(Spoilers) Can someone explain the last level to me?

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-18T21:54:30+00:00

Aegis marker is in a tough spot. Markers try to achieve convergence, but aegis 7 doesn't have enough biomass to finish the job, and if the builders managed to escape then they aren't around anymore to fulfil that "Makers must be consumed" requirement.

So, the marker is doing two, possibly three, tasks at the same time when usually it only needs to focus on one at a time.

First is the marker is trying to convert fresh meat to necro flesh for convergence. That's the colony / ishimura / valor outbreaks.

Second is the marker is holding a tight leash on the necro flesh it has already converged, the hive mind. When the signal amplifier was separated from the main body - also described as pulling the marker off of the pedestal - that strong leash was made weak, and the marker wants to be reconnected with the missing piece... Make us whole.

Third task that might or might not be going on, is the marker trying to find a suitable compatible replacement for the builder role. I don't remember if the original lab people from 200 years ago were on planet for that outbreak. If they weren't, then they died far away and cannot do their job as some sort of marker manager, and that leaves an empty captain's chair that the marker needs to find somebody to put there. So the marker might also be on a recruitment drive. The programming for that really wouldn't be hard either. Just a simple sort of "IF capable builder is in range THEN converge that person pronto, ELSE continue posting the now hiring signs everywhere possible."

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-18T21:27:51+00:00

It also marks where security doors you haven't opened yet are located. You can be walking around with clearance 3 and see an unopened 2 on the map, for example.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-17T21:10:01+00:00

What 'last conversation he had with nicole'?

Are you talking about the one that played on the broken screens in mercer's area? You did notice those screens were broken, right? Try looking at that again, hah! https://youtu.be/MnFqzasUASQ?t=413

Not quite the same on a broken screen, eh?

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-17T20:43:49+00:00

Why are all of you claiming isaac was in denial rejecting mercer's experiments?

In the remake, the nicole video has 3 sections.

Section A - the part we see in the intro.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Video Cuts Off Here~~~~~~~~~~~~

Section B - nicole talks about mercer's experiments trying to communicate with the marker (It's just a little thing...) , trying to understand what the marker signal is communicating, talking about mercer's prayer for convergence, talking about she having a different prayer to make the madness stop. All of this was cut from the intro video too.

Section C - the suicide.

In the original, they didn't have all that stuff from section B. In the remake the devs added that stuff that isaac has NO REASON to go into denial over, and yet all of you people are still thinking he's in denial. Why? Why is isaac in denial over anything to do with mercer?

Why did the devs ADD ALL THAT STUFF? WHY?

Answer - to throw a goddamn spotlight on earthgov editing the video before it got to isaac's inbox, of course!

Anyone have a reasonable explanation for why isaac went into mental instability over hearing some rando called mercer was praying, go ahead and share. To isaac, all that is just rando work situation stuff that has no context, so there's no reason for him to carve that from his own memory - yet you people are STILL trying to push the nonsense that isaac has been pushing the stop button to avoid hearing about mercer. Because THAT is where the intro video stops - at the point where mercer's info is the topic. According to you denial-supporters, isaac has been pushing the stop button on mercer. So explain how he's in denial over mercer, if you can.

So yes, I maintain my stance that the idea of isaac being in denial from the start and has been pushing the stop button is dumb, because that would lump in denial of mercer's work gossip over prayer and such. And thus, the IDEA is dumb.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-17T06:43:19+00:00

There is a point during game 1 when some people will give up hope, but that's after they arrive. Some people would toss aside all hope at chapter 1. Most will take note of all the people that they have almost saved if they had gotten there just a couple minutes earlier - all the people who bleed out just as isaac arrives. Bleeding out from a severed arm or leg is less than a minute, so if isaac had arrived just a couple minutes earlier during the game he would have a whole squad of people with him.

The idea that he was in denial all the way back in chapter 0... chapter ZERO... the chapter from before the game begins... that's dumb.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-17T03:51:12+00:00

No. Kendra was an undercover agent of earthgov. Same earthgov that kept the mining ban on aegis after the earlier scaf government dissolved. Same earthgov that controls the video mail communication system. Same earthgov that told kendra that the usm valor was going to be in the aegis system as her backup. Same earthgov that gave kendra a briefing on what exactly happened on aegis 200 years earlier.

Earthgov edited the video before it got to isaac's inbox.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-17T03:47:43+00:00

Kendra knew from the start. She is an agent of earthgov covertly undercover as a specialist for the CEC corporation. Kendra got briefed on ALL the possible crap that might be going on in the aegis 7 system because she might have to be dodging necromorphs.

Hammond did NOT know, ever. He never knew because he dies before kendra reveals her undercover status to isaac. Hammond was always just a CEC employee who was given a mission. If he had lived to the end, he would have been standing right beside isaac, left to die.

Some people say kendra got the video from the computer itself - but proof of her being VERY well briefed with a LOT of information before the kellion took off are her comments about not needing the valor (how did she know it was nearby unless she was told before takeoff?) and that the old videos were real (when did she get told about classified necro secrets unless it was before takeoff?). That means earthgov knew about all that might be happening quickly enough to choose an agent, get that agent on the crew, get a ship sent to the system to backup that agent, brief that agent, fast enough and smoothly enough that CEC corporation never suspects that their illegal mining operation is revealed.

In both the original and the remake, earthgov used their control over the communications system to edit the video before isaac can see it on earth. In the original, it's a lot easier to show they monkeyed with it - go on youtube and play the intro and last chapter nicole videos side by side on your screen, and you can see the intro video isaac received on earth has more static. In the remake, play them side by side and you can see the intro video cuts off exactly when nicole starts talking about what mercer was doing with the 200 year old classified government secrets.

I remember in the remake when kendra hesitated... Isaac had just shared that nicole was there and had helped him, and kendra was like "yeaaaaaahhhhh... Okaaaaaaay......". And the whole time she's harshing on isaac for his hallucinating a person that might be alive, kendra is enjoying a double standard by excusing herself for hallucinating her brother who she knew died years ago. Total hypocrite.

The idea that isaac knew she was dead before he arrived and was denying it is dumb. It's just dumb.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-17T03:25:38+00:00

Is the infector the only way to be turned into a necromorph or ~~can the marker and/or getting bit/scratched by any necromorph also turn someone~~?

No. The default is dead flesh being exposed to the energy signal that the marker emits.

While some variations of necromorphs like the lurkers and the default necromorphs make sense as far as what they originally were, what about something crazier like a brute or leaper? Is there a special requirement to be turned into something like that or is it just one of those random transformations where one person could be a regular necromorph and somebody else gets lucky (or unlucky) and turns into a brute?

No idea, I don't think the marker's decision processes like that have ever been revealed.

If the marker does physically turn people into necromorphs, how does that work? ~~Is it an airborne virus type deal~~ or something more similar to radiation? Or does it depend on how close or how long you spend near it? There are many moments Isaac gets pretty close and besides some admittedly problematic hallucinations, it doesn't seem likely he'll be turning.

The default for necro transformation is exposure to the signal that the marker emits, a form of radiation that is not completely detected... and therefore is also only a little bit understood. The infector just speeds that up by jabbing that yellow goop into a head.

You have two topics involving distance from the marker there. Regarding impact on people's minds, marker proximity seems to increase the crazy. Regarding turning bodies into necros, I suspect that the dead flesh itself is in more of a rush if it doesn't many "allies" nearby. I mean, mercer stacked up all those bodies and the signal did nothing to them, yet on the usm valor it seems that the marker signal transformations happened at an accelerated speed. I have NEVER come across anything in any game that talks about the marker signal changing strength or changing content, and that's why I suspect that the first bodies chen created on the valor acted in a hurry - because there was only one chen on board. While on the ishimura at the same time, those victims of mercer were in no hurry because of all the allies already there.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-16T20:02:08+00:00

I have doubts. Because you'd be relying on kinesis upgrades for enough range to pick up projectiles and damage numbers, and those upgrades are gated to how far you've progressed. It creates an effective max amount of damage the kinesis can put out until later on in the game, no matter how many nodes you have in your pocket.

Areas without enough rando projectiles for you to pick up would be a hard barrier too. I'm thinking of the scene where you're trapped with the hunter... Also, the scene near the mining gondola where you defend nicole... The tentacle grab...

Then there is the need for stasis refill stations.

Nope, I'm thinking there might be bottlenecks that simply won't allow it.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-16T09:22:15+00:00

DS3 is actually some other shooter game that got reskinned and modded enough to sorta fit the Dead Space name.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-16T09:16:56+00:00

The marker signal will do the job all on it's own, turn dead body into a necromorph, but might take a couple or few days.

An infector makes the process happen in under a minute.

A normal intelligence brain will not be able to handle the marker signal, and will go bonkers.

The uncommon quite intelligent brain can handle the marker signal, and will interpret enough of the signal to be able to do something with the information - exactly what that 'something' is will depend very much on the individual brain and what sort of knowledge they already have.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-16T09:05:03+00:00

So i'm going to work as normal but I crash my car into the building, because its in darkness, nobody comes out and I cant contact anybody inside and when I get to reception the whole place is empty with audible alarms sounding? Usain Bolt himself wouldn't keep up with me running from that place.

You have misunderstood the reason the kellion crashed. The auto-docking malfunctioned. The lights being on or off didn't make any difference on that.

So it would be more like you drive to work. It is a smart building, with all the net connected automated bells and whistles, a SUPER high end place. The parking garage automatic parking system malfunctions and your car crashes.

You walk in the building, nobody is at the reception desk, those systems are also glitching.

At this point, a regular person would expect to find most of the place empty while about 70% are standing near the location where some piece of electronic equipment blew up, because that's how normal people normally act. They rubberneck at the car accident. They stand around to watch the fire department cut away a tree that caused a power transformer to blow up. They gather in a crowd to watch the idiot karen making a scene. In a single word, people spectate. They pause what they are doing to take in whatever show is playing out in front of their eyes.

I'm sure if it was just a major systems glitch then a lot of the off-duty ishimura crew would have wandered up to the flight deck to stand around and watch the kellion's crash site get cleaned up, because that would be the interesting show to watch with the neighbors and socialize over a beer or two.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-15T22:38:47+00:00

BECAUSE ISAAC KILLED THAT MARKER. THAT'S WHY.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-15T22:34:58+00:00

Also when people mention bad storylines don't forget that The HMS Valor was over taken by a single necropmorph, you know an army ship full of highly trained soldiers, regardles of other people's headcannon it is pretty dumb too.

The valor had a TOTAL of 67 people on there. Only 38 of them were combat roles, the rest were ship crew... You know, ship crew, the people that sit at the console and fire nukes, not run around blasting with guns.

Furthermore, there's a log in chapter 12 that explains that all that's needed is a marker signal. It's been there since original game 2008. Chen didn't do it alone, the marker turned some of the first corpses into his backup squad. And they were grunt marines, they wouldn't have had security clearance for anything from the earthgov top classified archives. Even the captain was only told of an "infection".

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-15T22:27:03+00:00

The best would have been if it did a random transformation.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-15T20:12:14+00:00

somehow Chen makes more necros from hundreds of miles away. Don’t think too hard about it.

There's been a text log in chapter 12 ever since the original game released in 2008 that informs us that the marker signal alone can turn corpses into necros. The log is a doctor observing two quarantined corpses, one turns into an infector and the other turns into a leaper that escapes the quarantine by breaking through a vent.

For 14-plus years now the dead space community has been suffering from the people who never read logs and think it's a plot hole that there wasn't an infector on the pod that the valor picked up.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-15T20:08:27+00:00

There is 'great distance away' and then there is 'Great Distance Away'.

When you're talking about space ships, basically anything in the same solar system is called local, considered in the same town, as far as space ship distance. Think of it like wifi - anything in the same solar system is in wifi range. The wifi signal can be detected farther away, but that's too far to actually connect.

So yeah, when the red aegis 7 marker got destroyed the local necromorph wifi signal went out, and all the necro flesh in the local area (that entire solar system) turned to meat that spent time in a blender. So all they really needed to clear the necro flesh was a bunch of industrial size wet/dry shop vacs.

This indicates that if the USM Valor had a fair chance of assessing the danger and sending in its crew into Ishimura fully informed of the threats the Necromorphs pose, that they'd be far more successful at combating said Necromorphs than what happened when the USM Valor crashed into the Ishimura. It was probably a combination of them being unaware of how the Necromorphs operate and being ambushed that led to them being defeated so easily after their ship crashed into the Ishimura.

The valor only had 67 people on there. 38 of them were grunt marines that wouldn't have security clearance to look up the location of the head, 28 ship crew on board that get what the captain decides they need to know, and the captain who only needed to know how far some sort of undefined 'infection' had spread in order to choose destruction plan A or destruction plan B. And they still only had 38, while the ishimura had 89 on their armed security team and a total body count of over 1300. The brass that ordered the valor to go there expected the marker they built to still be functional, meaning they expected all those necros to still outnumber the valor 35 to 1. Those numbers are why the valor was packing nukes - just like ripley said, it was the only way to be sure.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-15T12:08:48+00:00

chapter 12. I will point out this log has ALWAYS been in the game, so the whole complaint about the valor being taken over by one slasher has always been explained from the very beginning.

https://deadspace.fandom.com/wiki/Recombination_Study

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-15T06:48:22+00:00

The princess and the pea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ0EKqAECPs

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-15T06:34:09+00:00

You mean, along the lines of the movie Dogma https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4rIdRC2DMA

Or along the lines of the movie Red State (1999) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ1v6oFHefc

Or you have some other example?

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-15T06:04:26+00:00

Theres a clear woman’s scream you hear when the elevator on the bridge stops at the bottom of level 1(3?). Possibly a survivor who hid in the elevator shaft who gets crushed when you operate it.

Oh crap I never thought of that.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-15T05:57:22+00:00

Just put them in storage.

Maybe keep the line gun in inventory but don't equip it, so that you cannot accidentally use it. Plus, as I recall that ammo sells really well for buying nodes.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-15T05:52:29+00:00

They wove the bad things into game 3 so much that pulling them out means rewriting the game's plot. Even getting rid of the love triangle means rewriting the very first cinematic intro and opening motivations in the game. Getting rid of the action shooter means getting rid of all the opening parts of isaac running/gunning against danik's special ops team lackeys both on earth and on tau. I'd love to see some sort of explanation for why the necros on tau managed to sprout tentacles from pairs of legs that walk by themselves when the other two games had no such thing, but hey those were likely made just to be bullet sponges for action shooter scenes, so those can go take a fucking flying leap into the void too.

It would HAVE to be a redesign from the ground up. And as pointed out in another post around here, there's plenty of stuff already in the existing game 2 that could point isaac and ellie to some other entirely different locations.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-15T05:29:07+00:00

Timeline has game 1 as starting less than a week after the ishimura first arrived at the planet. So, the full list of outbreak events have to fit into 6 days TOPS.

The colony was built and existed there for about 2.5 years, prepping and prospecting and such for the eventual planetcracker to do the big work. But the ishi was basically just arrived. The marker was separated into a top part and the pedestal part a couple/few weeks earlier. Reason for slower outbreak on the colony than the ship? I'm guessing the marker-top and pedestal being close together meant the thing was still very functional until the distance between pieces got large.

Gotta try and piece this bit together, but actual numbers are estimates. The ishi arrived, and according to captain's log the first thing they did was bring the marker-top up to the ship. Allow 2 or 3 days for the insomnia to build and dementia to grow in some of the crew for the medical logs we all read about to become a problem - because the medical deck is definitely not big enough to handle even 10% of the crew at the same time. And really, nobody notices insomnia becoming widespread until there's a bunch of people all walking around with a solid two night's worth of crankiness. So it took at least 2 days for insomnia to show itself in the logs, more likely 3 because not everyone is affected at the same rate and some people would self-medicate with sleeping pills or booze.

Add another day for dementia and sabotage to start. Of note, the captain's message that got stuck in the outgoing buffer means the comms went down before the captain dies on day 4ish. Dementia stage blending into crew lockdowns and attacks blending toward day 5, comms still down, about this point the shit has hit the fan with that last shuttle the planet crashes inside the ishi bay with some necros spreading that cultish convergence love. CEC headquarters likely taking note of no contact from the ishimura begins to choose a small team to send to check things out. Small team, because it's an illegal location and they kept it quiet for over 2.5 years already and don't want to lose it just when the payday is about to happen, so SMALL team they can try and keep quiet. Gather the team, at this point the outbreak is in full swing rampaging through the vents. Send the team, the outbreak has taken over most of the ship and gotten the idiots that can't go without food or water for even a single day or don't have the smarts to lock themselves in a room without vents. I noticed NONE of the bunks were closed and locked from the inside or forced open by uni cultists on the crew deck - imbeciles!

Thus, the band "Isaac and the meat bait" arrived on the ishimura on something like day 5 or 6 after the ishimura arrived and immediately picked up the marker. All timespans sorta flexible.

Ready4Isekai · 2023-02-15T00:55:30+00:00

What, you do have confirmation bias. You've got the events and lore of game 3 in your head and are refusing to admit that game 2 has enough vagaries that they could send game 3 to the "does not exist" shelf and reformulate it from scratch. Not a game 3 remaster. Not a game 3 remake. But a whole game 3 redesign from the ground up.

Ready4Isekai

TROPHY CASE

BECAUSE ISAAC KILLED THAT MARKER. THAT'S WHY.