about the end

**weryansin** · 02-23-2008, 10:34 PM

Spoiler below!

**weryansin** · 02-24-2008, 11:16 AM

will there be someone to answer these questions?
or are they too hard?

**RBi** · 02-24-2008, 12:40 PM

There are no answers. There are only guesses Smile

And guesses have been given in other topics.

**Thaliur** · 02-24-2008, 01:41 PM

Reminds me a bit of the beginning of Hogfather Wink

"No questions asked, I assume?" - "No questions answered"

Check this topic for some discussion about the ending.

**weryansin** · 02-25-2008, 09:17 PM

Thaliur Wrote:Reminds me a bit of the beginning of Hogfather
"No questions asked, I assume?" - "No questions answered"

Check this topic for some discussion about the ending.

I already checked the topic before opening this one but still no answers I think. Probably the answers are dead end and we should find them in our minds as we would like..

**Thaliur** · 02-26-2008, 12:53 AM

You can be killed by something not visible. High Energy UV rays or similar phenomena Wink

Anyway, the Tuurngait hive mind would be able to get Philip killed, sooner or later, just by making him not see a hole in the floor, by making him forget to breathe, by making him run headlong into any kind of danger they want...
Letting the "drones" attack him would be a pretty lame option for something like the hive mind.

Something else just came into my mind...
The Hive seemed quite cooperative most of the time, at least during the trials. Constantly giving hints on ho to complete them.
Despite that, the drones kept attacking Philip. Why did they do that if the Hive just wanted to test him and get him to help the Tuurngait keep humans out of their domain?

My guess is that Philip got infected as soon as he entered the water cave (the "cave from conversations past" in Overture) and got close to the glowing material. From then on, he had Clarence sitting inside him, just as a small silent "passenger", but present.
But the Hive felt his presence, and knew that Clarence is a sepoerate entity, not part of the Tuurngait collective (I keep falling back to Borg terminology, sorry about that, it just fits so well).
So, all the time Philip was running around in the Shelter, the Hive never actually attacked Philip himself, but Clarence, trying to either kill him, or get him to leave. As soon as Clarence was seperated from Philip, the drones went after Clarence, and just watched Philip while the Hive made him complete the trials.

Anyway, back to topic:
I believe Philip managed to send the email to "us", as we are reading it while playing the game, but afterwards something unknown happened. The disappearing walls led me to believe that the Hive was, indeed, not amused by Philips (presumedly successful) attempt to betray them, and so got him killed in some way.
We, of course, don't know that, because we're only reading his email, telling us about what happened to him.

**Penumbra** · 02-26-2008, 01:46 AM

Umm, actually Clarance couldn't of been with Philip until sometime after Philip killed Red, because Clarance had infected Red along with some other drones, which is why when he infected you he was confused as to why he was alone.

**Thaliur** · 02-26-2008, 02:44 AM

Hmm, actually I don't see the problem with that hypothesis even with your explanation.
If the Hive connection really spreads like a viral infection, then the "virus" becomes active only after the infection itself, and then takes some time to actually show symptom (this is usually called "incubation period", as far as I know).
So, when Philip got infected, Clarence was not yet Clarence, had no mind of his own, actually no mind whatsoever, until he grew a bit and could use a sufficient portion of Philip's brain to just be Clarence. After all, you need a certain number of brain cells to perform even basic cerebral functions.
And then, during Clarence' "awakening" (in the sewer cavern I guess) he got detached from the hive in some way, maybe due to the artifacts, maybe because Philip was, incidentially, one of those people who were at least partially immune (I think the existence of such people was mntioned in one of the notes either in Overture or Black Plague) to the Tuurngait infection.
When that happened, Clarence became an individual character (like Hugh, if someone remembers that episode of Star Trek Wink

), but still expected to be connected to the rest of the Tuurngait, and thus complains about being "alone", probably still following hat seems to be the Tuurngait's "primary directive" ("There can not be one! There can only be us all!") at first.

By the way, has anyone else noticed how the Borg became less and less frightening over time since they first appeared? First they were able to literally cut a starship into pieces, take over all the crew, including their knowledge and abilities, as well as any technological equipment, detached drones would still be functional, have acces to lots of the Borg knowledge, and try to reconnect to the collective, and later, when their unfrighteningness peaked in "Voyager", they were entirely dependent on that annoying queen person, and would die as soon as she died.
But that's not the point of this thread...

**Glitch** · 02-27-2008, 06:13 AM

Penumbra Wrote:Umm, actually Clarance couldn't of been with Philip until sometime after Philip killed Red, because Clarance had infected Red along with some other drones, which is why when he infected you he was confused as to why he was alone.

You show your first sign of infection at the very beginning when crawling past the grate in the first vent (you walk past it, then walk past it again)

Strange though that the virus doesn't know who Red is.

**Thaliur** · 02-27-2008, 08:30 AM

Glitch Wrote:Strange though that the virus doesn't know who Red is.

He does. Clarence said something like "There was another one. He was so eager to die, but we wouldn't let him."