Ideas about adding some Narrative to the game?

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21

First we must believe that sentient machines can ever exist. If we do, we can believe that the FNIX code has added algorithms that mimic human behaviour and emotions. Basically, you could claim the same of humans. We could see humans as biological machines. Our algorithms are chemical instructions governed by our DNA, combining and interacting with hormones, all controlled by our chemical brain - our computer.

For instance, some humans act afraid when faced with a threat. Machines can have the same reaction if they simply have the right algorithms in place. If a machine has enough of these algorithms it should be able to act or react like a human. Is it then sentient?

Now not all humans are equally afraid. We can say that those personal differences are based in our DNA. Can’t we then not also agree that machines can have personal instructions which determine the algorithms they run when danger is near?

Obviously the Dev (writer) must have had something in mind, why else give us the clues? I haven’t really thought about in what direction the story might be pushed, if Egorov’s findings are indeed correct, that at least some machines are starting to become sentient as well, like FNIX. But story-wise it could become harder to defeat the FNIX machines for the Soviets, since they’re becoming smarter and are using counterespionage to gain the upper hand. The soviets must then come up with a new, better strategy.

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Btw
 When reading the letters again (nesting dolls, war figurines) I found a lack of information about the firebirds.

The existing letters give me the impression that the soviets failed in all aspects. Their machines are less smart and too few.

But in real, watching them on the battlefield with firebirds as support, I get a different impression. This new offensive quality and where it comes from needs more background from the soviet point of view in my eyes.

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Yes, they did. Story-wise they failed because, FNIX machines keep coming no matter how many they destroy. Their goal was to stop FNIX, but that turned out to be harder then they expected.

Eradicating the hostile machines from this area and claiming it for ourselves as planned might call for a harder fight than we are ready for. The soldiers are hard pressed. Each day someone dies.

Commander Makarova has ordered everyone to leave the town of Hagaboda

However for the game, machines need to spawn. Without that there is no fighting.

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Thinking about this, I believe that the “Soviet dolls” information is from before the introduction of Firebirds. In the “figurines letters” they consequently talk about “Mechanical Units” without specifying the Soviet machine.

Our story ideas should only be about the sub-storylines, and not whether or not FNIX will be defeated, because for the game to be fun we need the conflict to exist, not solved.
There have been plenty of little interactions with story characters that could be explained or further elaborated on.

I think Egorov’s findings can lead to some more sneaky warfare against FNIX, where for instance misinformation can help put FNIX on the wrong foot.

Tatiana’s story-line can be something in the lines you said, with her defeating Bolshakov.

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Right, the Matryoshka Reports were from before the Firebirds were dispatched. The Firebirds arrived too late to be of any help to Bolshakov, at least at the time. How I see it, anyway.

As for Egorov, I think the “sentience” he spoke of was the FNIX AI’s control over the machines. Not anything unique or specific to any other machine. I’ll have to look again through the figurine letters and all, though, as I may have missed something or be remembering something wrong.

Anyway, some great ideas scattered about in here. Soviet Mechanical Unit held CPs, meeting Egorov or at least finding out more about him, Tereshkova and Bolshakov, the other Soviets, Veronika, more to do with Frederik Holberg—he’s in the Ringfort, I want him to pay for his involvement in this!—the works


As for Kenneth/Growing Tree, I want him to pay for what he’ done, too. Between him and Bolshakov, I don’t know who should be our first human victim. One, the other, then we might be done. If none of Bolshakov’s followers have survived, that might be all. Everbody else, for the most part, seems to be playing well together. Then again, with you mentioning the Iron Church
may be more survivors out there who wouldn’t be playing so well together, more antagonists


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This is what Makarova writes about Egorov’s notes she found:

If what he writes is true, these machines operate in a completely different way than we have assumed. They might even be sentient. Sure, this man might be crazy, as the capture team hints at, but he might also be onto something - and I did not rise to this position because I shy away from uncomfortable truths.
I need to find Pankratij Egorov and have him continue these experiments.

She clearly talks about machines in plural. But she could be interpreting it wrong.
We never saw anything concrete in Egorov’s notes ourselves. So for now we have only Makarova’s letters to go on.

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Right, I believe she was interpreting it wrong.

I assume all the Swedish machines are at all times connected to FNIX, but they’re generally running on automatic
just carrying out basic commands, search, destroy, with no sentience of their own. FNIX seems able to assume direct control, likely of any machine at any time, as it seems to have done in observing and speaking with Tereshkova several times and them working together some. Of course FNIX would also likely be able to provide more complex, clandestine commands for the machines to follow. That is what I think Egorov observed—the information gathering the “captured” machine was conducting.

The machines don’t talk to one another that we know of, beyond sharing of information (enemy detected, regroup, fallback, attack), so I don’t think there is any evidence of further sentience thus far.

Could always be something we haven’t seen, though. If anything, with how I think FNIX has ‘decentralized’ itself following Bolshakov’s attempt to capture the nerve center, and our use of the EMP/suitcase nuke at a certain FOA facility, I think the sentient AIs would all technically be FNIX. Clones, duplicates, able to work separately or together at any given moment, likely completely indistinguishable from one another. Unless a Soviet AI showed up, or Veronika managed to cobble something together.

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The problem with GZ lore is we’re often receiving information without clear statements or concrete evidence. Even when a statement is documented, it may still only reflect the beliefs of the person providing it. Initially I, like you, also thought that FNIX had taken control, like I believed he did with Tatiana. But since we are discussing possible narrative directions the premise of new sentient machines in the game is exciting.

Nevertheless it’s plausible Egorov’s ideas were just ideas, or that Makarova misinterpreted the notes, as you rightly with good argumentation pointed out. Still, I am wondering why Makarova interpreted Egorov’s notes the way she did.

We, “the player”, are getting a lot of pieces of information that other factions in the game might not have. I’m interested in whether the Soviets had intelligence suggesting FNIX was a sentient AI.
If so, wouldn’t it be conceivable that Makarova had arrived at a different conclusion, speculating that FNIX took control of the captured Hunter to gather and scan data and information, rather than what she wrote about “the captured machines might be sentient”?

Would her interpretation of Egorov’s notes suggest that the Soviets did not know?

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@IlessthanthreeHind, I saw you mentioning Character Bio’s elsewhere, and I remembered something.

If we look at Ingrid Granqvist’s Bio, we see "STATUS: DECEASED

In Von Ulmer’s bio it says “STATUS: MISSING” and I always wondered about that since we know that his “body” died 17 days after his Brain-Machine interface surgery. Presumably not his mind and we know that FNIX sounds like Svante von Ulmer.

In the mission “Test Run” Veronika says: “Why does it keep talking in Svante’s voice? I can’t stand hearing him say things like this.”
And FNIX answers: “It is not Svante’s voice, Veronika. It is mine.”

So what your take on this, since the story expansion could also give us more information about that “STATUS MISSING” statement.

edit: By the way, anybody can reply. :coffee:

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with or without new dlc :slightly_smiling_face: I will still continue to enjoy the game for another 40 years in my Alaskan Cabin away from any Towns and Walmarts and only Solar Power for electricity and no Wi-Fi, 40 years from now, won’t need it, there will be no more game patches for my PS4 anyway

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You never know.
And you never know what live service features may come, that need internet connection. :sweat_smile:

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Now that’s a beautiful place and an awesome future. I’m just a slight bit jealous! Man, I wish I could go live off-grid somewhere like that


40 years is a long time, though! :sweat_smile: Such dedication!

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Yeah, a lot of the information we get—the lore—is made up of information gathered from personal notes, journals, imperfect or one-sided information which may not be entirely correct or complete. It leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and allowance for the game to go off in so many different directions.

If I recall correctly, most of Egorov’s ideas were about unidentified alternative/redundant power supplies within the machines, but there definitely was also that suspicion of intelligent control. As for Makarova, indeed most or ALL of the Soviets, I doubt ANY of them knew the full extent of the situation in Ostertorn—that the FNIX AI had developed so far. Such imperfect/incomplete information could lead to so many different interpretations and misunderstandings for them, just as it can for the players. That is good writing, for so many characters to have different information, to be set against one another so often. In any case, if Egorov suspected an intelligence was having some influence on how one machine was operating, it would make plenty of sense for Makarova to think that could mean every machine was independent, whether it isn’t the case or it is.

We know that there are two different factions within the Russian camp, and that one of these two factions (Bolshakov’s group) would be withholding information from the other faction—secret plans and separate intelligence. We know that the Soviets have/had agents on Swedish soil, scattered about Ostertorn. We might think that one or two of those agents could be double-agents, supplying tidbits of information to both sides
 There are mentions of both “red” and “yellow” agents, and talk of such spy games on both Swedish and Soviet sides. Espionage and counter-espionage.

It seems Obvious that the Soviets knew the Swedes were working on these machines, and so the Soviets also worked on somewhat similar technology. The Soviets probably knew the Swedes had some new ides on how to control the machines (the neural link VU was working on), but the Soviets probably learned too late about how far and in what ways the FNIX AI had developed.

As for VU’s missing status, that could just be a clerical error of sorts. Proper authorities never got the chance to recover the body, so, missing he is. I still don’t think FNIX is VU. I figure FNIX resents VU, and more so the other members of the team who tried to shut everything down—like Veronika, and Frederik, and anyone else related to the project. I think FNIX merely uses VU’s voice, imitates some fragments of his personality, and tries to use VU’s supposed presence as a sort of psychological warfare. But, as we’ve said, there is plenty of room for misinterpretation, and new details may always come to light that give us more answers and lead us in other different or more certain directions.

Speaking of room for misinterpretation, there is a major element that adds to that potential; while some of the information we get is dated, some isn’t. The player is more or less free to wander and discover many pieces of lore in any order, so it would be very easy to piece things together in a different order—leading to a completely different idea of what all went down.

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34

Are you here referring to the agents Red Worm and Yellow Reindeer?

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Yeah.

Red Worm I think gets mentioned several times, and it seems clear that they are a Soviet asset inside the Swedish program, or with additional assets inside the program who can get information out FOR Red Worm. Killed, eventually, by Bolshakov—though Bolshakov told Tereshkova that it was the Swedish machines that did it. FNIX seemed to have eyes on Bolshakov at the time, and made contact with Tereshkova through use of a Tick to relay that information on Bolshakov to her.

Yellow Reindeer I think was only mentioned once, might have been by Fredrik Holberg himself. Maybe an audio log, tape recording
 Holberg makes several other mentions to the spy games going on, if I remember right. The high stakes world of secret R&D projects, breeds a lot of espionage.

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I was meaning to ask you about this. Tereshkova was contacted by one of the little machines. That could’ve been a Seeker, a Tick, and perhaps even a Runner, since compared with a harvester or tank a runner is small. And a runner has a voice box.

So why do you think it was a Tick? :coffee:

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I trying to confirm this statement, but I can only find that we found a transmission in Morse code on HimfjÀll. Message:

"DECEMBER 25 1989

To: YELLOW REINDEER

OPERATION LYNX IS A GO. PENDING FINAL ORDERS FROM COMMANDER IN CHIEF. GROUND DEPLOYMENT ON SWEDISH SOIL IMMINENT.
AWAIT FURTHER ORDERS.

MERRY CHRISTMAS".

It seems a message from the Soviets to their agent.

Reporter Monika Byström had started investigating Fredrik Holberg. Her sources converge towards a military compound on HimfjÀll where we then find the coded message. What are we to think?

How do you think Holberg and Yellow Reindeer are connected?

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Check the Matryoshka Reports. Pretty certain one of them, when she was contacted while going to relieve herself, points out that it was a Tick that first directly contacted (spoke with) her. Pretty sure the location where that particular report/doll was found even had the Tick present. If I remember right, that location is not marked on the map
but is along the north side of a road, west from Skvadern Command Bunker some distance, beyond a logging camp
 That area is often patrolled by all sorts of machines, mostly Swedish, with the occasional Wolf and Lynx group


An earlier report mentions that she was being specifically observed by a Runner, which she noticed, while in the later reports she gets in contact with one Hunter (which, like the Tick I mentioned, we find disabled) and is escorted from then on by another Hunter.

As for the connection I thought I remembered between Holberg and Yellow Reindeer, I could easily have been mistaken. I’ll have to check his audio logs and such again, might have been something in there or a mission item, or I could just have mixed things up.

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I agree.
I’m also sure there was/is a Tick at that location.
And the text of the doll is about a tiny machine, which finally exploded.
It’s the russian nesting doll #5.

Here are all infos about the dolls and where to find them.

@Gysbert
I edited the text of doll #5 to:

It came from one of the small machines [Note by authors: probably a Tick].

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Right.

Though, curiously enough, last I saw, the Tick at that location is just flopped over upside down, doing the “dead bug”
instead of being a bunch of random bits and pieces, which it should have been.

The lights still flash, or did at the time, so finding it should be pretty easy.