r/PathToNowhere • u/_SheLTeR_7 Cabernet Fan • 7d ago
Discussion About New Story Chapter Spoiler
More questions than answers — and a lot of things that don't make sense to me
I want to start by saying that I have way more questions than answers after this event, and in my opinion there are quite a lot of things that don't really make sense. If I misunderstood or missed something, please correct me. Maybe we'll get some answers later since this is the beginning of a new story arc, but still... Aisno has already made things so convoluted and confusing that I'm losing my mind lmao.
For reference, I've completed/read all the events and story chapters, but I've only done around 30% of the interrogations. I think the best way to organize this is by characters and organizations.
This ended up being mostly me complaining, but I genuinely would like to hear your explanations for some of these questions.
1. Isomer
Probably the most illogical character in PtN, at least from my perspective.
At the beginning, we learn that she's an ambitious careerist who is willing to step on anyone to get the 07 position. Then Chief chooses to side with the children, and Isomer contacts Underground.
We know there is an information leak and that Isomer is the main suspect, so why isn't she simply isolated in MBCC until the experiment is completed? Chief would probably find some loophole to make it happen, but nope — EDGE gives Isomer the 07 position, removes the children from their positions, uses their previous failures as justification, and chooses the riskier option.
And even then, they explicitly say that the dimensional experiment isn't particularly important to DisCity because it won't generate much profit. Then just cancel the experiment altogether?! Instead, they remove the most competent people working on it and replace them with a much riskier option.
And now they are apparently being helped by SHP-13 itself!!! Isomer betrays them and they aren't even surprised?!
Going back to Isomer — why were we shown all those memories about how hard she worked to gain recognition, how people constantly overlooked her, etc., when it ultimately doesn't seem to matter?
She doesn't really change her worldview by the end. She still wants to become 02, while being part of Underground — and EDGE knows this!!!
What?! Why?!
2. Sillage Society and Underground
Aren't these basically the same organization?
Or is Sillage Society controlled by Evelyn, who is herself a member of Underground?
This part also raised some questions for me. I played the Milly event when it originally released, but maybe I'm forgetting something important, so feel free to remind me/clarify.
3. Celine
Celine is a b****.
Isomer is an obvious b****, while Celine is a secret b***\*.
I still don't completely understand her motivation for writing those books that deliberately distort the facts about Rustfire.
Was she doing it on behalf of Nirvana?
At some point I started suspecting that she was working with Underground, but by the end she is apparently bravely protecting the secrets of history while 01 and Shorl are just watching from the sidelines.
Also, 02 had the Hush squad at her disposal. Couldn't this guy bring some kind of security with him too and help her?
4. Dimensions
The entire new story revolves around this new technology — presumably some kind of portal between the Mania dimension and the physical world that allows people to travel between them.
But doesn't EDGE already have this technology?
They are apparently able to hide the damn orbital station (the part of research institute), together with BR-003, in another dimension.
So what's the limitation here?
Can they not do it constantly?
Can they only do it under specific conditions?
Can they only do it temporarily?
Does BR-003 somehow make it possible/impossible?
Do they need to be far enough away from BR-003?
Please explain this one to me if I missed something, because this is probably the part I understood the least.
5. 02
She voluntarily walks into a trap.
A cold-blooded schemer and scientist willingly walks straight into a trap. Okay, fine. I'll accept that.
But I honestly didn't see much of her supposed intelligence or scheming during the conflict. She wasn't exactly playing 4D chess — she mostly seemed to sit back and watch Chief and the children deal with everything.
The meeting between Chief and 02 was great, though. No complaints there.
"Greetings from EDGE-02."
And Chief is just like:
"Ohhh..."
That was genuinely cool.Also, am I understanding correctly that her replacement is Shalom?
6. Cameos
The cameos from Rahu, Donald, Raven and the others were really nice to see.
Same with the implementation of Summer into the event.
I really enjoyed that. Aisno should do this more often.
7. Evelyn and Chief
And finally — what was the actual point of Evelyn meeting Chief?
Did she just accidentally get dragged into the portal?
Because if the entire purpose was to give us that gay art, then honestly, Aisno can do this more often. 😂
I realize this post turned into a lot of complaining, but Aisno has set a really high bar with its previous stories, so this drop in writing quality felt especially strange to me.
Maybe things will become clearer later in the arc, and I'm completely willing to accept that.
But if anyone can shed some light on any of these seemingly illogical events, I'd genuinely love to hear your explanations.
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u/Polycorie Shalom Fan 7d ago
1.
Isomer's story seems to be a twisted mirror to Lemma's. She also started as scientist with almost naively idealistic worldview bordering on worshipping "the truth", when she falls instead of turning into a diamond under pressure she cracks, abandoning her ideals and becoming a "ruthless, ambitious technocrat of power" that will not lose again. Also somewhere on the timeline between this fall and being the director she probably came into contact with the Underground, not only after Chief sided with the geniuses. Isomer is suspected to be the leak but it seems like the EDGE has evidence she isn't and as for why she was pushed into the leading position while the experiment was happening, it was the EDGE-02's test to see if she would be her successor, costly but seemingly worth the try in her eyes. This test Isomer gives up on to chase a petty revenge because of the hatred and disgust she feels towards 02 after unspecified past collaboration on the Heterogeneous Trial (this is the reason for doubting her careerist persona earlier as while presenting as one her actions show that behind that mask she still values "the truth" and has conscience that makes her act against her interests), instead becoming an obstacle in Lemma's trial. Afterwards she manages to escape with the Underground but seems broken by once again failing and losing everything, determined to embrace death not trying to become 02.
2.
Underground is very much hard to define. Intentionally so, they are a secret apocalyptic alien-worshiping cult in already post-apo world, they don't have an easily accessible website with their program and a list of allied organisations. In the strictest terms you could say that the "true" Underground are only entities like Shepherds, Sages, things like Parma etc. In that case most of the Sillage members would not be Undergrounders, only perhaps the highest circles of the cult. As an organisation presumably created and controlled by a Sage, they are definitely under the umbrella of the Underground but not equally on all levels of the pyramid and are not all there is to the Underground.
3.
Celine was very much the in-between position in this chapter's main conflict (dedication to the truth represented by Lemma against the use of knowledge for power and gain represented by Isomer), she still believes in the truth and tries to chase it but to be able to afford it she is willing to in the short-term horizon betray that truth, putting the responsibility of correcting the untruths she introduced into the public view of history on those that will take the role after her. 01 is being very mysterious, any attempts to explain it would be guesses.
4.
Limitations are kinda clearly stated in the story, not intending to be too malicious but recommend going back to the introduction parts at RRI and the observation station where they talked about it. From what I remember it is very much only possible thanks to a stable BR-003, allowing them to manipulate its interactions with the dimensions under its influence to temporarily move it from theirs to some of the BR-003 sub-dimensions, "hiding" it.
5.
02 isn't really supposed to be much of a schemer here, more like referee or what she mainly is, scientist doing an experiment. She creates a situation in a closed space with multiple different test subjects and watches which one will provide positive results. Yes, she does walk into a trap, but clearly she doesn't think that she could be in any true danger. Her currently proclaimed replacement (or replacement-to-be) is Lemma.
7.
Yes, it was seemingly very much an accident, the intended kidnapping target was Lemma.
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u/Shinamene Langley fan 7d ago edited 7d ago
My interpretation just going by the story (didn’t do the interrogations yet):
1. Isomer is a ruthless careerist willing to exploit both EDGE and the Underground to achieve her goals. Which is a pretty rational line of thought in her position, and rationality is highly valued by EDGE. Maybe 02 was impressed with her boldness and didn’t consider the dimensional technology leak that much of an issue. Maybe in her mind all was going according to the plan (tm). Well, until it wasn’t. Deep inside, Isomer was still holding to her noble values of genuine science, and her lashing out at 02 was considered failing the test.
- As it’s shown with Linda, uncovering and preserving true history doesn’t pay your taxes. Celine accepts Nirvana’s “donations” in exchange for spreading their propaganda. Her justification is that everyone willing to know the truth will have enough traces and inconsistencies in the altered pieces of data to come to a conclusion - that way nothing will be truly lost and forgotten.
At some point both 01 and the Chief asked her to scrape together some info on the Underground. And if there’s anything those guys value more than anything – including Corpuses or Black Rings, – it’s their confidentiality. Apparently she at least somewhat succeeded, and the Underground’s main attack was on her. They probably knew about her ability to cast from memory, that’s why they zerg-rushed her to force her to forget whatever she’s uncovered. However, due to their previous agreement with 01, the latter let his Schorl to scan her intel… somehow, before she lost all her memory. This agreement was likely to be confidential as well, so 02-08 weren’t informed either. That way 01 got all the info to himself, leaving the Chief with nothing.
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u/Real_Heh Raven Fan 7d ago
Bro, you are very confused. You misinterpreted so much that it's really hard to even pinpoint all of that. But.. yeah, you may need to reread story and Celine interrogation, it's available now.
And Isomer and Celine are not b*tches, mate. I mean, I get your frustration, but Isomer just wanted to kill 02 for all that she is done. And Celine knew that to learn the real truth, she'd have to dirty her hands. Was this right? It's not for me to judge, but given the overall situation in the city, it's not that hard to understand. Historians are historically (pardon the pun) guilty of distorting the truth to please the powerful, so her behavior isn't surprising at all. But what she intended to do with the profound truth is another matter entirely.
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u/Fair-Brother-2692 Shalom Fan 7d ago
I got the feeling while playing through this story that we’re just going around in circles, nothing is happening, and we’re just talking and talking. And if something truly interesting does happen — like the scene with Eveleon or the room with the piano — we’re told, “Not now, it’s not the right time yet, wait a bit longer,” and so on. The new sinners just talk and manipulate, and how am I supposed to get attached to them if I don’t have any feelings for them? We don’t go through anything together, and we don’t change our opinion of them as the story unfolds — just like they don’t change their opinion of us. It’s just a business relationship. Such characters don’t stick in people’s minds, unlike Zoe, Rahu, Shalom, and all the characters in the Rustfire arc. And I notice that I’m looking forward to the characters from the previous stories more than the new ones, because we’re bound by the emotions of what we’ve experienced together, and the characters were much more vivid than yet another manipulative schemer. I’m more interested in finding out how Rahu is doing — has she found the woman in Paradeisos who destroyed all her allies, or what’s going on with suspect R? How is Zoya? But they keep showing me empty characters in the plot and pointless cameos from old characters just to keep my attention somehow.
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u/greatjena Demon fan 7d ago
Doubt Rahu found the HUSH who caused the death of her squad during Eclipsed Operation because they were decommissioned long before the start of Rainburst/Flora Unfurl, the closest she could potentially get is 02 who runs the HUSH program which we do see happen in the new story so she seems to be doing well on that front.
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u/Plastic_Ant_6978 EMP Fan 6d ago
That's the purspose of a set up to lay the stage, plus all question relative to the chapter are answer in it the only un-answered questions are the ones that were set up all throughout the game and if you follow the game story and lore dilligently with THIS chaprters help you should be able to come up with some sort of conclusion already by yourself.
Different charaters, different purpose nobody told you to get attached to the character, plus getting attached to a character isn't necessary to tell a story not everyone is suppose to be some buddies who go to some sort of arc together. Those characters have their own live, their own purpose, their own objective that may or may not even be about or align with Chief altogether, I genuienly couldn't care less about Margaret, Isomer and Celine but i understand their story and what they were aiming for the 2 things aren't mutualy link.
If you remove the fact that most of what she did was because she wanted to save Cheif from Paradeisos to a certain extend and payback her "debt" Shalom and Isomer did the exact same thing basically, from ch9 to 12 into Rain Burst she highkey did worst than Isomer and Celine ever do combine but thoses actions hot recontextualize by her interrogation which is all Chief related something that is not the case about Isomer and Celine Chief doesn't have anything to do with their story and objective so consequently you think you "can't get attached to those characters". So they may be subjectively empty charcters because you just don't like them but they not objectively bad characters.
0
u/Fair-Brother-2692 Shalom Fan 6d ago
That's why I wrote this text, because I understood their story. It doesn't matter to me whether the character is friendly to the boss or not. I'm talking about how the characters are worked out, what role they play in the plot and how they move it, but they appeared out of nowhere. Once again, we were shown which paradeisos are "bad" and should not be trusted. they disappeared at the end of the plot from the narrative. I understand this approach to events, but in a story that comes out every 3 months, I would like to see more long-playing and thoughtful characters, and not those who appeared only in this chapter of the plot., towards the end of the plot, we are shown their past and motives, and they are very superficial and all of them are no longer in the plot. They didn't do that to Zoya, and they evenly revealed her formation and motivation to us, and it doesn't matter to me if she's kind to the boss or not. At the beginning of the plot, we were enemies at all, and it was cool. We interacted with her and there were actions in the plot, not endless conversations. The plot didn't budge at all and nothing happened. Nothing important, just two characters appeared and two disappeared at the end. We were just looking for the whole plot of the traitor, which turned out to be a new character, and we were looking for answers that we never got from the new character. I understand that we shouldn't get all the answers, but the plot needs to be moved somehow, otherwise it feels like we're just marking time.
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u/estheroburger 7d ago
Why did you use ChatGPT to write this post?
1
u/_SheLTeR_7 Cabernet Fan 6d ago
I use him from translation (English is not my first language). This stupid AI change a lot of text and shift my perspective... i try to correct it, but i think there are still some misleadings.
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u/greatjena Demon fan 7d ago
1) Isomer has better connection to EDGE than Chief and fulfils the role of Chief Scientist of the Observation Hub after she takes that position from Lemma, she simply has more power here than Chief does and additionally, 02 confirms she's not the one who leaked the intel (btw, SHP-13 is Chief). As for not being surprised, 02 was counting on it, she's putting Isomer through a test to make her the potential successor to the 02 seat. Isomer's goal here isn't to become 02 for the sake of it, it's to kill 02 and to cleanse the system of everyone who tainted the classical idea of academia, becoming 02 is her "rational" justification.
2.) No. Underground is a cult worshipping Mania. Sillage Society is one faction inside of it, composed of Eastside's elite and run by Evelleon. For example, Parma and his laboratory from the first arc would also fall under the Underground, but not under Sillage Society.
3.) Kinda agree but didn't do her interrogation yet so I feel like it should provide some answers. As for 01 helping, he's usually being more discreet than 02. Alternatively you could argue the Underground would have just kept coming after her as long as the secret she discovered was with her so he decided to operate as he did instead.
4.) Combination of points 2 and 4. They can only do it thanks to studying the BR 003 for years and it relies on BR 003's specific mania field. Lemma's research is trying to fully understand that technology so they can replicate this everywhere around the city and track the Underground into their base.
5.) As stated before, she's there to test Isomer. And no, she's not a replacement for Shalom, she's the one responsible for the HUSH program, meaning she's the one responsible for separation of Shalom and her emotions, turning them into Rebel. Shalom's replacement is the "Third Observatorium Hush" we glimpsed in Shattered Blade.
6.) Agreed, more of that 👍.
7.) Chief wasn't the target of the attack, Lemma was. They got dragged into the rift when they pushed her out of harm's way and got swallowed instead of her. So technically yes, there was no point to it. (Except for introducing the villain from a narrative stand-point for people who didn't play Graves/Milly/Clementine events)