unforum

[sinz]

[Ogawa]

[HappyPhantom]

[mspixieriot]

I wish I had seen any of the commercials that y'all are talking about. I'm going to poke around on my lunch break and see what I can find.

[catherwood]

[marczellm]

Hi guys. I've just noticed that http://traelekinstitute.com/RFCS0 talks about the symptoms of the test subject (mental atrophy, societal withdrawal) as "consistent with the current pandemic that we are working to eradicate".

It means (at least to me) that the story is about this disease. It is spreading fast, it disconnects people from their senses but it doesn't affect people with HSP. The icefly is the only hope, perhaps the source of the medicine needed.

[kiki_ferret]

Natalia Suttinger is a Neuro-Analyst

Not sure if she'll be relevant but it is a person/character I guess.

http://traelekinstitute.com/RFCS0/

[Selie]

Maybe it's just me, but I've always interpreted what you refer to as a "disease" to mean the apathy most adults (maybe even most people) feel about their routine lives. It's a common enough theme - but it's so very true. People fall into a routine, they lose passion, they lose courage to try new things... it really is like an epidemic.

So maybe it is a literal disease within the context of the story - but I think it's supposed to at least represent lifeless apathy, when people stop living and just start existing.

Personally, I think this is a really important and awesome topic to address, if that's what they're going for. (Or there could be an evil disease the institute is working to treat. Really, I'll take either.)

Maybe on a meta level 5Gum is trying to help us step outside of our "mundane" lives too...

[thebruce]

I agree I think the best theory is that the 'virus' is the current state of humanity, with the downfall being the grand destruction of the human race over many many years (as opposed to an imminent threat)

But I sort of also like the idea of... well, the commercials all happened in the distant past perhaps there was an imminent threat to humanity, and what we're doing now is supposedly exploring abandoned underground structures, discovering old logs and records, uncovered what did happen, and realizing that we need to do something to stop it from happening again.

But that's an unlikely theory... I like it though Very Halo-esque, haha

[Aesculapius]

Yeah, definitely thirding that the epidemic is a reference to mental atrophy from a loss of passion for life. That much seems very clear.

The thing I wonder about now though, is now we finally have a story going that we can kind of fit ourselves into. At what point do we fit our role as Test Subjects?

[Rorschachian]

I enjoy the idea of us being the first ones that were in the facilities. It's not really a George Lucas thing, they probably just thought: "These commercials are cool, let's do something with them."

It certainly does partially explain why these facilities don't have any dorms...I just wonder what we're doing in the facilities every month? Just standing there? And those pictures on the Traelek website? Were they really there for about 15 years for archival purposes?

Could the house on fire have anything to do at all with a heat sensation?

[Skyhound]

I wonder why the truck driver was specifically chosen to dig up the Icefly and possibly excavate the facilities. Perhaps it's because he has the ability to just do what needs to be done? i.e. when he saves the tourists from polar bears? I have feeling the Tourists are actually Traelek agents and the whole thing was a test to see if he's a suitable test subject. Possibly the ideal subject? I mean, he even seems to be able to tell something is off about tourists being attacked by polar bears.

Also does anyone else notice the image on the screen here? http://www.survivalcode.com/images/Profile/logs/baNLxTKPjJ67mD.jpg

It kind of looks like some sort of organic Icefly. Maybe Traelek is trying to use the Iceflies to maximize the human state of mind? Or perhaps it's the opposite since the facilities and Iceflies were there before Traelek. Maybe certain humans are born with the "Icefly" gene(The truck driver perhaps?) and a past civilization(possibly aliens?) was able to fabricate it to give all humans those abilities. Thus, Traelek is trying to reverse-engineer it for a profit.

It might be a bit generic, but I think Traelek might be the antagonist here. The classic CEO/Evil Scientist villain that hides his true intentions underneath a veil of benevolence? Maybe's he really trying to create fearless super soldiers. The Adult Ginger Female could be a part of some resistance and the text call message could really be from a resistance agent wanting to abduct/save Bobbi from Traelek's exploitation?

[foxberg]

[marczellm]

The Wiki page about the story really needs to be brought up to date; with great care as there are multiple storylines and they have to be in time order.

[marczellm]

BTW check out http://wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=bobbi+gnarsea&t=1000&a=n for anagrams of Bobbi Gnarsea. My favourites are Baobab Singer, A Babe Robs Gin and A Bears Gibbon.