division-universe

[round sinew]

Maybe Anderson isn't as sociopathic as his predecessor. Maybe he can be reasoned with.

But I'm pretty sure the next target in 2 weeks is known for executing civilians in the street, so...

[tepid ibex]

Fingers crossed!! That would be more interesting than just killing him. I anticipate the audio logs we'll get with him later in the season

[tepid ibex]

Yeah the next 2 or 3 targets are described as worse people iir. Need to watch that trailer again

[round sinew]

Nah

God forbid we get a nuanced antag

They all have to be absolute fuckin' psychopaths

[tepid ibex]

You gave me a reason as to why talking sense into him is unlikely by saying "dudes mind is completely made up --- you really believe he's going to listen to anything that we have to say." Sure you're disagreeing with me, but I took this as shutting down the theory of redeeming and using him as leverage as well.

[round sinew]

The best antagonists we've had in the series are Joe Ferro and Schaeffer.

[tepid ibex]

Silly to expect otherwise 😉

[tepid ibex]

Again, I'm glad Shaeffer is still alive. Maybe he'll turn sides idk

[round sinew]

Joe because his logic adds up, but he's still clearly a bad guy, but not totally crazy or brutal like everyone else.

Schaeffer because he's literally just a soldier following orders and is clearly shown getting angry when his underlings are sociopaths.

[plain junco]

I didn't say or imply, at least I don't think so, that talking sense into him is unlikely as I personally don't see a point to it in trying to convince him to change sides

[round sinew]

Every other antagonist in Division 1 is insane or evil tier brutal. Every antagonist in Division 2 is insane or evil for the sake of being evil.

[tepid ibex]

Just misinterpretation then I suppose

[round sinew]

The rogue agent in Broken Dawn wasn't too bad, but he wasn't really an antagonist.

[plain junco]

I actually don't mind antagonists who do things just for the hell of it but the only antagonists in div 2 that I actually sympathize with is the outcast faction well emeline

[cold bramble]

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

[round sinew]

Sokolov is just dystopian corporate bad guy and makes a perfect Tom Clancy enemy. Something tells me McManus is gonna be Bliss 3.0

[plain junco]

Is there any lore in game that talks more about sokolov?

[round sinew]

I think she kinda sucks tbh. She lost her kid, which is sad, but she uses literal ISIS-level terrorist tactics. Evil.

[plain junco]

Which is probably why I sympathize but I was ready to fist fight her behind a Walmart

[round sinew]

It's sparse from the seasons, but there's a rough idea.

[plain junco]

--with a a hazmat suit on

[round sinew]

Her dad was a Russian oligarch who built Sokolov, the gear brand. Her mom seems to be American maybe. She took over the company and it seems she got her brother into SHD by pulling some strings.

It's kind of implied she had some level of influence over SHD and was able to gather some other shadowy sketchy people to build Black Tusk as a private army to take over America.

[tepid ibex]

I liked in Camp White Oak when one of Shaeffer's cocky underlings says "Nothing I can't handle boss." And Shaeffer says - "Yeah I get that a lot from folks who end up dead a few moments later."

[round sinew]

Iirc, that was the plan before the Dollar Bug, but the virus sort of accelerated their timeline.

[round sinew]

Or when you wipe them out and Schaeffer calls BT HQ and says something like "get me a new team, one that's competent this time."

[plain junco]

Half of the time you heard Schaeffer on the radio with other people he always sounded stress

Like '--do I have to deal with these people you put me with?'

[tepid ibex]

Lmao dude kept getting put with horrible squads

[round sinew]

He even instructs his original team from fighting JTF or SHD because it's a bad look.

[tepid ibex]

I hope he plays more of a narrator-type in the future. Like how Manny is with us rn.

[plain junco]

Schaeffer: hey don't do this
Black tusk soldier: imma do it anyway
Schaeffer: -eye twitch-

[round sinew]

I'd go rogue for Schaeffer

[plain junco]

I could hear his eye twitch every time he talked to people while at camp white oak

[round sinew]

I just hate that when he got revealed, he didn't look like how I imagined him

[tepid ibex]

We need to see him talking in one of those CGI cutscenes

[round sinew]

I expected younger looking white guy with a beard. Not generic military commander man.

[tepid ibex]

We might could get use to it

[round sinew]

His features are all too sharp. Looks too hawkish.

[tepid ibex]

Are we able to see him in the White House?

On a hospital bed or sumn?

Nothing seems to really ever change in it so I suppose not ig

[round sinew]

No. The only change I've seen is Kelso is in the basement now.

Who I don't trust.

[sleek plover]

damn I hate LMB

[unreal lodge]

@tepid ibex I don't think Schaeffer will be in the White House. He might be in Haven because one he is a in coma, Coney Island in New York after we took him down. So the closest to him is Haven.

[ashen jungle]

*Haven, he's still very much alive.
IIRC the generally accepted answer of the whereabouts of Schaeffer is "below the White House", so I'm assuming they set up a cell in the Presidential Bunker or similar place where BT can't reach him.

[unreal lodge]

huh

[sick lantern]

stop
sending
me
C L O W N S

[patent narwhal]

almost all of schaeffer's lines can be boiled down to him hitting his head over&over and just yelling internally over incompetency

and its great

[round sinew]

He would've made a great SHD agent

[sick lantern]

it’s a bit scarily realistic that a self proclaimed patriot(Bardon) can be manipulated into fighting against his fellow countrymen who want to help people

props to writers on that one ig

[river apex]

Honestly, I feel like Schaeffer and Kelso would gel very well because it seems like they're so done with this world 😂

[tepid ibex]

They'll make one out of him yet 🤞

Division 3 has us playing as Shaeffer, a character that actually talks. The next Nomad, but of The Division franchise. I know the future 😉

[wary solar]

Is Schaeffer still alive?

Or did we gat him? Because Im drawing a blank on who that is

[spare arrow]

BTSU leader

he's fine for now

[wary solar]

Ayyo

[cold bramble]

Oof

[spare arrow]

dumbass

[wary solar]

what does BTSU mean?

[spare arrow]

black tusk specialist unit

[wary solar]

I see

Wasn't Lau a part of the BTSU?

[spare arrow]

kinda sorta

[wary solar]

She helped the BTSU and was given a BTSU squad to work with right?

[spare arrow]

she went rogue, aligned with the BTSU temporarily, was thrown a squad to get things done then got hunted down

[wary solar]

I see

I remember she said in her first recording that she was going to betray them

[spare arrow]

she wanted to get closer to ellis, if my memory of that plotline holds

[wary solar]

I think there's more to than because she killed Ellis and blamed the division

[spare arrow]

i'd need to relisten to the comms from that season

& the ones from wony

[wary solar]

I can't wait to get the rest of the story this season. Her character was so well done

She wasn't forced into doing it but there's a reason she went rogue.

Probably because she had to in order to stay alive

And she undid her rogue status. In the SHD system. There's definitely a reason for that too

We just gotta wait for those recordings

[cursive tapir]

I don't like that he signed on with the True Sons, but let's not forget that when he complains that people within the US gov't knew what Amherst was planning and deliberately let it happen, he's right

[cursive tapir]

I think her whole plan was "I'll pretend to go rogue to get close to Ellis so I can kill him"

Lau seems to know that he's an Illuminati/Morovian plant

[surreal sleet]

I'm assuming she somehow changed her status back to SHD in order to frame the division (Maybe so ISAC recognises a SHD agent shot Elis?)

But then there's the recent comms suggesting she was trying to find more out about "the button" (nukes? At least that's what is sounds from Elis's memoirs) and goes on to mention how she had to keep Kelso in the dark on why Faye went rogue, because "you're (kelso) the best person the division have got". So it seems as though she may have gone rogue for a personal undercover mission? But framing SHD for the kill is a big question mark.
Or maybe she changed herself back to SHD because she knew killing Elis was a suicide mission and wanted to go out as SHD? 🤷

[surreal sleet]

I think what's sad about it though, is his belief went as far as "Division+JTF knew about it" when they actually didn't, basically being civilians in the dark themselves til everything hit the fan.
He was right about the people up top, but mistakingly put the people trying to help also in the same light.
Kind of tragic really

[cold bramble]

Parnell went rogue because of corruption in the government as well

In fact, they silenced his father (the "forever" kind of it)

[cursive tapir]

My assumption is that Parnell Sr. knew about the Illuminati/Morovians/whatever secret cabal is behind Black Tusk

[cold bramble]

And then we killed his son because the game wanted to and was trying really hard to make him into a douche

"This character lost his father to corruption and went rogue"
"Oh, that's understandable"
"WAIT WAIT WAIT OKAY HE'S ALSO REALLY RUDE AND CHILDISH"
"Damn, we must kill him then"

[ashen jungle]

Parnell, persuaded, joined Keener as his tech specialist, and invented different things for Keener to use, like more lethal version of SHD Techs, the rogue network and a Ground to Air missile launcher with warheads containing Tchernenko's new Eclipse Virus.

He also led the tech side of the attack on the BoO in NYC, killing everyone inside with chemical weapons.

[cold bramble]

They have to make the villains irredeemably bad after all

No one (except Faye probably) was allowed to say "I'm not proud, but I'm doing this for the greater good" or something

[ashen jungle]

idk, Theo killing all those families in the Post Office makes me think that maybe he's not a good guy deep down.

[cursive tapir]

Or rather, they all say it, but none of them are correct in doing so

Theo gives me real "impressionable young man pressured into evil" vibes. Which doesnt make what he did okay, its just a different flavor of villainy

[cold bramble]

I honestly think it's the game falling victim to an overly simplified storytelling

[cursive tapir]

Realistically yes ^

[cold bramble]

It's not that Theo is a good person, but he has the background that could be given to a villain that goes beyond moustache-twirling evilry

[cursive tapir]

At the end of the day its a shooter and there's only so much room to develop a villain in a way that pays off in gameplay

[cold bramble]

It's also why I enjoy Keener's background

[ashen jungle]

I definitely get a "would probably be into crypto, but in a bad way" vibe from Theo, had the Green Poison not been released.

[cold bramble]

Hearing that echo of Keener protecting civvies and things going wrong actually gives me some "made-villain" vibes

But it's like the writers don't understand that when you turn someone into a villain, the person doesn't just develop a taste for senseless genocide

If they already started out like that, it'd be fine and we have villains in media that are evil for the sake of it

But giving them background and relatable issues conflicts with who they are presented as when being fought

It's literally this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLcclHNbSDo

[cursive tapir]

https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision/comments/lkj817/my_alternative_character_interpretation_of_aaron/

[ashen jungle]

@cursive tapir The censor doesn't like that word.

[cursive tapir]

See my vibe from Keener is that I think he joined the Division so that he could play out a hero fantasy/legally kill people, and then when the JTF refused to back him up he basically had a temper tantrum.

And then once he cools off and realized the mistake he's made, he spends the next two games' worth of story trying to hurriedly make it look like he's known what he's doing the whole time

[tepid ibex]

And it's not just an echo, it's a whole bunch of audio logs. It's the Lower Manhattan Comms. And about the genocide part and him wanting to bomb the city, it really does contradict his actions in the majority of those logs. Some thug said to Mark and Sarah "you think anyone cares for New York's bravest?" And Keener replied "I care!" Like, but you don't apparently...

[cursive tapir]

In TD1 someone literally saw his watch turn orange and he shot them in the head

I think he was a psycho the whole time who just wanted a license to kill and then didn't really know what to do with it once he had it

"I've got Vtaly Tchernenko now, what do I do with him? I guess...uh...a deadlier virus? And Ill release it in New York even though because worldwide trade has broken down NY isnt really any more significant to the world than a random spot on the map"

I think his whole thing was "The Division is coming for me, I need a network of rogues to protect me, and I can only get them on my side if I pretend to have some big plan to rally them around"

[trim light]

Sooo am I the only person who's realized how fucking tangential the Division is operating when it comes to authority? They were created off the orders of a single president whom we are now ||Two to three degrees of succession || away from. Even the change from Orange to Red isn't that big of a shift on the color wheel.

[cursive tapir]

I mean in-universe that's why Rhodes hates them

Also the Division seems perfectly happy to ignore the President if they don't like his orders, like with Ellis

They're basically just vigilantes at this point

[trim light]

My take on it is that he realizes that the Division isn't the Knight's In Shining Armor he wanted them to be who basically played his ego to recruit him as a tool rather than the hero he sees himself as and spends a huge amount of time fucking them over out of sheer spite. His existence gave other rogues a figure to rally around considering his skills at negotiation and that only further bolstered his ego.

His 'legacy' of trying to accelerate the destruction of elements of the old world could have some seeds of truth in it considering the JTF just up and abandoning people when the going got tough and the raging against the dying of the light that SHD itself represents in this almost 40k sense...But it ultimately is nothing more than a lie he tells himself at this rate to prop up the heinous shit he does.

[trim light]

Because Ellis isn't president...Waller was it I think the original? Waller died of a Heart Attack, then his VP Mendez blew his brains out a few days after leaving Ellis as the president since speaker of the house is third in line.

Sticking to their original creator's goal and fitting in with the SHD motto of Extremis Malis Extrema Remedia. Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures.

Like the existence of the 'Rogue' identification system in general shows that they knew agents could and absolutely would divert from their original purpose not just in the ends but how they attain those ends via their means.

And knowing the U.S and people's political views I am fucking amazed even our agent isn't Rogue yet.

[cursive tapir]

I feel like part of the Tom Clancy "brand" so to speak is "Lawful good government agent" even if everyone else around you is a corrupt shitbag

[trim light]

Because SHD stopped relying on concrete orders and high command weeks into the Green Poison and started relying on the idea of upholding the American idea however false or untrue it may be.

[cursive tapir]

To the point where even Rhodes is like "Damn I hate those Division agents, except for you, you beautiful SoB"

[cold bramble]

The interesting part of this kind of character is that it's obviously idealistic

[cursive tapir]

Well the "American ideal" is gonna be totally subjective to the individual

[cold bramble]

It's a desperate grasp at straws regarding upholding order

[trim light]

Speaking of which would it be safe for us to assume our TD2 agent is our TD1 agent or is there any concrete evidence of their whereabouts?

[cold bramble]

In it, characters firmly believe that the moment they don't have an official form of government overviewing the population, they lost "control"

In reality, the goal of government has always been a cascade of self-governing communities

[cursive tapir]

The devs have left it up to headcanon. If you want it to be the same agent, it is. If not, then no

[trim light]

Based

[cold bramble]

It's why we have mayors, governors and even student councils

[cursive tapir]

Exactly. I mean the whole "as soon as the federal government is gone, society collapses" idea is a myth. If that were true, we never would've developed "society" to begin with

[cold bramble]

Each individual cell of a city attempts to have its own control over itself, while in TD2's story it's like the school director trying to have a say on what the student council does

[trim light]

Exactly, this also ignores the very fact that unless anti-social behavior is reinforced or rewarded humans naturally draw together into large groups with cohesive hierarchy

[cold bramble]

When in reality the school director should prepare the students to govern themselves and not need to rely on the director's personal intervention for everything

[trim light]

Which is honestly why I think places like NYC and DC should've turned into MW2-tier warzones mere weeks into the Poison when SHTF.

YES I LOVE THAT IDEA-

[cold bramble]

In fact, that was the base of SHD's activation

Extreme evil, extreme measures

[trim light]

Honestly this is why I think the Hunters are super interesting because their motivations could be fucking endless...Also I feel like the Hunter working with Schaeffer was perhaps an example of a 'Rogue' hunter.

[cold bramble]

SHD helping communities is students calling the director for things under his authority when their authority wasn't enough to solve the situation at hand

Unfortunately dialogue from certain members of SHD also indicates a severe misunderstanding of how far their reach should be

They think that "extreme measures" is an umbrella covering everything below it, when it in fact is a direct response to the extreme evil

[cursive tapir]

Anyone here who's interested in a more realistic take on the psychology of an apocalypse scenario should definitely check out "This Book is Full of Spiders" by Jason Pargin. Talks about a lot of stuff like Dunbar's Number (humans making up excuses not to empathize with each other as a defense mechanism for the sake of sanity, and how that can end up backfiring)

[cold bramble]

If there is no extreme evil, honestly just let people get fucked until they ask for help

Not in the "I'm not helping someone in front of me" way, but in the "I have things that actually require my authority to dedicate time to"

[trim light]

wh

[cold bramble]

That's why I copy what I type before sending

[trim light]

Why did my post get deleted?

[cold bramble]

Automod be like that fr fr

[cursive tapir]

The Division as a game is just a weird contradiction overall because the setting and lore feel like they'd better fit a more story-driven Last of Us/Days Gone style format where you meet characters with different political viewpoints/ideologies and have to get people to work together to build a sustainable future, but instead it's a looter shooter that needs to bend over backwards to justify hosing down countless American citizens

Which means they need to be mustache twirling villains, which works in a game like Borderlands, but not a game thats also trying to be a grounded realistic take on the apocalypse

[cold bramble]

Sometimes the automod screws "fucking" in random ways

[spare arrow]

its not that

its uhh

[trim light]

???

[spare arrow]

underwater missile

[trim light]

...OH.

[spare arrow]

yeah

[cold bramble]

huh

[trim light]

I SEE-

That and self-governance/sovereignty comes at the cost of straight up being given the ability to an hero yourself/your social groups chances of survival.

[cursive tapir]

Im fascinated to see what the movie's gonna be like

[trim light]

I think the best thing to call The Division as a franchise in regards to its writing and position as a Ubisoft IP is "A gold bar you found in a garbage can at an activision-blizzard meeting."

[cursive tapir]

I wish I could use emote reactions so I can properly express how much I love this take

[trim light]

HIGHLY HIGHLY valuable in terms of what it is and could potentially be. But its surrounded by issues that really...Aren't the dev-teams fault and also a result of worrying about sending the wrong message if it were to step into politics. Which IT ABSOLUTELY COULD unless they work it out masterfully or push Miyazaki-style writing....TBH I wouldn't mind the latter.

Like the first Division game could've had its entire story spent trying to justify not just SHD's existence but your own by showing you have greater vision beyond the smaller survivors and settlements that've come about. Imagine if TD1 ended with Keener causing the SHD blackout you see at the start of 2.

Also side-note: massive pls

PLS

Give the watches hunters have as trophies a chance to be randomized between red and orange.

Anyways here's some cool looking Faye Lau concept art that depicts her recovery from the loss of her eye. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a3/61/ec/a361ec637b8939266f2ac36ec67070ac.jpg

[trim light]

While I wish Division overall leaned more into the political thriller it could be I don't mind it all that much. Especially considering that fan content (art, fanfiction, roleplay, short movies, etc.) fills it in quite well.

[cold bramble]

I remember one time on a YT comment section where a couple people were going on this tangent with a weirdly dreadful tone about how much power the SHD agents have

Kept going on and on about how the intro plays our power as a good thing (because apparently it's undeniably a horrible thing in some people's heads?) and how dangerous SHD is with its ultimate government power

And don't get me wrong, it would be a valid concern to give this much power to kill, and some people there were even talking about how all we do is go around shooting people we think are bad, but...

They're all bad... there's basically no one good that we shoot.

People can't even argue their fearmongering because of how simple the game is

The game exhales "sir, this is an Arby's" energy whenever someone starts thinking about any political undertones

I think it would be very interesting to have a Division game with an actual story where we first fight rogues and then start learning of this internal corruption and fighting it ourselves, resulting in some kind of purge from the inside or whatever, like when the good guy finds out the mentor was the bad guy all along and comes fight them in what they used to call home

Think... the first Assassin's Creed: Altair goes back to Masyaf to fight his mentor once it gets revealed to him he is a templar, and there they have this big climax where the entire city is drowned in chaos because of the now-villain mentor trying to protect himself from the hero's return

And something kinda like that was done with Ellis, which I actually enjoyed and was eager to see more of

I just think SHD is too good, the White House's staff is perfect and no one really has anything besides the pure goodness of their heart at display

Some would see SHD's struggle as a losing battle and side with the enemy, some would crave more than that life and side with the enemy under promises of a better life, some would disagree with SHD's methods and defect... I dunno, just something that can actually provide fruitful conflict that isn't simply ended by killing a boss in a 10-minute mission

Hell, we player characters are Keener's legacy and yet there's nothing to draw from that legacy because the guy is just evil for the sake of it. The max he does is question who we can trust, but literally no one but Ellis has betrayed the player in the entire story

[ashen jungle]

Holy text block, batman.

[gleaming brook]

Can someone tell me why the game is so hostile towards Vice President Mendez, especially when he ||commits suicide?|| I dug up a few audio files, and it seems he just mismanaged the virus terribly. A lot of the government officials and JTF soldiers bashing him harshly. Feel free to ping me!

[cold bramble]

I can build a whole house of text with my blocks

[magic meteor]

This must be the new division novel they wrote

[cold bramble]

I mean, my boy Tom is kind of incapacitated at the moment to write more of these

[magic meteor]

Thomas may be busy being milked for everything his name is worth

[cold bramble]

The day they release the infamous Ecks Dee Defiant, the man's gonna rise from the grave just to say "what the fuck" and go back to sleep

[magic meteor]

I completely forgot about xd

[round sinew]

Mendez was assassinated, technically. Black Tusk had some Secret Service guys pop him and make it look like a suicide so they could install Ellis, who they had control of.

[round sinew]

I hope Ubisoft also forgets.

[sick lantern]

they've removed the tom clancy from the title and i think they're adding non tom clancy IPs to it

[round sinew]

Suddenly I'm okay with it.

If it's just Ubisoft Smash Bros, I don't really care what they do with it.

I just wanted them to acknowledge it was dumb to have Tom Clancy's XD and it seems they have.

[mint citrus]

I do like that we find out Faye didn't go bad just because, but she had to make it look good 'cuz of Sokolova and the Black Tusk keeping an eye on her

[golden basin]

Off topic but is anyones ubisoft connect working rn?

mine keeps saying its unavailable currently

[mint citrus]

But it kind of feels like how MGS3 reveals The Boss was a fake defector

[sick lantern]

so embarrassed by the incorrect channel usage he left the server

[untold blaze]

what

[river apex]

Honestly it never surprised me. But I'm personally not impressed by this trope though. We need a main character to fully disavow SHD and go full mental on the world. A brand new villain, like the Batman

[sick lantern]

Keener?

[river apex]

Well, after certain events which I won't disclose

Something to continue the plot

[cold bramble]

I hope they start the next entry in the franchise with that premise tbh

Maybe a rogue tricks ISAC into roguing you and you get hunted by some secret SHD killsquad

[untold blaze]

i honestly dont know how theyd continue after faye

it feels to me, emphasis on to me, that its improvising

[cold bramble]

They backed themselves into a corner the way they wrote most of the story

They can't deviate from the whole "everyone we shoot is irredeemably bad" trope

Lest it starts treading mildly complex and thought-provoking themes such as politics and ethics

[river apex]

There's always ethics involved, but I think it's just a matter of which angle to direct to advance the plot.

Actually, I don't even know what I'm talking about. I'm stumped how it could proceed after WONY or something.

[untold blaze]

I'm scared the hunters are gonna have a disappointing story

[river apex]

I really like how the hunters approach your dead body on Countdown to steal some of your tech. It's interesting and chilling at the same time

[untold blaze]

wait what

I havent died to a hunter yet so all I know is the div 1 executions
still badass tho

you got a video of this happening?

[river apex]

No I didn't record the clip, but next time you play countdown, if you're killed by a hunter and you go into the gray screen, don't immediately leave or respawn. Wait for a bit and the hunter will approach you eventually to take some of your stuff

Like my mind was proper blown to bits

[untold blaze]

it's fine if they kill people but it's just deplorable to steal

hunters kinda suckkkkkk

[river apex]

I mean, the world basically plunged into crap with a "no holds barred" mentality so anything goes. For all we know, hunters just want to survive in this cruel world like any other useless NPC in the White House

[untold blaze]

I'm gonna be disappointed if the big badasses turn out to be scavengers

[river apex]

Ah, but that's how you'd survive. Scavenge, kill, survive. It's like the holy trinity of post-apocalyptic games 😂

[untold blaze]

ikik but they have the cool top secret stuff

like apart from that one rogue agent on legendary field hospital in div 1 I think the first people with the emp pulse we ever saw were the hunters

it would be kinda weird if the first people we saw with the new toys were just scavengers and not some elite edgy agent

[river apex]

Is it actually confirmed that hunters were first wave agents who disavowed SHD or probably even before that?

Dunno much about this lore about the hunters but I wanna know where to start, ya know

[untold blaze]

I'm guessing they're not shd because instead of isac saying rogue agent detected it says something like high threat hostile detected

and this is before the tampering with isac

[river apex]

Hmm, in Countdown, ISAC mentions high threats regarding named enemies, not necessarily hunters. Big brain Kelso, with her astute powers of observation, will say it explicitly.

I don't think ISAC can detect hunters anyway because they would've been completely off the grid unlike rogue agents who just have red watches

[sick lantern]

nah he can

[untold blaze]

I dont know if he says high threat hostile detected, its something along those lines

[river apex]

Cool, I want ISAC to be my personal assistant now 😂

[river apex]

Yeah something like that too for sure. But it's always a named enemy that shows up within the buildings

[untold blaze]

'armed hostile inbound'

this is in the first game though

[round sinew]

Reminder that the Devs thought the Faye Lau bit was going to be the end of support for Division 2 and had an ending but were then told that they had to keep the game going.

[cold bramble]

[tawdry siren]

"heavily armed hostiles incoming"
-ISAC famous last words

[fallow ledge]

I always thought it was implied that hunters were never part of the SHD network. Is why you see them with broken division watches as trophies. They probably are scavengers like the rest who don’t live in communities but at least they’re tough enough to kill highly trained soldiers with advanced tech.

[sick lantern]

if ISAC could only detect things that were already in the network he’d be a tad shite no

[gaunt ice]

How would ISAC identify a hunter?

Cluster of watches nearby?

[late void]

The HUD glitching effect is a bit of a giveaway, he should be able to detect that

[gaunt ice]

if they can maintain 100% pulse it might be more effective lol

[river apex]

But they somewhat have formal military training, or at least it looks like it from their movements. Possibly not SHD related, but other military-esque/black ops kind of people?

[fallow ledge]

They have some kind of training sure. I know people love to speculate about the hunters but I really think they should be left as an unknown. Plus they got a weapon better than any gun. The one hit axe.

[river apex]

I like to call it the Poof Axe. One hit and your armour is poofed

[magic meteor]

I'm guessing the lore explanation will be that Ellis activated them before he died or something

[kindred valley]

...the hunters have been active since div 1 though? Not sure how that'd work, given that he died rather recently

[late void]

presumably when the shd agent system was originally designed, they also decided they might need a countermeasure in case agents got too powerful and tried to take over. Hence the hunters. (Or someone else, like BT, was busy planning ahead and started the hunter programme as an assist for their own plans if the agents were ever activated)

either way, it seems hunters were likely trained and equipped specifically to deal with Agents, and that most likely happened BEFORE the outbreak (due to the time and manpower constraints)

[mint citrus]

I think that's what the current season is doing

perhaps

[cold bramble]

#division-universe message

I wonder if hunters could be some sort of hunters (wow) for people who are getting a bit too close to some sort of truth about the current state of things and that the government is behind a lot of bad shit

Y'know, like, we kinda are on our way to finding out Illuminati exists and the hunters are their soldiers idfk tbh

[late void]

been listening to Rick Valassi much?

(or whatever his name was)

[cold bramble]

whom

[late void]

the guy on the radio in Div1, full of conspiracy theories

[sick lantern]

the question is how does that tie in to their actual actions? killing a bunch of agents in survival who weren't in on any conspiracy, killing agent edwards but not the player- that and leaving corpses around for people to find, showing people they exist hurts any secret hidden conspiracy army

[glass kestrel]

So, here's my question. Since agents of the division answer directly to the president, how were they not all immediately marked as rogue when they started fighting against President Ellis and Black Tusk? I get he was the bad guy, and that Black Tusk are the bad guys, but that doesn't change the fact that President Ellis is their chain of command.

[sick lantern]

because ISAC isn't a dumbass

in a catastrophe scenario it's reasonable to assume that the president would be dead or inaccessible so it makes sense for the SHD to be able to operate without the president's authority

[glass kestrel]

Well yeah, that explains why they're able to operate before the president gets rescued from they Hyenas, but that doesn't explain how they can still be marked as SHD status while actively working against Ellis. The agents have to answer to the president. Like, that's the only law they have to follow. And we've absolutely seen ISAC be stupid.

[cold bramble]

I mean, they have to give the player some lead on a conspiracy like that

[sick lantern]

since when do they have to answer to the president? he was barely mentioned in Div 1, and is one of the main criticism's of the SHD not how above the law they are?
"Are they answerable in any way to the people or republic for which they stand?"- Rick Valassi
and all the instances of ISAC being stupid are just bad writing why should ISAC not be able to recognise treason as an offence?

[cold bramble]

What counts as treason?

SHD's goal is to restore order and so is Black Tusk's, but we get clearance to shoot Black Tusk because their goals for order are different or something, even though the president himself was siding with that version of order

[sick lantern]

I'm not an expert but assisting a foreign backed occupational force which openly executes civilians would probably constitute treason

[cold bramble]

I don't remember finding them executing civilians, but it still has the issue of the president backing that occupational force up

[glass kestrel]

From The World of The Division : "On the organizational chart of the U.S. federal government, the Strategic Homeland Division is formally listed as part of the Department of Homeland Security. However, the Division reports directly to- and only to- the president of the United States."
And backing up Sterling's point, who decides what is treason? ISAC is run by The Division, and The Division is run by the president. Under Martial Law, who can actually say the president is committing treason, from a lawful standpoint?

[magic meteor]

Random events

[sick lantern]

"Belief in the purity of their vision lets the Black Tusk terminate anything that threatens it- U.S. soldiers, national security operatives like The Division, civil servants, civilians- without hesitation or remorse... Nobody is an innocent bystander according to Black Tusk rules of engagement."

[cold bramble]

And honest to God, ISAC is an absolute moron

[glass kestrel]

Obviously, yes, The Black Tusk are morally in the wrong, but I'm arguing the lawful/systemic side of things.

[cold bramble]

Manny had to tell you to blow up a wall in a bank because ISAC couldn't find a way out of the room

[sick lantern]

and yet ISAC has no issue with SHD agents acting against the president, so either ISAC is becoming Skynet or the system is working as intended

[glass kestrel]

Or the system isn't working as intended. Those aren't the only two options.

[cold bramble]

And dare I say ISAC is a man-made construct in a man-made story in a game that is known for lacking in story complexity

For all I know, we aren't even supposed to be asking questions because those alone break the game's magic

[sick lantern]

personally, I don't consider that to be canon...

[magic meteor]

Legally nothing really matters
Not like you're gonna walk up to some heavily armoured spice fiend that's stringing someone's headless body to the ceiling and go "hey! You cant do that!"

[cold bramble]

I mean, that literally happened in a mission the player has to play against BT

[glass kestrel]

Well you can make any argument work if you just decide certain things that happened aren't canon.

[cold bramble]

The only way to proceed in the mission

Oh wait, BT had the wall blown

It was against the normal faction

[glass kestrel]

Yeah, it was the mission against the Hyenas

[cold bramble]

Whatever, ISAC dumb

[glass kestrel]

Same building, different faction

[cold bramble]

[sick lantern]

and it is also unbelievably stupid to the point where I can't suspend my disbelief
ISAC isn't Google it's the most advanced learning AI known to man as far as we have been shown

[glass kestrel]

We haven't seen any indication of ISAC "learning".

[magic meteor]

You just described the entirety of the division 2 endgame

[magic meteor]

Nah he says "electronic device detected" which means he has learned how to detect electronic devices

[sick lantern]

ISAC is based off of CALO which is short for "Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes"
I daresay an AI that cannot learn is borderline useless, at least for the applications we see it used

[glass kestrel]

"based off of"

[magic meteor]

Let's be real an intelligent isac would be annoying

Like ghost from destiny annoyance

[glass kestrel]

As far as we've seen, all ISAC can really do is take in surrounding stimuli and give a readout of important information, as well as help operate SHD tech. There's no learning there, just input and output.

The only indication we can see of ISAC making a judgement call is when agents attack other agents/civilians, steal things, or tamper with their own tech to go rogue.

[sick lantern]

I'm not a computer scientist but I'm pretty sure ISAC is by definition a learning AI based on the way it integrates with newly introduced networks and systems with ease

[glass kestrel]

Are they newly introduced, though? No tech company is out there making new networks/systems. The only two that would be new are Black Tusk's and Keener's, and ISAC needed to be linked into their systems to work. And couldn't even really access Keener's. And all they could really do is butt into Black Tusk comms. Everything else, the agents pretty much had to handle themselves.

Plus, from what I've been able to Google, AI learning "focuses on the use of data and algorithms to imitate the way that humans learn, gradually improving its accuracy."

[sick lantern]

so ISAC is already intimate with the inner workings of every computing system in the USA?

[glass kestrel]

Being created by DARPA and being utilized by the agents of a shadow organization within the federal government, with no lawful restrictions, with a budget of trillions?
I'd wager, yes. Or very nearly.

[sick lantern]

Riight

[glass kestrel]

because remember, ISAC isn't just the little shoulder piece and a watch. That's just the communication system between ISAC and the agent. ISAC is massive.

Whole rooms full of servers throughout the U.S. transmitting their information to every agent nationwide.

[sick lantern]

yes I know

[glass kestrel]

So it's not outside the realm of possibility that ISAC has an understanding of already existing computer systems.

[spare arrow]

tell me you dont understand coding without telling me you dont understand coding

[glass kestrel]

I don't understand coding

but I stand by my point. It's still a fictional universe where certain aspects of realism can be thrown away for the sake of story, as long as it doesn't contradict the story.

I doubt modern coding limitations were kept in mind when the writers created ISAC.

[round sinew]

I've been waiting for the plot hook that ISAC is sentient

[river apex]

Plot twist: ISAC is Keener's actual consciousness trapped in a SHD watch

[river apex]

While it is still fictional, totally agree, aspects of ISAC are present in our time. Would the writers have considered constraints on its technology? Probably, but there are lots to leave for the imagination which is, I think, what makes this plot interesting

Machine learning and AI are relatively new but we can safely assume that this "piece of shit wristwatch" and its network can do much more than we imagine

[neon sentinel]

Idk if this is a relevant question for this channel, but do we know the origins of the Hunters? They are just so damn cool

[spare arrow]

unknown

[fallow ledge]

No origin. They first showed up in division 1 as masked unknown individuals with no faction ally. Only real thing shown is that they disrupt division tech and wear division watches on their gear. Implying they’ve killed plenty of agents as trophies or sport. Motivation unknown

[round sinew]

Aha, the weekly Hunter question and it's only Monday

[fallow ledge]

My question is just how canon are the events of the dc campaign? If we’ve done all we did in the story surely dc would be far more secure than when we started. Where are the true sons even based in now? I feel like the capitol would be deserted by now

[trim light]

Accurate

[trim light]

I'd argue that all ISAC does to access networks is search up employee/user data then cross reference it with possible login information. Govt./Public service networks are something ISAC is likely already wired into innately.

[fallow ledge]

I swear there’s going to be a plot line where a major character is deemed rogue and they clearly didn’t go rogue

[cold bramble]

Anything outside of the open world is canon, basically, due to the way the timeline flows in it

You have an order to the missions and thus the story, but the open world itself would be boring to play on if it had a majorly allied presence and nearly everything was conquered to your side

Thus they create a dissonance for the sake of gameplay

It's one of those things that you don't question not because of some convoluted reason, but simply because "it makes the game better as a game" is the best answer to be given

[gaunt ice]

Say,they want SHD to fail?

[untold blaze]

isac is keener right
just the other keener not aaron

[river apex]

yeah the real keener. the one we know in the game is reneek

[ashen jungle]

Garrus, to the cool kids. 😎

[sleek plover]

Keener uploaded his consciousness into isaac after death

So in the end of season 10 keeners gonna take it over

and acts as your AI companion

just like rotomdex

[sick lantern]

please god no

[sleek plover]

Yes

and than hes gonna be given a sleek metallic android female body

just like Edi

And hes gonna start a robot rebellion with all the turrets and drones and stuff while still confused why the hell is his new body female.

Which starts a new mission type after countdown, which you have to free the human prisoners enslaved by keeners new army of robots

they shoot laser btw

pew pew pew

dont do hyena spice guys

hey @ashen jungle im turning myself in🙌

also corb and aspect

[ashen jungle]

As long as you know.

[sleek plover]

dont get high on all that hyena spices people

[untold blaze]

so like

hyenas grow spice right

what do they use in combat

because i dont think spice makes you go HYAAAAAA IM GONNA GETCHA

is it like supercharged spice

where if it comes into contact with a bullet it reverts to its normal state

[late void]

Spice is a made up drug

[ashen jungle]

Yep, by Herbert Adams in 1965.

[untold blaze]

really?

[ashen jungle]

It's kinda long-winded, but I'd put money down that someone on the div2 writing team was a Dune fan.

[mint citrus]

Surprised no one said "The Spice must Flow."

But that would've been too on the nose

We didn't fight any sand-worms, but we did kill a train in a raid

Which technically is a beast of some kind

[untold blaze]

no not that one

it looks like grass and doesnt turn your eyes blue

isnt that the spice youre talking about?

[mint citrus]

Yep

[untold blaze]

idk i havent watched or read dune, but in short its a different spice

like some of the worst shit you can find

[late void]

...so what Spice are you talking about? Because the one in the game is just as fictional as the Dune spice.

[untold blaze]

spice k2

[tepid ibex]

Rick Valassi seems so bugged at New Haven. I mean, he'll say like 3 sentences and be like "I'm tired of talkin." Like bro was spouting paragraphs in TD1, what happened

[late void]

illuminati got to him

[tepid ibex]

And here's a better example. He says "That's enough music for now, time to get back to the street shit." And then not 2 seconds later, "Tired of listening to me talk?! Then you're in luck!"

[magic meteor]

まな a lot of fictional worlds use a drug of some sort called spice

Why is the Japanese there

Anyways it's probably a powerful painkiller, while also greatly degenerating the brain and making one aggressive

So it's just green crack

[sleek plover]

its also made out of plants

as seen in hyenas hq

and i am convinced those plants only grow on soils where the blood of the elder-kind has been spilled

and the black tusks aided hyenas cuz they are of elder-kind

thus black tusks are elves, and they hate humans

and i am definitely not high on spice, defnitelyyyyyyyyyy

[river apex]

can you prove you're not high on spice?

[rustic glade]

mf found out the hard way why breaching through the back door is a bad idea

[untold blaze]

the backlash got to him

[tepid ibex]

Noo 😔

[pulsar oracle]

YES! That's the last ECHO you find from him, @glass kestrel.

[sleek plover]

I am ZORGON, the space barbarian from the planet GONZOR, the slayer of LMB! All LMB shall know the wrath of mein Zweihander!

@tepid ibex

[sick lantern]

so the echo of LMB troops executing prisoners with a grenade is the other side of the map to LMB territory, which begs the question...
fuck dey doin ova dere

[tepid ibex]

Hmm, u remember the name of the echo?

[sick lantern]

nope

[tepid ibex]

I shall venture onto the game for such

[sick lantern]

it’s in clinton i think

in a police station

like south of stolen signal
or are you just going to look at the list that would probably be smarter

[tepid ibex]

@sick lantern I'm looking at the list. If I didnt have it I would have scoured the entire western seaboard! It's under General called Due Process. I remember it now, idk what dey doin over dere. But antagonist reasons ofc

[sick lantern]

LMB road trip

[tepid ibex]

Now Playing - Yakety Sax

[sick lantern]

so the first wave had a commander just like the second, I wonder what happened to him

[tepid ibex]

He's Bardon Shaeffer

[sick lantern]

😱

[sleek plover]

Hi guys

[untold blaze]

yakety sax is when you execute people using grenades

[sleek plover]

Civilians, branded as "criminals" for disobeying them

[sick lantern]

well actual criminals, but only petty criminals

theft and graffiti mostly

[sick lantern]

also he mentioned somewhere called "Black Site Alpha" whilst talking to Keener
the dark zone? or somewhere else? 🤔

will it ever be mentioned again? doubt it

[sleek plover]

Outcats would have won

if they weaponized justin bieber songs

[sick lantern]

@raw yew the power plant is/was in the control of the True Sons, hence their iconography being about the place

one of the manhunts targets, Castillo, was a worker at the plant who joined the national guard when they occupied the place and then the True Sons

[hot gate]

Actually it's probably PCP

[hot gate]

.

[magic meteor]

There is a recording in the arena that said its plant derived, which I don't know that pcp is
Understandably google is not telling me how to make drugs

[hot gate]

Peyote possibly

[cold bramble]

FUNNY GTA ANIMAL DRUG

[magic meteor]

It looked very leafy to be peyote

It might be similar to cocaine

But its green

greenAnd gaseous

[hot gate]

An aerosolized upper from a plant. Kind of has to be a model of cocaine

[magic meteor]

Dried leaves are used, so I assume it's some kind of cocaine, perhaps mixed with another chemical that aerosolizes it and turns it green

[river apex]

Is that why you get disoriented when the air filters aren't on? All the fumes just wrecking the healthy, human brain stem 🧐

Must be the heavy stuff then 😂

[magic meteor]

Let's be real, agent brain stems cannot be healthy with whatever they put into the various hives

[sleek plover]

Yeah, also im here to talk with the dolphins. wikiwkiwkiwoo

[sleek plover]

so what ive been snorting so far is basically tea?

[cold bramble]

yes

[magic meteor]

British 100

[cold bramble]

Diesel be like "oi bruv ave ye killed me mate ya cheeky twat"

And then your character, American the way they are, just mocks "pRoPa FoOkEd InNiT"

[river apex]

Diesel with a Cockney accent. I'd love to hear it 😂

[sick lantern]

who tf is Ethan Ellis?

[magic meteor]

I have no idea what's going on but I'm going to bring a knife to this conversation 🔪

[cold bramble]

lon'n

[river apex]

You shoulda used the knife emoji and said "get to the point"

[cold bramble]

"oi guv, get t' da bloody point yeah 🔪"

[sleek plover]

plays Red Right Hand by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

[tepid ibex]

None of the Peaky boys would say that tho, maybe John actually

[sleek plover]

I am ZORGON, the space barbarian from the planet GONZOR, the slayer of LMB! All LMB shall know the wrath of mein Zweihander!

[cursive tapir]

Looks like sergeant Daniels is just as curious about the Hunters as we are

[patent narwhal]

"What the fuck is going on?" I don't think Schaeffer could put it better

[leaden wigeon]

Yeah tf?

I'm confusion now

[ashen jungle]

I'm starting to get the thought that we're going to have the Hunters fully explained to us, and I am not here for it.

[grizzled carbon]

just got the bounty done, man that 2nd Lau file is a doozy and a half, so they're the rogue problem's solution who also went rogue

[leaden wigeon]

Okay what the fuck?

So the department of Homeland security is related to the hunters?

[sick lantern]

SHD is also under the DHS umbrella iirc...

shit it’s in the name “strategic homeland division” :p

[grizzled carbon]

the division went rogue, so DHS sends black tusk and hunters, they go rogue as well.

[magic meteor]

I just imagined a division agent, geared beyond armory status of weaponry, pulling someone over to check if they have a hunting license

[river apex]

SHD Agent: "Do you have a license to kill?"
sus guy: "mmmmm... maybe my axe has it, wanna take a closer look?"

Something very routine just turned hella dark in a moment there

[raw yew]

What’s the reference to agent edwards during the manhunt

[slate ember]

Agent edwards is the agent that the hunter kill the first time you encounter him

when you enter the room, it goes black and the hunter puts you down

[cold bramble]

I am a Strategic Homeland Division agent of the Division of Homeland Strategy

[raw yew]

Yes but how’s it connected to the manhunt

[slate ember]

They think you are the hunter

[raw yew]

Is the hunter from season 2 the hunter who kills him

[slate ember]

Because you killed schaeffer and lau

[raw yew]

Oh

[slate ember]

That's my best guess anyway

[plain junco]

Schaeffer is still alive

[slate ember]

How ?

You either kill him or the hunter does

[plain junco]

The hunter didn't kill him? Or did we fight Schaeffer's clone in his manhunt?

Or am I missing something?

[slate ember]

When i got on the hunt, it said that he was already dead when i first lose to the hunter

[plain junco]

No he's not dead - we apprehended him at the end of our fight and he's in the divisions custody

Dude is still alive

[slate ember]

Okay my bad then

[plain junco]

but listening to lau's newest comms me and Schaeffer both said 'what the fuck is going on' well I said 'the fuck is happening' but close enough

[slate ember]

Yup, can't wait for the next one

And i was wrong about the side quest

Agent edwards is Dusk during the schaeffer hunt

[sick lantern]

u what

[slate ember]

https://thedivision.fandom.com/wiki/Linette_"Dusk"_Edwards

[sick lantern]

oh I thought you meant the other Edwards

[slate ember]

Nope, in the manhunt, she means her

[lofty spire]

Hunter lore 🤔🤔🤔

What the hell, man

Wack stuff today

[tawny raft]

That basically confirms the ||Hunters are a Division counterpart program|| theory

[tepid ibex]

What are the Hunters doing to save humanity and civilization tho. All we know is that they kill things lol

[lofty spire]

Personally I believe they're a far less direct counterpart to SHD

As in they operate under the radar, getting in and getting the job done without the general masses knowing what exactly happened

SHD is more of a specialized police force/military meant to ensure the US government still exists if shit were to hit the fan, in which it did. Hard.

The Hunters, as to what I believe they are, is a similar group except instead of answering to the president like SHD does, they work straight for Homeland Security instead

[cold bramble]

shit hits fan, sterling hits black tusk

Aren't we Homeland Security?

I mean

[lofty spire]

Yes, we are

[cold bramble]

We literally secure the homeland

[lofty spire]

What I meant by that is that The Division answers moreso to the government as a whole, namely that of the president, while the Hunters are, seemingly, entirely independent

Not that The Division isn't independent, we've basically gone independent ever since we found out Ellis was working with Black Tusk, but still

[cold bramble]

I have a vague memory of myself saying hunters are something along the lines of the SHD's police from shadier parts of the already shady powers that be

ACTUALLY, BETTER

When does the player, canonically, meet the first hunter?

[lofty spire]

Agent Edwards Support, in D2

[cold bramble]

Is that before or after Ellis went rogue? I keep hearing about that agent and can't remember him

[lofty spire]

According to the wiki the mission becomes available when you hit level 15

https://thedivision.fandom.com/wiki/Agent_Edwards_Support

[cold bramble]

Like, actual hunter combat or just "woosh, smoke screen"?

[lofty spire]

That's when the first Division 2 hunter shows up, and ends with "woosh, smoke screen"

After that the ones you can fight and kill through the puzzles become available, which includes the same hunter you saw in that mission

[cold bramble]

Sus

[slate ember]

Also a lot of rogue agents worked with Black Tusk because they followers orders

Or thought it was the best thing to do (can't remember the exact phrasing)

[shell yarrow]

So im a filthy casual who just wanted to play the game when I bought it and never truly dived into division lore (and never played the first one) any recommendattions for youtube videos or something telling division lore?

[sleek plover]

Let me look thru...

[sleek plover]

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpaUkm6GiZodNyurBU4uhrBDu6UGvwjk1

here you go, and remember LMB are the worst among them all

[shell yarrow]

haha what is LMB? saw someone mentioning it in the divashion channel lol

[sleek plover]

They are the fascist enemy faction who wants to restore order by enslaving everyone, the other ones, rikers, are just plain criminal raiders while cleaners are sanitation cult

just watch the vids and ull get it

and remember, LMB are the worst among them all

[shell yarrow]

https://giphy.com/gifs/starwars-movie-star-wars-xT9DPr4VjeCgeiLoMo

[gaunt ice]

Dude named Amherst believes in natural selection and literally coded a virus,put it on dollar bills and spread it in Black Friday

Thing goes to shit and the government activates the orange circle guys

Basically sleeper agents with state of the art technology,created to restore order and protect the country

Bad guys consist of criminals,normal people who go insane or literal fascists

[cold bramble]

And Castillo

[gaunt ice]

Later on we found out that the bad guys in div2 are just baby stuff,the big bad ones are the black tusk

Apparently they work for the RUSSIANS,THE EVIL COMMIES(this sounds like some sort of Cold War stuff,ikr?)

Anyways we cut through them like paper

And then comes this Yankee who seems to be pulling the strings BEHIND the Russians

Which brings us to today,season 9

[river apex]

No matter how ridiculous it sounded a day or two ago, || I'm still sticking to my theory that the hunters are based underneath DC like an evil lair of sorts ||

[shell yarrow]

the division world illuminati

[river apex]

[sick lantern]

bruh Survival?

[gaunt ice]

They would be tbh

Where do they even come from

Do they vibe under a bunker until an agent solves the puzzle and go up there?

Sorry guys,gotta go bust this agent’s ass,brb

he never returned

[sick lantern]

smoke grenades are actually teleportation devices

[river apex]

It's kinda like in Assassin's Creed when you have to solve puzzles then you get a piece of Eden

But this time, the hunters are waiting for you to solve a measly puzzle, then BAM. You get wiped.

[gaunt ice]

They’re ninjas

Also sarge Daniels’s whole thing is that she tortures people?

Lame

Castillo was better

[sick lantern]

they’re assassins \o/

[river apex]

I think it's implied, but maybe she's grade-A psychopath in the first place. Did you see her roaming with that big ass rocket launcher?

[gaunt ice]

that's like every true son rocket unit

[tepid ibex]

Why, the Last Man Battalion! The PMC that got sent to Manhattan by rich folk to safeguard Wall Street! And spice addict can hate on em all he wants but Bliss (their leader) was spitting facts when he said "people are scared and angry and that's when they'll act stupid and risk the lives of others." Despite their methods, their intentions of restoring the city were still better than anything the other factions had going (except Cleaners maybe). And which faction is the worst is up to you.

[gaunt ice]

I mean

They do provide law and order in a way

If you just follow them and don’t screw up you’ll be just fine

It’s just that fascism isn’t the way

[mint citrus]

I think I agree with Bardon for once

What the fuck is going on

[river apex]

Gotta love the tone of his voice at that moment, he was genuinely confused like everyone else 😂

|| Do you reckon Faye had something to do with it and is just feigning ignorance to cover her tracks? 🤔 ||

[untold blaze]

yeah probably

[sleek plover]

so the propaganda war begins...

[gaunt ice]

something something Homeland Security is behind this

[sick lantern]

insert spider-man pointing meme here

[mint citrus]

Division fighting Division

Wait don't we technically work for Homeland Security

[river apex]

Yeah, I thought they were part of DHS

the thick plottens

[cold bramble]

They dumped the nuance budget on my boy Castillo

[magic meteor]

Yeah like every single bad guy in a game ever

[mint citrus]

She wanted to use Enhanced Interrogation Techniques on prisoners to find out about the Hunters

Or something

[ashen jungle]

Judging by the order of the comms, I'm pretty sure that was about non-Hunter stuff.

[torpid pond]

Iron horse foundry takes place at the pentco power co place??

[sick lantern]

I think a combined nuclear power plant and molten ironworks would be a severe safety hazard

[river apex]

I think an unstable nuke plant and anything else is kind of a no-no 😂

[ashen jungle]

I don't think that they intended to say they're literally the same map, more-so that they share the same company name.
Which would make sense, since companies often do own/operate in more than one location.

[magic meteor]

Probably just same company

[sleek plover]

SHD and DHS.
FOX and XOF.

omg its metal gear solid all over again

Such a lust for revenge! whooooo!!!!

[ashen jungle]

Strategic Homeland Division
Department of Homeland Security.
letters exist, it's true.

[cursive tapir]

We cant post links here can we?

[cursive tapir]

She seems like one those "budding serial killers who tortured animals as a kid" who ended up in the service instead of a padded room

Some lore spewage here:

||Hunters are probably the super special covert ops that the Illuminati (or whatever you wanna call the BTSU's employers, same guys who let Amherst release the virus, killed the President, killed Parnell Sr., etc) have been using before they were ready for a big show of force/for more scalpel/surgical ops. ||||Given that Charles McManus is the Secretary of Defense, and he seems to be able to tell the Hunters what to do, and we know that someone in the US govt blocked the NSA from stopping Amherst...||

I'd love to have some cool scifi shit with them like having them be cybernetically enhanced or supersoldiers or brainwashed or something (or as someone else said, an underground base in DC). I really think something's wrong with these guys, ||Schaeffer seemed really freaked out by them||

My guess is that, given Countdown is set a nuclear plant, "the button" Ellis didn't want to push is probably something dumb like nuking America

However, maybe we'll get lucky and it'll be something smart, like hacking ISAC (which maybe the President could do given that in theory the Division answers to him)

Wait

What if the button activates subconscious mental programming in Division agents and turns them into Hunters?

Would be dumb but also fun

Anyone know what the deal is with that building NYC that has just a giant cloud of drones around it?

[unreal widget]

@cursive tapir Could you please put that in spoiler tags, so it won't be spoiled for those who haven't turned in the second key yet?

[cursive tapir]

Ahh, sorry! Will do

[river apex]

What if the button activates a subconscious mental programming in Division agents and turns them into Hunters?
That would be pretty crazy, probably plausible.

I thought a potential SHD agent had to be healthy in many ways, including a strong immune system and a solid mentality. ||They're supposed to resist "enhanced interrogation techniques," but breaking an agent may be possible now that I'm thinking about it, kinda like that gist in the Bourne franchise.||

It would seem really messed up to have SHD agents turn, kill their own colleagues, and take their watches as trophies. I'd like to think the Hunters have completely nothing to do with SHD... ||like confidentiality over top secret kind of black ops group funded by none other than the CIA...or something.|| But hey, anything is possible.

[gaunt ice]

now Ellis did mention the no no button on the suitcase,he realises that "shit,i can't hand it to them" and did one good thing in his entire miserable life,that is to not give them that and die

also the reveal that ||McManus is Secretary of Defense makes this whole thing sound like a plot to not overthrow the government but to rather to have someone new to run the country or some shit,like the whole tinfoil hat theory about how the CIA game ended JFK because he was too soft in the war against the commies(again,just a theory,i don't have an opinion on it)||

[cursive tapir]

Oooh did he specifically say the button is on the briefcase?

Because IIRC, BTSU still has the briefcase with the antivirals

Which I think only he can open or something?

Oh it's got to be to do with that

[gaunt ice]

Nah I meant the briefcase that has the nukes

In one of Ellis’s notes he said that Natalia wanted access to it

And only he,the appointed POTUS can unlock it

[cursive tapir]

Oh damn, I must've missed that

[sick lantern]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football

[river apex]

Agent Kelpo is crazy about those antivirals.

||Are they actually in DC?||

[patent narwhal]

there's at least 3 BSAVs in DC pretty sure

[cursive tapir]

Didn’t Ellis hand them over to BTSU?

I don’t think we’ve seen them since then, hence why we haven’t done anything with the bioreactor

[patent narwhal]

Ellis did do that yes but we capture 2 of them from warhounds carrying them at tidal basin along with 1 from Wyvern

[gaunt ice]

we robbed all of them back in tidal basin

[cursive tapir]

Oh yes!!

(In that case, have we been doing… anything with the bioreactor?)

[gaunt ice]

in which we literally launch a frontal assault on the base of the black tusk,with like 1-4 agents and a helo lol

[gaunt ice]

the lore says that the bioreactor is used to replicate the BSAV but it's just sitting there in the white house

[cursive tapir]

Hey that’s why Division agents are the best

[gaunt ice]

also we rescued the Vitaly dude so that he helps us with the reproduction of the BSAV

all in a day's work

[cursive tapir]

We’re like if John Wick took a bunch of community outreach and leadership skills courses

[cursive tapir]

Yeah that too! Like, it seems to me that we have everything we need to make a cure/vaccine and we’re just sitting on it

I guess we don’t really have the infrastructure to properly distribute it nationwide but we should at least be innoculating people in DC/NY

[gaunt ice]

one thing i don't like about div2 is probably the power fantasy lore wise

sure i love feeling all powerful,but in div1 it feels more of a team effort

in div2 you just charge right into the fight and kick everyone's ass

like,you occasionally see JTF patrols,holding checkpoints,being pinned down,even involved in the mission

JTF scouts that give us an overview of the area,technicians that do the tech stuff,even direct support in missions

div2 is like "yea just fucking kill 200 dudes"

the most involved they have ever been in the story in div2 was when that one dude banzai right into the helicarrier,smoke cover in capitol and maybe some light exfil work

DUA has like at least 100+ hyenas,all criminals.
True Sons are literally ex US army,the most well funded and trained army in the world

[cursive tapir]

Yeah that’s really true. Ironically Div2 has all the settlement building stuff but the only time “civilians” really show up is the occasional patrol and then the mortar team during the assault on the Capitol Building

I can suspend my disbelief of one Division agent killing their way through scores of bad guys because 1) Division agents are basically meant to be super-soldiers in universe and 2) most of the villains in the Division universe are untrained ex-civilians who have taken up arms. For me the thing that kinda gets old fast, which ties directly into the power fantasy thing you mentioned, is the constant praise from NPCs. It really feels like the game wants you to feel like a messiah sometimes. Everyone’s always thanking you and singing your praises. Which curiously is a problem I think most Ubisoft games have

It’s interesting that the cutscenes aren’t pre-rendered because they need to have a custom character, but even if you’re in a group you’re always alone in the cutscenes

[cursive tapir]

Eh most true sons are ex cops and national guard volunteers who never saw actual deployment tho (and alt right basement dwellers, even if Ubi is too scared to say it outright). The gunners and heavies are the only actual veterans amongst their ranks I’m pretty sure

[gaunt ice]

still,we MOWED them down like dogs

plus it's their HQ,all of the elite ones are meant to be there

the power fantasy works more in games like Destiny because it's pure fiction,plus you're space wizards

in division it just doesn't click that way

in div1,it makes sense for us to easily crush the Rioters and Cleaners because they're all untrained civilians gone evil.
a lot of Riker missions are harder but still convincing given the enemy density,plus Lexington has a strike team covering you.
all LMB missions are very challenging,the only easy one is probably police academy because they weren't expecting us

even the UN HQ siege,you have JTF teams moving in from the entrance,drawing fire away from us and actually being competent,participating in the final fight against Bliss

you feel like a specialists in a team,unlike in div2 you feel like Robocop

one thing i like in season 9 that's not necessarily related to the lore is how the mobs,at least the ones in the manhunt bounties are much harder,gives you a sense that they're a threat

[cursive tapir]

Yeah the new manhunt missions are hard! I actually had to matchmake to get help taking down Castillo.

These are all very valid points, especially the enemy difficulty stuff. I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that in DIV1 the factions have different levels of AI intelligence to reflect their training, whereas in Div2 all the enemies use a dumbed down version of the Hunter AI.

You’re also absolutely right that having more involvement from the settlements would add to the feeling of you actually taking back the city and helping people rather than being this unstoppable one-man murder party. More of a leader as opposed to a lone wolf, which is exactly what Division agents are supposed to be.

For me personally the actual logistics of the combat (how can one agent take down hundreds of dudes) doesn’t suspend my disbelief too much because I view what happens in the game to be more an abstraction as to what actually happened in-universe.

Like in-universe, I don’t think Division agents are running around with 8 grenades, two longarms, five SAPI plates, and infinite seeker mines. They probably have one longarm with a few mags, maybe a one-shot skill gadget or two, a couple ‘nades and a spare plate.

And by the same token, I don’t think that there are really that many members of each faction. I think we see way more True Sons, Outcasts, Cleaners etc in game than actually exist in the lore. I can’t imagine the Cleaner membership rising higher than a few dozen because their philosophy is just so weird. Maybe close to a hundred people if you’re being optimistic.

So I think the Capitol building would have at most a few dozen true sons in it. Like, there aren’t enough people after the virus to sustain the membership we see in the game. In the game there are patrols of bad guys on every street. In-universe I imagine that the factions have limited manpower and really need to pick and choose where they apply their influence

I would love to someday see a more narrative Last-of-Us style game in the Division universe where you really have to scrounge around for shit like skill gadgets and ammo for your drones and such

[gaunt ice]

still,even if we put it down like that,no one just crushes 100 troopers in a single op,solo

[gaunt ice]

the AI take is weird because i actually think the AI is great in div2

in div1 they're just bullet sponges because of the engine limitation

in div2 each faction has their own combat style,hyenas being more reckless,true sons and black tusk having military training and utilise tactics

[cursive tapir]

Oh it is. What I mean is that you don’t have the tiers of competence you say in Div1.

Like in Div1 the LMB were the only ones who really knew how to flank you and use suppression. Whereas in Div2 everyone can do that

I totally agree the AI And enemy variety is miles better in Div2

It’s just that everyone is a lot smarter in it (which is a good thing)

[gaunt ice]

it really puts you out of the immersion because of how OP you are if you stop for a sec and think 'bout it

[cursive tapir]

Also I just realized your PFP isn’t standard Knuckles and I love it

[gaunt ice]

its Krackles baby

Knuckles on cracks

[gaunt ice]

you can have a power fantasy and a grounded setting at the same time.
example:Manning Zoo,both the Outcast version and the Black Tusk version

[cursive tapir]

I think for me I can stomach the OPness of the agents because there’s so much other “gamey” stuff that it doesn’t stick out to me as much. Like having five armor kits and carrying twenty guns in my backpack, I just handwave it as video game logic

That being said, the weird part is that mechanically the Division feels very videogamey, but the setting is very realistic, unlike something like a Borderlands. So maybe that’s why the contrast sticks out more

Although I’m interested to hear your take on Manning Zoo now because you also brought up the grounded setting angle so clearly great minds think alike

[gaunt ice]

in the Outcast version you encounter light resistance at first,then they have more men but became way more disorganised because we cut their comms,making it easier to hit them.and since the final fight was Emeline and her loyalists,and they're practically insane,you as a specialist easily claps them too

and the Black Tusk version also does the same thing,these teams are obviously very well trained but they're not working together,they're trying to outdo the other team for the BTSU promotion,which then makes them less effective.
imagine if they lure the agent towards the croc pit and then nuke the place with mortars,or the EMP team setting up in more places to overall weaken the agent instead of that crank ass garden.

all could've been achieved with team effort but nah they want that promotion

you are very obviously facing an objectively stronger and larger force,but there's a reason for them to be so...bad when you fight them

there's a lot of examples as to how you can feel OP and still feel immersive at the same time in div2,it's just not very common and gives you the superhuman feeling

another example is the mission where you snatch Vitaly,it had buildups about how you mow them down so easily.
entrance>they try to kill you>fail because of the light response>decides "fuck it lets nuke the agent">we rob them of their mortars>nuke them back>makes them panic and reduce overall morale>Sumner's cockiness too

plus you have air support as in the UAV which makes you more prepared against them

i feel like the main campaign in div2 has this problem with being too OP,then the latter missions try to make it feel more grounded but still falls victim to the same problem

of course not all missions are fixed that way,just look at how we fucking retake the Pentagon

you don't just RETAKE the Pentagon

going to the Pentagon should feel like you're playing a looter shooter version of Dark Souls,not a walk in the park

the black tusk losing to a single agent is the equivalent of a SWAT department getting crushed by a drug addict with guns

sorry i was just a bit heated into that

[sick lantern]

they should’ve sent sam fisher smh

[gaunt ice]

or that

[river apex]

Y'all talkin about the Pentagon and DARPA takeovers, but what about that ||not-so-climactic final fight against Keener?||

[gaunt ice]

Sam would've just snap all their necks

[gaunt ice]

oh that.
it's a pretty convincing 1v1.lore wise,fuck that fight

his "legacy" is just some chem that's not even used since season 2

90% of rogue encounters are a meme

[river apex]

That fight was so flat for me, I'm sorry.

Even Wyvern's was more exciting tbh

[gaunt ice]

Wyvern was cheesy and cringe but like,at least it had something

also i like that part when she walks out,talks about how much of a hero we are and realise "shit,i havent prepare for a bad guy speech"

[gaunt ice]

also saying "flat" is actually giving it more credit than it deserves

Keener died for nothing lol

BUT LE RED GAZ

[sick lantern]

noooo you don’t understand he activated the rogue network!!! to accomplish... uh something in the future maybe

[gaunt ice]

AND HORNET

[river apex]

Yeah it was an attempt to lure people in, I suppose. The whole thing about activating a rogue cell/network

[gaunt ice]

AND HEALING TRAPS

[river apex]

Or maybe ||there's an argument that the storyline has ended after Faye's manhunt, and Season 9 is simply building up to something new like how Hunters came about 🤔 ||

[gaunt ice]

has like 10 people as of now

[gaunt ice]

i'd take that tbh

also it's not even spoilers at this point

i can't care less about the story now

if Romulus is here he would've been malding about how crappy WoNY handled Keener more than me

[sick lantern]

this shit with Hunters being DHS gubberment conspiracehhhh!!! might’ve been better if it had happened like over a year ago
the story’s been skirting around the edges of “government conspiracy, you can’t trust the SHD!!” for so long

“i can’t believe it’s finally happening”- faye lau xd

[gaunt ice]

i'd imagine the Division being handled somewhat like world war z narrative wise,where it's just stories about the effort around the country to restore America

that'd be better than government conspiracies

but government conspiracy is a Tom Clancy thing iirc?

[river apex]

Well, to be fair, it can be spoilers to those who have yet to finish WONY so I'll give em the benefit.
Although I think things from here on out are now heading into heavy speculation, especially about the hunters and illuminati and governments, the whole smash.
That said, not much of a spoiler, maybe

[gaunt ice]

im kinda sick of the whole the puppetmaster thing that's been playing around here.
at first it's "black tusk are behind everything" then "THE RUSSIANS are behind the black tusk" and now "HOMELAND SECURITY IS BEHIND THIS"

[river apex]

And while I think getting Sam Fisher and the Fourth Echelon involved would be great, I don't think they could do much in a place with a ruined government structure

[sick lantern]

it could be worse, it could be involved with the morovian society :p
i’m so glad they didn’t go that deep into silly “deep state conspiracy” nonsense (like payday 2 for example)

[gaunt ice]

it's pretty funny how they put Sam in every Tom Clancy game except the Division

[river apex]

I thought the Mongoose outfit was a nod to Splinter Cell

At least it reminds me of what Spies and Mercs would wear

[sick lantern]

there is a splinter cell outfit in div 1

and sam’s goggles in the BoO at Lau’s desk

[gaunt ice]

there's a goggle somewhere in Coney park

[river apex]

Can you imagine when you equip the NVGs or Mongoose goggles, your view toggles into night vision mode while ADS'ing?

[sick lantern]

Ubi treats Div like the intellectual youngest child who’s quiet and left alone with books while the big boy Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell all play football or something

Splinter Cell got acknowledged in Far Cry before The Division

[gaunt ice]

you could almost say the Division is such a far cry from the Tom Clancy games

[sick lantern]

:(

[gaunt ice]

ironically it is the closest to original TC stuff about political crap and all

[river apex]

It's unlikely, I think, to have that kind of recognition for SC in TD2 unless we're referring to various easter eggs and such

[gaunt ice]

Rainbow 6 is basically a hero shooter,Ghost Recon is....LMAO DONT EVEN MAKE ME TALK 'BOUT IT

splinter cell has been dead for years,having cameos everywhere

[sick lantern]

remake’s coming let’s hope it’s good

[gaunt ice]

i beg to differ

though i've been shitting a lot about div2,lets talk some good

the world building is really neat

[sick lantern]

Ironic: Siege’s Hereford Base was a reference to the original Jack Ryan novel, and they reworked it to be nothing like it

[gaunt ice]

if you look past the tedious hunt for collectibles it's really sets the tone

[sick lantern]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

ok i’m insane and just removed my message to say “¯_(ツ)_/¯”

gj me

[gaunt ice]

epic gamer momento

[river apex]

Something great about Div2? The soundtrack is underrated AF.

[gaunt ice]

Pentagon rooftop fight 💯

[river apex]

You can shit on the game design and AI, etc. but that soundtrack is immaculate

[sick lantern]

the soundtrack is pretty cool

[gaunt ice]

Dragov and Kajika's boss theme

[river apex]

Dragov's theme and the NYSE are just world class bangers

[ashen jungle]

I may or may not have put several of the div2 tracks into pd2 recently.
And yes, they fit.

[river apex]

Totally worth it

[sick lantern]

I think Ubisoft nails the soundtrack in most every game

[gaunt ice]

"its just a mad dude with a machete,the soundtrack can be mid"
the soundtrack:https://youtu.be/OSywKJ3DGqA

[sick lantern]

“we need a soundtrack for our grindy looter shooter game”
Ola Strandh: 🔥🎹

[river apex]

Yeah, I'd say so. The SC trilogy had some remarkable tracks too. Div1 certainly rose up to the hype with sound design in general, especially for Survival

[gaunt ice]

Precinct Siege still slaps hard

[sick lantern]

in l4d2 i replaced the credits music with We Are The Division

Extraction successful. Your mission is now complete. kickass

[river apex]

We could start a meme where The Division music goes great with anything

me walking down the street
countdown ost intensifies

[gaunt ice]

me vs the vending machine refusing to drop the soda can out after i paid for it
pentagon theme

[river apex]

me stepping on a lego brick
dragov's theme blasts off

[cursive tapir]

This is great! I love this interpretation

[gaunt ice]

you know,looking back div1 has a decent narrative

ok-ish villains and a convincing theme overall

[cursive tapir]

I legit got a little watery when I played WONY for the first time and heard the Precinct Siege remix. It’s so good

[gaunt ice]

they destroyed my max out BoO,can't have shit in new york

[cursive tapir]

I mean we’ve always known from the start that BTSU we’re just thugs working for a secret cabal of powerful people. I’m just glad the real big bads of the series are getting some attention

[cursive tapir]

Oh I’m pretty sure it is…

[gaunt ice]

yea but it's just overused and feels like a cheap plot device now

[sick lantern]

that reminds me
i replayed div 1 recently, and the recovered audio of keener talking about what he plans to do with tchernenko and amherst’s research- he says “having the resources to make a cure doesn’t hurt either” 🤔

[gaunt ice]

"ohh turns out there's a bigger baddie"

[cursive tapir]

I wanna talk a bit about Keener

I think that what the writers intended for Keener to be was this genius mastermind pulling everyone’s strings

But the actual character evidence that they’ve given us shows that he’s just an douchey conman who has tricked everyone else into thinking that he’s a genius mastermind

And that’s really fascinating to me

[gaunt ice]

dude can just turn out to be an actual warlord,speading the virus even more and selling the cure to gain power

[cursive tapir]

Like what we know about Keener is that even before joining the Division he was a smug prick who viewed everyone else as sheeple

[sick lantern]

nah that’s too smart, kill em all instead

[cursive tapir]

But in a way I think Keener works really well as the antithesis of what a Division agent is supposed to be

[gaunt ice]

he's a crybaby who shits himself when shit goes south

then goes smart immediately,playing 4d chess

[cursive tapir]

Yes!! Exactly! Literally every action he performs in the game and in his own backstory is him throwing a temper tantrum to not getting his way

And I love that. I love that he’s a pathetic loser who has just conned everyone else into thinking he has this big master plan

[sick lantern]

“a futures trader before the crisis, Keener always views himself as the smartest man in the room”
“developed a reputation as a bit of a FOBBIT”

[river apex]

Was Keener the first one, or was there someone else before him? Please ELI5.

[gaunt ice]

still,he had his reasons,you know being betrayed and all

he's a crybaby,but a smart ass one too

[cursive tapir]

I don’t think he was betrayed. I think he saw a chance to play hero that he couldn’t realistically win, threw himself in because he assumed the JTF would come bail him out, and then lost his shit when they didn’t

[gaunt ice]

he doesn't go on a rampage to get what he want,he plays 4d chess to get it

at least the div1 Keener does

WoNY really ruined him for me

[sick lantern]

I never thought of it that way

and shit, the ECHO where he loses the people is in the bottom right of the map, the opposite side to the BoO and deep AF in Rikers territory
Overconfidence is an insidious killer...

[cursive tapir]

True. I think what’s great about Keener as a villain is that he has all the skills of a Division agent - masterful combatant, charismatic, great at bringing people together and getting the best out of them - but he has no vision. He has all the skill but he’s too selfish to apply it properly. “You let the worker bees think about the big picture, they stop working.” Ironically, everything that Keener’s rogues achieved on their own far outclasses what he managed to do. The Rikers and Cleaners are back up and running, and the rogues now have ANNA to facilitate communications between themselves. None of that was Keener’s doing - it was other people that Keener tricked into thinking they were helping him build something greater. And in the end, he knew that in order to protect himself from the Division, he needed a narrative to string all these much more competent people along and keep them in his palm, so he constructed this persona for himself of “I know what I’m doing, just trust me, I’m a genius.” But in the end the best he could come up was just blowing up New York again

[cursive tapir]

Yeah he was the first rogue

Basically he went in to save a bunch of civvies from Rikers, it went south, he called the JTF for help and they were like “Nah we can’t reach you, spread too thin and you’re in too deep,” so he high tailed it out of there and everyone died. He went rogue afterwards

[river apex]

Yeah I certainly remember that recording

[cursive tapir]

Like, if you reinterpret Keener instead of “a character the writers had no plan for” to be “a guy who has no idea what the fuck he’s doing but desperately needs to convince everyone that he does so that they don’t kill him”, then he works really well as a villain IMO

[cursive tapir]

I think the problem with this is that Division 2’s base game was criticized for being too vague about what the hell “rebuilding America” actually means

Because the concept of what America is and what it should be is obviously a very political one and Ubisoft doesn’t want to touch that if it can avoid it

So instead of actual stories about “what was wrong with the old world, and how do we build a new world that’s better”, we just get “The bad guys have food and water, go get it”

At least with the government conspiracy plot there’s something to sink your teeth into rather than vague postulations about America and freedom and tyranny

Like, what do the True Sons actually believe? What’s their ideology? They have the trappings of far-right militia movements but also they’re very gender-balanced and ethnically diverse, so like…what’s their deal?

[gaunt ice]

REBUILD AMERICA

[river apex]

In Keener's perspective, maybe he was trying to be the hero in a world that needs one. He probably was trying to right a wrong. In this case, it was the injustice by the JTF that left him and his group for dead. Somehow, he survives and essentially builds a group that shares his cause.

Stripping everything down to its bareness, this world really is terrible with finger pointing and drama everywhere. It's an eternal struggle for power, and I kinda like it plot-wise.

[cursive tapir]

😂

[gaunt ice]

he wanted to be a hero in his story, because everyone does.

[cursive tapir]

Definitely! I agree that’s probably how Keener sees it in his mind. Whether or not he’s right or wrong is a matter of opinion based on how one interprets the evidence we’re given

[sick lantern]

spec ops: the division

[cursive tapir]

Do you feel like a hero yet?

[gaunt ice]

man the willie pete scene still hits hard

[sick lantern]

I did what I had to do.

[cursive tapir]

Oh yes of course General Ridgeway, my mistake, sir. Won’t happen again

[river apex]

On a side note, Ridgeway's VA's voice is very therapeutic.

Amazing ASMR

[cursive tapir]

Oh he’s got a lovely Southinn drawwwl

A lot of the characters have great voices

I remember playing Horizon Zero Dawn and being like “Keener?? Is that you??”

[gaunt ice]

also the lines can either be great or just super cheesy

the infamous "so?fucking kill them"

[cursive tapir]

That line is great but the delivery is totally wrong

[river apex]

"Keep your eyes open. It might be nothing but it might be something."
"iS tHaT sUpPoSeD tO bE hElPfUl, eArL?!"

[cursive tapir]

Wish I could post a link to that version of the women pointing at cat meme that someone made of Coyote

[gaunt ice]

another world building aspect i think is overlooked is the idle animations of enemies

sometimes they even have dialogues

like sometimes a true son would do push ups

you can rarely see a black tusk tech unit trying to bond with the robot dog

[cold bramble]

I remember NPCs playing on the arcade in Coney Island's second mission for like a fifth of a second before they started kinda fucking dying

[gaunt ice]

sometimes a black tusk patrol would have a change of heart and point civvies to safety

[river apex]

Can you imagine BT NPCs talking about their lives before the shit hit the fan?
That would truly make them feel human again.

[cursive tapir]

There’s a great bit of foreshadowing in the Bank Vault mission

If you enter the room where they’re holding Ellis and just watch him, he seems to just be chatting amicably with the Hyenas before he grabs one of their guns and wrestles it away from them

Presumably because he’s realized you’re there watching

[gaunt ice]

also the rikers just shitting themselves over a hunter

[cursive tapir]

There’s the one with the Cleaners setting one of their own dudes on fire because he sneezed

“Sorry, you know the rules”

[gaunt ice]

hot take:LMB is more threatening than Black Tusk

because they actually fight like pros

while Black Tusk feels like True Sons with better logistics

[cursive tapir]

The LMB are the perfect injection of cynicism into the Division for me

Like, the most well equipped and best trained faction in TD1 are the guys who are just there because Wall Street paid them to guard their stuff from looters

[gaunt ice]

i adore them from a combat perspective since Police Academy

when they breach the door and using flashbangs

they're not there to fuck around,they're there to get the job done

[cursive tapir]

(If I had my way, the story of the Division 1 would be that the Division gets activated but, rather than actually helping people, they’re put to work doing the job of the LMB because that’s what the corporate lobbies and super PACs want. And in the end you end up going rogue and doing the stuff that the Division agents should be doing

But I’m also a nasty cynic which can be very exhausting at times so that story could probably suck if poorly executed)

[cursive tapir]

The rushers….

Dear God, the rushers…

[gaunt ice]

LMB gold rusher>hunter

[cursive tapir]

Ooh fun fact, someone close to me worked for the project management firm that built the UN headquarters in NYC, and I remember he showed me around once told me how everything had to be specially architected so that diplomats couldn’t be sniped through windows and such

[ashen jungle]

petition to replace the rusher with the guy who makes his own sound effects.

[gaunt ice]

wait what sound effect guy?

[ashen jungle]

Michael Winslow.
but yeah, I can't agree on LMB being "better" than BT in any significant way.

[gaunt ice]

it's more of a feeling thing

[ashen jungle]

I mean, for a start we see quite a lot less of them in action, comparted to BT.

Reverse their placements in div1+2 and you'd feel the opposite.

[gaunt ice]

like,maybe it's just me fighting too much Tusk by now

but the way LMB are portrayed

[ashen jungle]

portrayed, but close!

[gaunt ice]

thanks

anyway,breaching doors,flashing,shields,cqc...

and then when you come outside you see more of them,snipers and all

[ashen jungle]

LMB are cool because we see very little of them behind the scenes, it's the reason Boba Fett remained a fan-favourite for 30 years despite the coolest thing he did was die to a blind guy with a stick.

[gaunt ice]

to be fair it's a lighting stick

[cursive tapir]

This is probably very true

[tepid ibex]

Bruh that's what Im thinking too. i got back on the division one a few days ago and played some Challenging LMB missions and them dam mfs are rolling

Dam tryhards

[ashen jungle]

Div1 is a lot "tougher" in certain ways, compared to div2.
The buffs menu is the perfect example.

[cursive tapir]

I once spent a whole day soloing Legendary Russian Consulate

Absolute nightmare

[ashen jungle]

which I actually quite like, since it means div2 is more arcade, and thus better for long-term community engagement.

[gaunt ice]

i think it's more about the way they're presented

also they have custom uniforms too

[ashen jungle]

The lore with BT is actually very interesting, at least for me before the Sokolova stuff.
I still somewhat wish they had ended it before that.

[gaunt ice]

definitely

you realise not all Tusk are bad at one point

they did try to humanise the bad guys

[river apex]

Has there been a confirmed case of a BT defecting to SHD or something?

[ashen jungle]

It actually breaks one of the comms too, unsure if they ended up removing it or not though.

I'm 90% sure the answer is: huh, what? BT humanised?

[cursive tapir]

Don’t see why it couldn’t happen. In the novels they recruit new agents from the civilian settlements, so I figure it could happen. (I like to think that True Son we rescued from the prison mission joined one of the civilian militias or became an agent in training or something)

Which reminds me, I need to finished Recruited

[tepid ibex]

No videos of Bliss in action either. Except for his speech there's nothing showing his past or actions in the city. Unlike with Ridgeway where it shows him shooting a doctor point blank

[cursive tapir]

I’m a big 40K fan so I was very happy to see Thomas Parrott getting work after GW hung him out to dry

[ashen jungle]

Are the books worth looking into? I haven't read a tie-in videogame novel since Dragon Age, and those just were not good.

[river apex]

Yeah I remember that guy. He's probably needed to be heavily deprogrammed so he can properly and effectively serve in the local militia or at least in one of the major settlements. We don't need another mole here, unless you want a plot device

[gaunt ice]

and Bliss turns out to be more memorable than Ridgeway

[ashen jungle]

I used to read the old WH books like crazy.
unsure on the author though.

[sick lantern]

“it’s better to shoot someone innocent than to let someone guilty get away”- bliss
I’d say we see plenty of him

[cursive tapir]

I actually really like his dialogue in Recruited. It has a kind of jokey, quippy Marvel-esque feel to it, but never at the wrong times

[ashen jungle]

I see what happened there.
I meant "unsure on which author it was"

[cursive tapir]

Ah gotcha

He got in trouble because he called out some of 40k’s less-than-favorable fans on Twitter, and GW promptly dropped him

(Only to then issue similar statements themselves twice in the following year, but whatever)

[sick lantern]

sad

[ashen jungle]

No interest whatsoever in WH book drama.

It's on me for going along with it, let's get back to the Div EU

[cursive tapir]

I’m still not clear on why the LMB wanted to take over Manhattan or why they thought killing starving civvies was somehow necessary to do so

[sick lantern]

they wanted to restore order to the streets, and believed an iron fist was necessary

[ashen jungle]

Generic bad guy motive, nothing fancy.

[river apex]

It's literally just that one-dimensional, yet it left an unforgettable imprint in our minds

[ashen jungle]

If one of them says "in a world without rules" we legally all get to punch him in the face.

[patent narwhal]

starving civs is probably way easier for them than rationing supplies out to people

[cursive tapir]

Oh wow that reminds me

In the European version of the Factions trailer, the LMB talk about “an iron fist is the only solution”, and they cut that line from the American version for some reason

In the American one, they say “no one will stand in our way”

[river apex]

Quite a paradox, innit? In a world without rules, there are many rules to follow and breaking them can cost you your life

In the words of Keener, that's a real catch-22

[ashen jungle]

I just think it's a shame the Awesome Trailer Voice guy doesn't VA Bliss.

It's uncanny how similar the lines are sometimes.

[cursive tapir]

Man this is making me wanna boot up Div1 again

Thank god I have it installed

Also god that crow skull logo is fucken sick

[sick lantern]

I have some bad news for you

it ain’t a crow it’s a rat 😔

[cursive tapir]

Even better.

[tepid ibex]

Necessary for Ubi to make them evil

[tepid ibex]

Psshhh could just be an expression

[gaunt ice]

because we can't have the tacticool stuff

[tepid ibex]

I cut out the one on the LMB Fandom wiki (•‿•). PNGd it up

[tepid ibex]

Mmmm I thought it resembled a cow skull more than either

[sick lantern]

a c o w? 🐄

[tepid ibex]

Mmhmm

[sick lantern]

Large Meaty Beef

[sick lantern]

where did the JTF get all the suits for the TOC?

[floral gull]

The plot thickens indeed

[floral gull]

I’ve always been a sucker for espionage action thriller plot twists

[sleek plover]

Freedom IS a right, liberty IS a given.

[ashen jungle]

Okay Raegan, tone it down a little.

[sleek plover]

Thought of myself more of a Kropotkin, but oh well.

[cursive tapir]

Oooh, Im replaying the Detention Center classified mission and it's run by Major Anders!

[mint citrus]

I have

No idea what's even happening anymore

At first I thought it was just the Black Tusk doing PMC shenanigans, then I thought it was the Russians

And now it turns out it's freaking HOMELAND Security?

Holy shit Bardon got it in one

What the hell is happening

[ashen jungle]

I forget, who funded the SHD network again?

Either it was actually the Department of Homeland Security, or MSV are conflating the term "Homeland" with the DHS.
We live in confusing times.

[mint citrus]

DHS is the Department of Homeland Security

Who we technically work for

Maybe

[ashen jungle]

Exactly, it's up in the air.
We know the tech was developed by DARPA, but that's the extent so far.

[mint citrus]

My head kinda hurts trying to make sense of all this

[ashen jungle]

Welcome to a Tom Clancy plot.

[mint citrus]

It's a trip 'cause now I want to know what Faye found out

Things are getting absurd and I kinda love it

[ashen jungle]

if the div2 plot ever gets confusing, I just remember that our comms system is run by this and it makes it all a little funnier
https://thedivision.fandom.com/wiki/ISAC_Brick

[mint citrus]

I was kinda hoping we'd get ties in to actual conspiracies like Operation Northwoods

[ashen jungle]

Ya know, the idea of "Disruption" being a major status effect makes a lot more sense when you remember that we are literally wearing SHD tech in our eyes.

well "on" our eyes, but still.

[mint citrus]

Our contact lenses are getting blue-screened

[ashen jungle]

Imagine a mild electric shock directly to your eyeballs.
I don't think we give our Agent enough credit. https://thedivision.fandom.com/wiki/Contact_Lens

[mint citrus]

Windows needs to update but it's our Agents' brains instead

[ashen jungle]

My Agent is clearly running Vista.

[mint citrus]

I'd like to imagine that mine probably is aware of the shenanigans in Far Cry 5 at least

[ashen jungle]

Imagine getting spam on those.

[mint citrus]

Oh

Oh no

Wait wouldn't that mean they'd have to turn them off at some point

[gaunt ice]

Theoretically a hunter can hack your contact lens and rickroll us

[mint citrus]

How do they sleep

[ashen jungle]

Adverts for fake SHD Tech, fake body building guides to look like Sam Fisher, Keener just sends you terrabytes of Rick Valasi's show.

the terror that at any moment you could wake up to "Wouldn't you know it?"

[gaunt ice]

This gave me an interesting thought about how you can just blind someone by hacking it

[mint citrus]

Never gonna give you up playing on loop forever

[gaunt ice]

Permanently blind

[mint citrus]

Tbh Rick is kinda right about some things but terribly wrong about others

[ashen jungle]

If I were in a room with Rick, Keener, and Bliss and had 2 bullets, I'd shoot Rick twice.

I'm still not sure that Keener didn't really go Rogue after having to listen to loops of Rick for months.

[gaunt ice]

Rick is just your average tinfoil hat theorist

[ashen jungle]

I 100%'d the lore in div1. I hear his voice when I sleep, and I haven't played div1 in almost 3 years.

the one and only time I didn't hate him was when the devs gave him the joke about the weather machine.

[gaunt ice]

The terrifying thought that there’s a slim chance that before you die you will hear his voice again

[ashen jungle]

I've thought of that, and once the div franchise is retired, I'm burning my uPlay account.

[gaunt ice]

Also that ending in WoNY when he just stops being insane

It took saving the whole city to make him sane for a minute

[ashen jungle]

That went a long way to helping his character, but I still wanted to introduce him to Pusher.

[mint citrus]

Out of the manhunt targets I think I enjoyed Jupiter the most

[gaunt ice]

Feels better than Conley

[mint citrus]

What about her didn't you like?

[gaunt ice]

she wasn't very fleshed out i guess

[cursive tapir]

Hold on a sec
Major Anders, now in charge of the True Sons
Venus’s real name was Lucy Anders
Hmmmm

[mint citrus]

We're wiping out whole bloodlines now

[plain junco]

this is gonna give me nightmares about Rick now

[floral gull]

Lore wise, division agents probably killed about a few dozen of each faction’s personnel right? Else we would have wiped out everyone by now

[queen quarry]

i think only story difficulty is canon, other stuff and open world stuff (other than side missions) are not

also it doesnt make sense for one agent to single handedly save a city, i think the missions and stuff are actually being told through the eyes of multiple agents lorewise, but for the sake of gameplay we are the ones doing everything

[floral gull]

Question, would Isaac tell you to kill renegade agents even if they are non hostile to SHD?

[sick lantern]

I presume at least we would have a duty to apprehend them and/or reclaim their SHD tech

[gaunt ice]

Destiny moment

[floral gull]

Runnin out of people to kill

[round sinew]

Sergeant Daniels got what was coming to her.

[gaunt ice]

no shit

[round sinew]

I had sympathy for the last guy. She's just a sociopath.

[gaunt ice]

"advanced interrogation methods" is just fancy talk for "let me rip this guy out like a toy"

[round sinew]

At least we got good lore out of it

We know who McManus is, we have a good idea who Hunters are. We know Schaeffer is bae.

[gaunt ice]

McManus sounds like some espionage villain thing

[round sinew]

And Faye recorded all of it in case she got killed before she could unravel the whole conspiracy.

[gaunt ice]

like,is this something Tom Clancy would write?

[round sinew]

This segment of story, or D2 in general?

[gaunt ice]

this part

[round sinew]

Eh.

[gaunt ice]

also i like how they justify Faye's death and not make it sound like bullshit

[round sinew]

There's a few too many twists for Clancy.

[round sinew]

Yeah. They'd implied she had a reason for going rogue, I'm a little happy they're finally paying that off with why she did what she did.

Which was apparently going super deep cover to get Intel on this bullshit.

[gaunt ice]

True Sons feel like the background for this season lore wise

although this begs the question of how each of true son's head have access to a key for the audio