Sublevel 107 wrote:Hmm, now I think... I think Mateusz should look not only on list of questions to give a clue about some of them, but also on our vision of submachine full story.
I am hoping that Mateusz is not going to give us "clues", but instead actual straight-forward answers. The fact is that there's a bunch of stuff he has kinda-sorta implied and the puzzle pieces are so scattered it is hard to piece together the narrative outside of Murtaugh's reasons for leaving the Core and that he ultimately was a good guy working to fix his mistakes.
We will not be able to agree on enough to do what you suggest.
"We didn't leave the Stone Age, because we ran out of stones."
Anteroinen wrote:I am hoping that Mateusz is not going to give us "clues", but instead actual straight-forward answers.
I am fine with clues if he plans to reveal it later on.
For example:
all the exploration team plot points will probably be conveyed in The Explorers so I am fine with clues for that subject.
The origins of S.H.I.V.A will probably be conveyed in The Engine, so I am fine with clues for that subject.
Anything else, like time, karma, and etcetera should be conveyed in a complete answer
What you are suggesting is that we should send our own answers to Mateusz so he can
a.) create plot points for those concepts
b.) define them as true or false
c.) something else?
Jesus, no. What does "create plot points" even mean? Less parsimony, more confusion? And correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't it been stated that the questions must not be yes or no? EDIT: it's not about theorizing anymore, yeah, that's what I've been trying to say.
Also, Anteroinen's right. We can't agree enough, and it's been proven, even. Remember the subnet pamphlet or what was its name?
Last edited by reed on 11 Jan 2018 16:05, edited 1 time in total.
No, Sundex, that’s not what Ant is suggesting at all.
The purpose of the Q and A is to ask Mat for direct clarification to the different parts of the mess that is the Submachine narrative. There are questions we have that cannot be answered, and we’re hoping that he will answer them straight out. This is not a time to tell him “hey we think this this and this is right because theory, is this right?” because he will just probably say no and be done with it.
What this Q and A project is about is realizing that Mat in fact does NOT have all the answers and is NOT a god when it comes to creating games with solid stories, and we are asking that he help us out for once and drop the facade of being mysterious when in fact it’s clear as day that he didn’t always know what he was doing. He is not a mysterious all knowing game creator that has carefully placed every detail in his games, and if you have that mindset you’re simply refusing the facts that answers to some of the games are simply unsolvable unless to make them up yourself, aka what everyone is doing with theorizing at this point. There’s nothing else to be gained unless it’s through direct Q and A. No one at this point can be the hero and provide the answers.
If you think your theorizing and checking with Mat to create plot points is a good idea, then you fail to realize that maybe in this instance Mat is not the good storyteller/world builder you’ve cracked him up to be. I’m sorry but the purpose of this is no longer to create timelines out of trivial details that Mat probably didn’t even mean to make so you can submit them for validation and win brownie points. Sorry if that sounds harsh but that’s not what this thread is for. It’s not about theorizing anymore.
And I do understand why you think theorizing is the current way to go now. You guys are new. You’re like the theorists from 2010, believing that the answers are within your reach and that Mat has orchestrated this so well that only True Theorists can figure out everything. But the older members have realized how this is not true and we are sick and tired of being shorted of ways to find the answers game after game. Which is why none of us are bothering to theorize anymore because we’ve had seven years to realize that there is no point to theorizing about things that were never lined up to make sense. I mean, we’re literally at the point where people like you are asking if you can submit plot points yourselves to fill in the holes. Then you guys get a sticker for helping answer the questions (aka, build the narrative, which was Mat’s job) and feel good about yourselves, and the rest of us feel cheated. There’s nothing wrong with us saying “we can’t possibly figure this shit out, let’s just ask him direct questions” instead of pretending “all is as Mat intends it to be and he can do no wrong, and we will just put our own theories together and they’ll be right”. It’s an illusion and you can buy into it as much as you want, and we’ll see you in seven years or so and see how you feel.
But for now I say the list of questions is pretty good to go so send it in and see what Mat will do.
Pretty much, yes. Plus, theorizing is really only at its best when a series is on-going. Sure, it can still be fun to try and come up with an explanation of the tidbits you're given afterwards as well, but theorizing was definitely the most exciting when we were actually guessing what was going to happen and what was going to get revealed. After the series is done though and the climax is reached, we're kind of expecting that we'll have our answers for the most part anyway.
There are definitely narratives out there where it is supposed to be left up to interpretation and figuring it out has been built into the games as a part of the narrative. There's nothing wrong with that and it is its own kind of creative endeavour. Submachine, however, I do not think is supposed to be like this. The games are supposed to be a bit mysterious, yes, and leave you wanting for more details about the history and technology, certainly. They are clearly not, however, supposed to be hard to follow or obtuse. You get some plot points spelled out pretty damn clearly about Murtaugh and Elizabeth for instance. There is a story there, and honestly, while the details are fuzzy the basics are plenty obvious. Once you finish Submachine 10, you're supposed to be satisfied with their narrative.
Yet, Submachine is obtuse and it is often hard to follow. What makes it worse, is that the more you think about it, the more confusing the story becomes. That's really, really not supposed to be how it is, I think. Some of these problems are probably plot holes (like how exactly the XYZ-portals were converted and found) but some are probably simply a matter of Mateusz not spending enough time in the games giving us information so that we understand the world of the games (the society where Murtaugh and Elizabeth hail from with the architects and dynasties and stuff, for example, which we factually do not know enough about to understand what is what).
EDIT: Also, I will reiterate what I said before: if Mateusz intends to deal with a subject in a game, then I am okay with him not directly revealing the plot of a future game in his answers. That is obvious. None of our questions, however, require him to do any such thing. Even if he revealed some information about something we're going to deal with in a game, I am not bothered at all, because that gives us some context for those games.
Does anyone else remember when Mateusz just out of nowhere went "yeah, subbots, those are a thing" and then they were mentioned in Submachine 6 and we understood the Edge's structure and some notes better because of it? Remember how nice that was, getting exclusive information about how the Subnet works by being fans on the forum? That was so nice, wasn't it?
"We didn't leave the Stone Age, because we ran out of stones."
* 1. Is location 672 an example of a Submachine in construction?
* 2. Does the Submachine copy structures built by aliens?
*** 3. At the ends of Submachine 10 and Submachine Universe, the Player ends up in a desert. What is the significance of this place for people like Murtaugh and Elizabeth, and where is it located with respect to the rest of the Submachine? Is it a foreign planet, as it appears, or is this an alternate Earth?
* 4. Does the Submachine have an outer shell, like in the movie Cube, or is it infinite? If yes, what is it?
*** 5. Where is the Edge located exactly? Is it a wall between the Core and the Outer Rim, or is it surrounding the Outer Rim? Or both things are true, and we travel to the outer part to disable the inner part's defenses? How does one explain the human infestation map in Submachine 6?
*** 6. What does the Defense System actually do and what is it protecting? Who are the turrets for and where are they pointed? Does it govern the subbots? Does it protect the Core or is it at the outer edge of the outer rim? Are the defenses in or out?
*** 7. If the Lighthouse is a part of the Core and the Root is a part of the Outer Rim, how can they be connected physically (as seen in Submachine 5)?
** 8. What is the true layout of the Lighthouse? Is the painting shown in Submachine 1 correct? If so, why can't we see the entrance nor the third floor window in Submachine 2?
* 9. Is LittleTornado right in his calculations on how big the Root is? That is to say, does the Root comprise of approximately 1413 rooms within 157 distinct transporter locations, which are a small part of 11,818 rooms of transporter locations?
* 10. What is the significance of the statue seen in 314 and why is it so similar to the one in 452?
** 11. Why do all the layers have a black void in the background while in Submachine 8 we see different sky backgrounds?
** 12. Is the starry background in Submachine 8's layer 2 fake, or is Submachine really so big that it can host whole stars inside it?
* 13. Are there locations in the Subnet that even Murtaugh with his karma arm cannot visit? If so, why? Are they specific locations, or do they form a group due to some property? Could they be reached by someone else?
** 14. Do the structures seen at the ending of Submachine Universe imply that the player didn't exit the Subnet from any of them because they weren't their home layer?
** 15. Where is the Kent we keep hearing about? England, Connecticut or some place original to the Submachine canon?
TIMELINE
** 16. At which date does the first game take place?
*** 17. When was the Lab created and for what purpose? Was it a part of the attempt to understand the collapse and rapid expansion? If not, what was it for and who controlled it?
** 18. What happened exactly in the period between Submachine 4 and 5? The player woke up in a bed at the start of Sub5, with food and coffee, and there are no signs of them having been teleported recently; how did they get there?
*** 19. What is the purpose of the Root in the Submachine storyline? What was it used for and who by and for how long? Why was there an observation room; is the place still used? In short: what is special about the Root, outside of it being the first man-made Submachine?
*** 20. What were the seven-layer bullets used for and when? Was there a war between followers of Murtaugh and those who opposed him? Did people try to kill Murtaugh later? How did this affect Murtaugh? How did this affect the Subnet?
** 21. What is the rough timeline of the "Sub-Eras" and the "Dynasties"? When did the singularity happen?
** 22. Is the plot for Submachine 9:
a: Mur and Liz travel into the past and are revered, but soon die and are buried in a proper format.
b: Mur and Liz go through time normally and, therefore, die normally.
** 23. What are the specific moments during the series that the player travels in time, and roughly how many years/decades/etc. do they go forwards/backwards?
*** 24. Why does the Subnet exist at all? Where did it first come from and what made the first location be created/absorbed? Where is it? Is it inside a universe or its own universe? If the first Subnet location wasn't necessarily built by humans then what's responsible for starting everything? What was the intended purpose of just having a bunch of places in empty space somehow controlled by a computer?
LAYERS
** 25. Are layers and sublayers actually arranged in a continuum similar to the number line, as the note from Submachine 10 suggests? That is, is there a sublayer 1.5 between layer 1 and layer 2, a sublayer 1.25 between layer 1 and sublayer 1.5, and so on?
** 26. If so, what is there after layer 7? Does the structure wrap back to layer 1, like the numbers in a clock or like in a Submachine loop? Or there is simply nothing past it?
* 27. What distinguishes the seven main layers from all other sublayers?
** 28. In layer 8, if all atoms are "frozen in time", why can the player move?
*** 29. What are the specific moments during the series that the player changes layer, and which layer do they end up each time?
** 30. How do karma portals interact with the layer "dimension" (assuming that the layer dimension is accurately explained in the first place)? What does it mean to have "interdimensional karma flow"?
** 31. Who made up the plan and were the layers involved created by someone/something in particular? If so, how? If not, does that mean it's just something that was "discovered" that's tied to this fictional universe that we just have to accept?
*** 32. How exactly does one decide where to transport to find a new KP or XYZ location? So many of the XYZ locations are completely closed structures, so does that mean that the portals were already inside? But then how were explorers able to access them if they weren't previously reverse-engineered? And how does Mur find new locations to turn into KP locations? Does he just point his arm off in space until a little chime plays so he knows he hit solid material?
** 33. Are there instances in the games where layer and dimension are not used synonymously? Consider, for example "[t]he Submachine is now living in five dimensions" in Submachine 10.
KARMA
** 34. What is the difference between green, white and blue karmic energy?
** 35. Is the colour of a karma portal significant in some way? How about the size (as seen in Submachine 7)?
CHARACTERS
*** 36. What is the purpose of the player's journey? Could you explain the player's journey in your own words and how long it took? Are we a student going through a museum ride or what? How long after the events described in the notes is player actually situated in? Months? Years? Centuries? Millennia?
* 37. What is Elizabeth's ethnicity?
** 38. In Submachine 10 we see a lot of skulls, but no skeletons? Where did the skeletons go and where did the researcher get so many skulls in the first place?
*** 39. Who were the unidentified people who left the notes in Submachines 8, 9 and 10, and how were they produced? Why are they written as dialogue, if they are notes? What is the speakers' and the notes' significance to the story?
* 40. Does Einstein actually have powers, or was that just an illusion caused by Murtaugh's uncontrolled use of karma in the lighthouse?
*** 41. In Submachine 10 we see what we assume to be inactive subbots lying about everywhere. Are they actually subbots and if not, what are they? Why are they there? Who used them and what for?
* 42. Do subbots attack humans? If not, what is the note in location 613 referencing? Why and how do they do this?
MISCELLANEOUS
** 43. What significance does the AI from the note in Sub8 have on anything we see in the Subnet? Is the AI in question SHIVA? Is the AI responsible for first creating the Subnet? What is the answer to "Why are we" and is there a demonstration of this answer anywhere?
*** 44. Does SHIVA or some other AI actually control all of the Subnet or just some parts of it? Is this a part of Submachines or has SHIVA just taken over?
*** 45. Why is resin pouring into and burying different Submachines?
"We didn't leave the Stone Age, because we ran out of stones."
Quoting Mateusz: "you can make a list of most urgent questions about the subnet". Most urgent. I still believe this list is too long, especially considering that many of these questions require lengthy, thought-through answers. I propose to remove at least some of the less important questions.
