Lotus
In-Game events
Prologue
The earth is on the verge of collapse, devastated by a huge atomic war.
Space: the only chance left to save the human race, to survive man is forced to send a module with a colony to Mars.
You are one of the two astronauts who manage the space base in orbit around the earth.
You have been entrusted with the mission of guiding the module to its destination.
Act I – “We were born to inherit the stars”
The launch of the module is approaching, you and your companion Timoty carefully observe the planet earth from a window of the base.
A few seconds pass, a communication arrives on the on-board computer “Module launched successfully”, you go back to admiring the earth, the music stops for a few seconds, while you see the planet explode before your eyes.
Act II – “The last of us”
A few minutes have passed since the Earth exploded, you and Timothy have decided to think more clearly about what to do: you have to try to contact the module at all costs, even with the uncertainty that it survived the explosion.
In the meantime, you begin to put the base back in order, which has suffered damage from the explosion.
During the exploration, however, strange episodes begin to appear on the ship: rations disappearing, cables cut, strange noises…
Act III – “We all go a little mad sometimes”
You reunite and, by comparing notes, come to the conclusion that you are not alone on the base, and decide to investigate the ship together without finding trace of the intruder. A message arrives on your computer: the module has been traced; while Timothy returns to his room, you remain at the computer trying to send a message to the module, but access is blocked.
You begin to reflect on everything that has happened since the earth exploded and all the strange events that have occurred on the base, including the alleged intruder.
In panic, you hide, while you see your companion arrive from his room armed with a knife.
Act IV – “We traced the call, it’s coming from inside the house.”
Gameplay phase in which while you escape, you must restart the base’s fusion core, find a weapon and face your companion.
Act V – “Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.”
[The dialogue takes place entirely on a black screen]
After facing him in vain, your companion reaches you and wounds you, forcing you to the ground.
You: “Stop, please! We can still save ourselves, if the colony of the module is alive we can recreate the human race”
T: “That’s exactly the problem, we have already destroyed the earth, for what purpose should we repopulate the human race? For more destruction, to blow up another planet or start another war? There is no more destiny for humanity and it is up to us to end its history here and now.”
A scream of pain is heard, the sound of a blade piercing flesh and a body falling to the ground.
[Fade in on the corpse of Timoty lying on the ground with a knife next to him]
[The camera moves away and in the meantime the writing appears on the screen
“The end
R.I.P. Thimoty Ligiard”]
Hidden details
VoiceOver
The protagonist and Timothy are voiced by the same person, and although the game never reveals the protagonist’s name, Timothy calls him Max several times.
Database
(Optional action) Reading the database in the on-board computer we learn that of the 4 members of the expedition only Thimoty is still alive, and that in the last period he has begun to manifest hallucinations, amnesia, nervous breakdowns and personality disorders and that for this reason he takes psychotropic drugs, anxiolytics and antidepressants.
Lockers
AThere are 4 lockers that can be opened in the game, which in addition to a gameplay function (hiding), provide useful information for the lore:
Of the 4, there is an isolated one inside which there is a mirror, the player can look at himself in it with some difficulty related to the dim light and the position and see that the model of his character is the same as that of Timoty.
The other 3, marked with a painted cross and the words “do not open!”, each have inside them a plate with the name of one of the three members of the dead expedition and his skull.
Pills jar label
Paying attention to the labels on the many nearly empty medicine boxes scattered around the map, you can read:
Psychotropic drugs, anxiolytics, antidepressants
Recommended for cases of PTSD and DID.
With a quick search on the internet, in addition to the more well-known post-traumatic stress disorder, we learn that:
The DID is a complex and chronic psychological state characterized by alterations of identities and ruptures in consciousness. It is generally described as “the presence of two or more distinct states of separate personality”. The alternation of the various identities and the amnesia between the different personalities determine a shocking existential chaos in the individual…at least two of these identities or personality states recurrently take control of the person’s behavior and each of them, when present, is completely unaware of the other…the subject is not able to remember not only the traumatic and stressful events of the past but above all the daily events and important personal information, such as his name, which would not normally be forgotten…Other symptoms are auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory and gustatory hallucinations but unlike psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, patients with dissociative personality disorder experience these symptoms as coming from the alternative identity that from time to time takes over…the hallucinations are often accompanied by depression, anxiety, substance abuse, self-harm, self-mutilation, non-epileptic seizures, suicidal behavior.
The cause is almost always severe stress or childhood trauma especially if severe, prolonged over time and recurrent.
Some comments from the character
“[You] Before there weren’t so few food rations…”
“[You] There are no more pills and yet it seemed to me we had more supplies…”
“[You] I miss you comrades…”
Act V
When Thimoty’s body is revealed, as the camera pans out it becomes clear that there is no one else in the room except him.
Real Story
The Lotus expedition was a mission born with the aim of leading a colony of humans with the E2024 module to Mars, guiding it from a space base in orbit around the Earth.
For the mission, which would have lasted years, four different personalities were chosen.
However, 3 of them died during the expedition for unknown reasons (probably illness and lack of rations on board), leaving Thimoty alone in the middle of nowhere, and also forcing him to give them an improvised tomb (the locker) (the fact that only the bones of his companions remained suggests that Thimoty ate their flesh to feed himself).
All this stress and trauma led Thimoty to frequent hallucinations, amnesia, nervous breakdowns and finally to develop a personality disorder, so much so that at times and without being aware of it, he assumed the personality of his deceased friend and mission companion Max Fesus.
In the game the protagonist is therefore Thimoty, who, having run out of psychotropic drugs, no longer has a way to calm his mental disorder.
The Timoty we control, however, is dissociated from his identity and is convinced he is Max Fesus, while the Thimoty who speaks to us, with whom we interact and who also becomes the main enemy during the story is nothing more than a hallucination, a split personality and therefore does not exist, except in the mind of our character.
Everything that happens during the story (except the explosion of the Earth and the communications with Module E2024) is influenced by the sick mind of the protagonist.
In Act V, the corpse lying on the ground is precisely that of our character, of Thimoty who committed suicide in the throes of all these nervous breakdowns (that’s why there is no one in the room besides him, with the change of camera we move to an objective perspective).