u/radrey123

This is my first post, and I’m also pretty exhausted since I just finished the game so I apologize for my lack of context in advanced. I just really wanted to mention this fact/arguably theory that I noticed a lot of people don’t seem to mention. Or at least mention specifically. That is that the collective, and the travelers they send out are the same people who get saved and “ascend”.

I kind of had my suspicions by the steel factory since by this point we saw how strange and matrix-esque the “ascension” process was. But the moment we started seeing ND-3765 have hallucinations of Weronica it immediately clicked that you were her, although some sort of traveller-collective filtered version of her. This was later confirmed by my ending (B), which infers The Warden managed to upload one more person: being Weronica. After which he either broke the machine or purposely broke it in an attempt to keep her soul from reincarnating or more precisely being repurposed.

It kind of goes with the whole idea mentioned by a couple characters (i can’t remember at this moment who or where i read it) that the collective uses the very souls of the people it saves as fuel, which was the exact line I read in one of the early game notes that immediately made me come to this conclusion early on. The Collective essentially being this boot-strap paradox-ed hail Mary guerrilla warfare tactic by the surviving remnants of humanity (who likely only advanced technology that far because of the very bootstrap that they would grow to become).

Quick Rant:

Only thing that kinda pissed me off at first with the ending though was The Warden’s whole reaction towards the end of the game, when ND-3765 literally tells the Warden “Yo dude I’m Weronica” and he genuinely tweaks the f*** out. Really puts an end to the “If I was a worm would u still love me” debate. It’s linearly the best case scenario for what he wants, Weronica ends up getting repurposed into a Traveller but beats the odds and seems to be slowly getting her memories back (as seen near the end when ur chasing him and hear Weronica saying “Can’t you see it’s still me” in ur own head). Like bro you are fumbling the bag so hard right now dawg, u got ur own little ‘shrek - princess becomes an ogre with u’ situation and u somehow DON’T want that?? I mean what the hell was he expecting to happen had his plan worked out? She was literally going to die of old age anyway had he brought her back safe and sound. Best case scenario would again be transferring her mind into a Traveler’s body which he did successfully!! Dude has some OCD or something to not expect some side effects, like following commands at first because you literally didn’t remember yet. Bro heard you say “As is our Calling” one time and threw out the whole playbook. What. A. Tweaker.

Edit: I ALSO FORGOT TO MENTION. DUDE DECIDED TO RESTART A WHOLE TIMELINE AND LITERALLY CRASHOUT OVER SOMETHING THAT COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED IF HE WAS IN THE ROOM A MINUTE BEFORE HAND. Like bro go back and time and tell your ass to get out from whatever rock he was laying under. His biggest problem is his inability to see it’s his own fault. How the f*** are you going to meticulously devise this whole plan, literally help me go find the Pathfinder’s body, then go f*** off somewhere knowing full well there’s probably a chance ND-3765 can get back any moment and access ur deepest secrets using ur own past selves body. Like bruh at least put another password up or something. Or idk just don’t randomly go out until they get back. And before someone says he didn’t have his memories yet or something, his older version aka the version we know as The Warden is those memories so he has no excuse.