graveexcitement | zeroposting: BAMBOOZLED edition

this should surprise no one, but it's time for more zero time dilemma. spoilers ahoy!

before i jump in to the game, i'm going to try and collect my thoughts/theories/curiosities.

first off, most of the X-Passes seem to relate (at least vaguely) to the person whose death unlocked the pass. most of these are pretty clear, which makes the unclear ones more mysterious. i'm not sure if it's just that not every pass is actually relevant, or if these are actually subtle clues. the main one that comes to mind is one for Phi: "TWIN." (though now that i'm looking at that screenshot, i'm also a little curious about Diana's "BIRD.") but some of them - "BLUE" and "RED" are vague enough that i'm not certain "TWIN" does mean anything. but if it does, i'm going to guess it's going to be another example of the 'split consciousness' theme. (notably, we don't have an example of that for Phi yet, unless we count D-END 1.)

(side note: the announcer AI placidly announcing that "X-Passes from alternate timelines are not accepted" was really fucking funny.)

i saw all of the First Come, First Saved endings, and the main thing that draws my curiosity is that when Diana stays behind, Zero shows up on the monitors to taunt her, specifically. this doesn't happen for either Q or Carlos. it's only Diana that Zero speaks to in these three endings. curious.

and, finally: just like how morphogenetic field theory was constantly alluded to throughout 999, with nearly every single character stopping to talk to you about some example of it during escape rooms, the concept that's being emphasized in ZTD is diverging worlds and diverging selves. and specifically, the question of "what happens to the self who's left behind (in the worse timeline)?"

When C-Team SHIFTs, what happens to the original consciousness in the timeline they jump to?
When Q's consciousness is copied into a simulation, what is there to do for the Q who's left in reality?
When Diana and Sigma use the transporter, what happens to the 'original' pair of them, as opposed to the copied/transported pair?

With the latter two occurrences, we actually get to see their reactions. "Why am I on this side?" "I wouldn't have been surprised to be in the new timeline, so why am I here?" Essentially: "Why am I the me that has to live in the worse reality?"

And that's what brings us back to Zero's "Life is truly unfair." It's not fair that some other version of them gets to live in a better world, and they don't.

i'm beginning to grasp how these themes tie together, but i can only speculate as to where exactly it's going. but it's going somewhere, of that i have no doubt. and whatever it is, these "unfair" timelines are going to play a part, at least based on my current understanding of this game's themes.

(side note: something i miss from 999 is the sudden digressions into pseudoscience in the middle of an escape room. the digressions still happen in VLR and ZTD, but generally not mid-escape. that said ZTD is a little better about still having the charming interactions while investigating escape rooms than VLR was.)

...and of course, once i got all that written up, i got distracted by playing minecraft with my friends. (and after all that deliberation on whether to play zero escape or be with pals, too...)

ok now to like... try to actually... play the game... maybe??

i consulted my page of notes and realized that when the casualties are announced in Suspicion, Mira is not announced. now, i'm not sure i can take the supposed times as proof of anything. supposedly, Suspicion starts at 18:05, and Pop Off starts at 18:10. if i assume that Mira is already dead at the beginning of Pop Off, this timing doesn't work, because if that was the case Mira should have been announced dead in Suspicion. is there any reason to believe Mira isn't already dead by the beginning of Pop Off...?

throw out the exact times. this still means that Mira dies in between Suspicion (specifically Suspicion 2, after the pantry escape room) and the discovery of Mira's body at the end of the Pop Off escape room (the pod room). this narrows the window for time of death considerably compared to my earlier thoughts.

rewatching the cinematic, her eyes are open. does this mean she was awake when she died?

AHHHhhhhhh... ok... i was just about to try something else, but then the timer ran out. hhhhhh...i see...

alrighty then. hmm. mysterious scorch marks on the floor?

and -- oh, the golden door in the Pod Room says "Twins' Birthday" at the bottom. who are the twins here. is Phi a twin after all? in any case, if i find a concrete birthdate for a set of twins, that'll do for the 8-digit number i need (DD/MM/YYYY).

and searching mira's body confirms she was awake when she died, as she struggled with the killer.

...ok. ouch. this segment with the stranded Diana and Sigma is... painful. also, it's actually reminding me of doomed timelines in Homestuck, now that i think about it. (specifically the doomed timeline where Dave and Rose live on in a hopeless timeline for months, their other two best friends dead and everyone else ceasing contact, for the sake of having a better shot of saving said friends when they travel back to the past.)

ahaha, diana's like "how are you so calm???" meanwhile sigma's like "it's been 6 weeks... my last one of these lasted 45 years..."

oh... my heart... i swear all these games have to do is pull out that damn music box and i start crying again...

11/16/2029.... 11/16?? that's MY birthday!!!

..oh... oh god dammit --

i. i fucking. i fucking did the accidental incest ship didn't i
"i'll go ahead and nominate some Zero Escape ships for Chocolate Box," i said. "it'll be fine," i said. "my shippy feelings aren't that strong, but by god i'm going to want more content when i get done with this game. so let's throw in some ships that seem vaguely appealing," i said. "it'll be fine," i said. i've been fucking bamboozled y'all.

god damn sending babies back in time to fuck up my ships
...hmm, putting it that way, this really is like homestuck, huh... right down to sending back each child with a specific item that then gets passed along in such a way that the item has no origin outside of its own time loop.

ok. putting... that... aside... this leaves the question of, what happened to Delta? is he Zero?

...sigma, carlos, and diana trying to discuss their respective sci-fi abilities while eric is just like "i'm SICK of this BULLSHIT" is darkly hilarious

ah, so the teams are 2 hours apart: C-Team has the latest time, then Q-Team, then D-Team. this also explains why none of the segments started before 18:00, if D-Team was still voting at 17:30. and... oh, the global flowchart now reflects the real timeline, neat.

so let's see. how mira managed to avoid her drug injections that one time so she could go murder D-Team, i don't know, but that does answer how she got to them. and for who killed mira... Suspicion started at 18:05, and she wasn't dead yet. but Pop Off starts a full 2 hours and 5 minutes later. also, junpei must have been killed & dismembered between 13:30 and 18:05 (or between 17:30 and 18:05 if one assumes he was not killed before all teams had voted.)

ok, Zero is now claiming to be part of Q-Team. or at least, he tells C-Team that Carlos executed him in the current timeline, and Q-Team is the one who got executed in that timeline.

and... i guess i'm done for the night. it's 6am, again, and tomorrow i'll only get to sleep til 10 or 11, again (instead of like 12 or 14 like i would do if we didn't have company), so i guess i'm done for now. there's two new fragments i haven't started yet, and i also think i have the solution for Force Quit D, but i'm going to hold off on entering that for now (as i doubt it'll do much without the other two solutions.)

christ, i just scrolled up and remembered how i got fucking wrecked by time travelling babies. i'm a damn fool!!

good night, y'all.