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[5ifthChild]

[META] Theories on The Presence

[ADB]

Personally (and this is mega-spec), I think there is one Presence: I believe it was caused directly -- possibly accidentally -- by the Pilgrims and is a manifestation of player action.

Evidence:

• The lyrics of The Warning.
  The song makes a lot of sense if you stipulate that the voice is ours, chastising our future counterparts. We have been watching them with all of our eyes. We used to say we had so much potential. We did hear a cry -- from the Pilgrims -- and came to intervene by participating in this game. We even have the ability, I would say, to "wipe [that] place clean" by not allowing their future to occur.
  
• Analysis of the Presence from http://www.briantsunoda.com
  Specifically, points nine and ten from the Subjective Evidence section: "hearing quotes from specific existing texts" and "reports of 'lost time,'" both of which allude to the Pilgrims (the snippets of banned books and time travel, respectively). And nobody that mentioned these events also mentioned warnings of environmental peril, which I'm sure is significant.

Why us players would NEED a giant quantum-vortex-y thing to explode from the sky and just exist around for a while in the future is beyond me. I also don't know what it's/we're capable of doing. I think we need more information.

Obviously, the Presence cannot be a hallucination -- with all the tangible evidence I don't even think that's being debated at this point. I'd be interested to hear how the government's reacted to the Presence. It's not something they can just cover up or explain away.

I'm still up for the extraterrestrial theory, but because it sounds so plausible (if you assume aliens could exist), I'm inclined to believe it's a red herring.

Regarding the AIR flag, it's definitely got a Presence-y look to it. However, the Presence came after the design of the logo, so I think that's probably a coincidence.

Anybody else?

[shadowkhas]

I think that the Presence is more of a higher being form of thing. It's something that used to watch over us and view us as a powerful creature, but we've thrown that all away in our disgust for others and the earth.

[5ifthChild]

I really like your theory ADB. Not looked at it like in that way before.
It certainly seems to fit. As for why we'd need something like a giant celestial hand - well, we're still only just uncovering whats going on, so maybe it will make more sense as the facts are revealed.

One point here though is that the lyrics you mentioned could just as easily be the words of an extraterrestrial race, an angelic host or any other third party. Still, it's a theory I'm going to keep in mind as more information becomes available.

My personal view at this point is that The Presence is something angelic. Not the hand of God himself per se, but something similar.
There's been a lot of non-religious views pointed at The Presence (particularly on http://www.briantsunoda.com), but I look at it like this:

Religion is steeped in legend, symbolism, and stories that have been passed down for centuries. People have become used to seeing religion as something intangible. When something like The Presence is seen, it maybe seems too "real" to be linked to religion to many people - particularly those with no or contrasting religious beliefs.
This is something solid that can be recorded and analyzed, which seems far removed from the ethereal nature of religion, but this doesn't mean it isn't the same thing.

The people of the Year Zero world could be experiencing the intervention of the being(s) that were the origin of religion; our creators or some similar higher power.
If God himself were to walk into a city center bathed in a heavenly glow and performing miracles in a way that left no room for doubt, it would still be an event that could be recorded and analysed.

I think this idea would carry far more weight and be a far more terrifying prospect than the idea that the Presence is of human or even extra-terrestrial origin. It's one thing to provoke our past selves to send us such a potent message, but quite another to provoke intervention by the almighty!

This is still all conjecture though. The one thing I am fairly certain of is that even if the Presence is singular, it is at the least the work of a group - the lyrics leave little doubt about that.

[00613]

I was reading a synosis of this game on http://johnson.das.googlepages.com/summary when i started thinking about the lyrics of the Wretched from NIN's 1999 album, the Fragile

"the clouds will part and the sky cracks open and god himself will reach his fucking arm through JUST TO PUSH YOU DOWN JUST TO HOLD YOU DOWN stuck in this hole with the shit and the piss and it's hard to believe it could come down to this, back at the begining."

the imagery is a little too on-spot to be ignored so i thought, in the context of the game, "back at the begining' could be a reference to Pretty Hate Machine or even the Down In It single, which is Halo #1. then i realized it could also be a retro-fitted reference to "year Zero" = "back at the begining"

if this is the case then Trent's entire discography is probably being used as fodder for the ARG clue trail.

[KSG]

Yeah, I've seen that quote a few times on ETS, if not here. It's basically the strongest evidence for the hand of God theory.

[00613]

well, i started thinking about all the religious references made in NIN albums and i remembered something from Broken where Trent says "Im Jesus Christ in Ectasy" or maybe it's "ON ecstasy" so i got thinking what if Jesus arrived in Year Zero, and like the Biblical Jesus doesn't really know he is yet (until he meets his 'John the Baptist'), and is engesting the Perapin like everyone else and it's effecting him in particularly funky way.

Maybe the 'Hand' is some kind hypnogagic projection created by the son of God. The Biblical Jesus always called himself the 'Son of Man' and Hand kinda looks like a person

[randomfactor]

Hi, newbie to the whole ARG scene here--just got into YZ a few weeks ago and started to realize I don't like ETS very much because of threads like this one. I think the OP made an excellent point--the date for Czerno's execution matches exactly with the first wave of Presence sightings. Almost has to be related.

SPEC:
The Presence is Czerno's ghost? (I'm not leaning in this direction; it's too powerful to be just one person)
Czerno's death convinced who/whatever is behind The Presence that the human race is irredeemable?

[CSfreestyle]

Not to state the obvious, but everytime I listen to The Warning, I find myself leaning away from the "religious experience" theories, and to an "aliens-with-an-ultimatum" theory.

I don't like it, because to me, the hand of God story reads MUCH better, but the fact that the first-person-plural perspective of the song (ie: "You've become a virus / that's eating up its host / we've been watching you with all our eyes") I can't help but think the song is written from the collective perspective of a foreign/superior civilization.

Very non-NIN if you ask me, though. I would expect that from a Powerman 5000 ARG, not one from Mr. Reznor's mind.

Perhaps it just reflects a religious outlook I'm unaware of (maybe the song is referencing the views of ALL religious figureheads, speaking in unison) On that thought; how many major religions are there? I know that question could be interpreted enough ways to come up with a wide variety of answers, but what I'm getting at is this: would it be possible to look at the sociological phenomenon of religion in such a way that all beliefs can be boiled down to four subsets? If so, The Presence may be a reference (with its consistantly visible four fingers) to a "quadropartisan" effort, for lack of a better term, from all religions to right the wrongs of their intended followers.

Just a somewhat inebriated thought. Cheers.

[ariock]

I'm responding to CSfreestyle here, but didn't want to quote the post.

I agree that the words in the Warning are pretty clear that this isn't God. I like that it is easily misinterpreted (by John of Boston) to BE God. I would GUESS that the Presence is some sort of extra-dimensional being, whose physical manifestation in this dimension would look like a hand from the sky.

Of course, if such a being were to exist and had contacted people in the past, that could easily explain all of the religions ever. So, in a way, you'd be right that this would be "referencing the views of ALL religious figureheads, speaking in unison," since ALL of the religious figureheads would have been erroneously attributed to such a being.

That's my thought, anyway.

[rose]

So we're pretty sure that the Presence isn't just a drug-induced or stress-induced hallucination? I hadn't thought about it being the hand of God so much or an alien.

[konamouse]

[X]

the Presence

[Hati]

My Thoughts

[5ifthChild]

Anyone looked at the "Hour of Arrival" page yet?
Ont thing it features is a graph illustrating the exponential rise in sightings of the Presense.
Now, graphs aren't my strong point, and this one's small and hard to make out, but looking at the predicted curve of it, it indicates that eventually a point will be reached when the Presense is EVERYWHERE at the same time.
Is it safe to assume that this will be the moment of truth? The "End" maybe?
Also, can anyone figure out what date this will be, roughly? I only have a small monitor and can't make the dates out clearly enough.