s2-lore-discussions

[frosty sundial]

It uses Psi radiation to heal them. It's not voo doo at all and we use it and see it work.

Yet Strider didn't need it at all.

[hexed flame]

Also yeah the lamp
Maybe he was on his way to succumbing to the rads but the lamp is the reason he didnt
Radiation does not take immediate effect unless you stand in a particle accelerator and he could easily ignore the first effects like headaches and dizziness

[frosty sundial]

Also, why is it that the doctor had a mental scan ready of Strider? Every other situation we've used that machine, it was to view a copy of someone's mind, like the doctors. weirdly, in the doctors memories we see, we don't see anything past the original trilogy.

yet when we talk to Strider, it's like he was right before the signal was sent out.

[hexed flame]

You mean the cartridge ?
Yeah uhh that one is written quite inconsistently

[frosty sundial]

So there's a lot of questions, which is why I like the theory that it was all an illusion to gain skif's trust. Farfetched? For sure. Plausible? About as much as it's just shoddy writing full of holes.

And another thing, the doctor initially acted like he didn't know much about subtle matter, but then immediately sent us, "To see the truth" Eerily similar to what Faust says and it's our first real experience with Subtle Matter.

[hexed flame]

Why would he kill a reasonable dude turned mono with skif in the room if he wanted trust

He could have just given him the cartridge and said it was made sometime in the past

If strider wasnt actually there

[frosty sundial]

I'd like to see more dlc explaining a bit better some of the bits of Project Y we don't know about. We don't know who swapped the chips in the Duga, but we assume that's what caused the ending we see where the alpha activates zones all over the world.

[hexed flame]

He also didnt instantly introduce himself as kaymanov why would he immediately trust skif to share this

[frosty sundial]

We also don't know who was tasked with destroying the documents in X3 to hide the reframing.

Trust me, the Doctor is well aware of skif at this point. he literally has to be if he's been the one organizing Project Y the whole time.

[hexed flame]

Also as for the anabiotic or whatever from COP
That thing was likely cut cause it made absolutely 0 sense

[frosty sundial]

Not really. The emissions zombify stalkers. if the consciousness being supressed causes psi emissions to not effect stalkers, and the monolith is confirmed just a lab x tech illusion creator and brainwasher, that is pretty much the only explanation why Monolithians are able to survive emissions.

[hexed flame]

Let me finish

The game tells us the anabiotic is tetrodotoxin at its core and 'shuts down the central nervous system'

[frosty sundial]

Kinda like what the monolith does to Monolithians, but continue

[hexed flame]

Yeah cool
Except tetrodotoxin acts on the PERIPHERAL nervous system xd

And all it does is paralyse you without of doing anything to your brain

And we KNOW that psi zombifies/monos you by acting on your central nervous system otherwise the people under psi influence couldnt move

[frosty sundial]

"scientific research teams working in the Zone. At its core, the drug contains tetrodotoxin"

You had the answer right in your lap. It's a modified variant of tetrodotoxin developed by Professor Ozersky.

Not directly Tetrodotoxin.

[hexed flame]

Doesnt matter

It would still not cross into your brain

[frosty sundial]

Also, your theory of Faust being a lucky idiot for the Doctor, the Doctor's plan accounted directly for the artifact to be delivered to SIIRCA, which also means he would have DIRECTLY known and counted on Faust's intervention, otherwise Project Y would never have worked.

[hexed flame]

And there is no mention of any modification in the game it just states the main ingredient is this thing

[frosty sundial]

Look on the wiki yourself.

Research is easily at your fingertips yet you choose ignorance.

[hexed flame]

If the drug contains tetrodotoxin then it contains tetrodotoxin not tetrodotoxin mod2 version 15

[frosty sundial]

Btw, "An experimental drug developed by Professor Ozersky for scientific research teams working in the Zone. At its core, the drug contains tetrodotoxin, known colloquially as "zombie powder", which causes a complete shutdown of the body's central nervous system that may allow people to survive emissions outside cover. The drug has not undergone clinical or field testing, which puts its effectiveness in doubt and raises the issue of possible side effects.

In-game description"

[hexed flame]

And the game states it contains tetrodotoxin

[frosty sundial]

It's literally an In-game description my boy.

[hexed flame]

Jfc

[frosty sundial]

Contains' means it's one of the ingredients, not the only ingredient.

[hexed flame]

The game states ozerskiy developed a drug (not a substance) using tetrodotoxin (which is not used as a drug because its a very toxic compound which is why its experimental)

[frosty sundial]

We put cianide into medicine, but we don't put ONLY cianide

Either way, doesn't matter. Back to the Doctor. None of Project Y works without Faust existing and being directly apart of it and accounted for. Whether the Doctor directly led him in his actions somehow, knew the exact path he would take, or there's a lot more going on than is said. The Doctor needed the Alpha delivered to CIIRCA, but doing so would spell the end of the zone.

[hexed flame]

No you dont it has no useful properties and its cyanide

[frosty sundial]

So he would not take that risk, without knowing someone or some thing would intervene.

?????? Okay so you're just ignorant.

[hexed flame]

It would still just paralyze and kill you

[frosty sundial]

Cyanide is most definitely used in medicine buddy. Take 2 seconds and look it up.

Oh you're gonna lose your mind at this.

Tetrodotoxin (TTX), a potent neurotoxin from pufferfish and other marine life, is being developed as a medicine, primarily for severe pain (neuropathic, cancer pain) and potentially opioid withdrawal, by blocking sodium channels that transmit pain signals, but it requires careful dosing to avoid paralysis, with current research focusing on slow-release formulations for safe, long-lasting pain relief.

[hexed flame]

It isnt used as a drug

Might be used in synthesis but it has no real therapeutic use

[frosty sundial]

While cyanide is famously toxic, its compounds have niche pharmaceutical uses, primarily as a component in the vasodilator sodium nitroprusside (for rapid blood pressure drops and urine ketone tests) and as a structural element in some drugs like thioguanine (chemo) and primaquine (anti-malarial); the body also naturally produces small amounts, and it's crucial in synthesizing antidotes like hydroxocobalamin

2 second google search btw. You can literally look this up yourself.

[hexed flame]

Yes its used in synthesis not as a drug

[hexed flame]

'Is being developed' is codewords for not used lol

[frosty sundial]

Ignorant is definitely the right word lmfao.

[hexed flame]

Or just more knowledgeable about the subject

[frosty sundial]

You literally said it couldn't be used in medicine because it was poisonous. Tells me all I need to know about your grade school chemistry understanding.

[hexed flame]

Its likely the guy that wrote the anabiotic description just read some fiction (or non fiction) where paralytics like tetrodotoxin or pancuronium are used to fake death hence why the zombie powder name

[frosty sundial]

Crazy that fiction is fiction, isn't it.

[hexed flame]

Its not actually a good way to fake death but that doesnt matter it was transplanted into the game but the guy didnt know what PNS and CNS are so here we are

[frosty sundial]

I'm well over this conversation enjoy staying ignorant

[hexed flame]

Yes it has a narrow safety margin and it has 0 therapeutical application

(Cyanide)

Tetrodotoxin just has a narrow safety margin and isnt used as a muscle relaxant/paralytic

[hexed flame]

Its so funny you are calling someone who has spent 120 hours on listening to pharmacology classes, 30 hours in drug formulation classes and has a toxicology class in literally 22 minutes 'ignorant'
And you yourself think that a nitrous derivative that contains a C=N group is somehow cyanide or has a remotely similar mechanism of action

[silent seal]

This channel truly brings out the most passionate stalker fans

[hexed flame]

Its nice honestly atleast im talking to people who payed attention while playing the game and didnt halfass SOC and S2 only to praise gamma/anomaly because they cant pay attention to the plot for more than 5 minutes

[eternal scaffold]

Out from the server you mean?

[placid blaze]

From my understanding of the Topaz Scanners (correct me if im wrong)

Placing an artifact to a nearby anomaly field with the right one will charged it

The artifact can also be discharged and spawn/summer anomalies in the area

[wide valve]

I showed an unusual PDA to Korshunov and they didn't give me a Combatant weapon, is that normal?

[normal drum]

Have you taken the Spark route in the Garbage and killed Wardens in X-18?

[wide valve]

It only works this way, this is just my second playthrough, thank you

[dull sequoia]

It also depends on your approach, I suppose. On my first playthrough, I went guns blazing after sneaking through the courtyard and got offered the weapon. On my second run, I completely ghosted that section, with zero alarmed Wardens and I didn't get the weapon. If you stealth your way, the guard opening the door to Skif, when meeting Korshunov and Dalin in Slag Heap, also doesn't punch Skif in the stomach.

I think you need to fight your way loudly for the weapon to be offered to you.

[normal drum]

That's right, there are 5 versions of the cutscene, only in 1 the weapon is given (wait, Dalin doesn't punch Skif in any versions, right? )

[dull sequoia]

Dalin???

[normal drum]

"and Dalin in Slag Heap also doesn't punch Skif in the stomach."

[dull sequoia]

Sorry, I meant the guard who opens the door. I'll rewrite that.

[prisma bluff]

imo keep ISPF and remove mercs and military. One is enough? Mercs can just be scientists (have the fighters wear funny looking seva suits so we can ID them from a far or something).

[hexed flame]

Isnt all military in S2 IPSF ? But anyway they are the same thing the name doesnt matter much it just puts more emphasis on them guarding the perimeter
And mercs serve a completely different purpose in the story idk why you would wanna remove them

[edgy gazelle]

anyone I could DM (less spoiler for the rest) about stalker 2 lore? mostly about the endings (any ending works, since its more of a universal thing about the endings) || so in the endings we insert a cartridge (a digital copy of us?) and also go into a vat/pod to boil, pepsi and probably join c-con, || || So the question is, why is the pod thing essential if the device already has a digital copy of us? || || besides, thats what the previous 7 guys did, why us too? || || and why does it also cause whoever goes into the pod to be the new face of c-con, unlike back then with the previous 7 where it was more or less a shared entity? ||

[acoustic wigeon]

the cartridge isn't necessarily a digital copy of someone, the pod isn't a way to join the c-con, the pod is a way to interact with the noosphere and keep the person doing it alive. In the prototype version Kaymanov mentions:

"One thing is certain: the prototype Pod offers more than just observation of the Noosphere. These sessions feel more like lucid dreams, where I sense the potential to influence those entities, albeit limited to one psynapse. Alas, “potential” is the keyword here: we’re clearly lacking sufficient energy to reach full interaction. It would take way more than one doctor’s mind and a single Pod to achieve that level of engagement."

The reason they needed 7 scientists is because the noosphere is essentially protected by a barrier (what Kaymanov calls a "ionosphere-noosphere barrier"). Kaymanov theorizes three ways around this barrier:

"Nope, no way. Creating a stable channel for data reception is turning out to be a real challenge, mainly because the ionosphere-noosphere barrier turned out to be way more energetically stable than I expected. I’m considering three options:

• First, I could crank up the intensity until it fries the brain.
• Second, I could explore the possibility of linking several consciousnesses together.
• The third option, which is a bit out there, involves using the signature imprint not just as a channel key, but as a way to create a Mediator within the Noosphere itself. Data would flow directly to the Mediator, eliminating the need to penetrate the barrier and drastically cutting down on energy consumption – sounds pretty slick, right? Problem is, how do we retrieve the data from the Mediator? If we can figure out how to set up the Source-Mediator system as a superposition, thus getting around the barrier, then we'll be rolling in it."

So the third option is used in the game, essentially creating a mediator.

[hexed flame]

And as you can see the 2nd option is what they opted for in the original experiment (except kaymanov didnt go in) and the heart is necessary for the source-mediator method to work hence why you have to retrieve it and it also explains why they went the c-con route

(They didn't have the heart)

[edgy gazelle]

"the pod is a way to interact with the noosphere and keep the person doing it alive"... ok alive. so where does this go with Col Korchunov's lecture to Dalin about him seeing his father, boiling, hence why the Col really doesnt believe Dalin's father is alive (I mean duh, even Strelok killed them in SOC) but really... did they die before that SOC ending or before? are we supposed to ignore that?

like some random untrue BS to shut Dalin up....

[acoustic wigeon]

what?

The pod keeps them alive when interacting with the noosphere through nurturing them, it doesn't stop bullets hitting them through the pod

[edgy gazelle]

so, ignore Col Kor's BS then?

[acoustic wigeon]

no idea what you mean by that

[edgy gazelle]

just before the boss fight against the Col, you hear him and Dalin argue, eventually he tells Dalin that the representative cant help them and he tells Dalin he saw them boil in the pods with his own eyes, and that the representative is nothing but a fake

Ill send you SS if you want, cant do so here....

[hexed flame]

You mean subttle matter
See here is the thing
Depending which road you choose spark or ward the story actually changes
If you go with ward subtle matter is constantly confirmed to be a myth some illusion and even skif believes this at the end
Meanwhile if you go the spark route it is actually real

[hexed flame]

He saw what kaymanov did thats what he means by boiling
And I mean the pods were operational in SOC strelok did kill them they just malfunctioned during the experiment which probably damaged the bodies
But yes strelok killed them

Anyway c con is not 'alive' in S2 they are part of the s matter which depending on the ending is real or is not real
And in project Y ending its left up to interpretation if its real or not basically skif's pov changes depending on your choices

[acoustic wigeon]

representative is entirely fake

[hexed flame]

Well no

[acoustic wigeon]

well, not fake, but the last remnants of the c-con in a sense

[hexed flame]

He is real in the spark route

But only the foundation projection

[edgy gazelle]

well, 'real' in the sense that Skif is basically tripping balls as if he was high af

[hexed flame]

No he is actually real

The route you choose literally changes the story's narrative regarding SM

[edgy gazelle]

*I meant what he sees

[hexed flame]

Dalin also sees him and talks to him in the spark route as if its a normal person

[acoustic wigeon]

no, it doesn't, it's still fake, that's the entire ending of spark, you find out it's all one big lie

[edgy gazelle]

welp anyways guys, thx this game is a hodge podge of lore for now till we get a canon ending

[hexed flame]

The lie is only in what c con does not in the fact subbtle matter is fake

[acoustic wigeon]

bro is throwing words around he doesn't even know the meaning of as usual

[hexed flame]

I simply agree with dugout

[edgy gazelle]

|| oh, btw, is there a way to save Strider? cause what was the point of getting the regen thing? ||

|| hes 100% supposed to die right? ||

[hexed flame]

No way of saving him

Btw project Y is the canon ending unless they come up with something completely new for a sequel

[edgy gazelle]

which 1 is that? Skif's?

[hexed flame]

Yes

There is also a weak argument for strelok's ending I guess

[edgy gazelle]

hmmm whats that?

[hexed flame]

But ward and spark are literally alt history since they LITERALLY CHANGE WHATS REAL

[edgy gazelle]

nah I doubt strelok's ending unless its for lore expansion reasons, but Skif's works out better if that was the case tho

[hexed flame]

Strelok's ending still happens in the same reality that follows basically the same path and events as project Y so it could also be real

[hexed flame]

And this is what makes it weak so thank you for that lol

(You and everyone else dies and therefore gets banished to SM and exists as one unified entity and experiences an idyllic but fake version of reality)
However I dont know why yall confuse SM being real with the shining zone being real

The shining zone is clearly some idiotic lie c-con put into scar's head (or he came up with in his insanity)

[edgy gazelle]

no cap, I actually like Scar's insanity.... hes basically Hitle--- C-Con's top man

[hexed flame]

Yes I specifically relate to that and this isnt related to the damn ending

The foundation cutscene is entirely different your trip to generators is entirely different and what skif and other characters say and think changes entirely depending on your route and I agree with dugout's interpretation that these are alternative realities where SM exists (spark) or does not (ward) however SZ doesnt exist in any ending

You also see ghosts which dont exist at all in the ward path and what skif says is different

And I think there is another detail that changes but i dont remember everything

[hexed flame]

Scar and korshunov are both likeable friendly characters who unfortunately serve an insanely evil entity and love violence

[normal drum]

The Representative cannot be fake as he totally interacts with the Noosphere and knows about both past and recent events. Also, in other case it would raise a question "Who controls the Noosphere in Scar ending then?" His mind either really transfered to the Noosphere or it's just a copy, but in both cases he's a full personality.

"The ending is a lie" is a subjective opinion, as it is fully the question of the philosophy of solipsism if you accept the new reality or not. For Skif - it's totally true, he gets a new home and a happy life.

[edgy gazelle]

and thats why Im torn back then on who to side on my 1st ending.

[hexed flame]

And thats a parallel between spark and ward both routes boil down to
You are being manipulated by a super evil thing to create an apocalyptic scenario however their henchmen are actually relatable and cool

[hexed flame]

^^^^

Dvupalov is a drunk with clear signs of depression so
But realistically it could easily be their SM projections since the noosphere holds information about everyone at all times (it is literally an integral part of the world and controls all information) they dont HAVE to be dead to be shown to you by SM

[hexed flame]

It really boils down to

1. Do you sympathise with order
2. Do you sympathise with chaos
   Neither ending is good its two equally evil endings achieved through diff means

Its like duty vs freedom

[slow light]

Just don’t side with either

[graceful wharf]

I am really interested in Docent Trachuk's flash drive, as he said he capture message from every emission and can read 'terrible' information from noosphere
What would that be?\

[hexed flame]

Yeah idk why people even go for these endings by default

[plain pelican]

Honestly, it's literally choosing between murdering asses and insane fanatics

[lucid echo]

i want to ally myself with ward but for some reason some guys with rank recently started shooting at me. i do hope it ain't too late

[hexed flame]

If you chose spark in zalissya this happens

You can still do ward ending tho just stick with em

[slow light]

The way I saw it was that in the trilogy the canon/good ending always came with an extra task right at the end of the game

So in S2 you have the ||keeping Kaymanov alive||

In terms of logic there is very little reason to ||kill Kaymanov for a man you’ve known for 2 seconds||

As for Spark/Ward, both are really shit choices no matter how you look at it

The “well we get an apartment!!!” argument is so weak

The way it’s meant to be read into is that Skif lost his home - yes he’s been offered all these nice things from Ward, but they’re puppets and their ideals are the typical jarhead bs. Skif found a home - in the Zone

The same way many of our beloved returning characters etc. have found their place and their calling in the Zone, so did Skif

Spark ending is just fanatical fantasy nonsense that has almost 0 appeal to begin with lmao

[lucid echo]

thanks

[slow light]

Out of all the factions we’ve seen across the franchise Freedom was probably the most relatable of them all tbh

[lucid echo]

i liked mercinaries

[hexed flame]

So true

I wish I could genuinely make a study that links fav faction to political beliefs cause i wanna test my hypothesis that most duty fans are conservative

But I digress

[hexed flame]

My interpretation of the ward ending is that now the regulatory board has unchecked access to all the thoughts of all the people on the planet which is an apocalyptic dystopia

Its basically equivalent in how bad it is to the spark ending the only difference is that the spark ending only affects the zone

But the game really tries to nail it down into your head that both spark and ward are TERRIBLE and while strelok is a sort of neutral ending you get for being complacent only the skif ending is actually canon and 'good'

Its the only ending with actual positive implications people obsess over kaymanov and faust and all that but its SKIF who gets in the pod someone with good intentions and hope (unlike the other 3 which either have bad intentions unbeknownst to them OR are hopeless like strelok)

And even the worst scenario of the skif ending is pretty good since the only thing that would exist within the newly created zones would be anomalies
Emissions, monos and mutants are man made and are not direct effects of the noosphere's influence
Best case scenario these new anomalies would be tamer and less violent and would benefit everyone worst case they would be dangerous but people could easily adapt and coexist with them and still get something good from the artifacts within

Even psi radiation is likely something that wouldnt exist because most psi rad concentrations seem to originate from manmade sources or are connected to the failure of the og experiment
However there were historically psi anomalies in the lore sooo idk but they arent present in S2

Its either a retcon or just a design choice

And honestly most of these anomalies would only be a big problem at the start because theyd appear semi randomly and could damage stuff but avoiding them isnt really hard its not like irl where the super corrosive toxic substance would spill everywhere contaminate everything and create huge issues here it seems all the anomalies regardless of their nature are self contained entities

People who immerse themselves in stalker or metro lore sometimes forget that the real world can unironically be more dangerous than fiction (as an example you can check the seveso dioxin spill)
It's even stalker's central message all the super evil dangerous stuff is directly or indirectly humanity's fault

[hexed flame]

Same its a really cool fantasy tho not very original since its the same thing a lot of games do with the independent merc thing

[normal drum]

Endings #s2-lore-discussions message

[slow light]

Ward ending does not result in world peace

[normal drum]

It does, that was the main reason the Project X cared about the control over the Noosphere in the first place - so that the governments wouldn't start a world war over psi-technologies, the Generators in particular.

[sonic meadow]

but ||Strelok|| is cool

[hexed flame]

This 'peace' is a disgusting dystopia akin to something like minority report dude

[normal drum]

No one can say for certain what exactly will happen to the society, there are only speculations. The only things we know are that Agatha really intends to give people happiness, and that some or all people on the planet became Agents, that's all.

[hexed flame]

Agatha seeks to reclaim what she perceives as her property and to LITERALLY ENSLAVE HUMANITY

It is hilarious you can interpet this as something good

[normal drum]

I do not interpret the ending as good, I just point out all there is not only the negative side, the same as with the other endings.

The Ward ending is an allusion to the real world, with data stealings, government surveillance etc, it's already there among us today. If people despise it so much, why do they not become anti-establishment anarchists in real life? The answers to this question may be used for this outcome in Stalker universe, too.

[hexed flame]

Why ? Because people like having lives and the resources of individuals are insignificant compared to companies or other entities its that simple

It is an allusion to the real world and I dont think anyone sane in the real world is happy that something like the palantir exists

But it does and its just sad

But yeah skif chooses comfort and compliance and creates a bitter sad dystopia however i dont agree that this will somehow create a meaningful world peace it will likely just lead to the regulatory board enslaving everyone and conquering whatever puts up resistance to their order just like they did with the zone

and after that well...equal misery for everyone lol

[elder bobcat]

"Literally enslave humanity" in caps is not something she openly expresses, ofc, but a "brave new world" that she mentions a few times is like 101 Dystopian Vocabulary, lol. Then we learn that Regulatory Board were the ones supporting terrifying experiments in X-Labs financially, we hear Agatha's fascination with the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. program (as well as a visual representation of it in the final cutscene with all the monitors showing various POVs essentially connected via FIBER), we learn from the Journalist that the data about Skif was deleted from all archives on the Mainland etc-etc — there are tons of hints as to what that side of conflict truly aims for. Then Agatha going along the lines of "ppl don't want to fight for their happiness — they wanna get it here & now" in the end is essentially her trolling the players for choosing to hand Regulatory Board the keys to world domination via trading em for the keys to a new house/apartment, which if anything is a cherry on top.

[hexed flame]

yeah i mean her insane influence is part of what drives the journalist to 'kill himself' and that dude was smart and powerful enough to somehow avoid the ward spark and strelok at the same time soooo

(related to the skif being wiped out part)

[elder bobcat]

Also, that final line about happiness is refering to Regulatory Board waiting for more than a decade to regain the control over X-Network & finish the Project X the way it was intended to be completed as opposed to our MC cooperating with Korshunov-Agatha & doing anything they tell him to do (including shooting Dalin potentially) simply to get a new flat asap. That's what it's all about, total control & mocking of a silly pawn — not "happiness for all people".

[elder bobcat]

Not to mention the fact said "man Skif's known for 2 secs" has literally saved his life from being offed by Strider. Then helped him find Strelok in the first place. And has been sincere with him to the point of revealing his true identity & yadda-yadda. None of that can be overlooked in sane mind.

[slow light]

I was talking about Strelok

[hexed flame]

yeah thats the thing following strelok is basically just: ooh famous man told me what to do i must do that then

[elder bobcat]

"FOR" a man, I see, sry. The point stands regardless: why'd you kill the man who helped you find the guy that's now asking you to kill that dude? Disconnect is immediately apparent, the sus intensifies, as they say 😁

[hexed flame]

it doesnt really make much sense when you look at it from skif's perspective since their first encounter kinda foreshadows what is to come and shows the ruthlessness of strelok (which I really enjoyed since the player going through SOC as strelok is basically like some damn terminator)

[slow light]

[hexed flame]

not even CS is as absurd as the ONSLAUGHT strelok endures in SOC throughout radar pripyat and cnpp

(even if we assume the events of the games are not what actually happened)

[elder bobcat]

Was an amazing introduction indeed, checked all the boxes, the PDA & all

[slow light]

Strelok single handedly taking on no less than 200 Monolith soldiers single handedly

Within the space of about 2 hours

[hexed flame]

right ?

[elder bobcat]

We love em some run-of-the-mill Rambos in our FPS media, don't we? 😁

[hexed flame]

i love how SOC was also super barebones so he doesnt like stop to fix himself up or repair armor NO he just picks up armor covered in blood from the monos he killed and continues

if the helis actually took any interest in him he would have just parried the SK rockets from the hinds with his bare hands right back at them

[slow light]

The only man to swap outfits with the enemy that much other than Agent 47

[hexed flame]

lowkey only COP doesnt feel like this, CS soundtracks also make it seem like scar is some kind of god chosen hitman

[hexed flame]

i love how we both thought of him for diff reasons lol

also they fact scar is just 1:1 with the movie stalker is a little on the nose lmao

tho COP also suffers from degi being a normal dude cause the plot is just uhh...well nonexistent lmao
you just have a mildly interesting job to do and thats it

atleast the journey is fun and I guess that is the point seeing as degi became obsessed with pripyat

[slow light]

Scar could be compared to a terminator given the amount of grenades that man eats

Can’t catch a break

[elder bobcat]

In CoP the game usually tries to constantly pair/group Degtyarev with someone for the bigger chunk of its missions, so yea — it doesn't feel anywhere close to an action blockbuster the previous games felt like. Still has its Rambo-esq moments at WPS & on the way to X-8, for example

[hexed flame]

yeah but the scale is smaller and therefore more believable
also dont forget the bloodsucker affair that also makes it feel pretty badass

tho he isnt alone in there

[elder bobcat]

If you go in guns blazing — yea, but if it's gassing em — nah

What I find funny in that particular mission is how you can plant the gas & just run away from the suckers, but the fact there's a timer in the corner often tricks people into a "captured point defence" mindset as if em bloodsuckers could turn the valve & stop the process, lol

[hexed flame]

i also feel like COP made really good use of the engine 'cutscenes' and had the most unique events

99% of cs and soc storytelling is just reading or listening to some dude mumble something

but here there is a lot more interesting visual stuff like the gassing (i think this is the only interactable quest item in the games), noah shotgunning the door or the vampire unsubscribing

[elder bobcat]

Planting the C4 on the door of the kindergarten in Pripyat also comes to mind

[hexed flame]

i barely remember pripyat in COP honestly lmao but yeah
also that sniper mission
idk it feels a lot more modern in gameplay in narrative

[elder bobcat]

There are lots of psi-fields & anomalies in S2 tho.

Those with fake artifacts in em actively dealing psi-damage & multiplying it proportionally to the amount of fakes picked up, the Scar anomaly from CoP, the psi-field at the Gas Station & lots of smaller psi-blotches sprinkled across the Zone

The Cage in Cement Factory region, etc-etc

[hexed flame]

Ohh i forgot the path anomaly in S2 you're right

However are these tiny blotches that slow u and make u dizzy psi ? Can they kill you even ?

[lucid badge]

do we have information about what happened between 2012 and 2021

[lucid echo]

i find it funny how much people romanticize the zone. like, it's a hellhole only people who are there permanently are those who managed to survive for so long that they went mad and don't know how to live a normal life anymore.

it's fun in game but if you try to put it realisticaly it is a place of nightmares

try staying sane when your daily life is dodging anomalies, hiding from emmisions, getting badly wounded by mutants and having to kill other people. to survive. it is cold and harsh. every day.

[hexed flame]

Because it is romantic by design it appeals to our most basic hunter gatherer instincts and follows a fantasy all post apo media follow
Your existence is reduced to survival however all your daily societal issues basically disapear and you are free to do whatever you desire

This is also the same fantasy westerns used

Its also often applied to warfare even tho you arent actually free there but survival just gives people meaning ordinary life cant

However this is why its popular in fiction and very few people actually act on this fantasy
Survival is cold, itchy, hot, painful, loud, insanely quiet, intense, boring, terrifying
It is all the bad things in life compounded into one never ending torturous experience
Our brains just have this funny property that even when we arent actually surviving our thoughts still try to construct a survival framework which is why society, work, taxes, interpersonal relationships etc can also make people miserable and since they have never known true survival they romanticise survival as something more meaningful and pure

Also most people really like calm walks and thats 90% of this fantasy basically

[lucid echo]

woah, i was about to think that you didn't know what you're talking about but i'll admit. you aren't wrong on this

[hexed flame]

Ive had 4 years of debilitating loneliness to think about all of it

And I adore stalker and metro which are mostly about this fantasy ESPECIALLY the metro games and even MORE ESPECIALLY exodus

[lucid echo]

im still onj year 1

darn. i gotta play that. i always postpone it

[hexed flame]

In fact I think exodus is basically the purest almost distilled form of this fantasy

There is literally no other point no deeper meaning it is just a game thats like
'Lets make a grandiose adventure about survival'

Its what makes it different from the books the game dev focused way more on this aspect of survival while glukhovsky was more philosophical and also talked about spirituality and russian society

[lucid echo]

that's interesting

[hexed flame]

Anyway yeah there is your answer as to why the zone is so mystified and romanticised
Btw the devs recognise this which is why richter is almost your sidekick

[lucid echo]

that guy creeps me out

[hexed flame]

He is literally like the people who write these stories except he is part of the world

[lucid echo]

i would rather lead a conversation with a controller than him

[hexed flame]

I find him rather adorable because he does not have any bad intentions
His worst action is witholding information if you go the ward route but even then he cant help himself and kinda points skif in the right direction afaik

Dude is just a good pure soul altho incredibly naive

[lucid echo]

dude is a creep who's only saving quality is that he is an essential NPC

[hexed flame]

I can see why his demeanor might be creepy but in this particular case he is actually just a nice guy

No ulterior motive no hidden agency
Nah he is just kindhearted but so much so it may be off putting

[elder bobcat]

Those are Flytraps, and the "blotches" I'm talking about are the psy-areas on the map that often have groups of zombies in em & deal the psi-damage to the player, those can be found in various regions like Zaton, Yantar etc

[elder bobcat]

Yet artifacts exist. Yet the progress in safety equipment & medicine has leaped unimaginably. Can you name a single antiradiation drug in existence capable of nullifying the lethal doses IRL, if you wanna bring the videogame lore to our daily reality? Do you realise what antirad alone would mean for the whole of humanity? And it's originating from the hoofs of em fuсkіng Zone boars in lore, lol. So yea, there's a damn good reason to suggest the Zone is a lot more than a hellhole for madlads.

[elder bobcat]

You can find a list of events on STALKER Wiki via searching "Timeline" — tho keep in mind, it does have some inaccuracies & sometimes presents general assumptions that may not 100% reflect the real state of affairs at the time mentioned, but should give ye a general idea without diving deep into the details.

[hexed flame]

Well he got banned so he can't but there isn't one

[hexed flame]

Those seem to be somehow connected to controllers or psi devices most of the time like the unfinished building which has an antenna on top or the red forest dnipro spot which has a controller

Also isnt that one artifact called flytrap ?

[elder bobcat]

Just like there's an artifact called "Fireball", yet the anomaly of the same name also exists.

[elder bobcat]

Some are tied to such places, yea, but have you tried to wander off-road in the Red Forest, for example? You'd start receiving constant psi-damage everywhere in it except near the roads & POIs. There's also a psi-plato near the Snork Cave on Zaton (close to the point of meeting Nimble) where zombies usually "camp", these kinds of psi-fields are all over.

[hexed flame]

Hmm yeah true I forgot about the plateau and was not aware of the red forest ones
Still its really odd how these anomalies are kinda inconsistent and only one spawns anomalies (or two idk maybe im forgetting something)

[wide basin]

In my first playthrough, I get the distinct impression that Strelok took getting programmed into hunting himself down rather personally.

[elder bobcat]

The fact of the matter is, there are psi-fields & anomalies in S2, plenty of em, and most of em are the spawns of the Zone herself

[hexed flame]

Fair enough then
Tho I guess they wouldnt have to be so intense anyway or they might just be the effect of the fact that zone's creation was failed since they are directly linked to the noosphere and appear pretty random unlike other anomalies which seem to posses some affinity towards natural phenomenon's related to their 'type'

They are also partially random BUT they do often appear near chemical spills, electrical instalations or burnt places

[vernal ridge]

You know, some of the artifacts would be revolutionary. Imagine having an infinite power source.

The problem is that artifacts stop working outside of the Zone. Skif spreading the Zone could unwittingly lead to a technological revollution.

[hexed flame]

^^^ yeah and the anomalies as suggested by kaymanov could genuinely be tamer if these zones were created in a calmer manner

[vernal ridge]

Wasn't the Zone basically made by a "oh crap" moment? Like those connected to the Noosphere paniced?

Though I also remember they filled it with negative emotions.

[hexed flame]

Yes also it was already riddled with 'bad mojo' from all the horrific experiments contained within

[vernal ridge]

The noosphere is basically The Warp. Both are connected to human emotion. XD

[vernal ridge]

I can get that considering it involved pain and suffering.

[hexed flame]

Yeah they were basically reenacting division 731

[vernal ridge]

Crap, that was the japanese right? I know the germans did some crazy stuff but no one talks about what japan did.

[hexed flame]

More like everyone except for japan

[vernal ridge]

Can't even vouch for us. We made a bomb that can wipe a city off the map in one strike.

[hexed flame]

I mean that's an useful invention and it was very much an international effort its sad there are so few in the world it could stop some wars and tensions if developed countries had their own nukes but I digress

Its very unlikely the newly created zones would be so hostile

[vernal ridge]

ehhhhhhh, last thing I want is more nuclear missiles. Mutually Assaured Destruction is not a strategy I want to see IRL. Good news, even those need repair even if not being used. I like fallout, but I don't want to live it.

[vernal ridge]

Still would be dangerous.

[hexed flame]

Or not but maybe we'll see

[hexed flame]

I do think europe would benefit from nuclear mines and missiles that could be pointed at whatever the hell is trying to threaten us

[vernal ridge]

Like what? Putin and Russia? XD

[hexed flame]

Any of the 3 empires

Not much else to add

I wonder if the iron forest will just be a massive electro anomaly or if they have some plan to make it an actual location

[vernal ridge]

Ukraine has been keeping russia at bay for sometime now. Which doesn't look like it will stop anytime soonso long as they keep being supplied.

[hexed flame]

Irrelevant and political so lets end there

[vernal ridge]

Who knows, more map areas is always good. I would like places that exspand beyond the Zone border. To show it is growing.

[hexed flame]

I have a particular place in my mind that i wish was in the zone however its absurd and on the other side of the country
The tarakaniv fort

[vernal ridge]

I want to see military checkpoints taken over.

Or whatever is beyond the Cordon.

I always imagined that there was a small town or village that was beyond a military checkpoint for the exclusion zone.

[hexed flame]

North there is a nature reservation
South uhh roads to kiyv and villages ?

[vernal ridge]

That nature reserve would be cool. Also imagine it got close to Kiyv.

Always wondered if the area gradually changes if you got closer to the zone. Like reality just starts not acting right the more you get close.

[hexed flame]

I mean the reserve is just
S W A M P

Half the belarus-ukraine border is a massive swamp

[vernal ridge]

Could be interesting. Swamp Bloodsuckers.

Also more mutated flora and fauna. Maybe even newer anomolies.

[hexed flame]

Fun fact strelok's bossfight theme has a background sound of dragging chains (or something similar) for basically the whole duration which is probably a reference to him wanting to lock up the zone

And another fun fact scar's bossfight theme is structured in a way that retells marshal's memories of the ward raid (idk if I talked about this already)

It has sounds of marching, gunfire and screams in this very order+ an anticipatory break with growing music intensity between the marching and gunfire

And that break literally has a sound effect thats akin to a clock ticking

Strelok's is 'it must be erased'
Scar's is 'total recall'

2:09 marching with ominous music
3:04 break that turns into clock ticking at 4:09 with first gunfire sounds immediately after
4:41 muted screams
Timestamps for total recall

Also distant slowed marching at the very end

[fathom veldt]

very unique observation

[deep forum]

@normal drum I was still a bit sceptical after seeing the "Controller revives dead Beard" video whether the behavior was a bug or not and reached out to gsc. This is the answer I just got:

Thank you for reaching out to us! This is not a bug at all, but an ability of Controller that our developers gave him. He can really raise the dead and use it in battle against you. But there is one nuance. The Controller cannot raise NPCs whose brains are damaged, this only works for those who were not killed in the head.

The video shows that Beard died like from a headshot, so I asked the developers to check this problem and they said that they could not reproduce the problem, everything works as it should. So most likely, the author of the video used the debug console and did not show the whole process, or Boroda did not die from a headshot, which is difficult to judge due to the fast and cropped video frames.

So it is a bit more nuanced than initially thought, but the general idea of revival is actually there.

[frosty ridge]

does faust's theme have any cool motifs?

[frosty ridge]

Freedom is dangerous, but, as Kaymanov observed, the "safety" of the alternative (cages) only fosters division and hostility

[hexed flame]

I listened to it a bunch and never noticed any

[hexed flame]

Yeah nah I relistened and its just a really good song

I guess the music swelling at the end is meant to symbolise the revelation about the SM skif is about to have but otherwise its just a really good boss fight song

[sick fog]

My guesses for STALKER 2's DLC location/s:

-Limansk
-Deserted Hospital
-Dead City
-Darkscape

[hexed flame]

'I copied random locations from gamma that make no sense in S2 and those are my guesses'

Darkscape is an empty terrible location that only existed to facilitate a vehicle chase it is literally just mountains

And it also does not exist irl and nothing similar to it exists why would there be hills/mountains in the middle of one of the largest plains on earth

Deserted hospital also likely makes no sense it was a cqb level made for the large ending battle before the bossfight
Limansk is borderline confirmed
Cnpp and iron forest are 99% next dlc (and you didnt even include them)
Dead city is basically pripyat lite it was meant to be a location where strelok gets abducted and put in a cell but this idea was completely unused and this location on its own also makes no sense a pripyat expansion is way more likely

[muted needle]

My guesses for STALKER 2's DLC location/s:

-Misty Thicket
-Dead City
-Yantar (but the old one)
-The Old’s
-Antechamber

[muted needle]

This was already problematic with the original games, and could only be explained as “Zone shifting stuff”. Which again is annoying because that’s how the retcons are explained by the community.

[shrewd igloo]

Obviously this it's based 100% in datamining and isn't trolling💯

[hexed flame]

They just didnt bother to explain it at all
Idk why the community is acting like the few retcons that happened are some huge issue when the old games had stuff like clear sky which made absolutely no sense as a faction without of the c con angle

The only bad map retcon is the barrier because it does affect the plot

The swamps being right next to cordon made 0 sense
Limansk probably exists only because they were time constrained on CS and couldnt afford to model pripyat and didnt want to reuse the SOC pripyat
Generators were basically cut from CS for likely the same reason

[shrewd igloo]

GSC never planned use Pripyat for Clear Sky (Limansk as a concept is prior to the release of SoC too), and generators was like a sequence of two minutes sooo isn't important anyways, and if u say "marsh besides cordon doesn't make sense" is because that area had x location in SoC in the global map isn't smth good to say because that map that u see in SoC global map is a MP map (rostok factory) that never was planned to be integrated in the plot of SoC.

[frosty ridge]

I'm a Sandy Plateau believer.

Sandy Plateau was promised to us 3,000 years ago, it's coming next DLC guys trust just a week away

[hexed flame]

I dont understand the last bit

[ashen ravine]

Just did the Wishful Thinking Mission. I know the Wish Granter isn't actually a semi-sentient alien crystal with reality-warping psi powers, and is literally just a machine that was built by C-Con to distract stalkers. But am I the only one that thinks the STALKER 2 Wish Granter was a little too "machine-ey?" Too many cables, emitters and greebles hanging from the ceiling and walls, all those hologram emitters lining all the columns 37 times just to project the image of the Monolith. I feel a more simplistic design would have made sense, like a round pedestal-like computer that was sunken into the ground of Reactor 4 with the crystal hologram sitting on top.

[hexed flame]

As they said yes its to emphasize it is being experimented upon

But ive heard theories it isnt even the actual wish granter

Also yes it can exert control from what we know any psi emitter can turn you into a zombie/ mono it doesnt have to be any specific one

And any of the strelok hallucinations should just be taken as psi projections before he would turn into one

But thats alt history really

[ashen ravine]

I do think it ruins some of the mystique for a bunch of pencil-neck science hippies to be able to just waltz down to the CNPP and load the Monolith up in the back of a U-Haul and steal it. And then somehow be able to put all of the parts back together again in exactly the right order and be able to boot it up.

It would have made way more sense for SIRCAA to just build a new antenna and try and contact the dormant Wish Granter with it from their building.

[hexed flame]

I mean why ?

Its an unguarded psi antenna in a place even the military managed to reach

And its not like the generators which are a building and are connected to the og noosphere rift so they have some actually special property that makes dissasembly pointless

[ashen ravine]

For me it's the gameplay and story segregation. The center of the Zone is still a max-level area full of monsters and Monolith that are going insane from not hearing the Monolith's call any longer. It's so dangerous that Degtayrev sealed off Pripyat himself and only allows the elite access to it, and they still take good casualties on a regular basis. So it just seems unlikely to me from a storytelling POV that such a high-level area wouldn't present a threat to a bunch of soft-belly engineers and nerds who are going in to loot computer parts.

[hexed flame]

This has a lot of holes in it

1. The ward is more capable than any faction in the zone and only the monolith and the deg corps can even compete
2. Monolithians post SOC are clearly not that dangerous not only is there 0 evidence that the cnpp is 'full' of them but also the ones at noontide arent all super warriors like when they are under the influence Chors or whatever he's called is literally a clueless cute dude that almost kills skif after reactivation they are not a threat
   Ward is also more than capable of dealing with mutants in fact mutants are one of the least dangerous things the zone can offer for super organised large entities like the ward or military (anomalies and monos are far more dangerous) ward also understands anomalies at a level incomparable to the military in og trilogy so they could easily navigate through them

The ward easily managed to reach the foundation also degy sealed off pripyat from normal stalkers because he has a soft spot for pripyat and wants to protect stalkers from them the ward does not need any protection from the zone itself since they are clearly capable of dealing with it
What they arent capable of dealing with are stalkers which is a very strong recurring theme in the story however stalkers are something that's in extremely short supply at the cnpp

Idk how you went through the game and got the impression that the ward is 'soft bellied' they strong armed EVERYONE in the zone, established the largest base in it's history and reign supreme in all of it's areas until the insanely convoluted and insane chain of events that lead to the SIRCAA's destruction happened

(Which had almost nothing to do with the zone it happened only because of scar faust strider skif and dalin)

[frosty ridge]

Thinking about Faust & Kaymanov parallels and it is interesting that both of them were responsible for sabotaging an experiment aimed at taking control of the Noosphere (carried out by a Dalin, no less)

[hexed flame]

They also both use psi tech and both are very esoteric and mysterious

[vapid spire]

Dead city could probably be combined with limansk. The old yantar map used in lost alpha is awesome and could remade into a new area for stalker 2.

[ashen ravine]

Oh I wasn't talking about the Ward. I was thinking more of the Ward having to babysit a team of civilian scientist/ecologists and engineers doing the actual dismantling and hauling while the Ward guarded them. Like an escort mission, but the person you're escorting has like 4HP and keeps running away the moment they hear a loud noise.

I know I'm overthinking it, but it just made sense to me since I've also had to escort civilian contractors that don't listen and constantly wander off even when there isn't any danger. I just don't see SIRCAA stealing the Wish Granter without a lot of problems and headaches.

The real question is if SIRCAA is unionized. If the wrench-turners are union boys than there's no way in Hell they'd ever get anything done.

[vernal ridge]

My question is why isn't there a bigger variety of weapons in The Zone? I want to see some old stuff like the PPSH and MP40.

[pulsar mural]

In game lore, if I recall, metal rusts much quicker in the zone

[hexed flame]

They have their own field scientists

[hexed flame]

Because there is no native population and the place was being incessantly looted for years before the zone was created so all weapons are smuggled
And why the hell would anyone smuggle ww2 garbage it just makes no sense to purposefully sell it to this place instead of selling it somewhere else in europe as a collector's item

The mosin makes some sense cause its a good gun against mutants but the mp40 is mega rare and the ppsh would just be a terrible gun not worth smuggling over an mp5 or ump or cold war smgs

[vernal ridge]

The Viper is the MP5 in all but name.

[hexed flame]

What problems tho
They fly mi8's into an empty building using their anomaly maps and just waltz into the chamber with the wish granter

[hexed flame]

Yes thats what I mean why would anyone smuggle a less effective gun into the zone where it wont be treated like a collector's item

The only reasonable way an mp40 would make its way into the zone is some crazy wehraboo bandit ordered one specifically and payed good money for it
The ppsh is a slightly different case cause its cheaper but still idk why anyone would want that

[vernal ridge]

Imagine if we could weaponize an anomaly.

[hexed flame]

Idk if this is official lore or a gamma invention but I think it was included in cop documents that the gauss gun is powered by a flash artifact so you technically can
Unless you mean the actual anomaly's power

Ive noticed the devs seem to wanna keep anomalies very mysterious so they focus on psi radiation, experiments and mutants lore wise and just avoid the subject of anomalies

Which is fine by me its cool they dont try to deconstruct them or explain them
Only anomaly lore is the sircaa artifact farm really

[vernal ridge]

I meant I wish there was a way to move anomalies around. I imagine life threatening ones like whirlygigs could be weaponized.

Like deadly tumbleweeds.

[hexed flame]

That would be world ending tech besides it seems that anomaly fields are somehow tied to noosphere ruptures so they dont really move around just blink in and out of existence or move in a designated area

[pulsar mural]

The heart of Chernobyl does this

[vernal ridge]

That is cool. To bad it's a one of a kind artifact.

[wispy dirge]

Is there a reason freedom isnt at the army warehouse in stalker 2?

[normal drum]

They've got a bigger fish to fry (Rostok).

[wispy dirge]

So they left a t72, bmp2 and some btrs

[normal drum]

? Why would they need a non-functional, irradiated piece of scrap?

[wispy dirge]

Well why are they still there even though they had control of the warehouse like I would of scrapped them while they were in control not leave them in the road or in sheds

[boreal breach]

Scrapped them to do what? Nobody is interested about these irradiated and rusted wrecks.
Everything is worthless on them and don't forget, this is the Zone. Using vehicles is a terrible idea unless if it's specialy equiped for the Zone and they're not

[hexed flame]

How would they scrap them ? The electronics inside are likely gone and to scrap the hull you need heavy specialist equipment which they clearly dont have

[native ruin]

So I have a question about the "skif" ending

[hexed flame]

Shoot

[native ruin]

The game is so damn confusing how is Faust the doctor the whole time

[hexed flame]

He likely isnt

Faust in the ending is most likely symbolic

[native ruin]

I see what makes the zone expand globally from skif entering the pod?

[rigid schooner]

it's not the future but the past leading to skifs end

[native ruin]

Wat

[rigid schooner]

the second caribbean experiment

[hexed flame]

He controls the noosphere much like the og experiment with the octa

Except his control is more precise

[native ruin]

I need to replay the game to understand the lore better any certain story paths to take?

Like who to side with and what not

[sharp rose]

Do the opposite path from last time

[native ruin]

Should I go play an older game

[hexed flame]

You can do strelok I guess but be aware different paths may unironically alter reality in game

[hexed flame]

SOC could help you understand

[sharp rose]

...

[native ruin]

U play as strelok in that game?

[sharp rose]

What do you WANT to play

[sharp rose]

No comment

[native ruin]

How does soc hold up todY?

[sharp rose]

I mean, theres the remaster. So pretty well?

[native ruin]

Oh fr

[hexed flame]

The remaster isnt a remaster honestly

SOC is playable tho quirky but there are remaster mods

[sharp rose]

Haven't they fixed it up by now

[native ruin]

So what game lore timeline wise is after soc

[hexed flame]

COP but its almost irrelevant to the lore and plot

And CS is a prequel that has a lot of lore but its not important to S2

Well except for scar and the clear sky but its not as important as soc

[native ruin]

I just want to learn more about clear sky, the monolith center of the zone and all that jazz

[hexed flame]

SOC and then CS

[native ruin]

What's cs stand for

[hexed flame]

Clear sky

[native ruin]

The game is called clear sky?

[hexed flame]

Soc is shadow of chernobyl

Yes literally

[native ruin]

Oh okay lol

Any mods you would recommend for soc

[rigid schooner]

Look for zone reclamation project (bugfix collection) if you not go for the enhanced version

[native ruin]

Ill just get the enhanced version its only 20 bucks

Is call of pripyat not worth playing?

I can get all 3 for 40 on steam

[rigid schooner]

Play it it’s some love it others don’t, personally it’s my favorite of the 3

[native ruin]

Im worried about crashes peiple on reviews saying its bad about crashing

[rigid schooner]

I had not a single crash with EE but the originals ( you get them as well if you buy EE) where crashing non stop for me

[native ruin]

Idk what we is

Ee

Nvm

[rigid schooner]

Enhanced edition sry was lazy

[native ruin]

Only the ee are on steam

[rigid schooner]

Yes but you get both

[native ruin]

Oh really

[rigid schooner]

Yep!

[native ruin]

So should I just play og then

Where do people get mods from for stalker nexus?

[rigid schooner]

Probably I only had the zone reclamation project which fixed the crashing and is otherwise pretty vanilla. But I later played the EE because they where just more stable for me and I like steam achievements

[normal drum]

No, it's not? The Caribbean Experiment (most probably both of them) happened on a ship near the Cold Island, not on the Duga. And it produced an Alpha on an another ship in the Caribbean Sea, it was not used on the Duga. The scene happens in the present when the scientists used the Alpha to establish a connection from the Duga to the Generators, analogous to what happened in X11 (look at the device, it's practically the same as "the podium" in X11). They have failed because of the changes made to the Duga during its occupation causing to connect not to the Chornobyl Generators but to all other Generators around the world built by the Regulatory Board. They have activated, causing new Breakdowns (therefore creating new Zones).

Who's the source of this misinformation?

[native ruin]

Generators? What is that in the game

[rigid schooner]

yeah I mean that at the duga. It's one of the interpretations I once read somewhere. I read different explanations and honestly I simply liked that one the most ;P

but it was a while back so maybe I got parts confused

[normal drum]

You go there no matter the route, the six huge spheres in the north of the Zone

[rigid schooner]

but honestly why would there be sientestics at duga After skif gets into the pod? SIRCAA is mostly destroyed and duga was overan by monolith and is half destroyed also those scientists are guarded by military and not ward

[normal drum]

Most of the "lore channels" spread misinformation, at least watch the Anomalous Dugout, at least he just retells the story instead of twisting it

[rigid schooner]

I think the end is very open the wohle symbolic faust thing in itself is very open.

but hey I did not mean to start a discussion 😅

[normal drum]

The Duga's still a part of the network which allows to try to remotely control the Generators (as seen on the map in X11), with a practically ready device for it.

The Ward lost all their leaders (not only Colonel Korshunov but also Major Dvoryankov and all the captains - Zotov, Shkarlat, Senkevych) and was left crippled or probably even disbanded.

[rigid schooner]

that's true. Also to be honest it is not sure then the event at duga actually happens. Like that one interpretation said it was in the past and actually the event that started all, it might as well be a bit in the future not "right at the scond skif enters the pod" because I still think duga is a bit broken at that time to work normally as part of the network

I mean parts of it is actually collapsed which can not be good for it's functionality

[normal drum]

Only the Lesser Duga was damaged, the main Duga stayed intact.

When you are about to kill Faust on the Duga, you get to see the room from the ending, the device and even Skif's Alpha were already there.

[rigid schooner]

but do we know how they actually work, it's all fancy x tech? xD
Oh it is the room? I did not notice that but than again it has been a while I played the end, I will take a closer look next time 🙂

[normal drum]

It's said that the PDAs work because of the Duga. They're still working after all the assaults so I believe the Duga's still functioning.

[rigid schooner]

oh really that's interesting? I must have missed that, where was that? (I play at Ukrainian with subtitles so somtimes I miss parts sadly 😅 )

[normal drum]

Star, the right hand of Scar, tells us somewhere before the first Duga assault, I cannot tell you exactly.

[rigid schooner]

I really hope they fix the subtiles at some points... I hate it if parts of the text is missing because they show up late or never

[pulsar mural]

I may replay COP, haven’t decided yet

Low key my favorite of the series

[rigid schooner]

I am currently on spark route I will look out for it, thx!

[pulsar mural]

https://tenor.com/view/batman-poker-face-rain-wet-gif-8944136

[rigid schooner]

😂 ?

[pulsar mural]

First play through? Lol

[rigid schooner]

oh no it's my third time but it is the last ending I miss

I did partial spark rout for Strelok skif endings

[pulsar mural]

Very fair

My main criticism is there wasn’t a true neutral ending, or play through for that matter

[rigid schooner]

yeah.... I hate Spark

but I love Strider

the whole let's murder some people for the lulz is really not my thing 😅

[pulsar mural]

Me too

Honestly, as someone who’s done all the endings, the most realistic is the wards.

It shows just how the zone has truly corrupted even the most hardcore veterans such as scar and strelok

[rigid schooner]

the hermann plottwist was great... really did not see that coming

[pulsar mural]

It really was

[rigid schooner]

the only thing that really bothered me is the reputation system like ward went from green to white back and forth

it's really imersion breaking for me if someone goes from "hey Skif brooo" to "I do not talk to a stalker!!!!!! Ò_Ó" in a second

[pulsar mural]

My least favorite is skif entering the pod, my second favorite ending is strelok’s, my favorite’s is the wards

But man, seeing Colonel Korshunov being completely devastated after he was the only survivor of the duga attack, I knew I made the right call

Even though there is no good ending all together

[rigid schooner]

I think skif ending is still my favorite but they all had something cool

and I like that each part gives you pieces of the puzzle

[pulsar mural]

Skif’s ending felt sudden and out of nowhere

[rigid schooner]

yeah that's true and I also kind of want him to live (Not in a pickle jar)

[pulsar mural]

Like you just decided yeah forgot my apartment I’m going to start the apocalypse, lmao

[rigid schooner]

nah it's worse we just don't know what the consequence is XD

[normal drum]

Not quite an apocalypse, but a chance for humanity||, but I'm too tired to explain||

[rigid schooner]

It's one of those terrible open endings with many possibilities and little certainty.

[pulsar mural]

It’s pretty much is the apocalypse. I know exactly what you were going to say though.

[rigid schooner]

but they all are... kind of. we also do not know what SIRCAA will do in the future in the ward end 💀

on the other hand it needs to be open for stalker 3

[pulsar mural]

I question that as well, it’s even more sad as skif knows the colonel is a pawn in a much bigger scheme

[rigid schooner]

I trust colonel ... but not the rest. not one bit!

[normal drum]

You knew that I would say that the Zone acts as a mirror of the humanity (in the similar way as the Dead Valley works), and that Faust literally references the Judgment Day because that's what basically will happen?

[pulsar mural]

Yes.

I actually wouldn’t have an issue with skif’s ending if it wasn’t shoe horned in like it was.

[shrewd igloo]

Ur behaviour is bad buddy, now ur home is part of the anomalous zone
Ur behaviour is good buddy, ur home remains as ur home
Ur behaviour is bad buddy, now ur shop is part of the zone
Ur behaviour is good buddy, ur shop remains as ur shop
Ur behavior is bad buddy, now u are going to be teleported to the new delhi anomalous zone

[hexed flame]

It isnt its almost 100% good

[pulsar mural]

It….is

[hexed flame]

Nope

The only apocalyptic endings are ward and spark

Atleast if we interpret spark ending as 'the whole world is like this now'

[pulsar mural]

….no?

[hexed flame]

Did you even see the endings ?

[pulsar mural]

I have

[hexed flame]

The ward ending establishes a network of agents that will now spy on everyone in the zone and likely the whole planet making it a dystopia ruled exclusively by the regulatory board only because skif is a shortsighted idiot and he wants an apartment

And he becomes an agent himself

There is nothing good about this its literally an apocalyptic ending in it's consequences

And well spark allows c-con/scar to kill/zombify everyone in the zone or on the planet so they can live in a delulu hallucination for eternity

[pulsar mural]

You’re assuming they will control the world, maybe so, maybe not

Like I said, there is no good ending in the game whatsoever, only realistic

A lot of assumption here

[hexed flame]

Lmao ???

What assumption agatha literally makes fun of you for going this route and the ending clearly foreshadows mass surveillance

Can you really not comprehend that showing thousands of tv screens with agent vision with foreboding music is CLEARLY just mass surveillance utopia

[pulsar mural]

Why are you being so pressed?

Or are you going to completely ignore what I said?

[hexed flame]

Anyway strelok's neutral these two are bad and skif's good even if the anomalies he spawned are as dangerous as the zone ones
Might kill some people initially but anomalies alone are something the world can deal with and use to their advantage

And thats the worst case scenario

[pulsar mural]

Strelok dooms everyone in the zone and betrays skif

[hexed flame]

We dont know if everyone in the zone is doomed they may adapt but even if so he stops an untold ammount of pain and suffering from happening

Thats why its neutral he (probably) trades stalker's lives to save people outside from the zone which is a noble sacrifice

Tho he is mostly thinking about the zone obviously
Still its some good some bad

[pulsar mural]

Uh

He doesn’t let anyone in or out. Nothing whatsoever

[hexed flame]

Yes and in doing so he makes sure no one can go in and endure any more suffering
No more zombies monos deaths to mutants anomalies you get the point
Whoever was in stayed but no more people can be hurt by the zone and no more people can hurt the zone

[pulsar mural]

….no? He wants the zone all to himself

[hexed flame]

He clearly states he wants to protect the zone
He also coincidentally saves countless lives

'Wants the zone all to himself' lmao what does that even mean like bro he's not getting out of that pod like ever and he wont have sht

[pulsar mural]

….from those wanting to come in for their own personal journey.

He wanted it all to himself, if he cared about any of their lives he would have forcibly removed them, not trapped them in there to starve and die

[hexed flame]

Ohh no zone tourism will end and no more idiots will be allowed to march into their death how tragic 😭

[hexed flame]

Ok how could he hunt down every single stalker in the zone and remove them lmfao

There aint enough monos to even do that

[pulsar mural]

Sounds like someone completely doesn’t understand the entire series

[hexed flame]

Yeah you

[pulsar mural]

You haven’t played any of the older games, have you?

[hexed flame]

Its very clear that the game has
2 bad endings if you allow yourself to be manipulated by the obviously evil c-con and regulatory board

[pulsar mural]

The game has no good endings

Literally none

[hexed flame]

1 neutral ending if you go the alt path but succumb to strelok's manipulation

And one good ending where you allow the whole world to use the zone's potential without of its worst aspects like monolithians, mutants and...stalkers

The only ending where you dont get manipulated by someone else to just serve them octa on a silver platter the only ending where skif himself enters the pod and is only pushed in the right direction by faust and the doctor without of being subservient to them

[pulsar mural]

Who said the world wanted the zone’s potential? Who are we to force that onto others?

Strelok wanted the zone because he believes human’s coming into it makes it bleed. If he wanted to protect others from it, he could have destroyed it when he got into the pod, instead he locks everyone in and also out.

There is nothing heroic about it.

Sparks is a localized event, not the entire world. Quite literally turning the zone into a total free for all.

[hexed flame]

We dont know if its localised also what ? Everyone just dies or gets zombified

[pulsar mural]

There is nothing implying it’s world wide. Skif’s ending is world wide

[hexed flame]

Strelok clearly wants to protect it but it doesnt matter in effect he also protects the outside world from it
And uhh lol everyone would want the zone do you even know why Red was a stalker in the roadside picnic ? Because artifacts are absolutely miracolous in terms of properties and could solve a multitude of problems

[hexed flame]

There is nothing implying its zone specific either and again this ending is basically strelok's ending except there is no silver lining no good outcome of any kind
Strelok atleast saves thousands of people from suffering

[pulsar mural]

The zone, in sparks, is no longer a “contained” entity where the laws of physics are optional.

It’s implied that the zombiefacation is localized, not world wide

Strelok never cared about the safety of others, nor others around the world

[hexed flame]

Its not but ok thats still way worse than strelok's ending

[hexed flame]

Who
Cares
If
His
Actions
Helped
Innocents

[pulsar mural]

I didn’t realize you are a duty fan

[hexed flame]

Funny but never liked them

[pulsar mural]

You’re literally sounding like a duty soldier

Here is the thing, with the anomaly appearing in skif’s apartment, it shows one thing

The zone is leaking

[hexed flame]

Xdddd

Bro the game outright tells you that was dalin's fault

[pulsar mural]

It doesn’t, you’re oversimplifying a problem that has been there since the zone was created. Blaming dalin alone is like blaming a guy using a fan for a hurricane

[hexed flame]

Dude the only reason the alpha appeared in skif's house is dalin's recreation of the caribbean experiment

The zone isnt 'leaking' the moron overachiever just spawned some extra anomalies

[pulsar mural]

The breach was already there, dalin just spiked it up with the Caribbean experiment recreation

[hexed flame]

Nah I cant be so mean to dalin dude might be on the wrong side but he tryin

[hexed flame]

Source I made it the f*ck up

[pulsar mural]

To address this, Red specifically wasn't a hero; he was a broken man who destroyed his life and his family’s future for those "miraculous" trinkets. By the end, he was so desperate he basically wished for a "golden ball" to fix everything because he realized human greed had ruined it all.

And that’s exactly what strelok did, the zone was his “home” and was tired of people coming into it for their own gain, greedy or not, so if people cant “respect” it, then everyone can get out and stay out

Strelok isn’t a selfless savior, he never was, he’s an isolationist

[hexed flame]

Yeah he wasnt he was desperate for the zone to fix his problems like many many manyy people on the planet

[hexed flame]

And he still did good

And thats why its not a bad ending but a neutral one

He doesnt concern himself with stalkers he locks the zone
Yet does some good unlike scar or korshunov which serve comically evil organisations

Unlike scar or korshunov he does something completely for himself out of egoism and well thats still better than being a subservient no one like the other two

[pulsar mural]

You literally just proved my point and didn’t realize it

You are saying that, by that, the zone has become a necessity for humanity

[hexed flame]

I am saying what I said not what your brain concocts
And I am clearly stating the zone has potential to help millions

Its so funny you are so hellbent on the fact locking the zone is selfish yet you are doing intelectual somersaults to somehow also claim the absolute opposite, selfless sharing is bad (somehow)

[pulsar mural]

That’s….a paradox, and that’s not just containment, that’s quarantine by abandonment

[hexed flame]

It doesnt matter if its a paradox or not it makes the ending good and bad simultaneously aka neutral

[pulsar mural]

Holy straw man argument

[hexed flame]

Neutral doesnt have to mean nothing happens it can also be something good and bad

[hexed flame]

And if this quarantine saves more lives than it hurt its somehow only bad ?

1-1=-2 I guess ?

[pulsar mural]

There is no neutral ending

You’re defending sparks and strelok’s

You can’t have both. Both are quite dangerous

[hexed flame]

How am I defending spark lmfao

[hexed flame]

????

I explicitly call it a bad ending and your mind somehow deduced that im DEFENDING it 😭

Also i dont have to 'defend' strelok dude did something selfish that was bad and good at the same time which makes the ending have a neutral tone end of story

And uhh sorry but locking the zone is not even 1% as bad as selling the privacy of all stalkers or even people on earth to some comically evil organisation just to get a house

[pulsar mural]

It can be a bad ending for the outcome and still defend it

[dusty loom]

I enjoy the lore in this game and I like writing about it in my document. however I want to learn which video game clipping software is good for easy clips without interacting with a software that forces me to exit the screen of the game

[pulsar mural]

He’s a man of failed principles, no way around it

[dusty loom]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13vbNHFG6f8B17jyIGUrfuZi-MS4OgmVU_BYevBh3SCY/edit?usp=drivesdk

[pulsar mural]

Ah yes, the privacy vs survival argument. The trade here is Chaos for Management

For starters, the noonsphere isn’t private, as you don’t get privacy from a leak which is what the zone is doing

second, the ward is a corporation. Which you can negotiate with

You can’t negotiate with a mob (spark)

You can’t negotiate with a tyrant (strelok)

You especially can’t negotiate with a parasite (skiff entering the pod)

[normal drum]

again, endings #s2-lore-discussions message

[pulsar mural]

I longed looked at it even before the great debate a month ago

It’s a fantastic breakdown, yet it leans biased towards project y ending

[tawny raft]

Can someone help clarify the ending where korshunov goes into the pod. When it shows skifs pov on the TV does that mean he's an agent of c consciousness, and when it shows the big tower of tvs are those all different agents?

[pulsar mural]

He’s not an agent of C consciousness when he goes into the pod

[hexed flame]

Yeah he becomes an agent of agatha later if he was an agent already the scar screens would have affected him

[hexed flame]

There is no 'management' its absolute control by an evil corpo end of story
Nothing good about it
Also lol you believe this absurdity and think im the duty guy

Also the ward isnt even the governing body and no you cant negotiate with someone that just created super Stasi that will know EVERYTHING

There is absolutely 0 difference between c-con and the regulatory board and the game tries to hammer this into you all game that the conflict of spark and ward is pointless and either side winning will lead to the same thing
It even has the parallel of korshunov and scar both being people who have lost A LOT and fanatically follow their vision which in both cases is just the vision of a super evil large organisation and both are just pawns

Both organisations have the same goal anyway
Eliminate free will through different means
Its crazy someone can think one or the other is better when the reg board literally uses a c con method (the stalker programme)

Except at a larger and more terrifying scale
Also there is no indication the reg board wants to better the world in any way its just some greedy shady people who want control (look at the name)

World peace ? Pff more like world slavery

[pulsar mural]

So….management?

1. The C-Consciousness/Monolith: This is a hive-mind entity. It doesn't want taxes, it doesn't want resources, and it doesn't want "order." It wants the total dissolution of individual consciousness into a psychic signal. You cannot lobby a signal.

2. The ward, however, can. As it, Even a "Super Stasi", has a hierarchy, a budget, and objectives. Corporations are driven by predictability. While "World Slavery" sounds scary, a corporate-run world still needs a functioning economy, healthy-ish workers, and a predictable environment. A bunch of drones would be no different than spark taking over and making everyone zombies.

3. C-Consciousness here turns you into a literal zombie/Monolith husk. Your brain is fried. A Regulatory Board monitors your actions and controls your environment. You are still a thinking human being, even if your choices are limited.

4. Lastly, You're arguing about the quality of the 'soul' while I'm arguing about the survival of the 'body.' You call the Board 'Super Stasi,' but a Stasi-run world still has grocery stores and hospitals. Strelok’s 'locked zone' that he wants all to himself has nothing but mutants and empty cans. You’re choosing a 'moral' extinction over a 'corrupt' survival. That’s why it’s not realistic—real people choose the apartment over the mass grave every time, and will do so every single time

You included

[hexed flame]

The reg board does not say anything about order resources or betterment of humanity
Just like c con it wants control over what it perceives as theirs
And remember c con were also people lol

Its crazy how the message of that ending flew over your head and you defend it proving the devs' point
That some people are stupid enough to comply with anything

[pulsar mural]

Abandoning the logical debate and resorting to personal insults

Classic and predictable.

[hexed flame]

There is no logic in anything you are saying
Your 5th point is literally skif selling the world to a mega hitler for a house which agatha even makes fun of 😂

[pulsar mural]

The irony is that you’re calling me 'stupid' for choosing a world where people can actually survive. You’re so in love with the 'heroic rebel', aesthetic that you’ve convinced yourself mass starvation is a 'pure' ending. The devs didn’t write the Ward ending to test if players were 'compliant'; they wrote it to see if players could handle the bitter, realistic truth: that in the face of an apocalypse, humanity will always choose the 'Super Stasi' over the empty pantry. Enjoy your 'pure' grave—everyone else will be in the apartment

[hexed flame]

'Ooh but if the world is a dystopia ruled by evil power hungry people uhh there is still gonna be healthcare for the slaves they keep' 😂

Yay great woohoo

Also lol you still somehow think I like spark's ending or that I like it more

[pulsar mural]

She doesn’t even mock him in that sense, she just finds it remarkable for what all the zone offers, he legitimately doesn’t give a shit.

[hexed flame]

BAHAHAHAHAHA

[pulsar mural]

I seem to recall you saying you like it, bad or not

Nonetheless, You’re laughing at the idea of healthcare and housing like they’re minor details. In a wasteland where people die of radiation and starvation every hour, those are the only things that matter. You want Skif to be a martyr for an abstract ideal; Skif is the only one who won because he’s the only one who got to go back to being a human being. Strelok didn't 'save' anyone—he just turned the Zone into a museum where the exhibits are all starving to death. He became the one thing he hated, ultimately becoming his own worst enemy

You can continue being sarcastic all you want. Just shows you had nothing of substance to begin with

[hexed flame]

Them you seem to recall wrong also 😂 😂 😂

[hexed flame]

This might be the funniest thing ive heard yet about this ending

[pulsar mural]

And there it is

The laughter as a defense mechanism. Boringly predictable

[hexed flame]

Bro there is nothing to discuss when you make claims like this all thats left is just laugh

[normal drum]

||(You're both too one-sided and wrong, but I'm not terminally online to prove it)||

[hexed flame]

Your intepretation has massive holes in it anyway but im barely not enough terminally online to prove it

[normal drum]

sigh
Agatha +:

• Self-evident because of the need to use all Generators around the world as told from a note to Journalist
• Mentioned multiple times other than common logic that Generators can produce artifacts and anomalies with any properties imaginable
• Logical assumption
• Shown in the ending, also it lies in the nature of the Agents, they still retain much of their free will

Agatha -:

• Shown in the ending
• Shown in the ending + confirmed by Skif in the cage of the Chemical Plant

Representative +:

• Self-evident
• Shown in the ending
• Shown at the Duga, also teased in the Dead Valley
• Said in the Foundation while talking with Dalin Junior

Representative -:

• Said by the Representative, they haven't changed their plans, but adapted them
• Self-evident, also said by Skif to Doctor before going to Yaniv
• Philosophical question answered by Richter in the ending

Strelok +:

• Confirmed by Strelok in Prypiat
• Self-evident from the ending
• Self-evident from the character of Strelok

Strelok -:

• Self-evident, Strelok will prevent any tampering with the Noosphere again
• Self-evident. "They all will die from hunger" etc. are pointless thoughts as we don't know what actually will happen
• Strelok's psychosis won't allow him to change the Zone, he wants it to remain the same as he's been seeing it since 2011

Skif +:

• The ultimate goal of Doctor (said in Prypiat) fulfilled by Skif
• Self-evident from the previous point
• Logical assumption from the nature of the Dead Valley and Doctor's words in his house
• Self-evident
• Said by Doctor multiple times

Skif -:

• Said by Doctor multiple times, seen in the Dead Valley (Ward ending)
• Heard in the ending
• Said by Doctor multiple times

[slow light]

Oh it’s the Ward = world peace guy

[hexed flame]

The problem with the ward and spark endings and what happens in the valley is that the two endings are so different that if we assume its all true then subtle matter would be simultaneously fake and real and I believe we cannot extrapolate ward/spark specific events to other endings because it seems all endings exist in alternate realities

[hexed flame]

I also dont agree with the 'evolution' argument to me doctor was trying to persuade us to go spread the zone because he believes that is a necessary step in our evolution and that if we dont stop squabbling over the zone and other issues outside of it we will self eradicate which his plan would help alleviate

[pulsar mural]

Translation: your ideology house of cards doesn’t hold up against a breath of air

[pulsar mural]

fantastic breakdown again, yet it’s massive thematic speculation

The biggest is there is zero evidence that the ward is world peace, same with sparks ending.

Actually, now that I’ve read your points closer, Your 'objective' list actually confirms everything I’ve been saying.

You admitted the Skif ending causes 'millions of deaths' and 'extinction.' You admitted the Strelok ending traps people to potentially die of hunger, and you admitted the Ward ending leads to 'world peace' and 'technological advancement.'

You are choosing global extinction or mass starvation because you find 'surveillance' and 'corporate management' aesthetically unappealing. You're valuing the 'soul' of a legend over the lives of billions. That isn't being objective—it’s being a fanatic. Skif chose the apartment because, unlike others, he recognizes that 'space travel' and 'not being a corpse' are better than 'meeting dead people' in a psychic wasteland."

[normal drum]

• The control over the Noosphere is total. Every person is accessable as everyone are connected to the Noosphere through the alpha-psi. And keeping peace is crucial to the Supervisory Board because they want to use their network of the Generators around the world. The whole reason why they are staying shut off and hidden before Agatha's ending is because everyone's afraid of a world war over such technologies.
• The Representative's ending affects the whole world as said by the Representative in the Foundation, again, there exists no one who can resist the effect.
• You've left out some context here. Millions with darkness will die, while the good people will stay untouched or protected (like how the Zone protected Skif creating blue bonfires in the Dead Valley). "People who I find and treat often condemn their destiny and the Zone. But action always causes a proportionate reaction. What if stalkers themselves are to blame for the Zone's cruelty?"

• Extinction is possible, but that's not what Doctor wanted. He believes in humanity, in its ability to change. The main difference between his plan and the plan of C-Consciousness lies in whether the humanity should be forced or should they choose for themselves if they want to live with darkness. Strelok doesn't believe in the humanity, thinks of it as irredeemable, that's why he doesn't want to share the access to the Noosphere. As Skif says in his route: "We can't just unleash an unfathomable monster on the world!" He doesn't talk about the Zone as he thinks of it as a home, the "monster" here is humanity.
• Do I acknowledge the possibility? Yes. Do I believe stalkers will die of hunger in the Zone? Absolutely not. Firstly, Strelok is hurt, but not crazy. If he wanted them dead, they would all be dead by now. Secondly, why would at least 90% of stalkers ever think about leaving? The idea of the Zone being a new home for people is not exclusive to Strelok, it is shared among the most of stalkers. Strelok, Degtyarev, Richter, Skif (in Strelok's/his own route), stalkers who lived for years, even more than a decade there etc. Strelok ensures there will not be a second Ward that wants to ruin the stalker's life. He creates a home, not a prison, that was the whole point of the ending.

• There's nothing to admit about the Ward because it's not me but the game saying it.
• That's a lot of assumptions about me while we're talking about the game. I do not choose any of the endings, as they're all equal. I can explain the philosophy behind them from certain points of view, it's not called protection.
• What about Skif, is that he can actually align with any of 4 sides, that's why it's required to analyse why he does that, what are his points. He's not being manipulated because what happens in the game defies the term of manipulation (some may disagree, but I've had enough of these conversations over the last year). He gets exactly what he wants (a home) and is satisfied by it. He accepts the negative effects as being necessary. He knows that's the Shining Zone is a "one-way-ticket" (said to Doctor before going to Yaniv, Spark route), he knows that the Zone needs to be protected both from the outside and the inside (said to Doctor before going to Yaniv, Strelok route), he realises that the Zone doesn't need protection and can protect itself (said to Strelok on the Red Fortress, Skif route).
• You would be surprised, but Skif is also not against illusions in the Ward route, as said to Doctor: "He (Strelok) intends to destroy whatever's inducing these illusions, but that's where he's wrong. This technology can be a great asset to humanity."

[hexed flame]

'Ideology' said the dude fanatically defending one of the two worst endings in the game as somehow good in any way
The only positive there is korshunov is fun to watch

[hexed flame]

Wouldn't the extinction of people afflicted with darkness in the skif ending also guarantee world peace ? Since people with bad intentions would basically just die ?

[normal drum]

Probably, but I do not believe it's a quick process, Doctor said it will be difficult for humanity at the beginning. Also, there's some concern that in the future, the developers will twist Skif's ending, transforming it in a potential sequel from an absolute ending to just "there are just a lot of new Zones now", ruining all of Skif's effort.

[hexed flame]

Yeah I thought about that last bit

Esp since the game seems to lean into that ending with you know
The music lmao

It felt really silly to have this song at such a high volume especially since I think its the only song with words in the game that isnt part of the environment

[pulsar mural]

I appreciate the breakdown, but you’ve actually just described a Metaphysical Eugenics program and called it “objective”

For starters, You’re defending a 'mirror' that executes millions of people based on their internal 'darkness.' That’s not world peace; it’s a global psychic cleansing. You’re literally cheering for a force that kills people for their thoughts while calling a corporation 'evil' for just watching them.

Second, You admitted the Representative's ending is something 'no one can resist.' That is the absolute death of free will. You’re favoring a hive-mind because it’s 'mystical,' but hating the Ward because it’s 'bureaucratic.'

And lastly, you’ve confirmed that the Ward ending is the only one that doesn't involve a mass purge or a hive-mind. It preserves a world where humans—flawed, 'dark,' and complicated—get to keep living.

Skif didn't want to be a judge, a god, or a martyr. He chose the apartment because it’s the only ending where you aren't part of a 'Great Filter.' You call it compliance; I personally call it refusing to play God with billions of lives."

Not one person with brain would step into that pod and claim spreading the zone is for the greater good

[hexed flame]

Btw did you also notice this game kinda rewards being an asshole in most situations or is that just me

[normal drum]

Doctor explains in his diary (2003?) that the Group's plan to remove darkness has major issues such as "what will happen after people without darkness will die after some time? what will happen to the newborns?" etc. Doctor's solution was to give people the permanent access to the Noosphere, therefore the effects would be prolonged for the new generations. C-Con eventually find a solution, too - just give everyone immortality, so the effects stayed forever.

[pulsar mural]

By calling me a fanatic, you’re simply just projecting your own behavior because you can’t throw in the towel and admit you can’t debate the material reality of my argument

[hexed flame]

The key difference between this and eugenics is that an all knowing informational field that literally 'knows' every thought of every person is choosing who to spare meanwhile eugenics was being carried out by humans who arent all knowing are prone to errors and in that particular case werent even following any good factual evidence and mostly based the whole thing on ideology and vague hunches rooted in very rudimentary science/pseudoscience

[normal drum]

You would be surprised, but in the Ward ending, the Regulatory Board is not in control, Agatha is. Her ideas of "happiness for everyone" matter, not what some corporation thinks. She controls the Noosphere, not them.

[hexed flame]

Agatha can be trusted surely

Kinda crazy how her introduction is almost as unhinged as scar's even if skif has a reason to hate the H man

Yo kill that dude for my amusement
Or dont idc

(Yes im aware she frames it as a gift)

[pulsar mural]

The infallible god defense? A global purge is ok as long as the executioner is an algorithm (here, is the noosphere) instead of a human?

Classic Techno-Stalinism and Religious Fanaticism

[normal drum]

We cannot say for sure, of course. But she no longer represents the Regulatory Board. She may allow them to dominate the production of anomalous energy, but in this brave new world such corporations wouldn't really matter.

[normal drum]

We cannot say for sure, of course. But she no longer represents the Regulatory Board. She may allow them to dominate the production of anomalous energy, but in this brave new world such corporations wouldn't really matter.

And she gives Skif exactly what he wants, and it's seen that Skif has enough free will to decline Agatha's offer to become the new Colonel

[hexed flame]

I mean
This thing (its not really an entity or algorithm more like a fundamental physics phenomenon) is infallible when it comes to this

Its like
If gravity was semi sentient and decided to eliminate every being that weighed exactly 50kg i wouldnt question if its killing the right things

Not the best example but I guess we are in short supply of noospheres in our real world

[normal drum]

The Spark ending doesn't include creating a hive mind. I've already seen you talking about the Monolithians as being in a state of a hive mind, but that's also wrong as they retain their individuality, it's only that they are given the same belief and orders.

[hexed flame]

(And are forced to obey them to the letter)

[pulsar mural]

The benevolent dictator angle? I actually respect your angle on that

However, there are a few problems with that

1. What happens if Agatha has a bad day? What happens if her "idea of happiness" changes? Or worse, what happens when she realizes that to achieve "happiness for everyone," she has to remove everyone who is "unhappy" (i.e., back to the Psychic Purge)?

2. The Board provided the hardware, the generators, and the infrastructure. Agatha is the CPU, but the Board owns the Motherboard.

3. the book, that wish is viewed as a desperate, potentially catastrophic cry from a man who has lost everything. It's not a policy; it's a hallucination.

Thus we have moved from we’ve moved from “Global Purge” to “Benevolent God-Queen.”

You’re arguing that the world is safer because one person, Agatha, gets to decide what 'happiness' looks like for 8 billion people. That’s not an ending—that’s a nightmare. What if her idea of 'happiness' is everyone living in a dream-state while their bodies rot? What if she decides 'happiness' requires removing dissent?

Being so afraid of a “Corporation” that you’re willing to hand the keys to the universe to a single individual and hope she stays “nice”

Skif chose the apartment because in the Ward ending, life is regulated, not dictated. He kept his agency. He didn't become a toy in Agatha's “happiness' simulation”. You’re still looking for a God to save you; I’m looking for a world where I can still be a human being.

[hexed flame]

But he didnt say this is better

Why are you just straight up projecting

First you project that im somehow defending spark and saying they are good and now this

[normal drum]

"Agatha can change her mind at any moment", "Representative can change his mind at any moment", "Strelok can change his mind at any moment", "Skif can change his mind at any moment". See? Such statements are meaningless, that's why we stick to what was said before in the game, and are not trying to look into the foggy future.

[pulsar mural]

That’s quite the Naturalistic Fallacy. Attempting to equate a man-made, psychic disaster with a "law of nature" like gravity to avoid the moral responsibility of the millions of deaths you’re defending is incredibly absurd.

That’s blind fanatical submission.

1. You’re comparing a man-made psychic leak to a fundamental law of physics. Gravity doesn't care if you're 'dark' or 'good.' If your 'Gravity' starts picking and choosing who lives based on their thoughts, it’s not a law of nature—it’s a predatory weapon.

2. We might be in short supply of Noospheres, but we have plenty of history books. Every time a human says 'this system is infallible, don't question it,' it ends in a mass grave. You’re literally saying you 'wouldn't question' a force that deletes human beings. That’s not a debate; that’s a confession of total intellectual surrender

3. How do you know it's infallible? Because it told you so? The Zone is a place of hallucinations, trickery, and mental decay. You’re trusting the word of a reality-warping virus that it knows “who is right to kill.” Because congratulations, you’ve become the ultimate “Agent”—you’ve outsourced your morality to a signal in the air.

[pulsar mural]

No u doesn’t work here, you’re splitting hairs to avoid the corner you’ve backed yourself into.

You both started this by calling the Ward ending 'The Worst' and 'Mega Hitler.' If you claim the Ward is the worst, you are—by definition—arguing that the Spark and Strelok endings are “better” full stop

I’m not projecting by any means, I’m simply pointing out the price tag of those “better” endings. KIB argued for a Benevolent God-Queen, and you argued for Infallible Sentient Gravity that deletes people for their thoughts.

You can't spend an hour calling a psychic purge 'infallible' and 'natural' and then act offended when I call it what it is: Techno-Stalinism. If you aren't defending those endings as better, then you have no argument left, because you’ve already admitted the Ward is the only one where billions of people actually get to stay alive and keep their own minds.

So which is it? Is the Ward the “worst” because it has cameras, or are the other endings “better” because they have mass graves?"

[pulsar mural]

By this logic, since anyone could be bad, there’s no difference between a guy in an apartment and a God-Queen who can rewrite your DNA.

Classic false equivalence

Thus, Comparing Skif's 'mind' to Agatha's 'mind' is a total false equivalence as just mentioned. If Skif changes his mind, he changes his dinner plans. If Agatha changes her mind, she changes the molecular structure of every human on Earth.

1. The Ward is a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies are slow, predictable, and regulated. Agatha at this point is a reality-warper. Betting 8 billion lives on her 'staying nice' isn't an ending; it's a hostage situation.

2. You said we should stick to what the game tells us. The game tells us the Noosphere mirrors human darkness. You admitted that leads to 'millions of deaths.' That's not a 'foggy' guess—that is the explicit function of the machine you want to turn on.

3. You’re so desperate to avoid the “boredom” of an apartment that you’re calling a Global Hostage Crisis a “better” ending. Skif chose the apartment because he knows that “predictable” is better than “extinction-level whim.”

Being a literalist doesn’t avoid the consequences of said actions

[normal drum]

"If Skif changes his mind, he changes his dinner plans" - no, because he has the same abilities as Agatha while being in the capsule.

What do you think happened in the Ward ending? Because if you've listened at least once to Hermann in the Dead Valley, you would've known that Agatha gains the total control. "Dalin was supposed to locate the artifact – the lock that sealed the Zone. I was to assemble the control unit, the key to Her heart. Your job is to open the door. And then she'll go throught it. The only one who tries to make the Ward ending "the worst" - is you, because I'm not immediately assuming Agatha would become Techno-Stalin.

If you're not following - that's not my fault and not my job to make you think differently. Good luck.

[pulsar mural]

You’re completely misunderstanding the difference between the Operator and the Interface.

1. Skif is the one turning the key; Agatha is the engine. Skif doesn't leave that pod with the power to rewrite DNA—he leaves with a life. If he had her 'abilities,' the Ward wouldn't have spent the whole game hunting her down specifically.

2. Hermann’s quote is about containment. Opening the 'door' is about stabilizing the Zone so it stops being a global threat. You’re turning a scientific stabilization project into a “Goddess” origin story.

3. You say you aren't assuming she'd be a tyrant, yet you just defended an ending where she (via the Noosphere) executes millions of 'dark' people. That is the definition of a tyrant.

4. You call the Ward ending 'the worst' because it's the only one where a human is just a human, and a machine is just a machine. You’re just grasping for a “God” to follow that you've convinced yourself a scientific stabilizer is a “Benevolent Dictator”

I'll happily take the apartment and my own free will. You can keep waiting for your “Goddess” to tell you what “happiness” is instead of deciding on your own. Good luck with that.

[normal drum]

Stop using Chat GPT and start thinking for yourself. AI has already mixed Skif's and Agatha's ending into one. Because I've meant Skif in the capsule from his ending. And it was never shown if Agatha killed someone. However, with the control over the Noosphere, it would be totally unnecessary because it's easier to just alter someone's thoughts than just straight up kill them.
Hermann's point is exactly that Agatha will misuse the power:
"What difference does it make now? She’s bigger than any of us. Maybe even bigger than the people we’re working for."
"I wanted to take his position, but she never permitted it. He wanted to uplift humanity, but that was never on their agenda."
And my point is exactly that Hermann's opinion is just an opinion and not the actual truth, so who's arguing against the ending now?

[pulsar mural]

Lmao, using ai retreat

Classic.

I’m sorry putting up an actual debate, organizing them correctly and professionally is too much for you. People can have an education you know.

You’re just scrambling with a debate you've already lost. If my logic is so bad, you should be able to dismantle it without the ad hominem, and you haven’t.

I’ve personally read roadside picnic, I’ve played all the games. I study philosophy in my free time. Yall haven’t.

That being said. You’ve moved from defending “Sentient Gravity” to defending “Global Mind Alteration.” You’re so terrified of a “Corporation” that you’re cheering for a psychic lobotomy, and that’s quite hilarious. I’ll keep my own thoughts and my boring apartment. You can keep your “Goddess” and your altered mind. Good luck being a puppet.

[normal drum]

At 20:31 was the moment you've used ad hominem, trying to assume what my beliefs are, I should've just ignored you from that moment already, I won't repeat my mistake.

[pulsar mural]

Funny, quite funny how the debate ends the second you’re asked to defend the reality of “Global Mind Alteration.” Thats not a personal attack, that’s asking you to defend your position.

You aren’t bowing out because of an so called ad hominem; you left because you realized you were advocating for a psychic lobotomy and couldn't find a way to make it sound heroic anymore.

If that’s a personal attack in your eyes, then God help you.

[normal drum]

Now gaslighting me, right...

[pulsar mural]

I thought you were going to ignore me?

Calling me a gaslighter because I’m quoting your own defense of “Mind Alteration” is a wild and goofy reach, because it’s not and you know it.

You aren't being gaslit by anyone; you're just being asked to stand by your own words. If you can't do that without feeling like a victim, then we’re done here unless you feel the need to reply back and have the last word. You said you were done and yet you replied back, so which is it?

Ultimately, if you really want to prove a point right now, then stop replying back like you said were going to do. Take a gracious bow and move on

[ocean shore]

I wish that clear sky kept a good handful of their members at there base so they could keep the faction alive if the CNPP raid failed and no one left alive

[pulsar mural]

That would have been nice

[ocean shore]

But I guess the leader decide to take the entire faction not including the scientists for obvious reasons to go and stop strelok

[wispy dirge]

What is left at the CNPP for us to explore for the DLC?

[pulsar mural]

The elephant’s foot

The whole plant tbh

[normal drum]

X-19, the CNPP Generators, the remnants of the Operation Monolith

[hexed flame]

Dude I swear you are illiterate or something
The noosphere in universe is not man made lmfao its part of the world's physics
Its a natural informational field that is present everywhere in the world and holds all information
Why are you writing pseudophilosophical paragraphs when you lack basic understanding of the source material

Well generating not writing but still

[pulsar mural]

Insults do you no favors

It’s called an education, and studying philosophy in my free time, but you would know this if you actually took the time to read like an adult

Add something of substance or bug off, you’re wasting my time

[hexed flame]

Ahh another reddit philosopher I see

Dude barely played the game but he misunderstood some useless ass book written by a broke beggar and thinks he's an authority on lore 😂

[pulsar mural]

More mindless insults

I don’t mind a good insult, but you’re just being lazy

[hexed flame]

'Wagh insults do you no favors'
Dude idc you are an insufferable moron that insulted the actually knowledegeable guy anyway and projects some dumbass anti spiritual garbage onto everything even tho there is like 0 spirituality in this game

[pulsar mural]

If you could project any harder we could watch an IMAX movie off of you

[hexed flame]

I mind an uneducated moron

I swear you didnt play the game cause there is no way you could make so many mistakes in one convo if you did

[pulsar mural]

That’s too bad, you’re a nobody just like I and everyone else in here

Yet you’re clearly obsessed with me instead of reading the room that the discussion was over

[hexed flame]

Wagh wagh baby didnt go to college and tries to appear smart on the internet

[pulsar mural]

Bro is trying to get himself speed banned out of here

[hexed flame]

You have been baiting and insulting us for hours so

[pulsar mural]

Something you disagree with is bait, lol

No one makes anyone do anything. You’re only insulting yourself by acting like a 5th grader instead of, you know, like a normal human being

[ornate venture]

gordonthebigblueengine has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[pulsar mural]

No one cares

[hexed flame]

Something generated in gpt designed to insult everyone's inteligence and has nothing to do with game lore is bait indeed

[pulsar mural]

Burden of proof is on you

Considering i work with notes because of my job. I spend time organizing things.

If it was AI, it’s no different from using a PDA to help word your arguments better.

[hexed flame]

💀 💀 💀 ok ill leave this for everyone to see

[pulsar mural]

It’s not going anywhere, lmao

[bleak trellis]

uh @hexed flame i suggest in the future that when someone is maybe wrong about something you should stop being a condescending asshole dont continue to be part of the reason why people avoid this channel

@pulsar mural i suggest you should do a little more lore research too and maybe not insult back, i mean even if they are minor cause there are some points where some words were just unneeded

now time to never view this channel ever again

until someone tells me about something here

[pulsar mural]

I did quite a bit, but alright, that’s fine

I also didn’t insult anyone first

[bleak trellis]

i aint say you did, just dont insult back

[pulsar mural]

Fair enough. I just refused to be walked all over because of a different view point

[slate mural]

Is there a reason for the small amount of foliage (atleast compared to Chernobyl IRL) in Lore?

[normal drum]

In-game, no one will tell you, of course. Logically, anomalies make the soil less suitable for life, just look at the Burnt Forest, for example.

The extinction of practically all herbivores didn't affect the food chain positively, either.

[slate mural]

True. just thought that it’s prolly a space issue, but GSC usually comes up with excuses for that. (Which is really cool)

[proven wolf]

Coz you would get 1 fps, I am guessing... I think the Zone should be different in the game than the real life, considering its an alternative world with psi fields and all sorts of other phenomena... I wish they kept the map the same as the OG, but just expanded on it... I would love map to as far north, east, and west of the CCNP as it is just to the south... Litterally putting the CCNP in the middle of the game.

[hexed flame]

The problem with this is that north of cnpp is a just a huge swamp that stretches for like hundreds of kilometers even across the border
There is no point from a gamedesign standpoint in making another location that will just be identical to the great swamps

And also the river pripyat which is right next door to the cnpp

It goes like this
River
Swamp
Ukraine-belarus border

There arent even mapped roads in the north lmao its that wild

[hexed flame]

Same about the east you have the cooling towers with the huge lake they used to cool the generators and then one road and nothing even past the border
This is why the cnpp isn't and won't be a center location

It will always be north and offset to the east (because there is way more stuff to the west especially considering we also have the fictional limansk town

[proven wolf]

That not a problem, it an alternative reality, and huge swathes of the swamp were drain and re-utilised for x experiments...

Stalker is an alternative reality, not this one.

So it doesn't really matter what it is.

[hexed flame]

Reality is alternate but the place is mostly real and the devs clearly wanted to make it even more realistic

There is 0 reason for anything to be built on a giant ass roadless swamp both irl and in a 'fantasy' setting

And again we already have the great swamps

Even the clear sky 'base' isnt that deep into the swamp and the only reason its there is isolation but there is no faction that would want this in the current S2 and there are far more interesting things to explore like the jupiter factory, limansk and also the terrain west of limansk

[proven wolf]

I know they did, and broke the lore of the zone, and now things are not where they are supposed to be... If people like it, then they like, IMO, the map change took more away from the game than it added...

And the worst crime is that the zone feels like it is two weeks after the event of CoP... It really feel like not much time has passed.

[hexed flame]

Im not even gonna respond to the 2nd part cause lol
And uhh no they didnt break any lore the only issue is the barrier's location

Besides the cnpp was always north and it should remain like this, surrounded by swamps from north and east because it alings with how hard to reach it is

[proven wolf]

Like I said, I would have just liked to have seen more around the CCNP, and I would have been happy paying for DLC expansions... The zone needs to be bigger, it's begging to be bigger.

[lapis vapor]

Thé barrier and thé brain scorcher should have been in the red forest, also, garbage and dark Valley fuse together IS just wrong and poorly represent the importance of this location the rookies leaving thé cordon would seek.

I feel like its missing an area th size of yanov between Rostock and red forest where the oh location could have been placed

[hexed flame]

i never got the impression that DV was strongly seperated from the garbage it always felt like its just a matter a small forest seperating them and the occupants were bandits anyway so (in SOC)
agroprom feels kinda underwhelming tho but honestly it aligns with what the lore said (that its a dangerous mutant ridden place no one occupies for long)

[elder bobcat]

What confuses you & countless other people is the fact the huge ahh region including the OG Garbage & Dark Valley territories is named "Garbage", but if you actually look at the map — the positioning of both relative to each other hasn't changed in the slightest. The OG Garbage & Dark Valley maps in S2 are still there pretty much 1x1 to how they were in the trilogy, it's just that the land around em was enriched with more locations & allat was unified into a big region called "Garbage".

[lapis vapor]

i really dont think so, the witch anomaly is now just a few floating acid anomalis, no more ponds with artefacts, the helicopters anomaly field is near the river and barely look like to one (plus its roated) no more bus or checkpoint, flea market is a sorry place, you barrely need to enter rostock via the old duty checkpoint, and the land connecting both dark valley and garbage is just a small plain with nothing.
GSC screw this part, im nod mad at them but its just not the og place

and the electric anomaly north west of the depot is gone too, (anomlies switching place is canon but still)

[elder bobcat]

Has nothing to do with their geographical position, which has remained virtually unchanged. If anything, it made ultimate sense to fuse these territories as they were indeed sitting right next to each other in SoC & CS.

The anomalies existing & disappearing over the course of a decade shouldn't ever be a dispute point within the lore of STALKER universe for the self-explanatory reasons.

[lapis vapor]

we can argue over nothing, but the new garbage, is just sad and you really dont need to spend more than 5 minutes there

[elder bobcat]

If you're talking about the OG Garbage territories — the game does make you spend quite a bit more than 5 minutes in there as a part of the main plot if you're on the Ward path + a few side quests are available there all the time for all the playthroughs. If by the "new Garbage" you mean the entirety of the region — a whole ahh story section is happening there & involves the Dark Valley territories in a major way. So nope, you really do need to spend time there if you wanna complete the game in its totality.

[lapis vapor]

nope i truly meant the og garbage only, and its not 2 dialogues with npcs and one mission with ward that change anything, and for dark valley its okay its just the meeting point of the 2 regions that is bad

and before that i was speaking of the brain scorcher location and barrier (wich have been heavely discussed before with theories and excuse as to how it would work) and that what i wanted to talk about

[elder bobcat]

The meeting point of the 2 locations is essentially the trilogy variant if it was a seamless map as is without headcanoning hours of travel. A bunch of trees cut, if that's enough to bother anyone.

The Brain Scorcher & the Barrier are a different story indeed, that one is debatable.

[shrewd igloo]

Having Radar/Brain Scorcher below of the CNPP wouldn't have been sooo bad, imo is a interesting placement to think of

[lapis vapor]

a good lore friendly placment woud have been where the yantar factory sit rn or even a bit mor to the right like that factory east of yantar, but now we have to put yantar somewhere, and that were is impossible to make the current map like the og one.

what would have been perfect, and that is purely my personal take on how to shift the map both lorewise, to look like the og map, and respect the real world area : ( i wish i had photoshop skills)

like i said you put the brain scorcher area where yantar is rigght now, and from this, you pull everything from south of red forest, iron forest and cement factory down to leave a space about the size of the red forest band to put the werehouse and its surrondings north of rostok again and you have your barier back.
with the free space from those 2 locations you expand a bit agroprom to restore it to its former glory, at malachite you place whatever you like.
and to conclude my delusional idea you fill the gap created between cement factory and garbage(s2 region)/wild island with (blank). From here i dont see what to put here so ill restrain myself from inventing new locations but you get the idea of what i have in mind

again its just my stake at making the current map a bit more like the og one, and i sadly dont have a photoshoped picture of what im describing

[gloomy terrace]

I'm confused with happens to professor ozersky when you side with spark/scar and the ward attacks malachite. He seems to escape with scar but when you sneak back into malachite everyone acts as if he died? That would make sense if i sdied with ward but i did not.

[deep forum]

What are Karenchyk Vampires? They are placed in the cement factory on https://mapgenie.io/stalker-2-heart-of-chornobyl/maps/the-zone which is generated from the gamefiles, I think.

[normal drum]

The map is outdated and wrong (and it was not "generated from the gamefiles"). Use maps like https://map.stalker.wiki/. The "vampire" you're talking about is a regular bloodsucker.

[acoustic wigeon]

I think it's just bloodsuckers spawning there

[deep forum]

I see. There's not an option to change the language, right?
Btw. I think partly it was generated from the gamefiles. At least the itemnames sound like it.

[normal drum]

From what I saw, the information is put on the map manually, but I may be wrong.

[fathom veldt]

yes it is from gamefiles, but in game files there is another bigger map (not the one you open in pda)

[vernal ridge]

So, why haven’t settlements tried to grow food?

[hexed flame]

Hmm why wouldn't they wanna grow food in a place where all the ground is irradiated polluted with heavy metals and has magical anomalies that change position randomly

[vernal ridge]

Yet somehow Rostok gets fresh bread.

I mean hydroponics do exist.

[hexed flame]

And the soil sucks there too

[hexed flame]

And what water would they use for that ?

[hexed flame]

They simply import flour I guess

Its meant to emphasize that rostok is a TRADING hub I assume and its so succesful thanks to milkuha that they get that luxury

If they really had to they could farm but currently when the zone is half open it makes no sense to poison yourself like that

[deep forum]

there could also be some sci-fi explanations like storing found radioactive zone flour for a certain time next to radioreduction artifacts; but trading is also very viable.

[hexed flame]

Zone flour
Bro what the zone was abandoned like 30 years ago and the 2nd catastrophy happened about 20 years later there aint no flour there

The food we find is very obviously what stalkers left

And even that is honestly placed too liberally by the devs for gameplay purposes

And before anyone says this no radiation in the zone would not sterilise the environment if it was that intense people could not live there either

[smoky hornet]

Also there’s a side mission in Rostok where Freedom gets a fresh delivery of bread

The idea of farming hits the same level of ‘Why is Skif so slow waist deep in a muddy swamp wearing 60+ lbs of gear’

[hexed flame]

It also takes away from the whole hunter gatherer fantasy that stalker is based upon

Cause thats what stalker/metro are mega romanticised hunter gatherer fantasies and super limited production and agriculture in both is only used to explain some things (like how the metro operaters or how rich freedom is)

[acoustic wigeon]

'cause food is easy to get through the mainland, the sheer effort just isn't worth it

[elder bobcat]

I wonder if that has anything to do with the Zone essentially being a quarantine area whilst the rest of the world is literally normal & functions mundanely with the supplies constantly being produced, but that's just a theory, lol.

[elder bobcat]

Both games have completely different settings. In Metro the world is in its post apocalyptic phase & the remnants of human kind are on the brink of extinction. In STALKER it's the anomalous area within the exclusion zone whilst the rest of the world is unscathed & keeps on living as if nothing happened (at least prior to the Second Caribbean experiment that caused the anomalies to start occasionally appearing outside of the Zone & Project Y). The conditions are incomparable.

[hexed flame]

Doesnt matter the core idea and main fantasy is exaxtly the same especially in the metro games

Both games romanticise being a lone explorer of a harsh dangerous world in which society does not exist in the way it does in our real world the fact its contained to the zone or everpresent doesnt matter

It only has different lore implications but the danger both skif and artyom face is exactly the same

[elder bobcat]

There's no such thing as "super limited production & agriculture" in STALKER, is all routinely done on the Mainland.

[hexed flame]

Yes and is not done in the zone thats the point everything has to be imported or looted and basic societal structures dont function

Same with metro where everything has to be found on the surface except for some very few items

Like mushrooms and pigs that are grown in the metro

Tho the game barely mentions that and in last light I dont think that aspect is present at all

[elder bobcat]

I don't remember being unable to roam the Zone freely without having the gasmask permanently on. So not quite, mate.

[hexed flame]

You cant roam irradiated areas just like in metro
The world is not that irradiated only large cities struck directly are in metro

Cnpp is just as irradiated as moscow

And you cant roam it without gear just like moscow

Tho remember technology is way more advanced in stalker so radiation is more of a nuissance than a real danger

[elder bobcat]

The whole area above the ground is irradiated & impossible to roam without protection in Metro, that's a totally different thing from having to avoid occasional radspots.

[hexed flame]

Plain wrong

Moscow is a large hotspot itself most of the world is absolutely safe radiation wise

Did you ever play exodus or read 2035 ?

[elder bobcat]

Complete the games with never putting the mask on then & tell me how it went.

[hexed flame]

Ok complete stalker without anti rad gear

[elder bobcat]

Literally is possible — the game has antirads, which Metro does not.

[hexed flame]

Thats anti rad gear

Go on go through pripyat red forest and dead valley naked see how that ends

[elder bobcat]

That's meds, mate. It is possible to complete STALKER without wearing helmets also — not gonna be able to do so in the Metro games

[hexed flame]

Anyway whats your point the whole world isnt irradiated in either game

[hexed flame]

Ok no wait did you play two colonels ?

Also yes you can go through the game without a helmet specifically because the game is coded differently and radiation is a status effect not an instakill timer whats your point genuinely

[elder bobcat]

Apocalypse happened in Metro. It did not in STALKER. It's infinitely easier to establish social relationships in STALKER with a constant influx of neverending supplies than it is in Metro where it's basically a humanitarian disaster. These comparisons have always been based on "vibes" without analysing the fundamental differences in circumstances.

[hexed flame]

And how does that relate to anything ive said ?

Like yes cool did I say stalker is apocalyptic ?

[elder bobcat]

It's "coded differently" because the setting & conditions are different, and the gameplay is meant to convey that.

[hexed flame]

Yes it has different lore it'd be kinda weird if it didnt
The core fantasy is the same

[hexed flame]

And its this

I guess you have some vendetta against me using the word world but whatever it doesnt really matter I could say 'area' and it'd be the same

If thats your problem then sure you can correct that for yourself to area

[hexed flame]

And no its coded differently because radiation in metro works more closely to irl and because the magical anti rad in metro is super rare (remember the novosibirsk green medicine?)

Its kinda silly they introduced that anyway but ohh well its a cool idea for a society

[elder bobcat]

@hexed flame this again. I'm bringing up the differences in settings cos there's never been any "super limited production & agriculture" in STALKER due to its universe's setting, it's nonsense & there's no point in writing essays about "why nobody's doing the farming in STALKER camps", lol.

[hexed flame]

+stalker has other environmental hazards so its not the focus

[hexed flame]

I mean we literally know there is super limited production going in the zone the bread didnt bake itself

Absolutely 0 mention of agriculture tho thats right

[elder bobcat]

My dude, they get the ingredients from the Mainland & then make the thing. Case closed, mind blown.

[hexed flame]

Yes that is production of bread from.raw materials whats your point

I still cannot figure out why you are talking to me genuinely

In fact i am confused you are arguing for agriculture in the zone to be a ridiculous thing aka you are agreeing with me

[elder bobcat]

How's it "super limited" aside from literally Mikluha's flex?

[hexed flame]

It is super limited because of milkuha's flex i cant say its nonexistant cause thats factually wrong

WHATS YOUR POINT PLEASE TELL ME

[acoustic wigeon]

kiry calm down you'll get an aneurysm.

[hexed flame]

Im calm just violently confused

[acoustic wigeon]

i think we can safely say that literally every barkeep in the zone processes ingredients into food, especially like barkeep where you can literally see the pots and pans

[hexed flame]

True and ammo is also likely to be made from powder and leftover casings and bullets

I also wonder about gauss batteries and gauss guns

[elder bobcat]

The entire Zone is bathing in bread just in general & Mikluha in particular has organised a bakery for his lads to provide the freshest stuff, all comes from the Mainland — like, what's in here that's "literally Metro"? Just cos both games allow for some loot hoarding we now be reaching like that?

[acoustic wigeon]

Monolith has entire workshops to maintain those

I mean we even see an entire equipped Monolith field hospital, they are decked out

[hexed flame]

I'm sorry I don't know what to answer because i don't know what you are arguing about

I dont know what the loot hoarding part refers to
I dont know who when and why said 'literally metro'
I do not know why you are pinging me or how I'm related to what you just said

And I agree with the 1st half of the sentence before the -

[hexed flame]

Are flashes used for the batteries in lore ? Or is this a gamma thing

Also are all gauss guns mono made ? COP gave me the impression the project was halted and only some prototypes were made

[acoustic wigeon]

afaik they're powered with little shards of a certain artifact

[hexed flame]

Ok so its not a gamma thing

I would assume they probably make those cause where the hell would they come from these guns werent standard issue in the security of the scientists before the zone was created

Atleast it seems like they werent we find no mention of them being used before that

[acoustic wigeon]

yeah, the problem was they couldn't find a powersource small enough to power it, so the project was scrapped, until clear sky developed it further using a shard from a flash artifact, when clear sky was murdered by the glorious righteous monolith they took the design and produced their own version

[hexed flame]

So I guess we can add that to our super limited manufacturing lol

And the rest of the weapons are from stockpiles

[elder bobcat]

The problem is this initial statement that's honestly fubar & misrepresents the actual state of affairs in STALKER universe to somehow tie it to Metro — and all cos of some weird question that should've been answered as simple as "there's no need to farm — the border to the land of bread is 20km away max" (like Robo did, lol). You guys do love to get carried away big time.

[acoustic wigeon]

and just imports, even Monolith has people smuggling into the zone what they need

[hexed flame]

The initial statements were about the multitude (proximity to the border is not the only one) reasons why farming makes no sense

And the metro tangent is related to why it makes no sense storytelling wise not logic wise

Its not that hard to comprehend that internal lore logic is not the only factor influencing writers

Also simple answers are boring and nuance is cool

[elder bobcat]

Yea, let's make up the multitudes instead of giving one straight most sensible answer: the bread is mass-produced on the Mainland & is making its way to the Zone via traders, same with the ingredients for Mikluha's bakery. Something that didn't even cross your mind to begin with before the follow-up questions have been asked, btw. We're in the lore channel, I get it — but lots of things are a direct result of the games basic setting & don't even need to be explained as long as you give it a momentarily thought. Writing essays about something as simple as "food crates are making their way into the Zone from the Mainland" is not "nuance" — it's wasting everyone's time on something self-explanatory. But I guess you have all the time in the world to engage in these sorts of mindstorms with cross-references over a simple fact there's no point in farming in the Zone cos the Mainland is literally there 🤷‍♂️

[hexed flame]

That is not enough of a reason to not farm anything man many of the factions would like independence from the mainland or they could just grow illegal stuff and sell it for profit since its a pretty lawless area thats why one reason is not enough and its hilarious you are so mad about someone explaining lore in a lore channel in a more in depth way

How dare I spend the extra time and effort to consider all the factors that go into this

[radiant harness]

"ugh why dont the factions farm in the zone 🤓 "

https://i.gyazo.com/14c813e0b5fddc9f6ad8a2ca52092f58.gif

[hexed flame]

Being a nerd is literally my job irl but Im not the one who asked that lol

[radiant harness]

do you think people brave the zone to be stuck managing a pigstry?

[hexed flame]

People managing pigs got more balls honestly

They manage hundreds/thousands of 100kg+ animals that could and would eat them if given the opportunity without of any armor or weapons

[radiant harness]

its pigs, not boars or horses

[hexed flame]

Pigs and boars are arguably the same species (they can crossbreed and produce fertile offspring)

And pigs can be larger

[radiant harness]

arguably carries a lot of weight here

their behaviours are quite diff

[hexed flame]

Just like a wild dog's and a pet dog's are still same species

They are either the same species or subspecies if they can crossbreed like that they cannot be considered different species entirely

[radiant harness]

and I assume you have seen a boar close up before?

[elder bobcat]

Go for a walk & have a breather instead, mate 😂

[hexed flame]

I regularly see a pack of them roam my uni man last time they appeared in my area they stopped the damn tram lmao

[radiant harness]

a shame that they are so acclimatized that they roam the cities, thats an hazard

be careful ou there

[hexed flame]

It was kinda funny how once they took a stroll through the campus while I was in an infectious disease class cause you know african swine fever and all that

[elder bobcat]

You don't understand — the simple answers that are literally provided in the universe's preamble never work & the setting doesn't matter, we finna headcanon the F outta this bіtсh & spare no time till we get to the very core of what's lying on the surface 😁

[hexed flame]

Dude's mad as hell lmao

[hexed flame]

Honestly im more scared of domesticated horses than these boars

They just chillin

[radiant harness]

this is a problem tbh

they are both real dangerous, but boars are more territorial

real parasites

[elder bobcat]

I'm loling out loud, man, in few weeks, months or years you'll remember how you've been meticulously trying to solve the food dilemma in STALKER, cringe at it & learn 👌

[hexed flame]

You're american ?

[radiant harness]

Im european

[hexed flame]

Idk princess seems like you're the one obsessed with me

[radiant harness]

it seems like no one is offended really

[hexed flame]

Ohh odd usually its americans that have understandably terrible experiences with boars/wild hogs
Their population here is pretty decently kept in check

[elder bobcat]

You'll get it, dw, I was like this a decade ago too 🤷‍♂️

[hexed flame]

'I wasnt boring once'

[radiant harness]

if they have the audacity to strot into human spaces, its not kept in enuff check

[hexed flame]

Cause of african swine fever*

[hexed flame]

In this case its more the case of the city expanding into their territory
The whole uni is at the edge of the city and its been steadily expanding towards a giant forest/swamp

And its only this one specific family that does this (its always the same number of them)

[radiant harness]

even more reason

[hexed flame]

I cant seriously consider one boar family roaming the absolute edge of a city an issue especially since we pride ourselves with how cool the nature is in our region

And so far they havent been displaying any signs of being territorial they dont engage people at all

But it is true they are very hierarchical and probably fight among themselves

The only issue is they could spread disease to pigs but as far as im aware no pig farms in the area and our uni doesnt keep any

[willow dagger]

Hey, so I noticed something here recently and maybe I'm just giving it too much thought, but after Skif talks to Strider in the pod and gets locked in there by Scar what allowed Skif to bust out of there. He couldn't get out at first but then it looks like his vision warps a bit and does like a power up and smashes out of there. What is this all about and if it is like what I think how did he get this power up and what does it mean??

[smoky hornet]

Adrenaline and desperation

[willow dagger]

Is it really that simple, tho? Because Faust at one point called him the envoy of the Monolith and I was wondering if that had some part to play in it.

I mean he literally does a DBZ pose, closes his fist and does a power up it seems. If that's how adrenaline works then it's nothing I've ever done when I experienced it.

[smoky hornet]

Faust is also a religious fanatic who genuinely believed at the time brainwashing everyone would make them happy, so I think his ‘envoy of the monolith’ thing isn’t something to take serious

Also Skif was essentially locked in a coffin and left to die, that kind of desperation can lead people to do incredible things

[willow dagger]

I guess so. I guess I'm just hoping for some cool underlying story about Skif. I guess just wanting him to be more and have a deeper lore to him and where he came from. We really don't know anything about him and he essentially is just some random dude who's house got destroyed because of a random artifact and a botched experiment. Oh well. There is so much potential when it comes to story and lore in this game and how it relates to everything else and I just hope it's not wasted in the future.

[smoky hornet]

You actually do get some background on Skif in the Stories Untold stuff if you choose the right dialogue

[willow dagger]

Hmm, I guess I must have missed it? I just got done doing the quest for Banzai and building the base there. Is there more that I'm not aware of?

[smoky hornet]

You got to the final stuff with the Mercs & everything?

[willow dagger]

You mean with fighting Skull and what not?

[smoky hornet]

Yep

[willow dagger]

Yeah

I tried to read through all the dialog I could but I guess I didn't get all of it.

[smoky hornet]

During the interrogation with the professor, if you choose the dialogue he’d seen worse on the mainland, you learn Skif is actually a War veteran. He had no support base at all once he got back and, judging by how bitter he sounds about it, he genuinely resents the fact he was essentially left to float in his own sorrow.

[willow dagger]

Ohhhh, yeah I didn't choose that part of it... oops.

Thank you that's helpful.

[smoky hornet]

That kinda background really snaps things into focus why Skif just does not care anymore. Like he says in the tutorial, he’s got nothing left to go back to.

[willow dagger]

Gotcha, still, I feel like the main story leaves a lot to be desired.

I need more content, dammit, lol.

Not that those side quest were part of the main mission but still. I just remember the SoC had so much lore and just had me in awe with the mystery about everything. I kind of get that with this but not as much. Everything is done with a feeling of being on rails. Maybe it's because everything is voiced now and interactions are more in depth and story driven.

[hexed flame]

The lore is just easier to absorb now and you dont have to look it up as much cause you missed some dialogue page lol

[hexed flame]

That nickname was more about faust acknowledging skif's role in what happened and also him admitting he was a bit wrong after he dies he seems to be a bit disillusioned as in he thinks his god (the monolith) has larger plans than what he acomplished and he isnt the person to carry them out skif is

[willow dagger]

Right on.

[umbral junco]

Stalker situaded in Afghanistan
W or L?

[vital pollen]

Wasn’t strelok an afghan vet in mobile lore

[open oak]

Guys why lebedev pda says that nimble was told to kill fang and ghost, if ghost died in laboratory and fang was killed by merchants

[normal drum]

After the bridge to Lymansk was taken, Nimble (most probably) paid mercenaries (like Leshy) to kill Fang and Ghost, Fang died in the result.

[open oak]

He also said in cave (with snorks) that he isn't assassinating stalkers, he spared skiff too, maybe we'll see more about all yhis later in dlc or sum

[normal drum]

Those weren't ordinary stalkers + 10+ years have passed since so his views on this matter have definitely changed (he's a guide now, after all).

[vital pollen]

This PDA predates SoC events

And Ghost talks about how he survived the assasination attempt in the flash drive in Strelok's Hideout in SoC.

[elder bobcat]

The description of Fang's killer in that note is also very curious 😏

[umbral junco]

Didnt know
I Made My sugestion due historically The talibán was on a war with the USSR
So it could work to Made a setup for a stalker Game
More taking in count the war happen between
1979-1989
And the CNPP Disaster happend 1986

[hexed flame]

The taliban didnt exist when afghanistan was being invaded by the ussr it was the mujahedeen they were fighting

[umbral junco]

Maybe i got it wrong

What i understood
There was a side on war with the USSR
Then americans put much power on one side cuz ussr bad
And they indirectly created taliban lmao

[hexed flame]

With the most important distinction being that the mujahedeen only formed as a liberation force BECAUSE USSR invaded while the taliban were one of the many sketchy organisations within afghan that happened to be in power during the US invasion and was labelled terrorist due to helping other extremist organisations

[hexed flame]

Yeah no the equipment put into afghanistan by the cia definitely helped the taliban later but they created themselves

[umbral junco]

So more like
"You could Say, but not actual proof"

More like the shame on americans due glorify a country
Later on to scare their own country

[hexed flame]

No what I mean is that the taliban were just a group of thugs that created itself and had almost nothing to do with the mujahideen that were fighting the ussr conceptually

[umbral junco]

Ok

But i think that happen cuz there was no one at power, right?

[hexed flame]

However its confusing because mujahideen basically refers to any 'jihadist freedom fighters' so its insanely broad while the taliban is a very specific organisation

[hexed flame]

Yeah kinda but afghanistan was never stable because the whole country is very mountaneous and has like one major circular road going through all of it so any large gang of thugs can just hide in the mountains and either attack or extort money from the road users

Eventually getting so rich they just become the ruling entity

[umbral junco]

But the mujahideen wasnt the ones that at least were in their right for fight?
I got understood they we're on a civil war between their closet minded leaders
And there was the fighters so their country have more rights
(As i understood)

[hexed flame]

Yes the mujahideen were basically just freedom fighters that formed as a reaction to the invasion so yeah their primary goal was defending themselves

[umbral junco]

What a sh* hole american end up making

But coming back in topic
I think would be a good setup to bring the zone out of the reclution zone

[hexed flame]

lowkey not their fault this one time that area is just cursed to be like this

[proper sun]

Mujahideen= soldier of Islamic Empire

Not ISIS

[hexed flame]

i know its not isis but i checked mid convo if they were just a generalist term and yeah it is

tho i have never ever heard it in releation to anyone except the afghanistani resistance against ussr

[proper sun]

Because they were resisting against an invasion

[signal sierra]

Anyway I can befriend the IPSF from ever attacking me on sight? I had to kill a few from the lesser zone mission. Even though I sided with Ward. They still attack me on sight.

[midnight vault]

The IPSF aren't friends with anyone in the Zone except the ones who paid them

[signal sierra]

How do I pay them to get them off my bank? I prefer not to shoot at the IPSF but they always shoot me on sight.

[smoky hornet]

You can’t

[hot plaza]

Is there anything that you can find about what happened to Saharov ?

[signal sierra]

In the quest Dead Frequency, is SIRCAA secretly experimenting on Ward Soldiers without their knowledge? When Lt. Shterev entered in the room filled with SIRCAA scientists with weird meters and graph machines and killed them, did he know exactly where they were or did Faust told him? If so why did he guide him there? Was SIRCAA discovering an improved PSI manipulation? Is Skif being influenced by either sides?

I saw the report from the SIRCAA. But doesn’t proof their guilt. Only thing SIRCAA scientists is guilty is not telling the other ward commander and informing them. With such secrecy and under the radar influence. Is Skif being influenced by SIRCAA if players choose the Ward path?

[normal drum]

1. You will discover that if you go the Ward path in SIRCAA.
2. Yes, it's not a secret that the scientists were there.
3. Who guided whom to where?
4. No.
5. Influenced - yes. Manipulated - no. If you mean "psi-influenced" - no.

[signal sierra]

3. Did Lt. Shterev find the location because it was already known to ward soldiers? If so nobody questioned why they had the weird machines? Or did Faust guide him to that place?
4. So SIRCCA doesn’t have the tech yet to control PSI wavelengths and commands?

And if I have more questions, is there a website that explains in details?

[normal drum]

Yes, they knew (if you need a solid proof: 1) Captain Senkevych sends you there, too, if you side with him in the Icarus camp; 2) the scientists knew Shterev, that's why they were surprised when he started to shoot them).
The Echo station is a psi-monitoring station, the scientists there specifically have nothing to do with the experiments on the Wardens. Shterev and Faust needed them dead so no one would notice ||Faust activating the visiograph at the Clear Sky base.||
Warden patrols are regular all across the Zaton (as literally seen on their schedules), including the Echo station. Shterev picked the right moment when the Ward in the Zaton was on its weakest point, with most of the patrolling Wardens dead, to strike.
Does SIRCAA has advanced psi technologies, including those left from the Project X? Yes. Does it need brainwashed soldiers (if that's what you mean)? No, there is no need in them. Moreover, the idea of creating a supersoldier almost always failed. Even the Monolithians need a literal God for them to obey commands. The Wardens are already motivated with a high salary or/and the idea of destroying the Zone for it to be then used for a greater good.

[normal drum]

In details - most certainly there is none.

[signal sierra]

That is crazy. I did not notice Faust intentions with Shterev. Everything was happening all at once. Didn’t allow for a moment to think. I guess that was the idea of the attack. Since SIRCAA is influencing Skif, why don’t they use PSI-technology to further influence his actions? But not to a point as a monolithian soldier.

[normal drum]

What you are describing is Skif being an Agent (like what was attempted on Strelok in Shadow of Chornobyl). To give someone a certain goal, a mission which is hard to deviate from, a certain type of psi-influence is needed (if you haven't finished the game, I won't spoil it). Skif wasn't being influenced by it or any other psi-device. That's why I specified it before - Skif's opinion about the factions is influenced by interacting with them, but by no means he has been brainwashed etc.

[minor anchor]

I'm pretty sure that the Dead Frequency Quest is trying to show something that is from the lore. SIRCAA is essentially trying to replicate what the C-Consciousness was able to do with Monolith and the STALKER Program, using psi-technology to try and get the Ward Soldiers to follow their commands without question, which basically failed. The reason why the C-Consciousness did PSI mind control better was because it had some control over the Noosphere, and using the Rainbow Array/Brain Scorcher, was able to create a far more stable "army" of mind controlled soldiers as well as conducting the STALKER Program to create semi-perfect sleeper agents

[smoky hornet]

Kryvenko literally tells you at the Chemical Plant they were trying to artificially replicate Class 5 Psi Resistance

Dalin all but laughs at you when you even suggest the idea of the monolith being used again

[minor anchor]

He's laughing until the Monolithians re-awaken

[hexed flame]

yeah thanks to faust obv everyone had a role in that but its not like dalin wanted to do that lol

[hexed flame]

Strelok will show you le truth

[sonic meadow]

strelok and i are ✨ besties✨

[signal sierra]

I finished the game before. Started a brand new save file for the master difficulty. But the first time I just finished the game without really understanding. Some of the chapters were confusing. Such as Dead Frequency.

[signal sierra]

The mind control technology sounds amazing. No wonder SIRCAAA is trying to replicate it.

[signal sierra]

Meh, I need to redo the chapters. I fought Strelock before. Going to do it again. But I just need to step back for a moment and understand what is going on. Fighting the legendary of the zone was legendary.

[signal sierra]

Was the effects on mind control irreversible? If so does SIRCAA want to find reversible effects to possibly sell?

[hexed flame]

They're not tho as leaper said they want class 5 psi res (and they eventually get it)

The only mind control im aware of is the stuff at troposphere station but im pretty sure sircaa is uninvolved and its purely ward there

Sircaa wants the generator's power instead

And then you have the reg board that is trying to get both of these things for themselves

Atleast thats how i understood it

BUT simultaneously it is true sircaa is doing something to ward soldiers without their knowledge its just something completely different from mind control

Pay attention at and after duga

[normal drum]

They are not. Again, they didn't need it. They've already had the Ward which had been practically controlling the Zone for 8 years. They could occupy every place they wanted with ease.
Mind controlling technology was never perfect. The Monolithians had to believe in a God for them to obey and were extremely aggressive to "non-believers" (Faust is an exception because he himself chose to believe and was not brainwashed into it). And to create an Agent, a certain kind of mind is needed, otherwise a person just dies. Moreover, Agents work only if they don't know they're Agents. They can be given instructions but that's definitely not the same as a soldier receiving orders - Agents are meant for infiltration missions and not for serving as a soldier.
Could SIRCAA replicate the technology? Yes, relatively easily. But that's just a grain of sand compared to what Agatha could do when she connected to the Noosphere in her ending. That's why finding a safe way to reach the Generators was in the highest priority. The experiments on the Wardens occured only because of this goal as it required a person with the 5th class psi-protection to become a Mediator between the physical world and the Noosphere.

[minor anchor]

It became essentially irreversible because unlike the C-Consciousness, SIRCAA didn't use the Noosphere and the Rainbow Array to activate the mind control

[hexed flame]

You really still go with that even tho thats not a thing

[deep forum]

could you elaborate what you mean by Agents need a certain mind?

[normal drum]

Some people can resist the programming. It's stated in Chornozem's, Nestor's and Dark's profiles that their "psychological assessment indicates zero resistance to programming" (also in Chornozem's - "indicates no risk of suicide") + "Programming results: Fully successful".

The "or else they'll die", however, was a bit of an exaggeration, because I thought the Representative mentioned it in SoC (in reality, he said that 50%+ of Agents die during their transportation). But, seeing all that dead and zombified people in the neurolaboratory hints that many minds just break during the process (just like Scar has become unstable from multiple reprogrammings).

[robust laurel]

Dark literally couldn't stand the second time he saw the TVs. This is also visible in the game

[hexed flame]

I think the transportation bit is also just generally about them dying to random stuff not just the programming effects like strelok almost did

[shell goblet]

bruh, whoever decided to put a black stalker in charge of Anti-Sidor resistance is a genius

[hexed flame]

Its a pretty sad quest and its interesting how the devs leaned into sidor being an asshole so hard

I still dont get how people dont like kalyna but like sidor when its pretty plain that they are the same exact caliber of assholes
Sidor basically boils when he hears about that shop in cordon

[frosty ridge]

What do we think happens to Skif after he becomes the conduit for the Zone's liberation in the Project Y ending? Like can he think in there? What would happen if he got out? Can he video call Richter to keep their long-distance-relationship going?

[hexed flame]

He's stuck there like c con were

[frosty ridge]

but they had more control, no? in his ending he seems to be more of an intermediary with the zone itself (since no control module exists after the foundation was destroyed with the large variometer inside)

[hexed flame]

I wouldnt say he's an intermediary since he is the source of his 'wish' the octa and hoc itself would be that

I guess he could use some sort of project X infrastructure to communicate since he is tapped into the noosphere

[frosty ridge]

I am now envisioning a giant holographic skif face and laughing

[normal drum]

He can do whatever Strelok could do in his ending, including communicating through a radio.

[normal drum]

Not necessarily, C-Con were stuck there because their consciousnesses had been irreversibly merged.

[normal drum]

Skif has the ultimate control because he has the HoC (which is an improved variometer). (While C-Con in 2006-2012 had no real control in the Noosphere)

[frosty ridge]

Richter: I miss Skif, sometimes I can still hear his voice...
Skif, in the radio: RICHTER ITS GREAT HERE THE OCTA CHEMICALS DO WONDERS FOR MY SKINCARE

Guys on the ISS watching Project Y go off must've been having a great time

I wonder if the noosphere reaches out there

[hexed flame]

He couldnt really pull himself out tho right ?

[hexed flame]

It has to since it is an informational field it must be basically everywhere or atleast anywhere with something living ?

[frosty ridge]

But it's earth's informational field

in the classic conception the noosphere is a part of the planetary spheres

like the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere

and stalker 2 does say it's the planet's informational field. so i wonder. do the astronauts get their own little one or?

[hexed flame]

I always assumed that a field like this must exist anywhere there is valid information they just arent concerned with extraterrestrial parts of it

[hexed flame]

My headcanon is closer to it being something like a gravitational or electromagnetic field

Something elementary that exists anywhere with information and stores it?, allows it to flow I guess

A hydrosphere in comparison is a very loose term its not A THING its just how we categorised water circulation on our planet

Or biosphere its not really a single thing rather its many moving parts that may or may not interact that we just categorised together its not like a dart frog in south america has some semi magical connection to a tiger in siberia yet the noosphere seems to connect or atleast interacts with everyone

[frosty ridge]

But what if there were alien thoughts in the noosphere and suddenly you get a gleepglorp artifact ............. much to consider