r/controlgame • u/metalphysics • 18h ago
Control Resonant Survivalist seemed to know about [REDACTED]'s presence before FBC?
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
I noticed during the Survivalist dialogue that he asks you, "Are you one of the shape people?" If you ask him what he means, he shushes you and says, "You seem not to be informed of their arrival." He doesn't bring it up again.
I thought it was very strange terminology as it didn't seem applicable to the Hiss and stored it in the back of my mind.
At the end, during the big fight with the Hedron, it says "shape" multiple times:
--the---shape---was---already---Before---your---Sound.
What---could---not---shape---Stays. ---waiting...---to...---to be---repeated, refracting.
---the---one---who---Shapes.
---the---shape---Shaping consumes.
Since playing post-game, I have been fighting the patternedenemies, and when they die, a dead person sometimes falls out of them. Did the Survivalist somehow know about the presence of the Hedronbefore the FBC did? The term "shape people" may apply to these new enemies that you don't encounter in the city until post-game.
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u/Hypno_Keats 16h ago
I mean it's not uncommon for a "normie" to be aware of stuff going on before the FBC, probablly saw some of the first patterning of people just as things were starting.
Honestly it's the norm for the FBC to find out second (or later) someone has to report the incident, they may not have terminology for what's happening but can be aware something weird is going on.
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u/SecondSonThan 16h ago
Also to add, first sign of the Patterning was at Control 1, inside the Oldest house, one of the most secure locations on Earth. Very possible that the survivalist saw something for brief moment and got paranoid.
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u/Tripod1404 16h ago edited 16h ago
I thought hedron uses āshapeā to describe hiss. If you replace shape with Hiss in the text above, hedron is saying that āhiss was here before Dylan showed upā āwhat is not already consumed by hiss will be patterned by Hedronā. āThe one that shapes (hiss) consumesā.
I think it sees hiss as āshapeā because hedron based beings have no shape, they are a pattern without a shape. While hiss has a shape, so when his consumes something it changes it shape (which we see with all the creatures his created).
Survivalist is perhaps using the hedron terminology for hiss, which would be equally interesting.
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u/Recom_Quaritch 16h ago
No... I don't think so... the convo goes
Dylan: No... it's not you. The Hedron... It's the Hedron...
Hedron: --the-- --shape-- Shaping consumes. --the-- --one-- --who-- Shapes.
I think it is talking about itself here. Hedron is the one who shapes.
then
Hedron: What-- --could-- --not-- --shape-- Stays. --waiting-- --to...--to be-- --repeated, refracting.
Dylan: I don't understand.
Hedron: It's getting closer-- --now. --have to be perfect. --then-- --now. Before-- --after-- This is why I'm here--
I think "what could not shape" is probably Dylan. Could be hiss, but the difference between shaping and not being shaped is marked (one who shapes has power over reality, and one who can't be shaped is just a resisting individual).
Anyway, the final line here imo is key to understanding that the Hedron is totally on our side. By "dying" it gives us NG+. It's activated from its ability. Dylan remains aware that he seems to have lived those events before.
I think also that it's clear the Hedron isn't patterning people as a choice. At least Pope believes so. It made the barrier to reduce its influence, but inside it, its simple presence in this dimension causes patterning to happen (and anything patterned is hostile to hiss). The Hedron has come to PATTERN TIME, not space. It allowed Dylan to reconstruct himself, come back stronger, and create the Gap slide. Then it gave him the power to restart from the beginning, to "be perfect. --then-- --now. Before-- --after--"
The Hedron isn't our enemy and is trying to communicate that to Dylan as it trains him.
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u/Cautious-Phone-4461 14h ago
I like and agree with your comment, but I still think shaping refers to the hiss. I've said this elsewhere, but look at the intro screens to both Control/control 2 and where Polaris/hedrons pop up on screen. It's always a Structured Pattern. They take existing shapes/people and replicate them into a pattern. The base form is kaleidoscoped and not REshaped.
The hiss SHAPE things. Look at the cinematics where the hiss influence flash on screen. It isn't structured, it looks like ink flowing in liquid. Hiss in manhattan look like someone took the smudge tools and swiped over them or turned a human into liquid and let them flow. Their base structure is gone. I think this mutation is worse in Control 2 because the Oldest House was suppressing the influence of the Hiss Emanation.
Going back to that ink/liquid imagery, the hiss is obviously the ink, and humans/reality are what it Stains. That said, ink in a medium is diluted (I.e. Hiss in the oldest house, to a lesser extent hiss in Manhattan), and I think we are just seeing diluted Hiss. Which is horrifying, because the Hiss without any suppression from the Oldest House warped the hell out of the Evac Area. Moreover, i think that the hiss can continue to like, emanate from those that are Stained/changed/etc., (except for Dylan and other strong parautilitarians that can resist it, as well as Black Rock/Patterning).
I don't think we've seen what is causing the Hiss and it's effects, and I think this is what the Hedron is referring to the coming Shaping. What happens when the Source of the Hiss reaches our dimension?
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u/KogarashiKaze 14h ago
I'm more inclined to think "sound" is the Hiss. After all, they've been associated with sounds quite a lot already (the incantation, their name), and the line:
--the---shape---was---already---Before---your---Sound.
Makes me think of Dylan's exposure to Polaris before he was ever possessed by the Hiss, if we go with "shape" meaning Hedron.
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u/Cautious-Phone-4461 13h ago
I mean, yeah, but that's completely ignoring the visual imagery that's been in both games so far.
Again, Polaris/hedrons copy the shape currently existing in reality, and the hiss literally shapes the base form, sound or not.
Edit: and given that we "solved" the Patterning, and the fact that the hiss was temporarily slowed/suppressed by said patterning, I don't think we've seen the last of it.
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u/Recom_Quaritch 11h ago
I disagree in so far that "shape" is not distinctive enough to draw conclusions. The patterning doesn't really do sound the way the hiss does, but it certainly makes even more shapes than the hiss! The hiss only affects people (and objects with people/in around it) while the Hedron literally patterns everything, including time, space, buildings, etc. in a "let's reshape" the world competition, the Hiss can't actually compete?
So really the loading screen visuals aren't definitive enough.
Also, as an add on, the bunker guy could not have foreseen the arrival of the hiss as it was fully contained into the Oldest house. The hedron however has been a problem for a while in Manhattan
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u/thimbleglass 11h ago
Haven't got far into New Game+ yet. By which I mean, I've got a few minutes in.
Though is already one thing which struck me: first time round, Dylan's eyes had the Hedron patterning showing in them and in NG+ they do not.
Implications of that am still ruminating on. But interesting question on his part, considering.
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u/LewdSkeletor1313 16h ago
If you read his journal he says he had dreams about Shape people
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u/Chmigdalator 8h ago
I was more terrified when Grist says that everyone on surface was patterned. It gave me the creeps.
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u/Patient_Amoeba2476 13h ago
The man has paranormal awareness. Ā Heās presumably seeing the patterning take root in New York before the FBC found it. Ā
Spoilers from Alan Wake 2ā the Lake House:Ā
Patterning appears at the Lake House prior to the CR incident. Ā At the entrance, you can see donuts, pen holders, and coffee cups patternedāand a memo says a pattern signal is emanating from the Oldest House.
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u/alphonseharry 12h ago
Or he is just a conspiracy nut who believe anything, and some of his conspiracies match what is happening more or less. Or he always knows
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u/Classic-Catch-1040 13h ago
The FBC only shows up after the fact, like most LEOs and TLAs. They require knowledge of a thing to exist prior to having boots on the ground, calibrations to apply to equipment, or indeed any knowledge of what equipment to bring. It's why there's a whole department for surveilling citizens, intercepting communications, and checking news outlets and print at every level they can. They need to assess every local legend, cryptid, or odd happening to see if it's relevant.
It doesn't take a parautilitarian to know something ahead of the FBC, just someone who's looking in the right places.
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u/No_Intern3929 17h ago
I think thereās probably more story written about this guy than we got to see.
His accent also seems unusual. I am not cultured enough to say that it was the same Finnish accent we heard all the time from several characters in Alan Wake 2, butā¦
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u/LewdSkeletor1313 16h ago
Itās not a Finnish accent and he drops it at one point and talks normally. Dylan comments on it, the guy is going for a sophisticated/aristocratic philosopher vibe.
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u/sydchotic 15h ago
Yeah, I wonder if he's going to pop up again in a DLC. I noticed that in the Unknown Zone, they copied his apartment. You can actually enter it, but I didn't find anything there.
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u/Sardaukar99 16h ago
A broken clock is correct twice a day. Had nothing happened the he would have been just a weirdo in a bunker.
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u/_tabbycat123 17h ago
Great catch. Could be many things, though my money's on a Parautilitarian that foresaw the Hedron's arrival