Headscratchers / Dead Space (Remake)

• How is Mercer's stasis unit able to immobilize a target for up to two minutes? Mercer's just an MD as far as I can tell, so he shouldn't have the engineering chops to upgrade it to that extent.
  • Given the state of the Ishimura by the time Isaac and company arrive, Mercer's likely stolen it from someone else, like a high ranking engineer or security guard, either after they were already dead, or killing them when they weren't expecting it.
  • Mercer mentions using the supplies Harris stole to create the modified stasis module and Isaac can even nab a prototype Mercer made that allows stasis to burn away Necromorph flesh. This version of Mercer seems to have Omnidisciplinary Scientist traits, so it's not much of a surprise he can create something so powerful.
  • It also doesn't seem that Dr. Mercer has actually improved on the design so much as broken it in an exceptionally dangerous way. I mean given the prototypes tendency to strip the flesh off anything it's used on this wouldn't be at all workplace usable. Most likely this phenomena of what happens if you introduce an osmium component was well known but too dangerous to use.
• Why is Dr. Kyne labeled a murderer for accidentally killing Captain Matthius?
  • Thanks to the machinations of Warren Eckhardt (with Captain Matthias' blessing) most of the Ishimura's crew were either Unitologists or Unitology sympathizers. Additionally, it was likely common knowledge (whether due to scuttlebutt or deliberate sowing of discord) that the Captain and Dr. Kyne were vehemently disagreeing with one another regarding the Marker. It wouldn't be a stretch for someone to assume Dr. Kyne -whether due to malice, jealousy, or other reasons- would orchestrate an 'accident' to take out the Captain and try to assume command.
  • IIRC they also wanted to hold him for questioning, which Kyne refused since time was of the essence. Running away rather than staying to explain himself would only make him look worse since even in a normal situation he'd be expected to give a statement of what happened in the scuffle.
• Why does the Red Marker apparently want to be returned to Aegis VII?
  • There is a log available in new game plus, detailing Nicole's "conversation" with the Marker. When Nicole asks it to make it stop, the Marker responds that it wants its Makers, with Dead Space 2 indicating the Marker needs to kill its Makers to actually trigger convergence. When Nicole responds that they had dug the thing up after ages so that the makers aren't around, it decides to return to its pedestal and wait for an "architect" to find it, presumably so that the architect could make another Marker.
• How on Earth did Kendra survive up until the end of the game unscathed? Sure she was an Earth Gov operative, but she was just a single woman with just a small handgun and no armor, on a ship crawling with thousands of incredibly hard to kill monsters that swarmed at anything with a heartbeat that easily slaughtered Hammond and his security team (who were trained soldiers and heavily armed) and slaughtered a battleship full of even better trained space marines with military grade armor. Its just hard to believe she somehow was ignored by Necromorphs.
  • A combination of luck and being barricaded in the Computer Core (which we never see but appears to be relatively close to the Bridge Deck) for most of the time. The Computer Core doesn't seem to have any ventilation access and can be sealed off pretty well from any attack and it seems like the Necromorphs paid that location no mind.
• Why does Kendra kill Dr. Kyne? Her objective was to get him out of the way so she could steal the shuttle with the Marker on it, but she accomplished that by having him go open the door for Isaac and wait for him. She could have just locked them both out and left it at that, but she goes out of her way to shoot him. It comes across as petty and spiteful, undermining the sequel's efforts to make her a more sympathetic character (on a similar note, she's also shown treating Kyne as a nutcase despite the fact that she herself is also suffering from Marker-induced hallucinations).
  • While it doesn't completely justify her actions, Kendra is worried that Kyne may change his tune when he reaches Aegis VII, either on his own or from influence from the Marker and/or Hive Mind. That honestly isn't an invalid point, as harsh as it may be. Furthermore, there is a text log that notes Unitology is seen as a threat to Earthgov, with many extremally wealthy members and high ranking politicians. By the third game they are defeating Earthgov for control of Earth and it's colonies. As far as her treatment of Kyne beforehand, there is a difference between the two. Kendra realizes her brother isn't actually on the Ishimura, whereas Kyne genuinely believes his dead-for-seven-years wife is alive and he is not speaking to am illusion created by the Marker.
• Something I don't really get about the last chapter: Kendra overrides Isaac's RIG and says "Watch to the end this time," in order to prove to him that Nicole's dead. I'm not sure if I missed something here, but Isaac's introduced in Chapter 1 as regularly watching and re-watching Nicole's message. Are we meant to take away from this that Isaac has seen the part of the message that serves as Nicole's suicide note, and is choosing to ignore that part of it, or that the original message was intercepted and doctored by Earthgov to remove that part in order to hush up the Ishimura disaster? I'm sure the answer's in-game somewhere, but I've not seen it.
  • While it may not be directly stated, the implication is that the message was intercepted by Earthgov and edited in order to get convince Isaac to take the mission. If he knows she is dead, why go? If he believes she is alive, he will naturally jump at the chance to see her earlier than the six months.
  • I believe this game was building on the implication from the first game that Isaac was having problems well before coming anywhere near the Marker. He'd just lost his parents to murder-suicide and his last words to his fiancé were to blame her for their deaths. Not long after (no idea exactly when but a few months at most) he has to watch a video of his fiancé killing herself too. It's not a stretch to imagine this would fuck him up. Having a psychotic break and going into denial about her death would be possible, and explains his single-minded focus on reaching her when he thinks he has the opportunity. Kendra knew Nicole was dead from the start, because as a hacker spy she would have had access to the full video, while the rest of the crew doesn't because Isaac would only watch the first part of her message, stopping the video before it got to her death. A bit of Hollywood psychology, but not unfeasible.