[Intrepid Homoludens]

Okay, I might as well just post my theories here. I thought about doing so in the game's official forum, but the thought of registering for yet another place where my presence will eventually trickle off anyway is just too inconvenient.

For those of you who have finished the game, read, disseminate, and formulate your own ideas about it all. For you who have yet to play this marvelous title: !



The Trep's theories about BG&E's story, characters, and whatever:

The IRIS network

Spoiler:

HH was sent to infiltrate the Alpha Sections to investigate their relationship with the Domz. Unfortunately he was captured, robbing IRIS of their top agent.

Meanwhile Peepers has his eye on Jade as a potential new recruit for the rebels, referring to her as 'gifted', although neither Hahn nor anyone else in the network mentions this 'gift', thus I suspect they had no idea how truly valuable Jade was.

It's certainly plausible that when 'Mr. de Castellac' hires her for an assignment to photograph that creature in the ancient mines that Pey'J discovers that Jade is the next recruit for IRIS, and fearful of the DomZ discovering her, and of her finally discovering herself, he tries to dissuade her from taking on 'Mr. de Castellac's' proposal. After all, the IRIS network customarily uses Black Island to test potential new agents (as HH would point out while he and Jade were exploring the mines together, if you went back there with him). Here I would glean that Pey'J finally had to accept Jade's eventual discovery of her past and her destiny, and so he gives her the Mdisk of his confession.

Jade's secrets

Spoiler:

My theory is that Jade and her parents are 100% human (and the green lips are just lipstick, okay? Don't read so much into it). Shauni is very much akin to a neutral but extremely powerful energy force in the universe (as others' ideas here referring to Star Wars mythos) that can be used for either constructive or destructive purposes. Which means that the Domz priest possessed it for his own use to make himself all powerful and live eternally. I agree too with whomever proposed that a rebel group stole it from him and hid it away in consecutive mortal life forms (explaining the priest hunting it down for centuries), and Jade is now the current 'hiding place'. Jade's parents, whether or not they were members of this centuries old ongoing rebel group, knew this. Some kind of ritual may have been enacted for their daughter to 'host' Shauni. The Domz found out and the infant Jade was taken away into hiding, to be brought up and protected by rebel leader Pey'J. Whether Jade's biological parents were killed remains to be answered, but for now they're out of the story.

I'll post more later.

[CaveBear]

Wow. Interesting. Never thought of it that way.

[Griff]

Вот что я тебе скажу (пишу по русски, так как иного языка не знаю, но кому надо тот переведет ) , единственное что я не понял - зачем ты это сюда поместил?

Here is that I shall say you (write in russian, since other language do not know, but to whom it is necessary that will translate) , single that I have not understood - why you this has here placed?

[Mattsius]

Griff: I have a very hard time understanding what it is you're saying (both in Russian and English). Anyone getting exactly what he's saying?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I don't. Any English-to-Russian-to-English speakers in the house?

[Erkki]

He seems to be asking why you posted this here (directly: why did you place it here?), although I don't really know the word поместил.

[edit]think I was right the first time. Made a wrong edit.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

'Revenge'? But nothing bad happened - at least, nothing I'd be vengeful for. The mystery deepens, people, the mystery deepens.

[Erkki]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

'Revenge'? But nothing bad happened - at least, nothing I'd be vengeful for. The mystery deepens, people, the mystery deepens.

Sorry, read my edit

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Uh huh.

Well then, Griff, to answer your question, I posted it here because this is the General Gaming forum, where we talk about gaming in general. That make sense?

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Uh huh.

Well then, Griff, to answer your question, I posted it here because this is the General Gaming forum, where we talk about gaming in general. That make sense?

Да, это имеет смысл.
Я задал этот вопрос потомучто нужно было с чего-то начать общение с вами всеми.
Yes, this has smysl.
I have assigned this question потомучто it is necessary was with what-that begin the contact with you all.

[QUOTE = Erkki]He seems to be asking why you posted this here (directly: why did you place it here?), although I don't really know the word поместил.

[edit]think I was right the first time. Made a wrong edit.[/QUOTE]

Твой перевод был самый лучший из тех что я увидел 8-)
Your translation was the most best from that that I have seen 8-)

[Erkki]

Let me translate again:

"Yes, this makes sense. I asked this question because it was necessary to begin contact with you all with something."

Hmm... my russian is not as rusty as I thought (needed help with a couple of words though). I should practice it more.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I guess the only way to counteract my confusion over this language barrier is..... to post more of my theories on BG&E!!!

Spoiler:

I don't believe that the Domz priest is actually Jade's real father or mother, as some people on the official forum think. If that were true then Pey'j would have definitely had something different to say in that Mdisk confession. No, I think Jade really did have natural parents and that the priest had possession of 'Shauni' centuries ago.

The Domz priest speaks to Jade all these times by calling her 'Shauni', never 'Jade', and in the climax he tells her that in order for 'Shauni' to become part of him again he must kill the human part of her. He must kill 'Jade'. This definitely points to Shauni and Jade being separate entities, that the powerful energy the priest needs is being hosted by a human and he must separate the two to get the energy. However, Jade must have really integreted Shauni that well, I imagine her especially strong force of will against the priest being a result of her channeling Shauni for the purpose of good. Once she kills the priest she is then able to channel Shauni again, using the giant statue as an avatar, a kind of amplifier, to free the kidnapped Hillyans from their crypts. Really, the final battle is over who ultimately gets control of Shauni, a tug of war where Jade and the priest literally take turns channeling Shauni to her and his own advantage.

Spoiler:

Another idea I got was that because the priest speaks to 'Shauni', not Jade, Shauni must be some kind of sentient energy force capable of getting around on its own and finding hosts yet still neutral (beyond good & evil) so that anyone can harness it. The priest was basically telling it to quit messing around and come back to his employ. But Jade, being a very strong willed mortal host with the purpose of preserving good, was not about to just let anyone get near Shauni. It's possible that the rebel faction somehow managed to separate Shauni from the priest so that Shauni became free to find a host, and the rebel faction merely either guided it or kept track of which host it chose next, a constant vigil lasting centuries and generations of rebel factions. If this is the case then Jade was the next chosen one and the rebels did all they could to hide her.

[scabb]

Spoiler:

I remember that Jade was very quick in selecting Shauni it as her codename, so it obviously means something to her. Perhaps she was subconsciously aware of the magical stuff inside of her, or maybe Shauni is her highly suggestible sorceress mother who lives in Jade's stomach and helps her digest food. I'm sure there's a good explanation, it would just be annoying to leave it at Jade unknowingly posessing some mysterious energy force.

The questions that need answering are as follows:
What are the Alpha Sections? Just sapiens infected with those green Domz landmine things, like the one Jade pulled from Triple H?
How exactly did Jade and her "energy" bring Pey'j back to life?
Did this whole process make Jade somehow create a Domz-thing inside Pey'j, or was this all an elaborate scheme by the Domz to turn the IRIS leader evil?
What the hell was going on throughout most of the end-sequence?
When is the surprise announcement going to be made that Ubisoft have finished secretely developing the sequel, and will be releasing it tommorow?

Hopefully the Ubisoft marketing department aren't too "scientific" and might be willing to look past the poor sales figures for the first game. :~

[MDMaster]

Cheers for the interesting theories on BG&E, I'm definitely gonna keep 'em in mind since I'm planning to replay the game very soon.
About Ubi Soft, nobody here finds that patch thing really shameless? I mean, they release a patch that introduced a HUGE show stopping bug that prevented anyone from finishing the game (or so I've heard, happened to me too) and never corrected the fault. Yeah, maybe the game didn't sell too good but that's no way to treat gamers!

[Dale Baldwin]

Originally Posted by MDMaster

...introduced a HUGE show stopping bug that prevented anyone from finishing the game (or so I've heard, happened to me too)

It didn't have any detrimental effect to my copy. *shrug*

[TM3]

Those are great theories Intrepid Homoludens! And I thought the game's title just meant what Jade had to do! So anyway...where's the sequel?

[jjacob]

Exactly why I don't use patches until I get some positive feedback and only when a problem occurs - If it isn't broke, don't fix it.. I've had so many patches ruin the game experience, especially back in the day when patched versions weren't backwards compatible with older savegames Sometimes I just left the game for what it was, as I didn't feel much for replaying half of the game half a day since I started..

[MDMaster]

Well fortunately I didn't have to restar all over again cause a friend supplied me with a savegame but it really was annoying. Anyway Dale Baldwin, maybe you did play the entire game with the patch installed or just a part of it? Cause the problem was midway through the game, exactly at a point when there were three robots coming out of the ceiling from three tunnels and a key was found on the ground after you killed 'em. With the patch installed, the key was stuck on a tunnel, impossible to pick up.
I never had much problems with patches myself, but now I really don't install 'em without reading 'what's new' and seeing if I'm interested in anything. But anyway I do install patches I trust right away, like Blizzard ones that are usually rather useful.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by TM3

Those are great theories Intrepid Homoludens! And I thought the game's title just meant what Jade had to do! So anyway...where's the sequel?

8-) Thanks! The game's more or less like Silent Hill, there are so many dangling threads that it's open to interpretations. But it seems many people's theories actually converge in key places, too, and we agree on certain ideas. You might want to check out others' thoughts at the game's official forums.

Sadly, no sequel seems to be in the works. As critically acclaimed as BG&E was, commercially it did 'poorly', so Ubisoft (as of yet) isn't interested.

Originally Posted by MDMaster

Well fortunately I didn't have to restar all over again cause a friend supplied me with a savegame but it really was annoying. Anyway Dale Baldwin, maybe you did play the entire game with the patch installed or just a part of it? Cause the problem was midway through the game, exactly at a point when there were three robots coming out of the ceiling from three tunnels and a key was found on the ground after you killed 'em. With the patch installed, the key was stuck on a tunnel, impossible to pick up.

I haven't heard of this patch. My version must be fairly recent, I didn't need any patch for it, and the game ran flawlessly. It was when I tried playing the demo that I actually needed a patch (the one which fixes the demo so that it can run on Athlon processors).

[Dale Baldwin]

Originally Posted by MDMaster

Anyway Dale Baldwin, maybe you did play the entire game with the patch installed or just a part of it?

I installed the patch after the first time I tried to sail the hovercraft, where the game crashed to desktop, so therefore, I passed the "problem" situation with no difficulties with patch installed.