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thedexcat · 2 days
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VotV Speculation Megapost
(For posterity's sake, the latest major release is 0.8) (Also, buckle in. This post is a long one.) As we all know, Voices of the Void has a "story breadcrumbs" approach to its plot. Combine that with its alpha status, and we're left with a lack of hard answers. However, some pieces did seem to click into place. This is far from anything definitive, but here are some of the conclusions I've drawn. Let's start with everybody's favorite:
Part 1: The Arirals
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god i want one to hold me like that
You know em. You love em. Like 90% of the fanart is about them. But the question is... what the hell are they doing here? Judging by the fact that they construct a campsite in the facility, they clearly expect to be here for a while. A common interpretation I hear from people is that the ones out in the facility are either political refugees, or just some sort of benign "tourist group". I've personally come to a different conclusion. Let's consider what they brought with them.
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Exhibit A: The weapon (left)
The weapon they drop around Day 24 is no mere Star Trek phaser. If you drop it in the main building, pretty much EVERYTHING in the building is going to be sent flying from the resulting blast. Not only that, but the "human-wieldable" version that can be unlocked for the sandbox mode has one hell of a fire rate. Something tells me that there's no way in hell this thing is a civilian-grade weapon. And, as established in a previous post of mine, they're kitted out in full-body armored stealth suits.
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Exhibit B: The stealth suit (Kerf dutifully remains there for scale)
These aren't tourists or runaways. They're goddamn Black Ops. But you're probably asking, "If that's what they are, then why do they have nothing better to do than to steal shrimp and prank you?" Don't worry, I'll get to that later. Eventually. Maybe.
For now, let's move on to a third thing of theirs: The letter to Kel.
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Exhibit C: Esraniki's Letter (D-, see me after english class)
This is the letter left at the Ariral camp if you have maxxed reputation with them. There's one line in particular that's always stood out to me. "GET WE HOME YOU GET DEATH AVOID" So... why can't they go home? Let's review: A: They have perfectly functional spacecraft parked right behind you. Even if they were broken, surely some random Pre-FTL primitive wouldn't be able to help with a mechanical failure in their technology. Hell, they buzz you at the radio tower with one. So there seems to be nothing physically stopping them from leaving. B: They've come kitted out with some serious weapons and armor C: Something in the facility is drawing the attention of all manner of extraterrestrials (and ghosts and demons. are 'metaterrestrials' a good word for them?) So my take? They're monitoring something, waiting for an opportunity to act upon it. (In keeping with the Patch Note naming convention, I will be calling this unknown something "The Threat") Not only that, this 'opportunity' may only open up with the assistance of a human. But what could Dr. Kel possibly do that an Ariral couldn't? Well, I can think of one thing he can do better... Interface with human technology.
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Exhibit D: Ariral Communique (quality: shit) Computer technology isn't some universal constant. You can't make a program and expect it to magically run on alien technology with an unknown architecture. This ain't Independence Day. The fact that the Arirals barely managed to send a heavily-garbled message to Kel's computer, quite frankly, speaks of an extreme amount of effort on their part. And it was all just to say the word "OUTSIDE".
If The Threat has some ties to human technology, then perhaps Kel actually could be more qualified to deal with it than the Ariral Black Ops. Hmm... An unknown threat with ties to human technology. Could it possibly involve...
Part 2: The Incredibly Suspicious Bunker
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"I left a 'Do not enter' note on the floor. That'll stop people from investigating!" This damn thing is quite obviously, as TVtropes would put it, The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. It is my firm belief that this is what the Arirals were sent to monitor, and where The Threat can be found. But we can't really get much further in than a few doors. So... what's in there? An easy assumption to make is that it's some sort of fallout/storm shelter. But something nearby might tell a different story...
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Exhibit E: *squints* ...Liberty Prime? If you take a metal detector over to the bunker entrance, you'll quickly discover a buried drive nearby. The image you just saw is its contents. It's clear that something is being depicted here. What exactly it is, well, that's hard to say. but if you look at that teeny tiny thing at the top, you'll see something that looks like the Alpha base and its radio tower
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oh god we're getting into crusty duende video territory now
What this says to me is that there is a colossal something underneath the base. Some sort of mega-facility? Unnatural cave formations? Something else entirely? Or I could be looking at it entirely wrong. But the point is, it's very likely that something extremely expansive is down there.
What if we could just take a peek a liiiittle bit further in? Well, there is ONE way...
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Exhibit F: The Least Cursed Elevator in Horror Fiction
Roughly around 3:33 each night, there is a chance that a camera inside the bunker will become active. It's monitoring what appears to be a heavy-duty elevator coated in blood. An elevator like this would also indicate something buried deep underneath the base. Say, this elevator seems familiar...
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Exhibit G: Monique Santificer's Extremely Ominous Foreshadowing
...Huh. I'm sure that only means good things. So we have a Hellivator and evidence that there's some place that you'd need a Hellivator to get to. Are there any other clues around? Well, there's that handy instruction book on robotics. You can make your own little friend!
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POV: You're 5'11 and she's 6'0 And... Oh! looking back at that camera, it looks like someone else made their... their own... friend...
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Exhibit H: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA- ...I don't think they followed the instructions to the letter. So it seems the people in the bunker were working on combining robots and, er, 'biomass'. I don't think our meaty friend here is The Threat itself, but I do believe that it is some aspect of it, or at least a result of it. And whatever The Threat is, it seems to be "leaking" out of the bunker. After all, this toothy bot here seems to have little siblings burrowing out from underground!
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Exhibit I: should start running Kerfus. Kerfur. Whatever name they have, they love you! Such a shame that the flesh inhabiting their chassis does not.
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they seriously recalled the ++ models over a little thing like this, smh Something deep underground, cursed flesh, and occult sigils. Hmm. Things would tie together neatly if there were, say, some sort of demon around associated with flesh and dark depths.
Part 3: Furfur (and conclusions)
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"I WATCH YOU SHIT AT NIGHT" The Great Earl of Hell and raw flesh afficianato, it's Furfur! Demonology refers to him as a liar, but also a teacher of secrets. And he seems to really really like flesh. Not bones, though. He's always leaving those behind.
They say that if you burn an offering of flesh at his altar, he'll give you a marketable Furfur plushie!
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The children who survived loved them! Interestingly, there's a certain location connected to Furfur: The bottom of the well. If you pass out at the bottom of the well, you will end up in a (dream of a?) mysterious structure.
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Exhibit J: all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well
A few things of note in this place: -More demonic sigils -The only 'exit' is a tunnel leading upward with a broken ladder. And even if you could reach up there, Furfur's giant skull-face is blocking the way. -A unique knife, which when examined in the inventory, says that it was found "deep underground".
How very interesting that this flesh-loving demon has his own little place down in the depths of the earth. And you say the bunker reaching downwards has been spawning horrific robot-flesh amalgamations? Robots that are specifically of human design?
Well then. So here's what I think is going down:
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no i'm not crazy it's invisible alien catgirls versus demon cyborgs you weren't listening were you?
-Some scientists from before did a Very Bad Thing in the bunker depths. If I had to venture a guess, it's that they bargained with Furfur for secrets of the flesh, perhaps in the pursuit of cybernetics, biocomputers, or somesuch. This resulted in the Very Bad Thing happening, thus creating The Threat. -The Threat was contained to some extent, but is starting to noticeably leak out. It is also severe enough to have drawn extraterrestrial attention. -The Arirals have sent a squad to monitor the situation and act if necessary. Seeing as there's been no urgent need to act as of yet, they are bored out of their skulls and taking it out on you. -The fact that the bunker hasn't been blown up by catgirl black ops already says to me that the situation down there is delicate, and a 'guns-blazing' approach would be inadvisable. Not only that, but The Threat seems to be tied to technology they have little knowledge of. They would most likely need outside assistance if they want a 'clean' resolution to the problem. -And wouldn't you know it? Right there in the facility is some nerdy, crusty, half-crazed twink that seems to be very proficient in handling human technology. How very convenient.
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"average person eats 3 roaches a year" factoid actually just statistical error. Dr. Kel, who-
That's how I think this ties together, personally. Of course, there's always unaccounted for 'loose ends' that may or may not be tied to the Bunker Conspiracy (the rozital pit in particular has been bugging me with its vagueness). Plus there's always the chance that I misinterpreted things like a dumbass. There were a few other smaller things I wanted to cover, but my fingers hurt from typing, and my ability to hyperfixate has its limits. And sorry if the screengrabs are a bit mismatched, I've already spent hours on this post without having to get screenshots from the game myself. If anyone actually read through this monstrosity of a post, congratulations! If you're as deeply brainrotted as I am, feel free to point out the reasons I'm dumb and wrong :)
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thedexcat · 11 days
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Voices freaks help me
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These gears are going to drive my little code brain nuts what do they mean??? What DO THE NUMBERS MEAN, MASON!?
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thedexcat · 24 days
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#cptsd
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thedexcat · 2 months
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noelle fucking dies
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thedexcat · 3 months
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thedexcat · 3 months
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I need to be kidnapped by kind aliens who take me to the alien vet and they know exactly what's wrong with me and they cure me and feed me nutritious meals
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thedexcat · 3 months
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Strangely I've *also* considered the "what-if" of vehicle/limb upgrades. Like really specifically as they're depicted here. I've imagined some sort of event where you end up maimed, and based on Ariral rep you either wake up with an upgraded limb, or have to struggle to craft a lesser prosthetic yourself. Seems like the sort of thing that would happen.
And yeah, a vehicle upgrade would definitely be some sort of warparrow-like hovercraft. Preferably it wouldn't catapult you 5 miles away if you hit something at slightly-higher-than-average speeds.
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woah its john voices
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thedexcat · 3 months
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TIL that there are fully modelled and textured stealthsuits for the Arirals and that they have not, in fact, been skulking around the facility in the nude.
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(kerf for scale)
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thedexcat · 3 months
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existential dread jumpscare
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thedexcat · 3 months
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ouch!
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thedexcat · 3 months
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Implying that the 1.0 ending somehow *won't* be the arirals giving him the catboyification serum
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turned him into a cat guys. sorry
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thedexcat · 3 months
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me living the adhd life:
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thedexcat · 4 months
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TTYD is a wild ride
The recent remake got me to reminisce about this game. There's just something so wonderfully out of place this game is in regards to the Mario franchise as a whole. In summary: Prologue: Welcome to this absolute hellhole of a city! Experience assault, gang violence, and robbery within mere minutes! Interludes: "...TTYD Peac, who gets naked 10,000 times per scene, is a statistical outlier adn should not have been counted." Chapter 1: Local dragon amasses absurdly high kill count via appeals to greed and foot fetishism Chapter 2: "Were... were they intending for this to be a metaphor for...?" (See: WoolieVS playthrough) (insights that make you go "oh no" 😬) Chapter 3: Mario is on the wrong side of the class divide, and needs mafia connections to proceed. Also, surprise! There's murders happening! Chapter 4: Mario's adventure suddenly becomes an allegory for gender dysphoria! ...You don't remember that? That's because the Gamecube-era localizers were COWARDS! (Remake-era, not so much 👍) Chapter 5: Don't worry about the fact that you released a murderous pillaging ghost-pirate out into the world for your own benefit. It's fine. Probably. Ch. 5 Bonus: ...What do you mean you also gave an endangered species brain damage???? Chapter 6: A nice, low-impact story arc to unwind and- OH GOD THEY'RE EVERYWHERE AAAAAGGGH Chapter 7: Mario reactivates an old Cold War-era Soviet weapons system. By now this sort of thing feels par for the course. Chapter 8: funny bing bing wahoo man fights the harbinger of the End Times
Blursed anomaly of a Mario game that shaped my youth, 10/10
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thedexcat · 4 months
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thedexcat · 5 months
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This was pretty much the exact impression I got just naturally playing the game. After an extremely rough day, I just shambled my way over to the ariral camp and flopped onto one of their cushions for the night. An absurd amount of sleep-yogurt ensued.
And man. I sure was feeling that 'wet cat' energy that night. Some unwashed, exhausted, injured, starving dork keels over at your place. His base? Powerless and left unlocked for a worryingly long time. His ATV? Missing. His robot cat? Exploded somewhere. His inventory? Just some shrimp, because he was 'just going to be out for a minute to deliver them real quick'
Honestly wouldn't have been surprised if an ending played out like "And then the arirals adoped Dr. Kel as an exotic pet because just watching him trying to live on his own was getting way too sad."
Hi, i have no clue how this site works but that one other site said to ask you stuff and i wanted to ask what does it mean in the ariral lore document that dr. kel is a wet cat of a person, thank
dr kel is a pathetic little man. he's a twink. a sopping wet cat. the arirals probably feel bad for the hungry little guy. if i was an ariral and i saw that fucking thing sleeping on my bed, i would be treating that boy like a cat.
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thedexcat · 5 months
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Dr. Kel's Fears
So I got that Voices of the Void brainrot going on and had a thought about the nightmare sequences. They seem to indicate Dr. Kel fearing things like drowning, enclosed spaces, mannequins, starvation, and so on. But... isn't there a prevalent source of fear in the game that's conspicuously absent from the list of nightmares?
Aliens. Space. The Void and the Voices we hear from it. Dr. Kel never has any nightmares directly relating to these things. Which, to me, implies a lot of things about Kel's 'canon' personality. Like I get the impression that Canon Kel would totally be down to hang out with the Arirals, possibly being largely unaffected by the "fake alien abduction/invasion" pranks.
In other words, Dr. Kel feels like one of those chat members saying the game feels 'cozy' while the streamer is in the verge of a heart attack.
But y'know. That's just my interpretation/speculation.
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thedexcat · 9 months
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