Some unanswered questions.

[Mjarr]

- Why was Daniel able to simply piece an Orb back together with some adhesive (twice), when evidently Alexander could never do so himself with his own broken Orb?

My speculation is that piece(s) of the first orb were permanently lost once it broke down, compare it to IRL scenario where you are missing some screws from some object and you cannot assemble it correctly that way.

Alternatively since some of the events have occured months before the events of the game back then Alexander had no idea how to do it despite all his potential knowledge and caused him sort of tunnel vision when it came to thinking solutions, but just prior the game events start he might've figured it out or atleast experimented on something that gave positive results.

[bugmenot]

If you destroy the machine first and then set up the orb... well, you will see ;P

Ah, I didn't know that was even possible. I had thought the way to the machine only opened when I fixed the orb. I'll have to try that then

[senataur]

- Why does the Shadow leave Daniel alone in the 'revenge' ending?

Reposting here because i thinks it's relevant but...
I always took it that the 'red goo' was a consequence of whatever Alexander was up to in the castle.

The red goo could just be the result of the ritual Alexander was performing. In the 2 endings where the ritual is completed and the portal appears, the red goo takes over and kills anyone left over in the Castle.

In the ending where Daniel stops the ritual the red goo is also stopped.

Has anyone got any information that would counter my thinking? Is the shadow actually the red goo? I never made that connection.

[Bek]

I guess that's possible.... Aren;t there some sections where the goo is already in rooms when you enter? If that was the shadow wouldn't it have 'caught up' to you then anyway? Seems pretty weak.

"Stand still. For hours! Good, now don't move"

[Culinus]

- Why was Daniel able to simply piece an Orb back together with some adhesive (twice), when evidently Alexander could never do so himself with his own broken Orb?

I had a theory about this when I was playing the game. When running around collecting the orbs from the torture rooms I thought about what I had read in the dairies earlier when he tried to assemble it the first time. Because he'd had a lot of difficulty getting the pieces together, and Alexander who was obviously a very intelligent and educated man had thought it was impossible I simply assumed there would be some puzzle when assembling it.

In the diaries he says that the pieces are constantly changing. When he manages to assemble it correctly he says that he knew (almost beforehand) which piece went where, even though they obviously couldn't be put together earlier. So my theory was that the orb pieces aren't actually physically changing, but rather ones perception of them changes depending on which state of mind you are in. And as you remember he assembled it right after having been awoken by a nightmare, so I came to the conclusion that you'd have to be very scared (insane) to manage to reassemble it. Unfortunately (for the story), the orb could be assemble when at "Crystal clear".

[Kein]

Well, my theory almost the same. They both explains why Alexander wasn't able to assemble the Orb - the baron was mentally strong to be affected by Orb's madness.

[Zopy]

- Why did a naked corpse suddenly spawn into existence on a bed frame in front of Daniel in the prison cell area near the end of the game (after Daniel breaks out of his own cell)?

As others have suggested, I think this is a sanity based thing. I remember once in the main room of the transcept, the ceiling was clear. However, I went into a torture chamber, and my sanity lowered dramatically. When I came back, there was a corpse hanging from the roof.

As for the appearance of the corpse in the cell, I think it's the same idea, except scripted into gameplay so that it always appears.