s2-lore-discussions

[radiant harness]

this seems like weird rationalizations from someone who clearly likes freedom to much without the foresight to think that not everything that is done for the games is done in terms of freedom

this is a very freedom centered overlook of the games

[frosty ridge]

Old Spark and new Spark are totally different factions, yes I know that

[frosty ridge]

The canon ending is about making the Zone free my stalker in monolith this is just textual

I am not going to continue arguing, I’ve better things to do

[timber forum]

Spark is not even spark it's more of copycat to the original group that never made it because of the ward. The whole ideology is totally different at this point as one used to be fully driven by science, and the new one fully diverted and set on sabotaging the ward and sircaa.

[radiant harness]

AT LEAST PARTIALLY ANARCHIST
like I said they arent absolutists, they and they are still quite militant on the access of the zone and they are still a force that policies the zone on matters they deem necessary, Spark arent a resemblance of tem, neither new nor old, new spark doesnt share any of Freedoms qualities as they are categorized as a fighting group made up only to stop ward, they are nothing more than that, they dont have any cohesive vision behind their zone aside from one without SIIRCA and Ward and as I said before Freedom can coexist with Ward and with SIIRCA as it did coexist with the Scientists as they are moderates

[radiant harness]

THERE IS NO CANNON ENDING YOU CANNOT BE VALIDATING ARGUMENTS ON THE VIBES YOU GOT

dude, they totally atre, why? the vibes brother, trust me, the vibes

I know youre mad they corrupted Freedom but you dont gotta go conspiratorial

[jagged hull]

i dont think that what we see in stalker 2 is a particularly illogical destination for duty or freedom. freedom has always been a fairly open faction, and their egalitarian ideals make it much more difficult to indoctrinate stalkers into their ideology, as opposed to a faction like duty, which has a chain of command and an expectation that members will behave like soldiers. as a result, i think it makes sense that in 10 years a lot of the more "radical" members of the faction just get overwhelmed by the flow of new members that mostly just want to have a sense of belonging and to make a living.

due to this i really dont think that this "gutting of freedom" is unfair, its just realistic. the zone has calmed down since CoP, monolith is mostly eradicated, travel between areas of the zone has become easier, there's not much left to explore and the faction wars have mostly stopped. its reasonable to expect that at this point most smaller factions such as duty and freedom would just stagnate

its still a shame that very little of this is explored in the game

[frosty ridge]

I agree, but, returning to my original point, Freedom hasn't just stagnated - they're stated to have betrayed their ideology. Average stalkers you can talk to will remark on how they've sold out. The beliefs of Lukash's Freedom are completely separate from modern Freedom, not so much stagnation as active degeneration. I agree it's realistic as a possibility of how they'd end up, I'm not disputing that, I do think Freedom would have stagnated regardless, my point was just that Freedom being hollowed out seems to me - outside the game world itself - to be a decision at least partially motivated by wanting to have a reason they're not participating in the main power struggle. We got one perfectly realistic way for the faction to develop, but there were also definitely other ways they could've gone and I think this one (with how severe it was) was chosen for a more meta reason. Like, Myklukha being a crypto-bro who turned the faction into a glorified trade hub is a decision the devs made, and I'm just pointing to why they might've made that decision. I think when we examine the plot as a whole having Freedom be this way is what justifies stuff like so many militant anti-Ward types needing a home (eventually coalescing into Scar's Spark)

I don't think the devs have it out for Freedom or anything, I just they had a story they wanted to tell and if Freedom weren't totally ideologically bankrupt it'd cause some issues. Like with the plots of SoC and CS and CoP the main story isn't actually very faction-focused. The factions like Duty and Freedom are dealing with their own stuff and aren't interested in the main plot. You'll have an enemy faction like the Monolith or Army and maybe an allied faction (in CS/CoP this would be Clear Sky and the Army) but the main plot is not really as politics heavy as we see in S2. The S2 plot is all about multiple factions in conflict, though, so to justify why Freedom aren't trying their own hand at things or teaming up with any of the major players they sorta had to go with a version of Freedom without convictions

[jagged hull]

i think this reduction of the role of freedom and duty is necessary to give more room to other factions

[frosty ridge]

I don't know about necessary but for the sake of development time yeah I agree overall

[jagged hull]

not just in the main story, in the canon as a whole

stalker 2 has mostly failed in generating interesting lore around some of the new factions that were introduced though which sucks

[frosty ridge]

I don't think it failed in lore, I think it just had different priorities. STALKER 1 (SoC/CS/CoP) factions were focused more on "Which side do you agree with" while STALKER 2 factions are largely about choosing lesser evils in a narrative. It's a subtle difference but that's why I think you see less people repping stuff like Spark or Ward. They don't really stand for anything but the powerful manipulators behind them

[ornate venture]

malaize has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[frosty ridge]

I think Noon were VERY amazing, it's a shame about the Signal I wish they confirmed some of them eventually woke up or didn't get hit with it

[jagged hull]

spark and ward are mostly fine but IPSF and the corps are the main ones i have issues with

[frosty ridge]

Really?

[jagged hull]

the way noontide is treated is also a bit poorly done. i really dont think that outsiders would have such a black and white view of the faction

corps has the potential to be a really interesting faction in future DLCs but as of now its essentially absent. theres basically nothing in the game about them

[mossy maple]

Cope harder, bcs you didn't get the good ending

[jagged hull]

IPSF is also underdeveloped in a similar way to the corps

[frosty ridge]

I agree I wish we saw a few more Noon-sympathetic stalkers but I do really like the writing of Noontide. From what we saw in CoP the Monolith were still fighting for years after SoC's plot, so we can understand if there is a predominantly "these guys suck" attitude amongst stalkers tho yeah it is overdone

IPSF is just Army, they were always underdeveloped

[jagged hull]

i like the way noontide works, the story around it good but it doesnt interface with the rest of the factions

[frosty ridge]

Corps though, yeah I definitely see that they got very little writing. It's a shame

[jagged hull]

the army at least was an active participant in the games before 2, IPSF is basically idle in stalker 2. which makes sense with the status quo of the game, but i think there was room for a bit more development

[frosty ridge]

Yeah I agree there. I think Noontide was an opportunity to show interesting interactions with Duty/Freedom and especially the Corps (who should be pro-Noontide, Deggy literally saved Strider, but they never interact)

[frosty ridge]

Yeah I think the issue is that the Army and Corps got split due to the change from Army to IPSF so both factions lost depth

[jagged hull]

whats interesting about corps, and i dont know if this is an oversight, but seemingly they have IPSF and mercenaries in their ranks. wouldve been interesting to see some ex-monolithians there as well, as a sign of the two factions having ties

[frosty ridge]

Corps isn't just Deg's squad of Army, it's its own faction because it's ukranian military and not IPSF

The whole IPSF change was minor but I think it negatively impacted the Corps in a big way

[jagged hull]

is it even ukrainian military? i got the impression that its an independent faction, maybe supported by the government in some way but definately not part of the ground forces

[frosty ridge]

Corps is Degtyarev's squad as a permanant observer in the Zone, so it's technically Army yes that is my understanding

[jagged hull]

IPSF is official for the lack of a better word but i dont get the impression that the corps is like that, especially since they have mercenaries and IPSF troops working alongside them

[frosty ridge]

Remember Deggy was always weird about helping everyone out

This is the guy who walked off the side of the road to help a group of ex-Monolith

Corps culture is very strange because Degtyarev is a strange man

I imagine it's sorta a Ukranian military squad left with Degtyarev and whoever he recruits to his side in protecting his hometown of Pripyat

It is very weird and underwritten tho I will say. We needed Corps to actually interact with other groups more

[jagged hull]

yeah thats what i am getting but i have a hard time calling it an extension of the military

[frosty ridge]

I mean we see them controlling the checkpoint at Yanov, so there is some military vibes

It could've used more in-depth writing, but largely to me it reads as a symptom of the devs removing Ukranian Military from the game and replacing them with IPSF, thus leading the most lore-relevant Ukranian Military squad to this weird limbo where it might be military but might be its own thing

[jagged hull]

it just needed more time in the focus. their involvement in the game starts at yaniv and ends in the palace of culture. thats a couple of hours at best

[frosty ridge]

I think they should've had some interactions with Noon and stuff

[jagged hull]

i think this goes for all of the factions in the game, they just dont interact enough. soc was great at showing how various factions interact, every part of the game helps reveal the faction dynamics that are present and stalker 2 just doesnt do that. it doesnt have to be politics either, just how people get along

[frosty ridge]

There's this corridor of factions which really need to interact more (Noon > Freedom > Corps) that leads up the whole map and they just never really talk and it sucks. I want to see how Freedom wrestle with trying to keep everyone in the faction happy (even those who hate Monolith) while also staying to their values and trying to establish relations with Noontide. I want to see Noontide and Corps interact (why arent they interacting. seriously. Deggy and Strider personally know one another)

[frosty ridge]

True

[jagged hull]

actually stalker 2 does do that but it stops after zalissya. that part of the game shows the attitude of stalkers towards ward very well

[frosty ridge]

Even just some flavor text like we got in SoC about the rumors Duty was helping the Ecologists

[left kite]

Agreed here. For example the character of Mute was very interesting. As he was a Noontider turned Sparker, and this could have shown some interesting interactions with how some former monolithians might view Scars whole shining zone belief. But this character has two mentions and one line of dialogue, and vanishes without a trace.

[frosty ridge]

Agreed

I wish we saw more ideological distinction within groups too. I want to see how the Sparkers loyal to Star's vision of fighting Ward felt about Scar's reveal of their MDST alliegances. I want to see how older members of Freedom feel about Myklukha. I want to see how some Dutyers like Ward and some see them and SIRCAA as more evil scientists.

At the moment everyone is isolated and sorta homogenized, it's sad

We got a little of this with Spirit and Spark but he was so separate from the rest of the group it wasn't as impactful

"I was a member of spark in the good old days before Scar took our name to create his weird MDST cell" yeah but what do the modern Sparkers think about the situation? I can't imagine everyone LOVES the Shining plan

[left kite]

Well, we do see some Sparkers who are really not sure about wtf Scar is talking about but follow him because they trust him as a person, intermixed with the more die hard believers.

I think with Freedom and Duty, we will to some extent get this with the upcoming stuff.

[frosty ridge]

Yeah I like the Spark ambient dialogues somewhat but I wish we had a little more interaction with that. There's this one Sparker - March - who mentions Scar went out with a squad and none of the others came back, and he's clearly kinda uncomfortable with how Scar is treating the rest of them. I want to see more of how that develops as Scar goes "oh yeah we work for the C-Con now"

I feel like a sizable portion of Spark really should've broken off or been killed night-of-the-long-knives style by the Shining Zone loyalists

[left kite]

Yeah I would have thought a quest where we get to purge the unbelievers would be cool lol.

Night of the long knives Spark quest would be dope.

[frosty ridge]

I'll be honest I think it could've been more interesting to see Duty and Freedom incorporated into Strelok and Kymanov's routes. I dislike how two of the most interesting endings have no faction behind them and are just "One guy has An Idea."

[left kite]

Do it Dutch style ala rdr2 where he brings some strange former monolithians around and you gotta pick sides. But that is just day dreaming at this point lol.

[frosty ridge]

that would be great

[frosty ridge]

Like Strelok's route uses a little of Freedom's language but to me it reads as very Duty-coded. He's talking about sealing the Zone off, keeping things as they were forever - it's an appeal to tradition and security I think at least a good part of Duty would find appealing. Meanwhile Kymanov's ending appeals to the most radical element of Freedom - the total freeing of the Zone

[jagged hull]

i think integrating any faction into the strelok ending is basically impossible with how the game paints him. he sees everyone as an enemy

[frosty ridge]

I don't think that's quite true. Strelok sees change as an enemy, but Duty in S2 are very set in "keep everything the same, fight the same battles, keep the war with Freedom going!"

[left kite]

What Malaise is talking about could still be accomplished I think by having it being a Squad of loyalists. Since in any ending, by the time you hit end game the faction you sided with is low on manpower.

Plus you first hear of Strelok as "he's putting a crew together" and then his "crew" is just you and Richter (semi reluctantly) and a few favors from Deggy.

[jagged hull]

i didnt mean it in the vague sense, he talks about not being able to trust or associate with anyone apart from hiring mercs ocassionally

[frosty ridge]

Strelok can work with others, he has a squad he sends out to Mirror VPC too

[jagged hull]

i mean hiring mercs anonymously is hardly working with someone lol

[frosty ridge]

I mean yeah, but I feel like it could be framed as him using Duty more than him being part of them

Like if there was some point in the plot he could be like "oh we need manpower" (maybe if the Red Fortress thing actually had you going into the fortress and the lab under it like had been planned originally) you could've worked with them or something

[left kite]

The only thing I wouldn't be sure about narratively is how to get some freedomers involved with Kaymanov. Since really almost no one actually talks to Kaymanov and he's sort of a myth figure. How would you get any of these hardcore old freedomer types involved in this story by the time you get to the point of making that choice. I think you'd end up having to rework things way earlier in the campaign.

[jagged hull]

i think this idea is more compatible with doctor's ending but with how spontaneous that whole plan is, i think it might not work logistically

in the end i dont think tying factions to the endings is necessary. its mostly all just smoke and mirrors, all of the endings are very clearly tied to individual people. the focus is on them, and not the factions behind them

x7 is the place where the 3 main characters actually get interrogated by the story properly. we find out more about them personally

[frosty ridge]

I guess, I just prefer being able to say "I support this faction!" but in S2 every major faction (bar Noon) sorta sucks

[jagged hull]

factions used to be stand-ins for characters, but now that the game has the ability to portray actual characters some of the utility of having factions is lost

[frosty ridge]

I don't think they didn't have the ability, I think they chose to do it like that

and I'm split because I love the character focus of S2, I adore the writing in the game, but I miss the faction writing of S1

[left kite]

Spark gang. But that aside. Since there's really no perfectly "good" ending to the game. I feel like adding in other factions to the "factionless" ending would end up also serving to muddy those factions. Kaymanov's goals are highly risky and dangerous to normal people and Strelok's ending is cruel to people inside the Zone. So even if Duty got added in for Strelok or Freedom for Kaymanov, it would still be hard for most people to fully say they committed to X faction.

[frosty ridge]

I am fully committed to Project Y

[left kite]

I'm fully committed to The Shining Zone. But we are outliers as players.

[frosty ridge]

Some small part of me wishes we got a faction for Kymanov like Omega in S2 2011 - they had basically the same goal as him (except they were led by Sakharov)

[jagged hull]

i really hope/cope that this can be fixed after the fact. very disappointing omission that limits the game a lot

[frosty ridge]

yeah

maybe the DLCs will be goated and we will get great factions

i'm on that secret experimental MDST-brand anomalous copium

[jagged hull]

i am split because the game desperately needs an expansion of the side content thats present in the main story but at the same time moving the actual main story requires not playing as skif

[frosty ridge]

I think the DLCs will be as skif

[jagged hull]

if i had to pick one of these approaches to DLC, id go for the second one

[jagged hull]

i think so too but i still have hope

[left kite]

My compium is i desperately want a prequel dlc where we play a noontider. But I think probably just based on how the narrative in s2 works all dlcs will be Skif.

[frosty ridge]

I believe I remember them mentioning somewhere the DLCs will be set at the same time as the main plot and you play as Skif

[frosty ridge]

God I'd love a Noon DLC I love Noon so much

[jagged hull]

thing is, only small details about the key questions around the lore can be answered by dlcs like this. theres a lot of interesting shit that can be explored in a prequel/sequel dlc but for the story to work skif cant know any of it

[frosty ridge]

I wouldn't say small details

[left kite]

I'd be a million percent in. Start it with some crazy escape from pripyat quest where you wake up from control and stalkers are trying to lynch you. Then later on picking between aligning with Faust or strider. Inject it into my veins immediately. But I think its cope lol

[frosty ridge]

You can do some pretty interesting stuff in an expansion

[frosty ridge]

my i-can-fix-him faust fantasy

[left kite]

More like he can fix you hahahaha.

[frosty ridge]

i believe in myself i can fix him he just needs a hug

[jagged hull]

i cant imagine seeing how MDST actually functions, or how project y was concocted

[frosty ridge]

https://tenor.com/view/stalker-2-stalker-scar-spark-meme-gif-6112129495284371231

[frosty ridge]

true, that stuff would be great to see

the details of project Y are still very fuzzy because like. it seems implied that Kymanov reprogrammed some of the agents to create the Generators outside the Zone using X-3, but. HOW? Did he just put a sign on the door that said "STRELOK INSIDE" and hide in a bush before slamming it shut after they all ran inside? how did he get multiple agents into X-3 to be re-brainwashed, or is there some remote transmission orders thing he used?

[jagged hull]

not everything needs to be answered but getting behind the scenes of the scheming that took place in HoC would be a very interesting direction. maybe a prequel that contains the events that sparked the creation of project y, something along those lines

[left kite]

Did any road map ever confirm number of DLCs?

[jagged hull]

no

[frosty ridge]

they mentioned 2 future expansions on the website with the edition levels (ultimate edition says "Season Pass, granting 2 additional expansions and any future DLC.")

but this conflicts with the fact many suspect we're getting iron forest somewhere down the line

and also certain details (i would never look at any sensitive material GSC moderators, no sir i'm a good and trustworthy stalker) indicate there were 3 expansions planned in development

[jagged hull]

i find it hard to believe that cnpp/iron forest will be exclusive to dlcs. adding those maps and some side quests as a free update would be a good way to bring back some of the lost trust in the developers

[frosty ridge]

yeah hopefully those are just an update

but even still 2 expansions means one of the three planned got cut probably

(and i mean. we have ingame mentions of limansk and cold island - scar mentions the latter in dialogue. so. we know which one it probably was)

[jagged hull]

they really just need to release a proper roadmap for the dlcs. people paid for that shit and theres basically 0 info on whats coming or when its coming

[frosty ridge]

rip sandy plateau. you will be missed my sweet. ive always wanted to see more of the deep north map

[frosty ridge]

oh you dont have to tell me lol guess who is a collectors edition pre order 🔫

OH BOY I LOVE 1 YEAR DELAYS!!

[jagged hull]

at this point i dont think we are ever seeing anything north of pripyat

[frosty ridge]

i will insist that Zaton was spatial-anomaly'd into the south until they directly confirm otherwise

i hate its location in S2 it makes no sense. ZATON IS IN THE NORTH!!! THEY SAY THIS IN COP!!! ITS BASED ON A REAL LOCATION IN THE NORTH!!

[junior widget]

Can somebody remind me what Cold Island is again?

[frosty ridge]

We officially have no idea. All we know is that Scar mentions it's a place that the Zone would somehow become "like" (he may be speaking metaphorically here) if SIRCAA had succeeded in taking control of the anomalous energy during the alpha artifact experiment

Anything else we might know would be very naughty of us because that would be sensitive material fans were not supposed to have access to.

But hypothetically one could guess that it could be an island potentially visitable in a future expansion located approximately north of SIRCAA in the cooling pond which is engulfed in perpetual winter.

A total hypothetical, obviously.

[junior widget]

Oh hell yeah, I’m down for some Snow

[frosty ridge]

I love winter settings I'm so hyped if it's actually gonna be snowy

[junior widget]

I’ll start chuckin snowballs at the monolithians

[frosty ridge]

You fool that's their natural environment their white camo finally blends in

Monolith are unbeatable in the snow

[junior widget]

But fr, I would love that. The artifacts too would be interesting

Ah damn you’re right, it finally has a purpose now

Though I will say, if we get Limansk, I wonder if the Merc’s will still have a strong presence there.

[spiral swan]

Maybe some noontiders survived on the island megacope

[frosty ridge]

the snow protected them from the signal. i believe. i believe 😭

[spiral swan]

I pray

God I wish there was something I could've done to keep noontide around

[frosty ridge]

secret ending where you personally hug and kiss every noontider and give faust a 4 hour straight therapy cutscene

[junior widget]

I got the dialogue option where strider screamed and cried😭

[frosty ridge]

same i just want to save SOME OF THEM

[fathom veldt]

it's where they researched noosphere, dalin, kaymanov others, There supposed to be a x6 lab where they produced first Alpha Artifact

[junior widget]

EVEN BETTER.

But wait

Who would we play as? Deggy?

[frosty ridge]

i think the DLCs are more skif

[junior widget]

Well, I know what ending is canon now.

[frosty ridge]

i dont think theyre post-canon

[spiral swan]

I'd go back in time and shoot faust in the mouth, I hate him so much

But strider man.. strider is the homie

[frosty ridge]

i believe theyre meant to take place during the game. a.la the dlcs in something like fallout

[spiral swan]

Yeah, it breaks my heart, my boys...

[frosty ridge]

i too want to crush faust's head but i also love him and he's my favorite S2 character and i can fix him. strider is great too, they're such doomed yaoi

[junior widget]

I want a DLC, admittedly. That follows Deggy post game.

Like, We know about scar, and Strelok but. Dude just, vanishes.

[spiral swan]

"I can fix him" is CRAZY

[frosty ridge]

LISTEN A MAJOR THEME OF STALKER 2 IS PEOPLE NEEDING TO CHANGE AND BECOME BETTER AND COMPASSION. IF I AM TRULY TO BELIEVE IN THE DREAM OF PROJECT Y I MUST PRACTICE IT. I CAN FIX HIM. HE JUST NEEDS. A LOT. OF THERAPY

[spiral swan]

FAUST NEEDS A MOSIN TO THE FOREHEAD, YOU CANNOT FIX HIM

[frosty ridge]

i may be looking into getting my sister who does metal/glassworking to make me a replica of his necklace. i am faust's biggest hater and his biggest fan. he's everything to me

[frosty ridge]

if i am to die let it be trying to fix Evil Men

[junior widget]

Man, you lot can enjoy shooting him, I’ll just toss bolts at his blind eyes until he’s got a concussion

[ornate venture]

packwolf445 has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[junior widget]

💀

[spiral swan]

I'm killing wolf

With my bare hands

[frosty ridge]

Ok so Faust theory does anyone else think we might not ever see the real Faust?

[junior widget]

Probably not..? I dunno, his arc confused me a lot

[frosty ridge]

To clarify I do think he dies on the Duga, but I think his body's appearance might be a psy-illusion

because every other controller is HORRIBLY MUTATED and he looks just. normal

and we know from the Mirror VPC facility logs that some psy-emitters produce illusions even after being turned off

[spiral swan]

LMAO if I am to die let it be with me trying to get strider to remember better times before he inevitably shoots me

[junior widget]

Well he’s just, ✨Unique✨

[spiral swan]

Tbh, I think he just actually looks how he does, and he's just, well, special. Which would be the case either way but yknow

[ornate venture]

malaize has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[frosty ridge]

I just feel it's weird that every controller is a horrible mutant but the most powerful one is a normal looking guy. I feel like we might be seeing some illusion image of how he looked before the experiments (or just how he wants us to see him) and his real body is something way more MESSED up :) thank you wolf.

[junior widget]

Insane

[spiral swan]

Lmfao

[junior widget]

It could be. I mean if he can literally duplicate himself, I don’t see why he wouldn’t be able to alter his appearance

[frosty ridge]

it would also explain how he takes so many bullets in his fight

if we're not fighting a human but rather something with much thicker skin due to mutation

[junior widget]

Surprise!! He’s just a Bipedal Chimera

[spiral swan]

I mean, I think that's just because if he didn't people would literally 2 tap him LMAO

Hell, if he was built like a controller most people would still just murder him super quick - but he also appears to not have some of the same abilities as normal controllers, he's like a whole different beast

[junior widget]

Oh so, me using skifs pistol to one-tap him Wasn’t canon or lore accurate?

[frosty ridge]

We do see notes in SoC discussing higher order controllers like The Illusionist, which, based on context clues (like being killed by Dutyers before the events of SoC, e.g. when Duty was around Agroprom) we can place approximately in the vacinity of the X-5. And The Illusionist is a genuine abomination, the descriptions of that thing in the Pathologist's Supper note are terrifying. I don't think Faust would've looked exactly like that (I think The Illusionist was a particular failure considering it was reduced to only feeding on the sleeping due to its awful proportions) but you see my point that stronger controllers looked like - genuinely monstrous to a degree we never fully see in the games

[junior widget]

We should see it, I want to genuinely see how monstrous they can look.

[frosty ridge]

true im sad we never see any illusionist types sculking around x5

the note did such a good job talking about it. s2 needed more original mutants

[junior widget]

I wonder, more grotesque? Or just, more inhuman?

[spiral swan]

I think Faust was just - the most successful. Still mostly just, a guy. Granted a guy that's practically a super hero level powerful, but yknow. I still want to shove a rpg up his bum no matter the truth

[frosty ridge]

"Anyway, at first glance it looked just like a human being, except the head was way out of proportion: huge and ribbed like a pumpkin. And the body? Man, straight from a concentration camp, skin and bones. But that's what he figured out afterwards. At first, he says, he only saw a lump of flesh all smeared with some orange-red muck, blood or something! ...My friend says it looked like something between a colander and a torn-up hot water bottle! and they obviously trampled it with their [poop]kickers. Not an object, but a damn piece of meat in black rags. So he worked his butt off the rest of the night and half of the morning. Turns out it was that very creature the locals had been calling the Illusionist: black rags, sending hallucinations onto stalkers, the head about a yard around. You know what's funny? What they thought was its face turned out to be the top of its head. No, it does have a face, but its tiny-winy: the winkers always shut and the nose the size of a pin, but the cake-hole as wide as a gate. Probably when it walked its head would always hang down, 'cause there's no strength to keep it up ' a snip... And get what these creatures eat for lunch. Mushrooms! [Dang] mushrooms! You've all seen 'em! The Zone's full of mushrooms, so the old-timers swear these creatures squeeze the juice out of them. Talk about [trashy] food! You know what else he was hiding in this little baggy on his hip? Well? How would you know! Alright, it was dried brains. And you know who's brain it was? The controllers!" -excerpt from pathologist's supper

with censors for wolf's pleasure

[spiral swan]

We should string wolf up like meat in a butchery

[frosty ridge]

We know that the MDST produced a creature so horrible it was possibly eating other controllers' brains -- probably created in the Controller Project. And then the next experiment is just. A dude.

[frosty ridge]

How dare we swear in this holy Monolithian server smh smh

[junior widget]

Strider is rolling over in his grave

[frosty ridge]

Faust and Strider marriage counselling DLC

[spiral swan]

They may have learned alot! Lmao

[junior widget]

Gen Voronin should be the counselor then

[frosty ridge]

absolutely not. Everyone in Duty is giving "victim of divorce court" I do not trust any of them to keep a marriage together

duty is the divorced dad faction

[spiral swan]

I'm gonna get ganked by a squad of mono with Gauss

[spiral swan]

They're they guys whose wives git banged while on deployment

[junior widget]

I shutter to think about Freedom then

[spiral swan]

Stoners and mutant lovers, in the most erotic sense

[frosty ridge]

Freedomers dont get married they're all in consensual polyamorous relationships so complex it makes the X-Network look simple

[junior widget]

That’s diabolical

[spiral swan]

It's true, there's an excel sheet

[junior widget]

Okay, I gotta hear your opinions on the factions😂

[spiral swan]

(I have the freedom role from the faction war event)

[frosty ridge]

MDST guys insist they have no interest in romance but are actually incels. This includes Valentyn even though he had a kid. He's one of those incels who had a kid somehow but remained an incel by sheer force of creepiness.

Spark members loyal to the Shining Zone are like those family members you think are kinda nice but years later you notice nobody talks about them and when you ask you find out they're in prison for predation

[junior widget]

THATS CRAZY

[spiral swan]

Current spark are the uncles nobody talks to

Scar is Alex Jones

[junior widget]

I’m about to hear some craziness on Merc’s and Military

[frosty ridge]

Noontide as I mentioned is broken marriage simulator

[left kite]

I wondered why he was so cool!

[frosty ridge]

Mercs are maximizing profits by running one of those e-dating scams where they've pretending to be hot women online to get people to "buy them plane tickets to meet up" and they've got models somewhere in Kyiv they pay to provide pics to show they're real

Military guys. Well their spouses are very satisfied. Just not with them.

[junior widget]

That is so unbelievably dastardly, i feel compelled to pray

[trail rapids]

What's happening with e dating?

[frosty ridge]

Everyone in the Corps is dating Degtyarev but none of them are confident enough to ask so they'll remain unsure until the day one of them slips up and says "Daddy" instead of "Deggy"

[frosty ridge]

I'm giving every faction a relationship read

[junior widget]

It’s as it should be.

[frosty ridge]

Malachite guys are just single nerds. Not yet reached MDST incel stage

Clear Sky are mostly normal but underneath it all there's some love-bombing and abuse going on

[trail rapids]

Since there aren't many women in the zone the next best thing is femboys

[frosty ridge]

Ward are guys who are going to get divorced one day but they're not yet married. They're engaged but predestined for divorce. Except Korshinov he's the most divorced man in Ukraine

[junior widget]

Bro is whipped for Agatha

[frosty ridge]

Bandits actually have very healthy relationships contrary to popular belief

They stay winning. RENEGADES on the other hand 💀

there we have my read of STALKER faction relationship status

also Skif and Richter are dating in the Kymanov ending and you cannot convince me otherwise that cutscene was the most intense romance I've seen in an FPS game

[junior widget]

I haven’t laughed that hard in weeks, it’s insane

I’m fine with this

[frosty ridge]

its so funny side by side with the strelok ending

because if you side with strelok richter's final convo is just like "thanks for saving my life, you're pretty cool skif. glad to have met you"

and if you side with kymanov he's like "you are the light of my life you have changed me in ways i cannot define we are tied together by fate and i will be your guardian angel if you will allow me my love"

richter has a type and its "men who will end the world"

[junior widget]

Bro is a romantic doomer

[frosty ridge]

on the contrary: he is ultra-optimistic about the apocalypse

[junior widget]

I am going to be honest, I sided with Strelok immediately

[ornate venture]

malaize has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[frosty ridge]

I was sus of him the whole time, something was up and richter agreed, and when he finally said he wanted doc dead I genuinely screamed in "I definitely KNEW IT"

[junior widget]

The moment I saw his receding hairline I knew, my heart belonged to him

I exclusively wear the X7 Suit, just so I can imitate that beautiful man

Then, yeah.. doc died

[frosty ridge]

#s2-lore-discussions message my strelok analysis rant

[frosty ridge]

i believe in pre-release strelok supremacy

we lost his wonderful hair. man sold out the secrets of the zone to the regulatory board and didnt even get a hair transplant out of it

[junior widget]

💀

I’ll admit, I was blinded by nostalgia goggles and while I do believe Skif’s ending is the best, I just can’t bring myself to kill Strelok

[frosty ridge]

i've disliked him for years since he decided to found SIRCAA, I always thought that was sketchy as hell and going to end badly

[trail rapids]

Hold up you're making sense actually

[spiral swan]

Strelok is so insanely sketchy in the game, despite doing his ending I didn't trust him a LICK

[trail rapids]

now hold on... That hairline tho

[frosty ridge]

he honestly made me feel kinda bad because like, he was one of the closest people to breaking out of the trauma and abuse of the C-Con but instead he doubled back into "i need to keep the world as it was forever" delusions at the last minute

stalker 2 is a bunch of victims killing each other over the legacy of their long-dead abuser

[spiral swan]

All of the endings are some sort of bad aswell, you have:
Global apocalypse

Forever Prison of the zone

Poppy Fields forever

And Corporate Greed Manifest

[frosty ridge]

"forever prison" until the food and ammo run out lol

[trail rapids]

Global apocalypse is the best one probably

[junior widget]

Is it really global apocalypse or is it just anomaly’s here and there

[frosty ridge]

its sorta unclear

[trail rapids]

I mean the anomalys can cause a lot of damage like with skif's house

[frosty ridge]

we know that the plan was to expand the Zone across the world but we don't know if that's "all of earth is the Zone" or "the different generator arrays built by Kymanov's agents each have their own Zones"

[spiral swan]

Tbh at the end of the day, fully global or not, likely MILLIONS or even billions die, and that's no fun

[junior widget]

Because I’m gonna be honest, if it’s just anomaly’s, I’m walking around the vortex and going to work.

But if I have to fight snorks to just pay for food at the grocery store, I’ll pass

[frosty ridge]

tbh millions or even billions are dying all the time at least Kymanov's plan presents an opportunity for the world to change and improve

as he said, we will either drown in our angst or learn to love one another

the Zone reflects us, it is so hostile in Chernobyl because it is a place associated with negative emotions and death and suffering

[spiral swan]

I mean, but at the end of the day is all the death worth it? Will the zone truly every peacefully co-exist? Will there even be a benefit worth the cost? Lives will change forever. And in many cases, probably for the worst. I don't think stalker 2 has a good ending. Granted, Strelok is probably the one with the least lasting consequences for the wider world, it's still not great

[junior widget]

Theoretically

And I hate to say it.

Couldn’t you just.. kill Strelok and remove the barrier.

[spiral swan]

Possibly? I could see the issue of perhaps what he's done being irreversible, but that'd probably need a whole story on its own

[frosty ridge]

I disagree. From a thematic perspective the ending is about freedom and agency. It is more dangerous to be free, to grow, to try and make the world better. A lot of people are going to die as a result of that freedom. But everyone has to be free if we want to break out of the suffering that currently exists. The world outside isn’t nice— it’s full of suffering and exploitation and oppression. The Zone makes us face that and gives us a chance to become better

[junior widget]

The Zone (from my understanding) is constantly changing, and that being said so is my mood.

So I mean I don’t see why Skif can’t just double back around, walk back into the laboratory and just two tap Strelok

[frosty ridge]

Strelok could probably just take control of Skif like the C-Con did to Granite Squad if he tried

[junior widget]

I, didn’t think about that

I’m of the mindset, if there’s a will, theres a way.

So surely there’s a way out of the zone, even with his barrier.

Maybe under, maybe over? Who knows

[spiral swan]

Letting something as openly vengeful and violent as the zone be the medium to become better just feels like a recipe for disaster. What's to say it doesn't just decide that humanity should be no more, it causes to many issues, and it starts a worldwide super emission, practically forcing what's left of humanity and everything to love underground until everyone inevitably starves. Not to mention the inevitable collapse of many governments as a result of the initial apocalyptic scenario. So many innocents will die, the world will become chaos. People won't become "better", in whatever sense the zone views as better - just more desperate. Even without things such as snorks and bloodsuckers existing everywhere, the ever changing anomalies and such will make life just. Worse. What if a large grav anomaly ends up inside a 80 story apartment block one day? Thousands die, people lives are made incredibly worse. It'd be a world of 50 9/11 scale events a day

[trail rapids]

It's funny that this started off as dating factions/skif and richter are kinda gay to is global apocalypse a good enough ending

[spiral swan]

I'd kiss strider on the mouth

[frosty ridge]

The Zone is not vengeful nor violent. Humanity defines what the Zone is. If people cannot show enough hope or goodness to survive the reflection of their minds then that is their choice and their fate, but I do not believe it will be. I believe there is enough compassion in humanity that the Zone, when it expands, will not sheerly be a force for destruction. Not all anomalies are violent and destructive. They can be beautiful, they can be horrible, they can be harmless, and they can be harmful. They are a reflection of us. When you look at only the darkest part of humanity, the concepts surrounding Chernobyl, you will see vengeance and suffering yes, but that is not all humanity is. To believe in Project Y to do not have to believe in The Zone, you have to believe in people

[frosty ridge]

Same. Then Faust too.

[trail rapids]

My buddy Richter needs some love too

[frosty ridge]

Don’t forget Dalin! Sweet boy got his redemption arc

[trail rapids]

He got a lot of daddy issues

[frosty ridge]

He needs a new daddy

[trail rapids]

Strider can help

[frosty ridge]

STALKER 2 but I’m collecting traumatized men like Pokémon

[spiral swan]

The zone has it's own motivations - that much it clear, what's the say it doesn't have its own hatred and vengeful spirit? There are likely many things we don't know. We do know it does take human feelings and actions into account, but I think it does this and also has it's own "feelings" as it were. Even if it's solely 100% based on humanity.... I feel like that only further proves my point of things being immeasurably bad for most of the world in that ending.

[spiral swan]

I will forever be a D1 faust hater

[spiral swan]

He has enough! Let me be a Strider Smoocher!

[frosty ridge]

My theory on Project Y is the “Faust” we see in the ending is the Zone acting through his memory. It’s manifesting as a version of him which has, now, through the freeing of the Zone, been able to change and recover from his issues. That’s why he speaks of the Zone and the freedom it has brought

[trail rapids]

Who isn't traumatized in the zone?

[frosty ridge]

Richter

[trail rapids]

I'll break Faust's legs for his bullsh!t boss fight

[frosty ridge]

Ok I guess he is a bit traumatized from the guide expedition that time

So you’re right actually fair

[trail rapids]

I was about say that yeah

Richter is just less traumatized than the rest

Wait no skif is literally the only one without trauma

[frosty ridge]

Tbf I think there are a few traumatizing experiences in his journey but mostly yeah he’s feeling normal

[trail rapids]

There's no ending where he's alive

[ornate venture]

packwolf445 has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[spiral swan]

I'm gonna castrate wolf

[trail rapids]

HA

[trail rapids]

All because he wanted a house

[spiral swan]

I've played more BS boss fights

[frosty ridge]

Another reason killing Doctor is wrong: you’re leaving his doggy an orphan

[trail rapids]

What were you saying anyways?

[spiral swan]

I'm going to put a flash anomaly in your home

[frosty ridge]

If Agatha had simply used her power to make affordable housing none of this would’ve happened

[spiral swan]

F'ed instead of BS

[trail rapids]

Richter lives for at least two endings

[frosty ridge]

Dalin might live in the Strelok/Project Y endings

[spiral swan]

I wanted the strelok ending first, I was actually pretty sad when I saw it in its cage after

[trail rapids]

Ward would have won if she did

[spiral swan]

I h8 you specifically

[trail rapids]

Ty for the kind words

[frosty ridge]

Classic regulatory board L. Too busy trying to rule the world, not enough time managing it

[spiral swan]

Tbh I think he lives in strelok, just not for long. He's not built for zone life

[frosty ridge]

Yeah. I imagine Degryarev is hanging out with him in the end

[trail rapids]

Now the zone rules the world

[frosty ridge]

Maybe that’s where Deggy is

[trail rapids]

Maybe delin joins corps or something there's not any places he can go really

[frosty ridge]

Fic where Degryarev and Dalin are exploring the post-Project Y world together when

[frosty ridge]

Honestly probably likely

[trail rapids]

It'll be cool if we see him as a trader in the Corps base in a dlc or future game

[spiral swan]

Imagine a update, not in patch notes, Deggys body become findable in Pripyat

[frosty ridge]

Do not make me cry

[trail rapids]

Who's deggy?

[frosty ridge]

I cannot take more death. First my silly man Faust, then Strider, no more…

[spiral swan]

How do you think he'd feel about seeing Strider be mono again

[frosty ridge]

It’s what the Corps call Degtyarev

[trail rapids]

Ohh

[frosty ridge]

He could fix him

[trail rapids]

Nah let my boy degtyarev live

[trail rapids]

Faust needs to die I'm a Faust hater for life

[frosty ridge]

Ok uhh one theory of mine I think Strelok could’ve gotten less mentally ill if he hung out with Noontide. It would’ve been really good for him and Noon, seeing people who went through the same experience of him, seeing that people can change, and he could become an advocate for them in the broader community

[spiral swan]

Imagine though. He meets him not long after he just, "loses" the monolith. He hears the stories, he sees how they're treated, hell he sees how those who still cling violently attack people. He's the first stalker to show compassion to the man and he just sees him, mindless

[frosty ridge]

Horrible. My heart

[trail rapids]

He should have joined noontide instead of being a hobo in a hole

[frosty ridge]

He literally would’ve ended up so much more sane

[spiral swan]

Imagine alternative Strelok ending where he releases Mono again, and you get to see noontide exist again, trying to fix the destruction they unwittingly caused, mourning Strider and the others they've lost

[frosty ridge]

I imagine they all got released in the Noon ending

[trail rapids]

We need the noon cut

[frosty ridge]

The reason Strelok never does it is he refuses to believe in change and sees the monolith only as the mindless killing machines he fought back in the day

Gross little man

[spiral swan]

I want so badly a version of the game where noontide just sticks around. It actually broke me when I saw strider turn Mono

[frosty ridge]

Yeah

[spiral swan]

How dare they make me care about this man and then sentence him to a fate worse than death, a second time

[trail rapids]

Stalker 2 just hates happy things

[spiral swan]

Even if noontide gets released in any of the endings, they will inevitably be hunted for sport. Stalkers will view them not killing them on their island as a mistake they can't let happen again

[trail rapids]

I want my noontide to be happy damn it

[spiral swan]

Yeahhhhhhh happiness isn't allowed

[trail rapids]

Faust f@ck up any good will noontide build up with the other factions

[frosty ridge]

Good thing there’s a whole world of Zones out there for them where nobody knows them :)

[frosty ridge]

STALKER 2 is crying for time-travel fix-it fanfics. Let me go back and punch Faust in the face and then give him therapy

[spiral swan]

I want to beat faust to death with my bare hands

[trail rapids]

Two sides of the same coin

[frosty ridge]

I want to punch him a reasonable amount before kissing him gently on the forehead

[spiral swan]

Tbh, I don't think that's gonna end up being the Canon ending

[frosty ridge]

[frosty ridge]

I think it will be

[trail rapids]

[spiral swan]

I think to death is a reasonable amount

[frosty ridge]

The Strelok ending is possible but it’s just so unsatisfying

[trail rapids]

He does have a lot of trauma but yeah no he needs to die

[frosty ridge]

We both want to fix him I think we just have different ideas of what fixing him is

[spiral swan]

That is the zone as a whole though, no? Unsatisfying.

[trail rapids]

If we just shot Faust as a baby none of this would have happened

[spiral swan]

I don't want to fix him I wanna fix noontide

[spiral swan]

Okay too far. He has to atleast be like, 16

[trail rapids]

How about we tell him to stay away from duga in the first place

No experiments and no monolith indocination

[trail rapids]

I just want him very dead

[spiral swan]

Will he listen tho

[trail rapids]

Then we shot him

[spiral swan]

I think we need to arm every loner in the zone with the pkm and put him against the wall

[trail rapids]

There's also a theory that he was grown in the x labs so maybe we just blew that up first

[spiral swan]

What if we just stop the entire disaster the in first place

No zone, no faust

[fathom veldt]

rename this channel into rad bar

[trail rapids]

Maybe doc should have shot the tubes instead

[trail rapids]

The freedom rad bar now

[fathom veldt]

you have to sleep with many mothers of kaymanov, dalins that they would never be born

[frosty ridge]

Then the Regulatory Board would recover the tech and complete it themselves

The way things went in regards to the Zone was the best outcome

[spiral swan]

Hear me out, what if we simply keep the soviets from building chernobyl

Then it's all saved

Everyone can be normal

[frosty ridge]

But then Project X happens elsewhere

[spiral swan]

Strider gets a normal life and that's all that matters

[frosty ridge]

But then he never gets his found family

[trail rapids]

Richter will be sad without the zone tho

[fathom veldt]

thats good because his father was abusive alcoholic, its how he in the first place decided to venture into the zone

[frosty ridge]

The thing that makes strider hot is his caring for his found family and being unwaveringly good

[trail rapids]

This is true I can't deny but at the same time Richter tho

[spiral swan]

I'd personally rather have him not have to lose his entire life and memories. I'm of the opinion that the noontiders retain some of their personality from before, I think h always was just. A good and caring person

I just want my man's to be happy and safe

[spiral swan]

He can find a new calling, like being a guide on Mt everest

He can still have his "people I was guiding die horrifically" moment

[trail rapids]

Still a very kissable man even then

[frosty ridge]

I’m a big fan of evil men who are horrible and wretched

This is why Faust is my favorite character

He KNOWS the Monolith isn’t real, he must know in order to turn it back on, but he turns it on anyways because he’s that kind of guy

I adore that evil evil man I want to hit him in the mouth with my mouth

[trail rapids]

Richter is more kissable than a cultist

[fathom veldt]

in the zone they don't use toothbrush, and usually eat expired food so....

also he isn't that evil

[trail rapids]

I just realized that some parts of the stalker community is kinda gay

[elder bobcat]

There are two things relating to "Cold Island" in the game apart from what you've brought up:

1. In the X-7 archive there's a document called "Caribbean Experiment Report from 1995", which mentions an island in the CNPP cooling pond & X-6 lab;

2. Dr. Vavylov at SIRCAA states the Second Caribbean experiment, which was conducted in X-11, ended in an absolute failure. By the virtue of naming, I'd guess probably the same island mentioned in the 1995 report could've also been involved in some way (if we're truly about to get the "Cold Island" DLC, I'd say it's a no-brainer actually — unless it'd take us to Orchilla Island in the actual Caribbean Sea, which is highly unlikely).

[fathom veldt]

It's fine, they brought some lightness after yesterday's session with the toddler

[trail rapids]

I never said I was complaining

Also toddler what?

[fathom veldt]

it mentions not only island, but early experiments with nooshpere 🙂 we won't see Orchila island though where first artifact i assume appeared, so looking forward to it how they going to introduce it

[fathom veldt]

nvm don't get into it

[trail rapids]

Idk if I should be concerned or not

[fathom veldt]

nah, no need for concern :))

[elder bobcat]

It was "Object Alpha" — the first ever alpha artifact. So it's kinda introduced already.

[trail rapids]

Well as nothing weird happened ig

[fathom veldt]

I ment we not going to see that island (Orchila), because next stories going to happend in this map, unless they already planning stalker 3

[elder bobcat]

Ah, got it 👌🏻

[fathom veldt]

Though it's weird how they picked a name Orchila....which is a real location

[ornate venture]

artem_20202030 has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[jagged hull]

who are these people that have such emotional theories or information that they just need to use swearwords to put that into words and then they just give up at the first obstacle....

[trail rapids]

I don't know much about the original stalker trilogy but what was Lymansk in the original trilogy?

[cold quarry]

yes it's a region you have to go through in Clear Sky (also mentioned in Call of Prypiat)

[trail rapids]

Yeah it's just mentioned a bit in the game but the only way into the city is blocked

[shrewd igloo]

Limansk was an level of Clear Sky, it's located beside Red Forest.
Forester speak about the story of that place but i dont remember what did he say.

[mossy maple]

I hope that in project Y ending, Skif release the monolithians from their brainwashing 🙏 😭

[fathom veldt]

it's a bots posting invites or some illegal stuff, or infected accounts

[fathom veldt]

not would be smart, i would force them to clean my house, do loundary etc, serve food, feed me 😄 half of them i would employ and take their salary from other half i would create construction company and would be very rich

[fathom veldt]

a secret research town, scary place, maybe even contains duga prototype, it is very unwelcoming place hard to get filled with monolith forces. And this place was part of the story in CS, if you wanted to progress to CNPP,. In HoC there is a main line quest part where you are near the entrance (where the bridge destroyed) you can find there a radio and upon turn on you can hear disturbing sounds. It's also where you meet Spirit where he looked a way to escape and find a way to Limansk after the signal.

well i just remembered, you can find a nice intro on youtube about Limansk and radiowave institute :))

[elder bobcat]

Skif does show compassion to Strider & his men several times within the path to that ending, so there's 0 reasons to doubt he'd end the Monolith program. The theme of "Project Y" ending being an acception of freedom as a necessity for the journey of life to continue straight up points at it, I'd say.

[fathom veldt]

hmm what? 0 reasons to doubt that he would end the monolith? Why? well ok its probably impossible, but if he could he would and for the sake of Strider. Or i am misreading something

[ornate venture]

ponosik_1526 has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

moshegoyan has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[elder bobcat]

"0 reasons to doubt" as in "most certainly".

[remote ember]

Does anyone have a recommendation for a lore video that explains the story of stalker 2?

[jagged hull]

so far i havent seen any

your best bet is playing the game until you understand the story

[fathom veldt]

yes, there are in youtube from many different content creators, just type in search stalker lore summary

[fathom veldt]

maybe he does not want to go through 2k year old graphics and bunch of in game text reading 🙂

[vapid spire]

Wouldn't skif have to turn off the whole x-network to get rid of the current monolith brai washing?

[jagged hull]

he has the ability to do so

[mossy maple]

That's what I was thinking

[elder bobcat]

I'll tell you this. Talking from personal experience, I've spent virtually 7 months with the lore of this game looking through tons of dialogues, notes, documents, various descriptions, cutscenes etc-etc-etc, establishing continuity with the events of the trilogy & ARG that took place few years ago — yet still I tend to forget things sometimes (mostly because STALKER is far from being my single most important occupation, tho I'm absolutely in love with exploring this rabbit hole) & occasionally I discover something new or get a cool idea/helping hand thanks to discussions that are brewing around the lore. 7 months, mate, trying to thoroughly research everything there is to it — do you know when the first "S2 ICEBERG EXPLAINED BY THE CUNNING EXPERT" YT vids have started to appear? Two weeks into release. And since then they've been multiplying like mushrooms in the deep forest after heavy rain — each providing some wild theories that often confuse ppl even more rather than actually trying to put the pieces together. The only channel I can recommend in general is "Anomalous Dugout" — but you won't find cheap clickbaiting "S2 icebergs" over there as AD just as much prefers to take time researching matters before posting anything.

Like was mentioned above, the only true way to understand it is to get your hands on it & spend time with it. S2 story is not complicated, but requires a ton of attention to details (such as wording used in dialogues/notes and implications it all carries, what/when/why things are done by characters, descriptions of items etc) & several walkthroughs to get a more or less clear picture of the story. Treat it like a movie or a book, or a story told irl, or even something you could one day live through — that's when it shines the most & becomes much clearer. And ofc don't forget to jump in here to ask questions or double check things, cuz broad convos with ppl having diff perceptions do help in finding rational answers either way.

[remote ember]

Thanks for the detailed response! That's exactly the kind of content I was looking for

[pine kite]

Anomalous make high quality videos for sure

[vapid spire]

I recently watched Anomalous's video on the generators and I kinda want him to make a follow up since the scrapped generators map is now canon in stalker 2, meaning that the generators at the cnpp serve a different purpose from the ones above lab x-7.

[mossy maple]

Yeah I forgot about them lol. Aren't they destroyed in S2 ?

I wonder what was their purpose

[shrewd pike]

i don't understand why malachite dislikes me regardless of faction choice, is it because of their center turned into battleground?

[fathom veldt]

you are aligned with spark, only with ward you can enter like normal person after certain point in story, but after that basically traders are locked

[shrewd pike]

but i'm warden, traders still dislike me

[fathom veldt]

well then you did something bad. maybe if you tell what is the mission name you are on right now would be easier to say

[shrewd pike]

currently in red forest, already finished all malachite story quests, also done the sides too
i wonder if black sheep quest had something to do with it

[fathom veldt]

well that does tell nothing, anyways after duga, there shouldn't be traders in malachite and if you are with ward they are not supposed to attack you, but there is still a fight there after talking with representative. or simply you are with a spark not ward :)) then yes malachite is controlled by ward at that point and they going to kill you 🙂

[shrewd pike]

at first the traders vanished but they're back after a day, also i've sided with spark before, wasn't pretty when i exit the building just to be attacked

[fathom veldt]

i guess you also don't download patches playing still on first?

[shrewd pike]

that was long ago shortly after it arrived on game pass

[elder bobcat]

Originally their purpose was to represent the Generators that in pre-release builds had their own separate location, as was already mentioned. Said location was cut, the Generators themselves were moved close to CNPP. Now, given in S2 there are both the CNPP Generators & the reworked OG ones, it's only natural to demand an explanation as to what were those CNPP ones meant for then — and I think there's at least one thing that could be somewhat tied to their purpose.

As we remember, in ShoC, there are 6 Generators located close to CNPP. What's also located inside the CNPP itself that's close to those 6 Generators? The Monolith & its Control Center. In order to speak with C-Con Representative, Strelok had to destroy 6 (!) power units in the MCC. 6 power units in the MCC — 6 Generators in a close proximity to em. If we were to try & provide an in-lore explanation as to why in S2 the CNPP Generators are destroyed (and just in general why they've remained in place), I'd guess those Generators might've been the MCC ones & could've been used as the central emitters of the Signal coming from the Monolith to all other Monolithian psi-transmitters across the Zone. It could mean they're imploded in S2 because in ShoC Strelok has destroyed those power units that were supplying the Monolith with energy & establishing connection to the MCC Generators nearby.

[mossy maple]

Great answer thx

[vital pollen]

But you destroy MCC power units before even seeing the generators on the northern side of the CNPP.

[elder bobcat]

Which only plays into it, since when we actually see those Generators a couple of them appear to be broken already.

[frosty ridge]

I wonder what Hermann and Agatha were thinking in the Project Y ending as the world ends around them

[spiral siren]

Hermann was really scared of what Agatha is and who is he working for, that Skif has no idea of what is really funding Ward and controlling them.

Leaves a lot of information out of the globe, then there is project Kaymanov, which the zone turns Global and it's no longer restricted in Ukraine

[shrewd pike]

whole world becomes zone but for florida, it was tuesday

[mossy maple]

Is stalker mobile canon?

[shrewd igloo]

No.

[mossy maple]

Why 😔 🚬

[shrewd igloo]

No.

[shrewd pike]

what do you mean by stalker mobile

[mossy maple]

An official mobile game made in 2007

[shrewd pike]

huh must be pretty dated then, i think i may be familiar with those

[vapid spire]

I played with spark then switched to the strelok/doc path so I found it weird that I didn't see Agatha and Hermann after sircaa.

[calm gate]

If you're helping spark, do you even get the option to go with Strelok?

[silent seal]

To even open yourself up to the Strelok/Kaymanov ending path, during the mission Subtle Matter you have to deny Scar regarding the Shining Zone & then right after that deny Korshunov in Dangerous Liasons, or those will respectively put you on the path to Spark/Ward endings and there's no final second chance beyond this.

[trail rapids]

Side with spark they have the best ending trust me

[mossy maple]

You are capable of more than you think – enough to take on the hardships that will inevitably befall us in the New World. You will need something more, however, to face the unknown. Much more!
May the Zone aid us if we find ourselves lacking courage in our future trials!
You were all courageous enough to get here – every single one of you! You had the will and the faith to make it through, and you are now worthy to become liberators.
Now go to the Mainland. Wait for the right time.
Something beautiful is about to happen.

What are you theories about this speech from Kaymanov secret room ?

[jagged hull]

honestly this doesnt sound like kaymanov all of the stuff about faith makes it sound more like faust

[ornate venture]

1nazzy1 has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[mossy maple]

I doubt it's Faust. It does not make sense unless he found the time after the duga, to :

• change his view about the Monolith and accept the zone
• kill the doctor and replacing him (why tho?)
• find multiple agents and rebrainwash them
• find plenty of alpha artefact
• make a speech in front of an audience
• send the agents on the mainland

[jagged hull]

well first of all its just a draft of the speech, nothing says that the speech has already been made and that everything else is ready. as for changing his view, that is exactly what happens throughout the conversation with skif after the fight. killing doctor isnt really necessary, dude isnt a public figure so someone cosplaying as him for a couple of weeks isnt going to draw a huge amount of attention. the finding of alphas part is only mentioned in the project y document, and as far as im seeing all of the steps match with faust's goal to use the duga to brainwash everyone in the zone so that may be something that has been completed for a while. as for the agents part, if anyone has resources to dig around x7 or other c-con facilities to find active agents and reprogram them, it would be faust

the main issues i have with doctor doing everything outlined in the project y doc is that he seems like a loner who doesnt have a huge amount of resources to send people to do shit for him, which is the exact opposite of faust, who has ears everywhere and the manpower to do what needs to be done

[mossy maple]

But why cosplaying doctor and not another stalker ?

[mossy maple]

Also he cannot "rebrainwash" Nestor and Chornozem because... Well....they are dead

[jagged hull]

well there are other agents

[mossy maple]

Project Y
A document from the secret unit in Kaymanov’s Laboratory
Stalker2 border orange

• Couriers (Chornozem, destroy the list).

• Lab X3 (destroy all the documents, as well as any evidence of reframing agents and using couriers).

• Provide scanners (Nestor).

• Provide Alpha Artifacts (we’ve got a number of faded ones – more than enough).

• Duga Comms Center (replace the microchips with external action modules).

[jagged hull]

chornozem and nestor had other roles, they wouldnt be sent outside the zone just in general. both of them had influential positions to achieve the goals that project y required

[mossy maple]

Their death was before the duga. So either Faust already wanted to make Project Y (but that contradicts his will to bring back the Monolith) or Kaymanov has, at least, started project Y

[jagged hull]

as far as we know project y ends at duga and whatever happens next is completely different

cuz as you can see there are no further steps after duga

[mossy maple]

Well you are right. But why the devs called the ending "project y"? 😭

[jagged hull]

id think that its because what happens in the ending is a continuation of faust's idea of freedom, its just that meeting skif has changed his perspective a bit

my reading of the conversation is that meeting skif was a sign for faust that his original project y is not meant to be and that skif is acting out the will of the zone

[mossy maple]

So they are 2 project Y, before and after the duga?

[jagged hull]

i think that is pretty accurate whether you think that faust is doctor or not

[jagged hull]

id assume so

again i dont think its a coincidence that everything described in project y document could be/are steps of faust's plan

as in getting the scanners, reframing agents, recruiting more to start the scanner smuggling operation and tampering with the duga to make it do what faust wants

and again all of this requires quite a bit of manpower and influence, both of which faust has

[stable heath]

What are you supposed to be hearing when fighting the bayuns? Am I hearing their victims voices?

[silent seal]

I've thought of it as similar to the mimicry that Predator uses, similarly derived from observing and attacking victims and used especially for luring/baiting purposes

[elder bobcat]

The "cosplaying Doc" paradigm is critically flawed. Faust sends Strider to kill Doctor because most likely, in accordance to the "Project Y" note, the latter had his own plans for the Duga that were conflicting with those of Faust. He gives Strider the orders & dies shortly after. If he has indeed changed his views — it happened in his dying moments. The corpse is there, so are the witnesses & corpses of doppelgangers.

Let's also not forget how Faust has been hunting down Skif's alpha, while he apparently had "more than enough" of them, following the logic of him being the writer of "Project Y" note — why? Makes zero sense.

He's also a lab rat created by C-Con — how'd he know or care about anything "STALKER" program related, as well as the reframing tools, when his primary goal is restoring the Monolith? Why'd he need to do it in the 1st place when he already has dozens of loyal "brothers" operating on his behalf & sets everything up for more of em to join his ranks? Zero logic.

Then again — what is the goal of Faust? Reviving the Monolith & sharing its "gift of happiness" with everyone in the Zone. Wasn't completed, btw. What's the goal of Doc? Freeing the Zone & letting humanity decide what to do with the Noosphere's energy. Who Doc (((seems))) to be doesn't necessarily reflect his true capabilities. Kind reminder: he's essentially the Father of the Zone & has immensely helped Strelok in eliminating the big antagonists, C-Consciousness. In the trilogy it's Doctor who's being talked about as "Strelok's group HQ", and this group is responsible for the biggest changes in the Zone in the past in-game decade. For him it makes sense to discover the details of "STALKER" program due to what's happened to Strelok + the research he's made in ShoC & put it to use in order to acquire some agents for carrying out the tasks needed to set "Project Y" in motion. Faust doesn't need it — as I said, not only he's the C-Con project himself, he already has devoted followers.

[elder bobcat]

I'll give you a better one: why is the "Project Y" achievement described as "going through with KAIMANOV'S initial plan" if it was Faust's doing all along? Why the devs wouldn't straight up say "go through with Faust's initial plan" or "the initial plan for the Zone" to be as ambiguous as possible? The answer is "because Project Y is Kaimanov's plan for setting the Zone free" 🤷🏻‍♂️

[fathom veldt]

best question ever to defeat these faust is doctor nonesense. why not then Agatha? or some supervisory board boss? even an idea that someone impersonated someone is just nonsense

[mossy maple]

And if Doctor is Faust. Then why Strider attacked him 😭 ???
Couldnt he just turn back again to Faust just to say to Strider "Hey bro it's me I'm undercover"

[fathom veldt]

brilliant, idk these guys faust impersonating doc basing this only on a teaser shown at the end, that's it, they don't have any arguments for it

[jagged hull]

on the "more than enough alphas" part: i seriously dont think that this meant that he had them there in his possession. so far the only way we know alphas can be made is with carribean experiments and if he did have them, why was the plan not implimented earlier? i read that "we" as in the whole world. although it is a weird way to word that, i dont know how to reconcile the previous issues

[jagged hull]

yeah i dont have any arguments except for the ones i do have idk how you can keep saying this

[mossy maple]

It's funny how we need multiple playthrough, and loong neverending discussions to understand what the hell is going on in this game

(i love it so much)

[jagged hull]

the whole situation with strider is pretty odd, why did he wake up in the first place, he was meant to have grievous injuries that only a regenerator can help with. other than that, as far as we see he only woke up and started attacking him when skif was already in the room, so revealing himself then wouldve been a great way to get shot again by skif

again idk how timecop can miss this, the reason to act as doc is to gain trust, he is a zone legend and has a reputation for being a helpful pacifist with the knowledge that skif needs.

[mossy maple]

I'm pretty sure Faust can simulaneously reveal him self to Strider while keeping is cosplay with Skif. Remember that Faust is capable to bend reality (or what you see from reality) at his will, he can show you subtle matter or make you dream of thing that didn't happened

[jagged hull]

a boss of the regulatory board or agatha doesnt make sense to impersonate because skif has no reason to allign with or seek out those people

[fathom veldt]

of course it is odd, because faust impersonating doc is nonesense and makes no sense. regenerator not only for injuries but probably to restore him to his previous self

[jagged hull]

i guess thats true. maybe he just figured it was about time to let strider rest, he was his close friend and knew how he felt about being a monolithian again

[fathom veldt]

if you want to make your arguments about faust being doc then you would have to negate or make it weak arguments of what F1stzz said

[jagged hull]

i doubt a regenerator, which is for healing monolithians, can reverse brainwashing thats kinda the exact opposite of what its made for lol

[fathom veldt]

strelok....

[mossy maple]

I love Doc and love Faust so much as characters that I hope they are 2 differents person

[fathom veldt]

oh and make better statements that Faust impersonated Strelok 😄 what would be more believable

[fathom veldt]

well there is no need for a hope 🙂

[mossy maple]

Well I can't explain the ending for exemple. Why did doc became Faust?

[jagged hull]

as for your second point, if we take what i said before as true, that all other alphas are outside the zone, theres a very obvious reason why faust would want to track down an alpha as soon as possible, he probably wants to use it now rather than wait for another one to get to the zone

[jagged hull]

i dont doubt that the real doctor is out there somewhere

[fathom veldt]

its a some metaphor, but doc is also found dead just outside the fence, yeah that whole speach is full of bible references like
"There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known."
— Luke 12:2 (NIV)

[fathom veldt]

nop

[elder bobcat]

First of all, alphas have started to appear along with anomalies outside the Zone due to how the Second Caribbean went — it was the primary cause of alphas starting to spawn, but repeating Caribbean experiments is not a requirement for these spawns to continue happening.

The thing about the text of "Project Y" note is there's no "we" in Ukr/Ru localisations of the note. It's pretty much stated "have the faded ones, sufficient amount". So the wording you call "weird" is a sorta translation issue, but overall — implying that "we've got a number of faded ones" means "there are some all around the planet" & not "we actually have more than enough dummіеs" is stretching it quite hard. Why the plan wasn't implemented earlier if that's the case? Because Faust & Monolithians have occupied the Duga, hence became an obstacle. Faust has learned that Doc needs the Duga too & sent Strider to get rid of him — makes sense.

[jagged hull]

again this doesnt answer my question - why wasnt this done earlier? the agents were in place, supposedly they "had" alphas; the only reason why faust only started acting now is because of skif, what would be stopping doc?

all of the other factions had a good reason to sit on their ass for a bit, with your interpretation, doc doesnt

[elder bobcat]

But the note implies multiple alphas are needed, one isn't enough: "provide alpha artifactS — got a number of...". Doc needs to provide alphas i.e. give them away to couriers or whoever — Faust is hunting one and for himself.

[fathom veldt]

you don't know such things nor the chars does know that, all paths are isolated and everything is based on happened events and choices you made

[elder bobcat]

The agents with alphas were meant for the Mainland. They had to do their part on the Mainland & then wait for the "right moment", as mentioned in the speech draft. Given we're talking about the worldwide scale — yeah, I'd say it could naturally take some time before executing the finishing part (assuming the DCC was a part of it & not just another step towards the finale that was interrupted by the revival of the Monolith anyways).

[jagged hull]

as far as i can tell the couriers are just workers that transport the scanners from one place to another, i dont see how a bandit leader would be the perfect person to recruit agents, it makes more sense for me if he just found the people to do the grunt work of picking up the scanners from the trash disposal near sircaa, bringing them to get their radiation removed and then to wherever theyre needed

[jagged hull]

im not sure what you mean by this

[fathom veldt]

well you making an argument that some one would know what would happen later in story based on your choices

[jagged hull]

i mean it doesnt matter what skif does, fact is, sircaa, spark and faust with his men were at a stalemate. without the alpha sircaa and faust dont have much else to do but to prepare, and without a good chance to strike spark dont stand a chance against ward. the alpha turning up spurred everyone in the action. meanwhile doc has a ton of these alphas laying around and skif's alpha isnt too special, but his plan doesnt seem to be moving forward. do you see what i mean? one of these doesnt really match up with the others

[jagged hull]

its not clear what the agents were meant to do, since we dont know how the alpha can be applied in other cases. i think theories could be made up to work for either side of the dispute

[fathom veldt]

Faust only needed scanner to upload some monolithian database/program to an artifact and gave him back, i mean what a surprise to find it mh 🙂

[jagged hull]

im not sure what you are getting at

[fathom veldt]

place depleted artifacts into generators locations?

[elder bobcat]

You maybe don't see how a bandit leader would be the perfect person to recruit agents, but it's literally stated as his programming objective in the agent profile: "select candidates for future programming" 🤷🏻‍♂️

[fathom veldt]

why do you think Faust gave him back scanner, and what was he is uploading to it? and how Faust tempered with network-x? where basically only place is in sircaa

[jagged hull]

hm true i guess i didnt remember that part

[jagged hull]

can you just say what you want to say instead of throwing questions at me?

[fathom veldt]

no 😄

[jagged hull]

no arguments....

[fathom veldt]

i am inviting to wonder 🙂

[jagged hull]

theres not much to wonder im pretty sure that is answered pretty clearly

[jagged hull]

going back to this

He's also a lab rat created by C-Con — how'd he know or care about anything "STALKER" program related, as well as the reframing tools, when his primary goal is restoring the Monolith? Why'd he need to do it in the 1st place when he already has dozens of loyal "brothers" operating on his behalf & sets everything up for more of em to join their ranks? Zero logic.

agents have their own utilities, because they a) dont need to be monolithians and b) dont depend on faust being there to give orders to function effectively. as for why he would know about the stalker program, id say its exactly the same reason he knows how to brainwash everyone again - he dug around some labs, found some documents, and started piecing things together. his status gives him the resources to organize expeditions into unexplored labs or whatever other ways of finding the documentation you could think of. he and his men could probably make it to X7 as well, theres not much stopping him

about their ideological differences. i might be misremembering, but faust seems to compare being under the influence of monolith not just to happiness, but also to freedom. as in monolithians are free of their duties, free of the inherent negative parts to being conscious and etc. from that point, the leap to wanting to help skif free the zone isnt huge and could be justified by the conversation that takes place between him and skif.

and lastly, docs capabilities. this is another one of those that could be argued one way or the other, depending on what direction the game wants to go in. on one hand he did feed strelok and his crew information to help them do what they want, but on the other he didnt seem to do so very enthusiastically, at least before SoC. throughout his life in the zone he was known for being a loner who just rescues injured people and that already seems like a pretty time consuming job considering all of the violence that takes place in the zone, i'd think that he would have his hands full doing that, and it seems weird that he would have this pretty serious plan going on in the background. idk its just sketchy to me

[elder bobcat]

Again — why would he need to bother with searching for the info about "STALKER" program & digging the labs to figure out how it works, when he has the followers that are PERSUADED by him, not "controlled". That's the whole point — Faust has preferred persuasion to his controller abilities, which is mentioned in the audiolog in X-5 & by Dvupalov. He doesn't need agents as evident by the events of the game — he has his brothers that are loyal to him & guys like Shterev whom he brought on his side.

[jagged hull]

persuasion is a good tool but it obviously has limits. most of noontide doesnt even follow faust, so i assume that in the midst of regular stalkers (who usually dont really like both monolithians and noontiders) its pretty hard to find followers/defectors. this is where agents are useful - they cant be tied back to faust, and they dont have to believe in his ideals. as we saw with shterev, it didnt take long to piece together that he is part of faust's cult, both for a spark alligned skif and for a ward alligned skif, in different ways.

[elder bobcat]

Half of Noontiders not being persuaded by Faust brings us to his actual plan — restoring the Monolith, bringing his "lost brothers" back to the family & then sharing the gifts of the Monolith with the rest of the Zone. That's all there is to his plan in the actual game aside from the ending cutscene, which worked nicely as a mindtrap for impressionable people while merely carrying a philosophical message.

[fathom veldt]

and that concludes a debate that faust was impersonating Sidorovich

it so funny to hear all the time a story about impersonation without any reason to back this up

[jagged hull]

how can you keep saying this

dude literally shows up in the ending cosplaying as doc and you say no reason

[jagged hull]

im just bringing that up to show that his "persuasion" isnt a magical ability. sure he is much more charismatic than a regular person but its not a miracle, thus agents are needed for some cases

[fathom veldt]

that's the only reason for this nonsense and hmm what a surprise little spoiler alert, that wasn't even real or part of a lore, a little trailer

[jagged hull]

it isnt the only reason as ive stated multiple times

[fathom veldt]

my reasons align with F1stzz, i mean there is no other way to explain it even

[fathom veldt]

the other parts are the doubts you have or you have not considered something 😦

[jagged hull]

it all comes back to this, there actually are reason to think what i think but you just discount them completely because you are just like that

[fathom veldt]

sorry 😦

[elder bobcat]

It's not a magical ability — yet it works and efficiently.

About the final cutscene you keep bringing up: I've provided a sensible explanation to it some time ago. The only 2 times we see Faust with "normal" eyes are during the Subtle World convo with Skif at the Duga — and in the "Project Y" cutscene. All Subtle Matter contacts Skif has experienced prior to it were with dead people: Representative in X-17, Strider in X-15, Richter & all the characters that have died or were killed by Skif during the Spark walkthrough in the Dead Valley. Both Doctor & Faust are dead at the point when Skif enters the X-7 pod — and during his direct contact with Subtle Matter he sees both as manifestation of a choice made willingly & ideals that have impacted Skif's view of the Zone the most: Faust wilfully embracing the Monolith as the idea of happiness that people are looking for in the Zone & venture into the Zone to find, which in turn helped him perceive the Zone in his own way (which he advised Skif to try & do); Doctor believing in humanity & the Zone, suggesting treating the latter with compassion & letting her make her own choice, like living conscious beings do, could bring the happiness to the whole of humanity, bring "the joy most profound" & make people compassionate about each other, enabling further evolution & creation of a better world. As evident by the peaceful sunny image in that ending & the words spoken by Faust's imprint in the Subtle Matter about accepting the freedom as a necessity for the journey of life to continue, we could assume humanity & the Zone have finally found the way to coexist and have indeed gotten a chance at a better future.

Long story short: the ending cutscene is the Subtle Matter manifestation of S2's key message that GSC, imo, were trying to deliver.

[obtuse thunder]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1071397010810359849/1394843561832222751/1.jpg?ex=687848cc&is=6876f74c&hm=5ffa1ecfae0d7b7c8859bf0924c87021790620424fcee770c48ea38a4056a42b&=&format=webp&width=1218&height=1624 https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1071397010810359849/1394843561609920552/2.jpg?ex=687848cc&is=6876f74c&hm=e84166b7531cd9c09a6a02e4d9bcc83dce7fa3f7256681896981c511222a4a3e&=&format=webp&width=1218&height=1624 https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1071397010810359849/1394843561324839045/3.jpg?ex=687848cb&is=6876f74b&hm=16bd74c24d93f5fc4c263a216dea11c079b8c526f54ccc61caf82fd812d60a59&=&format=webp&width=1218&height=1624 https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1071397010810359849/1394843561081442335/4.jpeg?ex=687848cb&is=6876f74b&hm=c5586bcb0bb8d1c4d948ef1db43b09b601678a47d40981b30a5ed247dfcc79c0&=&format=webp&width=1256&height=1624

[jagged hull]

the thing is, this is just interpretation. whichever way you see thus (whether faust is cosplaying as doctor or not), there are valid interpretations and justifications for certain elements being present that can be constructed. to me the ending is more of a reiteration that people WILL lie to you, use you, betray you, and that filtering through all of that is the path to finding truth and achieving real freedom. it just feels like a fitting culmination to the arc of the game. skif gets played by basically everyone in the story, korshunov, faust, scar, agatha, dalin, strelok and even doctor, whether we assume him to actually be doctor or not, as well as various smaller players in the story. all of these people try to steer you towards their side, but the way to the "true" ending is following what skif wants rather than what others want from him. i really dont think that this abundance of characters who use and abuse skif is just a coincidence or gsc overusing a mechanic in the story, it feels very deliberate. what confirms this for me is the revelation that herman never actually died (if you allign yourself with ward and choose to play a vengeful skif) and that the whole thing was a ruse by agatha to manipulate skif's emotions. on the surface this just gives skif a chance to talk to herman again, but in reality it shows an extreme end of how skif and by extension the player can be manipulated. if we apply this to the skif ending, the reveal of doctor being faust is somewhat similar in the role it plays - giving faust another face and some time to think is enough to turn him from a villain to someone who guides skif towards freedom

the more you look the more this theme of people being manipulated crops up, the entirety of scar's arc is him slowly realising that he is just a puppet, but by the time he is ready to face reality, skif is there to push him along to his predefined destiny. same with korshunov, he gets a chance to see how the regulatory board truly operates, which goes against his whole understanding of his place in the world, but he is in too deep to do anything about it, and in the end he doesnt even flinch when he is tasked with killing his own former soldiers.

i think your reading of the themes is pretty accurate its just missing this critical piece. in every single ending, we get to see people being manipulated in a variety of different ways and losing everything in the process, but only in the skif ending do we get to see the other key theme being realised, the one you talked about.

whether you believe that faust is playing doctor or not this reading is very applicable to the game as a whole and supplements the straightforward reading of the game as a story about the road to fulfillment, happiness and freedom and the "darker" (all of the bad outcomes that come from following the "wrong" paths) side of it includes the player very well in the story (which should always be admired)

tldr: getting to see doctor for who he is is even more valuable to the story than faust's last words in the game

[elder bobcat]

My interpretation is based on the actual detail that's shown in the game: Faust having "milky" eyes in the real world & "normal" ones in the Subtle Matter. He was Skif's first contact within Subtle Matter, in fact — and he poetically was the last, which is quite fitting & further explains his appearance in the end. Your interpretation is based on a conspiracy theory that can't be proved by anything provided in the game without making it sound like some Illuminati speculation (like interpreting the phrase "we've got a number of faded ones, more than enough" as in "we, people of the globe, have some alphas around on planet Earth"). That's the difference.

Now, Skif wasn't exactly "played" by Doctor, was he (and Dalin was his ally, in fact)? Doctor revealed his true personality to him (mentioning a platter of details that Faust couldn't know, btw, given you're suggesting he started "cosplaying" after the Duga events). Doc helps Skif in finding Strelok — the guy who wants Doc dead (and who apparently also isn't aware of the cosplay that's actively happening & keeps sending mercs + Skif to kill Doc). Thanks to Doctor Skif learns what the Subtle Matter is, which helps him steer away from Scar & his lunacy. Then when the time comes to choose between Strelok & Doctor — what does the latter say before willingly dying? "Take these logs inside, behind the screen with a fireplace". That's basically a direct instruction for Skif to go check the secret hideout, look through all the info that's there & decide for himself what he wants to do next. Zero "play" right here — only the same sincerity that was shown previously. Skif reads through Doc's notes, picks up his psi-cartridge & takes it to X-15, where the truth about Strelok's relationship with Doctor gets revealed & along with Richter Skif realises that Strelok has been lying about Doc & that he clearly has some other motive for his actions. Then Skif understands what needs to be done & makes the choice. That's what happened.

[elder bobcat]

The interesting part about this "manipulation" theme is that pretty much everyone in this story has outright told Skif about the big goal: Agatha made it clear she's aiming to build the "Brave New World"; Korshunov made it clear he wants to get rid of the Zone & help Agatha achieve her goal, both have indeed kept their word & provided Skif with a new home (in this particular case — quite literally); Scar has truly believed in the idea of the Shining Zone, he only had a general image of what he was chasing, but his enthusiasm was infectious & his goal wasn't allat grim at the first glance — it took the info found out in the Neurolab for Scar himself to even start having second thoughts; Strelok made it clear he's always gonna defend the Zone — tho he didn't necessarily tell Skif how exactly he's planning to do so, which makes him the most shady one in comparison, funnily enough. Faust? He presented his own vision quite faithfully in accordance to his perception of the Monolith & the Zone, that's what made him so persuading in the first place: he wasn't lying when he was saying everyone in the Zone deserved the happiness the Monolith was providing to "chosen few", that's what he truly believed — even tho it meant an essential brainwashing in reality. And Doctor was sharing his beliefs with Skif in a similar way the others did, but with a crucial difference: he didn't try to kill Skif when he went against his vision. Whether Skif shoots him or not, Doc's message stays adamant: "do what you must, whatever will be — will be". He's the only one who accepted Skif's right to choose, which ultimately goes in line with Doc's own philosophy, hence making him the most sensible, I'd go as far as saying the single most sincere & trustworthy of the bunch.

Overall, even though the theme of manipulation is clearly present in the game, I won't say it's the one the game's revolving around. The main theme, imo, is a freedom of choice & how it's shaping the world around us.

[elder bobcat]

On a side note, I totally disagree with your understanding of Korshunov as a character. No, he wasn't manipulated by Regulatory Board nor does his understanding of how the latter operates gets challenged in any way — he's their loyal servant, who has failed their trust multiple times yet still hasn't been executed for all of his failures, hence why he's adamant on fulfilling his duty. "He doesn't even flinch, when he's tasked with killing his own former soldiers" —not exactly how things went down tho. Korshunov was ready to use the elevator leading directly to X-7 avoiding the Granite squad entirely, it's only when it becomes apparent that said elevator won't work without activating the backup power he goes "looks like I'll get to meet them after all" — and then immediately gets stopped by Agatha, who sends Skif to face Granite on his own, understanding the risks of such an encounter for Korshunov & their mission. Wasn't really "tasked with killing his own former soldiers", as we can see, and did think it was possible to avoid facing them.

Where he doesn't hesitate indeed, btw, is when he orders Skif to kill Dalin, who wants to verify the Subtle Matter theory instead of sticking to the protocol — so much for going against his understanding of his place, I guess. The way he sees it, judging by his actions, is that he can help the world via destroying what's threatening it, the Zone, and pay his debt to the Regulatory Board by helping them finish the Project X the way it was meant to be finished when he was in charge of its security. That was his personal vendetta against C-Con & the Zone for what his men have become, for all the trouble that came with the treason (which is why he has that hatred for scientists, who in his eyes did themselves no favours in the following years to mitigate it) — and his mission to finish what's been started.

[lime vessel]

Great take, the big thing that I myself want to be elaborated on is Faust being manipulated by the CCon even while the X network isn’t connected? Just because of his ties to X5 and the controller project? Was this himself longing to bring back the love and community of the monolith or was this the CCon using their only asset still really active to bring themselves back into power throughout the zone

[elder bobcat]

Like I mentioned earlier, the whole point of the Duga conversation between Skif & Faust is to showcase how Faust has embraced the Monolith as an idea of happiness that people are looking for in the Zone & venture into the Zone to find, which in turn helped him perceive the Zone in his own way. When Skif tells Faust the truth about his nature, thinking the latter has been causing allat chaos simply because that's what he was created for in the labs, in his reply Faust goes "well, you'd say that, I'm not surprised. You need to stay here a lil longer...", implying it was his willful choice to fight for the idea of happiness the Monolith represented, not some predetermined program or anything alike, he says that Skif needs to "walk his own path to come to perceiving the Zone in his own way" akin to how Faust perceives it in his way as "such is the will of the Monolith". That's what Dvupalov was actually talking about as well when he mentioned that the only way to create a true Controller was to preserve the ability to think, feel & make decisions — given Faust has preserved all of these abilities, the Monolith has became an idea for him that's worth fighting for. This is why he's so eager to bring the Monolith back, even tho C-Con is dead & the Monolith itself is not functioning: his actions are not programmed — it's his choice.

[lime vessel]

The unfortunate part is to the poor souls who were brought into the monolith they probably don’t share the same sentiments about the love of the monolith since they have no recollection of it. Faust is the only one who can remember how “nice” it was and how he came to love it and he condemned people like strider back into that. When all he wanted was nothing to do with the monolith, shown most seriously during the signal when strider takes a Wardens AK74 and tries to shoot himself before the connection is established with the X-Network. I totally agree on the idea that the subliminal message in the game is making your own choices and forge your own path in the zone, but seriously watching strider during the signal actually was horrible

[fathom veldt]

well interesting part in this scene is that Faust calls Skif an envoy of monolith

[elder bobcat]

Faust wasn't "the only one" who had nice recollections of the Monolith: if you talk to Noontiders across the Wild Island upon the first arrival, you'll quickly realise there's a bunch of em who wouldn't mind running it back at all.

You're absolutely on point with how witnessing Strider getting stripped from his free will is a terrifying watch — that's why I personally understand why there's no "happy ending" for him, it amplifies the tragedy of a human being having a freedom of choice taken away.

[lime vessel]

Is it that they would be happy to go back to the monolith or is it they don’t know how to live /wont try to embrace the life ahead of them? And having Faust doing sermons talking about how beautiful it was probably doesn’t help. Either way I think they did an immaculate job in making the monolith a more human element rather than a anomaly of sorts

[elder bobcat]

As the dialogue goes afterwards:

— Skif: "I just want to reclaim what I've lost".

— Faust: "That... Makes two of us".

[fathom veldt]

Yeah still is weird, although what do you think Skif lost? I am not sure if this scene was done last minute or some hidden message, after a defeat of Faust you get some teleportation/mind transfering animation where you just hang on and then chill with him. Pretty weird goodbye scene

[elder bobcat]

It's really both, in fact, as you can meet a guy near the bar, whose nickname I can't quite remember rn, who I believe was a part of Strider's group in CoP & who is expressing his desire to get back to the old ways quite aggressively — and guys around the dining table weighing what would be better, coming back to their past or finding new ways in life. And yes, the way it's all presented is a beautiful storytelling, hands down.

[lime vessel]

Foma was part of striders og group and ended with Faust

But yeah it’s one of those things that on my first playthrough I really didn’t grasp just how deep noon was divided into wanting to go back. I hope that at some point we get more of a view into how monolith life was during the CS-CoP

For them to be so uhh gung-ho about going back at least

[elder bobcat]

Skif has lost purpose in life & was trying to find a place to belong, essentially. That's what the whole "finding a new home" deal is about — as Agatha mentions, he's the only one who ventured into the Zone looking for the answers among those, who got their homes destroyed (and some of those people preferred to do nothing with it at all). He's a 25 years old former UAMC soldier with "3 years of service in real hell", who was sitting on a couch depressing, when an opportunity for an adventure presented itself in the most rude way possible. That's why Faust's words resonate with him so much when the former mentions how some "come to the Zone to find a way to feel real & alive again" as in "find happiness".

[fathom veldt]

and how does this relate to envoy of monolith ?

[lime vessel]

Skif was the most recent one to use the monolith, he could mean that?

[elder bobcat]

Skif has been looking for his own happiness & in the process has made the return of the Monolith possible by bringing the alpha into the Zone, losing it & doing everything in his power to get it back. These last two points, "losing something that could bring his happiness back & trying to reclaim it", weirdly enough reflect Faust's own story of losing the Monolith & trying to bring it back, which again — became possible because Skif took that dummy and went into the Zone, the only one with the guts to fight for what he's lost.

[fathom veldt]

Well it was kind of a surprise for him, he wasn't aware what he was delivering

[elder bobcat]

He absolutely was aware as Faust was in cahoots with Hermann from the get go (from the beginning of the in-game events, that is).

[vital pollen]

In internal documentation ||there is one place where Kaimanov is used interchangeably with Faust, though I do not remember what it was as my memory is hazy, I can look it up if you are interested.||

There is no definite answer either though, but it might be a clue.

[elder bobcat]

I think it won't be superfluous to take a look in order to cautiously broaden the field of discussion on the matter (I'm saying "cautiously" because AFAIK a heck ton of concepts from that period were seriously reworked due to all the cuts that took place or completely scrapped alongside the cut content/locations), so would appreciate it 🤝🏻

[vital pollen]

Surprisingly, no, the outline of the plot two years prior to the release was almost exactly the same as when the game came out. Some minor details changed, of course, but overall it is about the same.

My favourite one is probably the Solder cutscene, where ||the choice of whether to spare him was during the bread scene, giving the player the option to help him or leave him to suffocate, but that was deemed too sadistic. Which resulted in the scene you see in the final game, where the player first saves Solder but is then given the option to shoot him.||

I will look through the documentation and get back to you. I recall it’s something very minor, but it caught my eye when I was looking through it after playing through S2.

[fathom veldt]

Hmm not like from begining, but ok, he knew that he was in cahoots, but did he knew what he is delivering to sircaa? it wasn't just a scanner and artifact, Faust uploaded a little program into it

[elder bobcat]

Okay: who's the "he" we're talking about — Skif or Faust? You've been asking about Faust calling Skif the "envoy of the Monolith" — I've provided my explanation as to why he does. If we're speaking about Faust — he has been in cahoots with Hermann from the very beginning & knew for a fact that Skif was carrying the alpha in the scanner, they've discussed that with Hermann & struck a deal. If we're talking about Skif — he obviously didn't know about any of that before talking to Dalin at the Slag Heap, having a conversation with Hermann in X-11, then hearing what Agatha said about Hermann's ties with Faust in SIRCAA & picking up Faust's PDA at the Duga.

[fathom veldt]

yes its the same area of a topic, ok they can relate to each other, both have something little in common, like looking for a purpose to be "happy", that explains romantic view on the roof and chat. But calling Skif an envoy of monolith is a bit too much since he denies it. When Skif took scanner and brought it to Sircaa he has no clue what trojan horse he brought, so that denies case that Skif is like was on a mission to do it...his goal wasn't to bring back monolith, nor he is some sort of messenger

[elder bobcat]

Skif doesn't deny it — he's confused, and no wonder 😁

Skif's goal wasn't to bring back the Monolith, ofc, but Faust has his reasons to call him like that: Skif's the guy that not only has common traits with the Voice of the Monolith himself — all things considered, he should've just died at the Old Bridge, but ended up chasing the alpha all the way & killing Faust in the end. Hence why Faust also mentions that he's probably angered the Monolith & the Envoy was sent to punish Faust. So it's kinda clear why the latter has called him this way.

[mossy maple]

Are we 100% sure Faust uploaded a Trojan into the artefact or it's pure speculation based on a detail in cutscene at clear Sky base?

[fathom veldt]

most logical explanation

[fathom veldt]

ehm what? what traits with the voice of monolith? Indeed its confusing, not clear why he calls him like that. Though yeah he supposed to die but it's kind of on NImble not on Faust, he just orderd like so

[elder bobcat]

These traits @fathom veldt Faust has been calling himself "the Voice of the Monolith" (in Ukr it's "the Word", or perhaps in both even & I've just messed up, tho implication is practically identical). Skif was supposed to die, but in a long chain of events leading to Faust's death Skif has persevered, survived & in the end finished him off, hence why Faust treats the "Envoy" as an equal (if not a superior) individual in the dialogue.

[fathom veldt]

idk this does not make sense :/

[elder bobcat]

Unless we're dealing with an immense language barrier here, it should be clear what's going on between Faust & Skif 😁

[fathom veldt]

because that they share one / couple traits like looking for purpose/belonging and just survived (well kind of general trait eh?) does not mean one is an envoy of monolith. Really nothing special about part "supposed to die"

the possible reason i can think of is also related to his monolog at the end, ok well apparently he heard "the voice", but it wasn't a monolith calling it was the zone? so maybe in that relation. Then as you say his thinking "monolith" come to punish him and he though that a punisher is aligned with that voice...idk its pretty weird

[elder bobcat]

Apart from allat Skif just happens to be the guy who interacted with the Monolith for the first time in 9 years & also the guy who inadvertently, via bringing the alpha into the Zone in hopes of getting a chance at a new life, helped in creating the circumstances which made the Monolith's comeback possible. It's Faust's POV, he calls Skif "the Envoy" because of the sum of all these factors, to Faust Skif is "the Envoy" due to all these things we've mentioned coming together. The fact Skif may not consider himself "the Envoy" & is confused when called such doesn't change the fact that Faust thinks he's one & sees him as one.

[fathom veldt]

oh boy Faust is delusional

[elder bobcat]

Giggles aside, I'm only trying to rationalise this man due to some things he said that could've resonated deeply with Skif (and not that he was wrong in the essence of what he said, for example he's not wrong at the Clear Sky base either) & his appearance in the "Project Y" cutscene with the final monologue. Put that stuff aside — and he is an absolute madlad, who condemned hundreds of people to death in one way or another due to his twisted idea on what happiness could truly mean/be. Sorta similar situation to what Scar has said'n'done, just under a different prism & angle. And that's what bothers me the most with this whole idea of his involvement in the Project Y: what he's done to his fellow Noontiders (especially with everything we see and hear from Strider, Khors, Jumper, Bluish, Quite etc) & was presumably attempting to do to the rest of stalkers in the Zone (not to mention all the massacre & bloodshed) goes resoundingly against the theme of "embracing freedom as a necessity for the journey of life to continue", it's clashing like a trainwreck. If the key message was indeed that (and it has to be, since that's what we hear in the end, what's explicitly shown throughout the game & is what developers have been constantly talking about in all the big documentaries) — imho, Faust, with his actions throughout the game, is not as much of a fitting character to deliver said message in the end of it all 😅

[fathom veldt]

"To keep life's adventure going, one must embrace freedom.
Such is the gift of the Zone" Faust, RIP 2021 :))

Ehm, we need to keep in mind that for him some time has passed.
Not exactly sure how much time passes between the events in-game, well
from the looks of it, maybe a couple of days?

Kind of after death he continued to live in subtle world, but as I understood all of them were isolated there, c-con, Strider, Topol. I think this message is more related to that. And that ending was kind of about a freedom, freedom of the zone.

I like the guy, but kind of would not expect anything else from a zealot some messiah. The ends justify the means

[elder bobcat]

And that's how I approach this whole thing as well, that it's an imprint in the Subtle Matter that we're witnessing in the end, which blends the beliefs of Faust & Doctor in a short summary of Skif's journey that resulted in the Zone becoming free & humanity finding a peaceful way to coexist with her, albeit through initial struggles. That just seems like the most neutral & adequate way to perceive what's being shown, all (or most) things considered.

[mossy maple]

Wait just killed Faust for the third time, now there is audiolog on his PDA? ?? Is it new ??

(I hate Hermann so much)

[fathom veldt]

Yep, don't remember exacly i think it apeared in 1.4 +-. Also you could try god mode in his fight and don't kill his minions, strange thing with this is that if you kill them after Faust defeat then they have normal names if before that then they all are named Faust. Not sure if its a bug or some feature

[mossy maple]

Uh ok.. weird to add this 6 month latter

All these deaths just because Herman wanted a Nobel price lol

[fathom veldt]

maybe they didin't added everything yet ? :)) Not sure if now you can find pda with Order for Strider to kill Doctor

[mossy maple]

Nope didn't see it

[fathom veldt]

its when you meet doc so its further down the line

[mossy maple]

Oh ok

I wonder how rich Strelok is, to be able to buy so much mercs lol

[fathom veldt]

not rich enough, still bald 😄

[mossy maple]

My headcanon is that he sells his own marchandise to rookies

Marked One™

[mossy maple]

Then, thinking Doc has nothing to do with projet Y is stupid. Why would the chief of monolithians would want to kill a random doctor living in the Woods by sending his best soldier 🤓

[jagged hull]

i havent read the whole conversation but as far as i understand you take issue with faust calling skif an envoy of the monolith. look at it this way, to faust monolith is a god that rules the zone, and faust just met a random dude that singlehandedly ruined his whole plan. someone like him can reasonably take that as a sign that some higher power is acting out their will through skif

[frosty ridge]

Completely off topic from this discussion but I'm going to yap about how much I enjoy SIRCAA/The Regulatory Board as antagonists (and also some Project Y rambling because who would I be without Dr. K's wild ride?).

My initial expectation, going into S2 from the ARG, was that SIRCAA were going to be The Group / C-Con 2.0 in every aspect: A bunch of hysterically evil scientists bent on controlling the world at any cost. And, while that's somewhat right, I was honestly surprised by how normal they were as the story progressed. SIRCAA are just as evil as they look, but not as evil as I thought. Instead of some C-Consciousness-esque villainy, they're much more grounded and there's not really a moment of "Oh, this is their villain reveal" that I had been expecting (besides the fake-out Monolith scene). You can argue Agatha is kinda that, and SIRCAA being backed by the Regulatory Board is certainly a reveal, but, when you think about it, nothing majorly changes about them. From the start, SIRCAA is an institution dedicated to conquering the power of the Zone in the name of "the future" - they never claimed to have any intent to challenge society - their future is just the enhanced status-quo of society's power structures. I mean, what did we expect? They're a government agency working to control a resource - their scientific success was always going to be empower the government behind them. The Board already control society, they don't need things to change, their victory is furthering that control and cementing the path they've already had society on. As Agatha says: The means justify the ends. Control is the point. The Board is what an institution like SIRCAA has always stood for: The calculated "progress" that doesn't care about the alternative lifestyles and forms of organization it has to put down to make that happen. It is a status quo victory, putting down the stalker community and any possibility of the Zone's power bringing change to society.

A lot of STALKER 2 revolves around an aggressive extension of the first game's critiques. It feels like, at least to me, the writers definitely had a bone to pick with people who misread the themes of STALKER 1 (such as how Strelok's character in S2 is a clear example of a person who misunderstood SoC's themes and morals). SIRCAA form an important part of this critique. Something I have noticed in discussions of SoC over the years is how unfortunately easy it is to overlook the themes of the true ending because the C-Con are so obviously, unambiguously awful. Rather than reading it as "The belief that humanity is inherently evil and must be technocratically controlled or fixed is a deeply narcissistic premise and the people who think that are, ironically, themselves, the most truly evil people. Freedom, autonomy, the ability to have conflict and disagreement are a core part of being a person and they are good things worth fighting for" it's quite easy to go "The evil scientists who want to change the world are bad" (which can lead into the aforementioned 'change is bad' neurosis Strelok developed by the time of S2). The issue here is that, to oppose the C-Con, you don't have to necessarily stake any particular belief. You can agree with everything they believe and just think they're the wrong guys to do it. You can just dislike them because you want to be in charge instead. You can have any number of disagreements. It's an easy choice because you're just being asked "Do you disagree?" rather than "What do you think?" (and while S2 isn't wholly immune to this, I think it does a way better job trying to articulate these themes and make its choice more complex).

S2 presents us with four endings: two which try to reify a status quo (Ward/Strelok), two which try to radically alter the world (Spark/Project Y). In this dynamic, Spark's ending takes a similar place to the C-Con's choice with a slight twist: the misanthropic "humanity bad" message being turned into a "world bad" message - the Shining being a way to "fix" a world its believers see as inherently irredeemable and horrible. The status quo endings, however, are where things get interesting. Strelok's ending is a suicidal attempt to preserve stalker society by stripping it of its revolutionary potential - cutting stalkers off from the world. No longer will the Zone function as a spawning ground for new ideas and the possibility of larger change, no longer could people wanting an escape from the outside world come to the Zone, it will become merely another prison. The Zone can never be free, and neither can its inhabitants. Strelok's ending seeks to prevent forces like SIRCAA and the Board from destroying the stalker way of life but fails to understand that the outside world is essential to that life. You cannot be free from the world because no one is free until everyone is free. It is a death-cult to the Zone's stagnation - their internal status-quo.

Ward's ending is, as stated before, a victory for the status quo of mainland society. The Board, this shadow government, have succeeded in heralding humanity away from the power of the Zone and have had their rule reinforced through total domination of the Noosphere. This also reads as a bit of a critique of the Ecologists, and how fans have interpreted them since STALKER 1. While, as S2 points out with characters like Lodochka and (to a lesser extent) Kymanov, scientists are not inherently evil or anything, when they're working for a government you have to account for how that science is being used. They are not politically neutral, and groups like SIRCAA serve the agenda of benefactors who are in power in the current system. Ward's ending, SIRCAA's ending, the Board's ending - it's the eradication of the possibility of alternative society. You cannot be a stalker after it. There is only the mainland, normal society, with no tolerance for difference or freedom beyond the parameters the Regulatory Board set in place. That is what they do: they regulate. This is why Agatha refuses to acknowledge Skif's stalker identity, calling him Yevhen, and, in the Ward ending, raising the possibility of a rank promotion for his work; she is reintegrating him into the military structure he once left.

What these endings provide, in contrast to STALKER 1's true ending, is a critique of the various ways you might disagree with the C-Consciousness without accepting the story's message. To want this Zone to last forever you are embracing its starvation, you are denying any change in the insistence that this is all there can be. To want the Zone gone, to accept that someone else - some sort of sensible regulator of society - should take the reigns of anomalous energy, you are also embracing the oppression of the status quo. You accept this is all there must be. The means justify the ends. It is the death of hope, change, and autonomy in exchange for a contented life within the system.

Returning to my original point, this is what makes SIRCAA so insidious. They are just as evil as they look. To understand them as evil, you have to recognize the evil of the mainland, of society as it is. SIRCAA and their miracles go towards perpetuating the violence of "normal society" - a violence that is less flashy than the gunfights of the Zone but arguably much more devastating: the violence of removing choice. In the Zone's violence, at least, as long as the Zone is open, there is the potential for autonomy! To restrict, to regulate, to decide for people what their life should be - that is the violence the Board enforces. It is the violence of cages. As Kymanov says, these people - Strelok, the Board - they seek to keep humanity and all its potential caged like a dog. To insist that there is no potential for change or no good in change, the result is the same! The people of these societies are harmed, irrevocably, by their cages - and, as Doctor points out, that is what truly makes them impossible to socialize. It is not, as the C-Con or Spark might insist, that people or the whole world are too wicked - that that wickedness must somehow be lobotomized; it is to realize that that wickedness is engendered by the material conditions of society. Strelok traps dogs in a cage where they must fight for scraps, the Board traps dogs in a cage where they must obey every order and live in accordance with their law.

To recognize not only the evil of Spark and Strelok, but to recognize the evil of SIRCAA, Ward, and the Regulatory board - that is what is required to understand the right choice. To do that is to define your own position at last, to come to the conclusion of STALKER 2's themes: All of the cages must come down, the maintenance of the status quo is what prevents people from improving, from forming alternative social relations, from forming alternative societies better than what we have. They need not be forced into changing - they need only be allowed. The Zone's desires are humanity's desires. To change the Zone, destroy the Zone, contain the Zone - this is a denial of humanity's personhood and autonomy, of their ability to choose and want.

You cannot be neutral in the face of that, because the neutral option is to perpetuate that denial. There is only one option remaining and it is to free the Zone: Project Y, the ultimate antithesis to SIRCAA's conclusion of Project X, as well as a counter to Spark and Strelok's delusions. To open every cage at once, to allow what we saw of the Zone in its infancy: conflict, yes, but with purpose. The alternatives for society that the C-Consciousness considered a distraction, that Spark saw as a "dark side," that SIRCAA so looked down upon, that Strelok sought to freeze without understanding that it would extinguish their fire - those alternatives will be possible everywhere. When the world is overrun with desire and there is nothing that can cage everyone's desire for freedom, then, and only then, will no one be unsatisfied.

so anyways do you guys think hermann ever experimented with men?

[trail rapids]

This is going to be a long read

[mossy maple]

Great text. I never looked this way at the endings.

I always felt like S2 was about the possible conflict between happiness and freedom

[frosty ridge]

I never considered it in so few words, but you're right, it does boil down to that in some respects (with nuance, obviously). Good point.

[mossy maple]

What is your take on subtle matter ? I feel like it's too simplistic to say it's "just a copy"

I've seen people saying that people in subtle matter cannot change or learn or even that it's simply an illusion and nothing more

But how to explain how Faust changed his views about the zone in project Y ending or how did CCon could change their objective after their death ? Before Strelok killed them, they wanted to erase the worst traits of humanity by altering the noosphere. But now after their death, they realized that V. Dalin's theory about life in subtle matter is true and seek to create (or impose) a heaven for all the sentient being in the zone (the next step is mankind)

[fathom veldt]

In his case its pretty simple, because he saw it wasn't a monolith calling, but it was a zone. good question, what the hell is subtle matter? From game the only thing i could understood it is somehow a zone itself or related to it.
What relates to these twisted bastards c-con, hmm they don't like being isolated, but what will change when they be free? will they dominate others?

[mossy maple]

Maybe the subtle matter is a world between the noosphere and the zone? We know that the noosphere "leaked" on the zone. Maybe the subtle is this leak itself. This place between physical reality and a kind of platonic world, wich is the noosphere ?

A bridge between two worlds

Free from the contraints of earth without being reduced to a simple idea (because this what we are in the noosphere)

[fathom veldt]

it was said about zone specifically, wasn't mentions about layers, its pretty bad writting i think, they rushed through story with these events. Mh well there is geosphere, biosphere and here comes noosphere, a mind sphere. and where does subtle matter stand idk...then if it is a bridge then what for is noosphere then? we see full representation of people what they were, for example Strider, Noosphere direct translation is mind sphere, and in game it was explaned like some earth informational sphere, so maybe real noosphere is subtle matter

[jagged hull]

id disagree that strelok cares all that much about the stalker way of life. the more important thing to him is the zone as his home, it just makes sense for him to identify with that more. the only constant in the life that he can remember is the zone, its his homeland. he wouldnt be the first person to have a twisted view of what constitutes as a homeland and how it can be protected.

but i dont think that this interferes with your reading too much (which i overall agree with)

[elder bobcat]

I don't quite understand why'd you think Regulatory Board were already controlling the society & were not aiming to challenge/change the existing society, when the entire point of taking control of the anomalous energy was to build the "new world" & put it under total surveillance (as shown in the Ward ending) 😁 Albeit it's not quite the way C-Consciousness was approaching the matter, but it'd still inevitably change the structure/functioning of societies worldwide.

It's also not clear if the Regulatory Board is a government structure or a supragovernment corporation — I'd be inclined to say it's the latter, akin to Cyberpunk's corpos, given they were able to build the Generators all over the world without various governments protesting/noticing etc (using the Ukrainian government's inability to investigate the experiments conducted within CEZ as a documented in-lore example here), indicating they were simply corrupting the "big heads" in some way before actually taking over the world as a result of completing the Project X.

To clarify: government ≠ society. It's a long way from corrupting the government figures to bending entire societies, all of humanity over the knee — Project X was meant to ensure the latter.

[elder bobcat]

Person, who misunderstood Strelok's character in ShoC, has written Call of Pripyat. S2 is CoP's sequel that tried to bring Strelok's character in ShoC & Strelok's character in CoP to a middle ground, tying it up by the string of events between 2013-2021. That's how we ended up with the "isolation of the Zone" theme.

And C-Con were trying to change the human nature itself first & foremost, which is indeed an extremely dangerous thing to carelessly meddle with. It wouldn't just "change the world" — it'd highly probably be the end of humanity as a whole.

[elder bobcat]

Initiating Project X in order to build the "new world" makes no sense for a corp/supergovernment that's already controlling all of the humanity/world. It's true that Regulatory Board pursues total control of the world with no tolerance for diversity (in all of its meanings) or freedom beyond the frames/parameters they set themselves — but for this to be possible the Project X needed to be completed. Only after taking control of the anomalous energy the Regulatory Board would become capable of establishing their vision of status quo.

[elder bobcat]

Much rather about freedom ensuring the true happiness & being the cornerstone of life. But you sure could argue the way Faust & Scar perceive "happiness", for example, is directly opposing the freedom, so there is indeed a conflict in that.

[elder bobcat]

"People saying" — it's the conclusion to which Skif has come after simulating a contact with SM in X-15 and is what he tells Dalin about it during their dialogue at the Chemical Plant after TCS skirmish, the part about "simply being an induced illusion" is what Strelok/Korshunov think of it.

Subtle Matter is living up to its name in this game. First of all, Valentyn Dalin was right about its existence — he was most likely wrong about it gifting the immortality in the Noosphere. Every SM encounter Skif experiences shows us dead/killed people, whose imprints of personalities, thoughts & dreams (basically — minds) were saved within this layer of informational field. I think it's plausible to assume some part of the SM has "leaked", as you've suggested, into the biosphere i.e. real world thanks to the creation of the Zone. That's how Dead Valley may've come into being, for example, where Skif is able to talk to the imprints of people who died or were killed throughout the story without having to use any pods.

Let's put it as a "deeper layer of the anomalous energy generated by the Noosphere, where all the imprints of dead people's personalities/minds are contained, and some parts of which have leaked into the Zone upon its creation".

[elder bobcat]

Yes, what Strelok does in his ending can hardly be characterized as a "suicidal attempt to preserve the stalker society" — if anything, it looks a lot more like he preserves the Zone itself by entirely sealing it off at a cost of dooming said stalker society to a virtual extinction.

[frosty ridge]

Fair enough, though I think he has an assumption that stalker society will somehow remain through this. Strelok’s beliefs are all about making things stay the same — he is obsessed with preventing change by any means necessary, to the Zone and to himself. It’s confusing because, yes, it’s obviously contradictory, but I think Strelok wants to keep the entire Zone as it was (even though that’s obviously impossible). You’re right it’s more about “the Zone” than stalker society, but I read his mania as folding those things together. The only Zone Strelok remembers is one defined by stalkers, that’s fundamentally what it’s about for him. I don’t think he can separate the two in his mind

[frosty ridge]

Subtle matter is difficult and I honestly can’t completely agree with myself on any point. I lean most towards what F1stzzz says about it, but then I struggle to explain things like the “C-Con” we see in S2, which are seemingly somewhat illusory and — if I were to try to explain them — could maybe be subtle imprints of the C-Con and Valentyn being called upon by some sort of control system they left behind? I honestly don’t know.

What we see in Orbita seems to be the current truth of subtle matter : it’s the frozen imprint of a person’s memory. It’s not immortality, they don’t continue living in there, their imprint can just be brought out to be interacted with through manipulating the anomalous energy. When we see Faust in the ending, I take this as a demonstration of the game’s theme of freedom and change. As the Zone is freed, it can now change, and the imprints within the subtle matter can change as well (which seems to be suggesting the Zone is growing its own full consciousness at this point). The Doctor and Faust we see seem to be manifested by the Zone, a demonstration of its new capabilities. It’s possible it was manifesting Kymanov previously as well. I have my suspicions that he may have died before the events of the game and the bubble around his hut allowed the Zone (with what little will it had) to manifest his frozen memory to complete Project Y. That would make sense with the ending, as once Kymanov tentatively steps out of the circle of emitters he turns into this new, character-developed Faust — representing the Zone no longer needing to use Kymanov’s imprint. It now can act on its own, with its own beliefs, through these manifestations (which are no longer limited as it has been freed).

Subtle matter is confusing and makes my brain hurt. Very on-brand for Valentyn

[fathom veldt]

where are you getting this "frozen memory" from? You can explain Strider but can't explain c-con? not following this logic. Interesting theory about Mirage though, but his body is outside the fence

[frosty ridge]

Skif states that subtle matter is just a copy of someone's memory, when talking to Dalin in Escape the Cage. We also see that Strider only has his memories up until the Signal when we speak to his imprint in Orbita.

[fathom veldt]

what is he? a scientist? how he does even know when just entered a zone? you have been there all the time. Yes Strider has memories up until Signal because he was technically dead, zombie

these "imprints" or whatever even have cognitive abilities, emotions you can judge that from how he converse with you, pretty sure he is conscious

[frosty ridge]

Can you be sure of that? You see him when you enter the machine and he does not remember anything else since the moment of the signal. There is no proof of consciousness here. It could, and dialogue implies it to be, just a collection of memories. If there was some "subtle world" out there, the Strider we see hasn't seen it. He hasn't conversed with anyone about his situation. He is just a memory

Its as Skif says: Life is for the living.

[fathom veldt]

how he can remember after the singal anything? signal wiped him completely, he is dead and controlled by psi

pretty tough life for Strider first he got his identity and memories wiped before, then signal was lost then he tried his best to create life aaand boom...

but there is a proof of consciousness since he can converse with you, remembers you, same identity, he is self aware he ask what happened to him, he is responsive. pretty simple he was able to reflect on his life and experience soo yeah he was conscious

momories for example don't talk, you could watch some movie then not to converse

Skif says Life is for the living because it is true, its kind of not even clear what it is and they are not breathing even, so yeah, they kind of can't be considered alive

[frosty ridge]

He may not remember, but the noosphere does

[fathom veldt]

well it doesn't, and it was clear, he ask Skif about it what happened, and what happened to his men

also one good question how you doubt about c-con being "alive"? and you don't wonder about Scar?

[frosty ridge]

He is able to react as he would from his memories. The noosphere has animated them, channeled through Orbita station

This isn't a 1-1 analogy, but you can think of it sort of like an AI. It isn't alive, it's just data

[fathom veldt]

noosphere isn't alive, its a mind sphere or earth informational field how it is repeated over the series

its a place not a mind or whatever

[frosty ridge]

That wasn't what I was talking about, but I would disagree with you there too

Skif argues the same as you, and Kymanov merely answers that "it has a big heart." Perhaps the Noosphere has not gained a consciousness yet, but might it? Certainly Project Y's ending leaves open the possibility (also if we want to be a little sneaky we know that the Noosphere gaining sentience has been a planned plot point in multiple STALKER games going back to Clear Sky's design documents. While they never confirmed it canon there, STALKER 2 is clearly trying to hint at the possibility in the Project Y ending. The series is majorly inspired by the movie Solaris, by Tarkovsky, who made the Stalker film, and they liked the idea of a massive consciousness like that for the Noosphere. STALKER 2 definitely borrows some points from earlier design documents, so I think we can acknowledge they're at least hinting at it being possible)

[frosty ridge]

We see when Skif and Dalin activate the STALKER Program Control Center, the "C-Con" we witness glitches as its turned on. It repeats the rant it gave to Strelok, ignoring Dalin's pleas and questions. It's clear that whatever it is, it isn't just the C-Con having escaped into the Noosphere. I'm not too sure what it is. Maybe some sort of failsafe illusion in case of their deaths, maybe some of their equipment weirdly interacting with their imprint in the subtle matter, maybe something else entirely - but they're dead and whatever it is it's trying to pretend they're still alive. We know once the glitch subsides - in the Spark route - it quickly attempts to convince Dalin that its his father, showing a Valentyn disconnected from the rest of the C-Con (which is suspicious as there's nowhere else that would even be hinted as possible for them to actually do), but that's a trick (it's the Spark route, everything is a lie).

I don't know what you mean about Scar

[mossy maple]

How to explain Scar's ending then? They are all dead but experience life in subtle matter

[stray meadow]

holy yap i accidently click on this channel and get FLASHBANGED with a WALL of white text

[silent seal]

https://tenor.com/view/humanity-is-corrupt-strelok-wishing-strelok-trippin-strelok-confused-strelok-gif-16695504697958947253

It only makes sense that the lore page is like this

[frosty ridge]

That's a full-on illusion. It shows you the whole "Shining" is just playing with perception. Maybe they're using real subtle matter to do that in some twisted, maybe they're just using induced hallucinations

[vapid spire]

So how come the stalker program control center isn't an x-lab?

[mossy maple]

Is the doctor vegetarian ?

[fathom veldt]

I think you are mixing up few things

[jagged hull]

its the same as the oasis we see in the game - an illusion generated by psi emitters

skif isnt talking to anyone in that ending its all just a dream thats in his head

[spiral siren]

Sidorovich says there are three oasis

One is the one in stalker CoP the other is on S2 story, so which is the third?

[vapid spire]

Cold island?

[pure holly]

Dunno if this has been discussed, but crackpot theory time, I wonder if Skif is a former monolithian, or C-con agent.
1: when noontide become monolith, strider doesn’t kill him, if anything he seems confused about something, then just kicks skif
2: Skif is way too comfortable in the zone. (Maybe that’s just me projecting though)
3: Your apartment blows up so you decide to drop everything, your family, friends, bank account, everything and decide to go to the zone? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense unless it’s the zone calling you to bring the c-con back online

[trail rapids]

I think it was said in the game skif had no family or friends left and really only went to the zone to sell the artifact that blew up his kitchen

Before he got sucked into the storyline just because he wanted a new kitten

[warm rapids]

So are coupons a crypto currency or something

[jagged hull]

regarding point 2, skif was a ukrainian marine and after his military career he worked with stalkers selling dummy artifacts on the mainland. he probably has heard quite a lot about the zone and has the combat and survival experience required to survive, at least more than the petty criminals that usually are bandits

and yeah point 3 should be obvious, you should pay a bit more attention to the game, by the end it becomes pretty clear that skif doesnt just want a house

[pure holly]

I haven’t completed it yet. I have 3 playthroughs, and only one of them is actually in Pripyat chronologically

This is more just speculation mid-near end playthrough

[tidal flame]

Are all the stalkers we play in the series generally/all equally legends of the zone? Or, is there one that rules legendary in Chernobyl, lore-wise.(hi, new stalker here to the server, not the game.)

[pure holly]

Strelok is the biggest one since he managed to get to the CNPP not once but twice, and the first time was with the brain scorcher still active, the second time he turned the brain scorcher off himself opening Pripyat and the CNPP to the rest of the zone. Mind you, the ease with which skif can get to both is not reflective of the massive achievement that was at the time

[tidal flame]

Aaaaaaaaahhhhh ok! Thanks

[pure holly]

then again, there's sidorovich the legendary conman whom all stalkers know

[spiral siren]

^^^

Even a trio of friends from different factions years later are on Cordon complaining of Sidorovich and their faction status, but the duty dude is passing through a bad moment as he hates Voronin and rather go with Zulu, the bandit is worried that there is no kingpin with Nestor gone.

[silent seal]

Good way to think of it lol Zonecoin helps explain its inexistence as physical currency as well as the challenge of truly becoming rich off the Zone because koupons are useless outside of it

[warm rapids]

It is funny to imagine some newer guys joined freedom and just made another crypto

[pure holly]

A freedomer is out scavenging when he finds a pda that mentions of a horde of money. After awhile he tracks it and within is a million hryvnia.
Dejected the freedomer throws the money into a fire. When asked later why he did it, he replies with "I can't buy bread with that shit"

[frosty ridge]

My pet theory is that when Mylkukha and his squad "survived in Pripyat for months" they were actually captured by the Monolith and he became one of the Marked Agents. C-Con would want to undermine Freedom, as they were the biggest threat to their control of the North (holding the Barrier even after Duty pulled back), and Myklukha was missing in the exact timeframe that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Program was initiated (between CS and SoC). They could've programmed him to take power in Freedom and set up an alternative currency to guarantee the MDST funding (considering they were cut off from any money after the end of Project X) and further their control of the Zone by manipulating its trade. I mean, if anyone has the servers and energy to run something like Koupons it'd be the MDST. That'd make sense as to why Myklukha turned Freedom in to his personal cryptocurrency gang by the time we see them in S2.

[spiral siren]

This... is quite a valid theory, too much shit happened at prypiat and on STALKER CoP we do not see Duty or Freedom squads early ingame during operation Fairway, we see some running in SoC on each taking their territory but in CoP as if something bad happened to them, as mostly its a bunch of stalkers from rookies to seasoned stalkers in the area, dying a lot against dangerous mutants or Monolith soldiers.

[vital pollen]

CoP is a different district after all. That part could be unexplored even during SoC events.

[snow spear]

yantar factory complex is so empty in s2

[strange basin]

yo guys, what happened to the original spark scientists group (the group of stalkers that you go on missions in CoP for the scientist)

[fathom veldt]

they were killed by Ward in chemical plant in 2012 - 2013, Spirit is the only survivor

[fathom veldt]

to be continued...

[fading furnace]

Guys, mb it was already discussed here, but
Am I correct in assuming that Scar that we know in S2 is a body of Scar and consciousness of OG spark leader - Marshall?

Atleast this is how I understood it

[vital pollen]

Yeah

although he does not really look like he has body of scar either lol

[fading furnace]

I guess that's just beard+new engine thing, he is supposed to look like scar

[pure holly]

Minus the scar he’s named after

[fading furnace]

Although he still refers to himself as scar, so the question is, is it Marshall knowingly deceiving new spark or he himself does not know that he is marshall and just does what his programing tells him

[vital pollen]

Nah he’s just based on a new actor is all. They even retconned how he looked in 2011 as can be seen in his C-Con dossier

[fading furnace]

And why doesn't Star or others sus something when Scar acts the chemplant scene like he was there

When we meet spark in rostok warehouse

Stalker universe has so many layers of mind control that it's really confusing to figure out who is acting on their own valition and who is an agent of whoever

At this point sidorovich can be a monolith agent for all we know

Deliberately selling crap gear to stalkers so they won't be a military treat to c-con

And crunching prices so the clients are more focused on buying medkits than some grand plans

[pure holly]

I’m not dropping the scar is Charon theory, even if it’s nuts.
From the mercenary Vintorez, to the Diamond Exo in the Spark bunker

[fading furnace]

We need more dlc with lore

That shit is fascinating

Btw I think ritcher is kinda more suited to be protag than skif, although I like skif

Also why o why Vano from CoP is not a guide at Malachite, since being guide for scientists is his canon CoP ending??

[pure holly]

Could be Vano is dead.

The life expectancy of stalkers is pretty low

[fading furnace]

Ye, but then again, same could be said for any recurring character

[vital pollen]

Not in s2 lol

In soc surviving for 5 years made you a legend, now there are literal rookies living since trilogy events

[fading furnace]

If they never left the vicinity of Rookie village, why not

Although why even bother at that point, what do you even do in that village for 5+ years

[vital pollen]

Eh I still dislike how it undermined the dangers of the Zone

no longer feels special that someone's been there for years with so many recurring characters

I think S2 shot itself in the foot with the time jump in general, the game does not feel like 10 years have passed. they should have went with 2014 at most.

[fading furnace]

Ye, but a lot of reccuring characters are either basement dwellers like Ozersky or Sid, or badasses like Degtyarev

More interestingly, how the heck did they even build SIRCAA?
Can imagine building something that big in the zone where anomalies pop at random and emissions are everpresent

[vital pollen]

Ganja, Hog, Leshiy, all of Strider's group and many more.

A lot of quite generic characters make a return 10 years later.

[fading furnace]

At this point Nimble survived more shit than Strelok himself

[vital pollen]

I get nostalgia baiting is cool and all but it really just lessened how impactful of an achievement it is to surive for that long.

[fading furnace]

If we are going fully realistic in terms of characters surviving, Skif dies to bloodsucker at the bunker

No way he can defeat that with no knowledge at night

And poltergeist right after

[vital pollen]

I do not want it to be realistic, I want it to be impactful. Main characters are a different category. Some people like Nimble and Sid are good exceptions to make as well. But apart from that, nobody should be in the zone for that long and live.

Lexx the Legend is probably the worst case, with Skif saying he "pretends to be experienced" despite the guy being in the Zone for over nine years.

Oh yeah I'm sure the Skif who just came here knows more.

[fading furnace]

Skif turns into a zone veteran in 2 days it seems

[vital pollen]

And that's just characters, the general level design also did not seem to evolve much. There had been more changes between 9 months of CS->SoC than in 9 years of SoC->HoC.

[pure holly]

and that's part of why i think skif is a sleeper agent for the c-con, or even former monolith

[vital pollen]

Even the vehicle station bandits are still there despite it being a new development in SoC lol.

[fading furnace]

Like, yeah, he is protagonist, but all other PCs were experienced stalkers at the start of their stories

[fading furnace]

Makes sense since he is envoy of monolith and we know that there are agents outside the zone

[fading furnace]

I'd argue that CS base looks properly abandoned aside from food and working guns being there
But the rest yeah
Like, repair couple of houses in rookie village or something

[pure holly]

"Buit Luci" I hear you say, "Skif is ex military, he would have training for..." training for what? fighting dangerous mutants that can split themselves into a douzen clones? lightning fast humanoids that show intelligence and can turn invisible? 6 on 1 squad of active duty military?

[fading furnace]

Also I don't think wolf should've been there, he is like just a dude and not sitting in his bunker all day, but yeah, wolf is supposed to be in Cordon so there he is

[pure holly]

wolf always walks into a campfire and dies in my soc

[fading furnace]

In my CS playthrough that I'm doing rn, I rescued wolfs brother who proceeded to immediately die in the campfire

He was not built for that life

[pure holly]

must run in the family

[fading furnace]

Also literally the first anomaly in that tunnel

[pure holly]

eh, I can forgive that one. doesn't take alot of deductive reasoning

[fading furnace]

Normally stalkers don't go places alone, yes we are protagonist and such,but I feel like mutants, even pack of dogs require several people to take down

If dozen dogs runs towards you in open field idk if military training can save you from being torn to ribbons

[pure holly]

know what can though

the monolith

[fading furnace]

A box to stand on

[pure holly]

not anymore it can't

[fading furnace]

Works in mysterious ways

Generally I like CoP the most logistically, since all feats achieved by Degtyarev are with a stretch something that 1 exeptional human can do
I feel like stalker is served best as small scale stories with the zone backdrop

Like we even gather a squad to go underground because it's too dangerous to do alone

Can't even think of something that Degtyarev done that is outlandish
Mb soloing the chimera but it's doable in lore
We fight monolith not alone and yes we do majority of heavy lifting but it still feels like a squad did it,not vodka infused doomguy with male pattern baldness

[vital pollen]

CS base and Tolik death are one of the few places where you actually see proper story arcs, the rest is full of “oh it’s same crap just ten years later” or uno reverse (freedom on rostok, sultansk, etc.)

[vital pollen]

Wolf is not even supposed to be on Cordon he says in CS he wanted to leave for a while and in SoC he goes to Army Warehouses, idk why they put him back lol

[fading furnace]

You can kinda see it in agroprom with bodies of military
But also doctorant Scherba lives there right next to poltergeists

But if duty was doing excavations there and found the X lab, why there is no duty, or any trace of their existence there

[spiral siren]

There is this lore that the Cordon brings back the veterans out of memories when they started there.

The odd trio of duty, freedom and a bandit are over there sharing their common hate towards Sidorovich

[fading furnace]

But what are they doing there?

Just sitting on their hands?

Okay wolf is a guide, but you need only so many guides

Another place where time flows may be Yaniv, I don't remember if there is train wall in CoP, but it is reasonable that Corps made that makeshift wall over the years
But not very reasonable that the station itself has little defences, like no machine gun nests or something like that
Much more plausible than you know, building SIRCAA anyways

[spiral siren]

Not only to mention the Monolith sniper in a tower nearby

[fading furnace]

There was no monolith untill the middle of S2
So the sniper appeared after monolith was allowed to re-enter Pripyat

I feel like in general we don't experience monolith reappearance nearly enough, we see only defence of Zalissya, fight at sphere and some rdiochatter about it in the garbage
For as big event as it's supposed to be, it kinda stops being shown right after we do Zalissya defence

And everything proceeds to be as it was before SIRCAA

[pure holly]

another thing that lends credence to skif being a monolithian is if you run into a psi field or a controller, there is a good chance fake monolith will appear, this is before you meet, talk to, or even see one. mind you this is a gameplay thing, but it's still a little weird

i'm not saying it like it's a fact or anything, just spitballing ideas

[fading furnace]

But wouldn't he himself know that he's former monolith, like Strider and the others know?
Also why wouldn't he be brainwashed back at SIRCAA?
I get that Faust is either willingly monolith, or is resistant to psy influence through being non-standard human

[pure holly]

could be the C-con thought he would be more valuable as an agent

[fading furnace]

But the others all revert, and Spirit was shielded

[pure holly]

instead of a soldier

[fading furnace]

But then what is endgame here

Agent to do what?
Defi not kill Strelok

[pure holly]

i mean how many endings result in the zone either expanding, or coming under the C-con's control again

more than one

[sweet marsh]

what happend to duty?

[fading furnace]

D4 happened

And ward being new big dog

[sweet marsh]

is rostok empty?

[fading furnace]

No, the freedom is there

[sweet marsh]

whos in army warehouse?

[fading furnace]

We don't even know if C-con is still a thing and not just a leftover in thin matter

[pure holly]

mutants

[fading furnace]

Mostly tushkans

[sweet marsh]

can i spam the chat with questions? i dont want to watch hours of lore videos plus anomouls dugout hasnt posted in months

[fading furnace]

You can, why not

[sweet marsh]

i dont want walls of texts just short answers lol

so the ward came in the zone and gave rostok to freedom and moved duty where

[fading furnace]

Cement factory east of garbage

[sweet marsh]

uhhh can you say in og games location, i know they changed the zone a lot in stalker 2

i know about the cement factory in jupiter

[pure holly]

near CNPP

[fading furnace]

Its a new place

But near cnpp yes

[sweet marsh]

so why is the ward so powerful?

[fading furnace]

They are shadow governments military arm, a private army

[sweet marsh]

owned by the government?

[fading furnace]

It's hard to tell, they defend SIRCAA, but both SIRCAA and ward are under ppl who did og experiments and built X-labs

[sweet marsh]

did clear sky make a comeback or no?

[fading furnace]

No

[sweet marsh]

bandits still in dark valley?

[fading furnace]

They're either dead or monolithed after super emission at the end of CS

[sweet marsh]

are some og zones removed?

[fading furnace]

Bandits are sorta all over but mostly at the garbage

[fading furnace]

Limansk and cnpp are inacessible

The rest is there is some or the other form

[sweet marsh]

so besides ward who are the most powerful factions in the game?

[elder bobcat]

Unless I don't quite understand what you mean by "general level design", it's a definitive disagree. The time has touched a F ton of OG locations in S2 & the standard Discord message length won't be enough for me to mention all the buildings that got damaged/destroyed by anomalies/nature or enriched with detailed interiors, received additional accessible rooms & passages or got stripped of some etc. In no way, shape or form there's an argument to be made, for example, that Brain Scorcher in ShoC & S2 is the same level design, nor is Eastern Tunnel in both CoP & S2 — and that's just naming a couple. If we mention Rostok & especially Wild Territory in S2 comparing to ShoC — those just straight up break this lvl design claim in half.

[fading furnace]

Hmm
Freedom kinda

Economically atleast
Monolith is reborn after certain events, so them obviously

Tonns of free stalkers but they are disorganized and not really a faction

It's more like in CoP than in SoC or CS

[sweet marsh]

what bases from og games are now abandoned?

[fading furnace]

Army warehouses, CS base in the swamps

[pure holly]

brain scorcher is abandoned

[fading furnace]

But that's not really a base per se

Scientists bunker in yantar and Yaniv both

[pure holly]

eh, maybe not for the player, but for the monlith?

[sweet marsh]

whats some crazy lore in stalker 2?

[fading furnace]

I guess that was one of their bases yes

[fading furnace]

Sidorovich is C-con creator

And also a secret burer

[sweet marsh]

you trolling right?

[fading furnace]

I'm just joking, there is a lot of cool shit lorewise

For instance, one character is a human controller

[sweet marsh]

im not gonna be able to play the game for a few years so i want to know the lore lol

[fading furnace]

He was experimented on and he has powers of controller and free will of human

[sweet marsh]

faust no? ive watched a very little bit of lore videos

[fading furnace]

Yes

[sweet marsh]

military still in the zone?

[fading furnace]

Also there is sub dimension where the imprints of dead people can be talked to

[fading furnace]

Yes, under different name

[sweet marsh]

what are the new factions?

[fading furnace]

Since war is ongoing and it's not cool to have Ukrainian military as villains

[fading furnace]

Ward and Spark, who are stalkers who worked with scientists but we're almost viped out by ward

[sweet marsh]

so whats spark?

unisg kinda?

[fading furnace]

Unisg?

[sweet marsh]

yeah from the mods

[fading furnace]

Idk who that is, but they are kinda a mix between CS and loners

[sweet marsh]

oh ok

[fading furnace]

They worked for ecologists to uncover secrets of the zone

[vital pollen]

Sorry, I think “level game design” would be a better term. What I mean is, we barely see enough changes in which areas are populated. What I really liked about CS is how it showed many areas that will have been abandoned in SoC once being full of life, while Rostok is an inaccessible territory without stalkers in it at all.

Swamps are a good example of “rethinking” the level in S2, but apart from that, everything feels overly samey. I would have loved to see abandoned Skadovsk, rookie village and depot, to see the previously lively part of Rostock become indistinguishable from Wild Territory, to see Yaniv empty with only the old memorabilia of the factions inhabiting it remaining. At the same time, I would adore it if stalkers repurposed stuff like vehicle station into a new hub, or maybe one of the northern farmsteads at the Swamps.

I feel like S2 leans too much into showing the same places as the trilogy being continuously used as hubs, and that just doesn’t fit how unstable the Zone is meant to be.

[fading furnace]

But had a base that ward wanted so ward viped them out

[sweet marsh]

what are the relation between factions like?

[fading furnace]

Also Corps is a new faction created by Degtyarev to guard Pripyat and don't let stalkers go there to die

They are located at Yaniv and Pripyat itself

[fading furnace]

All the same but without active war since ward prohibited that sort of thing
And ward and spark hate each other
Corps just guard entrance to Pripyat

Also there is Noontide, former monolith under Strider that are isolationists but this faction is shortlived

Shamefully so, since they are super interesting to explore

[sweet marsh]

ok thanks

thats all the questions i think

[fading furnace]

Npnp, ask anytime

[elder bobcat]

I see, that would be "world design" as opposed to "level" when talking about the broad scale & how the designs (both environmentally & functionally) of separate levels are put together into one big picture.

[vital pollen]

Yeah I think it’s ingrained to me due to trilogy, where game designers were divided by levels, so you had eg Cordon and Yantar’s game designer who did not do the actual modelling but thought through all the scripted scenes and quests.

[shrewd igloo]

And each region in S2: HoC has a lead-level designer.

[elder bobcat]

If we think about it, the Cement Factory is another great example of once an outpost at best being completely repurposed into a full-fledged hub. Army Warehouses & Ahroprom Research Institute are both good examples of the opposite — twice been used as big bases back in the day, they're now completely abandoned & lie in ruin. Yantar once was the main "scientific" area in the series — now it's empty and the title of "main scientific hub" was split between SIRCAA & Malachite. So there are noticeable changes, yet I don't think even those were met with enthusiasm by the community, to put it mildly — and you're saying it'd be cool to desolate another few signature hubs on top 😅 I see what you mean, but it's another case where sacrifices have to be made, and not everyone would like to have Skadovsk or Cordon abandoned in favour of some goddamn farmstead in Swamps or vehicle station, in fact, people would most likely riot if that was the case (there was already enough yapping about the "Sultansk" change, which still is possible to sorta revert within the playthrough — can't imagine the outcry if the hub was simply no more altogether). Although I can definitely agree that, for example, having both Zalissya & Cordon fairly equally populated in a situation where the game tries to tell us a story of rookies preferring to stick with Gaffer instead of constantly getting played by Sidorovich doesn't click very well & there should've been more impactful changes introduced to amplify said story.

[mossy maple]

You guys see retcons everywhere lol

[vital pollen]

That’s the unfortunate truth of S2.

[mossy maple]

The only ones I know are map related and the fact that artefacts die outside the zone

A character that doesn't look like he did in a 20 years old engine is not a retcon

[vital pollen]

A character that looks nothing like he used to look is. They somehow managed to preserve Strelok looks just fine.

It’s very clearly a new actor they based his looks off, I do not see the point in arguing.

[mossy maple]

And changing an actor is not a recton

[vital pollen]

Changing how the character looked in a certain time period is. :))

[mossy maple]

Characters are also not proportioned the same way they did back then. Is it a retcon too?

[mossy maple]

The only image we had of Scar was a 2 pixel photo lmao (and no playermodel doesn't count)

[vital pollen]

We had a lot of concept art most of which was released officially, we had two cinematics with him, the player model being seen in cutscenes and after death and yes, the image in PDA/inventory which is not “2 pixel”.

He was based on a real actor who played the main character in Stalker (1979) movie.

Current Scar is based on Oleksandr Laptii, a Ukrainian actor.

[mossy maple]

So if I follow your argument. Clear Sky retconned Strelok face ? And CoP reretconned Strelok again?

[vital pollen]

No. :) SoC already had Vincent Stone set in stone (ha) as Strelok’s actor. There were inconsistencies with outdated player model, but it’s one thing to not update something (because proper Strelok model was only created in CoP when they needed to show him up close) and to change something voluntarily.

And S2 managed to replicate Vincent Stone’s look despite not having access to the original actor, so I do not see why they couldn’t do it with Scar.

[vital pollen]

There are lots of more minor ones. Coupons are mentioned in dialogues to be the first introduction of digital currency in the Zone, but Clear Sky already mentions rubles being digital. Scar having level 5 psy-protection is ridiculous considering he dies in psy fields during CS events. The whole “emissions as a part of immune system” bit was also retconned in HoC as now C-Con is warning Lebedev about instabilities in advance way before Strelok makes it to the center. Many things.

Not to mention many things where there are not direct contradictions, but the old lore was written with different concepts in mind and makes a lot less sense in the light of new information. The most blatant example of that is Clear Sky being in cahoots with C-Con, which invalidates the first and last third of CS plot entirely. Or Stingray-7 existence, which is ridiculously out place given how the military is portrayed incompetent about the existence of the laboratories and the Gauss gun but is simultaneously looking for the entrance to the Foundation? And Degtyarev who was unable to find an answer to why the operation failed in the first five helicopters and was on brick of the his mission collapsing altogether if not for Strelok, and yet never searched Stingray-7? CoP writers would be facepalming lol.

[fathom veldt]

yes money in Stalker was always digital

[fathom veldt]

according to anarchy cell they were of same scientific group 😉. even so its real or not does not matter, nothing contradicts that they werent
Who died? Scar? really have you seen him dead? or have you seen real Scar in HoC?

[vital pollen]

according to anarchy cell they were of same scientific group
Of course they were. Not even in Anarchy Cell, but in Call of Prypiat. Still, the idea was that they were ex-colleagues, not some secret C-Con-controlled group during the events of Clear Sky. While it's not explicitly mentioned, the in-game dialogues and the storyline are still written with that information in mind, and in the light of "revelations" provided in HoC it's now absurd.

Who died? Scar? really have you seen him dead?
I mean during CS gameplay, you obviously are affected by psy, so him having psy-protection during that time is absurd.

Honestly I wish GSC fixed lore inconsistencies just like they fix gameplay bugs. Yeah you can't fix the map now, but correcting a few PDA entries to not be nonsensical in regards to trilogy is not that hard, right?

[fathom veldt]

but it isn't absurd if he was agent right ? 🙂 Disregarding HoC, how do you think he had this immunity, also immunity as with everything its not 100% protection, you can have some vaccine but it might not work 2nd time.
well i doubt it's just few pda entries though

[vital pollen]

What does him being an agent or not have to do with it? HoC says Scar had psy-resistance which is why he survived emissions. In CS, he is evidently not psy-resistant. The source of his unique abilities is completely irrelevant to the discussion of their nature. I think him being an agent is dumb, yeah, but it's not the point of this discussion.

how do you think he had this immunity
We've already discussed this, that many people, clearly not agents of C-Con, had unique powers. In fact, the whole relationship of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. program and special abilities is something HoC introduced. The only known agent in the original trilogy, Strelok, had no special abilities. And all the known people with special abilities (Zulu, Pilot, Forester, Hermit) had no relation to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. program. If we disregard HoC, as you suggested, there would be no correlation at all.

its not 100% protection
Well Scar has no natural psy-resistance at all. :) I know its purely gameplay and not a good thing to draw lore conclusions out from, but he dies from Brain Scorcher influence in places where Marked One isn't bothered by it at all lol.

[vital pollen]

well i doubt it's just few pda entries though
Some are pretty easy fixes. The retcon of money being physical/digital before is a single dialogue line, that could be either removed completely, or just edited to remove the second sentence (with the game only having two VAs, it's not a hard thing to do).

The retcon of emissions not being an immune reaction is a single PDA entry. No VA work needed at all. So are most of Clear Sky's base shenanigans.

[fathom veldt]

ehm who has this tech for immunity? whats their names? you tell me he is some kind of jesus scar of the zone? you are trying to explain that someone has superpower this is how i understand. and these (Zulu, Pilot, Forester, Hermit) how they related being super powered?

[vital pollen]

Who has "tech" for anomalies? Who has the "tech" for artifacts? What does tech have to do with it?

Pre-HoC, this was not a "tech" question at all, this was a Zone shenanigans question. Lebedev mentions Scar's unique abilities as "a gift or a curse", Forester talks about his unique powers as a gift as well.

It is very clearly anomalous / supernatural in nature. It didn't warrant an explanation in OG trilogy, not more than the existence of anomalies and artifacts.

Those things just happen in the Zone, without any "hows" and "whys".

Again, not a single tie between those unique abilities and C-Con. Not a single tie to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. program. That's purely a HoC introduction.

[fathom veldt]

no, they researched it, made pills, helmets n stuff, ofc it has to do, because Scar is just another bloke of the zone, he has no special powers, he was made like so

[vital pollen]

That's a nice fan theory, but it's not based on reality at all. I can assure you, looking at all the CS development material, that the idea of Scar having those abilities due to C-Con influence was never on the table.

[fathom veldt]

well they didn't had any powers, they were just skilled like Forester, can find water with sticks also super power. a feeling and luck isn't power. Well and it sounds mysterious, good story telling

[fathom veldt]

ok, but why are so sure it wasn't on the table? i am not understading why are so confident in this. Ok, true it was then fan theory and it made sense.

[vital pollen]

Because it's a quite important concept and it would be in the synopsis if that was true. The same stk_pre_dc.pdf you mentioned in CS discussion earlier today. It outlines why the initial emission was caused, how Clear Sky appeared, where is Strelok during the beginning of the game, and yet all of the mentions of Scar's survival are just "well, he survived". If this idea was on the table back then, we would have known it from this doc. Or any others such as STALKER_Synopsis_Final 1.doc, or STORYLINE_07_06_07.vsd. A lot of them outline the plot of the game in detail, and yet never mention C-Con being the source of Scar's powers. If it were to be on the table, it was neither mentioned explicitly, neither once mentioned in the internal documentation.

[fathom veldt]

ok, but theese are design vision docs, they are just ideas and more or less mechanics, arcs....are you sure there were no more updated version? I don't know if you can just follow it as bible, because it CS it wasn't like so. And documents could have been updated or it was not told, I really can't base everything like it was some kind of instruction manual

they are drafts, versions of real thing, why would any self respecting person would allow leaking everything

[shrewd igloo]

STORYLINE_7_06_07 it's almost the same plot of Clear Sky.

[fathom veldt]

yeah, almost, and the rest?

[vital pollen]

Of course, those are not canon in the lore discussions, but they're a direct window into the development process, telling us what devs thought about, what concepts they had in mind and which ideas they wanted to implement. Those ideas might have changed later, of course, but it's still a good indicator of whether something was on the table or not.

There may have been an updated version, but if community is unaware of it, S2 writers wouldn't be either (all the restored cut content lore bits in S2 are coincidentally those that were described on the wiki lol).

It just comes down to Occam's Razor - it's more likely that this was not the intention rather than that it was, but the devs did not describe it or described it in desdocs that did not reach us, and then S2 writers decided to do the same plot point being completely unaware of what the original team intended.

[fathom veldt]

yeah, and all of that is fine, i am just saying that its just a version, so really can't say for sure

even it was Fan theory its hard to say that it is nonesense, because it fits

[vital pollen]

It just comes down to following facts:

• There are no explicit mentions of Scar's abilities being related to C-Con programming in the game.
• There are no explicit mentions of this in any of the development documents either, even those that go in detail of plot points not fully explored in CS. There are mentions of Scar surviving the emission, but the source of his powers is never mentioned.
• There are other characters with unique abilities in the trilogy that are clearly not tied to C-Con, some of which do describe the powers as "Zone's gifts".

[fathom veldt]

ok, power....do you understand that it might be a delusion? who the hell has powers in the zone....its not avengers lore

unless you mean power is a ability to quit smoking, say no to drugs

[vital pollen]

So there are hints towards the supernatural nature of Scar's abilities, and nothing that hints towards it being related to C-Con programming. It's not a retcon per se, which is why I did not mention it, but that's the new idea of the new team, so your point about "this was actually intended back during CS" is just incorrect, we have no reason to suggest those.

[fathom veldt]

ok, if i said something like this then i was wrong, how the hell i could know that

[vital pollen]

Well, seeing the paths between anomalies without detectors, feeling anomalies without looking at them, being ignored by mutants, surviving emissions, and knowing when emissions are going to come. Are those not powers?

[fathom veldt]

well when you put it like this then yes. But i am looking at this like some writting, to make some impreesion, spooky, mystery....exaggeration....well also these all traits i guess taken from all those chars. But did you seen Guide doing that for example? Or is it just stories? I think everything is fine with this, make a good story. But then it would be nice that these secrets would be revealed

[vital pollen]

I did not mention Guide and Doctor because those do feel like exaggerations for the purpose of storytelling. And Guide could be just that, a good guide. I can't say he actually has any abilities.

[fathom veldt]

no scratch that, don't want all secrets to be revealed

[vital pollen]

Yeah, the Zone works better with all the paranormal stuff staying paranormal.

[fathom veldt]

ah ok, because you mentioned few guys whos abilities are stories

why i did connected him, because i look firstly at zone as a lab :), multiple competing scientific groups, then all this mysterious zone things

[vital pollen]

Forester tells you about his abilities himself, so does Pilot and Bonesetter. Zulu's one is mentioned, but it's not mentioned as a myth, it's like something everyone is aware of, with his ability to know when emissions are coming playing a direct role in Yaniv's ceasefire. There are other people talking legends about Hermit, but he also talks about the effect of Zone on him directly.

People able to foretell when an emission is coming is a common thing in CoP dialogues in general. They aren't mentioned as something unique, just "oh this guy can do that yeah".

So I guess it's somewhat common.

[shrewd igloo]

i think that him referring to:
Noah [seeing the paths between anomalies without detectors]
Druids [feeling anomalies without looking at them]
Scar [surviving emissions]

and the others would be; hermit, for example.

[fathom veldt]

ok very nice of you that you changed to abilities instead of a power. Kind of resonates to what Faust showed to Skif?

[fathom veldt]

yeah...but you talk about mods, don't remember he appeared in trilogy. Well i don't have anything against fan theories in fact i like it, but not really part of trilogy

[shrewd igloo]

Maybe would've "somewhat common" because there's several "veteran stalkers".
And some of them adapted to the environment of the Zone?.

[vital pollen]

Maybe some aren't anomalous in nature at all. :) Sorta like Degtyarev learns to survive emissions after surviving through a few with the help of anabiotics. "Marked by the Zone" and all that.

[radiant harness]

What a awful thing to put in the game

[elder bobcat]

I don't recall any lines about the origin of coupons besides the one Sonya Kalyna delivers — and I believe she only says that coupons themselves were invented by Mikluha & then rapidly took over, not that they were "the first digital currency". Are there any other mentions that outright state the latter?

[vital pollen]

It’s the random stalker one where they say that it’s “a lot more convenient than having pockets full of paper”. I can find the exact quote when I get home.

[frosty ridge]

I think the fact Duty never found X5 is fine, because the lab’s existence answers a lot of questions around that Clear Sky plotline. Duty talk about the nearby mutants being controlled— well it seems they were! That whole time Duty were worried about abandoned sections of the facility the people actually sending mutants after them were just a few meters of concrete away. It’s not an unreasonable idea that they’d have just never found it before leaving to Rostok

[elder bobcat]

Would appreciate it 🤝🏻

To be fair, previously stalkers did have their pockets full of rubles as indicated by money icons in the games displaying cash/coins & dialogues referring to em as "toogriki", if that'd be the right way to spell it in Eng, so we can assume not all of the money circulating around the Zone was digital. Then coupons took over after the trilogy & the new currency went full digital mode.

[vital pollen]

sid_phrase_Zalesie_Hub_sasa_rabcik_0_InfoTopic_1_1_59709 - apparently not a random one but an info topic of a specific character.

Як на купони Міклухині перейшли, добре стало. Раніше ходиш із цими бамажками, як дятел, і думаєш, куди б їх заникати. А тепер всьо в тебе в КПК.

It’s a lot better since we switched over to Myklukha’s coupons. Back in the day, you’d walk around with those stupid papers like a dumbass. Now it’s all on your PDA.

Not really much interpretation room here, let's be honest.

[frosty ridge]

Honestly I dislike the whole Scar/Clear Sky working for the MDST during CS twist — I think it removes a lot of the depth from them — but at the same time I have hope the DLCs (like the Limansk one) might shed more light on this area. I think S2 has some fantastic writers so it’s weird they went with this idea unless they had some sort of bigger story in the DLCs they wanted to tell. That’s just my hope though

Cause CS becomes borderline nonsensical with the idea Clear Sky are also the MDST. That’d mean the whole time fighting Monolith you’re MDST members fighting MDST members to kill Strelok better than the other MDST members.

[vital pollen]

as indicated by money icons in the games
I wouldn't go by the icons, honestly. They depict the money from different time periods and different countries (the "money lost" icon in SoC actually has a soviet coin laying on top of post-soviet russian banknotes). Unless you are suggesting that not only did the Zone have both physical and digital money in circulation, but also money from completely different countries and time periods, all at the same time, I think it's safe to suggest those icons are a part of design that's non-diegetic and is displayed for gameplay purposes. A lot of the quest/event icons in the game are not really depicting things literally.

dialogues referring to em as "toogriki"
Could you explain how that suggests the money is physical?

[elder bobcat]

Rubles in STALKER were supposed to be the cash found within the Zone in some old storages. "Toogriki" was the common nickname for the soviet currency that presumably was found & only actively used in the Zone, and given the icons depict that cash it just makes sense to assume some of it wasn't digitalised yet. Coupons, on the other hand, were created as the digital currency from the get go or could have become a digital equivalent of those rubles that were yet to be "transitioned" (but that's applying the real world laws of value). I'd agree that it would've been perfect if all of this was described more in detail tho to avoid confusion.

[vital pollen]

in some old storages
I am aware of the line you're mentioning, but it came (IIRC) from an interview that came out years prior to release. It's really hard to judge if the information is still true for SoC, let alone for later games. It's not something actually explciitly mentioned in the trilogy, but yes, that was the official explanation for the currency at some point. Still, it directly contradicts CS saying the money is stored in the PDA, so I always viewed that as outdated piece of lore that is true for builds, but not the release game. And let's also keep in mind that after the line mentioning digital money, all the money is taken from Scar, so I'd honestly assume it's fully digital instead of a mix.

[elder bobcat]

It's just a clash within the narrative team. Some part of it was focused on making the new story & everything that's unique to S2 turned out pretty nicely. The other part was seemingly on a fanservice mission & while some of the ties to the trilogy are decent/cool — they just got carried away and went out of their way to explain/reveal everything. Like, was it really THAT important to explain the deaths of Kardan's friends via Richter's "failed experience as a guide"? Absolutely not. Thank God he's at least drunk when he talks about it in the game, can always pretend he just knew them & had too much vodka in the moment.

[vital pollen]

but at the same time I have hope the DLCs (like the Limansk one) might shed more light on this area

I do not want to disappoint you ahead of time, but from the few datamined notes related to DLC that appeared in the patch files, we’re in for more retcons in the name of fan service lol. They’re not clear sky related though.

[vital pollen]

I also felt like Hog and Leshiy appearances were just callbacks for the sake of callbacks, they could put any new character in their place and it would work just fine lol.

And Wolfhound… god, how can it be canon in S2 that he survived the Marked One encounter. We bought his frickin pistol in CoP.

[elder bobcat]

Was about to say 😄

[elder bobcat]

Yes, it's a common issue for these instances: GSC could introduce new characters & everything would work even better as the clashes would be nonexistent. They didn't even have to name those 2 stalkers to make Richter's story compelling & relatable — yet they've "checked notes" looking for the characters that were yet to be mentioned in any capacity & went with em. They didn't have to bring back Wolfhound from the dead for the main quest — selling his PSZ as a nod similar to the pistol in CoP would've been enough. Why would they mention Oleg Demon as the fallen Arena Champion in 2011 when Strelok literally gets a job to get rid of him in 2012 & so on?

Like you've said, the most interesting part is how it'd be enough to just redact a few notes/dialogues & delete a couple of em to fix these inconsistencies. It's only because somebody amongst narrative designers got a bit too enthusiastic about splattering these mentions randomly in several different docs to try & service the F out of fans that we have to try and headcanon these things, attempting to rationalize em.

[vital pollen]

Could not have put it better, well done.

[fading furnace]

Not to mention, stalker is one of those games that doesn't need additional hype

The zone is main character, the zone is more beautiful then ever, humans are just temporary marks there

[proven wolf]

I just use the remove story mod and fix it all, altogether.

Coz GCS ain't never gonna fix this mess they have created. Both mechanically and story wise.

[proven wolf]

Just like in Dr Who, the whole point in Dr Who, was that you never knew who he really was, it was a mystery. Then BBC created a backstory for him, and completely ruined who he was leaving a dirty taste in your mouth.

And it is the same with so much in S2, we didn;t need to know everything about the Death Trucks, we just knew they was a thing, and no one quite knew where they come from etc...

But nah, that needed answers.

[elder bobcat]

It honestly just hurts the moments that were tied up well with the trilogy. The clear example being the Valentyn & Dmytro Dalin dynamic: the names of the 7 scientists were never mentioned, Dmytro is a fresh character — and it all gets connected into a nice story of the son trying to understand what happened to his father. Did Strelok really just kill him and that's it? Or there's a chance his father is safe in the Subtle Matter according to his own theory & something could be done about the situation? That's how it looks when it's done properly. Bringing back Wolfhound from the dead only to kill him again, on the other hand, gets perceived in quite the opposite way from how it was supposedly intended.

[proven wolf]

It's common theme in all forms of media to throw in as many member berries as possible, rather than concentrating on just tell a really good damn story that the series deserves.

All we got was a bucket load of member berries, retcon's, and a complicated mess with plenty of potholes.

[silent seal]

I was just responding to a Reddit post about "would Skif pick Spark vs. Ward" and got real carried away kinda tangentially but it's relevant so I thought I would share here, Let me know if any of my hard facts are wrong, but otherwise this is also full of a lot of my opinions

I like to think that Skif finds some enjoyment in his new life in the Zone, realizing that the only thing he really lost was a soulless apartment & a life with no attachments or true purpose. I think at first and along the way it's up to the individual which side they lean towards, though as far as the ending choice goes canonically it would be neither due to Skif disagreeing with their opposing yet similarly extremist ideologies and their ending repercussions.

Now here in the Zone he has found opportunity, adventure, friends, etc. versus what really was Skif's life on the outside before the game begins? To me his apparent fate of lonely mundane misery sounds like some hell worse than even the Zone can be, and frankly he really fits the profile of your average rookie loner deciding to leave what shred of life they had behind for whatever awaits here, for better or worse.

He knows an untimely end might be his fate but Skif is as lucky as he is resourceful, with above-average survival abilities & combat training, and I like to believe that at least for the duration of the game he's enjoying himself as much as any other stalker does lol

If he doesn't end up dying along the way then canonically I think he would ultimately see through the veil of the "Shining Zone for all" when presented with the glaring evidence against it, but similarly see through the Ward, SIRCAA, and the Regulatory's boards vision for harnessing that Noosphere power as one that would "better mankind" in truth by ultimately stripping them of their individual freedom & privacy, with them essentially becoming Noosphere-powered omnipotent Big Brother.

[silent seal]

Whether you think Skif chooses the Strelok vs. Kaymanov ending canonically I suppose is dependent on a similar vein of conjecture regarding him siding along with/ultimately choosing Ward vs Spark, leaning into ideologies of control vs. freedom (sorry duty it's called having free will) and whether his newfound perspectives & love for the Zone makes him see it as something to be locked away and protected like Strelok believes, or embraced as the truth of this new reality and shared with the rest of the world in its untapped form, free of biased human intervention as Kaymanov (and Faust) believe.

That decision is purely up to the individual, though personally I think the Strelok ending is kind of stupid because all it does is establish a ~temporary lockdown & prevent outsiders and supplies from getting into the Zone + by proxy those stalkers whose livelihood he is trying to preserve, till whatever indeterminate point in the future that someone else tries to overthrow the powers that be and succeeds, as is inevitable that such history repeats itself... I don't think this ending was well thought-out by either Strelok or the devs themselves, and it would shock me if this is the canonical one.

The Kaymanov ending on the other hand is Skif following the mantra that if you love something, you truly need to let it be free. In the footsteps of both Faust & the Doctor, Skif has come to find a sense of purpose and wonder in the Zone, realizing the only way this phenomenal potential of the Noosphere should truly be shared with humanity is to give it to them all equally in its rawest form by sharing it with them globally and letting them naturally adapt to this new age as he & other stalkers have learned to. To me, this ending best canonically fits Skif's gained perspectives & ideologies through his journey as well as of course poses the most interesting setup for a sequel.

[frosty ridge]

Good analysis

Also as I've mentioned before the Strelok ending has Richter go "Thanks for being a friend I guess" while the Kymanov ending has Richter and Skif do the most homoerotic conversation in gaming history that ties up both their arcs so like. If we're looking to the ending with the most satisfying conclusions to their characters... the game isn't very subtle that Project Y is the way to go

I mean Richter does everything short of french kissing Skif in that scene. He really said "Oh you want to enact the apocalypse...? That's so sexy aha....."

On a more productive note, how do we think Korshinov escaped Granite Squad's domination by the C-Con after the Second Disaster? Cause we know they instantly took control of Granite after it happened and we see Korshinov at Octa when Kymanov causes the Second Disaster, so he seemingly should've been mind-controlled too. I guess he (and Kymanov, for that matter) managed to get out somehow during the chaos

[fathom veldt]

lol what game have you been playing? where we can download it ? 😄

[quasi vale]

I think Korshunov was immune because he got a level 5 psi resistance, no ?

Scar have the same resistance, but got captured and brainwashed, not Korshunov.

[silent seal]

Yeah I was going to say I thought that is a reason why Scar & Korshunov opt to enter the pod because they physically can, but wouldn't that mean Strelok and Skif do as well?

[quasi vale]

For me Skif is level 5 too, because at the Duga, when Faust activate the mirages, All wardens turn into zombies, but not Skiff.

For Strelok, well ... I think he's too, but for no others reasons than the level 5 psi resistance was only added in Stalker 2. Like, in SoC they were no lore/requirements to enter pods.