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Memnoch

16 Jan, 2015 @ 5:15pm

SPOILERS: What happened to the humans?

I just finished the game and got the Level 5 tower ending, Ascension I think it is called. Loved the ending and ending up in the real world.

But what happened to all the people? I must have missed some messages along the way I suppose as I didn't get the achievement for collecting them all. But of the messages I did read, and the voice recordings etc. something bad was coming, end of the world stuff, but this was never fully explained. Where did they go? Why did they die? In the credits scene you can see that the world looks old and run down but other than that survivable. Virus or other pathogen?

I need answers! :)

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Showing 1-15 of 27 comments

Charles Wenzel |CFS| has The Talos Principle

16 Jan, 2015 @ 5:30pm

*SPOILERS*

There is a single computer message that you read about orangutans .
The reason the apocalypse is happening is because of a hibernating virus that has awoken in everybody due to... global warming? Ok guys that's a real stretch, but whatever. For the context of a video game we can roll with it.

So yeah. Animals have a virus and global warming *snicker* kills everyone with it

Solais

16 Jan, 2015 @ 11:49pm

Actually, the virus was sleeping in the permafrost of the arctics, and due to Global Warming, the ice melted and the virus got out. And as it turned out, it was a virus that only infected primeapes like orangutans and by extension, humans. Most animals survived.

This story is actually referencing a fairly new scientific study about how in the melting permafrost of Siberia, they found the largest virus ever. (As in, the size of the organism is larger than most viruses.)

Memnoch

17 Jan, 2015 @ 4:12am

Thanks both of you. That at least makes some sense of it.

Clord

17 Jan, 2015 @ 7:09am

Yeah, how virus infects everyone is a bit of stretch and how nobody found cure is even a bigger mystery. Some people live in rural areas and stuff where spreading of side virus would probably have hard time.

Liquid_Wolf has The Talos Principle

19 Jan, 2015 @ 2:43am

Once I hd that understanding down, I pretty much steamrolled the game to the end. Felt like I had to make it up for the whole human race... particularly with those audio recordings pushing me.

Those feels man... those feels.

hauns

19 Jan, 2015 @ 6:26am

Dear Original Poster:
Are you aware that the thread title itself is a spoiler?

Sweetz

15 Feb, 2016 @ 6:12pm

Does anyone know specifically where you get this info? I finished the tower ending, but have not done the star levels.

I was little annoyed with how much they talk about the end of humanity but kind of unrealistically (for the purpose of keeping is a mystery in the game fiction) skirt around mentioning what's actually causing it.

I found one email where someone references that they showed positive for infection and were leaving the project or something along those lines - based on that I figured it was a virus based apocalypse, but I never found any more info on the subject.

VShadow

15 Feb, 2016 @ 10:12pm

Originally posted by Sweetz:
Does anyone know specifically where you get this info? I finished the tower ending, but have not done the star levels.

I was little annoyed with how much they talk about the end of humanity but kind of unrealistically (for the purpose of keeping is a mystery in the game fiction) skirt around mentioning what's actually causing it.

I found one email where someone references that they showed positive for infection and were leaving the project or something along those lines - based on that I figured it was a virus based apocalypse, but I never found any more info on the subject.

http://talosprinciple.wikia.com/wiki/Orangutan.html

Beyond that, there's really not one single moment where it's all revealed, and they don't go into medical details, because extensive details of "why they died" isn't really relevant to the story. You're purposely left to connect the dots if you choose. There are several mentions of people getting sick if you read all the terminal messages: the people working on EL slowly dwindling, Alex being one of the last ones left, etc. It's not subtle, but it's also not "all in one place." You do have to read and pay attention to almost every message, because you never know when a key piece of info will pop up.

Sweetz

15 Feb, 2016 @ 10:39pm

Ah, apparently that document is from a star level terminal, so that explains why I haven't seen it.

phillicomm has The Talos Principle

28 Sep, 2018 @ 2:33pm

In Star World B, there's a text that you get from a terminal, it's called "Orangutans". Subtle, very suptle.

#10

robotwizard 17 Dec, 2020 @ 10:03am

It's interesting to see people laughing about a virus infecting the whole world.

#11

s3ahors3

21 Dec, 2020 @ 10:48pm

i don't normally comment on steam discussions but man... "Yeah, how virus infects everyone is a bit of stretch and how nobody found cure is even a bigger mystery. Some people live in rural areas and stuff where spreading of side virus would probably have hard time." that aged... terribly

#12

Malak

30 Dec, 2020 @ 6:30am

^ Damn truck drivers spreading the virus to even rural areas and keeping us fed! /s

#13

LegendaryMilkshake has The Talos Principle

8 Jan, 2021 @ 1:30pm

Originally posted by s3ahors3:
i don't normally comment on steam discussions but man... "Yeah, how virus infects everyone is a bit of stretch and how nobody found cure is even a bigger mystery. Some people live in rural areas and stuff where spreading of side virus would probably have hard time." that aged... terribly