Higgs' plan
- If Higgs needed Sam to complete the Chiral Network, then why did he try to destroy both Port Knot City and South Knot City? The latter of which he's attempted three times over the course of the story. note This is similar to several Metal Gear games, where the villain almost always wants the hero to complete his mission to a certain point, yet throws the most ridiculous death traps in his way.
- Most likely to just further antagonize Sam. Notice how his first appearance in Port Knot City is grand and theatrical. He could have summoned that BT to eat any Port Knot City citizen easily, but specifically targets Sam. In South Knot City, he could have easily destroyed the city the first time when he intercepted Fragile, but he was more interested in humiliating her than actually destroying the city. The second time, he practically telegraphs the fact that he's smuggling a bomb in the package he gives Sam, and even tells him to deliver to Fragile, who would instantly know what the package is. It was all a grand show on his part. This was all most likely ordered by Amelie to give Sam further motivation to complete his journey across the country.
- The chiral network is plan b for Higgs, he wants Amelie to get this over with now but she insists on the chiral network first even though it is not as needed as she makes it out to be to wipe out humanity.
- In the briefing scene early in the game, why does no one question how Amelie was captured by the Homo Demens when she says earlier that her body’s on the Beach? Also, why does she try to shake Sam’s hand when she knows it’ll just pass right through him?
Floating Entities
- The five floating entities Sam sees twice on the Beach and once in the cave with Fragile are speculated to be the five previous Extinction Entities, preceding Amelie. Yet they also evoke the image of BTs, and Heartman explains that the previous EEs weren’t humanoid. Their appearance is seemingly never explained.
- If I had to guess, they might represent the people Sam has made connections with over the course of the game, representing Die-Hardman, Deadman, Fragile, Mama/Lockne (since the two sisters are fused together), and Heartman.
- Perhaps they take this humanoid form now in the age of humans. Or maybe the human form evolved to match them, just like mammals amd umbilical cords.
- Complicating the question are the five infant-like BTs that show up in the penultimate cutscene of the game, when Sam takes Lou out of her container. What's the relationship?
- It's possible there's something archetypal about the human body plan, resulting in this appearance even though one is actually a mammoth, another is an ammonite, etc. Umbilical cords and hand-like formations are apparently an intrinsic attribute of life and death, so maybe humanoids are the "true form" of life.
BB-28
- Why was BB-28's service record completely redacted? By all indications, it's a perfectly normal BB.
- Normal B Bs are not something to be proud of so deleting the records of some must happen a lot. She was kind of defective to boot so her service might just be erased to cover her not being working properly unless the user has DOOMS.
- The implication seemed to be that she was Sam's actual daughter, further implying his wife's death was no accident. Bridget did after all still need her foundational BB to complete the network, Sam's wife died while he was conveniently away on a Bridges mission (assigned by Bridget, one assumes), and Amelie can presumably create voidouts at will. This then even further implies that Sam's wife was alive the entire time being kept in stasis in a jar somewhere. It also explains why the BB could only be used by those with DOOMS, as it presumably has DOOMS itself by virtue of being directly connected to Amelie.
- The records, then, would be redacted both to conceal the fact that they straight murdered a woman, and also to obscure the BB's age a bit so as to prevent Sam or anyone else lining up the timeframes.
Fragile's powers
- How did Fragile gain her powers of Beach jumping? Born with them randomly? Inherited? Something else?
- The best that can be surmised is that people with higher DOOMs levels have this ability, as Higgs is shown to be able to do the same.
- It's explicitly stated that her teleportation ability is related to DOOMs, which is something you can only get from Amelie.
- Listen carefully to Amelie's explanation to Sam in the first end-credits on his Beach and she says that when Amelie made Sam a repatriate, it caused a domino effect. By upsetting the balance of life and death by saving Sam, Amelie spreaded DOOMS across the country, afflicting various people with the condition. Sam was basically patient zero and the minute he returned his body, it's likely he leaked DOOMS into our world and into other people. It's quite possibly Fragile, who is no doubt around Sam's age, could have been afflicted by this pandemic.
Die-Hardman’s mask
- Does it serve a practical purpose? Die-Hardman uses it to hide the truth of his identity, but why was Bridget wearing it back then?
- It seems like it is more of a symbolic badge of office for whoever is running BRIDGES, and Die-Hardman inherited the mask from Bridget when she became President.
- Alternatively, Bridget could have been hiding her face when she was younger in order to hide the truth about Amelie being a manifestation of Bridget’s ka (soul) rather than her daughter, as they would have looked identical.
Monster Energy
- Is it ever explained why there seems to be an abundant source of Monster Energy drinks considering the state of the world?
- Considering the canteen is able to recycle both rain and river water into Monster Energy, the best assumption is that the distribution centers also double as factories of the stuff, literally turning water into Monster Energy.
- My headcanon was that there was just so much monster produced they're still running on the pre-stranding supply. Kinda like nuka-cola in fallout.
Weight limit in shower?
- Why does there need to be a weight limit in the shower?
- Lot of electronic under the drain to take fluids from Sam. Breaking the floor would be bad.
BT Hierarchy and other details
- If BT's are human ghosts, why and how they take such monstrous forms? And why there different ones with different "roles" and even power levels? Is it a reflection of a soul's strength in life? Or are those just particularly nasty aglomeration of souls? And since a defeatead BT turns into chilralrium, does it die for good or just passes to the Seam once and for all?
- They aren't really human ghosts, they are an amalgalm of of souls not fully sent to the seam that gets mutated by by chiralium. The mutation may differ and like DOOMS some are more powerful than others. Once they are destroyed the chiralium leave their body and they can move to the afterlife fully.
Heartman's condition
- Are Heartman's cardiac arrests self afflicted? He said he would stop his heart for 3 min at the time to explore the beach and search for his family but later on he said the frequent cardiac arrest took a toll on his heart/that his heart muscle start to deform. He was clinically dead for 21 minutes, before he was resuscitated which explains why he has a 21 minute life cycle. If they're self afflicted then how is it possible that they caught him by suprise? Why doesn´t he just stop?
- He doesn't want to stop to him finding his family is top priority so even if he loses himself talking to Sam the moment he is given a chance to visit the beach again he takes it, it likely triggers automatically by design so he doesn't waste more time in the living than needed if he is distracted.
Heartman's memories
- Heartman tells the story of his experience on the beach after the hospital blackout. Why is he the only person who is lucid enough to ask questions about what is going on. All the other people just walk towards the shore like zombies.
- His pacemaker and DOOM kept him lucid while the others weren't.
- Everyone else there probably died in the explosion and had no bodies left to hold them to the world of the living, while Heartman still has his body that's about to be brought back to life.
What is "extinction factor"?
- During their first conversation in a cave, Sam tells Fragile that he has "extinction factor". It seems like he's just talking about his DOOMs, but why did he call it that? As far as I know, the name "extinction factor" isn't used anywhere else in the game.
- Amelie also mentions the term near the end of the game. An "extinction factor" is a genetic trait that is detrimental to an organism's continued survival, rather than beneficial. In other words, those who possess an extinction factor are more likely to die than those who do not. Aside from supernatural powers, symptoms of DOOMs include things like recurring nightmares about the extinction of humanity, and it's noted that many with DOOMs have a tendency to become suicidal. That would definitely lower their general life expectancy in the manner of an "extinction factor".
Heartman's Search
- So Heartman died briefly while everybody else blew up allowing himself to glimpse his wife and child wander off into the afterlife and is unable to move on or grieve because technically he knows they still exist. All fine and dandy. But he states he's searching for their Beach so he can meet up and pass on into the afterlife together, but we're repeatedly told that people don't stay on their beach, they can't if they've got no body to return to. So isn't his search a completely fruitless one and wouldn't he know it's impossible?
- Could be he thinks they've become BT's, in which case, they won't have passed on and will still be "beached".
How are Preppers allowed to live like this?
- A majority of preppers live alone. What if one of them dies and nobody will notify corpse disposal? It would be one thing if nothing happened, but we know that death of one person creates a crater that can potentially harm tens of thousands of people. People die unnoticed in the cities (look at Lucy for example), so why are preppers allowed to live alone with little to none contact with the rest of the world? Does the UCA just send someone every day to check on them? I know this can be mitigated with the Chiral Network, but what did they do before they got connected?
- Higgs' backstory shows that preppers dying and creating Beached Things that trigger voidouts is indeed a serious problem, and the UCA's lack of influence at the start of the game means that they don't have the power to do anything about it. Preventing this is one of the reasons why the UCA wants to get everyone on the Chiral Network so badly, and not wanting to be surveilled (even if it endangers lives) is one of the reasons why some preppers are so resistant to linking up.
- Remember too that a person dying in itself is not what causes a void-out. When a person dies, the body necrotizes and becomes a BT. It's when a living person gets "eaten" by a BT that a void-out occurs.
Q-pid's name
Does anybody know why the Q-pid is called like that? The most obvious explanation would be the figure of the mythological cupid, of course, but that doesn't really fit perfectly to me. Cupid is the god of erotic love and desire, and I don't really see any textual connection to Sam's mission or the game's themes. Sam isn't going around making people fall in love, and the theme of connections in the game focuses more on platonic/familial/humanist love than anything romantic. Sam isn't on the quest to save his romantic interest either, Amelie's his sister. Is there something I'm missing or is this just an odd name choice with no deeper meaning?
