Make Us Whole: A Dead Space Deep Dive

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This episode of Acceptable Losses is a deep dive into the cosmic horror and corporate negligence of the Dead Space universe. Join Dk, Kirioth, and The Remembrancer as they trace the timeline from Earth’s 21st-century energy crisis to the total biological collapse on the USG Ishimura. We’re covering it all: the discovery of the Black Marker in the Chicxulub crater, the orchestrated martyrdom of Michael Altman, and how the Church of Unitology used "tangible proof" to eclipse every other religion on Earth. We also look at the bloody history of the Sovereign Colonies, from the Secession Wars to the "Scenario Five" purge on Tau Volantis. Finally, we break down the Aegis VII incident in full, weaving together the stories of Lexine Murdoch and Gabe Weller from Extraction with Isaac Clarke’s desperate search for Nicole Brennan on a ship where every corpse is a potential predator.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Acceptable Losses podcast where DK messes up the intro. Let me do that again. Oh, please keep it in. Please keep it in. Please. But before we get into that, oh hey, hey, how's it going? Welcome. Um, but before that, uh, if you enjoyed the podcast, maybe heading over to orchid8.com and check out some of our merch. We have a great you like sci-fi right shirt, we have a wall scroll, we have a pin, we have a coin, we have a weeb for Lincoln shirt. Everybody should be a weeb for Lincoln. It's great. Check it out. Uh, Kiryath, you want to tell them about the Patreon real quick?

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Yes. If you go over to patreon.com slash acceptable losses, you can support us and get episodes early, like a full week early, and you also get exclusive episodes as well. There are quite a few of those. We're racking them up now, and I think it's fair to say that in terms of sheer existential horror and misery, we are getting up there. So if you do like the whole the whole Grimdark thing, oh boy, there's some there's some nice, tasty, and horrific treats for you over on patreon.com slash acceptable losses. You can also just follow us there for free and you get updates and stuff, and there is a Patreon only episode that you can claim as a gift, which at the moment is threads, which really sort of shows you how far we go to bring you the misery.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

I prefer terraces, but that's that's just me. But anyway, so like we said, we have the remembrancer here today who is going to lead us into a very grimdark world. Suffice to say, it fits acceptable losses perfectly. So hello, remembrancer. Welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

And uh what what's up? So, um, today we're talking about, I believe this has been somewhat highly requested. So I I did have a look at some of the comments and I was like, ooh, Dead Space. I like a bit of Dead Space. Talk about Dead Space. We love it. Uh unfortunately, a a series that has kind of been on hiatus for a while. There was a remake of the original game uh a few years ago, but other than that, I think it's it's unlikely to return, but it definitely left a uh lasting impression. Yes, I we love it. EA doesn't, of course not.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yeah, and I'm I'm actually quite glad today is on Dead Space One, because I pretty vividly remember two and three. Um, but I feel like I may not have even finished Dead Space One somehow, and then when the remake came out, still didn't finish it. Um so actually quite psyched because I don't think I know a whole lot about Dead Space One, actually. Was it a bit too scary? Well, I mean, I feel like two was maybe a little scarier, right? Because it had like all that gore and it's got that one eyeball scene that everybody knows about where it's really easy to screw up, and then, you know, you turn into a Cyclops in the worst way possible. Um But yeah, I I don't know. I don't know what it was about Dead Space One that didn't like hook me when I first played it.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Funnily enough, the too scary thing is one of the reasons that I can't fully remember the story from Dead Space One, because it was a game where I'm not a big I love reading horror, and I especially love like cosmic horror. Dead Space was like the first outside of playing Silent Hill with friends when you're a bit too young for it, because it was fun to get scared at that sort of age. Dead Space was the first like horror game that I played for ages, and I remember absolutely loving the gameplay, finding the atmosphere genuinely terrifying, and the enemies being freaky as hell, and almost like not forcing myself through it because I was having a good time. I was really enjoying it, but a lot of the enjoyment was, oh my god, I cannot focus on this too much because this is actually freaking me out. So it's this weird thing of I'm pretty sure that I enjoyed the story at the time. I can't remember much of it. I can mostly just remember trying desperately to aim for the limbs and stamping my way through the game, almost kind of going, okay, if we get past this bit, hopefully the next bit won't be quite as horrifying. Oh god, it's worse. And that being my overall experience, but enjoying it.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Well, as Shai says, Dead Space 1 was a horror game, Dead Space 2 was action game covered in spaghetti sauce, uh, and Dead Space 3 was let's see how much we can push microtransactions, lolol. Uh bit of a shit. You know what?

SPEAKER_02 5:00

I did play three with a friend, because it had the co-op mode, didn't it? And I I specifically remember we got part way through and the game thoroughly just collapsed and bugged out, and we simply couldn't progress any further because some door didn't open or some fan didn't stop spinning or something, and just going, Well, I guess we're not playing this game anymore, and never going back to it, and wondering whether that was a mistake.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

You say that I had the same thing during one of my deathless runs of Dead Space Free, and I was like, Alright, I'll start again, I suppose. It's like something like event didn't work properly and it was supposed to, and I was like, Well, I can't reset the checkpoint, it's an Iron Man run. Oh well, back to the start. Um, but yeah, Dead Space is I I love the series. I've I've watched all the uh the extended stuff, so they've got like they've got a few animations slash movies, they've got a bunch of graphic novels and novels. And today I thought it would make sense rather than trying to do everything about Dead Space. Let's start with the basics, let's talk about pre-uh Dead Space One history, go through the Ishimura incident, and set us up for future discussions if you'd like to discuss more Dead Space in the future. And I think that would be quite a quite a good amount of of context for one episode, and then if people want another one, we can give them that. Um So today we're gonna be talking about stuff that to that's basically covering Dead Space One, the game, uh Dead Space Downfall, the animated uh prequel, and Dead Space Extraction, the On Rails Shooter for of all things, the Wii. What a fun time. And PlayStation 3, but it was like a on-rails shooty shooty game, which was very strange. Um, I didn't know there was an exclusive Dead Space game for the Wii. That was an on-rail shooter. It was strange, but it ties into the story of Dead Space One, because it's all what happened on the colony before Isaac Clark even got there. Um and yeah, there's like there's all sorts of like extra materials here and there, but we're we're gonna try and cover things as best I can, mainly talking about stuff from setting things up for what's the universe like, and then we can go into more depth with some things, and if people go, oh, you didn't talk about this or that, in another episode we can cover those things. So are we ready to get started? Hell yeah. So ready. Okay, I'm also gonna send you some uh pictures as we go to try and give you some context. Uh so we're gonna start off with picture the scene. It is the 21st century. Humanity is currently enduring an energy crisis. Womp womp. What a good scene. Not again. Not again. Uh fun fact about the universe the United States, even though it's 21st century, United States and Soviet Union are still going at it during the year 24 uh 2045, and there are battles such as the Battle of the Bering Sea, where the Soviet Union occupies the uh Chuchke Peninsula. So in this universe, the Soviet Union didn't get disbanded when it did in our universe. It's been going strong for a very long time, further forward in in time than we are today as of recording. And so to give you an idea, the the even on during the 21st century, we are poised to be having a global warming crisis, resources are becoming scarce, and Earth is just about starting to branch out of its uh of its origins. So during this this kind of year of 2045, the first colony on the moon is established, the New Horizons Colony, which is a Sino US collaboration and it's a mining base. And this goes on for a little while, and by the 23rd century, uh there are now semi-independent nation states that have emerged on Earth. So everything we know about politics now collapses during that time frame of a few hundred years. Like, oh no, all the nation states we now have like brand new nation states who are now uh combined into a governing body known as the sovereign colonies or SC for short. Environmental politics.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

If everything we knew about politics just suddenly collapsed, I'm not entirely sure that would be an awful thing in 2026. Um also, I was like, man, by 2045, they have a mining colony on the moon. Can you imagine if like in 20 years we could like colonize the moon for resources? Like we'd have advanced a long way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

So I'm saying believe in Elon DK, believe in him. Oh no. Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

The monkey's poor curls. Yes, you can have your moon colony. No, it's it's it is in fact run by Elon Musk. Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

Well, yeah, that's that's the monkey part, right? And and as much as it's like, oh, that's good, we have a few more resources on the moon, that's a little bit better. It's still not enough to stave off uh environmental catastrophe. However, um Earth starts to realize the moon is a good start, we need to get a bit further afield if we're ever going to get anything done. So as the Earth's environment is collapsing, there is a pioneering effort funded by multiple extremely rich corporations to settle new worlds uh a bit further afield from Earth, and they also are going to be aided by Earth's military just in case there are any problems on the way. Um during 2214, though, a strange device is uncovered in the Gulf of Mexico. The black marker. Dun dun dun. Oh god, that thing was just sitting in the Gulf of Mexico. Yep, it's just sitting there like a post-it stamp or or a or a uh what's a paperweight just stuck sticking out the ground. Oh, what's that? Oh, it's a marker. Cool. It's an ominous marker. Well, fun fact, it's it's located in the I'm gonna butcher this uh Chick Chick Shulab Chickshalub Impact Crater of the Yucatan Peninsula, which is a real place in the world, and this was extracted by the Dredger Corp, extraction corporation, under supervision from Craig Markov of the Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces. Um, this is basically the impact crater of what killed the dinosaurs. So apparently this thing killed the dinosaurs uh 65 million years ago.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

That started the ice age, got it.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

Yeah, and Shy says, Oh, they renamed the Gulf of America into Gulf of Mexico in 21st century.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Oh boy, we are just speedrunning the uh the the man, my head hurts, why won't it stop? Oh boy.

SPEAKER_03 11:33

But it's clearly of alien design. We're looking at this thing going, right, this thing looks like it's the thing that killed the dinosaurs. I can't believe we didn't find this earlier. What were we doing with our time? Um and it's very likely had an influence over human evolution because it's it's kind of broadcasting this strange signal. What's that about? This marker signal and geophysicist um it's not, it's it's gonna be terrible in the future. Um, but this geophysicist Michael Altman, he's like working on the project that's uncovered this thing, and although they're trying to keep it quiet, the government's trying to be like, don't tell anyone that we may have discovered like evidence of alien life. He goes, nah, I'm gonna bring to the public. So one year subsequent, um the cat's out of the bag, alien life exists, there's part of it on Earth. Oh no, this is gonna have massive ramifications for the future. And I actually have a quote that I'm gonna put in the chat here.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Also, imagine trying to keep that gigantic tower-sized marker, a secret. Like, yeah, you guys just put a sheet over it. Nobody will see planes, planes flying over, they won't notice. It's fine. It's not like there's planes going over the Gulf of Mexico all the time, and they'll see it just sticking out of the ground like a sore thumb. What is that?

SPEAKER_03 12:54

Oh, it's a 7G tower. Don't worry about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

It's emitting a signal. It's for your phones, don't worry about it. It's better internet connectivity for Wi-Fi or something. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

I built it.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

Hobby project, I built it. Don't worry about it. It's not installation, don't worry about it. Um Yeah, so um TK or Kiriov, would either of you like to read. I've got a few of these, but not not many, but I've got a few of them. Uh the first quote that I've put in the recording chat.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Yeah, I'll hit it. When Michael Altman went public with his research on the black marker, the world was teetering on the brink of self-destruction. Many people, myself included, felt civilization was at an end. We couldn't change the world by ourselves, and most of us didn't want to. What Altman offered us, this chance at a rebirth for humanity, was exactly what our hungry, empty souls were looking for. Practically overnight, our hope for humanity was renewed. Aw, that's nice. This can't be a bad thing at all, surely. No, so people saw the black mark and they were like, hooray, hope! There's something, something will change. Humanity will be restored, rebirth for our species. Hooray! No one had an overwhelming sense of dread at the giant black ominous marker for aliens that's broadcasting weird signals.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

Yeah, the mix between alien and um is it 2001 uh space like the you know that scene with the Oh the monolith, right? It's like a combination of the two strike here.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

There's there's there's a lot of like knowing that the that the universe is terrible going into that interpretation, though, isn't there? Like if you're on that, if you're on that version of Earth and everything's looking dire, and someone goes, There is evidence of hu of like alien life, it's right here on Earth, and we could potentially use it to get out of this horrible mess. I'd imagine most people at that point are gonna go, Oh, please God, yes. A hundred percent. Let's go. Let's we have it we have an aim. Let's do the thing now, quickly, before everything collapses.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

Well, the sovereign colonies are like, let's not be hasty. This is an ancient piece of alien tech, and it it suggests that maybe it has the ability to give us infinite uh energy. Ooh, that's promising, but let's keep and Altman's like, no, public, look at this thing. Oh no. So he's expelled from the project. Um and from his dealings, uh, a new religion is formed called the Church of Unitology. And it's founded on the belief that with this object, with alien life now a tangible proof that humanity can combine with the greater cosmos, and as Altman being their prophet, can bring humanity from the brink of self-destruction. Um Altman's arrested. Oh no. Yeah, because this is a big big problem for the uh for the for the um the the sovereign colonies. And so after being arrested, he's eventually returned to the facility to keep working on it. But not before he's canonized as like the cult's founder and like prophet figure. Um eventually he would go on to sink the facility into the Gulf of Mexico with aid from a psychologist called Stevens, we don't know his other name, just Stevens. And Stevens would reveal that he and another guy called Markov are believers in the black Marcus divinity as a symbol to be worshipped, which I'm sure has no ramifications for the future because when has a religious cult in a sci-fi setting ever caused problems? Um but these guys aren't just pawns, they're trying to steer humanity in the right direction. So they don't really care about Altman, they're gonna use him as a tool. And they're going to emplace him as the founder of Unitology, but they're not going to venerate him, they're going to use him as a puppet to achieve what Unitology as a church wants to achieve. And so while he's, you know, being this, I don't really want to be a religious leader, blah blah blah, they begin conspiring to martyr him and therefore enshrine him as a symbol of unitology that can never be ignored or replaced. And then if Altman gets second chance uh gets second uh guesses or doesn't want to be a part of it, tough, you're dead. Um so that's all they're not.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

An organized religion pulling uh dodgy manoeuvres, surely not.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Surely that's and an organization So they're like, Oh yeah, Altman, if you if you don't want to be part of our thing, we're just going to kill you and pretend like you were a martyr, and hooray, your death is worth it, and your divinity is is proven.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

Well, it's it's not they don't give them a choice, they just don't tell him, Oh, we're gonna like try and get the government to kill you. They're like, we are steering you on the path to be they're trying to conspire to get the government to kill him, therefore making him a martyr and furthering their own goals.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Oh, it was worse than I thought. Okay, cool. I'm glad I'm glad we confirmed that, because that's so much worr. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:47

I have another quote. Uh, Kiriyov, would you like to read this one?

SPEAKER_02 17:51

Yeah, okay. Even when Altman was forced into hiding, allegedly for fear of government retaliation, his acolytes Stevens and Markov risked everything to bring his word into the light. His books sold out within hours. Millions flocked to conferences where we were taught the greater truths of the marker. We stared in awe at the evidence of this alien artifact that would change everything, and we did whatever Altman through his acolytes told us to. We rallied against the government whose oppression kept our prophet from us. We joined together in congregations to share his word, and we prepared ourselves for the future he said was coming.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

Yeah. So off to a great start. Uh there's lots of like um I love the some of the the the kind of concept art for Dead Space because you get all these like pieces of symbolism and religious temples in later games where there's like all these icons of Altman and and how even though he wasn't like this exactly, they've twisted his public image into this messianic figure. Um and and then they they are also drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid. They they are also like, I believe that aliens are our salvation. It's just these two guys that were his quote acolytes used him as a pawn to in the shadows orchestrate their power base from probably from a future that they know they wouldn't achieve, but maybe someone in the future would, and they would, and they would they would benefit greatly from the wealth that would start to flow into the largest growing religion ever with actual evidence of what it was preaching about.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

So, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:25

Zealotry.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Zealotry in my sci-fi setting? Never. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

Um so the pre the the church begins preaching that uh there's this ideal of two entities intertwining to become one in a process called convergence, a harmonious symbiosis through religion and science. So get those uh Reddit atheists in the fold. Come on, guys, look at science. Woo! Oh aliens go on. Uh is there a worse combination?

SPEAKER_02 19:58

You can smell the DNA splicing from a mile off here, can't you?

SPEAKER_03 20:02

You can absolutely Yeah I oh I I like how Sai is also like I mean does help if your religion has proof. It's like we have stories of like uh I I went to a museum the other day with my girlfriend in um Oxford, and they had this signet ring, which was a it was like it had a little compartment, and when you opened it, there were suggestions that maybe it had like a splinter of the the the cross of Christ in it. I was like, oh that's pretty cool. But like imagine if one day you just dug up the actual cross and it was fully intact, not a blemish on it, and also it was like broadcasting like infinite potential energies and evidence that it's been around for 65 million years and probably killed the dinosaurs. It's like, oh, yeah, that's quite compelling to a lot of people, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Oh yeah, I you if you told me the uh the the crucifix that Christ was uh killed on also killed the dinosaurs, yeah. I I would be I would be shocked at this revelation.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

There's like a touch it, and it's like also yeah, the spear of destiny is the thing broadcasting it from atop the cross, and it's like that blooming government took our profit away and then they sank the excavation site under the ocean. Now we can't retrieve it. Oh, it's bad. Oh, the we've lost the marker. Oh no. I guess the unitologists are right that they're trying to keep this from us because they don't want us to ascend to being like greater beings. Ah, the we can't trust the governments. The unitology is the only way. Keep that in mind. Um, because this is like I can't stress how much of a seismic shift this is in like the dead space universe is like geopolitics, religious views, science, everything is now escalated because there's like a now there's a tangible way that humanity can escape its woes through what a seemingly perfect fix for all of its problems with evidence that it will work. Um but as as unitology grows, all other religions start to die out. And again, when you have proof of it, that that's quite compelling. And in the same century. The woes of humanity begin to get worse as the resource wars begin. Where Earth is importing so many they're importing so many like resources from planets, but bear in mind they don't have interstellar travel yet. Beyond like we can just slowly approach a planet quite far away, bring a massive chunk of stuff back with us, but it'll take quite a lot of transit. So the resource wars have officially begun. However, um astrophysicist Hideki Ishimura develops the first ever shock point drive, which allows Voidcraft to use faster-than-life travel. That's handy. So now humanity can get a bit further away and a bit quicker, and everyone's happy because now the resources are getting where they need to go, and fundamentally it's it's not a uh a fix all, but it's a damn slight better than it used to be. Now as this bomb, as as this like kind of staunching of the wound is implemented, uh the sovereign colonies start to dip their toes into what if we can recreate the black marker with our own, like human-made ones. So they start developing the red markers. And part of the marker's signal is it kind of imprints things into your mind about how maybe maybe I'll give you like blueprints of how you can remake me from the ground up. I'm just a I'm just a big monument made of like onyx. Don't mind me, I'm not ominous at all. Um no. And so they they develop three markers designated 1A, 2A, 3A, and they they originally they they moved them to like Proxima Centauri, uh, Glee S and Aegis 7. And bear in mind, Aegis 7, that's the important one. And they managed to uh uh reverse engineer all of them, and they they send them quite far away from Earth because they're like, ah, this could be dangerous. This is alien technology. We don't really know what this is capable of, especially when we're trying to replicate it. We didn't even have a chance to properly like we we had the the the beginnings of a necromorph outbreak when Altman sank it, the the black marker original. We need to be careful.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

That's uh to be fair, that's genuinely quite impressive for this kind of story slash universe, because there is a bit of forethought and a bit of intelligence there. I mean, they still made their own markers, which is you know a bit of a red flag, but at least they at least they're not like on Earth. At least they were like, let's put these quite some distance away instead of you know stacking them all up and compounding the effect.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

And and if I'm not did I hear right that they have no idea what these things even do? They're just like, oh yeah, the marker's beaming blueprints into my brain on how to recreate it, so let's just do it.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Well, they're they're mainly like we know this thing is like capable of producing infinite supplies of energy, as far as we can tell. We don't exactly know where it's coming from, we don't exactly know what it's doing. Yeah. But we're going for an energy crisis. We kind of need this thing. They're like, even with our advancements in um like interstellar travel, it's not enough to save Earth. And if we lose Earth, that's a really big problem. We've literally found the solution to all our problems in this thing, so we might as well get a bash.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

So in a way that's true. I guess you kind of have no choice. Like it might be a little dangerous because I I'm not gonna speculate, but I'm sure it leads to nothing good. Um, but I guess you really have no other choice. It's either that or, you know, civilization and humanity, as you know it, dies out, and the earth just, you know, turns into a desolate wasteland. So I guess you gotta give it a shot, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

Uh also Shai's just posted a picture like it's okay, DK, blueprints look nice and safe, and it's just all these like cheese things. But bear in mind that oftentimes this wouldn't be written in chalk, it'd be read, it'd be written in something different, a fluid from one's body of some description.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Um These blueprints weren't in blood?

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Sometimes. Um depends how how indoctrinated you are by the the the markers. Anyway, don't worry about that. Um also slightly concerning, uh, the scientists start to study what this stuff does in its kind of on on all three of these planets, and they go, Oh, it's developing DNA-coded recompetent microbial life forms. What does that mean? Well, basically it takes dead tissue and it grows into these like fleshy like substances, which they just call corruption, which is not ominous at all. God, that's bad. And and this is in the games, this is the stuff you see that's like plastering the walls, and it's like Event Horizon, where it's just like big walls of flesh on stuff, and you're like, what's that? That's corruption. And it can also infect dead human tissue and create necromorphs, which are these, you know, shambling bodies that seemingly are being given orders by the markers. But plus size, uh plus side is when they're on Aegis 7, they go, Okay, this is bad. There's an as necromorphs killing people, this is really bad. But if we stand right next to the monument, uh the marker, it projects this thing called a dead space.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Name drop, let's go! Great episode, everyone. See you next time.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

There you go. And that's the end. Uh no, but um so they're like, oh, there's this dead space field that all of the markers project. And when you stand in it, the the recombinator cells of the necromorph necromorphs become inert, so they can't get you. They can't physically approach you because it it kind of if they walk in it, they just collapse and die. And like, that's useful. Um they begin Oh, go for it.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Sorry. So the markers literally create the necromorphs, but at the same time are the effectively like the antidote to the thing that they create. Now I'm just like, okay, but who who would set that up? Because that feels really twisted in a in a very specific way of we are going to create this problem, it's going to be awful unless you stand next to the thing that created the problem, at which point you're all good. Like that feels really awful.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Yeah, that feels very like a sinister way to like take over a planet or something.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

I have my own theories, and I I think part of it is that like one of the effects of the markers is it slowly can confuse you and indoctrinate you and make you think, oh, I'm doing this to stop the markers and the necromorphs, whilst really what's happening is like Shy saying in the chat, uh also when you are close to it, it brainwashes you. So the necromorphs are just we're trying to harvest you, we're trying to kill you. But if you're right next to it, ah, you're right, you're right next to the field that also corrupts your brain and makes you do what do its bidding, see things. Um don't worry, this is a safe, this is a safety measure. Hmm, shouldn't you stand next to me? I'm a nice marker that you can trust not to like brainwash you. And so it's like a double-edged sword.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

That's so devious. So I was I'm I was gonna say, like, at first I was like, oh yeah, the marker, like it sounds like an alien way to just like, you know, conquer a planet. We're gonna sit behind our cute little marker, and then the corruption is gonna take you out. But now it's like, oh no, this sounds like this sounds like a way to conquer a whole planet without even having to visit it.

SPEAKER_03 29:35

Yep. And um, I've got another quote for you. This is about the uh the kind of corruptions. Who would like to read about the fleshy growths?

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Uh, I guess I can do this one. There are several shocking findings relating to the sludge-like material found throughout the Ishimura. First, it is human DNA. Second, and far more disturbing, it reanimates in the presence of a marker signal. The only conclusion we can come to is that the entire Ishimura crew was infected and reconstructed, and then fell into a soupy DNA sludge when the Aegis 7 marker was destroyed. So that gives you an idea.

SPEAKER_03 30:19

No, I do not want a tin of what you're serving if that's what's in the ingredients list. No, thank you. Nope. Nope. Um, but basically, uh they they keep studying the marker and they realize oh, the marker's not making a signal, it's redirecting it from some outside source light years away. It's just taking, it's receiving the signal and it's broadcasting it, it's not making it itself. And so they go, right, that's concerning. But let's finish them off, let's make them work. So by 2299, all three are are created, they start to communicate with each other, and then the necromorph outbreak occurs on each seven, and basically the the survivors of the onslaught manage to expand the dead space field, and they construct this kind of pedestal thing. And by using this pedestal which they put the marker on, the dead space field expands, which means that more of the cells become inert, so they manage to kind of deactivate the necromorphs and escape Aegis Seven. Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

So so they do they just straight up leave Aegis Seven?

SPEAKER_03 31:29

Because I'm assuming they get the hell out of that, they bury it, they get rid of it, but they're like, let's not say it's just move it there.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Like if you widen the dead space, you also widen the area that you get brainwashed in, right? Well, here's yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

Problems. So they go, okay, we're just gonna escape, we're gonna get out of here. And I don't exactly know what happens to the survivors of this uh this this initial is incident on Aegis 7, but they basically say, Okay, let's get out of here. And the necromorphs are like, okay, we've been nullified, but we're not gone. So what happens while the survivors are gone is they start to coalesce into this thing called a hive mind. And just kind of sits there dormantly waiting for the time when someone might just pluck this monument off of its pedestal so that it can start its spread again. But until such time, it's biding its time for hundreds of years.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Oh no. Anytime you bring up a hive mind, it's never good. It's all it's not shiny.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

Uh so this sovereign colonies has had a bad time. That's the hive mind. It's very spindly, it's very fleshy, it's made of god knows how many people, but it it is there. Um and so the sovereign colonies are like, okay, this is all very interesting, but we need to solve the energy crisis. This is a big problem. For now, we're just going to prohibit all like transit to Aegis 7, we're gonna bury all records of our experiments, we're going to blot it out of every star chart, and no one will know it's even there. Good idea, fellas. That can't backfire. And um and and the reason they do this is because by the time we get to the 24th century, the secession wars have begun, which is threatening their power base. So the sovereign colonies are now finding civil war is happening across several of their outposts across the stars, and lots of them are seceding from the sovereign colonies as early as 2311. And um during this turmoil, three years later, during 2314, the Earth Government Colonial Alliance is formed, also known as EarthGov, as a kind of competition. And these guys are not a government, they are a corporation-backed regime who also found the Earth Defence Force or EDF. So corporations that have become rich from all the mining go, we'll have our own government actually, and we'll do a better job than the gut than the elected government, I'm sure will not do anything seedy. Um not not it promised to be good. And um as social calamity and unrest is is growing, there's resource shortages, environmental catastrophe on several worlds that have been stripped clean of resources, and in a last desperate like attempt to to salvage their their reputation and fix Earth, uh the sovereign colonies launch a desperate final gambit within the system known as Talvalantis, which is more dead space-free territory, but it's worth mentioning uh right now. And essentially, they manage to try and rework the red marker project a bit more further away from Earth. They've gotta try it one last time. They managed to discover that there is a master signal, uh, which it which draws them to another red marker that they didn't make. It was made by someone else. Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 34:58

No.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

There's evidence that some other species that's not around anymore made it. Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

I love the idea of some scientist going, oh wow, we've found proof that there are like even more alien species out there. Oh, oh dear, because they've made the same mistake we did. That just makes this infinitely worse because it means that we're not the only ones creating this god-awful problem from this one thing we found. That the joy of we didn't make this, there must be other aliens. Oh no, we didn't make this, there must be other aliens. Or there were. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:36

Um there were. And um as they're the and they basically like used the majority of their remaining resources to make this last gambit work, and unfortunately, it's not going very well. Um back on Earth, it's getting worse, the the the EarthGov is getting more power. And fortunately, from the chaos, a corporation comes out of the out of the wings to try and alleviate the resource crisis, uh, and they are called Concordance Extraction Corporation, or CEC. And they create a uh a method of extracting resources from other planets called planet cracking, where they basically carve a big chunk out of the earth, and then they just kind of lift it out, chuck it in their ships, which are enormous, blend it down into its component parts, strip it of resources, and then after like a decade of like stripping down the planet, shuffle it all back to Earth, jobs done, we've now solved a large we've alleviated, I should say, we've alleviated a big chunk of our energy crisis back on Earth. So this isn't a fast process, but it's the best we've ever had so far. And this is during the 25th century. And oh man, that's crazy. Cracking on steroids, just absolutely incredible. And bear in mind that the CEC, it's one of its largest, if not the largest, stakeholder is the Church of Unitology. So there is that.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Oh boy, yeah, okay. It all comes. Come on, Mal.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

Come on. And and in in time, the CEC becomes the largest solar mining and extraction company in the galaxy, or at least humanity's uh conception of the galaxy. They're the fifth, the fifth largest corporation on Earth. And during the 25th century, the sovereign colonies they throw in the towel and they disband because they say, right, we haven't got any resources left. Uh we're we're already we our last gambit is failing because at this point uh the their their their escapades in Talvalantis are not going well, which I'll get to in a minute. Uh but before we do that, I have another quote. Uh who would like to read this one?

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Right, I'll I'll grab this one. So, CEC or the Concordance Extraction Corporation is the largest solar mining and extraction company in the Earth colonies and the fifth largest interstellar company in terms of market capital. Since our founding, we've become a powerhouse of industrial might and a major cross-system employer. With a generous budget allocated to election spending, CEC has always been able to maintain a strong market position and secure political support thanks to our dedicated lobbying bureau. We take your financial security and the well-being of our employees seriously. When you invest in CEC, you are investing in a future we can all believe in.

SPEAKER_03 38:32

Yay.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Thanks to our dedicated lobbying bureau, makes me a little queasy. I hate it. Don't like that at all.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

Um but to be fair, their propaganda posters are quite nice. Uh, here's one. Where can we find one? Uh you gotta hand it to them. They've got a great art department. Marketing team on point. Crazy. Yeah, cracked. Um and yeah, so while the CEC is now becoming like one of the largest corporations, and they're also the ones who are alleviating the energy crisis, and they're funded by Unitology, and EarthGov is now becoming more powerful than ever, and the um the sovereign colonies is starting to disband. Um, we s we see the first true documented outbreak of the necromorphs in force where they become a threat to the species entire. And this is in Talvalantis. So the sovereign colonies are not stupid. They're reckless, they're not great, but they're not stupid. They go, right, we're done. But even if we're done, humanity shouldn't die with us. So they enact a con they've they've enacted contingencies to contain the necromorph outbreak because they know what they were dealing with to an extent. And um here's what they did. So, first of all, they purge all records of research on the markers uh beyond Earth, and they enact scenario five, and this is to prevent, quote, an extinction level outbreak. Um, okay. Seems seems fair. Yeah, and and again, this is more like you see this in like the the the opening mission of Dead Space 3. Uh Major General Spencer Mahad, under orders from General Ambrose Caden, enacts execution of his men in three stages. First, disable all vehicles in Tavallantis. No one's getting out of the system. Second, all that your soldiers all the soldiers remaining who are loyal to you, kill all the other soldiers who are getting a bit crazy and disobeying orders. Um destroy every piece of data, every record, disable all our communications networks, and bombard the planet from orbit. Um once that's all done, uh end the uh how would you put this? Put the gun you've got the picture here, Shy.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

They actually made like images in their like uh Oh, is is are those the images that Shy had at the very beginning with uh where to put the gun?

SPEAKER_03 40:56

The guys kneeling with the hands behind their backs with the gun pointed at the head, and then there's the picture of the man with the gun in his mouth with an arrow pointing to his face. Yeah. These are their contingencies. So everyone does that. Um and the last man standing, Spencer, you know, he basically says, Hey, do you love your country? Do you love your mum and dad? Do you love your friends? And he like, okay, kills all his men, and then he puts the gun in his mouth, and that's the end of Alvalantis. That's the end of the sovereign colonies, they're done. Um, but now Earth Government. Earthgov is the last people standing.

SPEAKER_02 41:30

That is that is horrific. Like it's very well done. Like the I feel like that's a very, very well written bit of uh bit of awful, awful media, but that that is properly horrific.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Yeah, it's and that's your contingency plan so that it doesn't spread, because you wouldn't want it to spread, would you? And no. No, that would be bad.

SPEAKER_03 41:53

That'd be lame. Um so in in the power vacuum made by the the the seemingly instantaneous loss of the uh the sovereign colonies, earthgov takes uh you know they they step to the plate.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Oh, what a shitty logo, actually.

SPEAKER_03 42:09

Yeah, it's kind of lame. Uh they also have like this one. Which is a bit better. Uh oh yeah, it's a lot better.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. EarthGov. Good things are happening.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

Thanks, Corporation. I can't I can't see things like things are good or good stuff's happening. I can't I just can't see that anymore after and after uh it's a good life. It just feels so much more sinister now. Just like, yeah, it's all good stuff. Oh god, no. That is absolutely wow. I love that. Good things are happening. What a great corporate, what great like sort of corporate slogan on a distouing. Might as well be like broken dust. What's your slogan?

SPEAKER_03 42:55

Don't worry about it. That'd be the one I'd pick. Yeah. Just like a guy with his thumbs up in the background, like an out-of-focus shot of like a man with like a gun to his head, like, don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_04 43:07

It's fine.

SPEAKER_03 43:09

And and uh is that a t-shirt idea? Probably not.

unknown 43:12

Probably not.

SPEAKER_03 43:14

Um but not everyone's a fan of uh EarthGov. Uh one of the reasons being that they also are like creating you know their own branch of like the military, essentially. And um but they are now uncontestedly the people who are running the show. And uh because of this, the resource wars end, because not only are they the only game in town, they have the CEC in their pocket, and without the the the unrest caused by the sovereign colonies, everyone's like, right, we've got planet cracking, we've got interstellar interstellar travel, don't worry about the markers, we'll find them eventually. Oh, we can get back to normal. And it's still not great, but it's better than before. And by the 25th century, like which is basically almost where we're we're at. Current era. Um the planet cracking has helped immensely with alleviating humanity's energy crisis. And during the 26th century, they actually developed shock point drives which can be fitted into enormous vessels. The first of which being the USG Ishimura. Ooh. Ship from the game. Mm-hmm. And it's named after the guy who made the warp drive. So this ship was developed during 2446. It was the first to pioneer scan and catch techniques where it just harvests a big chunk and just uses gravity tethers to kind of like omnomnom hungry hungry hippos, put chunks of it into the ship, break it down, melt it down, and then take all the smelted ore back to Earth and just kind of dump it.

SPEAKER_02 44:47

The red dwarf method, yes.

SPEAKER_03 44:52

Yeah. And like and like uh Shy sharing uh a picture of the ship, it's a quite cool design. It's not like I've I don't like when you see ships in sci-fi where it's just kind of like like a like a a long like strip. It's just like it's just flat and it's and it's just kind of pointy. Like this this has like almost has like legs sticking out of there and it's kind of bulky looking, looks rugged. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

Looks like it's wearing armor, yeah. I like it. Yeah, I I've I've always liked the uh the dead space uh ships and the Ishimura and very cool.

SPEAKER_03 45:23

Um but from the remnants of the sovereign uh colonies, EarthGov begins to uh think, okay, this is a this is a good start to stop the the energy crisis, but maybe we should look back into making those markers that the the SC was working so hard at. Stop it.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

Hey, why would you be so stupid?

SPEAKER_03 45:43

Because un unfortunately, progress demands more, and as good as the Ishimura and ships like it are, Earth is still stripped of resources, we still need more, we need infinite energy please. And um fortuitously for them, they discover the CEC has illegally set up a mining colony during 2506 on a world called Aegis 7.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 46:09

No, no, no, no, defying EarthGov's strict instructions not to go there. Um, however, they were drawn to the planet because they were scanning it and they went, oh, why is this not in any of the charts? It's really rich in osmium and silicone and cob what why is no one cracking this planet? This could be the largest hall we've ever made as a company. And so they establish a col a colony. Uh dig team leader Jennifer Barrow, uh, after a couple of years there, two years and a bit of you know, checking out this, like they're like, oh, there's excavations here already. It's like someone was here before. That's strange. Oh well, we'll start beginning the planet cracking preparations because it takes a lot of time, takes a few years to just set it up because it's such a vast deployment of resources. Um and they accidentally, I say accidentally, they probably are influenced by Marker 3A to find it just sitting there on a pedestal. Like someone wanted them to find it. Oh. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Oh boy. But go on.

SPEAKER_03 47:16

And um foreshadowing is a literary tool. So as they send word to the CEC, oh, by the way, you know, we're doing all that illegal mining here. We also found a marker, and that's strange. All right, and again, remember who's one of their biggest stakeholders, if not the biggest one? Unitologists. Oh, jeez. And fun fact, a lot of people on the colony are unitologists. So they begin to gather in Union Square, where Deacon Abbott is preaching about the arrival of a new age and everything. And bear in mind there are like people who are in the security force, etc., who are like, ah, it's a bunch of bollocks. I don't believe it. Um, you guys are crazy. It's just it's just a I I understand it's alien technology, but it's not a religion, calm down. Uh, but that's not gonna stop them. And so the the colonists start to get riled up because they've just found a marker. They say, We've found a marker, that's amazing. And eventually word reaches the Church of Unitology, and they concoct a plan to secure the marker and bring it to Earth. And they say, Okay, we use the planet cracking as a cover, but we want the marker because that's our that's our religious iconography down to a T. I want it. But word also reaches EarthGov of the CEC's illegal operations. So they dispatch the USM Valor, which is part of the uh the defence force, the EDF, commanded by Commander F. Cadigan, to conduct Operation White Light during 2508, because they want to seize the marker for themselves. And although the USM Valor doesn't exactly know where the ship is, the Ishimura, because it's on it's en route at this point where it's going to be, they don't exactly know where the ship is, they're gonna wait until uh until they hear word of of what they inevitably know is going to be an outbreak.

SPEAKER_04 49:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 49:05

Now, back on Aegis two, uh Aegis 7. Do we have any questions before we get started on this chunk?

SPEAKER_01 49:12

No, just uh just this weird sense of uh foreboding dread. Um no questions, just waiting for the uh shit to hit the fan.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

The inevitable decline into uh horrific uh d mass death and weird culty alien stuff.

unknown 49:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

Also, can I say phenomenal job so far? Uh I really want to play Dead Spa.

SPEAKER_02 49:37

Yeah, no, I I am like 30 seconds away from like looking up the remake because I didn't even know that was happening. I um I want to go back and play Dead Space now. It's so good. It's so good for EPS.

SPEAKER_01 49:47

I I'm yeah, I I'm I'm I'm I might just play it today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:52

Um so anyway, so setting up for E the return to Aegis 7. 62 years after its creation, the USG Ishimura is making its way to the planet. Um this planet, uh this planet, this ship is such a uh a stalwart of the CEC that it's it's it's it's enormous. It has about a crew of 30,000, uh there's a crew of about 30,000 people on the colony, ship is around 1,000 plus people. It's an old, it's the oldest model of planet cracker there is. It's had lots of retrofits, it's the largest, it's the pride and joy of the CEC fleet, but as instrumental as it was to help the resource wars, it's nearly obsolescent. It's it's been almost like it's been 60 plus years since it was built. It's cracked 35 planets, and I think the amount that humanity's ever cracked is in the 40s, so it's done the lion's share of it. Um but it's it's it's it's being put out to pasture. So the CEC goes, well, we'll send the Ishimura, it's gonna be decommissioned next year, we'll we'll give it one last you know, act of glory on its final mission, its final voyage, and um we'll we'll send it out with a bang. Uh so by 20 their ideas by 2509, we'll have the marker, we'll have all these resources, and we'll decommission the ship in a final blaze of glory. Everyone will be happy. Uh they re- they uh they appoint a new captain. Um and uh funnily enough, uh there's a there's a CEC executive director called Warren Eckhart, who we'll see later. Um he replaces a big chunk of the crew with unitologists because he is a very zealous unitologist. And Benjamin Mafias, the captain, is also a zealous unitologist. So now the captain's a unitologist, a lot of the crew are unitologists, and they're gonna sneak the director on the ship as a crew member just to observe things to make sure it goes smoothly. Oh boy. Um I hate all of it. So as as the uh the ship is approaching, because it's gonna take a little bit of time, the colonists take the red marker off the pedestal. Oh no, that's a bad idea, and they get it ready to be basically lifted off into the Ishimura, because that's the main reason that they're there. And because they've done this, they've kind of stopped the dead space effect from happening, and now the first signs of the outbreak begin. Yeah, Hive Mind wakes up, people start to go a bit crazy, and on day 913 of the colonization efforts, um a miner called Brandt Harris, who's been exposed to the marker, is treated for insomnia and paranoia. Oh no. Oh shit. He'll come back later. Um I bet. As the Ishimura is literally, yeah. It's like it's like he's like he's going to the doctor, he's getting like medicine, it's not working, he's like, I can't sleep, I can't sleep. It's like, I wonder why. We found the strange alien thing, can't be related. Um but the colonists, as they're waiting for the Ishimura to take the thing away, they are starting to like fight each other for the privilege of standing next to the marker and defending it. Because who else is gonna steal this massive thing? But they're like, I'm gonna gun, and they literally gun each other down if someone tries to get too close, they're saying, Don't you take my marker? It's got to get on the ship. Don't you come in, don't eat, don't come any closer. Oh no, this is getting bad. Um the events of the game uh Dead Space Extraction, the uh the on-rail shooter. Uh we see engineers Sam Coldwell, Egan, and Sterling making preparations to take the artifact onto the Ishimura. They find a colonist called Zochenko, who is beating another man to death with a rock saw. Not great. Oh gun him down. Yeah. That sucks. Um, all three of them die due to hallucinations. I think if I remember correctly, uh Sam, the character you play as in the prologue, sees everyone else going mad and kills them, but he's the one who's being controlled by the marker and thinks he's seeing his girlfriend who is like, Come and help, we've got to get the marker away from these crazy people. And it's like, nope. He gets gunned down. Uh-oh. Oh god. And now the you the unitologists are unaliving themselves in Union Square to the point of about 60 people. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

Oh, this is all bad. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 54:08

This is very bad. So Captain Mafias is like, right, no fly zone, no one is getting on the Ishimura, only the marker is getting on board. If anyone gets close to the Ishimura, shoot them out of the sky, gun them down. We are not taking any chances. Swell guy. Um, and so we then also uh we get the the marker on board, chief science officer Terence Kine begins, you know, investigating, he begins studying the marker because like, oh, I'm a I'm a kind of crazy science guy. I'm gonna do some weird stuff to the marker, why not? And while he's doing this, the operation continues to do the planet cracking because they haven't quite popped the cork as they call it. Um, because that's what that happens when they go, that's the first big chunk of the planet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

Such a like blase way of approaching first ripping a huge chunk out of a out of a celestial body, knowing that you're about to process the whole thing into just oars and stuff, popping the cork, yeah, it's gross.

SPEAKER_03 55:12

And and they they they have and the the thing is the the last bit we see of this, like they they dig out a big chunk of the planet and it's held aloft on these like string-like gravity things that the the ship kind of holds it in orbit, so even though it's above the planet, it drags it up and it kind of holds it in place as it slowly kind of nibbles away at the ground. Uh and during this time, we also um get a POV in uh Dead Space extraction of a recurring character, Gabe Weller, who's a veteran of the resource wars, and uh Nate McNeil of Planet Side Security, who are investigating the deaths that have happened on the planet. They've gone down from the Ishimura, they go to the morgue, the bodies are missing. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 55:53

Oh, that's bad. Uh you know, love to see that.

SPEAKER_03 55:57

Soon after contact with the colony and the ship is lost, when the Ishimura reestablish contact, they hear that there are unknown combatants slaughtering all the colonists. Not good. Tunnels of the colony are filling with the fleshy growths as the populace are being driven mad. Uh the ventilation systems kind of drag the cells into them. That's how it spreads around the eventually the ship, but also the colony. And Gabin McNeil save a lady called Lexine Murdoch, who is part of the surveyor team. Uh, she is also the girlfriend of Sam Caldwell, uh, who died in the prologue. Oh no. They also locate Warren Eckhart, that sh that shady executive on the on the colony, and they escape the hive mind alongside him. Uh we then, if we look at the uh animated movie uh Extraction, no not extraction, uh Downfall, uh we see this this whole thing of, you know, remember Jennifer who found the marker in the first place? She is a husband called Foreman Colin Barrow. She on day 925 uh cuts her throat with a like a laser saw right in front of him.

SPEAKER_01 57:06

Oh, great!

SPEAKER_03 57:08

And then he takes her body, runs to like the nearest shuttle, and risks being shot out of the sky to try and get her on board the Ishimura for medical treatment as chaos is erupting around them. He manages to crash land on the ship, but unfortunately, at the last moment of him taking off, uh a a necromorph known as an infecta smuggles itself aboard while he's busy dodging laser blasts and being, look at me, I'm such a badass. It's turning his wife into a necromorph. So when he's crashed on the ishimura, he's violated the quarantine and he's all like, Hey babe, I did it, and he turns around and she's got like blade limb arms coming out, kills him, then he's turned into a necromorph. Now free necromorphs are running rampant on the Ishimura itself. Oh no. Oh god. Can I ask for a second?

SPEAKER_01 58:00

Also, uh, so the the wife just went crazy on herself with a laser saw across the case.

SPEAKER_03 58:07

I think it was a case of she didn't want to transform into a necromorph, so she tried to end it. And unfortunately, that's not how this works.

SPEAKER_01 58:16

And so what medical attention was she gonna get that was gonna solve the fact that she turned herself into a pez dispenser?

SPEAKER_03 58:24

I don't know, but he he was desperate. And again, and there's probably also an element of the marker wanted him to get on the ship and it smuggled the infector.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

Oh, yeah, they would be yeah, that's true. The marker would be affecting them, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_03 58:38

As Jai says, her last her last words are they want our bodies. This is mine, my flesh, my bone, and my blood. And she starts like pulling bits of it away with her nails, and you're like, oh no, she's not doing well.

SPEAKER_02 58:51

Okay. It's full on it's full on 40 chess from the markers, and no one has any idea as to what as to what game is even being played to begin with.

SPEAKER_03 59:02

It's just oh the the hive mind woke up refreshed and reinvigorated to do some mayhem. It it woke up and went, right, let's get to work, and it didn't waste a moment. Um our other intrepid band, Nate uh and the gang, Nate, Gabe, Lexine, and um what's his name? Uh Eckhart. They also managed to narrowly get onto the Ishimura. Um, they are the only four survivors of the incident. Uh bear that in mind. Most likely about 30,000 people have died on the colony. There's about a thousand plus left on the Ishimura. Now begins the infestation of the ship. Uh so now there's three necromorphs on board that we know of. They start rampaging through the ship, the infector escapes into the ventilation system and starts picking people off in the uh flight deck. Bear in mind there are communications issues. Before long, uh the infected the infectaform is in the morgue, it converts another 20 necromorphs, now you've got 25. Security can't track this thing going through the vents, it's really absolute mayhem. In the animated film, people are being attacked while they're having a shower, people are being attacked while they're asleep. They are not they are not able to prepare for this. They don't know what's going on, and they wouldn't be able to stop it even if they did. It's targeting methodically the the easiest prey until it has enough bodies to make bigger like bioforms to attack more people, and Captain Mafias is trying to respond on the bridge, it's not really helping. Survivors start to rally on their own at the medical deck to try and treat some of the wounded and and form a resistance. Dr. Kine to try and stop the captain's erratic behaviour, tries to administer a sedative. Um he stabs him through the eye and it goes into his brain, kills him. Um it's a bit different in like the film and the game. In the game, he just kind of like accidentally pokes him, but in the film, like they're trying to restrain the captain, he breaks free, tries to like claw at Kine's face, he's choking him out, and then he just accidentally puts it through his eye, falls on the floor face first, big puddle. I like in the game there's also the the rigs on their backs which show their like health, and that's how the game gives you like immersive. And you see in the animation where as soon as he like face plants, the bars just go bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, and it's ending. Oh, that's a very nice touch.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:27

I think that's that's genuinely one of the best like UIs for games. Oh, yeah. Just generally, it's so well built. I like that. The lack of menus are amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

It keeps everything very clean, like you don't have just uh UI clutter, it's just it's all right there and yeah, part of the environment.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:44

And uh bear in mind Kine is a site is a uh unitologist. What me's made a slip there. Uh he is a unitologist. Um but um as the officers try to like like restrain Kine, he escapes. Uh he manages to jettison a bunch of the escape pods because he's like, we can't let this outbreak go any further. He disables the ship's engines, and he's like, we need to contain this on Aegis 7, there is no way we can let this get to Earth. So even though he's like part of this cult, he is still like, I'm gonna try and do the right thing. I might be a bit crazy, but that doesn't mean I'm mad. Um and so his plan is if we can cut off the engines and keep it in orbit, eventually the gravity will drag the Ishimura into the surface, crushing the colony and blowing up the ship, and then we'll we'll get rid of this once and for all. That's his plan. In the animation downfall, uh Chief Security Officer Elisa Vincent, uh, she has a whole story, but I'm gonna cut it really short. Sorry, Alicia, Alisa. Uh, she tries to send a discret uh distress signal, doesn't know she's being manipulated by the marker. Jefferson's herself and the uh the beacon into space. Uh poor lady. She's a badass in the show, but she was being manipulated. Oh no, markers are bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:57

Yeah, markers too strong, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:00

Resistance is dwindling within the engineering decks because it's like there's very little lighting, though you've got weapons, you have no communications, plenty of places for Griblies to be stalking. Medical is also being ha harried immensely. Uh the crew on the bridge try to escape on the mining deck, it doesn't go very well. And a unitologist by the name of Dr. Callus Mercer, he's a he's a he's a sleeper cell, he's a unitologist. He is guiding, quote, the refugees to embrace unitology because this is the time of ascendance. Let's put on this this weird clothing and draw things on our faces and do rituals with with blood. Okay, Callus, have fun. Um and as this is all going on, a lady by the name of uh Nicole Brennan, who is the senior medical officer as a last-ditch effort, tries to also broadcast a message to her partner, an engineer by the name of Isaac Clark. Right. Here we go. Quick rundown of Isaac, because there's still a bit to go through. And I know we've been going a while, so I'm gonna try and keep this quite cogent. Uh he's born June 5th, 2040, 2461. He was born in the North American sector of the American Republic. His father, Paul Clark, worked as a member of the Galactic Union Merchant Marine Corps. His mother, Octavia, is a member of the Church of Unitology. Oh no. Because Isaac's had to be gone for a very long time. She'd feel lonely, she she found community in unitology.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:30

Take away her world's best mum mog, right now. Take it away from her.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:34

Um also his parents are also um named after famous science fiction writers, which is cool. Um, but anyway, uh Isaac graduates with honors from a small college on Earth. He enlists for with the gunk, like his father, uh fun acronym. Um, and unfortunately, his mother is admitted for uh psychiatric help uh during 2505 when he's 44. He meets Nicole at this care center, they form a relationship, but by 2507 uh Brenner would be assigned to the Ishimura because Isaac encouraged her to do so because he was like, Look, it's the last hurrah of the Ishimura, legendary ship, think of all the the adventures you'll have, go on, I bet you'll have a good time. Oh no, Isaac.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:19

Oh man, the guilt trip off that has gotta be insane.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:23

Wait, wait for it, wait for it. Uh Paul Clark comes back from his most recent voyage, but when he meets Octavia, uh he is murdered by her because she's lost her mind, and then she takes her own life.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:37

And what the boy, that's and and wait for it.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:41

And then the Church of Unitology takes both of their bodies and denies Isaac closure or access to them.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:47

Oh boy. Oh no. That's uh that's that's not good.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:53

Literally everything about what you've said. Every single part of it. Don't like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:57

Do you know what podcast we're on? This is The Dreary Universes podcast. Oh, I love it, but I also hate it. Um, and then so basically, Isaac's last transmission to Nicole is I blame you for my parents' deaths. Um, and then the incident happens on Aegis 7. Now racked with guilt, he volunteers to try and rescue her. And the CEC, they receive word from the distressed distress call. They assemble an emergency maintenance team on the USG Kellyan, commanded by Chief Security Officer Zach Hammond, and they they try to venture to the Ishimura to board the ship and repair the systems because they've just lost contact, they don't know what's going on. Uh, they in uh little do they know that their band of of the crew, which consists of Corporal Aidan Chen, Isaac Clark, Corporal Haley Johnson, also has a member called Kendra Daniels. Uh, she's a agent of EarthGov. Just gonna tell you now. Um she's also in contact with the UM USM Valor, which is waiting to intervene. So she's their like contact on the ship because EarthGov are not ignorant of what's going on, they know that the CEC is doing something shifty, she's their woman on the inside. They get to the Ishimura, they crash land due to a failure of the automated docking sequence. Um and they're it's an ominous sight. They get on the ship, the lights are off, where is the crew? Where is anything? This is really strange. Um as soon as they uh they get on board, they instantly realise oh, the ship has been intentionally sabotaged. That's weird. Okay, let's let's investigate like the the the like welcome area. Aiden is instantly like shanked by a necromorph, Isaac cut off from the rest of the crew, runs away, manages to find a plasma cutter. Oh fun times. Um I'm now gonna like speedrun all the things he does on the Ishimura because basically is a lot of here's a bo here's a barrier, here's a barrier, here's a barrier. Uh first he repairs the tram system. Uh he then attempts to evacuate the crew under command of Hammond, but the necromorphs blow up the Kellyan, and we also lose Haley. Poor Haley dies. Oh no. Right, what's the next thing? Okay, go up to the medical deck. We need to find Captain Mafias's body to get his rig with the codes. And by the way, the anacron the acronym stands for resource integration gear. So if they have his codes, they can access the bridge's shipls and find out what's going on. Isaac ghosts the morgue. That infector from the previous film infects Mafias's body. I think gross is gross. Kind of like pukes all over him and he goes and say, Oh no, oh no. Um story short, Isaac gets the codes. Um then warned by Hammond, oh, the ship is sinking into the surface, we need to get the fuel lines back on. If we don't put the thrusters on, we're all going to die. Okay, on it. Um, he reignites the engines, he recalibrates the gravity centrifuge, all good. Hammond then goes, All right, meet me on the bridge. By the way, I locked a necromorph in the last remaining escape pod because it tried to hurt me. Um sorry about that. Don't worry about it. My bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:19

It's locked in there, it's fine. It's fine, it's fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:22

Um spoilers, it gets launched out of the uh out of the bay eventually, so it gets jetsoned into space. That will not have any repercussions, I'm sure. Uh Isaac then ventures to the defense system cannons. There's a bunch of debris trying to pelt the Ishimura, so he destroys all that. Job done. Then he loses contact with Hammond. Kendra goes, oh, by the way, there is poison coming from the hydroponics deck. We need to stop that. Okay. Goes to medical, concocts a uh poison using chemicals and DNA. Dr. Callus Mercer says, Hello there, I'm the resident psychopath. Hello. Um, he unleashes a hunter necromorph. Um, and this one regenerates its limbs. Oh no. Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:12

Fun part. As if they weren't awful enough. Nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:15

Yeah. Uh so if you didn't think it was bad enough, imagine an unkillable necromorph just kind of like pestering you throughout the whole game. Fun times. Uh, but he manages to freeze the hunter and kind of slow it down for a bit. That's Mercer's problem, he can deal with that. Gets to um hydroponics and poisons a creature known as the Leviathan, which are just kind of there, causing all the issues. Um, there's also a bunch of uh necromorphs called Weezers, which are spilling the poison, so he kills all of them. Um Kendra is like, oh right, now that we've lost contact with Hammond, I have an idea. How about we like get a distress beacon, go to the mining bay, stick it on an asteroid, launch it out into space and see if we can contact someone for help. Not and Isaac doesn't know that she's working with the the Valor, which is full of soldiers who will come and like sort this out. So Isaac's just like, that sounds like a good idea. Um yes, please, please get me out of here now, please, yes, go. And so off he goes to the mining deck. I've got like I'm doing little hand gestures with my my fingers trotting along. So off he goes to the mining deck. Um he puts the SOS beaker on the thing, fires it out. Guess what? Nicole's alive. She contacts him. Say, Isaac, you need to help me. Oh, I'm alive. We need to sort this out. This is a mess, isn't it? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:38

Um that's not suspicious at all.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:41

Nope. Shush. Um Kendra then informs Isaac, right? We've sent the distress signal, but we're not getting any messages because the beacon's broken. Um, there's something which I will just call the slug smothering the array. Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:56

Oh no. Not slug.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:59

Enjoy that metal image. Off I go to shoot the slug off the ship with big cannons. Okay. Um, they re-establish contact, they contact the Valor, which Kendra's like, it just happened to be nearby. That was lucky. Unfortunately, as soon as they establish contact, and bear in mind on the way to doing this, you're receiving like messages but can't send them back, where it's like, Ishimura, uh, are you there? Ishimura? We received your escape pod. Are you there? Ishimura?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:27

Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:29

So as soon as they establish contact, you see like the commander of the vessel just being murked by necromorph, and you're like, oh no. Oh no. Um like again, Shai's just showing a picture here of like the pod surrounded by like several dismembered bodies. Oh no. Yeah, these are soldiers as well. These are like they knew what they were dealing with, and they weren't enough. Um unfortunately, the ship now crashes into the side of the Ishimura. It's full of warheads. Oh no. So you've got to get in, disarm the big warhead. Also, you find out there's an executive ship that's in like the the the officers branch, which could maybe be used to escape, but the singularity core needs replacing. I'm sure they have one of those on the ballor. I'll go fetch that. Uh Isaac manages to find Hammond just before he is torn limb from limb by a brute uh in the core. Poor Hammond as he smeared on the wall. Um then the ship begins to explode. Uh Isaac scurries out as quickly as his little legs will carry him, and right, we're almost there. Um we then go to the crew deck to put the Singularity Core in the USG09 executive shuttle, and Isaac meets Dr. Kine. And Dr. Kine is like, Look, I'm not crazy well, I am crazy, but I'm not that that kind of crazy. I'm like crazy-ish. I got my head on straight, don't worry. Um we need to like get the marker back on that pedestal, or we're screwed. I was like, okay, we can put it on the ship and then we can go down to the planet, and we can just hop it off and leave. Cool. He's also being pursued by the hunter at this point. Callus Mercer has captured an engineer called Jacob Jacob Temple. He then kills the poor guy, um, and then submits himself to be like turned into a necromorph by an infector because he's crazy. Um sure is. You then manage to fire up the shuttle, you use like the the exhausts to just kind of melt the hunter down to finally kill it, which is kind of fun. You have to like lure it into the like test the thrusters. Burn, bitch. Um, and that's good, that's very satisfying. You put the red marker in the cargo hold of the ship, Nicole appears again and goes, Okay, Isaac, I'll help. And um, as you're all ready to leave, Kine is at the shuttle and he's like, Come on, Isaac, we gotta go. And then he's shot in the heart by Kendra, who's on the side. And she goes, Sorry, Isaac, uh, I work for EarthGov. Um I'm gonna take this back to them because we're the only ones who can deal with this. We're not crazy like the Unitologists, but you're just some guy in a in an engineering suit. You can't possibly this is beyond your pay grade, I'll sort I'll take it from here. And then Nicole is like, Don't worry, Isaac, if we go to the flight deck, we can press a button which will recall the ship to the Ishimura, and then we can get back on board. Good idea, Nicole. Let's do that. Kendra's not happy, she launches the escape pod down to IJ7 colony, and then you and Nicole go on the ship to take the marker down to the surface. Um this is the end of the game, basically, the first game. You arrive on the colony, you manage to get the marker on the pedestal, and then the moment of your success, Kendra is holding Nicole hostage at gunpoint, and Isaac's like, No, no, no, no, no. And Kendra's like, You don't even know, do you? Remember that message you saw earlier. This time watch the whole thing. Because at the beginning of the game, you see the message that Nicole sent you, and she's like, I don't know what's happening, and he shuts it off. And if you watch the whole thing, the last thing you see is her putting a needle in her arm and passing away. Oh no, she was never there. This isn't you've been seeing it as Nicole. This is actually Jacob Temple's girlfriend, Elizabeth Cross from the horticulturist uh horticultural deck. Right, bang, she's gone. Oh no. Why do you do that, Kendra? Why are you like this? And then basically, uh the marker kind of helps you to confront her, like leads you a path to the ship where she's trying to escape with the marker, and then she gets completely like crunked by the hive mind. She's just like splat, there goes Kendra. Um and then it's like, oh no, there's this enormous beastie, I guess I have to fight this thing, last boss of the game. Uh Isaac puts up a fight, manages to injure the hive mind, he manages to get onto the ship, he flees Aegis 7, and then just as the piece of land, like the chunk of like land that's been cracked from the proverbial cork is falling onto the surface, because Kendra's like, I just want to like bury all this, so she was like before she left, say, by the way, that's gonna crush everything here, including you, and then jobs are good in. Uh he just manages to get like escape being crushed to death, it kills the hive mind, it buries the colony. The Ishimura is intact, but it's now empty. Um about 1,500 people have died. But the this isn't the end of the Ishimura, it's still around, it's not gone anywhere. It's just gonna patiently wait for when EarthGurf decides we're gonna try and we're gonna try and go back to the Ishimura and we'll see what we can find out. Maybe we can take it back to some somewhere that we control, and maybe we could maybe do some stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:13

These people learned nothing from Avenge Horizon. Nope.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:17

No, no. Did Ishimura get uh get uh crashed into, or was that the other one?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:25

The the Valor did get crashed into it, but it's a much smaller ship, so it blew a chunk out of it. But also the Ishimura is like it's a stocky ship. It's it's m it's built to be chunky. It can take a lot of lot of punishment. So it is basically a Darren.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:38

I thought the I thought the Valor was like a warship, like one of those big that you usually see. And I was like, oh man, if that thing with warheads crashes into the Ishimura, how is that thing gonna like stay in flank for terribly enough?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:50

That's that's why you also jettison like the big warhead into space because you're like, if that blows up, that's a problem. Oh yeah. With with that gone, you don't have to worry too much. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:59

Um yeah, I I thought it left a sizable enough hole that like the Ishimura was basically derelict at this point. You're not getting anything out of it. It's gonna crash eventually.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:08

And yeah. If I remember right, the the Ishimura is absolutely massive as well, isn't it? Like the tram system to get to and from either end of the ship because it's just so huge. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:18

Oh bear in my own. This thing is devouring planets to then ferry. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:24

It's a shipcracker. It should be absolutely gargantuan, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:28

And it's the biggest one there is.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:29

And um also, should I just post it? I guess it's a magazine or like maybe from like an art book or something, the size difference between the two, and I'm like, okay. Never mind. I get it. Sorry. Yeah, like stupid stupid thing to say now that I kind of size difference.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:44

The kind of like bridge section is the entirety of the baller, and then there's like 90% of the ship left. Um that's that's a chunky boy there. That is a chunky, a chunky ship. It is very red dwarf-esque, as you said earlier, carry off, which is um but now I've just got some little trivia and then a little bit of a if you want me to talk about the different necromorphs, and that'll be pretty much the the entire thing. Uh Hell yeah, let's go. So, little bit of trivia. If you actually read all the first letters of the chapters in the game, it spells out Nicole is dead. So Does it really? It does.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:19

Oh, that's a nice little that's that's a nice little uh That is oh trivia Absolutely love that.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:28

Um in the remake, you can do a second playthrough and you find these little marker fragments. If you collect all of them, at the end of the game it's slightly different because Isaac goes back on the ship with Nicole and she's all like, Oh my love, we need to make make our way back to Earth. He's like, Yes, darling. Oh, I'm just gonna do a little project while we wait, and he's there like making a new red marker. You're like, oh no. The things I do for achievements. Um that's very fun. So that's quite fun. Uh what happened to what happened to Gabe and company? Well, uh, long story short, Eckhart revealed his mission as a as a sneaky boy. Uh, he basically explains that um Lexine is immune to the marker because one of his missions was Is anyone immune to the marker's influence? Apparently she is, and he wants to take her to the church of of unitology for study. Uh she then is like, uh well, he shoots Gabe. Poor Gabe. And um fortunately Gabe's life is saved by Lexine. Uh they fight their way off the Ishimura, Nate is injured. Um Gabe basically says, I'm not gonna tell them about her immunity because if she knows, then she'll be a target by unitology, and that's bad. We just need to like have a normal life somewhere far from here. And um they secure a shuttle, they plot a course for Titan Station, which is where Dead Space 2 takes place. And they escape basically as soon as the moment the Kellyan arrived with Isaac, they were escaping. Um, unfortunately, Nate doesn't survive, he gets necromorphed, poor fella. Um, rest in peace to a to a to a real G. Um, but fun fact, Gabe comes back in Dead Space 2. He is the protagonist of DL of the DLC Severed, which unfortunately is not on PC. Oh no. Oh, come on, and it's fantastic. It's extremely well paced, it's a nice short couple of hour campaign. He he is it's like all action with horror bits here and there. It's fantastic. You can only play it on like PlayStation and Xbox, and even then I think you have to have already bought it. There's some weird gimmick about Sebed where it's not on PC and it's a pain to get, but it's really worth it if you can play if you can actually like find it. Um I love I love Gabe. Poor Gabe. Uh one day, maybe. Maybe. And uh that that's all like the little triver I wanted to mention here. Just a little bit of a roundup of the uh the different necromorphs, because I'm sure if I didn't mention some of the different variants, I'd get an angry comment here or there. Um it's YouTube, you're gonna get that anyway. Yeah. Even if it's about 90% accuracy, right? Just gotta minimize as best you can. Um so the most common one is the slasher. Guess what they do?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:19

Uh I think they did they slash? Is that they got arms with swords or something?

SPEAKER_03 1:23:22

To be clear, they are not they're not slash from guns and roses, right? That's a pissing everywhere either. They're not doing that. No. Uh and they're not having a slash. They are slashing. And they have big bony appendages. They have like little arms that come out of their tum tum, but they also have like the palms of their hands, these big bone like blade appendages rip out of them. And their job is attack you in groups, pretend to play dead. They're the ones in the game that always like, oh, I'm just a dead. Don't don't don't stand on me. I'm just a guy. Don't then they go, ah, and they they ambush you. Classic.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:58

Um, classic. I'm I'm sure we will like get into this in in in future episodes for Dead Space, but when it comes to what people are turned into and the effect of the markers, and it being like an alien thing, whenever whenever I think about the design of the enemies and the way they like just what they become, I always think this feels less sort of uh like alien alien invasion strategy and more omnipotent being is having a fucking laugh. Having a laugh and just making nightmares for the sake of nightmares. Like they're so awful, all of them are just terrible.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:42

Do you want to know another uh I don't know if it's a fun fact, but it is a fact. Um the development team, when they were designing the necromorphs, they consulted pictures of car crash victims as inspiration because they are just so grotesque and twisted and like broken up.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:58

I'm like, oh, that's grim. Um yeah, that's really, really grim. Although looking at the picture of the slasher that Shy posted, it's like, yeah. Well, they get worse.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:10

Oh, great.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:11

Yeah, whoopee.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:13

Um podcast times.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:17

Uh let's see. Uh the next one I want to mention is the Infector, who is very important because bear in mind a necromorph doesn't need an infector to make a Necron, but it speeds up the process quite a lot because it basically has this proboscis, it stabs you in the skull, kind of like voms all over you in like this like yellow slime, and then like instantly transform. There's a brilliant scene at the beginning of Dead Space 2 where um a character who is the protagonist of Dead Space sabotage or is it extraction? Uh I think it's extraction, yeah. There's there's like a little puzzle game that's a tie-in. No, that's extraction. What's the game ignition? Ignition, yeah. Dead space ignition is a little pot puzzle game, and the protagonist of that you meet at the beginning of number two, and he's like, I need to get you out of here. And he's instantly like stabbed in the back of the head, and he transforms into an ecromorph while he's holding Isaac, and then his like face falls off, and you're like, Oh no! So yeah, it's not fun. Um, and they have like these like fleshy bat wings, so they can flap around and kind of fly. They are grim. Well, they're all grim, but they're especially because they're quite vomit, they're quite flappy, and they're quite stabby, and we don't like any of those words.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:36

Um you can still see the spinal cord and the pounds at the bottom of the yeah, Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:45

Don't don't love the don't love that. It kind of reminds me of like a reverse face hugger.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:50

Yeah, basically, and it's a more violent one because it's so like stabby. Um look at those claws. Ugh. Um next one we got is the leaper. Can you guess what this does?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:01

Uh I'm guessing they also like to play pretend on the ground, but they like to leap at you. I mean, they jump scares with these jerks.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:09

They leap from the walls, they leap from the ceiling, and they're a pain in the zero gravity sections where they just kind of you you'll look you'll turn the camera and then they'll just be like uh subject. Is it that is it the George Michael meme where his like hands out and he just kind of slowly approaches the camera? What's that meme? That meme.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:29

Oh, oh no, that's not George Michael, that's um that's virtual insanity, right? Um Shimiraquai? Chimiquai. Chimericwai. Yes. I I just recently saw that one completely unrelated. It was a monster hunter one. Um and it was like, oh, you're a POV, you're a monster, and you just fell asleep, and it's the the hand pushing a bomb right next to the camera. Anyway, but yeah, I thought that was quite good. But yeah. Virtual insanity. Let's go.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:57

Um the next one's pretty horrific. This is the love. Um I don't think I actually have a picture of this one. So fun fact about the Ishimura, they have like these cloned bees in their um biological prosthetic centre. And they basically use them as an organ bank. So if someone like accidentally cuts off their arm during a mining operation, they grow the bee, and then you've got a new arm, because they just cut off the arm the arm and they put it on you.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:26

Oh, that's horrific, actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:28

Non-sentient, I think it's worth pointing out. If I remember correctly, it's they're not like you know, they are they are some orchid, and there's like a million clones of this one. Yeah, they're in like these. They just keep growing them up and then taking limbs off. I think they're like, aren't they like I forget the phrase, but they're like blank or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:45

Yeah, they're like I don't think they have sentience. I think they're just like bodies.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:50

Oh god, these are horrible.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:53

Oh, no, yeah. They sprout they sprout these tentacles from their back, which they can either leap at you and stab you with, or they shoot like bone barbs from range, and they can also crawl up the walls, and they're pretty disgusting. And fun fact, they get worse in Dead Space 2 because real babies get involved. Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:15

Yeah, I was gonna say, aren't these? It's even like I was gonna say, I I absolutely remember these little baby fuckers from uh Dead Space 2. Yeah, and it's when you And I remember them being awful.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:29

You're like, oh, they're laughing at me.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:32

Oh, it's terrible, it's awful. It's atrocious. I love this series. Um, this is the pregnant, also known as the swollens. Um they are basically um slashers, but they have a big tum-tum, which contains a sack of swarmers. So if you shoot them in the tumtum, they spill out and they crawl after you, and then they try to attack you en masse. Um they are very slow, they hit pretty hard, um, but they they're pretty gross, pretty dang gross.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:06

Uh so you want to avoid shooting the big tumtum at all costs.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:10

Yeah, shoot the arms, shoot the legs, but also sometimes if you like shoot off a leg, they'll roll on their back and they'll just like pull out their stomach anyway, just as like a ha ha, got you anyway, deal with these guys now. Oh thanks, thanks for that. These are the little these are the little gripplies that come after you. Um great, love that. Uh we've got the exploders, they explode. Um boomers. They have they have a big pustule on their arm, and um either you can shoot it and blow it up from range, or they will kind of lumber towards you, smack it onto the ground and and blow you up up close. They also have like their arm and their like torso form, these kind of like legs, so they can kind of like again they're not very like gracious, they're quite clumsy, but they they just kind of drag themselves towards you, and they have these kind of like gremlin voices where they're like, what's that about? Don't do that, please. No. Uh these guys are the bane of a lot of an Iron Man, if you're not careful, and they get a bit too close and you're oh I didn't see him, pop, oh no, I'm down.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:15

Um I'm trying to remember, did do when they explode? I can't is there is there like a a liquid element to it, or am I misremembering?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:23

Um there might. I mean, it's it's it's kind of like an organic pustule. So there's gonna be some Yeah. Um you can also like you can also shoot their arm off and it just kind of flops on the floor. You're like, oh well what are you gonna do now, mate? You're gonna come you're gonna bite me. Um He's like, Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:41

Pretty much The way the legs fuse into one like from the from the hips, and then you can see all the intestines just above where the where the thighs and knees are sealed together is at what the hell?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:56

Whoever made these character models needs a therapist, I'm sure. I need Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:00

Like it's it's one of the I think I'd forgotten like just how viscerally upsetting a lot of them are. Like I could vague like vaguely remember them, but I mostly remember things crawling around on the floor with blades sticking out their arms that I really didn't want to be anywhere near because it was horrific. I'd forgotten just how like really well detailed, but in the most awful way they are as a whole.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:27

So like the the slasher is the vanilla necromorph, and it's already terrifying. Like that sucks. Oh, we just getting started.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:34

Oh no. Um I kind of love that like where his face separates, you can see like where it separates. He has teeth.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:42

Yeah, yeah, and like really icky. His brains bisected. Also, Shy saying, yeah, you can cut off their arm, grab it with grab the posture with the gravity gun, and just like hurl it back at like a big group of enemies. It's quite useful. Oh uh this guy is the twitcher, which is basically a slasher, but these guys are from the Valor. Because they're soldiers, they have stasis packs in their armor, and when they transform, they fuse with the stasis pack. And weird thing happens where their bodies kind of react incredibly fast. They kind of do you know, like Albert Wesker from Resident Evil, and when you throw, wishum, wheezum, they do that, but they also kind of like twitch all the time, hence the name. And that they're just really annoying. They just kind of run at you and they sidestep your bullets, and you're like, could you stay still for one second? Um and they're about to sit seven minutes, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Seven minutes. That's all the time I have.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:39

Seven minutes. I need to call, look at me. Chris, Chris Redfell, Chris. Um Jill Valentine.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:48

Uh I'm gonna put this on your chest. No, Wesker, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:51

Um this is back for the Resident Evil episode, eh?

SPEAKER_03 1:33:55

This is the Weezer, not to be confused with the band Wheezer. Um, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:00

I mean, I I knew someone was gonna make that joke, but I didn't know who was gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:07

Mm-hmm. Uh this guy's kind of rubbish. He's he's a gimmick enemy that's in that hydroponics level where they don't attack you, they just kind of sit there looking very unhappy, breathing poison. Um yeah, their lungs have grown out of their stomachs into the the back and become mahoosith, and they just they just kind of sit there like, please put me out my misery, please, please, please, please, please.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:31

Oh god, yeah. The one shy posted, like the one the the artwork of it was bad, but the one shy posted is like, oh god, holy shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:41

Yeah, yeah. They're only in number one, I think. Um I can't remember them being in subsequent, because again, they are literally just like there's a few of them, kill all of them to complete the objective, and it's like, okay, but the the design is cool, but they I guess they couldn't really do much with it's just a big lump of lungs.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:00

Yeah. I mean they they look like they are absolutely suffering. Uh not that the other ones look happy, but like at least the other ones look like they're just kind of like mad and they just want to like get around. We haven't even gotten it. These ones look like they're properly suffering. Oh, we it gets worse.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:21

Oh wait for it. Way for it. Uh this one is called the spitter. Guess what this does? Oh, great. But he doesn't swallow. Uh well, fun fact only women can be spitters. Yeah. Oh no, trivia on the on the I was like, oh, why? No idea. It's like, oh yeah, they're all female crew members.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:40

Oh fantastic. Also, yeah, that the those distended gums and teeth coming out of the skull are just uh this is the brute. He's big boy. Ah, uh this is the thing that ripped him in apart, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:35:56

Yeah, yeah. Uh also, this is not one person. This is the culmination of multiple people. Um it's got a very tough exoskeleton.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:08

I'm gonna say, this might be controversial. Of all of the designs so far, I actually think the brute is kind of the weakest. Yeah. Just because it looks totally not totally different, but it loses the horror of everything else because everything else is recognizably like, oh, this this was a person, holy shit. Well that's more generic sort of monster.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:31

Oh boy, the remake brute is definitely with what I expect. Alright. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:38

Okay, well, the original, I feel like you're I feel like the original wouldn't look out of place in Morrowind, I've got to be honest, looking at it. Agreed, actually, yeah. Like, but then the remake, you're like, oh, who did who did this? Who's this?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:51

That's more what we expect. You can see the multiple legs that go into making one leg. That by itself is upsetting before you even get to the like dis the the ribs making up part of the mouth, but then there's also the and bear in mind, this is more than one person.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:09

This is multiple persons.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:10

Yep. Like you can sort of see on its shoulder, there's like the the eye, the empty eye socket of a skull. You can see another obviously distending, all the teeth, yeah, all the arms, uh, all the legs, all the oh boy, howdy. That's a that's a nightmare.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:27

I bet his dental appointments are a rough. Um another one that's molded made of multiple people to an extent, the divider. Uh, but not in the same way. The divider, who divides her insider insider. Um they're also known as creepers. These things separate into multiple bits. So it's not multiple things making one necromorph, it's one necromorph making multiple necromorphs. So it's head, arms, legs, and stuff all separate and then they crawl after you if you do enough damage. It's not fun. Also, first game, always the high-ranking Ishimura officers. Is it because they're unitologists that are like in praise of the marker? Maybe. I don't know. Possibly.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:11

Um maybe it's uh an allegory for being good at delegating responsibility. Maybe that's what they're all for for they're always wriggling out of responsibilities.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:20

Totally. Yeah, I I like that one a lot more.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:24

Yeah. Um ready for my the most upsetting one in my opinion. Um Guardians, right? Guardians of the Galaxy. Uh, this is an early stage guardian. These are basically people that are shoved into the corruption, the big flesh flesh masses, and they still have like sensations of pain and themselves. And they scream at you as you go past. Uh you you can see they don't have legs. That's not good. You can see their chest is open. That's not good. Um when they mature Oh boy, when they mature, they become this. And oh no. And you might be able to see there is what I can only describe as a disgusting orifice. Um yeah, but that sprouts tentacles which shoot projectiles at you. Oh no, they they they plant to the wall and they kind of like just like spew out blobs which then make like tendrils pop out that shoot at you. So it kind of like gives it's like a it's like the corruption spreads, it funnels like blobs of gloop through its massive capillaries and tunnels. And if you get too close to this, this is an insta-kill enemy, a big siphon-like appendage just pops out and cuts your head off. So don't get close to them. And bear in mind, as they attack you, they are screaming their heads off because it hurts so bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:52

I don't like it. Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:54

Oh, yeah, that's that's awful. That's terrible. That is not what I would call fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:01

That's and they can't move around, they're stuck on the wall, they're stuck on the wall. Um, not fun. Um and then the last ones, uh I'll briefly mention the tentacle, why not? Um this one's a tentacle. It is a tentacle. It's probably a part of the Leviathan. Uh occasionally one will grab you during your like walking through the corridors, and you have to shoot the big like pushule to release your release its grip. Um they're in the game, but I think they're just like a piece of the Leviathan. Okay. And then the last Yeah, yeah, it is what it is. Yep. Sorry, like I like the faces. No, don't like the faces. They're awful. They're gross, they're grippy. They don't look happy. They're not part of the choir, they're not singing a song, they're having a bad time. I mean, one of them looks like it might be kind of happy. It's very slaneshi, isn't it? Like, oh no. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. And the last one of note I want to mention is the hunter. Now remember I told you about that guy, uh Brant Harris, who was having that uh those headaches on the uh the colony. Turns out he's the invincible uh necromorph that's pursuing you through the ship. Because uh Callus Mercer was like, I'm just gonna do some weird stuff to him because the the marker was whispering to him and he was like, Oh, okay, I do this, okay, and he created a monstrosity that pursues you through the whole ship and is a nightmare to deal with. Um yeah, that was Dead Space One and a bit of lore, a bit of enemies, and uh yeah, fun times. If you haven't played the original or the remake, I would advise is better because it adds some extra content, um, it's obviously got better graphics, etc. I think the the remake is fantastic. Um yeah, I what did what did you think of our delving into this disgusting, gribbly, yucky setting.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:57

I loved it. I I I'm I think literally once we are done here, I'm going to go buy the remake and and play it later today. Because I yep, yep, yep. I'm like, damn, it's criminal that I didn't finish it before.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:12

Hard same. I'm like, I'm I'm kind of like I'm not like annoyed at myself that I missed so much like when I first played it, because it was it was like on release, which was how many years ago now? I don't want to think about it. Let's not talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:25

Let's not When did the remake come out? That's the real question.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:28

I think it was three years ago, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:30

Wow, so recent. Glad to hear that instead of the original.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:35

Yeah, we'll stick with that date. But yeah, no, it's uh yeah, the the markers are such a like a cool uh just a cool thing in general, the origin at this point at least being kind of weird and different. And just the way that the way that Earth goes from bad to worse, and then the chosen solution was uh religious zealotry combined with literally destroying other planets just to keep uh the species staggering along whilst being horrifically manipulated by weird objects from however many millions of years ago. Love it. Absolutely quality setting.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:20

Yeah, and and like Shy said, it if you got hit with the oh yeah, you're forced to live in the setting that you just played a video game of, this is a terrible setting to live in. Like she said, even if you even if you just get rid of the necromorphs, it's not like the e-gov is great. It's not like unitology is great. Like the the markers are still obvious. Well, I guess the markers are like a by like necromorphs are a byproduct of the uh whatever, but like still, like it's just Earth sucks, resources are gone, we're planet cracking.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:51

If we compare it to last time I was here, we talked about Gears of War. At least you can leave like Earth. If if Earth goes bad, that's true, you can get out. But to be fair, what's worse, having a bit of extra freedom, but you might turn into a Gribly or the mole men are gonna chop me in half with a chainsaw. Uh I don't know. Both are pretty bad. Not great.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:14

Yeah, yeah, both are both are bad. Both are definitely not great settings to live in, regardless. So wouldn't wouldn't want to live in Dead Space, definitely don't want to live in Gears of War universe either.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:26

And Shy says, honestly, one of the shittiest settings to live in, even without Necromorphs, everything just sucks. Like, what have you got to look forward to, newborn baby? Oh, Global Warming 2.0. Hooray! Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:40

Uh and no spoilers or discussion here, but they do explain where Markers and Necromorphs came from, and unlike the explanation of Eldritch Horror and say Mass Effect, they actually don't fumble it and it's cool, and we get to DS3, it would be and if we get to DS3, it would be a cool discussion. Hopefully people will comment, like, and share so the video does well and we make more.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:58

Yeah. Well, again, I'm I'm happy to. Hit the buttons, everyone! Hit the buttons! But because we've done a lot of prehistory and setting things up, I think it'd probably be like I feel like doing two and three would work, because there is a little bit of DLC for two, there's a little bit of stuff for three, but I feel like now that we've established the setting and done a lot of the like, here is the setting, here is the prehistory, here's what a necromorph, how it's how it how is it made? How is how's the sausage made? It's a bat oh no, don't call a necromorph sausage. Um the worst sausage you've ever seen. That's not a battenberg? That's a sausage, I think. Anyway. That's a cake. Is it? Ah, sausage cake, delicious. Uh no, not the snow.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:40

Every time I think of like how a sausage is made, I uh have you seen that video of uh Snoop Dog? He was on a late night uh talk show in in America, and they were like, Oh yeah, it's this is a how it's made. Can you figure out what they're making? And it's a factory that makes hot dogs, and he the whole time is like, What is that? Oh, it's so gross. What is that? Like pink ice cream, and then slowly it dawns on me. He's like, Oh, that's a hot dog. That's a hot dog. And it's just every time someone talks about how the sausage is made, all I can think of is Snoop Dogg's just horrified reaction at how hot dogs are made in factories. The horror of learning where your food comes from. Yeah. Faux chizzle.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:19

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:22

All right. So I thoroughly loved it. Like I said, I'm probably going to buy Dead Space now. Remembrancer. Great job. Do you want to shout your stuff out?

SPEAKER_03 1:46:32

Uh, if you'd like, yeah. I do the Remembrancer, I do Lore Crimes, and I also do Lodgecast. That's what I do. It's fun times.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:40

Hell yeah, it is. From experience, it's fun times. You should check it out. Kirios, I'm gonna give the distinct honor of taking us home to you. Why do you always do this to me?

SPEAKER_02 1:46:51

I fumble it almost every time. Because it's so much fun. God damn it. Thank you everyone for listening. As Shy did mention, if you happened to enjoy the episode, which you obviously did because you're listening to the outro, then you should comment and you should like and you should share. And we will be back with more of this next week. Not this specifically, but something else grim and dark. See, I did it again. See you next time.