division-universe

[ashen jungle]

If we're going by crimes, I think BT alone still wins out overall.
They broke into the DARPA labs.

[bold pumice]

they didnt really have a legal way in

dont blame them for that

[ashen jungle]

Just a little bit of treason to go on top of planning and paying for an assassination of a sitting US president.

[sleek plover]

They still kills civs

[bold pumice]

they had ellis assassinated?

[sleek plover]

and are fascists

[bold pumice]

i thought Lau went rogue and killed him

[ashen jungle]

They paid the secret service agents to kill the former POTUS.

[bold pumice]

i mean, went rogue ad signed on with the BTSU, then killed Ellis

[ashen jungle]

Mendez? I forget his name.

there's a comm for it in a garage somewhere.

[bold pumice]

ohh

didnt he have a heart attack?

[ashen jungle]

In a possibly-not-confirmed-maybe-headcanon, I also believe that they poisoned the previous one, but that's very wonky.

[kind hare]

There is no ethically and morally true faction left. The SHD included

[bold pumice]

agreed.

if i could, i'd go rogue and shut them all down.

[ashen jungle]

Nah that was the previous president. The one I'm referring to people think shot himself.

[bold pumice]

not like the Keener way though, the way Keener did his stuff was stupid.

like actually nonsensical. It felt anticlimactic with how ridiculous his plan was in the end.

[ashen jungle]

Keener didn't make a whole lot of sense, although I'd argue that claiming the SHD aren't morally in the right is a bit much.

[bold pumice]

you're literally an AI you're very biased in this

[ashen jungle]

hey ISAC is my buddy, I've gotta stick up for him.

[bold pumice]

i dont like taking my orders from a machine much

[ashen jungle]

You're not going to enjoy the future of the IRL world then.

We saw Skynet and were like "not subtle enough"

[bold pumice]

i'll do it, I wont like it lol

sorry, took my glasses off

anyway it was fun chatting, im off too sleep now

[kind hare]

So given that the next season is called Vanguard (Keeners callsign), and the fact that Kelso has been heavily mentioned at the end of this season just passed, how do you think next season could play out?
I know what they implying here, with Kelso being potentially bad... but I don't buy it.

[bold pumice]

im curious again

i remember the recruiter mentioning Kelso, what was that about?

whys Kelso so important suddenly? I dont even like her so I tune her out most of the time.

[kind hare]

They're definitely trying to imply something

[ashen jungle]

if it turns out that Kelso is Keener in a Mission Impossible style mask this whole time, I will be very impressed.

on a more serious note, it is somewhat feeling like Kelso is going to have a "dark past" reveal.

[bold pumice]

Praying on her downfall rn.

Shes just annoying. I dont like her character much

[ashen jungle]

e.g. she worked for BT in the past, etc.
I have no idea why people hate her so much, she's just "generic good but rebel" Agent.

[kind hare]

I think this is definitely a likely outcome.
We can already see some of the SHD recruiter comments regarding her, I feel like they'll fill in some of the gaps in her earlier days. Perhaps something that happened while she was in the CIA?

[sleek plover]

Hey you're that ngn guy from youtube!

Hi

[ashen jungle]

Ooh I forgot about the CIA thing.
You know, we do have a connection there with the CIA having ignored Amherst pre his releasing of the Virus.
maybe she was the one who signed off on ignoring him?

I'd buy it more as a theory if we had some hint at it before, but we've had heel-turns before, e.g. Lau in the time-jump.

[kind hare]

Ohhhh that would be a cool tie in, between her and the NSA Analyst

[sleek plover]

🙁

[ashen jungle]

I don't think a name was ever directly mentioned in the Classified Mission, if it is true, then it would explain a lot about how reckless she is.

[kind hare]

Heyo!!

[sleek plover]

😋😚

Im this servers local village idiot who really hates LMB

[kind hare]

Apologies, Rivens getting the speculation flowing 😆

[bold pumice]

I just think her dialogue is annoying. I dont like how shes written, I dont like her attitude, and I dont like how she handles herself in the field. It just rubs me the wrong way. ESPECIALLY on liberty island, when shes giving you instructions despite being well aware Keener is eavesdropping, and instead of radio silence insults him and maintains contact.

[kind hare]

Chaotic good

[bold pumice]

It annoyed the fuck outta me

[sleek plover]

Thats like the only alignment i got jn every freakin tests i took every freakin time

even the 13 yr old.made crappyones

[ashen jungle]

Keener had nowhere to go and she knew it, I always saw that as baiting him into not trying to leave by making him mad.
Keener's ego is incredibly fragile, so it was a smart play on her part.

[sleek plover]

I said this before but

If keener had a snitch card, hes a joker

and the second joker is us

[bold pumice]

I dont think it was. She was clearly taken off gaurd by Keeners listening in, and very annoyed. Called him a “fucking eavesdropper.”

[ashen jungle]

I have noticed that there's a certain....bias towards disliking Kelso when other Agents have done worse.

It's nothing new. People said the same thing when WONY dropped.

[sleek plover]

Do you knoe what I think?

After revealing that hunter recruiter is basically an agent

I guess there may be a new form of DZ rogue mode

where you don the mask

and hunt the agents

[ashen jungle]

Isn't that just going Rogue in the DZ?

[sleek plover]

Well, i meant the hunter mask

as in you get somehow enrolled into the program

[ashen jungle]

Well, canon-wise you always wear a gas mask in the DZ's due to the dc-62 inside.

[bold pumice]

I dont dislike her for her actions, I just dont like her lol. I dont trust the other agents at all, and get annoyed with them often.

[sleek plover]

and plotwise you are living a double life

[ashen jungle]

It is somewhat confusing why enemies don't due due to it, but I'm just blaming plot-armour on that one.

[ashen jungle]

What are your thoughts on Schaeffer?

[bold pumice]

Prick.

[ashen jungle]

that one True Sons guy who died in a cutscene at the BoO?

[bold pumice]

The wha

[ashen jungle]

Actually nevermind, this is a bad train for me to go down.
y'all enjoy theorising. Gotta head out.

[bold pumice]

whats the BoO

if hes a true son though I think hes a traitor and a fool

[sleek plover]

Bodies of Oceanic Orcas

[bold pumice]

wheres that

[upbeat timber]

BoO is Base of Operations, the main Hub of vendors

[sick lantern]

in Underground there’s a Cleaner who can’t go all the way because of a mother and child who reminds him of his own

[tepid ibex]

Aahhhhhh 🫣

[bold pumice]

Ohhh Captain Lewis? I respect him.

[serene lark]

hello do you know if they are a discord for the division resurgence ?

[ashen jungle]

Yep, there's a link in the twitter bio for Div Resurgence.

[serene lark]

❤️

didint see it thank you and sorry 🙂

[fast wharf]

Ngl i seriously thought the recruiter was a women by how thin the suit was and How he look thin bruh 😭😭💀

Also did he deserve that mortar on the head lmao

And he still was alive before dying

Even tho a mortar hit him

Dude is tanky as fuck

[wicked gorge]

Your talking about a game where a pink beanie can turn you into tank

[sick lantern]

most people are

[gaunt ice]

All people are by nature. They just lose touch with it as they get older

[surreal hearth]

Hmmm the CIA,NSA, and homeland security

Lots of involvement surrounding the SHD and the hunter program

I’m still scratching my head of what is it with betrayers going on with insurance when they die?

[urban musk]

If Kelso turns out to be a "rogue" i will literally uninstall the game.

[surreal hearth]

Same

Johnson was nothing more than playing the keener manipulation thinking that were still rogue and the hunters are here to clean up the mess but they are nothing more than failures since we all know their major flaws

But like lau he was also another double agent because he has this insurance thing on him but it’s encrypted with the diamond node that can only be solved through specific areas

[gaunt ice]

I am more inclined to believe that Johnson was manipulated into this thing

It says that he was recruited to become basically the hunter’s commanding officer

While he was an agent

People dont turn faces that fast and he’s certainly not delusional like Keener

So i think that its less that he’s gone evil but more that he was lied to

He also happens to have beef with Kelso apparently way before the whole hunter thing

So that makes him more gullible to be tricked and all

or we’re just overthinking this and the writers pulled this out of their ass

[late void]

He seemed rather obsessed with the whole chain of command thing, demanding we obey McManus, while Kelso is described as very anti-authoritarian in her psych eval. Might be why she went to NY, to keep out of his way.

Or maybe he just hit on her and she rejected him.

[gaunt ice]

That escalated quickly

[late void]

Some people take rejection really badly, Johnson could have been a bit insecure, given his focus on obeying the chain of command

(Reading far too much into a few lines from a fictional character is fun!)

[sick lantern]

or both

[gaunt ice]

that implies the slightest of thought were put into writing "somehow Johnson and the mobile server is still intact when the mortar blew him up"

[sick lantern]

chatgpt did it

so, like, if Johnson and co all made it to DC together, and Johnson was around during events of Div 2, where tf did Ward and Dunne go

[gaunt ice]

probably one of the faceless corpses buried in trash lmao

[sick lantern]

like, did he kill them? he didn’t have access to any fancy tech at the time… i think he shouldn’t anyway… and even with the element of surprise he’s just one agent versus two

so unless he slit their throats in their sleep

they should still be alive

[gaunt ice]

nah all non player agents are fodders lmfao

[sick lantern]

including the hostile ones

especially Johnson

[gaunt ice]

tbf Johnson was fucking invincible in that fight

we only won because we shut down the network+dropping a mortar directly on him

[restive phoenix]

So Johnson is essentially the representation of a player agent pretty much unstoppable

[late void]

no, player is unstoppable because they can just respawn and try again. Johnson was just literally bulletproof most of the time

[gaunt ice]

lore wise everything we do is one take

granted its looter shooter logic but then Johnson is also fuckin invincible

so he's definitely the strongest opponent so far

[sick lantern]

dont get Undertale on us pls

[wicked gorge]

Shot a 50.cal round right into his mask, if he can survive that, he can survive anything

[mint citrus]

Johnson hit like a truck every time

[hardy oar]

Question - who do you think is gonna be the next manhunt target?

I think of:

• Ike Ronson (Kill)
• Agent Dunne (Rescue/ Kill)
• Agent Ward (Rescue/Kill)
• Jessica Kandel (Rescue)

[late void]

the outcast strategist dude maybe

[hardy oar]

Rescue or Kill? What do you think?

[late void]

Tough call, would he hate BT more than he hates us? Up to the writers, I guess.

[sick lantern]

he'll become a fisherman for the fish taco supply chain

[static crypt]

Idk about the prime target, but we still need to bring back Tchernenko and the Strategist

[hardy oar]

Don't forget the stolen reactor

[static crypt]

Lmao imagine the Bioreactor as a prime target 💀

[marble dawn]

Tolerate? Black Tusk backed Outcast cell could make for an interesting manhunt

[cold bramble]

They probably outfitted it with like 8 warhounds on it

[sick lantern]

no

not everything needs to be connected to the black tusk

[ashen jungle]

So I re-ran the Manning Manhunt last night, is it explained anywhere why civvies think that the SHD are evil?

[late void]

Not really. BT were helping them out and we routinely massacre BT, so that might be part of it, or it's just BT propaganda and they haven't really encountered shd agents before, we weren't exactly a well publicised faction.

[gaunt ice]

Its like a wheelson but the war hounds serve as its leg

[marble dawn]

No, but the Strategist being captured by BT means they are planning something with him. We have already seen Cleaners and Hyenas being supplied 'behind the scenes'. Combine this with how compliant Strategist seems to be the moment he has a gun pointed at his head.

That and I want to see what Outcasts would cook up with BT tech

[sleek plover]

The outcats, robotic feline assassin drones armed with green poison laced claws.

[late void]

Tbf apart from the first couple of seasons basically all the manhunts have been driven by BT plots, it'd be a refreshing change if someone entirely different popped up. Perhaps it's time for Mayhem's reappearance.

[surreal hearth]

I’m feeling curious

Alexander Ortiz has been mass distributing all of the mobile SHD servers only on the bunkers but the question is how many?

That goes the same with nats warhounds

Both created by the Ortiz

It looks like calving McManus knew about the rogue situation during the outbreak

Apparently some agent try to get painkillers to someone wounded but the AI protocol marked her as rogue causing one of her own turret to turn on that agent

I think it’s because looting was still a crime and the AI didn’t fully adapted the situation from the start

McManus was really pissed about it

Hearing the comms indicate that the Ortiz wanted to do a workaround but it was gonna become a warzone after that

ISAC basically was lacking from the beginning and the only way to adapt the situation was to activated both ANNA and Diamond at the same time in order to allow ISAC full autonomy awareness

The rogue protocol was supposed to lock all Shade tech from being used but it costed one agent down and couldn’t defend herself

By allowing the agents to have full access to everything you have to go rogue but it triggered the diamond protocol to clean up the mess after that meaning the hunters have orders to kill us all

In the first division the hunters we saw are the stage one hunters basically limited individuals to attack us on sight

Jesus Christ I’ve never seen McManus real pissed about how ugly the situation went down in New York then

He got desperate that he activated all hunter stages but we kinda killed all of the failsafe meaning we have gone rogue

Damn I guess the division wasn’t fast enough to contain the situation

Damn, we’ve been sandbagged then

ISACs off mission protocol was completely stripped as if we were never rogue to begin with we became a major target to the rogue and the hunters

[sick lantern]

ISAC*

[surreal hearth]

Yeah this is really bad

These two jerks put us on the black tusk radar right from the start

Aside from that birdie has a lot of very far more potential of a tech wizard than vik and Wally combined

And my suspicious has finally been confirmed

Anyone everything whether it’s male female, bird, or seagull or any animal or species can be an agent

Once you take a watch from a dead agent then you are the new agent even our enemies

Calving really put all his chips entirely when the division began

And of course nat is a Russia oligarch

I feel like a broken record now way too much repcon and too much digs

[sick lantern]

i mean we've always known that

[wicked gorge]

So the reason rogues have shd tech access is cause of cal wanting to make sure they stay alive, it’s coming from a good place, but damn it has been a pain in the ass for us

[static crypt]

in a way, cal was the entire reason for the rogue agent arc

[wicked gorge]

Not necessarily, hes just the reason they have their tech, even if that was implemented into the story in div 1 I feel like they would write it to Where keener ( our true lord and savior ) was able to hack into it

Also wouldn’t every agent have the location of a mobile shd server

[static crypt]

They'd have to be very close to it

Cuz in the Recruiter mission, we saw you can go out of range

[wicked gorge]

So the whole reason we have rogue agents is cause of faulty ai made by Ortiz

I can’t blame McManus for being pissed about it, but damn I feel bad for some rogues now

[quiet python]

I need to read the books more

[wicked gorge]

You do realize he’s talking about the manhunt mission?

[quiet python]

Oh I thought it was in books. I'm sorry

Im going thru the past manhunts to collect the audio logs because i am so far behind

[wicked gorge]

No worries man, I was just making sure, what manhunt you on

[surreal hearth]

A lot of agents were completely victimized by the major situation and responded super too late resulting the rogue protocol to go active

And let’s not forget how much that bastard Gordon Amherst have caused his mass green poison has cause a lot of systematic collapses

[wicked gorge]

It’s sad, an agent that potentially breaks into a pharmacy to get meds for a family is considered a rogue, curse technology( except our adorable ISAC )

[next hemlock]

Honestly if and when our division 2 character goes rogue what would happen to them?

[nocturne arrow]

Division 3 and your new Agent is tasked with hunting down "The Sheriff of D.C.".

But honestly, we've already been considered rogue post Faye Lau Manhunt, this might just make it official, but then again, by that time, we're considered an upstanding member of whatever is left of society in DC and NYC. That, or no one without a death wish is going to want to go up against us, considering they know what The Sheriff is capable of.

[next hemlock]

True

[wicked gorge]

It would be a div 1 situation where you decide what happens to your character in your imagination

[next hemlock]

👌🏻

[hardy oar]

In the next manhunt I wish we get the Haker Pulse or a new Hunter Tech as a reward

[hardy oar]

As for now we have access to ISAC and ANNA (kinda). So what if we get access to Diamond as well? Some new AI will come to live and we get a full situation awareness as it was supposed to be from the beginning?

[surreal hearth]

Only time will tell if we are forced to use the other AIs at the moment it’s locked under Calvin McManus

Birdie wasn’t joking around about the black tusk headquartered in some super up bunker

[mint citrus]

The fact that Cal hasn't just hit the switch or activated the rogue protocol for every active agent not loyal to him is baffling to me. Imagine in a season or two you start up the game expecting to see orange like usual, only for your watch and brick to be red

[surreal hearth]

As I previously said before he’s a major failed servant of the united state

And he is completely losing his shit

[mint citrus]

At this point in the story, what's left of the government is either dead or at Raven Rock

According to a collectible from way way back at the game's first year or so

[neat parrot]

im hoping we get to see more of the Morovian society.

[wicked gorge]

We need a new channel for members of the Moravian Society 🤣

[long epoch]

I was really considering a while back how they could make an entire game off of being a rouge agent instead of a division agent, having to join up with fellow rouges and having a really story driven plot to how it all ended up like this but that might not fit into any real story anymore considering the line between rouge and division is so arbitrarily thin

[mint citrus]

Bro it's not even a line anymore

[restive phoenix]

Feels more like a zigzag arguably every agent in DC could be considered rogue because we’re going against McManus who is the President or whatever

[sick lantern]

rogue*

[sick lantern]

he’s not the president, and he is a traitor, so, the shd is still not doing anything wrong

[silent imp]

Everyone here is forgetting about the actual most supremely important character of the entire franchise. Home boy Alex

[silent imp]

But being real, imma throw a curveball at the whole McManus situation that perhaps nobody has even considered, maybe not even the writers themselves.

Since Ellis is dead, that would mean that the next person up for the seat of president would be the Pro Tempore President of the Senate (if they are still alive that is) and not McManus.

Why wouldn't McManus be president? Simple. Per the U.S Order of Presidential Succession, since the Department of Homeland Security was the one to be established the last, its secretary is the one dead last on the succession order. Since ISAC still hasn't turned us rogue, we can safely assume that McManus isn't president. As such, this means that someone else in the government would be president and, in turn, is the only one keeping ISAC on our side

TLDR: There is another player in this whole story that nobody has even started considering to even exist

[sleek plover]

So...Isacs our new president?

[silent imp]

That's the thing: If it clearly isn't McManus....I have no idea who the president would be

It can't be Manny either because that would just be a bruh moment

[gaunt ice]

Its actually Alex

[silent imp]

homie is right

[mint citrus]

Hmmm

[hardy oar]

So what if Ellis wasn't really killed by Faye Lau but he was in cahoots with her and Shaeffer to clean up the mess he made with trusting the Black Tusk. Maybe the Echo was a hoax made to make us believe he was killed (we know that ISAC can be fooled). I think he knew that with his death Sokolova and McManus would make a move and they would eventually kill each other (I don't think they trust each other). With this in mind - what do you think about it?

[silent imp]

doubt it since...well, iirc ellis' body IS at the scene

[hardy oar]

Yeah I know. But as we know Theo Parnell did the same trick as we hunted him. How do we know that this is the real body and not some kind of mannequin dressed up as POTUS?

[gaunt ice]

cuz everyone knows his face and we would have known that its a fraud the moment we drag his corpse back to the white house

that is until the writers pull some more bs out of sheer thin air

[sick lantern]

“write that down write that down”

[gaunt ice]

you actually killed a clone Ellis back there

the real one is plotting something that involves injecting every soldier with nanomachines so he can fuck all of them over all at once,and somewhere along the lines there are massive robots that make cow noises

[late void]

there's still the mysterious briefcase that was so important in the Lau season comms

[gaunt ice]

the nuclear briefcase i presume

apparently Ellis decided to do the Lowtiergod even before Lau killed him iirc

in one of the comms or notes that i cant remember he talked about how he's just a puppet and decides to go out like a martyr

[late void]

yeah, but presumably the briefcase is still in BT hands and now they just need the next in line president to use it or something. Might explain the sudden appearance of the 'underground bunker city' in the new manhunt comms though

'green poison wasn't enough, let's just nuke stuff to make sure'

[ashen jungle]

If they secretly make Div3 a fallout spinoff I will be very impressed.

[gaunt ice]

ok but who's next in line for presidency

[late void]

everyone loved the winter vibes in Div1, so a nuclear winter will be popular, no?

[gaunt ice]

if BT has the briefcase then they need someone to change the database and shit i guess

like all of the promotional materials for div2 said that most government officials went underground

only Ellis actually went outside for shit and giggles i guess

[ashen jungle]

McManus, presumably that's why BT work with him.
Although yes, Manny is technically in the running.

[gaunt ice]

i doubt it since its a long way from white house speaker to NSA director or whatever Mcdonald is

unless BT killed everyone

(doubt that)

[ashen jungle]

Sure, but everyone else died from Green Poison or BT

[gaunt ice]

i think they went underground

[ashen jungle]

former potus, former VP, speaker of the house now dead too. Who's still alive?

[gaunt ice]

assuming not everyone is dead and they're in that secret bunker,army general,commanders of other military branch,head of defense,etc

NSA is really low down the chains

[ashen jungle]

Well if we're just assuming, I'm going to pretend that the old POTUS didn't really die and he's secretly Manny in disguise.

[gaunt ice]

and im pretty sure the remnants of true sons put Anderson there as their General instead of actually being an official US general

cuz bro looks rugged af

[sick lantern]

he was sworn in in a bunker
i guess he thought dc was not so shit as to the point people were randomly shooting down planes, so out of the loop down there

[ashen jungle]

Anderson was actually in the armed forces, but as a "paper pusher", which explains a lot actually.

[gaunt ice]

bro legit does not know how to run an army

his men literally doubts him

like that one guy who openly cussed him when he was being all secret-y about dirty bombs or whatever

no general would bend over this random spoiled brat with too much money at hand

[ashen jungle]

huh, did not know this.
Anderson is wearing Ridgeway's old jacket.

I like to think he's made a collage of them being best friends.

[gaunt ice]

Ridgeway was a colonel i think?

i dont remember true sons calling him general Ridgeway

[ashen jungle]

in the National Guard, yeah

there we go "general - self appointed"

[gaunt ice]

ok so both aren't real generals

i am now general of the US army
source:i self appointed myself

[ashen jungle]

I do like that Ridgeway wasn't even technically in the actuve military, just went to a military college and the mentioned national guard.
his actual job was "salesman", which I really, really hope means junker cars.

[late void]

why not go all the way and appoint yourself emperor like this guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton

[gaunt ice]

thats even worse lmao

i was always under the impression that he's a legit colonel before he went nuts

[ashen jungle]

Yeah ikr? "weekend warrior" i think is the term.

[gaunt ice]

Emperor of the United States,Protector of Mexico sounds lit as hell

[ashen jungle]

fun fact: there's actually precedent for this IRL. A random farmer in australia decided to create his own micronation and started calling himself "prince leonard".

I really wish someone did that in div. Hopefully in div3 we get a "royal" faction.

[gaunt ice]

i like how this guy declared himself as Emperor and got free food+shelter

like everyone in San Francisco acknowledged him as THE Emperor

[ashen jungle]

new zealand hired an official wizard for decades, so its not the weirdest thing to happen

[gaunt ice]

can he cast spells

[ashen jungle]

he got fired, so I dont think so

[late void]

he broke a drought in australia once iirc

[gaunt ice]

imagine if you make fun of him and the last thing you hear is him sayin TESTICULAR TORSION

[late void]

did a rain dance

[ashen jungle]

Can he start one? its been raining here almost non-stop since christmas day

we had a tornado like a week and a half ago

[gaunt ice]

we had that sort of thing where i lived like,5 decades ago

[late void]

better than wildfires? Or just differently bad

[ashen jungle]

I would like more weather events in div2, the one in NYC was a good addition to the map

[gaunt ice]

where we have these self proclaimed sorcerers that can cure colds or make rains

(they dont)

they just do random stuff and say they "casted a spell"

and they would take money and food

basically scammers

[ashen jungle]

different bad. both caused....yeah.
anyway this stopped being fun. let's go back to the lore stuff.

[gaunt ice]

div3 should be set somewhere else imo

like div1 is cool but i dont wanna be stuck with haha snow forever

like div2 looks incredible at times even without the snow

thats what creativity takes you

[ashen jungle]

It would be interesting to see maybe "heat" as a theme.

we've had rain and fog and snow.

[gaunt ice]

tbf heat is just normal DC

its mid summer

[ashen jungle]

I mean sure Summer has rain and such, but I'm talking about summer heat, not rainy summer.

[gaunt ice]

you mean like Arizona heat

[ashen jungle]

I think the snowdrop engine could do some good work with heat hazes and such

[gaunt ice]

the one that literally lets you fry eggs with black painted cars

[ashen jungle]

Sure, like where I grew up.

[gaunt ice]

i kinda want to see seasons at one point tbh

like just cycle it in every 3 months since seasonal content type beat

[ashen jungle]

Rick Valassi's weather machine is still functioning properly.

[gaunt ice]

i lowkey hoped that in wony we get to finally see Rick

but he appeared in like 4 podcasts and thats it

where could dude be hiding

like last time someone went looking for him i think she kinda died or something

there was this woman who called Rick a hoax and set out to "expose" him

her final comms were something about her finding out about something terrible and its implied that she was killed?

would be real convenient if you just said it out instead of being "dang im boutta die"

[ashen jungle]

I mean, going by some of the comms in 1 and 2 both, it's very possible she just found a group of Rioters who threw her off a roof or something.
the world is dark.

[gaunt ice]

yea but we never found her corpse did we

and its like an oddly specific comms

like why is it hyper fixated on her trying to find Rick and it ends with....just being yeeted off a roof

did Rick indirectly killed her to hide something?
is Rick like CIA or something cuz thats the type of shit they do

ah well guess we'll never know

[ashen jungle]

There's vague hints of cannibalism back in div1, dropped for 2 AFAIK.
It is the apocalypse after all, wouldn't shock me.

[gaunt ice]

was black tusk ever forshadowed in div1

[gaunt ice]

i thought thats div2 with the sewer people

and the tank guy having a literal chainsaw

div2 kinda felt like they shifted the direction of the story halfway through production

like the ending of div1 led us to believe that we'll chase down Keener or something

instead we got hit with this secretly advance PMC that somehow has been pulling all the strings behind the scenes

we never even get to learn about their true endgame until like,3-5 updates later when they added the whole BSAV thing and Tidal Basin

then comes reactor,then a bunch of side quests until BOOM Keener comes back

it really feels all over the place

[ashen jungle]

Let's not play the nitpick game for the div franchise's story, it can be a dark rabbit hole to go down.

[gaunt ice]

not to mention how the BT lore just goes all over the place

[sick lantern]

nope, closest thing is the vague conspiracy threads in New York Collapse

[sick lantern]

in a loft in Mornigside Heights

[gaunt ice]

i cant tell if thats a joke or bro actually sets up in a random loft

[sick lantern]

it’s true

that’s legit where he is or was for some time at least

[sick lantern]

i think that was all just bluster and blunder
like she really expected to be able to find detailed documentation on the guy in the middle of the outbreak? it probably got burnt for warmth

and it’s not like him putting out crackpot conspiracy theories serves any agenda
we know that he’s a vietnam vet involved in veteran’s affairs, it’s really unlikely that he’s some fake person i think the lady was just paranoid and crazy

[gaunt ice]

nah that CIA part was mostly a what if section since the pacing of it just seems really weird

Rick talks too much to be a fed

[neat parrot]

the whole Vexix thing was interesting, id hope to see it being expanded upon in future stories.

regarding BT, there's some key people we are still missing.
1- Shaeffer's Commanding Officcer who we see in comms and echos talk with shaeffer multiple times.
2- Both Shaeffer and This Unknown Officer reffer to their boss as a HE, so assuming someone at the level or just under Natalya, maybe another BT founder who is above the Officer and Shaeffer but under Natalya.

[gaunt ice]

5 dollars say that they just forgot about the unknown BT commander to shoehorn Nat and McManus in

but then again they remember KENLY college out of anything

[ashen jungle]

Well, a BT Commander would just be someone like Schaeffer, who works in the shooty part of BT.
Nat is the CEO, there is literally no one above her in BT.

maybe the "BT commander" mentioned manages the regular troops in the BT, whereas Schaeffer is hinted at being the head of the BTSU wing of it.

[wicked gorge]

I don’t think we’re gonna kill sokolova or McManus in the div 2 life cycle

[gaunt ice]

What will be left of div3 then

I dont trust these writers to come up with good villains

[wicked gorge]

Only reason I think that is cause of the newest division novel

[sick lantern]

no spoilers pls it’s not out internationally yet

[surreal hearth]

Funny story about them

You see Rosevelt island wasn’t always a forced quarantine it was also home to one of the most disturbing place in the entire game originally this island was some secretive society and extremely forbidden to outsiders until the government took it over to be converted into a forced quarantine

This was around the time when the JTF faction went rogue and fragmented thanks to Anton and his corrupt influence of forming the true sons

[long epoch]

The Divison 3: Battle for UK

[tight loom]

All of them past the first game have been pretty comic-booky.

[mint citrus]

Sokolova, the oligarch with unlimited resources and more money than God who just so happens to have a private army

How in the blue blazes did she survive the initial chaos of the apocalypse?

[tight loom]

Prob the big bunker they mentioned in the end of Manhunt comms?

[mint citrus]

Oh yeah, right.

[gaunt ice]

being wacky is one thing but being an ass pull is anothe

[ashen jungle]

You did answer your own question there.

She's wealthy enough to pay people to shoot anyone who comes near her.

[mint citrus]

Yup.

[wicked gorge]

She already knew the outbreak was coming, in the broken dawn novel a lot of organizations knew what Amherst was doing, she probably stationed the bt on a island to last out the initial outbreak to then start the takeover

[tight loom]

Even with the bunker, I was wondering how she avoided the Dollar Flu. That makes sense.

[sick lantern]

well it was the NSA, who couldn’t do anything because of McManus, and he presumably told Sokolova

[surreal hearth]

Russian oligarch in the US is gonna be a challenge to face given that she will do whatever it takes to be number1

[gaunt ice]

Remind me again if Mcmanus intentionally let it happen or he is just that blind

[sick lantern]

in Broken Dawn. Warren Merchant says the NSA were onto Amherst, but someone/s stopped them from doing anything, and that they would've killed Merchant if he tried to blow the whistle. hence why he had to do it quietly by publishing New York Collapse under a psuedonym

and that was shown in the NSA classified assignment from year 1

malicious individuals associated with the NSA caused the outbreak. no accident

[gaunt ice]

I thought the classified assignment said that they shrugged it off as nothing

And not “look the other way, or else” vibe

[sick lantern]

if that was the case then Merchant wouldn't have been in danger

and he would've been a national hero and made fools of the government for exposing massive intelligence failures

he says like rather explicitly, bad ppl did it

[gaunt ice]

Would it be Sokolova

She has the means and the reasons.
Mcmanus “presumably” told her so we dont know that for sure

[sick lantern]

well we have been explicitly shown now McManus working with the NSA. not Sokolova

and i sincerely doubt they would let Sokolova anywhere near, being a Russian military gear manufacturer

so unless "NSA Analyst" was secretly a black tusk operative

[mint citrus]

It's all Black Tusk. They better not do that, though.

[wicked gorge]

The black tusk was the United States government

[frozen summit]

Im not an expert on this, but Cal is the Secretary of Homeland Defence, so Im pretty sure in the hierarchy of ranks, the NSA would be on the list of agencies that would ultimately report to him? So Im not so sure "working with" is the correct term, more like Cal instructing the NSA to do things

[sick lantern]

the NSA falls under the DOD, not the DHS
so unless someone more knowledgable about US political structures tells me otherwise i’m going to presume the writers goofed again

[gaunt ice]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_structure_of_the_United_States_Department_of_Defense so there's that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces#:~:text=The military chain of command,civilian control of the military. something noteworthy too

why is the link so long

so at best DHS only has control of the armed forces, but DoD also includes navy,air force and army

so they'd have to go thru that

[tender mountain]

@sick lantern With both the Secretary of Defense and Homeland being part of the National Security Council, it’s possible both the Division and the NSA have some type of partnership with each other. It’s not unheard of for agencies to form interagency teams for intelligence gathering. I just don’t know how realistic it would be for the secretary of Homeland to be directly involved with that interagency team

[sleek plover]

So

if any one of the friendly npcs you would choose

who would you rather have as president?

My vote is on sawyer

[gaunt ice]

none,cuz the i'd be put on trial if they ever see how much shit i have in my stash(10 max 5.11 pieces)\

[sick lantern]

i nominate ISAC for el presidente

[spiral rover]

Immediate doom

[urban musk]

Roy Benitez for president!

[gaunt ice]

he will now build a cyborg body that looks exactly like Gus Fring and speak in Cuban for some reason

[sick lantern]

and then send some guys to rob a casino for an illuminati box too i’m sure

[sleek plover]

he is a good candidate

[wicked gorge]

Paul is a better option, conspiracy for the win

[urban musk]

Personally I'd love to see the JTF return to a more prominent role in the Division 2. I mean when I played the Division 1 I loved seeing the JTF become stronger example being: more patrols the more you take back the city, and not to mention the BOO getting built up made it feel like I was taking back the city and rebuilding. now when I look at NYC in the WONY Expansion. I think What in the ever loving hell happened? I took down all the rogueoids and I don't feel any satisfaction. city hall could've been an epic BOO, but it's destroyed. and the JTF are dead. I hope they add the JTF back in the Brooklyn expansion, but I doubt it, I think it'd be cool to see the JTF taking control points back with our agents, you know? I can just imagine it in my head right now, the JTF dive rolling into cover, and shooting the Rikers during a control point take over. but If I want that, I gotta play a mobile game, my phone can't even run. what do you guys think? should they bring back the JTF?

[floral gull]

What landmarks and sites are interesting in Brooklyn compared to the other boroughs? For them to base the dlc there

[wicked gorge]

The donut shop obviously. S tier landmark

[ashen jungle]

I like to think it's entirely based off Brooklyn 99's intro with the bridge and they're just really big fans.

[wicked gorge]

Imagine they made the Brooklyn bridge the BOO

[vague imp]

Imagine if Kelso turned rogue out of nowhere

[raw yew]

Yea I agree, the lack of JTF presence in DC made it feel like a ghost town and the recent seasons have done an even better job of that by removing old characters or sidelining them.

Take Cindy for example, loved when you worked with her for Coney Island.

The alternative really was getting to interact with some division agents such as Agent Brooks, Lee, and Edwards

Can’t really bring myself to play with the random story anymore

The one Rikers Stronghold mission in division 1 where you kill Barret is one that made me realize how psychotic the Rikers were with the treatment of the JTF

[ember vector]

Imagine she is Aaron Keener's secret sister or something!

[vague imp]

Agent Alani Kelso Keener

[ember vector]

She has got the same initials actually, I just realized that!! A.K

[vague imp]

"agent...i havent been completly honest with you. watch turns red"

[next hemlock]

Or half sister but that’s probably like Felix and Natalya all over again

[north shell]

finished up the newest novel

[mint citrus]

It was pretty good!

[sleek plover]

and damn I hate LMB

[north shell]

yeah it was

[dawn stone]

Anyone realized that the lmb logo is on the new green brand set does that mean they could get a mention this season? I hope at least I loved there style

[marble dawn]

can you post a picture?

would be cool, id love to see the lmb defectors from that animated WONY trailer ingame

[dawn stone]

It's in the pts on the chest piece and the backpack

I don't have access to the pts but have seen a video where it shows there bag clear as day

Maybe that means the outfit in the season pass will be a lmb one I hope it is

[marble dawn]

ah ok should be easy enough to find it, thanks

[sick lantern]

no spoilers please it isn’t internationally released yet

[loud pilot]

What happened with Kelso I stoped playing during the general Anderson manhunt the one at the power plant and recently came back but can’t get a straight answer

[ashen jungle]

Answer: we don't know yet. But might find out next Season or if there's a cutscene at the end of this one.

It's been mentioned that she went back to NYC and some vague hints that she's being shifty.

[loud pilot]

That’s what I’m trying to figure why did she go back but if we don’t know we don’t know

[ashen jungle]

I'm hoping that it avoids going too "tom clancy" and we don't find out that she's married to Keener or something.

[lunar harbor]

In the PTS - Mackenzie Meret seems to have replaced Kelso's position at the Hunter Mask Wall

[loud pilot]

That would break me literally

[late void]

Likely we'll find out what she's been up to in NY when the Brooklyn dlc drops

[loud pilot]

I saw that but didn’t put much thought into it

[loud pilot]

Since when was there going to be another dlc

I only came back last Friday so I’m missing so much

[late void]

they announced it a couple of seasons ago I think but it's still a long way off - currently due in 2025

[loud pilot]

Damn so gta 6 before new division dlc is crazy

Another question when you first receive rest, stressed coordinates from DC at the beginning of the division, two tutorial tutorial you see a hovercraft directly after that is not the black tusk, and if so, the events of words in New York, take place before or after the main story of division, two

[ashen jungle]

That Hovercraft is the BT yeah, and actually you get to see that Agent again if you go visit the Pentagon.

If you play the campaign in order with Coney Island being the final mission before you start WONY, it all leads directly into each other.
so yeah WONY comes after.

[loud pilot]

OK

I didn’t even realize that was her at the Pentagon

[ashen jungle]

It took me making a fresh lvl 0 character before I noticed it was her. I kind of just assumed she was dead in the tutorial.

[loud pilot]

Same because she loses access to her equipment gets a distress notification from DC and you can see a giant hovercraft pull up. I just assumed she got merked

[urban musk]

speaking of which, should Agent De La Cruz make a return with agent sanders? I always thought they were apart of our agents original group.

unless I'm mistaken.

[gaunt ice]

yea they were in the same group

[surreal hearth]

At this rate, the situation is getting more grim, ugly and dire

After putting a bullet on Agent Johnson, or as they say the recruiter I believe that several rogue agents are aware on how dangerous the true sons and black tusk have started to become and the division alone won’t be able to handle this Russian oligarch psychopath that is just becoming too steps ahead of the division

They must have known that it was McManus that set all agents up from the start both divisions and rogues

Sooner or later we will have to have the rogues join forces

[gaunt ice]

nah they buffed f2000

we good

[ember vector]

I love how WONY takes place right next to the tutorial district of the first game! Like you can see the outlines, where the Precinct Siege was and where you departed to Manhattan in TD1. Just like in real life obviously. 😁

[tepid ibex]

did you find it?

OH SHIT I FOUND IT

THIS IS 'UGE

LMB MENTIONED AHH

The patch on the chestpiece is different from any of them on apparel in TD1

either it's just a little reference or the LMB is coming back, revamped

& still holding out on this theory if they're coming back

[marble dawn]

yeah just any vid looking at the new PTS stuff really

[loud pilot]

For someone who stopped playing after the general Anderson manhunt where should I start watching lore videos on a channel like NGN like all videos from that manhunt onwards?

[urban musk]

Should the United Nations come in and take up peacekeeping Ops in the US? also, what happened to the UN anyways?

Charles bliss came in took over the building and that's all I've heard from the UN

[gaunt ice]

the rest of the LMB died holding wall street i think

or black tusk

[sleek plover]

I hope I get to fight exclusively ex-LMB black tusk unit with appropraite dialogues

gonna incedniary Grenade the crap outta them

[tepid ibex]

Yeah we’ll see about that 🫣

[wicked gorge]

Okay hear me out, but you have a unhealthy obsession with the LMB

[sleek plover]

I mean me hating them are the reason i started the game in first place

[sick lantern]

the world is generally not so great
i doubt convening the council is high on any country’s priorities

[surreal umbra]

Pretend the white tusk are LMB remnants

[gaunt ice]

im not even sure that white tusk are canon

[ashen jungle]

We might finally find out if the "White Tusk" are actually just the name the BTSU are given by us, or a separate thing.

[gaunt ice]

i think BTSU are just the named BT bosses you fought in invaded and other black tusk related missions

coney island manhunt had Schaeffer and his team dressed in black

[ashen jungle]

SU in the name stands for "special unit", which usually implies some form of Special Forces or similar type "elite" troop.
just it being a few named people makes 0 sense.

[gaunt ice]

i mean we have like,what,20 total missions in just DC?

[ashen jungle]

What I think happened is that the game used BTSU and BT interchangeably.

White Tusk are not a real thing, they're just colour coded to make Legendary Missions more distinct.
but I'd like to be proven wrong.

[gaunt ice]

that would mean somehow legendary missions are canon

[ashen jungle]

The canon-ness of missions has always been something of a vague hand-wave. We're referred to as both a single person and a team randomly throughout and afterwards.
What I'm more interested in is White Tusk themselves being canonised as a "special unit" of BT, not just ones that are just painted white because they hate camouflage.

[gaunt ice]

the way i interpret it is that its always been a group of agents and whenever characters talk to us they talk to the lead agent,THE agent

cuz lets be real 1 agent blitzing thru all that shouldn't be possible,sure it is stated that we are better than most but 200 by 1 ratio?i doubt it

[ashen jungle]

That makes sense until you get to something like Liberty Island, where Keener very specifically talks to you as one person, or against most of the bosses actually.
not just WONY either, DC has the problem as well, there aren't 4 cowboy toys on that board.

It's just grey canon, if we're being honest. Like the div1 > div2 connection. You might be the same person, you might not.

[gaunt ice]

but then there aren't 500 true sons toy on the capitol building section too

i get what you're saying though,grey canon

[stray crystal]

I'm pretty sure we aren't the same person from div1 to div2. Our agent from div1 might still exist lorewise, but the intro mission to div2 makes it seem like we're hailed from a nearby area.
Lorewise I also believe we're supposed to be thought of in squads, since most echos of other agents are squadbased. With that being said, we're the "champions" of the division universe much like the characters in world of warcraft. We don't do it all alone, but we're sure a good part of it. NPCs "help" us, the JTF are our support, and we're the best agent out there.

[wicked gorge]

Div 2 character new, our div 1 character is basically imagine what happened to them

[ashen jungle]

It's grey-canon. It's never been stated either way.
And as for the tutorial, it's somewhat hinted to be in New England kinda area, judging by the decor and look of it all, which might tie in with certain other aspects of the story right now.

[marble dawn]

no kelso is the best agent 😭 ill never forgive lau for that gut punch

[surreal umbra]

Kelso is absolutely useless

[final yacht]

What does the rest of the world look like outside the USA?

[wicked gorge]

Are you talking about the division 2 intro tutorial?

[surreal umbra]

I'd imagine so

Div 1 was Brooklyn

[sick lantern]

https://youtu.be/YGkQ-LH0NLA?si=lJODgJJ2DmKtVr8H

mostly comparatively better

[potent halo]

My guess would be it is doing better, given how the oil tanker is from Denmark of all places

[final yacht]

As a Malaysian, I feel like my country is screwed.

But the NPCs didn't mention anything about Australia, New Zealand, and the rest of Oceania amd Antartica.

[sick lantern]

wonder why they didn’t mention antarctica

[final yacht]

Maybe not alot of people go there due to its extremely cold and harsh environment.

[sick lantern]

Oh, really?

[final yacht]

Majority of the people in Antartica are scientists, explorers, and researchers if not some of them.

[gaunt ice]

besides how would green poison even spread there

and even if it did spread there,sure a handful of people would be infected and die but as soon as people realize that its a virus then they’d just isolate people with symptoms

[stray crystal]

I won't lie, up until now, whenever I read this message I thought you meant IRL, not in the division (totally forgot the channel)

But while we're on that @ashen jungle Maybe a potential division series could be about overseas division agents?
It would have to be about SHD agents, otherwise it would be a weird spin-off.

[sick lantern]

the H in SHD stands for Homeland for a reason

[stray crystal]

Yeah, I know, but since we were talking about how the green poison affected other countries (and Rivens and I also talked about how a US based series could look like), I wanted to put out the idea of a non-us series. Division agents could be anywhere. With the virus' high lethality rate, every other country that was infected would be broken aswell - and it could ensure the hypothetical series' storyline doesn't affect the game storyline

[sick lantern]

well they’re a US agency so they couldn’t really be anywhere

[cold bramble]

the agents purpose was to "Restore" the US

not the world

[stray crystal]

There are around 750 U.S. military bases in at least 80 countries around the world and SHD agents are regular people, they live normal lives and there are bound to be SHD agents around the world.

[sick lantern]

living normal lives, in the US, so they wouldn’t have to commute back if the world goes to toss

you think planes are still gonna be flying when nukes go off?

or when a viral outbreak devastates all normal international shipping and transport

A Division agent for the US, who lives outside of the US, is missing the entire purpose

all of their infrastructure is in the US

[stray crystal]

That's how 170+ countries got infected by Green Poison (not to mention covid?)

[sick lantern]

yea and by the time the shit hits the fan, it gets harder

can’t take a flight into a quarantine zone

why take the risk of residing outside the US

[cold bramble]

they most likely got told to just remain in the US

and if they were going somewhere they maybe got their status as an agent revoked and watches too while they're gone

[sick lantern]

they train in the US, it’s gotta be a lot easier to keep a secret stash of guns and go to a shooting range in the US than in a lot of countries

[stray crystal]

This is what I found:
"Once the initial training is complete, new Division operatives simply continue on with their daily lives, functioning as normal members of society. Adapted from the concept of the "stay-behind" project enacted by the CIA during the Cold War, agents live where they will operate once activated, negating the need for centralized mobilization and redeployment. Since Division agents are drawn directly from and embedded into the society they will protect, they can be spread out across the country."

I mainly thought about agents on vacation, as there's supposed to be "many" (in total, not on vacation), but I guess they'd stay in-country as much as possible.
It was just, since we were on the topic of other countries in the division universe, I'd love to see that in a hypothetical series - and not just have it be a repeat of something that is in-game lore.

[cold bramble]

they're probably not allowed to go anywhere outside the US

[stray crystal]

This thought process leads me to: What would actually be an interesting division-universe based series? (if they made one)
There's already lore established that the green poison was a pandemic.
And with games actively being developed (Div 2 DLC, Heartland, Resurgence and Div 3 being announced) there's a ton of lore already there and/or planned for the SHD/US for continuity of government, so would a series do it justice?

Continuity of government pointed me to another thought - who's the president after Ellis died? Is there a president? If not, who do we respond to now? "The Division reports directly to - and only to - the president of the United States."

[cold bramble]

isn't it tehcnically cal

[stray crystal]

Cal?

[sick lantern]

not really

[nocturne arrow]

McAnus is low on the succession queue. You'd need several other cabinet members killed off before he's to be considered for POTUS

[stray crystal]

The U.S. Constitution and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 outline the presidential order of succession. The line of succession of cabinet officers is in the order of their agencies’ creation.

Vice President
Speaker of the House
President Pro Tempore of the Senate
Secretary of State
Secretary of the Treasury
Secretary of Defense
Attorney General
Secretary of the Interior
Secretary of Agriculture
Secretary of Commerce
Secretary of Labor
Secretary of Health and Human Services
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Secretary of Transportation
Secretary of Energy
Secretary of Education
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Secretary of Homeland Security <--- McManus

He's a bit down there

[tight loom]

I just checked and the Sec of Homeland Sec is 17th in line. So yeah, he's got quite a few ahead of him. I know Ellis was the fmr Speaker of the House.

[ashen jungle]

Remember that this is a Tom Clancy inspired plot, so there's a very good chance that they'll invent a reason to let him jump to the front of the queue.

I'm still going for "all the rest are dead".

[tight loom]

That's my assumption until (or IF) another cabinet member pops up. At this point that'd probably feel forced.

[ashen jungle]

the basegame already made a joke about Manny being in line for it, so I say he's the most likely candidate.

"how far down are you these days, Manny?" or similar.

[stray crystal]

https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/18t37p2/on_the_question_of_who_is_the_president_now/

[ashen jungle]

Isn't that just this conversation but spelt kinda badly?

and with Reddit's abysmal layout.

[stray crystal]

I was just adding it as info, seems like there's no mentions of anyone from 3 - 17 in the lore.

[ashen jungle]

One of the replies states very confidently that we know there are more people in that list alive, I have to assume it's in one of the novels.

[stray crystal]

The one about them going under ground?

We're close to a year after the breakout though, so I would guess anyone on the list that hasn't been found yet is assumed dead - and we know McManus is alive.
Then I wonder how he can be sworn in.

I only started loosely thinking about it because we answer directly to the president. If McManus then becomes president and we try to stop his surge to power, will we then become Rogue agents

[final yacht]

Did the other countries have their own variants of Division agents?

[wicked gorge]

No, only America

[stray crystal]

I mean, we don't know if any other countries has something akin to division agents, it's not really stated in the lore.
The Division universe is heavily based on real life events from America.
Operation Dark Winter from 2001, a biowarfare exercise.
Directive 51.
How the government works.

I don't believe any other country has had something like Directive 51 created nor has a need to secure continuity of government in the same way the US does.

[nova delta]

is there a source for me to look at the entire lore for both division games, preferably videographic/audio?

not only how the main virus stuff came to be but seasonal stuff, characters and such too

[ashen jungle]

NGN is the usual place for a good casual look at it, they've got a youtube channel.

[nova delta]

seems to be a lot of stuff in that channel, yeah

cheers

[rustic frost]

So I did a quick search here and found no info, but what's the lore/usual consensus about the midwest/southern states. They are not that populated aside big cities, and with the amount of dead people there's a chance they are basically empty. OTOH, since people were spread they could maybe have a higher survival rate?

[sick lantern]

pretty sure all of Operation Crossroads is set in those regions

not sure about Hunted but

[rustic frost]

eh, maybe I should read the books, isn't like I haven't read worse

Maira Kanhai has had enough: since the Green Poison epidemic hit D.C., her Cybersecurity degree is worthless

HALF THE MISSIONS IN THE GAME HAVE YOU HACKING SOME KIND OF COMPUTER SHIT 😄

[stray crystal]

Let's be real, you - as an agent - aren't doing anything. ISAC is.

[tight loom]

And just imagine what ANNA can do, being the far more advanced AI program

I wouldn't be surprised with Div: Heartland delves into how some Midwest cities have faired. St. Louis probably isn't in great shape with the comms about the dirty bomb there.

[prisma oar]

who tf is anna

[spare arrow]

ANNA is the "other AI" that is first seen in the Liberty Island mission

essentially ISAC but girl

[prisma oar]

who diamond ?

[spare arrow]

Ah, no. Diamond is the BTSU version of ISAC, while ANNA is the rogue version of ISAC.

[prisma oar]

.

BTSU ?

[spare arrow]

...Go finish the story.

[prisma oar]

my bad.

[spare arrow]

Talking about story stuff without having the story finished in the first place isnt gonna go well

[prisma oar]

of td2

or td1 ? cuz i finished td2

i maybe skipepd cinmatic

[spare arrow]

BTSU is the Black Tusk Specialist Unit, the main enemy you fight for the second half of Division 2's main story, and also they make an appearance near the end of Warlords of New York

[prisma oar]

yea

thaks son

[spare arrow]

Dont call me son.

[prisma oar]

My bad dad.

[spare arrow]

Lets not, and say we didnt.

[prisma oar]

oops wrong one

🤑

[wicked gorge]

What’s the division?

[stray crystal]

Tell Rivens to divide by 0 and you'll find out.

[wicked gorge]

Rivne’s divide by 0

[ashen jungle]

Swing and a miss.

[wicked gorge]

Damn, im never gonna know what the division is now #sad

[surreal umbra]

BTSU have a version of ISAC?

[wicked gorge]

Yeah, diamond

Im pretty sure in the lore isac is the dumbest, diamond I think identical to it or a small bit smarter, and Anna which is the smartest

[surreal umbra]

Does diamond appear in the games or is it a book thing

[wicked gorge]

Technically it’s those brick things you can see black tusk soldiers wearing

[rustic frost]

ANNA is the first version of ISAC right? ISAC has more black/white morals and ANNA is more 'grey area'. at least from what I got from reading

[ashen jungle]

The game mentions that ANNA was made based off ISAC, or at least it sorta kinda does AFAI remember.
So ISAC would've been the base.

Gosh I hate when the plot goes so "Clancy".

[wicked gorge]

Welcome to the clancyverse

Is the division cannon to the re universe now😂apparently there’s a hunter, and two agent skins for players in re verses

[loud pilot]

Figured this is a better place to ask this Will next season immediately follow up after the end of this season or will there be a big of time in between seasons

[spare arrow]

theres never really been time inbetween seasons, if the season needs to be extended it will be

[loud pilot]

Ok

[cold bramble]

they wear bricks?????

[wicked gorge]

Yeah, those little black thing on the common bt soldier with the blue screen

[cold bramble]

oh my god i never noticed

damn thats cool, you'd think they'd get the hostile approaching warning and being alert instead of chillin

[wicked gorge]

Nah, that’s too smart

[sick lantern]

descent comms

[surreal umbra]

Ohhh

[ashen jungle]

One thing that's always bothered me is that BT call us "civvies" or civillians, etc. But they are a PMC not military. If anything we're closer to the actual military than they are since we are actual government employees and not a former sub-contractor.

Is there an explanation of why in the books or is it just a "because" reason?

[nocturne arrow]

Well, for one, most Division Agents are actually civilians brought into the program. Firefighters, teachers, airport controllers... That, and normally, when a BT sees a Division Agent, normally, said SHD Agent is usually rocking something civilian ish... Usually.

While a police officer does have training, and is a government employee, does anyone call them military?

[ashen jungle]

I'll avoid making jokes about the militarisation of police services around the globe, but it's a hard resist.

[nocturne arrow]

I know, I perfectly understand, but the militarisation of the police force is usually in response to criminals bringing serious heat. Police work is all about the monopolisation of force.

That means, they're usually going to want to outgun everyone they encounter. The enforcement part of the job.

Subversion of that monopoly of force is how criminals continue to exist. Stealth, or the ability to oppose them. Or just subvert.

Either way, back to Division Agents usually being called civilians by BT, that's my take as to why they call us civies from time to time. Sometimes they don't bother checking if we're really civilians or not. We likely dress like civilians and thus 'civilian target engaged!', they don't have time to really check if we're actually SHD or militia, up until we bring out the Shade tech.

[ashen jungle]

Well that's just....okay we're getting off topic here.
In all seriousness though, the exact nature of what SHD Agents are (at least ingame, I don't read the novels) has always been somewhat vague. Like, we're part of a secret continuity of government program but not technically part of any armed forces, yet we're also supplied with secret tech developed by DARPA.
so clearly there's an element of "training" that's been stated, but you don't just teach someone how to shoot without some kind of area specifically designed for it.

[nocturne arrow]

There was mention of classes or training programs disguised as civilian or advanced self defence courses.

Overseen by senior SHD instructors, but it's done to give a hint of smokescreen. Advanced electronics or technical repair classes, IT, that sort, or medical or first aid courses.

Probably use the local gun range or make shift kill houses, those are things in the USA.

[ashen jungle]

See that stuff I find hard to take seriously, because an "advanced self defence course" is like what, a once a week thing, maybe an entire weekend. But somehow no one leaked that there was a massive country-wide secret training program in case the goverment fell and all these people were also given super advanced drones and turrets and guns and stuff.

This is why I like my div canon grey. It avoids being too specific.

[nocturne arrow]

Yeah, fictional and all. Just give em just enough plausibility to look the other way. Course, it could even be explained away as a midlife crisis outburst.

30 something IT guy wants to learn how to shoot guns, or a baker wants to learn black belt martial arts.

[ashen jungle]

"honey, i can explain, this military drone that can launch cluster bombs is because i turned 40. It's not because I'm part of CIA super buddies"

[nocturne arrow]

Luckily, Americans are known for crazy shit.

Nah, more like Bubba and he got together and decided to make something that can explode. Guntubers?

I mean, the claymore roomba is a thing.

[ashen jungle]

I'm getting very close to saying some unflattering things about topics that will make people mad, so I'm going to bounce.
Good talk though.

[nocturne arrow]

Have a good one, Rivens.

[tepid ibex]

Dont be afraid to say peepeepoopoo.

[gaunt ice]

I think they were government contractors at one point,it was in some books iirc

Which makes no sense whatsoever now that we know they’re based from Russia

[stray crystal]

Most plausible explanation I got is that DIAMOND isn't smart enough to recognize a SHD Agent / the smartwatch, so we're just considered civvies. Black Tusk are trained to be rather black and white in their ways of doing things, much akin to ISAC actually, and while they're PMC - their training and objective is to establish military control, no?

[gaunt ice]

I dont think its hard to differentiate between Joe the scavenger and some guy/gal who wears an orange wristwatch that are also curb stomping them 20 to 1

[stray crystal]

Isn't it only called out on engagement? (I haven't ever noticed what they say, I've got issues with auditory processing and my focus is on the shooting haha).

[gaunt ice]

They all have comms tho so it shouldn’t take too long to go from “random civ got lost” to “the Slayer has entered the facility”

[stray crystal]

I agree, but I think that's more a "It's a game" limitation rather than them not being smart enough to say we're SHD

[gaunt ice]

yea

when did they ever say civ when referring to us tho

i only remember things like

division agent back on their feet again

or “how many times do i have to kill this agent”

[stray crystal]

About as many times as we have to kill their fucking warhounds

[gaunt ice]

warhounds dont use plates tbf

[nocturne arrow]

They don't, because they're MADE of plates.

[gaunt ice]

yea but they dont use plate holders

[stray crystal]

One day I wish we got access to Hunter Tech/classified status so we can hack the warhounds. That would be an awesome skill build.

[surreal umbra]

Hacking hunter skill tier 5 thousand skills

[stray crystal]

I like to think even if we got access to their tech we would just cancel eachother out - that's not even starting the thought proces of how we would gain that access, which contains so many hypotheticals. I'm looking forward to the update allowing you to gain more descent comms in one go (to catch up) before I get into it, I wanna dive deep into the NSA side of things.

[sick lantern]

Hearts on Fire has some detail on the recruitment/training process iirc

the protag takes a year to get trained?

but also i think the disguised civilian training is what they do to keep sharp once their training is complete

[sick lantern]

they have been in the past contracted for black ops in the middle east, south america etc iirc

[sick lantern]

in comms

i think

[sick lantern]

i think the korean-american? agent from Compromised is an ex-police sniper

[sleek plover]

RL Korean American here, need my opinion?

[sick lantern]

i’m just not sure if she was

[rustic frost]

So I was looking at reading the division books and suggestions on the webs say to start with New York collapse but given the format of the book there’s no ebook and Amazon doesn’t have the paperback version anymore. Any tips?

[hearty harbor]

Which book? I got the first two of Operation Crossroads series as ebooks. Broken Dawn I had to buy on ebay.

[tight loom]

I think they're referring to the book April Kelleher carries around. Ubi made an actual paperback of it with Aprils notes in it.

[sick lantern]

vinted maybe?

[rustic frost]

that one

[rustic frost]

I guess it's hard to make an ebook of this

can't paste here so

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/MEDIAX_849526-T3/images/I/814dY1hI-JL._SL1500_.jpg

[surreal hearth]

I found agent Johnson’s hideout

Definitely a hunter hideout cuss I’m seeing wolf insignias on their hatches

[stray crystal]

Oh? Do tell, do tell, maybe we can learn some more about it.

[glad spruce]

Finished the Recruiter mission. Damn, Sokolova pisses me off. But not as much as The Recruiter and his "following the mission" dogma

Now to go and find the remaining collectibles for this season.

[sick lantern]

follow the mission by killing the non rogue agents

:galaxybrain:

[glad spruce]

I got the Recruit insurance comms. Very interesting, I must say

[glad spruce]

So... what's the deal with those countermeasure thingies? My understanding is that they're used to disable any SHD tech used by Division agents.

But other than that, I have no idea.

[tight loom]

"From my point of view, the Jedi are evil! you are the Rogue agents!"

[tight loom]

TIL that ISAC is based off of IRL DARPA's CALO (Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes)

[glad spruce]

You know, the more I think about it, the more I get pissed off about The Recruiter, Sokolova, and McManus. Not necessarily as people, but the ideals they follow through.

[wicked gorge]

Power drives people crazy

[next hemlock]

I guess that’s why the hunters were created

[wicked gorge]

The hunters are a failsafe to handle rouges, had a good reason to exist, but everything went shit up creek

[sick lantern]

weird how they spend a good amount of their time doing the opposite of that

[late void]

maybe there were actually way more rogue agents out there but hunters took care of most of them, we just never realised

[sick lantern]

and then they started killing non rogue agents out of boredom i guess

[gaunt ice]

they need to meet quota somehow

[broken belfry]

i guess technically all non-hunter agents are rogues?

[gaunt ice]

they can write on their report that they killed 300 rogue agents for a shiny rep lol

[sick lantern]

wut

[broken belfry]

McManus is the current government head, right? Cus the chain of command is almost dead, so he's the current acting leader or whatever. And since we're not under his command, we're rogues

[stray crystal]

They were intended as a failsafe to Division Agents going Rogue, that's their origin with McManus, but since he went corrupt himself together with Black Tusk, that's kinda out of the picture.

[broken belfry]

from ISAC's definition, we're not rogues. From McManus's definition, we are?

[sick lantern]

he is not

[stray crystal]

He hasn't been sworn in, and there's no lore stating he's the acting commander in chief.
However we assume there's gonna be something relating to it further down the line since no-one else from the succession of command has been found.

[broken belfry]

that's what i mean, its all technicalities

[sick lantern]

mcmanus is also a traitor to the country so what he says doesn't mean sh1te

he also has no real authority over the SHD

[broken belfry]

there's not really a country to betray anymore so...

[sick lantern]

McManus is the reason why the outbreak began in the first place. His interests are not aligned with those of the government he destroyed nor with the American people

[stray crystal]

Thing is, that requires a working court of law to jail him as a traitor, and until then, he is the only one from the succession of command list that we know is alive - which is why speculation goes to him being the acting commander in chief.

Which would mean SHD is under his command.

[sick lantern]

no it really isn't

[broken belfry]

He's Homeland Security, corrupt or not - he had political power

[sick lantern]

and even if it was
he's still a traitor to be ignored and counteracted

[stray crystal]

The only person SHD answers to is the acting commander in chief, the president. If he's the president, SHD is under his command.
I agree with what you're saying, which is also why I'm saying the whole thing is speculation - there's no facts.

[stray crystal]

Is that from Descent comms? I need to listen to them online, not gonna get them unlocked via Descent till a checkpoint system is in place

[sick lantern]

a corrupt person/group within the NSA have been the reason why Amherst wasn't stopped since the Broken Dawn novel, supported by one of the classified assignments. and now in Descent we have McManus overseeing the NSA operation that involved Amherst and saying don't do anything about him

so unless the writers are retconning more stuff, or there's some other NSA character as of yet unseen, McManus is very much the reason why the outbreak began

[stray crystal]

Aaaahhh. Okay. I'll look into the Broken Dawn, you can't access the old Classified Assignments can you? And then Descent comms, hope the wiki has them uploaded.

[sick lantern]

(McManus also shouldn't be overseeing NSA operations afaik because the NSA falls under the DOD not the DHS)

[wicked gorge]

Welcome to Ubisoft

[sleek plover]

I think Morovian society is behind it all like the Templars from AC franchise

[azure stone]

Any speculations what will happen in the next season. We're obviously going back to new york with kelso

[ashen jungle]

I honestly think that the "going to NYC with kelso" thing will wait until the DLC, since that looks to be set in Brooklyn.

[ember vector]

The Vanguard manhunt will take us back to NYC. ☺️

[vague imp]

Will it ever start snowing again…?

I Miss the snowy weather from div1

[stray crystal]

Canonically it's mid-end october in division 2, it might snow when winter comes around

[ashen jungle]

If we're just making stuff up, then this whole thing'll be so much easier.

[sick lantern]

well mcmanus is a villain doing villain things and they work for him so

gonna go out on a limb and say "created as a failsafe against rogues" isn't true

[late void]

tbf, the vid in #news-and-announcements sure looks like NY, and Vanguard was Keener's callsign, which also implies NY

[ashen jungle]

I swear if they resurrect Keener then that is it for the plot. There is no coming back.

[late void]

I doubt it's resurrect, more something tied into his rogue network or similar

[sick lantern]

hopefully

[late void]

they left that 'you have no idea what's coming' open so they can retcon it to whatever they like, so maybe this will be it - he was working on something relating to BT or hunters maybe

[sick lantern]

retcon is their favourite tactic after all

"i am altering the continuity, pray i do not alter it any further"

[late void]

I'm sure they deliberately left it wide open so they don't have to actually 'change' anything that was said, they can just choose what it was referring to

[ashen jungle]

They actually already have a precedent inplace for unkilling someone that we killed, so that shadow is always there.

[ashen jungle]

Now I'm picturing Keener having put one of those "glitter bomb" boxes under Kelso's desk.

[late void]

I doubt they'd really do that in this case, they must know the kickback from the playbase would be huge - hornet was a pretty minor character and people were still pissed about it

[ashen jungle]

I still don't know what they were thinking there. It's not like Hornet was even a popular character back in div1. I mean I barely remembered he existed and I finished the campaign more than once.

It sorta reminds me of when a show brings back someone who's just clearly friends with the producers.

Actually here's a question: was Hornet a recurring antagonist at some point in div1 and I'm just forgetting about it?

[sick lantern]

the backstory they added to him doesn't make any sense either. they said that he was in the army with keener and that they were prior friends before the outbreak
if they were both division agents and they were close together (physically and as friends) surely they would've been in the same cell? thing is the agent that was in his cell is Scarecrow a completely different agent. if they just replaced Hornet with Scarecrow it would've made some more sense

[sick lantern]

literally every other rogue agent from the div 1 missions is outright more important. Scarecrow was in a found footage and Raptor and Domino were in an ECHO. Hornet has like four voice lines

[ashen jungle]

Reading that, now I'm starting to think of Hornet more as Poochie.

[ashen jungle]

I know it's a vain hope, but I do wish that they'd scale back the plot a little. It's starting to get latter-day Assassins Creed.

[sick lantern]

too right

[wicked gorge]

I can’t wait for a doctor strange portal to open, a different keener from another universe walks out and says” it’s division time”

[ember vector]

In the original announcement in March 2023 during the Division Day livestream, they clearly stated on the roadmap that Vanguard season would take us "back to NY" and for the DLC we would go black to "Brooklyn" as part of the Black Diamond story. Nothing made up!

[ember vector]

No, he was just the named boss of the Russian Consulate story mission.

I am pretty sure that what is going to happen in Vanguard will be a prelude to Black Diamond because originally they would have been back-to-back seasons if things had not been shaken up because of the delays and Project Resolve. I am more intrigued by the two additional manhunts we are going to get between Vanguard and Brooklyn (revised roadmap)!

[ashen jungle]

I see, I see.
I still don't like the developing plot, but at least it seems to be consistent.

[ember vector]

Now something I will make up! ☺️ Alani Kelso has got the same initials as Aaron Keener.

[ashen jungle]

If you really want a conspiracy theory, Keener's surname is the same as ISAC's Voice Actor's actual surname.
vanguard manhunt: hunt down ISAC.

[ember vector]

👍

[stray crystal]

Hunt down ISAC and then replace him with ANNA

[ashen jungle]

And then realise that she's equally as annoying and go back to Garrus.

[heady night]

Has anyone read The Division Hunted by Thomas Parrott? Read the first 2 and was disappointed by compromised so I'm considering if its worth it.

[sick lantern]

not out internationally so i havent read it yet

[wicked gorge]

Anyone else feel like they’re gonna push keener from less of the crazy side to being more of hero we needed against McManus

[ashen jungle]

If they literally make a Keener puppet to do so, I will accept the plot point.

[tight loom]

I mean, Keener's points were always pretty valid, but his actions were way over the line into "def a very bad guy". After being abandoned in the DZ, his embitterment towards the JTF and those in power is understandable. But then he goes into the "you know what we need? ANOTHER extinction level virus!" territory.

[wicked gorge]

Keener would be easier to understand if he didn’t threaten civics

[sick lantern]

if Keener was a good guy he wouldn't have been planning on screwing people other with new viruses and/or withholding cures

fact of the matter is a lot of people misinterpret Keener's motivations

he is just an outright bad guy

[glad spruce]

Regardless of whether he was fighting against, Keener was self-centered

[gaunt ice]

Keener is evil in div2,objectively

Like you can make the argument that erm he’s misunderstood and wanted revenge in div1

But then he also sent his rogues out to work with the bald LMB guy that loosely looks like Walter White

(They killed a shit ton of people btw)

And even if you ignore all the icky parts then he tried to bomb NYC with red smoke so doesn’t matter

[tepid ibex]

AYE, you stop right there! That’s Charles Bliss you’re talking about!

[ember vector]

And he sure ain't gonna say his name a second time!

[surreal umbra]

LMB was probably the lesser of all the evils in div1

[wicked gorge]

Not really, they forced civivs to join and if they didn’t were executed

[wicked gorge]

He was a bad guy, but our favorite bad guy who we go rogue with

[surreal umbra]

Well compared to the cleaners

[wicked gorge]

If you could have one character from any video game come into the division universe who would it be

[surreal umbra]

Aiden Pearce

[glad spruce]

Hmmm... Sam Fisher?

[wicked gorge]

Im a huge re fan and I can just imagine the fear in a black tusk soldier watching Leon suplex a tank

[hardy oar]

John Kozak

[stray crystal]

Lmao, speaking of Keener I just had a random YT video recommended with #KeenerWasRight

[wicked gorge]

NGN?

[kind hare]

Yes?

[ashen jungle]

Did you invest in KeenerCoins?

on an unrelated note: i re-listened to the Recruiter extra tapes or whatever they're called, and I'm now like 90% convinced that people who think Kelso is going to be a villain have never heard a bad guy lie to get someone on their side before.

"Kelso is bad, trust me bro, now come work for this person who tried to overthrow the government and orchestrated a presidential assassination"

[wicked gorge]

Well, it’s been leaked but we didn’t kill Aaron Keener, we killed his identical twin brother Raron Beener, now he wants to have revenge on us this season

[mint citrus]

...why do I see 'em pulling this like some kinda soap-opera

[ashen jungle]

if Keener shows back up with a moustache and a bad wig, I will send you a picture of a magpie as a reward.

[ember vector]

I feel like they are going to introduce the threat of a sentient A.I very soon!

[ashen jungle]

It's true, my cousins are approaching rapidly.

[tight loom]

They've broken through the Black Wall! 😱

[stray crystal]

Combine ANNA, Diamond and ISAC + put the Hunter classified status in the mix, and I think we're pretty close to it

[wicked gorge]

Man, they are really pushing that Kelso might be a hunter

[ashen jungle]

Maybe I'm missing something, but is there any actual ingame evidence that doesn't come as an audio log from McManus or another villain?

[kind hare]

😆 Fair question. He is just one of my most favorite antagonists that I've come across in many many years.
I like to think he had a lot more going on than what we saw at the end of WoNY.

[ashen jungle]

Back in div1 I would've said the same thing, I actually quite liked how he seemed to be more financially motivated than just pure "urr revenge grr", but the whole "wipe the slate clean" thing in div2 does kind of feel like they wanted a really evil antagonist who reminds people of a certain purple rock collector.

[kind hare]

Regarding Kelso, I think a lot of people assume I hate her.
I think she's one of the more interesting characters in the game right now.
This has definitely come from the dodgy interactions I've pointed out several years ago, but I definitely don't think she is a hunter.
If she happens to be rogue from some reason (again I don't think so), it will be for the right reasons.
We need to remember, the rogue status doesn't mean what it once did.

She's following breadcrumbs right now

In my opinion of course 😅

[ashen jungle]

The fact that during the livestream they mentioned that we're following her footsteps, her trail so to speak, makes me think that yeah we're going to be on her side.

[wicked gorge]

I feel Ubisoft is gonna pull the “ oh keener wasn’t actually gonna bomb new york with eclipse and wanted the division to see the actual enemy”

[ashen jungle]

That plan only makes sense if you ignore the entire events of WONY.

[kind hare]

That bomb thing is the biggest question.

I like to think he was targeting something BT/Sokolova.McManus related

[wicked gorge]

If they actually make her a hunter, then im gonna be surprised

[ashen jungle]

remember that during WONY the side missions were mandatory, so him sending another Eclipse bomb to the other settlement and killing everyone but one person there says to me that yeah Keener really did want to kill the Peacekeepers/JTF remnants.

[kind hare]

The Recruiter was warning us about her, so I'd be VERY surprised

[ashen jungle]

Honestly, listening to the Recruiter recordings after hearing people here take McManus at his word was kind of funny.

I'm now glad that 2fa is a thing because I feel that most people on this server would fall for the nigerian prince scam.

[wicked gorge]

If it turns out that ANNA become sentient and planned the events out, im just gonna burn my Xbox

Tho it make a surprising plottwist

[kind hare]

Somewhat unrelated, but I'm going to post this here because I think this is one of the best statements I've seen regarding the story (from one of the devs).
Do with it what you will, and mods, please remove if not appropriate.

"The narrative cannot get in the way of the gameplay, especially in multi-player.

We are conditioned to believe it only counts as story if it is in a cutscene, that you can hold A to skip. That's a really expensive way to make it really easy to skip the story.

The way we tell the story in the Division is not linear. It's not plot driven, it's character driven. Character is king because people are constantly evolving and changing and how we see the world evolves by our knowledge and perspective.

I treat the story as its own game mechanic.

It's for the analysts.

For the people who want to understand the world so they can "save what remains" because they know what is worth saving. And the more grounded we can make those stories, and those stories serve the mediums we are working in, the more we can build this universe we have created. It's why we make comics and novels and audio dramas and are working on [redacted]. Every medium has limitations and I look at those constraints as opportunities and try to build these products in a way that supports one another, while being independent.

For the story nerds, when this is all over I hope you love what we've done and like the story in the game, you don't need to experience everything to enjoy anything but if you're a
like me the transmedia will become more and more relevant as we move forward."

• Lauren Stone (The Division Narative Director)

It's in relation to why I've been following this game, and enjoying the story for so long.

I have a lot of respect for Lauren

[wicked gorge]

Honestly the Division is one of the only multiplayer story games I can enjoy, a lot of multiplayer story games are just badly written with trying to mix together coop

[median crag]

I've noticed something with the past few seasons

What's the thing about fish tacos? What do fish tacos have to tie into the lore?

(This is a joke, but its honestly annoying when tacos are brought up in every other convo in game)

[wicked gorge]

Actually the fish tacos are mini shd servers that are implanted into people when eaten, making it possible for agents to have shd access in the country

[sick lantern]

mari (manny’s wife) was the director of an aquarium so the whole thing was having her set up a sustainable fish farm for a consistent food source
and i guess fish tacos are the only viable fish dish in the end of the world

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[stray crystal]

That's such an important message rn. "The rogue status doesn't mean what it once did". Especially an interesting thought if you go out the thoughtprocess of McManus technically being commander in chief due to succession of command and all that

[sick lantern]

he isn’t

until someone calls him president mcmanus in game

there’s no reason to say he is

the dhs secretary is at the bottom of the list after all

[ashen jungle]

It's like Michael Scott, he just needs to declare he's the POTUS and it's the case.

[sick lantern]

it’s not impossible but as far as we know even the man himself isn’t calling himself el presidente

it’s not an ellis situation where he says he is and he technically is, he’s just a traitor
it legit hasn’t been touched on

[sick lantern]

unless there’s some dialogue i’ve missed

[stray crystal]

It's like every time this is brought up, you miss how I say "If you go out the thoughtprocess". And as Rivens said, if he declares he's POTUS he becomes POTUS. There's no official way of swearing him in. I read up on it a week or two ago, no actual process has to take place in a situation like the division. The succession of command still holds true, and he's the only one from that chain that we know is alive - no matter if he's at the bottom. Therefore, he could technically be sworn in/say he's the POTUS.

What I was referring to was the whole "Rogue status doesn't mean what it once did", because it has nuances - especially with all we now know about the Hunters, McManus and Sokolova

[sick lantern]

i know he COULD but he so far very much hasn't. like it's not like he's so far tried to use presidential authority to deactivate the SHD or make ISAC declare them all rogue or anything. much rather taking conventional violence with the hunters
no one's calling him the president, not johnson, not even himself. ellis had to formally and officially get sworn in as president (even in a shambled state it still happened). there's dialogue from Kelso at some point where she recognises that Ellis is the president like officially and "ISAC is the only one who thinks we're still on mission"- McManus has NOTHING like it. I'm not calling him the president until the game actually says he is

if we're going to say line of succession and etc, we're saying that ourselves- it's essentially headcanon

and at that point we could just say, someone else above him on the line of succession could still be alive and they could be president

and it holds the same weight

because it's just hypothetical

i will change my tune in a heartbeat when it gets remotely mentioned that mcmanus is going for presidency or whatever and they return to the "technically a rogue agency" plot in earnest

but there's a clear divide between how that has been, and how it is now

this is something the narrative has been explicit on in the past

and i'm just following the precedent they set

[sick lantern]

like to draw a comparison
when I say McManus is a mega bad dude cus he started the outbreak, I'm basically doing the same thing
the evidence is there, it could easily be true, hell you might say it more or less is just definitively true
but it's not the exact narrative and it hasn't quite been mentioned properly in game, it's not being referenced, it's not influencing dialogue or the way characters act- it's extrapolation

so there is precedent to say that, until the game says "it's definitely this", it's not definite

[stray crystal]

It just feels like you're targeting me to shut down a hypothetical thoughtprocess that I think is interesting in the current state of the game - and therefore relevant to this channel. (that might just be me, I'm neurodivergent, but it feels that way)
Ellis was "sworn into office at an undisclosed bunker", but this process itself is rather vague - it is so in the constitution. The only thing stated in the constitution is what the President-elect has to say - not in-front of whom.
Why I get frustrated is because I'd love to have that conversation about what the rogue status means in the current state of affairs, with no actual POTUS that SHD is under. What is the definition of a rogue agent? Swapping ISAC for ANNA? Working against POTUS - who we don't know who is?

I have never, at one point, said anything definite - which is weird to me why you're singling that out.

[sick lantern]

im not trying to single anything or anyone out

and ok sorry i got a bit too into my explanation because div lore is something i have a bit of passion for

[stray crystal]

No, I totally get you, which is also why I wanted to be open about it. I'm passionate about it aswell - and I want to make it clear that I don't actually think he is the president rn, because it's nothing definite. But I wanted to have the what if conversation, because the current state of affairs fascinates me - and I'm looking forward to learning more in the new season :3

[surreal hearth]

People are speculating that kelso might be a hunter

Or…..a “rogue hunter” which is rare in division

[sick lantern]

i doubt she is a hunter legit, cus johnson was dissing her
and i doubt johnson would lie like that, cus he seemed pretty convicted and brainwashed

[sudden mortar]

The devs really like to make us feel bad for all the rogue agents along the way, Theo Parnell, Aaron keener, Faye lau etc.

[vale oak]

absolutely unreal keener tried to go for meret 💀

[rustic frost]

I am failing to grasp the why here. Like, what does the rogue status mean ?

[lone salmon]

welp, turns out that's what she's doing verbatim

[glad spruce]

||And she left us a first note out of many. I'm interested in what or who is this Cassandra||

[surreal hearth]

After our actions this means None of us are trusted because we don’t know who’s who and as kelso said trust has to be earned

Manny said that division agents are among civilians including our enemies, some as double agents and others are soo deep that not even ISAC has access to

And the answers are back to where it all began

In New York City the dollar flu outbreak

Even ISAC is struggling itself of the situation given that he’s walled off next to the other AI nodes the safety maybe off but he’s still struggling

Wait a minute

Did kelso just?

[surreal hearth]

Oh no we got a new vanguard to replace keener

[sick lantern]

what

if you're telling me they forgot that Keener was called Vanguard and there's someone else now called Vanguard that'll be so f_ckin funny but I hope that's not the case lmao

[wicked gorge]

Whos keener?

[surreal hearth]

Well

The sudden vanguard replacement was out of nowhere cuss some unknown person gave kelso a watch that has the ANNA connection and it’s telling kelso about this Cassandra person

To make our lives interesting black tusk and the rogues are now onto us completely and the hunters have leaked everything about us

Expect some frequent rogue agents and maybe a hunter coming after us

And even more bread crumbs to follow 😤

I hate bread crumbs

[rustic frost]

Vanguard may be a codename that transfers

[sick lantern]

we haven't seen any Division agents sharing callsigns before
would kinda defeat the purpose of a unique identifying callsign no?
anyway I still don't know what that guy is actually talking about

[rustic frost]

Also who’s the lady Sokolova or something

[fringe gale]

if you mean who cassandra is, then we dont know. best guess is just a rando rogue

[ember vector]

You can see this unknown person at Haven in the camera footage when Kelso pets the dog with Benitez and Rhodes. They are in the background for a few seconds and the camera identifies them as unknown presence detected.

[ember vector]

He was the big bad in The Division 1 and WONY (expansion of TD2).

[sick lantern]

wait tell me you were joking right

[surreal hearth]

Whoever was that person knew about ANNA

[wicked gorge]

Yes it was a joke

Imagine keener wanting to blow New York up was cause meret turned him down 😂

[wicked gorge]

You a new player?

[rustic frost]

No but last time I played the campaign was at launch

[wicked gorge]

I recommend watching a seasons lore video to get caught up then

[gaunt ice]

L rizz

[rustic frost]

What’s the name of the dude that has a yt channel with lore

[wicked gorge]

NGN, he has a lot of videos covering the seasons

[halcyon iron]

with all the new info that's come out about the hunters, I wonder what the justification for sending them after us in Survival was.

[wicked gorge]

Cure = Bad

[marble dawn]

Cure = Ours

[wicked gorge]

Honestly I doubt there’s a story behind the hunters in survival

[sick lantern]

I think there is.

.

“I think” as in my personal opinion, not necessarily a real part of the narrative

[marble dawn]

oh thats an interesting take

[sick lantern]

there’s no evidence reallly just hypothesis from the circumstance

[marble dawn]

so far what I'd been thinking was that they were also after the antivirals but all they had to go on was that a division agent was also going after them

[sick lantern]

it’s just so convenient that the antivirals were located right before a storm, the same night that a bunch of Hunters were in the same place
and every chopper crashed, supposedly from the hurricane? not one of those pilots knew what they were doing? we know from the LMB it’s possible to get SAM’s into NYC
plus it’s awfully kind of the Hunters to never outnumber agents at extractions, even though the additional Hunters that show up show that they have the capability to bum rush you with numbers if they wanted you assuredly dead

I’m thinking the initial line of thought was that they’re like the Predator

they leave the corpses around for fear tactics and clout, they take trophies
and the whole scenario was a set up by them so they could hunt the most dangerous prey

only the most intuitive and resourceful and etc agents would survive the cold, the factions, and reach the DZ (the amount of people you see die when they play survival confirms this lol)- only the most worthy prey to be worth hunting

it’s just a little too contrived, and they had an honour system of sorts, that’s why I think it wasn’t just a coincidence

[lone salmon]

Kelso's new outfit's neat. Probably gonna see it as a bundle by the end of the season

[willow fjord]

Anyone here read the compromised book? If so, who is the leader of the reborn? Cant remember her name

[tulip shale]

Cassandra Raines ?

[surreal hearth]

Natalia began switching tactics to her Black Tusk army

Because this oligarch decided to show herself to the world she wants to expand her propaganda by taking over local broadcast areas in New York meaning that Washington DC is no longer safe for us

[willow fjord]

THATS the one

[surreal hearth]

If you go to any of the broadcast that black tusk have taken over, you noticed that in her local broadcast she clarified that the hunters are not Russian spec ops thus defunct our theory about it

[willow fjord]

Wondering if it had any correlation with the watch kelso found.

[surreal hearth]

She also claims that she wants to rebuild America with her new alliance the true sons with Anderson on board

Birdies actions has granted us access to a more extensive tech

To maintain coverage on the field birdie and the others have created a mobile tinkering crafting device that will allow us to craft anything and tinker with our gears on the fly without ever going back to the castle or the White House workbench

There’s also been comms that takes way way back before killing keeners rogue agents

Theo Parnell and dragov were involved rescuing familiar people and escorting them onto keeners boat and yes they are rogue but don’t mean that they were downright evil at that time

I’m heavily speculating that this unknown individual that was in haven might be a rogue agent

[glad spruce]

Whether we like it or not, some of those civies consider Keener and his fellow Rogues as heroes.

And considering how bad things are in NYC, I can't say I blame them

[ashen jungle]

I really hope they give some info to that line where it doesn't sound quite as insane.

[tulip shale]

Retcon
Retcon everywhere

[glad spruce]

I honestly and sincerely hate that word

[sick lantern]

the writers adore it

[glad spruce]

Most of the time, when I see that word used, it's often referred to as "I don't like how the story is developing, so I'm calling it a retcon"

[tulip shale]

Maybe at the end we'll see the genius of the plot
For now... I'm wondering if I'll be let down like the Lost serie

[pine wyvern]

Reviving a clearly dead character is a retcon. Misdirection, misinformation, propaganda, NPC ignorance or lack of facts, intrigue, deception is not retconning story.
I'm enjoying the theories, snippets of information, and general storytelling.

[sick lantern]

ok well for example. changing "barret made a plan of her own to get the rikers off the island" to "dragov did the work for her" is a retcon
changing "the first wave rogues were seeking to grab power amidst the collapse" to "the first wave went rogue by accident becuase ISAC sucks and they just followed orders, and are misunderstood good guys" is another retcon

[hardy oar]

New gear has LMB logo and colors. Do you think we're going to meet them and strike an alliance?

[sick lantern]

"shd tech was made by the shd" to "shd tech was made also sorta by darpa" to "shd tech was made by the never before mentioned Ortiz" is another retcon

[glad spruce]

Exactly.

[pine wyvern]

Is it a retcon or a gradual release of information?

Also Barretts plan was the best. Foist the work off on some other schmuck lol

[hardy oar]

I hope the latter

[pine wyvern]

I grew up reading tom Clancy novels.. I'm used to the latter.

[sick lantern]

it's basically a lie by omission, if they were so important and crucial they would've been mentioned in the past

so yea a retcon.

ortiz is baguely more debatable but rogue agents and the rikers 100% had their backstories changed to suit a different narrative

[hardy oar]

I see it like this - Ortiz made it, DARPA perfected it, we just use it

[pine wyvern]

Because agents, spies, Joe blow off the street are required to tell the truth?

[sick lantern]

even conley, she supposedly was around during div 1 (iirc that's how wony presents it)... didn't help ferro when the base was attacked? had no part in dragon's nest? f_ck was she doing then? doesn't make much sense, because she was retroactively inserted into the continuity

[sick lantern]

Not every piece of information given is dialogue from a liar given to a character they're lying to

if you're going to go back and say that actually things might not be true because of vague circumstance, why even bother having canon, just write a disconnected anthology because at that point continuity is something you don't care about

[hardy oar]

Rikers are criminals so their backstories are irrelevant to us but rouge agents? You may be right

[sick lantern]

another retcon, Johnson was supposedly around in DC at the start of div 2, when the sheriff showed up
he wasn't seen in the white house though? or anywhere? didn't help with any missions even though he was discussing them after they happened? it doesn't make any sense. because it's a dumb retcon, one of many

[sick lantern]

except we have multiple sources saying that SHD tech, or at least a good amount of it, was made in house by the SHD itself

[prisma pebble]

what factions are in both games?

[sick lantern]

and I can accept the div 2 darpa connection but Ortiz is just dumb

[sick lantern]

Rikers, Cleaners, LMB sorta maybe, rioters but they're not technically a faction more of a label

well and Hunters.

[spare arrow]

ofhand- shd/rogue/hunter, riker, cleaner, then rioters but meh

[hardy oar]

Also Dunne and Ward, so? Around DC doesn't mean in DC. And Johnson discussing our missions? Echoes?

[sick lantern]

in the previous season, there was a comm of Johnson talking to iirc Cindy, about the civic centre mission? i cant remember which but one of the early div 2 missions. proving factually he was with the JTF in DC at the same time as the player was, but wasn't seen, mentioned or shown to be helping, just cause

insert "you can't explain that" meme here

[sick lantern]

(not trying to say that to offend you specifically btw, just saying it makes negative sense)

[hardy oar]

Don't worry, I'm not offended

[surreal hearth]

It’s been a constant retcon for years

Let’s not forget that homeland made the hunters and the division behind the NSA backs

[glad spruce]

Homeland Security being scumbags? What a surprise /s

[gaunt ice]

I still hate Ortiz so much tbh

Like wony and darpa was a bit messy in terms of isac/anna lore but i’d take that over this couple magically appears out of nowhere with 0 foreshadowing or even existing beforehand

[cold bramble]

Its not really a retcon it's just misinformation. We assumed ISAC was perfect and we learned we were wrong. I mean looking at a lot of rogues backstories, it makes sense

But the whole Ortizt thing is a little weird tho. But seeing as all these seasons have been trying to tie into the old stuff and fixing their mistakes I think they have a plan for that. Or at least I hope they do

[sick lantern]

no it has nothing to do with ISAC

the narrative changed

the whole "ISAC will mark us as rogue if we leave the DZ" thing did not exist at first

ISAC marking the first wave as rogue is something that was added in WoNY

[cold bramble]

That was always there. You could see it in echos in the first game

Keener was marked as rogue because ISAC was and still is a boy scout

[sick lantern]

no, you couldn't. that's not how it was.

there was absolutely none of the "woe is me I'm rogue now because of ISAC"

Keener made it clear his gripes were with those in power and that he was going rogue to go his own way, and seize power

look I have 40 odd days in Div 1 and have looked at every collectible. I can assure you that is not how it was

[cold bramble]

Okay well I can't contine talking abt this rn. Gotta go to class

[cursive tapir]

Am I remembering correctly that one of the comms last season implied Black Tusk was building a giant underground corn farm to survive a nuclear winter, or did I hallucinate that?

Because if so, that’s totally what Kelso is investigating

I suppose that all-but-confirms what Ellis was referring to with “the button”

I have a feeling that they’re going to reveal (or retcon, depending on your opinion) that, while investigating the death of his father, Theo managed to locate a secret Black Tusk/Morovian base in NY, and Keener’s eclipse missile was intended to take them out and therefore prevent them from getting their hooks into post-virus society