Insanely Detailed Background of the Incident from Environmental Storytelling
After playing this game countless times since I was a kid, I obviously knew the notes and bodies told a little bit of a story that had a few interesting connections and provided some backstory. But it was only my most recent playthrough that I really sat down and took notes to see if it all tied together. I was also on a ten-hour flight, so I had a lot of time on my hands. And what I found is that the devs actually painted a shockingly coherent and consistent picture that can actually tell us a huge amount of information about what was going on at the facility right before the Incident.
Apologies in advance, this goes a little long. There was so much there.
- Timeline and How Dr. Kirk Survived Alone Before and During the Game: The Third Energy experiment and the Incident - that time-space swaps in the dinosaurs - occurs at 9:00 PM (this time is given in a file). It seems that the Reactor Control Room was safe from dinosaurs when the Incident occurred. It is sealed before Regina opens it up. Kirk stayed safe by going straight from observing the experiment in the Reactor Command Center to the Main Hallway B1 using the Small Elevator that's in there. Main Hallway B1 is safe at first because it's blocked by the shutter on F1; raptors only break in to B1-level from the Backyard later. This is how Kirk got safely to his secret lab on B1. When the team arrives right after the Incident at 10 or 11 PM (“the brass is still warm”), Kirk is analyzing the data from the experiment in his sealed secret B1 lab (as his note says). That's why Kirk was later seen on B1 monitor by Gail, because maybe he needed to step out briefly to the B1 digital library to read up on some Third Energy theory to explain the unexpected DINOSAURS. Regina just barely misses him when her and Gail find his secret lab. Regina finds him at the end of his escape tunnel as he was trying to use the Large Elevator to get to the port on B3. Later, after he escapes Rick and Regina during the T-Rex attack at the helipad, my head canon is that he uses the path you cleared back to the Main Entrance (explaining how he got past the dinosaurs unarmed and also assuming that dinosaurs respawning is a game mechanic and not “canon”). There, he could have taken the Small Elevator from the F1 lobby back to the Reactor Control Room and to his Library Room on B2, which is safe from dinosaurs. This is where we find him later.
- But wait, there is so much more. Mark Doyle and Paul Baker are at the center of a Grand Scientist Conspiracy. How can I prove this? They are both reassigned from the Special Aircraft Experiment Room to the Third Energy Physics Lab on B2 just before the events of the game, and as soon as they arrive, the other scientists wake up from the endless clean energy cover story to the nefarious weapons-application of Third Energy. We see this happen in their hate file in the Researcher Rest Room on B2. My theory is that Mark and Paul were already doing world-ending weapons science near the underground heliport on B3 (Regina finds the bioweapons in there that can wipe out all life on Earth). I think Mark and Paul were transferred in a desperate attempt to finish the Stabilizer early - which everybody is panicking about in the notes - because the government is closing in. But when they arrived, they revealed the secret weapons nature of the facility to the other scientists. This the scientists began the Conspiracy to find proof of Kirk’s real plans. Unfortunately, the plan only materialized the night of the Incident.
- How do I know this? Because Paul, Mark, and a nameless third scientist (maybe “O.” or one of the others from the complaints file) are on B1 looking for Kirk’s secret lab when the Incident happens. “Mike” (the fourth main conspirator) had found one of the two keys to Kirk’s secret lab and had left it in the B1 library locker with a note to Paul. The note said that the other key was in the Chief’s Office behind the medal panel. The nameless third scientist was the one who headed up to the Chief’s Office to get it, and we know this all happened the night of the Incident (probably to do it while Kirk was distracted by the experiment) because this scientist gets caught off-guard in the F2 hallway by a raptor and manages to lock himself in the Chief’s Office with the DDK lock. This is the first survivor, the one that we find in the Chief's Office, and this is why he's a scientist (not the Chief), hates Kirk, and has one key to the medal panel. “Here take this: he told me it was extremely vital” refers to Mike. As for Paul and Mark, we know what happened to them. They tried to flee up the Main Hallway B1 elevator to the F1 heliport, where they were killed by raptors in the F1 Elevator Hall (Paul) and outside the heliport passage (Mark).
- The ID Card you use in the game belonged to Tim Parish (it says so on it). I'm assuming he's a military guard because it only has access to the surface floors before rewriting. Mark’s and Paul’s IDs don't work on the Small Elevator to go to B2 or B3, even though they work in the B2 labs, because the B2 and B3 floors on the Small Elevator are reserved only for Level A access. This probably was just two people: Colonel Clay (the Chief and military head of the facility) and Dr. Kirk. The normal scientists needed to use the Large Elevator. The Small Elevator passes directly through the B2 Reactor Command Center, so it was a security risk to allow the scientists to use it. This is why Kirk was the only one who escaped this way during the Incident. Also, the idea that Kirk would leave the other scientists behind while he used a private elevator tracks with his character too well for this not to be true, come on haha.
- What happened to “Mike” and the other scientists in the Rector Command Center at the time of the Incident, then? We actually know this too! Mike is the dead body with the radio we find in the Port Disembarkation Room. They were trying to escape through the Port. The other scientists went out to get the Port Key while Mike stayed. Regina and Rick overhear their call from the Large Elevator with the T-Rex chasing them, and they are calling “Mike” on the radio.
- Tom: B1 always aesthetically felt like the beginning of the labs to me, but other than Kirk’s secret lab, it's just libraries, the medical room, and the gas experiment lab for the military. All the scientists would be on B2/B3, accessible only using special scientist IDs and only through the Large Elevator. Without sub-level access, unaware spies would just find a military facility, and the gas chamber on B1 was just scandalous enough to justify a secret military facility, providing a plausible decoy for the real Third Energy experiments below. Despite knowing about Third Energy from SORT, Tom never managed to get below B1. The recent ID forging the files talk about had been Tom, and he had just done it the day that the team arrives. I know this because he was on his way to the Large Elevator at 9:00 PM when the Incident happened, and this is why we find him trapped and injured right by the Elevator. Where is this crucial B2/B3 access ID when Regina and Rick find him? Idk maybe it got eaten when Tom got bit lol.
- My last revelation is that I think I found Colonel Clay’s body. Clay was the military head, the “Chief,” of the entire facility and Dr. Kirk’s boss. His office is the “Chief’s Office.” The night of the experiment, he has a final meeting with Kirk in his office, and then he went down to the Strategy Room to talk about Tom’s forging of the ID Card. This is all well-documented. Therefore, Clay would have observed the Incident through the Strategy Room monitors. Then, when he saw the dinosaur slaughter, he tried to escape through the toilet vent to the office hallway. Why? It connected to the F1 Small Elevator, which I already pointed out that only he and Kirk had access to take down to the B3 Port. He got killed by raptors outside the lecture hall. So I'd argue the body we find here is Clay fleeing through the toilet vent from the Strategy Room, and the bloodstain seems to confirm this theory.