The questions of Dead Space 3

[Starke]

If the markers are now completely evil, why did the one on Aegis VII contain the Hive mind?

Maybe the 'pedestal' was an off-button? Actually, I'm not sure. Good question.

As I recall, the Markers actually inhibit Necromorph activity at close range, something like a meter. Or at least, they're supposed to.

Here's the problem. The games don't actually use this. You see it actually used in at least one of the animated films, and it's in the in game lore, IIRC. It's also why the necromorphs can't move the markers around on their own, otherwise they could just pick the damn things up and take them with them.

The pedestal is supposed to be an amplifier, that expands that dead zone to something ridiculous, like an AU. So, yes, effectively an off switch.

I can't remember if the Black Marker actually had an amplifier of its own, which is why Earth avoided a necromorph outbreak, or it there simply wasn't an infection there to begin with. Though I do know part of the problem in the first two games is that the red markers are imperfect, and will result in necromorph outbreaks, and the black ones might not? Like I said, I don't remember.

EDIT: I actually double checked this... and it gets weirder...

Downfall was the animated prequel movie that EA put out around the time of the original game's release. It's got a few continuity weirdnesses that don't mesh with the games. That includes a dead zone around the markers that necromorphs can't enter. It also establishes (sort of) the whole idea that the pedestal is an amplifier for that field.

However, all of this seems to have been jettisoned sometime during the original game's development. So, the reason returning the Marker to Aegis 7 is so important was gone before the game even got released.

*shrugs*

 

[GameChanger]

If the markers are now completely evil, why did the one on Aegis VII contain the Hive mind?

Maybe the 'pedestal' was an off-button? Actually, I'm not sure. Good question.

As I recall, the Markers actually inhibit Necromorph activity at close range, something like a meter. Or at least, they're supposed to.

Here's the problem. The games don't actually use this. You see it actually used in at least one of the animated films, and it's in the in game lore, IIRC. It's also why the necromorphs can't move the markers around on their own, otherwise they could just pick the damn things up and take them with them.

The pedestal is supposed to be an amplifier, that expands that dead zone to something ridiculous, like an AU. So, yes, effectively an off switch.

I can't remember if the Black Marker actually had an amplifier of its own, which is why Earth avoided a necromorph outbreak, or it there simply wasn't an infection there to begin with. Though I do know part of the problem in the first two games is that the red markers are imperfect, and will result in necromorph outbreaks, and the black ones might not? Like I said, I don't remember.

EDIT: I actually double checked this... and it gets weirder...

Downfall was the animated prequel movie that EA put out around the time of the original game's release. It's got a few continuity weirdnesses that don't mesh with the games. That includes a dead zone around the markers that necromorphs can't enter. It also establishes (sort of) the whole idea that the pedestal is an amplifier for that field.

However, all of this seems to have been jettisoned sometime during the original game's development. So, the reason returning the Marker to Aegis 7 is so important was gone before the game even got released.

*shrugs*

That's a good point. My initial theories about the markers were that it was imperfect, and not supposed to cause necro's, because of the replacement of that Alien element. That got hammered into the ground though, but I am not sad about it. EVIL LOVECRAFTIAN BEINGS AS LARGE AS MOONS. Turn the dial up to ridiculous and you got yer plot goin'.

Oh well, retcons are plentiful in game development. It's not as bad as say, Mass Effect, where everything from the first game did not matter in the second, and everything from the second game did not matter in the third. All different kinds of Reapers? "Nope they all look the same, jackass, stop pressuring the design team, we have a forced deadline to push."

Saying that makes me realize that DS 3 also had a forced deadline to work with, but still worked fine in the overall plot. I can answer all of these questions and/or tell you why they don't matter. It's gotta do with its genre.
Hell, we can start talking about Alien, the most famously acclaimed space horror fiction in entertainment since Lovecraft, and there would be a lot of nitpicks and stupid questions you could ask.

"Why are refinery ships in the future so large?"
"What kinda fuel do they run on? Is it oil? Why do we never see how it works?"
"Why is Ripley the only sensible person on a gigantic ship, ran by a couple of morons?"
"How does the Weyland-Yutani corp. know about the Xeno's on Acheron?"
"Why do they send a team of idiots under a false reason?"
"Why don't they send soldiers and marines if this mission is so valuable to them?"


You could argue about the background lore but that doesn't change the film, or my point:

It doesn't matter.

People do stupid things in sci-fi. Screw-ups and plotholes happen in fiction because a writer can't account for everything. When you manage to bridge three entire games in a relatively satisfying conclusion I'd overlook the occasional weirdness. Norton was a nutcase, Isaac is an extremely combat-efficient engineer, Danik is a zealous moron convinced by stupid ideals and Ellie manages to survive stupid shit by sheer luck. It doesn't matter cause you're fighting ALIEN ZOMBIES.

 

[Starke]

My main question is how does Ellie have her eye back, last we saw it on a screwdriver?

Actually I think I might have that one. The one time I paid that attention, I spotted her eyes were each of a different colour. Presumably then, she had it replaced with another, real or fake.

This does raise the further question however, of why then if she went to the trouble of getting a replacement, she didn't get one the same colour.

Ahh right, makes sense. Being the future and all I would presume it was real, but being a different colour probably not. Eye patch would've been totally cooler anyway.

She didn't get a matching color because they (she and Issac) didn't have a lot of funds, so they were only able to get a cheep prosthetic. It's in one of the text logs in Chapter 1. How you can end DS2 with less than a couple hundred thousand credits worth of gear is beyond me... but, that's the explanation in DS3.

Okay, now I'm going to wade in on the rest of these...

What was the point in revealing that Norton was Ellie's new lover?

To push some drama, also to provide Issac with the ability to be more sympathetic as a character, without betraying the character that's presented up to that point.

Also the law of character conservation.

Why did the Red marker New Horizon immediately start a convergence pulse?

Maybe it was lonely?

Seriously, though, it's more likely that it simply detected enough dead tissue in it's vicinity because of Danik's purge. That is of course assuming that Danik didn't have the Unitologists pile corpses up around the thing for when they set it off.

A better question would be, how the hell was EarthGov able to keep Markers in a standby state. That would seem to be vastly more useful than wandering off on the hope you could turn them all off...

If the markers are now completely evil, why did the one on Aegis VII contain the Hive mind?

I already talked about this, earlier. Short version is, the Markers followed slightly different rules in the first game.

Why are you free to put on any other RIG after the Arctic Suit portion and go out into the storm with no repercussion?

Good question. And, conversely, on New Game+ (or even just using the chapter replay feature) how can the arctic suits provide protection in space.

Why does the RIG protect you from absolute zero in space, but on a planet that can support human life without a thermal suit, your body heat drains?

This actually gets into how we measure temperature, what absolute zero actually means, and what the actual considerations for space suits are.

The short version: I'd be rather surprised if the EVA suit didn't have built in AC. And, it would need it to keep its occupant from cooking themselves in space. So it actually makes perfect sense that that suit wouldn't protect him from the cold.

The long version isn't really worth typing up unless you actually want to hear it.

Why doesn't Isaac go into shock after his body temperature fluctuates over 20 degrees?

Thirty, not twenty. You can get Issac's body temperature down to around 7.5c without killing him. Which is, quite frankly, even more ridiculous. At that point, he shouldn't be in shock, he should be flat out dead.

Why is a massive cult one of the most popular religions in the future?

Because they built themselves up through careful social engineering, and they've had about 250 years to do it.

Why are there Necromorphs on New Horizon? In the previous games, the markers didn't cause the virus, scientist bio-engineered it from the markings on the Marker.

The Unitologists are responsible for the Necromorph outbreak on the Sprawl, why would New Horizon be different? So far as that goes, though, this is the first time I've heard that the Necromorphs had to be actually engineered, and weren't a byproduct of things dying in the general vicinity of a Marker.

Is that one special?

Well, it's big.

Why do dogs morph into exactly the same Necromorph as babies?

Because the Ishimura and Sprawl didn't have dogs, and the Terra Nova fleet didn't have babies. It's pretty clear that the Necromorph swarm likes certain options in it's critters, and it will engineer them out of whatever's at hand. It's the same reason the Aliens become Brutes and Crawlers, instead of the Necromorphs fusing their own brutes together out of the crew.

How do Necromorphs organize themselves when they are moving through vents twenty at a time?

One at a time, one at a time. Single file. You know that.

Why do military weapons do so much damage in this game, despite Dead Space 1 logs making it clear that conventional weapons do very little.

It kinda depends on the weapon, there. The issue with handguns in the first game was, they didn't do enough damage. The colony and the Ishimura weren't equipped to deal with anything like the Necromorphs. The Pulse Rifle was a completely viable option. The Valor fell victim to Twitchers, so by the time they realized something was wrong, they were completely screwed.

Why are the Necromorphs in this game green? I thought Marker affected DNA didn't deteriorate.

I'm not sure. Feeders don't seem to, but beyond that? Mostly it's just there to keep the enemies interesting, and because the art director did get the base textures for the games from scanning rotting meat.

What was the point of adding an alien species?

It answers a question the series threw out in the first game. "Where are the aliens?" And it's been a big mystery in the back of the series. Because there isn't a clear explanation for where the first markers came from, or what alien life is out there.

Why aren't the Black Necromorphs a different color?

Because rotting meat eventually turns that color, maybe?

When did Isaac become a weapons engineer?

2507. Honestly, probably earlier than that, but still.

What purpose does a bolas or chain lightning serve in mining?

Neither of those are mining tools, they take pieces from mining tools and then strip off safeties and go from there.

The bolas is a modified version of an ore cutter, that's been reconfigured to bounce around randomly. The chain lightning is, I think, an arc welder, that's been reworked to zap everything around it's target.

Why didn't a convergence event happen at the Black marker on Earth?

Not enough Necromorphs.

If being exposed to markers cause Necromorphs, why didn't an outbreak happen on Earth?

One did. It's detailed in one of the tie in novels.

Why did the SCAF soldiers have integrated RIG's when the description for the Engineering suit says that it was the first application for said technology. Those soldiers are from 200 years ago.

Good question. I'd be a smartass and say we don't know how old the Engineering Suit actually is, but suggesting it's over 250 years old is pushing it.

Why would the Blood Moon being completed cause Covergence across the galaxy?

It wouldn't. It would cause one on Tau Volantis.

Why are there so many markers on Tau Volantis?

Because part of the insanity the Markers produce cause people to build more.

Why was Norton promised a ship?

He asked for one.

Didn't he already have a ship?

Probably not when he made contact with Danik.

Did he know it was going to be destroyed?

Because it had already happened, and he doesn't have amnesia.

Did he know they were going to fly into a minefield and crash onto Tau Volantis?

No, but he knew they did fly into a minefield and then crashed on Tau Volantis after he'd done it.

Is he an expert in things that have never happened?

Obviously, not, or he'd have known better than to trust Danik.

So, here's the short rational train of thought for this. Most likely Norton didn't contact Danik until after the Crozier crash. If he initially made contact with Danik after they made it to the main compound, there's fairly large window of time for him to warn Danik about the minefield, and ask him to give him and Ellie a ship, and Danik can have Issac. We even see him talking to Danik or one of Danik's men right before the autopsy. So, most likely, that entire betrayal wasn't planned out in advance by Norton.

Why do the Aliens only turn into one kind of Necromorph?

Two, they turn into Brutes and Crawlers. Why not others? They probably do, but we just don't run into those.

Why does scanning an alien cause Isaac to have a Prothean vision?

Because Issac is barking mad?

Why did the bloodmoon immediately get covered in rock? Wouldn't it just look like a frozen giant monster hive mind?

The moon probably wasn't "immediately" covered. It's been sitting in orbit for tens of millions of years at least. Plenty of time to get coated in space debris.

After Convergence, what happens?

The moon gets up, and goes and finds another Marker, and eats everything there.

Do the Necromorphs have a dance party?

What do you think slashers are doing whenever you see them?

Why do all the other man made Markers work? In Dead Space 2 we find out that they don't cause convergence unless they absorb the minds that made them.

Yeah, the marker in DS2 was kinda special, in a pants on head kind of way. The Red Markers seem to work just fine, though.

Who made the other markers?

Aliens. Well, the Red markers (like the one on Aegis 7) were made by the SCAF. EarthGov made a bunch in the seven years between DS1 and 3, as Danik says at the beginning of the game.

Why doesn't Janik just kill Isaac after the second time he escapes?

Who's Janik? And Danik doesn't because just shooting Issac the third time would mean he loses the Codex. The first and second oppertunities he had were squandered because he feels he's a man of culture.

Does he think that the third time would be the charm?

No, the third time is a hostage situation.

Is he some kind of moron?

Only if we're talking about zealots being automatically morons.

How do Janik's top men, in an army that has toppled government, get taken out by one engineer with a total of one day of combat experience against zombies?

Again, who's Janik?

Also, over and over, through the series we're shown that the Necromorphs are so much worse than just zombies.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy???

'Cuz.

 

[Elijin]

What I'd like to know:

Why does Norton force Isaac to help find Ellie at gunpoint? This isnt actually true, they entered the room and had him at gunpoint because Isaac was paranoid and armed. They then stowed their guns after disarming him, and invited them along to help Ellie. The moment she was mentioned, he was on board. It is later said he was dragged there at gunpoint, but only in the midst of emotional fights, where Ellie is being over the top and mis-representing it.

How then does Norton fly directly to Ellie right after without any need of Isaac? She gave him co-ordinates and then jumped. They're bringing Isaac because he's a marker expert, not because he knows where she is.

Why does Norton, after his determination to recruit Isaac, then decide to let Danik know exactly where to find them? Between the initial recruitment of Isaac and the corruption of Norton, the EarthGov forces have been entirely defeated, they're without a ship and necromorph infection is spreading in Earth space. Norton's priorities shifted to pure survival.

Why does Norton, who supposedly loves Ellie call Danik in the first place, who then proceeds to try and kill every single one of them, bombing the bridge, for example? He's desperate, alone in his desire to go home, and without a ship. Desperate people make desperate moves.

Why does Norton get mad at Isaac, who he knows still cares for Ellie when he is recruited (or so we're led to believe), but not Ellie who is supposed to be over Isaac and in love with him? He clearly gets mad at both of them, in almost every scene they're together.

Why does anyone in the group think going to the planet with two soldiers and no supplies is a better option than seeking help? The first party was a research party, just poking about, remember they didnt know what was going to be out there. The second party was quote 'The last of EarthGov forces' There isnt anyone else to send.

Considering the moon was just discovered after (at least) 200 years, why does Ellie believe that "Now!" is the only timeframe in which the necromorph menace can be dealth with once and for all, instead of getting help? Because EarthSpace has been infected, and the EarthGov fallen to the unitarians. There was no going back for help, failure to stop the markers meant unitoligist victory (and therefore necromorph/marker victory)

Doesn't Danik stop to think how hypocritical he is when he says shit like "You can't possibly know what the Moon even does!"? Danik has faith, as he's a religious zealot. he never claims to know what the moon does, but he has faith in his religion, and the moon is a huge part of the alien technology he worships.

Why doesn't Isaac get hypothermia when his body temperature evidently drops as much as it does? Space magic.

How can Danik claim to be a "man of reason and science" yet be a Unitologist? Religion and Science are not always polar opposites you know. Also both religious zealotry AND marker exposure inspire insanity, so his words should be considered as such.

How can Isaac lift giant rocks when on those amplifer platforms, but not "living" necromorphs? Structural integrity? After all you can target necromorphs, it just tears them apart. alternatively, maybe its in how the TK works, something to do with living tissue, as its never shown to be functional on living tissue.

How the hell does Danik get to the "Machine" first, after the insane amount of bullshit Isaac had to do to get there?
Come to think of it, how does Danik get everywhere before Isaac? He has functional shuttles.

Why doesn't Isaac just take one of Danik's shuttles and skip everything from Chapters 9-17? If this was your next question, why did you ask your previous question? Also the ships were heavily armed and not exactly sitting around waiting to be captivated. Only at the complete end, when their forces are depleted do our good guys manage to commandeer one.

What is Carver (the trained veteran soldier) doing the entire time Isaac (a psychotic engineer) is doing what he does? Protecting the unprotected crew. Alternatively, rolling with you in co-op.

How/why do the Regenerators escape from their confines of 200 years at precisely the moment Isaac happens to visit?
How was it that Isaac managed to encounter every audio log recorded by Serrano and his SCAF colleagues in precisely the chronological order in which they were recorded 200 years earlier? Life being in the system pulling the necromorphs out of hibernation. There wasnt much to do in those 200 years, with every single living thing who knew about the site, dead. Also dumb luck to the logs. Or you know, narrative drive.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

You could argue about the background lore but that doesn't change the film, or my point:

It doesn't matter.

To the casual viewer stuff like that may not matter, but it does tend to matter a whole lot to people who are... shall we say, highly invested? I liked Dead Space and all, but I wasn't super invested in its story, so most of its little nit-picky plot questions were easy for me to overlook while I was playing. But that doesn't make answers to those questions somehow less interesting to me, either. If for nothing else, they're points of curiosity to me. I may not be super invested, but it's still a universe I like, and there's no harm in trying to better understand it.

Hell, we can start talking about Alien, the most famously acclaimed space horror fiction in entertainment since Lovecraft, and there would be a lot of nitpicks and stupid questions you could ask.

Alrighty, I'll bite.

"Why are refinery ships in the future so large?"
"What kinda fuel do they run on? Is it oil? Why do we never see how it works?"
"Why is Ripley the only sensible person on a gigantic ship, ran by a couple of morons?"
"How does the Weyland-Yutani corp. know about the Xeno's on Acheron?"
"Why do they send a team of idiots under a false reason?"
"Why don't they send soldiers and marines if this mission is so valuable to them?"

1. The USCSS Nostromo wasn't a refinery, it was a commercial hauler. Think tugboat. The Nostromo itself was actually pretty small (the ship that you see landing on Acheron is the entire Nostromo), the majority of what you're seeing in the introduction is the ore refinery that it's towing.

2. The USCSS Nostromo is powered by a fusion reactor. Disabling the coolant systems for it was how Ripley set the ship to self-destruct.

3. Captain Dallas was following company orders. Blame the company for being idiotic, not Dallas. Granted, Dallas wanted to break quarantine and potentially contaminate his whole crew to a possibly dangerous organism... but who wouldn't want to do everything in their power to save a friend who is hurt? Ripley being there to be the voice of reason in that situation is part of the reason why she was second in command. One could argue that Ripley wasn't the voice of reason afterall, because she didn't relieve Dallas of his command after that quarantine stunt or detain Ash for insubordination. But still... the whole voice of reason thing? That's part of why ships have XOs, so there isn't a break in the chain of command should something compromise the captain.

4. In the context of just Alien, they didn't know. The USCSS Nostromo picked up what was believed to be a distress signal by chance, and following company protocol the crew was required to investigate. In the context of the overall series though... because of Prometheus it's possible that Weyland-Yutani did know that something was out there (the events of Prometheus take place in relatively close proximity - in space terms - to the events of the rest of the series) and were using commercial ships to conduct makeshift recon for them along shipping lanes.

5. The crew of the USCSS Nostromo were essentially space truckers. They weren't scientists (well, except Science Officer Ash) or soldiers. They're not necessarily idiots for being unprepared to deal with such an extreme situation, they were just outside of their element. As for why they were "sent" there, it depends on whether you're looking at the context of just the single movie when it was made or the series as a whole. In just the one movie, they found the beacon by chance and were merely following company protocol to investigate what could possibly be unknown intelligent life. If you look at the series as a whole, it's likely that the company was intentionally sacrificing the Nostromo and its crew on the chance of finding something far, far more valuable to them.

6. Because in the first movie's context it wasn't really a true mission. At the very most the company could have suspected that something was out there, but they didn't exactly know what. And again, if we're talking in the overall context, the Nostromo was possibly being sacrificed in the same way that Carter J. Burke and the company sacrificed Hadley's Hope, and later planned to sacrifice the surviving Colonial Marines as well. The company clearly doesn't put a particularly high value on human life compared to neat little science projects. It'd be far from the first time an evil company behaved in such a manner in media.