had especially low mental balance stats.

- When you were sent to assassinate Mentor in a cave? Did Rimanah not kill Mentor on the ship and instead in the cave, like the rebel reports suggest? I mean, Rimanah is the rebel who detests Mentor and does his best to remove him and the Jians from power, I would be led to believe that is how the character originally got stuck in the cave, but then I get confused... wasn't Mentor also on the ship too? I would like guidance with this aspect! And, lastly...

You killed a separate Jian mentor in the cave. This creates the power-vacuum that Huan later fills. Your actual mentor is non-factional, but Rimanah (Culter) and Huan (Jian) are both his protege. I think Dutch might be too? He kinda knows everybody, honestly.

The Jian/Culter divide is of unclear origins. The Culters say the Jians horde power and they exist to oppose them, but I don't know what the Jians say. Honestly it just seems to be an aesthetic difference that both sides are making a big deal out of while the usual power-mongering and glory-hogging takes place anyway.

It may or may not be due to a schism regarding what to do with the artifact, based on talking with the Exile. The ship may have been like some sort of mobile temple dedicated to carrying the artifact around such that it didn't pool enough energy to cause streum outbreaks, and you/Rimanah, Dutch, Huan, and the Mentor may be the only people who survived the inevitable in-ship outbreak. Presumably after that the artifact was broken up and/or buried in various places.

I'm just guessing though, I don't think there's any clues regarding the ship in particular. But, it's interesting that Dutch only brings it up when you're standing outside an arms-manufacturing plant that probably got built on top of an artifact piece. Also, it may have been hundreds of years for your group, but keep in mind metastreum usually means some space/time warping is happening, so it could have been just, say, 3 days for the outside world.

What's with all the Shinji♥♥♥♥♥♥I kinda like to imagine M/c was able to kill and absorb the other two dream characters (Mentor and Huan) after having already succumbed victim to (and also somewhat become) the wolf spirit, because the three Synicle demons do mention how the wandering spirit who's name shall not be mentioned (Shinji) met with the suffering spirit (can't remember the term they actually used, but they mean Rimanah I am sure). But then the cave stuff gets me all confused...

Shinji was a mythical human psychic who pacified a chaotic, war-torn world through mind-control, transformed the human race into a spacefaring race of peaceful cybernetic people, and then left. He eventually merged with The Wolf after fighting with it for a while. He was the first entity not to become completely annihilated and consumed by the Wolf. The two of them represent equal-and-opposite expressions of The Force, which is basically the universe as it understands itself, and when they encountered eachother they merged into some sort of self-aware metaphysical expression of The Force. Shinji's long absence and technical 'death' caused the people to eventually break out of the mind control and start fighting with eachother again, leading to the chaotic social conditions necessary to create another Shinji (Rimanah).

Also there's some sort of artifact that an alien race buried on Mars that attracts Shinji/The Wolf/The Force whenever it's turned on. It may or may not represent a piece or series of pieces of esoteric knowledge, or it may be a physical object. Maybe both. Rimanah discovers where the artifact is kept, dispatches his lover to acquire it, and uses it to become Shinji-esque. His lover is executed for treason. At the same time, there is another massive physical outbreak of the Metastreumonic Force. The metastreums are an amalgamation of everyone and everything that's ever become a part of its self-expression, but Rimanah was the most recent person to merge with it so the most powerful expressions tend to be humanoids.

That might be a matter of opinion though. Deus Ex are clearly non-human, most likely Karakul(/some off-shoot Warrior-race of whatever Manduco (miners) and Karakul (nobles) are) with tons of cybernetics, but I find Synicles and Transcendant a lot more threatening personally.

Rimanah also created a period of looped space-time centered around the 'moments' when he was encountering the artifact. Mostly because he doubted himself, and felt guilty about his lover dying. Sort of a pyrrhic victory that he refuses to accept, constantly shifting through the infinitely limited possibilties of his layers of guilt.

The Synicles tell three different sides of the same story regarding what Rimanah is going through. I think they each tell in turn: Shinji's perspective, The Wolf's perspective, and The Force's perspective. However, they're each talking as a part of the same entity The Rimanastreumonic Force while giving their perspectives, so it's hard to say who's who here.

The delineation between these three perspectives leaves open the possibility that you are not, infact, Rimanah. You might be a psi-clone of his, some mind-controlled Transcendant, the exact inverse of his thoughts, or just some 'body' he raised from birth to do his bidding. But even if you are literally him, you are nonetheless working for/against him in a manner so total as to become his shadow and he yours. At that point, your identity becomes difficult to ascertain, particularly after you kill Rimanah. Even Rimanah's lover would get you two confused, maybe even refuse to see the difference (if any.)

That's when the player becomes a part of The Force, once again limited to either replaying those scant moments of existence for eternity or contenting oneself with the nonexistence of the background noise of the universe.

Personally, I like shooting bandits, and they're always hanging out in historically-important places, so...any more questions?

Dude thank you so much, this is the big, thicc, chunky bit of lore I have been searching for! I know a lot of the game leaves it up to the interpretation but I like these ideas a lot! The only question I have after reading a compendium like that is Is Shinji's rape ritual done to keep the people pacified? other than that, thank you so much for taking the time to write all of that, I am deeply grateful!

[abcd]

Originally posted by Monolord:

Dude thank you so much, this is the big, thicc, chunky bit of lore I have been searching for! I know a lot of the game leaves it up to the interpretation but I like these ideas a lot! The only question I have after reading a compendium like that is Is Shinji's rape ritual done to keep the people pacified?

No, I think rape was just a common feature of society by that point. It may have been the moment Shinji decided that the world was out of control, or that he was, or both. Maybe he decided mind-rape was worth it, since everyone was raping and killing eachother anyway. Maybe it's a commentary on natural selection and predator/prey relationships. Maybe something about existing being a rape of non-existence, if you want to get really abstract, and he was a constructive rapist while the Wolf was a destructive one. Maybe he just liked the apparent order of ritualising what he was going to do anyway, and it's a law/chaos dynamic.

I just think about Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise whenever it comes up honestly. Something unmentionable or difficult to express about the way society is right now. The Shinji/Rimanah situation seems to be similar to the Akira/Tetsuo relationship in Akira as well.

thank you so much for taking the time to write all of that, I am deeply grateful!

Sure, no problem. Been hanging around here for years looking for excuses to try and put it together correctly. You asked all the right questions.