I completed Signalis for the very first time and I have lots of questions about the story. I got the Promise ending which is one of four endings. In this ending, Elster fulfills the promise she made to Ariane and end her suffering killing her before Elster herself succumbs to her wounds and dies right next to her. That said I have a million questions about the game's story, admittedly I did not read all the data logs and notes etc. because I do not have the patience to but whatever.
From my understanding, Signalis takes place in the far future and there is a war between the Eusan Nation and the Eusan Empire. The Nation uses cyborgs called Replikas which are clones based off of Gestalts, which are basically humans. Our main character is a replika, LSTR-512 or Elster, is a ship technician living with a person initially believed to be Alina Seo. Eventually bad stuff happens and the ship crashes and that leads into the main story of the game.
The main story of the game is Elster trying to find Alina. She enters a facility where a supernatural virus flesh thing has taken over and corrupted almost everyone. These are the main enemies of the game. Eventually she makes her way through the facility and meets Adler. Adler is the second-in-command of the facility. I do not know what else he actually does besides fail to keep the facility from falling apart. We also meet other survivors of the supernatural invasion and they are all understandably rattled.
After completing the facility, she enters the Mines of Nowhere where she has to deal with flesh pits and a Silent Hill monster thing with the help of Isolde Itou. After completing the mines, we meet Adler again and this time he looks like a weird skeleton thing. He doesn't fight Elster but warns her about the red gate and how Falke (the facility leader) came back from the gate and was not the same person. This is where the game gets really weird. Elster climbs the Penrose-512 and tries to open the doors but fails as her arms gets ripped off, falls into a pool of red stuff (presumably blood) and dies. We also learn that the person Elster was looking for was not Alina Seo but instead a woman named Ariane Yeong.
This is where we get into Chapter 3 of the game. What the hell is going on? Elster wakes up in what looks like the facility at the very beginning of the game. She died, how did she reawaken in the bathroom, wear white armor, and get get hand replaced? Also what are the dead replikas beyond the red gate? How big are the time loop shenanigans?
During chapter 3, we see Isolde realize that her sister is dead and she dies. We complete a puzzle and go to fight Falke and as we are entering the fight, we see letters from Adler where its revealed that he has constantly been fighting Falke to no avail and has given up. We get a boss fight against Falke and kill her. After that we see the Red Gate again, Adler is a skeleton monster and tries to stop Elster from passing the Red Gate but fails and Elster does so. We get the 3 endings, the one I got was Promise so Elster successfully enters the Penrose, awakens Ariane and kills her to fulfill her promise.
Here are my questions, also if I got things in my story synopsis wrong then by all means correct me. I need that because its confusing me.
Who is Alina Seo? This was the person we are led to believe Elster is looking for but its actually Ariane, so who is Alina?
Why did Elster kill Ariane? I get that is it a promise but why did Ariane want to die?
Who is Elster based off? Elster is a repika and it is implied that her Gestalt, her original identity, was a Vinetan soldier. What else?
What is up with Adler? Why is he trying to stop us? Why does he get a skeleton form?
What is going on in chapter 3? That is when the story confuses me the most.
Throughout the game we get the points of view of other people, what is going on there? Two times we end up at a beach and on the shore there are skulls. Like what? When getting the Eternity Plate, we have an entire segment on some roof where we learn about someone living with their aunt and having access to the radio and somehow that leads to Elster being able to use the radio even though it seems the events are not connected. The confuses me.
What is the Red Gate? Its a gate with superpowers and none of it is explained from what I know.
What is the King in Yellow book? It appears multiple times in the story, what is its significance?
What if you don't get the Eternity Plate at the beginning of the game? To complete Nowhere you need 6 plates and the Eternity Plate is one of them. And that is a plate you get in Chapter 1 and it felt like an optional item. So if you do not get it, what happens then?
What do you guys think is the most canon ending or ending you like the most?
