[SPOILER] Plot Discussion Thread *Spoiler Alert*

[Klarden]

Maybe he killed them in Aztec sacrifice style by carving their hearts out.

He did. Pig mask you find everywhere is styled in the similar fashion to the jaguar mask the character mentions in the game. A shaman in jaguar mask would cut the sacrifice's heart out, just as, it seems, Mandus used pig mask in his ritual.

[wretch]

A few people are talking about a man in a coffin at the end of the game... where? I must have missed him.

It's not a coffin, it's like an incubator or something. You start off the section standing on a metal walkway and you're facing the direction in which the incubator thing can be seen, and if you turn around and walk the other direction it brings you to the temple/ending

No, you are absolutely right. And the entire thing with the machine and pigs vs the bourgeois is in a way a reference to the revolution of 1917. Which is why the ending leaves a very bitters-weet taste in your mouth - those horrors do happen, as we know now, living in 2013.

That's the impression I got from it, glad I'm not losing it haha. So, back to my facepalm-inducing 9/11 question! The Twin Towers were referred to as "the brothers", and the only major horrific event involving "two brothers falling" I can think of would be 9/11, but I'm sure there are probably thousands of other examples I just don't know about...

Does the Grunt appear in this game? If so, how do I find him? His files are included in the redist\entities\enemy directory along with all of the other AAMFP ones, but he's the only TDD enemy who appears there, which says to me he must have been put there deliberately.

I'm not sure if I'm oinking up the wrong tree here, but listening to some of the voice over files in the install directory has me wondering if there's another ending.

redist\sounds\vo\16_temple

All of the voice overs in this directory are obviously related to the "Temple" level, which is the final section of the game, yet there seems to be a "happy Machine" and "sad Machine" ending. One in which he pleads Oswald not to ruin his shit, and another in which he's all happy because he got what he wanted. Hmmm...

I bet that's yet another piece of unused content. I found one already:

http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-22958.html

I bet there's more where that came from. Let's see what other secrets we can find about this game.

[zepelius]

I'm not sure if I'm oinking up the wrong tree here, but listening to some of the voice over files in the install directory has me wondering if there's another ending.

redist\sounds\vo\16_temple

All of the voice overs in this directory are obviously related to the "Temple" level, which is the final section of the game, yet there seems to be a "happy Machine" and "sad Machine" ending. One in which he pleads Oswald not to ruin his shit, and another in which he's all happy because he got what he wanted. Hmmm...

Rather interesting dialogue there:

vo_temple_orbend_1: "Yes. Yes Mandus. I knew you understood. Just a few second more and the egg will hatch."
vo_temple_orbend_2: "I am created. My lairs peel and the air begins vibrate around me. Soon we will be a flame"
vo_temple_orbend_3: "It is done. Thank you Mandus. Let there be light."

vo_temple_orbhit_1: "Please Mandus no! For your children!"
vo_temple_orbhit_2: "Smash it papa! Smash it!"
vo_temple_orbhit_3: "Daddy! Daddy! Please don't kill me."

Sounds like originally you were supposed to choose will you smash the orb and destroy the machine or will you let the Machine do whatever it plans to do. Pretty similar to Dark Descents ending.

[DarkLite]

Okay, here's a bunch of questions / theories I have:

Dialogue

<Entry Name="v0_mansion2_trigger_child_05">Come and see Papa. We've found an egg, a stone egg!</Entry>[quote]
Likely to be an Orb.

[quote] <Entry Name="vo_sewer_phono_prof_2">And your engineer, this visionary with whom you have embarked upon this course, does he share you views?</Entry>
<Entry Name="vo_sewer_phono_mandus_3">Indeed he does, indeed he does. The poor fellow has seen it all before. Now this is not the first great civilization he has wept for.</Entry>

Who is the Engineer, and what other civilizations has he wept for? Is it referring to the Orb?

<Entry Name="vo_factory_mandus_flashback_01_01">Water in his shoes... always the water and the sparks of the embers of the wheels...</Entry>
<Entry Name="vo_factory_mandus_flashback_01_02">It's too bony! It's too damn bony!</Entry>

What's this about?

<Entry Name="vo_pigline_phono_prof_1">I can meet him? Your great engineer? How marvellous! I must say Mr Mandus, my excitement is almost unseemly!</Entry>
<Entry Name="vo_pigline_phono_mandus_1">Yes, I can see that. Step this way Professor. I will be right behind you.</Entry>
<Entry Name="vo_pigline_phono_blank">[br]</Entry>
<Entry Name="vo_pigline_phono_prof_2">Mandus? Mandus, where the devil are you? I can't see a damn thing. Mandus!</Entry>
<Entry Name="vo_pigline_phono_mandus_2">We are the pig Professor. We are all the pig.</Entry>

What happened to the Professor?

<Entry Name="vo_temple_orbhit_1">Please Mandus no, for your children!</Entry>
<Entry Name="vo_temple_orbhit_2">Smash it Papa, Smash it!</Entry>
<Entry Name="vo_temple_orbhit_3">Daddy, Daddy, please don't kill me.</Entry>
<Entry Name="vo_temple_orbend_1">Yes, yes Mandus. I knew you understood. Just a few seconds more and the egg will hatch.</Entry>
<Entry Name="vo_temple_orbend_2">I am created. My layers peel and the air begins to vibrate around me! Soon, we will be aflame!</Entry>
<Entry Name="vo_temple_orbend_3">It is done, thank you Mandus. Let there be light!</Entry>

Unused lines for an alternate ending?


Journal

<Entry Name="Hint_Streets1_Text">God forgive me, what I have unleashed! I stand and smell the burning city. I see ash upon the wind. I hear the roars of the sickening beasts and the screams as they fall upon the city and drag its people below for the slaughter. Now I begin to understand what the other composite ingredient of Compound X must be. And I also understand this: it is my responsibility now. I must find a way back to the heart of the machine and complete what I started!</Entry>

What are the two parts of Compound X? Vitae, and "Monad Orgone Dispersal fluid" - any idea what these are?

<Entry Name="Hint_TeslaOne2_Text">I am the architect. I am the saboteur. I am the man who murdered his children. I am the man who stood in the duck pond with his dead wife in his arms, wishing the water would bring her back to him. I am the voice on the telephone, I am the butcher who skinned the Professor and beat God to death against the air loom. Only one question remains now. Am I also The Machine?</Entry>

I didn't see this one in-game: did anyone else?

Notes

<Entry Name="Note_MansionBackOffice_Text">Of the few books to survive after those degenerate peasants fired my Great Uncle's castle were his travel diaries. He talks of archaeological digs in Siam, Arabia, which yielded treasures of quite extraordinary worth. And, most interestingly, he hints at those yet to be found, in the Americas where civilisations were consumed by the jungles. Of course, it all makes sense - those conquistadors were only driven so far by their faith - El Dorado did the rest. And yet, there is more. "Find the Temple of the Stone Moon", he writes, "and the world will never more be hungry, and neither shall you."[br][br]My mind is made up. Damn the creditors. I shall leave my work unfinished and I shall take to the Americas, and I will return with my soul richer and my pockets bulging.</Entry>

Looks like he's the nephew of Alexander von Brennenburg and got his notes. This is further supported by the note about the servant grunt he had delivered to him with the "stench of the Orb" upon it.

<Entry Name="Note_SewerPumpRoomTwo_Text">What ungodly temple is this? Beneath the vast boiler, that barnacle bruise, that cacophony, that barely-contained, that swollen heart of hate, what is this stillness, this silence, this palpable air of death I have found.[br][br]What clean blue water without a ripple or a blemish, whose light engulfs me so? What rods fall into this water, this metal so unlike brass or steel, a milky sheen to the surface, a white clean like cotton wrapped upon a pole. Why this humming, this dizzying sense of vibration, electricity, power? How can this deep water be so clear, these rods descend into the earth so?[br][br]And all around, above, where I stand, the machine as it ever is, dark metal, joints, stairs and gratings. Yet here we suckle at the very stillborn tit of god himself.</Entry>

So the Machine is powered by a nuclear reactor, then? How was the Engineer able to build such a device in 1899?

<Entry Name="Note_SewerExperiments_Text">It is the heat generated from keeping the doorway between open that is to blame. We cannot simply pack them about with coolant as we do at the centre where the doorway is. The later versions are kept safe by the freezing temperature of those towers. Up here, where the air is hot and fetid, they become overheated, and their duality tears them asunder, as the other place flies from their cells and their vitae splinters. They live sporadically, torn from one world to the other and back again in violent, unpredictable bursts.

It seems there's some sort of interdimensional gate at the heart of the Machine. What towers does he refer to? What "other world" is he talking about?

<Entry Name="Note_TeslaPigs_Text">I am halved, I am bisected. I placed my feet in the stirrups of childbirth and I hung upside down and the great blade of history cut me in two like a butchered pig and my guts fell onto my children and smothered them in my love. Each half of me still living, but the guts kept falling onto my children. So we each went our separate ways and one half built a machine instead, to hold his hate in and to keep his heart beating. And the other fell into a sleep, to blunt the pain. And then he had terrible dreams and when he awoke, the other had made ovens and killed and skinned and cooked all of those he held dear. And thus, holding onto his guts, he strode forth to find himself and make himself whole again.</Entry>

I didn't see this entry, which is a shame because it's pretty major. It looks like Mandus somehow split into two people, mentally as well as physically, and one half built the Machine (presumably he's in the coffin at the end)?

Other Questions
What is the South Tower for? What is it "suppressing"?
Whose is the heart in the South Tower?
What's with the teleportations? It's not just hallucinations - for example, when you get knocked out at Ignition Control as the Machine awakens and wake up somewhere else. Unless the entire game from then on is a hallucination (unlikely), you physically moved to a different room. How?
Is that an actual Aztec temple at the end?
Whose are the two hearts there? Presumably Edwin and Enoch's, but then whose is the third?
What was the device Mandus used on himself at the end, and why did it destroy the Machine?
Did anyone see the actual Orb anywhere?
What's with the tesla pigs?

[Derxor]

The professor got turned into a pig
The electrical pig teleports you to other rooms (I think)
And the machine that mandus uses at the end I think is just a flashback maybe, of when he administred the amnesia. But I'm going to do a full playthough again reading all the notes, so don't take my answers too seriously.

[bluel0bster]

Who is the Engineer, and what other civilizations has he wept for? Is it referring to the Orb?

I assumed the engineer was Mandus himself, don't really have a lot of evidence to support that idea though, mainly just that Mandus tricked the professor and knocked him unconscious while bringing him to see the engineer, if I remember correctly.

What happened to the Professor?

Wasn't he turned into a pig? I assumed he was the tesla pig.

What are the two parts of Compound X? Vitae, and "Monad Orgone Dispersal fluid" - any idea what these are?

Well we know what "Brennenburg Vitae" is from the first game . Can only guess at what the second one is, they probably made it up. Could be a reference to something though. I'll look into it.

It seems there's some sort of interdimensional gate at the heart of the Machine. What towers does he refer to? What "other world" is he talking about?

Maybe the same "other world" present in TDD? Where the kaernk come from and where Alexander wants to go?

Whose are the two hearts there? Presumably Edwin and Enoch's, but then whose is the third?

There were three hearts? If so, maybe two were his children, and maybe one was the professors? I'll have to play this again...

[Gilligan's Hell]

The Proffesor is The Machine. Listen to the phonautographs.

[DarkLite]

Whose are the two hearts there? Presumably Edwin and Enoch's, but then whose is the third?

There were three hearts? If so, maybe two were his children, and maybe one was the professors? I'll have to play this again...

The third one is in the South Tower after the Tesla pig. It's how you get to the temple.

The Proffesor is The Machine. Listen to the phonautographs.

None of the phonographs support that at all. The Professor is definitely another person who came to investigate what Mandus was doing.

[Gilligan's Hell]

Whose are the two hearts there? Presumably Edwin and Enoch's, but then whose is the third?

There were three hearts? If so, maybe two were his children, and maybe one was the professors? I'll have to play this again...

The third one is in the South Tower after the Tesla pig. It's how you get to the temple.

The Proffesor is The Machine. Listen to the phonautographs.

None of the phonographs support that at all. The Professor is definitely another person who came to investigate what Mandus was doing.

The Machine had the same voice actor (Budget reasons possibly) and kept saying that he was mandus's friend.

[Paddy™]

I mentioned that yesterday in another thread.

Whoops, sorry man! There have been so many threads/posts since yesterday it's hard to keep up