The great Soviet plothole

[NJR87]

I know there is already a Russian troop topic, but I want to be a little more specific with this.

I have the impression that there’s very little discussion across the forum on how big a plothole the soviet presence on Östertörn really is.
I would like to read your opinions on this.

I have two major issuses with it myself: The overlooked seriousness of their presence, and the plothole it creates.

Plothole:
I played the GZ story way before the soviets were added. To me, the original experience went a bit like this: You come to your senses after being attacked by an unknown enemy. You find the world overrun by hostile machines. In a cold war scenario, the instinctive thing to assume would likely be that the soviets are responsible. As you progress you find radio chatter and scattered clues about soviet involvement, strengthening your belief of their guilt. Eventually, after establishing contact you learn that both the soviets and NATO are «closely monitoring the situation on Östertörn», and have agreed to lend their assistance in form of the device used in the attempt to disable FNIX. All seems fine. The soviets are no longer suspects.

Months later in an update, dead soviet troops suddenly appear all over Östertörn without any explanation. This practically throws the vanilla story right out the window the way I see it. Are you seriously supposed to step over soviet corpses through the whole mid-game, only to be told at the end that they are «closely monitoring the situation», and have «agreed to offer support»? It simply doesn’t match with the role the vanilla story gave the soviets. Instead we get a parallell soviet invasion with zero lore to even remotely explain it!

If you have a better explanation for the whole mess, please give it. Personally I hope the devs have planned a really great plot twist that actually makes sense. I’ll just have to wait and see.

The invasion:
I know I’ve said this before, but the soviets have now in fact invaded Sweden. My first and best guess as to why, is that the soviets have assumed that Östertörn is 100% clear of living people, and that they could go in undetected on a mission to gather machine technology. Another plothole BTW, since they are supposedly observing closely along with NATO, and have in fact made radio contact with the player. Even if the soviet military’s intent was small scale, it still counts as an invasion. The worst case result of this reckless action could be a quick destabilization leading to mistrust, conflict, and ending in an all-out nuclear war. You can’t just go into another country like that, and get caught doing it, only to be like: «Ok, ok, you spotted me. Don’t mind me, I’ll just walk myself out. Bye!»

What do you think?

[DeadWanderer]

That’s not unlike soviets (read USSR High Government) would behave. There’s track record of them by one hand claiming peace and prosperity, while with other hand arming “groups of interest” and interlope whatever whey reach. Their modus operandi - “invade while no one’s watching or too much bother to intervene”.
May be officially they joint forces with NATO, since neutral Sweden suddenly rolled out some dangerous tech, that threat to both superpowers and both want it. May be they were too eager and overconfident to get 'em first. Soviet command actually could set up players to do dirty job with their own hands. I mean what kind of EMP, except non-humanly poratble nuclear weapon, could destroy a whole underground complex?
Soviet command sactioned (with or without NATO consent) it’s troops to establish vanguard forces and establish their positions. Either way, slauther of soviet forces didn’t go unnoticed and upped the game.
For both sides it shows how powerful machines are as a military force against regular full-time regular army.

For me plothole is their point of insetion is Farmlands - in the middle of Ostertorn. Though emblems evident that they are airborne and farmlands have large tracts of clear land to drop on instead of naval approach (Torsberga sinking destroyer and FNIX brand artillery may be solid arguments against this way).
Nothern Farmlands have closest “open space” to the FOA facility and easiest to approach it - NC plains are a bit farther and you still have to move suff around the mountain, Forest region also have clearings, but they too far too.

Still, I don’t believe that soviets are sincerely sent relief forces. So does for NATO, but that is speculation, since latter only mentioned, never acted for now (except being excuse for US pack).

[Mr_A1992]

The explanation is very simple.
The Devs take ages to update the game.
The soviets and Americans were only supposed to appear in one(or more) of the other 3 “DLC” Islands.
Because that did not happened…they decided to magically bring soviet troops to the vanilla islands.
So instead of dead Swedish army guys we have dead invading soviets.

That´s it.
Other than that, i do agree with what you said.

[Mrshneeblie]

I’m assuming the soviet map updates are supposed to take place months after the events of the story. It’s like how you can do FNIX Rising missions before finishing the main story even if they chronologically take place post story.

It’s been months since the invasion so now the soviets are finally making their move. Why? Who knows, they probably want information for themselves.

[Fraeddy]

I mean it sounds plausible, but if you want to sell this as fact I’d ask you to please provide evidence.

[Gysbert]

We shouldn’t speak of plot-holes in games with an ongoing story, where more information is yet to come. When the game-story has ended and all plot information has not been revealed then we speak of a plot-hole(s). Making statements purely based on speculation, is only going to blur the understanding of the real story yet to be revealed. We don’t know a great deal of things, for instance:

Side plots:

• The suicide / murder scenes?
• Are the Ljuset and the Iron Church fighting each other?
• Who is R. Salonen, and what do the numbers mean on the hexagon?
• What’s the story of the wooden Statue?

Main Plot

• What happened that created the Crater?

But they are not really side or main plot-holes yet. Set pieces can only tell you so much. Therefore, what really is going on must be told in text or sound. So it is best to be clear about it, when it is speculation instead of fact.

[Mr_A1992]

Evidence of what?
Are we really gonna discuss that it makes more sense that they always planed to have soviet troops in Farmlands Region?
If they wanted that from the beginning why only now?

I don´t know since when you have been playing this game.
It´s a March 2019 game.
It is a 2 years old game and they still haven´t finished “revamping” Mountains, Marshalnds, North Coast and Forest regions (more than half of the vanilla islands).
There are 2 Other medium islands and one BIG island.

The islands were going to be DLC Like Himfjall was.
But various things happened, and the game has been having a very slow advance.
The game has a main story, that as various people said brings a problem to the introduction of the Soviets, it makes no sense that they are in the place where they are, instead of other Islands or near the shore.
I don´t have to sell anything, follow the clues, that is the conclusion.
The delays and problems they faced provoked things like this.
Now they can only add things one at a time and some don´t really make much sense in terms of story or in a realistic aspect.
it is what it is, we either go with it or not.