I don't know about the rest of you, but I finished the game with a lot of questions, and unfortunately I can't read Mandarin. I felt it would be important to share some ideas in the English-speaking side of the community to try and relate some of the Lovecraftian and dystopian references just for the purpose of general understanding, given how cryptic and disjointed the presentation of the game's background is.

There will be spoilers, so please finish the game in its entirety before reading ahead.


The first place I would like to begin with is the significance of the Yellow King, or Hastur, and the repetition of his namesake throughout the game. We know very little about the internal culture surrounding the lost inhabitants of the game, however the Jack fight in the marionette theatre and the encounter with [Hastur?] himself does show us that there is some sort of following surrounding the existence of the Yellow King and the land he hails from, Carcosa, within the ICEY universe. This may be scientific, religious, or some other form of devotion that is not entirely clarified. We know little about what the direct meaning of Carcosa is within this game, however in the Cthulhu mythos, which the game repeatedly pulls from, it is the homeland of the Yellow King, and the land that he rules over. This connection implies a kind of divinity to Carcosa, given the context of the Yellow King as a deity figure as he is portrayed in this game. To this end, Carcosa in the ICEY universe may be a form of heaven, or even a real location among the cosmos, that the ambiguous level of scientific research going on within the game discovered. Again, much of it is left unclear by the the cryptic nature of the game's lore reveals. Given Hastur’s relationship to ICEY, which I will discuss in depth later on, I choose to believe that Carcosa is a form of tangible heaven (or hell) that is inhabited by Hastur. The scientists themselves provide a majority of the information for how Hastur exists in this universe. They refer to him as god, singular, and for what may be part of a search for immortality, they are looking for his name. There is also mention of multiple deities within the universe here, however Hastur himself is said to have 9 billion names, implying that these other deities may just be iterations of the single entity that is the Yellow King. Personally this theory fits well to my own speculation based on my knowledge of the game's story, but I'm interested to hear other people's opinions.

This brings us back to Jack, and his relationship to the scientists as well as Hastur. He is said to have faith in the Yellow King and the existence of Carcosa, and even tried to become the Chosen One and serve under him. However there are a few aspects of this that raise questions we must answer to understand the full situation.
1.) How is he related to the scientists? Jack bears striking resemblance to ICEY, in his moveset and his visuals (and the gun he uses is especially reminiscent of the gun that the prototype ICEY used in our look at the cut version of her ranged weapon as seen in the unfinished room cutscene, if my memory serves), implying that he is a kind of rogue creation from the scientists who created ICEY. They both are the only humanoid beings of their kind, if UCEY and the other robots are any indication, however Jack distances himself seemingly intentionally from Judas and his organization and is even off the required game path, only to follow the will of Hastur. This relationship sets up for a correlation between Jack's story and ICEY's origins.
2.)How are ICEY and Jack triangulated with Hastur? ICEY is repeatedly branded as "the Chosen One," which repeatedly seems to imply that she was chosen as a champion of Hastur himself. If she is his chosen one, then Jack's hostility toward her and will to replace her and become the Chosen One himself explains how "his heresy made him unfit to serve the Yellow King." If ICEY truly is his champion, then we have formed the relationship between her, Jack, and Hastur successfully. However there is a piece that we are ignoring from the original point.
3.) The now most important and least obvious question here is how are these three characters (ICEY, who is Hastur's chosen one, Jack, an outcast disciple, and Hastur, the god himself) all related to the scientists and the lab that created them?

I am of the opinion that there is a piece of information missing about how the scientists interacted with Hastur in their search for his name that connects the gap between ICEY's origin and the black star. I think within the missing link, we would see that ICEY was created within the same lab that was producing the UCEY robots, and the reason she is different is as a result of this interaction with Hastur. She is his chosen one, which implies that his influence is the reason she is hunting Judas whereas Jack is still looking to serve Hastur.

This would partially explain why ICEY is fighting Judas's organization, as well as why the rise of the black star coincides with the death of Judas. Additionally, this may or may not show how the girl in stasis that we see as part of the UCEY scene is related to ICEY. She is only shown in that single instance to my knowledge, but given everything else we know about the lab itself and the fact that she is shown alongside UCEY, I believe she is a manner of a vessel for the deity- a shell with no need for memory or emotion with a single goal given by its creator- kill Judas.

Because of the way all these pieces fit together, I am led to believe that ICEY is truly a vessel of Hastur, who has sent his influence from Carcosa manifested as ICEY herself via the lab's contact with Hastur. Through their contact, Hastur managed to use ICEY as a means to causing the black star event, which evidently is associated with Judas in a way I do not yet fully understand. This explains why Judas and his organization are all trying to stop ICEY, why Jack has isolated himself from the same organization that created him, and why ICEY is who she is and does what she does. Going back to Carcosa as it is portrayed in the Cthulhu mythos, "the black stars rise in Carcosa," which to me only points to the idea that ICEY is truly doing the bidding of Hastur.

But even still, what led the scientists to search for him? What is Hastur's true relationship with Judas? And what caused the black star to rise? Judas and his organization are overtly portrayed as the antagonists in this game, but if the devs wanted to teach us anything it’s that the narrator is not to be trusted. But I digress. The lore surrounding the other bosses obviously plays a large role in how we are to interpret Judas's organization, but I don't really have enough information about them yet to form a definitive answer about their purpose outside of my other speculations.

I know I just talked on many different points with very little justification, but everything in ICEY is interconnected. Well, except for the narrator's fiance and the whole true ending phenomenon, but I'm focusing on the in-game universe at the moment. Please let me know what you think about all of this. I really feel strongly about the idea that ICEY is doing Hastur's work and maybe there is some significance to the fact that Jack's boss fight is in the marionette theatre. There is still much to be said about this game, but that's why we are in a discussion forum. Feel free to attack the points I've made and present entirely new ideas, we are all here to learn more.

Finally, thank you for reading the giant wall of text I just posted. I put more thought into this piece of writing than into the english paper I should be doing right now, so I hope my efforts are not in vain. Good luck, and happy lore hunting to everyone out there!

-Moonwalk