[SPOILER] Plot Discussion Thread *Spoiler Alert*

[Kotch]

So I just played the game for the second time and I think I understand the story a lot more. Some of this may be wrong, but this is my take on the story. I'll apologize ahead of time for this being so long. And of course THERE WILL BE SPOILERS

Spoiler below!

We know that his wife died while giving birth to the Edwin and Enoch. I believe he was trying to find a way to take his mind of this. He decides he no longer wants to be just a local butcher. He wants a huge processing plant.
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November 7th 1898
The bank is refusing credit, the ignorant swine. I sit alone at night and weep, once the children and servants are safely asleep, when they cannot hear me. My darling, how I need you now. They say I have squandered my fortune, that my investment in these latest machines has ruined the family name. What? That I was to remain a local butcher?What are these two arms compared to the multitude that can be applied, without pay, without tire, by adapting the mechanisms we find in the looms and the mills. But, if the bank has its way, it will all come to nothing. If they come for the house I swear I will kill them. I will kill them all. I will take my rifle... my rifle...
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In one of the interviews with the professor, the professor asks Mandus why he did all these things, such as the charities and the plant etc,. Mandus says something along the lines of, "with such grief what was I suppose to do?". When Mandus went to Mexico he found "the egg" (which is the Orb) and it showed him the future and all the horrors that humans were going to create. When he brought it back, he became very sick.
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March 15th 1899
Curled into my bunk, all sick and sweat ridden. They clean my room about me, but I can only hear the voice from within that gentlest of stones. It sings to me and I dream of a great machine.We will build a new world from the ruins of the old. We will plant flowers in the rotten ribcage and let them grow to hold the sky from falling. I remember how it whispered to me, as we rolled sick and heaving. And I remember when we pulled into Southampton and we both wept, for it was every bit as much a desecration as had been sung to me.And then we came to London and I set it upon the mantelpiece, and went into the house and gathered the servants and set on re-crafting them, and then I went into the garden and buried those tiny shattered skulls under the weeping bulges of the rhododendrons.
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The egg possessed him and forced him to believe that humans were disgusting creatures and needed to be destroyed. I believe that it possessed him because I think it has it's own thoughts. There is a part where you here a voice say something along the lines of,

"You brought me back from Mexico and placed me above your fireplace. We can begin our re-crafting of humans."

That voice has to be the egg talking to Mandus.

The possession caused him to have the split personality (his evil side being the egg, and his good side being him). So whenever you get the phone calls, it's the egg. His idea for getting rid of humans was to turn them into the Manpigs. I'm not really sure how he was getting people at first. It may have just been some of the workers at the beginning. But eventually, he was able to get them a lot easier.
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August 20th 1899
Took delivery of another batch of imbeciles today. They are the sorriest specimens of humanity I have ever seen. No-one asks where they go to. The authorities of Bedlam are simply happy to reduce the over-crowding in their teeming, stinking halls. We measure their skulls, check their teeth. We give them Laudanum to pacify them.They wait in line, livestock, dull brown eyes and filthy skin. Many soil themselves as they wait. Into the manipulator they file in silence. I hear the hissing of gas. I hear the dull groaning as teeth are removed, as bones are reset. I hear the pigs screaming. We have removed all the mirrors. After the process, it is their reflections that trouble them the most. Afterwards, when they sleep, I walk amongst them. My children, I whisper to their dreams, you are my children now. I have children once again, and your forms imperfect will be the engines to make my own blood flow again.
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For a while I didn't know why he was turning them in to these monsters. The only thing I can come up with is that he wanted to turn humans into what he thought they truly were, which is of course, pigs. He kills his children because he doesn't want them to see all the horrors of the future. Some time between November 23rd and December 1st, the orb starts to lose control of Mandus and he starts to realize what he is doing. The egg realizes this and I think the egg turns the pigs against him. I'm guessing the egg just gets one of the Manpigs to knock him out, and that's how Mandus ended up with Amnesia at the beginning. And that explains who shut the door at the beginning too. If not that, it might have been the fact that you finally came to and were no longer under the eggs control. And when that happened you passed out and something carried Mandus to his bed.

Man in coffin:
And as for the man in the coffin........... I don't really know. The only conclusion I came to was that it was Mandus and that it was only meant to show that Mandus was being controlled by the machine. It really wouldn't make sense for it to be the professor. I'm pretty sure there wasn't really a point to the professor, other than for him to do the interview which just helped add more dialogue to the story. We know that Mandus kills him so I don't see the point of him being in the coffin.

The ending:

I'm not really sure if Mandus lives at end or not. I believe he either kills him self or (judging by the pig mask on the chair) he realizes he is the biggest "pig" of all and joins his creations.

Well that is my take on the story. Emphasis on my. Sorry that it was so long.