Spoilers? Probably not.
I’ve been finding a few things in brink that make the storyline deeper. I’ll start with #1
It mentions in Chen’s audio log (They are awesome) that a female agent betrayed him 
, but the husband claimed to know nothing of the betrayal against Chen :rolleyes:. Is this husband the guy who “Couldn’t stop the missile from launching” which allowed the Resistance to get a NAV computer? Or am I missing something vital information wise?
Thanks,
RabidAnubis
I don’t know those specific details (probably only Ed knows), but originally The Agent who is in Aquarium was female. :eek:
Hi there Rabid,
It’s awesome you’re so interested in this little loose end in Brink’s story. Now I wouldn’t want to contradict anyone’s cool theory about what’s going on in Brink. But since you asked, here’s what I thought was going on:
Chen’s Audio Log
[spoiler]Actually, I always thought she was entirely innocent, and it was just Chen’s paranoia about…Well, no, paranoia is the wrong word, it’s not an irrational fear, there clearly are agents and informants within the Resistance working for Security. It’s just that she wasn’t one of them.
I was thinking about the predicament of the innocent and non-militant civilian in a broken society. Once you have two implacably opposed factions in a society, totally mistrustful of each other, nobody is safe and the truth is no defence. When you’re a conspiracy theorist, nothing ever happens by accident. The Founders are desparately trying to keep the peace, trying to find a compromise that just isn’t there because for Chen and Mokoena, politics is a zero-sum game with only one winner and they can’t afford to let the other team win. Chen can’t believe that the Founders’ attempts at negotiation are anything but a cynical ploy:Chen Encrypted personal journal 08/12/43
“How sly are the Founders! They haven’t survived this long without learning to divide and rule. Only now do I realise they’re playing for time all along. What else could explain their inability to ever get anything done? No, they have something up their sleeves. Either Security is preparing something major against us or they know of a plot against me within the Resistance. That would explain everything. They’re dragging out negotiations, making a few minor concessions, while their plans to depose me gain force. I’ve worked too hard for too long for the people of Ark to lose now. I’ll have to escalate. Unless we go for broke now, we will lose all momentum. And I will have lost.”
And, of course, he’s sort of right. The Founders are indeed playing for time and holding something back - the truth about the attempts to reach the outside world (or at least, what the Founders told Mokoena is the truth). But Chen, an instinctive politican, self-styled voice of the people, is such an egotist, he takes everything personally. So when Chen learns that one of their safehouses is under surveillance, it can ONLY be because of a mole within the Resistance:
Chen Encrypted personal journal 02/12/45
“We have a traitor in our midst. I have been informed the fascists are secretly surveiling one of our safehouses. A mole within our ranks must have tipped them off. It makes me sick to think that one of our own - someone I’ve trusted with my life - is informing for those scum. I’ll find him. I don’t care what it takes.”
Which is what leads to this grim entry:
Chen Encrypted personal journal 02/15/45
“She denied it to the end, but she was clearly guilty. Amazing how she thought she could escape the consequences of her crimes. Another traitor uncovered and dealt with. Watch her husband. Perhaps, as he claims, he knew nothing of her crimes. Perhaps not. Watch him, watch who he meets: he may try to make contact with her spymasters in Security.”
But in Mokoena’s audio log we see that Security have been surveiling that safehouse since at least December 2044, and apparently only learnt about it by accident:[INDENT=2]
Mokoena Encrypted personal journal 12/08/44
“Some hotshot under my command disregards direct orders and lands on Pelgo 104D. He finds the place is NOT falling into the sea, he finds clear signs of human habitation. He stakes the place out, and sees terrorists and known sympathisers coming and going. We’ve bugged the place and are keeping it under surveillance…”
[/INDENT]
<Further complication>
[INDENT=3]As a sidenote, poor old Director of Maintenance! He’s another innocent caught up in this. I thought of him as an honest man, but under the influence of or possibly blackmailed by Chen. It’s another secret within another secret: Chen knows that the Arkoral is beginning to lose structural integrity, but admitting that would reduce his authority, which would mean a “victory” for Mokoena and the Founders. So he plays for time, hoping for help from outside, and shifts the blame, makes the Director of Maintenance back him when he claims that Security patrols are causing structual damage, which has the added bonus of keeping them away from pelgos the Resistance can then use as safehouses.
[/INDENT]
[INDENT=4]Chen Encrypted personal journal 01/24/44
I’ve told them - I’ve told them a hundred times and a dozen different ways about the problems with the Arkoral. Well, OK, not ALL of the problems. I can’t tell them that the Arkoral itself is dying, they’d blame Me. I’ll solve this problem, I’ll save this place, without making Mokoena king of it. So I explain away the failed Structural Integrity Tests results by blaming ocean acidification, or “Saline Corrosion of Cheap Unsealed Ferrous Rebar”, or - haha - “Structural Fatigue Due To Excessive Vibrations Caused By Security Helicopter Downwash, Or Erosion From The Wakes Of Security Patrol Boats”! [/INDENT]
I liked the detail that Mokoena was initially sympathetic to the Director of Maintenance, because we love to see our own predicament in other people, when it suits us to:
[INDENT=4]Mokoena Encrypted personal journal 03/27/43
“…that Director of Maintenance got roasted again for not miraculously solving all problems at once. The guy’s only doing his job, without the resources he needs to do it properly. I know the feeling. He deserves better.”[/INDENT]
And then of course when Mokoena finds out he’s been lied to, his sympathy turns to grim fury:
[INDENT=4]Mokoena Encrypted personal journal 12/08/44
"…The Director of Maintenance looked me in the eye and declared that pelgo structurally unsound and told me to stop patrolling near it. And I believed him. And now we find there’s been a terrorist safehouse there for months. I think it’s about time I paid him a personal call. Get CounterIntelligence to recommend a suitable replacement.[/INDENT]
</further complication>
My suspicion was that after his entirely innocent wife was tortured and executed by the Resistance, the husband was understandably distraught and embittered, which makes him a target for Security Counter-Intelligence trying to turn him. I think I actually wrote a diary entry for Mokoena where he says that his Counter-Intel department had identified a possible new informant - a disaffected Resistance guy whose wife had been erroneously purged by Chen - and they were considering making a cautious approach to him. And of course when they do, one of Chen’s Counter-Intel guys is trailing the man, and sees him being talked to by a known Security agent, which only confirms their suspicions. Chen would assume that both husband and wife had been Security spies all along when in fact, both husband and wife were innocent civilians, and their deaths were a completely avoidable human tragedy. But when you have two suspicious, ruthless enemies, anyone caught between them gets trapped and destroyed.
So why didn’t we provide all the clues? Partly we were running short of time with Nonso Anosie, the utterly excellent actor who played Mokoena, and couldn’t record the line. Partly it was because the explanation was derailing Mokoena’s narrative arc, as he moves from human doubt to hardline certainty. And partly, I think, because I loved the notion that we’d leave a narrative thread hanging for people to puzzle over, and one day I’d be able to tell a particularly alert forum member the whole story : )
[/spoiler]
Thanks for your interest!
: )
Spoiler Title
[spoiler]Some friends and I were discussing something I brought up while playing involving the word Ishtair (I think its spelled that way) splattered throughout various areas and in one of the major cutscenes. We see the final boat and boardroom Ark architectural model. So, my friend brought up the interesting point that this founder named Ishtair is on that boat. In which I said, that perhaps the rest of the world is fine, alive and well, and the Ark has become some twisted version of the Truman Show, where its a sociological experiment. And these Founders are nothing more than wealthy Elite who wish to see an experimental devolving system be further and further chaotic to appease their sick and twisted perversions for bloodshed.[/spoiler]
Spoiler Title
[spoiler]Also, Brother Chen gets more and more irrational with fear after each entry. At a certain point he seems to convince himself of only one possible conclusion with the Founders and that they are not seeking any kind of resolution to the guest plight or the sickness and that Mokena is just gonna follow orders blindly regardless of the truth, which Chen has convinced must be the case. Eventually, his anger consumes him completely, imo. He sees no other way but his own. Regardless of who is hurt. Reminiscent of the episode The High Ground from Star Trek Next Gen.[/spoiler]
Thanks!
[QUOTE=badman;375523]Try one of these babies:
Spoiler Title
[spoiler]Text to be hidden[/spoiler]
[/QUOTE]Awesome. Done. 
Also badman, you can use the noparse tags to print out bbcode examples so you don’t have to put it into html code tags.
Like this:
[noparse]
title
[spoiler]example[/spoiler]
[/noparse]
WOW! I think I was off. By like, forever. I basically had the anchor trailing the sea floor from The Oasis…
And I guess you guys pulled it off perfectly. I chose accusation over innocence, just like both of the leaders. Putting people in others shoes theme of the story, +10/10 That was the practical equivalent of the whole storyline of most AAA titles. (Why is it called that anyways?) I’m going to go ahead and timeline out the rest of the people of the ark, and see if the things are interlocking anywhere else…
Which brings me to the second theme of the story: It’s a small world after all. Everything in the Ark happens at the same place, same time, but when your going through the audio logs it seems like as if everything is going on at a ‘different place’ which I know sounds dumb, but it happens in our world too. We really don’t think about how other people think of the world at all really. Or if they do give off an account, it would seem like as if it was from a different planet. People are totally oblivious to other’s points of views that much!
For instance, “We were blowing up a sign of corruption.”
Versus, “A sign of glory and pride was destroyed. The World Trade Center.”
Those are the same thing, but when looking at it from a spectator’s point of view, it seems as if those were two different events altogether. Which I just realized how much you did this.
Resistance- Blow up founders’ tower, a sign of corruption. This will create a beacon of hope, a firework
Security- Save founders’ tower! Save the ark!
I understand you guys are Europe based, but if you were basing Founders’ Tower on 9/11, you should have made it be completed, and in total use. I know it’s dumb, but we consider it to be very emotional. I was about to post a thread on asking why wasn’t founder’s tower done, it would have been better that way. But now I realize that would have been basing a game on past experiences. So, this game has hit my SUBCONSCIOUS. Congratulations!
Resistance- Save a vaccine for a plague.
Security- They have made a BIO-WEAPONS bomb!
Perhaps, (FAN THEORY MODE ACTIVATED) the resistance had already MADE the bomb, deployed it, and this was the vaccine for it. Oh, and by the way, it fixes the flu while we are at it. But this would explain another reason why Chen was so urgent over the vaccine, because it already states that one of the Founders works in a clinic (Mrs. Barbra) so they would have gotten the vaccine anyways, despite if the resistance delivered it a little faster. AMIRIGHT? (FAN THEORY MODE DEACTIVATED)
I could find another million examples of this, but you guys put them in there, so you already know what I would say.
Then again, I probably hit the anchor again.
Thanks for responding,
RabidAnubis.
P.S./EDIT: I’m annotating for FUN outside of an English class. +10 for awesomeness!
I think I meant Ishmail. I’d better go back and look for sure. Graffiti. I have trouble reading it.
This has all been intensely interesting. I wish I would pay more attention to the audio logs. XD
I WANT MY OWN CONSPIRACY THEORY!
[QUOTE=L00fah;376148]This has all been intensely interesting. I wish I would pay more attention to the audio logs. XD
I WANT MY OWN CONSPIRACY THEORY![/QUOTE]Ha ha! The Audio Logs are great. I should go back and listen to them again.
I think that the “Bio-Weapon” is the fertilizer bomb for blowing up founder’s tower.
Lolz.
Fertilizer could be explosive.
Maybe it was a Vaccine FOR the arkoral to make it grow too rapidly and collapse the Ark?
P.S. Strep Throat sucks.
That sickness afflicting the Ark? Take a look at Welder 2nd Class Lugard Adebayo’s Personal journal 03/03/43 : )
Genuine question, am I the only one who didn’t bother with the audio logs?
I’m not even sure where you listen to them to be honest, I would occasionally get pop ups at the end of rounds saying I unlocked them but it never explained what they actually were and by reading this thread they appear quite important to the story side of things.
I remember someone from SD commenting on the ET news reals and they didn’t expect anyone to listen to them and were shocked to find out a small minority did. Makes me wonder why they decided to take a similar route to tell what appears to be important story elements that could add a bit more meaning and depth to the game experience.
They’re purely story and completely inconsequential to enjoying the actual game.
I’m not saying “don’t go listen to them” or “they are bad”. They’re fun and fill out some backstory, but they are nowhere near required.
Since when did a shooter protaganist (especially a multiplayer shooter) need a reason to shoot something? 
[QUOTE=zenstar;377784]They’re purely story and completely inconsequential to enjoying the actual game.
I’m not saying “don’t go listen to them” or “they are bad”. They’re fun and fill out some backstory, but they are nowhere near required.
Since when did a shooter protaganist (especially a multiplayer shooter) need a reason to shoot something? [/QUOTE]
This game was sold on it’s compelling story and such. I know it wouldn’t change my enjoyment of the game but as someone who loved reading the Scan Logs in the Metroid Prime trilogy it seems such a waste to relegate the audio logs to something in the game menu. Real shame there wasn’t a real SP mode for these to be part of.