Question about the ending (spoilers, obviously)

Just finished the game a few hours ago, and was wondering about the choice you are given at the end. As you are not allowed to play the last sequence over again (reloading the game sends you directly to the credits), I am a bit curious what the other ending entails, and thought someone here might be able to provide that information.

For the record: I swapped.

@rivaldi22 Haha just beat it and I have the same god damn question, can't find a youtube video or nothing to figure this one out, might as well play through it again tomorrow or wait

Fuck. Me too. Only videos I found of the ending are of the swapped ending.

Instead of starting another thread, I'll hijack this one. So, anyone figure the story out?

First off: I played without subtitles, so I wasn't entirely sure I knew who was talking at what times, and couldn't always make out what they were saying. On top of that (not that I think this is very important), I missed Log #13 for some reason, even though I searched everything. Was it on the planet in the beginning?

From what I can make out: the ship is one of many sent to this planet to scavenge for resources for the human race. They find these rocks that show signs of intelligence. The people each get a virus once they start to understand the rocks, and the player-character is immune (or immunized by the other character?) for some reason. The rocks communicate by delving into the minds of the people and learning their language, whereas they previously communicated instantaneously through telepathy and (I assume) a much more advanced and quicker form of language.

Why did the 3-brains-in-1 lady jettison the player-character? The "recording" showed the 3-brains-in-1 lady, so who was the player-character? If they were just a clone, then why did they move independently? What were the motivations of the alternate personalities of the 3-in-1-lady? Dr. Chalmers wanted to inject her soul into the giant face or whatever; Dr. Bennett wanted to just get the fuck out of there and leave everything alone; and I'm not even sure if there was a third voice; was it "Kate?"

In the subtitles the third was was called "Scavenger". So just a woman who showed up to scavenge, presumably.

And I too did the swap ending. Cannot for the life of me find a video of the stay ending.

@joeku: Damn. I'll probably play through it again, anyway. Should be real fast this time, and the game's worth looking at again for the art alone.

Haha, I missed Log #13 as well! Looked for it for like an hour!

I imagine the scientists+scavenger jettisoned you because it was acting as Dr. Chalmers (she wanted to bring the station back to the planet to reunite the rocks with "the chain," and wanted to prevent you from stopping her.) Dennett, like you said, wanted to just leave. The third voice, as has been mentioned, was labeled "Scavenger," and I believe this person just came to the station looking for resources (they mention that this has happened several times already.) Kate was the woman in the rescue ship.

And apparently, the achievements all represent hidden logs that are throughout the game. I had just assumed the achievements were progress-based, and simply not working. But no, they are apparently just hidden logs.

So who knows.

Here's a video of the other ending (spoilers, obviously) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pbf2l6UYGk&feature=player_detailpage#t=5200s

Also, there is indeed 10 hidden consoles (one per achievement) in the game, but seems like they are insanely well hidden. And i didn't get log #13 either... did they skip it to avoid bad luck :P ? Like how there's no 13th floor in some building

@development: I figured Kate and Scavenger where the same person. I assumed that all 3 of the characters lost their identities which is why they all had the same voice. Although I'm not sure if you were a clone with all 3 identities, or if you were a separate person who had the rock knowledge and thus could swap to the rescue ship and go do whatever weird thing telepathic rocks were going to do

I'm glad I'm not the only one who missed log 13.

@mildmolasses: @dino29: @rivaldi22: Hm. Maybe log 13 was the video log you're shown near the end. Also, shit, yeah I didn't get a single achievement. Those logs must be super well-hidden. I just figured my achievements glitched, hah. Guess I'll play it again with subtitles and see if I notice anything else.

edit: also, I suspect we're not supposed to know who the player-character was; hence the lines at the end: "who was she? Just another opportunist?" "Who knows."

From what I can gather:

Space Station Thesus is put into orbit around a planet to mine for resources. It is supposed to be left on its own for seven years (although some characters imply that it has been decades in isolation). While there, they find evidence of alien life, but no aliens. However, they do notice electrical signals eminating from the rocks. They take some of the rocks back, including a very large rock termed the "head" (because it is shaped like the head).

The scientist study the rocks and come to the conclusion that the aliens have somehow used their technology to imprint their minds into the rocks and form a collective hive mind, a "great chain" of being. The substance from the rocks allows the creation of the "swapper" device, which allows cloning and the ability to move consciousness around. They test the swapper device on crewmembers, but they find that it produces adverse effects (memory loss, catatonia, etc) and so they ban testing of the swapper device on people. They instead decide to experiment with the device on the brains of terminally ill patients whose bodies are certain to die. They can donate their brains (themselves) to the project. Dennett and Chalmers were the two brains donated.

The watcher rocks taken aboard the space station notice, however, that they are not in contact with the other rocks in their "chain" and are wondering where they have gone. They try to reach out to the other members of their "chain". In the process, their psychic eminations slowly drive the crew crazy and start killing them. The watchers don't intend to do this - they see no problem in trying to "probe" the minds of others because they are used to a "hive mind". The watchers don't realize that they are killing the crew (who all die) - the crew try to eject the rocks back into space or return them to their planet, but they all die before they can.

Along comes "the scavenger", a woman who is exploring thesus to find riches. She finds the space station and she finds Dennett and Chalmers, the two brains left in the station in the only shielded area. By coming into the shielded area, she has condemned them to die as well. The ship she came in is fried, so she can't leave. She picks up the swapper device and the two brains ask her to experiment with it - it creates a clone of her, which freaks her out so she ejects it into space (your character is this clone). Dennett and Chalmers offer to help her escape, but she has to meld minds with them. She doesn't want to, but feeling that she has no choice, she does. Chalmers and Dennet and the Scavenger become one and seek to escape the station. They later require the help of the clone.

All the while, Dennet and Chalmers argue with each other internally within the original Scavenger. Dennett says that a "mind is a brain" (which is what you'd expect, given that the character was named after Daniel C. Dennett, the famous philosopher), whereas Chalmers (I don't know who that character is named after), is adamant that there is something "else". Dennett doesn't like the swapper technology, Chalmers does. Originally the plan is to escape, but the three-in-one person cannot decide and eventually injects herself (themselves?) into the watcher.

Your character makes contact with the rescue team and has a choice - to do what "you need to do to survive" and inject herself into the rescue team personnel - which is what Chalmers would have done, believing that she would not be "lost", or take Dennett's view that "we are our brain" and that by moving your consciousness into someone else's head, you will not be yourself any longer (and won't even know that you aren't yourself any more).

At least, that's what I got out of the story.

The only question I have - Why was the original clone (that became your character) able to have an independent will when none of the other clones could? Is it because you were separated from the original so that you were able to form your independent mind?

The last line is especially poignant - by melding with the rescue crew member - who are you anymore? Who knows? Is the "you" that was you, gone now?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3Pbf2l6UYGk#t=5177s

Spoiler obviously, this is the non-swapping ending

The answer is probably in those goddamned hidden/missing logs

@korolev said:

IIRC, they weren't initially. I think they were researchers on the station and swapped their minds in the brains when they realised they were doomed (because of the head watcher). Dennett was against it but Chalmers persuaded him.

Also, I don't understand why the 3 minds melded when Scavenger fired at the brain(s), instead of the usual swapping. Or as you said, why the original clone isn't mindless.

Maybe the 13 hidden logs would shed some light on this.

@korolev: I think you actually hit all the nails on their heads. What you said makes perfect sense. I'm hesitant to think this was intentional on their part, but even when you say the player-character established sentience because it was separated from the "chain" of the original scavenger, that makes sense. Hence the game beginning at that point.

I have half the hidden achievements now (once you find one, you'll kinda get where to look for the rest). I'd have more, but 2 times now I've ran into game-breaking checkpoint bugs (spawn on wrong side of sealed doors; unable to open them). Kinda discouraged from trying again...

I also gotta say that it's extremely refreshing to have the scientist be the "good guy" in sci-fi. ...Even if she does talk to us like we're idiots. Maybe that's just my interpretation, though.

edit: I just found log #13. The game updated so they must've just patched it in. I guess it was a bug, after all...

It's right here:

Found this looking through the installed files: If you want to read the full dialog without a second playthrough you can navigate to your steam folder, then down to SteamApps\common\The Swapper\data\translations\#sp#\story.en . Open that with a text editor and you can review anything you might have missed. It's layed out very nicely and is easy to find anything you might have missed.

And if you want to see the death ending quotes from the file, they are hidden here:

As for 'The Watchers', I think it's much more interesting idea that there is only one watcher that has multiple physical manifestations. If you look at what the '6th' watcher said - "I am the only one that believes in the other dimension. I call it 'space'. One 'moves' through 'space', yes? How?" I'm taking that quote to be the strange transition The Watcher is going through as it is melding with other minds while they bleed together - the intrusion of a foreign idea and mind into itself.

I'm taking that as it is a single being with multiple manifestations that never realized the dimension that wasn't itself. Kind of like the 1-dimensional being that inhabited a point in Flatland. A point expanded to 3d space could intersect multiple locations as we see it and be completely incapable of realizing the repercussions to the natives of that environment. It's accident manifestations into additional points (the minds of the people on the space station) could explain the sickness, etc.

Found all the achievements. Sadly, they don't reveal much. *Spoilers* They kinda clarify the downfall of all 7 orbiting space stations. And -- as per the one normal log -- Theseus has been orbiting for at least 200 years, with everyone being dead and Chalmers's and Dennett's brains just chilling out for most of that time, until the Scavenger came along and ended everything. I'm team Dennett. Chalmers was an insult to scientists.

You people are all monsters :P
I jumped, better end a life with dignity then stealing it from another person that didn't deserve to die (at least in a game I can afford to think so^^)

@development said:

I also gotta say that it's extremely refreshing to have the scientist be the "good guy" in sci-fi. ...Even if she does talk to us like we're idiots. Maybe that's just my interpretation, though.

edit: I just found log #13. The game updated so they must've just patched it in. I guess it was a bug, after all...

It's right here:

OK, I was wondering what happened. I replayed the game and found log 13, and knew I couldn't have missed it because I spent so much time in that room as it was one of the last puzzles I solved in my first playrthrough

MY biggest question is how come the swapper gun worked seemingly differently for the Scavenger? You go through the entire game making clones that mindlessly mimic your every move. Yet we are to believe when the Scavenger used the swapper gun the player character (clone) was created and she sealed it in an escape pod and fired it off into space out of shock/fear. Is this explained in any of the logs? I don't remember them mentioning the swapper gun all that often.

In the QuickLook I saw that early log talking about how most people don't want to be anywhere near the swapper gun. That got me really intrigued and literally pushed me to purchase the game. I guess I was expecting a bit more straight forward narrative involving how they started using the swapper device to create cheap manual labor and it all spiraled out of control. I really enjoyed the game but the story was a lot more metaphysical than I expected. What is a soul anyway.

What I want to know is what was up with Otto Hantula's special thanks in the credits. Is there some story/reasoning behind it or was he just being a dick?

@Everyone who was wondering about why the player character isn't mindless

I think I figured it out! Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but what if the Swapper gun was never tested with CLONES?! Think about it. The Scavenger creates a clone with independence, the clone finds another Swapper gun on the planet, creates clones of itself, and because they are clones of a clone, they are bound to the actions of the original clone!

Of course, this might just be a convenient way to explain away a major plot hole, but still.

@zero_starlight: But how does the Scavenger create a clone with independence in the first place?

There is a log about how in initial testing, two individuals used the swapper on eachother.They were left amnesiac and generally messed up. Because of this it was decided that only clones should swap with each other, because they have identical minds and wouldn't suffer from the clashing of brains. You most likely were the two clones originally swapped, both having identical minds, The two clones became one in the initial swapping and melded perfectly, and that one combined clone is who you play as. All copies of yourself after the fact are just you replicating yourself over and over. Since the clones had identical minds it went seamlessly. The three minded scientist formed because it underwent multiple imperfect "Initial swaps" because there were 3 different minds being mixed.

Thats my view anyways. Great game though! Makes you think!

The people in charge of the Sisyphus project were not going to send help at all. They apologize in their final message to the station and say they're shutting it all down. And one of the logs says the nearest outpost was 7 years away. it makes sense that a ton of time has passed as a rescue mission would have been improbable at the time of the disaster. An outpost must have formed closer to the station in the time that had passed for the rescue mission at the end to be viable and for them to decide to bug out when things look too bad rather than complete the mission that they would have spent 7 years working towards.

So, I just beat this game a few minutes ago and I wanted to get everyone's ideas about the meaning of it all. Patrick had mentioned in an article that you have to play this game before the end of the year since top tens are coming soon so I took that to mean he definitely considers it a top ten or at least can see how other people might think so.

Everyone pretty much explained everything I was thinking, and certainly added a lot good stuff to flesh our some of the ideas I had. The one thing that bothers me the most is the idea of the Scavenger showing up so many years later, and using the swapper device and then somehow ejecting her clone into space who then has its own free will.

Some of you are saying that maybe because the clone was separated from the Scavenger that it lost its connection with her and thus was able to think freely. There are 3 main problems I have with this idea.

1. She couldn't physically force her clone into an escape pod. They would have merged together. So that's out of the question.

2. If the idea is that she became so frightened of the clone that she ejected it into space via the escape pod, then how could she have the mental bearing to perform a sort of puppet show with the clone in order to get it into the escape pod? She would have to simulate the motions of getting into it while being in a different part of the room. No way she'd have that kind of focus.

3. Even if she did somehow have the mental bearing to pull it off, the whole idea gets completely shot out of the water by the simple fact that the clone was freaking out and banging on the window of the escape pod. This tells us that it was not a matter of separation that gave the clone its own free will because it was already thinking for itself while it was still in the escape pod before it launched.

This leads me to believe there was some other reason for the "special case" in which this clone was able to think freely. I didn't get any of the hidden logs, so maybe it's in there, but it really makes me wonder what caused this whole thing to begin with and who we really were as we played the game.

Just finished tonight myself; pretty good. Puzzles were pretty tough, but still within the realm of being entertaining. I only really got stuck twice, but luckily I didn't cave and look up the solutions; just kept playing around until I had the necessary "eureka" moment.

@ibushido: Without the understanding that you control the clones, wouldn't it just seem like it was running away from you? So maybe the clone was "chased" into the escape pod. As far as the clone's "separation", perhaps the escape pod was shielded (as an escape pod should be to survive in space) in such a way that it cut the link, which is why you "wake up" when the escape pod door is closed.

This is probably all over-thinking though. The simplest explanation is just that it was just a mistake/oversight on the writer's part in service of the overall delivery (waking up in escape pod more powerful opening than waking up on planet). Those things happen.