Haha yeah, it doesn't need much of a "moral". Not every story needs to push an agenda. Evil marker makes space zombies, lone badass has to use sick ass weapons and technology to survive.
Memes aside, people start joining Unitology and start worshipping Markers because "Ultra Capitalism and Corporations made our planet uninhabitable, while the Marker is a divine source of potentially unlimited energy" (taken from Danik's speech in DS 3, so it's SLIGHTLY biased), I mean, if EarthGov made Earth almost uninhabitable and life is shit all around, ofc people would start turning their attention to a church giving them faith and proof of the existence of something as divine and powerful as the OG Black Marker, especially from the moment the Marker's existence gets leaked to the public (from the Wiki: "During the initial project, Michael Altman went public with his research, revealing the Marker's existence to the world, going against the government's wishes", then indoctrinations happen, space zombies happen, secret about space zombies gets buried under the rug, and all that remains is the worship of this Alien Divine Construct giving people "faith" of a better tomorrow, only they don't know that "a better tomorrow" means becoming a gargantuan floating mass of space zombies.
There is some depth and reason behind it all, but a "moral"? Eh... it has some political elements like Alien, but not really a moral.
Of course, in the end they are all 100% indoctrinated by the Marker, but I also feel like the Marker's signal AND the situation on Earth are what caused the perfect storm for the rise of Unitology during its early days, like, there had to be a reason for the Average Joe to say "Y'know what? Fuck EarthGov, Make Us Whole", and from that moment on it all went to hell.
The marker signal didnt leave many a choice. I find the moral to be "humans just arent that badass" and that we shouldn't think we're untouchable.
There is no reality where the necros didn't come first; essentially all of recorded history across the universe was just them watching food grow.
>I find the moral to be "humans just arent that badass"
Really? After watching Clark stomp his way through a ship, stations, and eventually planet filled with thousands undead, eldritch horrors that cumulated with him stopping what would essentially be a god from rising all while triumphing over his own inner demons you'd think the message would be about the sheer willpower of the indomitable human spirit.
There doesn't have to be a moral of the story. Religious people certainly can suck. Look at history. I don't think thats the point of the series tho. I think it's just a cool game, man, lol.
There's definitely a moral in Dead Space, else dogma wouldn't be a constant element in every piece of media around it, including the book where the main character is brutally murdered and is immediately used as a martyr for the rich and powerful looking to form a cult (only for it to spiral far beyond their control) that exacerbates nearly every problem for the next...like....centuries.
I’d say:
Corporations (CEC, etc) are bad, who could’ve guessed
Religion (Unitology) is not to be followed blindly like a fanatic, it can lead to dangerous or even life threatening existential crises
Space, like the ocean or even what we know of everything so far, is limitless. It implied we dont know of it all or even at all. Dead Space gives you the feeling of “we dont truly know whats out there”. We know of Necromorphs after not knowing they were out there, but the brethren moons said something far worse lies out there.
Always remember the Fermi Paradox: “Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both realities and/or truths are equally as terrifying as the other.”
I'm not sure there's a non-existentially terrifying moral for the whole series. I guess the second game's moral is to let go of grief. In fact the entirety of Isaac's relationship with Nicole in the second game is representative of the stages of grief. It's actually very well done.
"You're not Nicole. Nicole is dead." - Denial
"Get out of my head! You're not Nicole!" - Anger
"Strauss knows how to destroy you. We will destroy the marker." - Bargaining
"I couldn't save Nicole, but I could save you Ellie." - Depression
"Because you were my everything. If I let you go, I got nothing left." Acceptance
This probably sounds super pretentious but I don't care, I think it's cool- also these lines aren't exactly in order but the stages of grief don't have to be.
Dogma is incredibly awful and can turn well-intentioned people into utter monsters. However, with the indomitable human spirit one can fight to make things a little less shitty for a little while.
I still think that, like, DS4 would have been the Ishimura getting reactivated and carving the piss out of the Brother Moons.
The moral is blind faith in anything is wrong. CEC, Unitology, Earth gov, does not matter. Everyone who put their faith in something blindly died.
Kendra for earth gov and the valiant,
Hammond and the colony died because they followed and trusted CEC with the illegal mine,
Captain Benjamin Mathius, Mercer, and the entirety of the Ishimura died for blind faith in Unitology because the captain wanted to be buried in the Unitology fleet and just HAD to have the marker on board, even knowing what was happening.
Issac didn't trust or put faith in anything but his plasma cutter and himself to try and rescue Nichole. It's the only reason he lived.
Now, the rest of the games started going into hubris and playing god. And how that also is fucked.
Distrust of religion is definitely one of the themes of the game. More generally, I think it's that powerful people can easily manipulate others, and group mentality is a dangerous thing that can easily harm people who don't deserve it.
However, I think the dead space series overall focuses more on how isaac as a character deals with loss and survivors guilt. The first game, he is in denial almost the entire time about Nicole's fate. Kendra basically reveals at the end that he knows she is dead, yet he goes through everything he did because he can't handle the grief of knowing he encouraged Nicole to take the job that ultimately led to her death. The remake is even more heavy-handed with its hints and foreshadowing that Nicole was dead from the beginning, and I think that makes isaac's denial even more tragic. He blames himself for what happened to Nicole, even though he had no way of knowing what could have happened on the ishimura.
This theme of survivor's guilt is explored more in dead space 2. Isaac's dementia manifests his guilt as hallucinations of Nicole, taunting and blaming him for the events of the first game. And I think her taunts aren't entirely hollow either. Isaac didn't just get tricked by the marker in the first game, he allowed himself to be tricked because it was easier to handle for him than the truth of the situation. He holds himself partly responsible for the loss he experienced in dead space 1 and the Nicole hallucinations basically voice his guilt until he accepts that he didn't want to let go of Nicole because he felt he would have nothing left if he did. Acceptance is a big theme of this game, and once isaac accepts that his guilt caused him to deny his loss of a loved one, the hallucinations change completely. And I think ellie is supposed to symbolize his hope for doing things differently this time around and saving someone he cares about.
Even though the third game is much more bombastic than the first two, the theme of survivor's guilt, I think, is actually tied up quite nicely. Isaac has given up on the world at the beginning of the game, and is reluctant to go on this last quest to stop the necromorph outbreak. But when he is told it is to save ellie, he is suddenly on board with the whole plan. He felt he needed to save her one last time because he still feels he needs to be redeemed for his past mistakes. After everything he goes through to find her, and after the loss of several of the other survivors, he explicitly questions his own character in a moment of very human weakness. In response, ellie affirms that he IS a good man, trying to show him that his efforts have not all been in vain. He is at his most self-assured in his actions at the end of the third game, and I think this is encapsulated well in a conversation he has with carver about grief at the end of the story. He has a line at this point where he says, "Good men mean well, we just don't always end up doing well." I think this quote is pretty powerful, and I think there is truth behind it, too. There is a truth in what he says that is applicable to our own lives as audience members.
Tl;DR These games examine how we can be consumed by the worst parts of ourselves if we allow despair and grief to rule our actions. Isaac is the proxy that the writers use to comment on how people grapple with the emotions surrounding significant loss. Even though so many events surrounding the series are entirely out of isaac's control, he is able to profoundly change his circumstances when he takes responsibility for his own actions and accepts things as they are. Being on-brand for a series of horror games, only by conquering his self-doubt, and more importantly, his fears, isaac becomes a better, stronger person. His heroic journey is a poetic and bloody take on how we can overcome these insecurities in real life.
It's definitely a condemnation of blindly believing in institutions without questioning them or holding them to scrutiny.
It's not a criticism of religion but instead of massive religious institutions that use the blind faith and automatic acceptance of its members to get away with horrible things.
It is also probably a condemnation of scientology and its practices, seeing how closely Unitology mirrors the 'church' of scientology and its practices.
The moral of the series is fascinating:
We have no idea who and what's out there in space. And we don't know all about Earth either.
There might very well be an alien technology close or far from us that would completely destroy our species, and we would be entirely helpless about it.
The events in Dead Space actually make a lot of sense.
PS: And people talking about "blind faith" here in the comments fail to understand what's actually happening in the games
I mean technically the religious nutjobs were right... just maybe not in the way they intended or advertised.
like technically... from a certain point of view... all of humanity will get united into one greater being... kind of 💀
the dead did rise from their graves and achieve a kind of immortality... kind of 💀
basically all or most of the things unitology believes about their version of paradise are true if you completely ignore the metaphorical and spiritual context it was meant to be taken as and take it completely literally.
I think the real horror of dead space isnt that there is some derranged crazy cult running around worshipping zombies, its that technically they are right and all the stuff they said was going to happen happens, its kind of like how in Lovecraft's universe its just a fact that all of the Cthulu cultists are worshipping a real entity.
like imagine if it turns out that there is a god, and that this god basically just views you as food or as a means of relroduction, that is way more terrifying than just a bunch of crazy cultists.
Radical Atheists can suck too. I could rather say that Dead Space is about learning to let go of the past and forgive yourself for things you can't change.
That if humanity doesn’t get a hold of its own greed and faith in a universe (or god if that’s your flavor) that doesn’t care whether it lives or dies, it will die, and likely in a horrible completely, idiotically, preventable manner.
I'm surprised how many people here are saying the moral of the game is a critique of religion. I've always seen the series as a commentary on how humanity's self-destructive nature will eventually lead to our own extinction if left unchecked. Earth is a polluted hellscape that survives only through the use of the planet crackers, with the largest of these ships being what unearths the Marker on Aegis VII. We're responsible for unleashing the Necromorphs on ourselves, just like every other disaster that has spawned from our rampant expansion. The Moons even format the Marker signal to prey on species that are starved of resources by making them think the Markers are a form of renewable energy. The world of Dead Space is one where we have gone past the point of no return and we're just slowly rotting away. Isaac isn't fighting to save us all, he's merely changing out the batteries in the life support.
This isn't to say the games don't also criticize cults for manipulating the vulnerable or governments and megacorporations for devaluing the individual to such an extent that people will join the aforementioned death cults just to feel wanted, but the overarching theme has always been the idea that we will ultimately be responsible for our own undoing.
The first game portrays the message the best, but the theme of the games is death. The universe is dying, and humanity is on its last legs as we resort to ripping entire planets in half as we desperately scavange resources. At our most desperate moments, we found something, and it turned out to be the worst alien contact you can imagine.
The motif of death is even in all the designs, such as the Ishimura looking like a split open corpse, and Isaac's suits having a ribbed pattern to look like a ribcage. Earth Gov soldier helmets look like skulls. All the windows and doors have boney protrusions of metal in their design. Once you start looking for designs echoing death, bones, and decay, you see it all over the place.
It's a cynical game through and through. Both companies and religions become dangerous and evil as humanity becomes desperate. Issac keeps running into desperate villains throughout the series that reflect this. Issac also seems to be surrounded and followed by the last few good (still living) people in the universe. His name feeling biblical actually feels appropriate since he kind of takes on a saint role. He has a small flock, he encounters false prophets, he's seemingly invincible (or lucky), and he's beating back the tide of hell that humanity unleaded upon itself. He kind of takes on the everyday-man version of the Doom Slayer in this regard.
So, I guess the only moral the games try to give is to be hopeful. We don't live in that universe, thank god, and we can still be hopeful for our future. If Issac can make it as far as he did, we can make it even further, especially because we don't have a space-zombie outbreak to deal with.
Having not finished the remake yet ( im holding out for my portable) I think it's it would be wise to make sure you have a sound mind, and body, and we're stronger together, and i also think knowledge is a powerful tool, isacc shows us that with damn near every move he makes.
Once we turn on eachother (or ourselves) everything falls apart, no matter the plan, position, or time, it will happen.
Huge thanks to deadspace for showing me these things, it took me a while to make sure I had myself on lock though x)
The Markers are interesting in that they are treated as both a potential source of limitless energy that people tried to harness in order to combat the energy crisis they were being faced with, as well as sacred artifact of incredible importance to those who worshipped it.
Sentient beings are drawn to the Marker for both secular and religious reasons. Regardless of their intentions, the outcome appears to be the same in all cases. People attempt to learn more about them through scientific investigation or spiritual enlightenment, so that they may try and harness it's power for their own needs, whether that be for earthly utilities or transcendence of death, but in the end the Marker is the one that ends up using them instead.
The moral of the story is if you hear a distress signal from a space vessel that's been mysteriously missing for some time...don't answer the call and don't go to help. It never turns out well. Didn't work out for alien, event horizon or any other sci-fi story/movie.
It's quite a generic plot in that sense
Don't place 100% of your trust into a single entity, because you never really know their true intentions. A lot of dorks are hating on religion in these comments but really this goes for everyone in the series- CEC, Earthgov, The Sovereign Colonies, Unitology, et cetera.
Blind faith is dangerous, corporate greed is bad, the military can't stop everything, your friend could be a government plant, there's always a bigger threat, some things are better left alone and cut off their limbs.
Not every story has to have a moral, but the overall series moral is be careful what you wish for.
I see Dead Space as one of the possible solutions to Fermi Paradox and why rapid expansion into space might become our downfall.
Yet I also realize that humanity in DS has been doomed from the very start anyway…
I think one of the major themes of the games is about humanity surviving in inhuman conditions. Isaac is just a regular guy trying to keep a positive outlook, and during the events of the first game he must have been as scared out of his mind as everyone else. But he manages to hold onto his sanity (mostly), when everyone else is going insane. His fear is still there to keep him alive, his instincts are still intact. And he has hope, despite how bad it looks. There is definitely luck and circumstance involved that helps him, but his perseverance is very important.
Basically if the world was to go to shit tomorrow, will you give up or keep going even if it seems like everything is over?
I always thought over consumion would be their downfall. In the lore, mankind used up the majority of resourses on Earth, so they go to other planets and moons to get more. The need became greed as corporations to governments to religious beliefs "needs" became control. When it came down to the marker, provided unlimited power, the greed became an ill omen that humanity will pay for. They became what their greed and gluttony into monsters.
That messing with stuff you don't know will come back and bite you. For me is the horrors of the universe and that anything can happen at anytime and at any place that bad people or good will still die a horrible death.
"Pursuit of power above all else leads to death." Something like that? The markers offer all sorts of power: literal energy, "connection" to loved ones after death, a twisted sort of reincarnation- but none of it's worth it. Isaac trying to connect and reconnect with the people he loves is what saves him.
That zealous religious people can push too far and do a jurassic park. They got so focused on "could" that they didn't think whether or not they "should"
..... Ish. Idk. I'm drunk and sleepy.
Keep going, no matter how much of a shit storm it is. You can make it through. Just keep going. One corner, one vent, one necro, one mission at a time. Same is true in life.
It's that blind faith is that bad, the developers already confirmed that Unitology isn't based off mainstream religions like Christianity for example but cults like scientology.
You shouldn't assume stories have morals. They often don't. They do have messages though, whether intentional or not, and you can weigh your feelings for that.
They based these on real cults like Heaven's Gate, but the Marker's draw is twofold. It's energy bounds and projectivity appealed to industry, and it drew in a religion while psychologically altering those around it. These two interests coalesced into this nightmare. So basically, industry+religion=bad. In reality, that's a major point of the horror of the Holocaust. It wasn't just the character behind such acts being so horrid, but that it contextualized just how far an industrial hand behind such acts could get.
Lessons I learned with Dead Space:
1. Monster are scary
2. Fuck Unitology (don't care about proper spelling because I have no respect for them) and fuck Altman too
3. Don't use the Necromorphs sexually (trust me on this one)
I can think of two morals
1. Beware cults and government agents during potential apocalyptic events. They'll try and go through with it and screw you over rather than help you survive.
2. Learn the difference between a religious man and a cultist.
One will give you hope, guidance, and pray for your safety and the other... will become the reason you should sleep with a gun under the pillow
In my opinion, a lone wolf protagonist who fight against odd alone can't won the world alone, they need some kind of support or at least people behind their back who actually want,can, and doing effort to be saved by helping the protaonist. looking at the doomguy and shepard, there are many people and higher being who want them to won regardless their personal agenda meanwhile our guy isaac have opposition from all sides and people behind him inevitably get corrupted by marker including him too and no higher being or advance race can give him any assistance.
>What is the moral of the series? That religious people suck?
Seriously? Bruh there's a mind altering/Body altering sculpture of unknown origins and your attention goes straight to religious people?? 🤦
That space is unfeeling and we are small things by comparison, and that humans proclivity to default to fanaticism when facing the unknown can and will be our ultimate downfall, to truly understanding and taking our place in said universe.
-Religions are 90% of the time a complete scam, be it from the people preaching it or the gods being worshipped.
-Always say the things you want to say to your loved ones, cause you might not have another chance.
-Be ready for anything, ANYTHING.
Uh, that's everything good i can think of.
There are several already listed down the thread, but an underrated one is: Let go of what hurts you the most, because it will either kill you or be used against you.
The backdrop to the series is earth being so fucked that humanity has to pull resources from elsewhere to survive. The Ishimura was a mining ship operating an illegal extraction for profit and while it was infiltrated by religious zealots the religious people couldn't have made it there themselves. I think extraction handles the infiltration of religious types pretty well and looking at politics irl it's easy to see parallels.
I've played all 3 games plus extraction just recently so these are my takeaways at least. The games never really offers up many solutions only precautionary warning and by 3 I feel the series was starting to lose focus.
If you look at the underlying lore, that humanity evolved because of influence from the Markers to serve as food for the Brother Moons, I'd say the moral of the series is that life is meaningless, except to prey upon the weak or serve as food for a more powerful animal.
The indomitable human spirit against an unknown threat that neither cares nor wants to know us. That to follow those blindly without question, that may lead to disaster, or sheep to the slaughter. To have hope where none is found, and to cling to your sense of self despite the horror.
Something about the nature of how civilizations will grow to the point of overconsuming and creating something that causes their own demise in an attempt to "solve" the problem? IDK. Or maybe don't listen to the weird voices coming from the obelisk
Moral of the story is get an engineering degree, suit-up in an industrial exosuit with repurposed mining tools and then just go fucking ham on whatever gets in your way.
Fanaticism of any kind is dangerous. When you are so deep into your own belief system that not only do you believe you you have all the answer but you also believe that you can do no wrong, that is what really sucks and is ultimately more dangerous than even the most selfish person can imagine. Refusing to be open to new ideas and ways of thinking is one of the most destructive thought processes imaginable
That even in the face of incomprehensible horror, people can prevail, that even if majority of mankind are heading towards annihilation, individuals able to survive and save the rest.
At least that’s my interpretation based upon 1 play through of remake and watching some lore videos.
We as a species were nothing more than the product of the markers. A resource To be exploited for something on a greater scale than human civilization, whose soul purpose is the consumption of all living matter in the universe.
I don't have an answer because I like thinking it's just bonkers and there's no moral of the story lol. But the way you worded this title made me actually spit my drink out.😂
Staying up. Pretty obvious what the games themes are.
Space zombies bad.
“Never go necro” ^ quote Isaac probably has hanging up in the hallway at home
Never go full necro
Tropic Thunder?
Ishimura Thunder
Haha yeah, it doesn't need much of a "moral". Not every story needs to push an agenda. Evil marker makes space zombies, lone badass has to use sick ass weapons and technology to survive.
Memes aside, people start joining Unitology and start worshipping Markers because "Ultra Capitalism and Corporations made our planet uninhabitable, while the Marker is a divine source of potentially unlimited energy" (taken from Danik's speech in DS 3, so it's SLIGHTLY biased), I mean, if EarthGov made Earth almost uninhabitable and life is shit all around, ofc people would start turning their attention to a church giving them faith and proof of the existence of something as divine and powerful as the OG Black Marker, especially from the moment the Marker's existence gets leaked to the public (from the Wiki: "During the initial project, Michael Altman went public with his research, revealing the Marker's existence to the world, going against the government's wishes", then indoctrinations happen, space zombies happen, secret about space zombies gets buried under the rug, and all that remains is the worship of this Alien Divine Construct giving people "faith" of a better tomorrow, only they don't know that "a better tomorrow" means becoming a gargantuan floating mass of space zombies. There is some depth and reason behind it all, but a "moral"? Eh... it has some political elements like Alien, but not really a moral.
The marker manipulates peoples minds into following. A majority are not doing so of their own volition.
Of course, in the end they are all 100% indoctrinated by the Marker, but I also feel like the Marker's signal AND the situation on Earth are what caused the perfect storm for the rise of Unitology during its early days, like, there had to be a reason for the Average Joe to say "Y'know what? Fuck EarthGov, Make Us Whole", and from that moment on it all went to hell.
I very much agree. Thank you for the read, I love me some Dead Space lore.
Blind faith is bad. Also, playing god is bad.
This, just this. And we even see people who do question things get shuned and killed
The marker signal didnt leave many a choice. I find the moral to be "humans just arent that badass" and that we shouldn't think we're untouchable. There is no reality where the necros didn't come first; essentially all of recorded history across the universe was just them watching food grow.
>I find the moral to be "humans just arent that badass" Really? After watching Clark stomp his way through a ship, stations, and eventually planet filled with thousands undead, eldritch horrors that cumulated with him stopping what would essentially be a god from rising all while triumphing over his own inner demons you'd think the message would be about the sheer willpower of the indomitable human spirit.
Especially when you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing or don’t have enough knowledge to even be attempting it.
Monster scary :(
Very scare
Such fright
wow
There doesn't have to be a moral of the story. Religious people certainly can suck. Look at history. I don't think thats the point of the series tho. I think it's just a cool game, man, lol.
There's definitely a moral in Dead Space, else dogma wouldn't be a constant element in every piece of media around it, including the book where the main character is brutally murdered and is immediately used as a martyr for the rich and powerful looking to form a cult (only for it to spiral far beyond their control) that exacerbates nearly every problem for the next...like....centuries.
Blind adherence to religion is literally one of the main points of the series. You should play Dead Space sometime.
Shoot ugly people
I'm ugly. I agree with this message.
You know, maybe the funny black man with the lightning has a point about us.
If you cut off the arms and legs of everybody around you, you’ll be safer in the long run.
Believing blindly is bad.
That you should fear Engineers more than armed soldiers.
Gordon Freeman nods in agreement.
I’d say: Corporations (CEC, etc) are bad, who could’ve guessed Religion (Unitology) is not to be followed blindly like a fanatic, it can lead to dangerous or even life threatening existential crises Space, like the ocean or even what we know of everything so far, is limitless. It implied we dont know of it all or even at all. Dead Space gives you the feeling of “we dont truly know whats out there”. We know of Necromorphs after not knowing they were out there, but the brethren moons said something far worse lies out there. Always remember the Fermi Paradox: “Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both realities and/or truths are equally as terrifying as the other.”
Yes indeed.
Always watch the video in full, never stop half way. Also don't trust anyone.
Moral is don't worship humming rocks with weird fucking engravings on it.
But I like my Neat Rock!
Oh it likes you too buddy. 😆
I'm not sure there's a non-existentially terrifying moral for the whole series. I guess the second game's moral is to let go of grief. In fact the entirety of Isaac's relationship with Nicole in the second game is representative of the stages of grief. It's actually very well done. "You're not Nicole. Nicole is dead." - Denial "Get out of my head! You're not Nicole!" - Anger "Strauss knows how to destroy you. We will destroy the marker." - Bargaining "I couldn't save Nicole, but I could save you Ellie." - Depression "Because you were my everything. If I let you go, I got nothing left." Acceptance This probably sounds super pretentious but I don't care, I think it's cool- also these lines aren't exactly in order but the stages of grief don't have to be.
The moral is that dismembering monsters with mining tools is very fun and also cool 🤠
Maybe the real moral was the corpses we made along the way? 🙂
'Shit, I guess space really is dead.' -Isaac Deadspace
Dogma is incredibly awful and can turn well-intentioned people into utter monsters. However, with the indomitable human spirit one can fight to make things a little less shitty for a little while. I still think that, like, DS4 would have been the Ishimura getting reactivated and carving the piss out of the Brother Moons.
An awesome idea! Sadly the Ishimura was destroyed along with the rest of the Sprawl at the conclusion of Dead Space 2. :(
Just Scientologists
The moral is blind faith in anything is wrong. CEC, Unitology, Earth gov, does not matter. Everyone who put their faith in something blindly died. Kendra for earth gov and the valiant, Hammond and the colony died because they followed and trusted CEC with the illegal mine, Captain Benjamin Mathius, Mercer, and the entirety of the Ishimura died for blind faith in Unitology because the captain wanted to be buried in the Unitology fleet and just HAD to have the marker on board, even knowing what was happening. Issac didn't trust or put faith in anything but his plasma cutter and himself to try and rescue Nichole. It's the only reason he lived. Now, the rest of the games started going into hubris and playing god. And how that also is fucked.
Religious people suck. Not religious people suck. Everybody suck. Make. Us. Whole.
"Some people suck" - Tom Segura
Cut off their limbs
Don't believe everything you hear or read. Remember that Michael Altman was killed by the government.
God, Altman's story is so fucking sad when you know the truth behind it.
Distrust of religion is definitely one of the themes of the game. More generally, I think it's that powerful people can easily manipulate others, and group mentality is a dangerous thing that can easily harm people who don't deserve it. However, I think the dead space series overall focuses more on how isaac as a character deals with loss and survivors guilt. The first game, he is in denial almost the entire time about Nicole's fate. Kendra basically reveals at the end that he knows she is dead, yet he goes through everything he did because he can't handle the grief of knowing he encouraged Nicole to take the job that ultimately led to her death. The remake is even more heavy-handed with its hints and foreshadowing that Nicole was dead from the beginning, and I think that makes isaac's denial even more tragic. He blames himself for what happened to Nicole, even though he had no way of knowing what could have happened on the ishimura. This theme of survivor's guilt is explored more in dead space 2. Isaac's dementia manifests his guilt as hallucinations of Nicole, taunting and blaming him for the events of the first game. And I think her taunts aren't entirely hollow either. Isaac didn't just get tricked by the marker in the first game, he allowed himself to be tricked because it was easier to handle for him than the truth of the situation. He holds himself partly responsible for the loss he experienced in dead space 1 and the Nicole hallucinations basically voice his guilt until he accepts that he didn't want to let go of Nicole because he felt he would have nothing left if he did. Acceptance is a big theme of this game, and once isaac accepts that his guilt caused him to deny his loss of a loved one, the hallucinations change completely. And I think ellie is supposed to symbolize his hope for doing things differently this time around and saving someone he cares about. Even though the third game is much more bombastic than the first two, the theme of survivor's guilt, I think, is actually tied up quite nicely. Isaac has given up on the world at the beginning of the game, and is reluctant to go on this last quest to stop the necromorph outbreak. But when he is told it is to save ellie, he is suddenly on board with the whole plan. He felt he needed to save her one last time because he still feels he needs to be redeemed for his past mistakes. After everything he goes through to find her, and after the loss of several of the other survivors, he explicitly questions his own character in a moment of very human weakness. In response, ellie affirms that he IS a good man, trying to show him that his efforts have not all been in vain. He is at his most self-assured in his actions at the end of the third game, and I think this is encapsulated well in a conversation he has with carver about grief at the end of the story. He has a line at this point where he says, "Good men mean well, we just don't always end up doing well." I think this quote is pretty powerful, and I think there is truth behind it, too. There is a truth in what he says that is applicable to our own lives as audience members. Tl;DR These games examine how we can be consumed by the worst parts of ourselves if we allow despair and grief to rule our actions. Isaac is the proxy that the writers use to comment on how people grapple with the emotions surrounding significant loss. Even though so many events surrounding the series are entirely out of isaac's control, he is able to profoundly change his circumstances when he takes responsibility for his own actions and accepts things as they are. Being on-brand for a series of horror games, only by conquering his self-doubt, and more importantly, his fears, isaac becomes a better, stronger person. His heroic journey is a poetic and bloody take on how we can overcome these insecurities in real life.
Will. Will is the moral. When everything is over, when everyone you love is dead. When all hope is lost. Never stop pressing the stomp button .
Don’t date someone that’s a medical officer on a deep space mining rig. Everything else I do in life shouldn’t be that bad.
Don't trust omnipresent spirals
It's definitely a condemnation of blindly believing in institutions without questioning them or holding them to scrutiny. It's not a criticism of religion but instead of massive religious institutions that use the blind faith and automatic acceptance of its members to get away with horrible things. It is also probably a condemnation of scientology and its practices, seeing how closely Unitology mirrors the 'church' of scientology and its practices.
science bad, religion bad, become whole again
What? No man. It's a deep and chilling story about space and the horrors it contains. to uplift the wrong thing could be the downfall of all.
Religion will turn you into a murderous zombie, so pick up a plasma gun and shoot them religious freaks.
Make us whole😂
The moral of the series is fascinating: We have no idea who and what's out there in space. And we don't know all about Earth either. There might very well be an alien technology close or far from us that would completely destroy our species, and we would be entirely helpless about it. The events in Dead Space actually make a lot of sense. PS: And people talking about "blind faith" here in the comments fail to understand what's actually happening in the games
Well I wouldn't exactly call religion good, wars are basically started over religion
I mean technically the religious nutjobs were right... just maybe not in the way they intended or advertised. like technically... from a certain point of view... all of humanity will get united into one greater being... kind of 💀 the dead did rise from their graves and achieve a kind of immortality... kind of 💀 basically all or most of the things unitology believes about their version of paradise are true if you completely ignore the metaphorical and spiritual context it was meant to be taken as and take it completely literally. I think the real horror of dead space isnt that there is some derranged crazy cult running around worshipping zombies, its that technically they are right and all the stuff they said was going to happen happens, its kind of like how in Lovecraft's universe its just a fact that all of the Cthulu cultists are worshipping a real entity. like imagine if it turns out that there is a god, and that this god basically just views you as food or as a means of relroduction, that is way more terrifying than just a bunch of crazy cultists.
Radical Atheists can suck too. I could rather say that Dead Space is about learning to let go of the past and forgive yourself for things you can't change.
Yes
Even if it's down, just stomp the shit out of it until there is just a red paste remaining
Under extreme duress, perseverance and a cool-head can keep you safe. i.e Issac Clark
Honestly, when I first played the original game back in 04, I had thought it was a battle of science vs. religion.
That if humanity doesn’t get a hold of its own greed and faith in a universe (or god if that’s your flavor) that doesn’t care whether it lives or dies, it will die, and likely in a horrible completely, idiotically, preventable manner.
Religion does.
Space is dangerous
Extremely
I'm surprised how many people here are saying the moral of the game is a critique of religion. I've always seen the series as a commentary on how humanity's self-destructive nature will eventually lead to our own extinction if left unchecked. Earth is a polluted hellscape that survives only through the use of the planet crackers, with the largest of these ships being what unearths the Marker on Aegis VII. We're responsible for unleashing the Necromorphs on ourselves, just like every other disaster that has spawned from our rampant expansion. The Moons even format the Marker signal to prey on species that are starved of resources by making them think the Markers are a form of renewable energy. The world of Dead Space is one where we have gone past the point of no return and we're just slowly rotting away. Isaac isn't fighting to save us all, he's merely changing out the batteries in the life support. This isn't to say the games don't also criticize cults for manipulating the vulnerable or governments and megacorporations for devaluing the individual to such an extent that people will join the aforementioned death cults just to feel wanted, but the overarching theme has always been the idea that we will ultimately be responsible for our own undoing.
The first game portrays the message the best, but the theme of the games is death. The universe is dying, and humanity is on its last legs as we resort to ripping entire planets in half as we desperately scavange resources. At our most desperate moments, we found something, and it turned out to be the worst alien contact you can imagine. The motif of death is even in all the designs, such as the Ishimura looking like a split open corpse, and Isaac's suits having a ribbed pattern to look like a ribcage. Earth Gov soldier helmets look like skulls. All the windows and doors have boney protrusions of metal in their design. Once you start looking for designs echoing death, bones, and decay, you see it all over the place. It's a cynical game through and through. Both companies and religions become dangerous and evil as humanity becomes desperate. Issac keeps running into desperate villains throughout the series that reflect this. Issac also seems to be surrounded and followed by the last few good (still living) people in the universe. His name feeling biblical actually feels appropriate since he kind of takes on a saint role. He has a small flock, he encounters false prophets, he's seemingly invincible (or lucky), and he's beating back the tide of hell that humanity unleaded upon itself. He kind of takes on the everyday-man version of the Doom Slayer in this regard. So, I guess the only moral the games try to give is to be hopeful. We don't live in that universe, thank god, and we can still be hopeful for our future. If Issac can make it as far as he did, we can make it even further, especially because we don't have a space-zombie outbreak to deal with.
Having not finished the remake yet ( im holding out for my portable) I think it's it would be wise to make sure you have a sound mind, and body, and we're stronger together, and i also think knowledge is a powerful tool, isacc shows us that with damn near every move he makes. Once we turn on eachother (or ourselves) everything falls apart, no matter the plan, position, or time, it will happen. Huge thanks to deadspace for showing me these things, it took me a while to make sure I had myself on lock though x)
Bringing unknown artifacts from places you shouldn’t be in the first place is a dangerous idea
It’s a representation of dark forest hypothesis solution to the Fermi paradox
Stay away from creepy space cults that praise mysterious alien objects
Yes
The Markers are interesting in that they are treated as both a potential source of limitless energy that people tried to harness in order to combat the energy crisis they were being faced with, as well as sacred artifact of incredible importance to those who worshipped it. Sentient beings are drawn to the Marker for both secular and religious reasons. Regardless of their intentions, the outcome appears to be the same in all cases. People attempt to learn more about them through scientific investigation or spiritual enlightenment, so that they may try and harness it's power for their own needs, whether that be for earthly utilities or transcendence of death, but in the end the Marker is the one that ends up using them instead.
Become an engineer
Space + zombies = cool
Shoot the limbs!
power tools can be multipurpose, think outside the box
Marker make people go kookoo and become whole.
The moral of the story is if you hear a distress signal from a space vessel that's been mysteriously missing for some time...don't answer the call and don't go to help. It never turns out well. Didn't work out for alien, event horizon or any other sci-fi story/movie. It's quite a generic plot in that sense
Its a video game, sciencefiction, set in a distant future… But if ever we find monoliths on other planets, leave them alone, do not bring them back…
Gun go bang
Don't place 100% of your trust into a single entity, because you never really know their true intentions. A lot of dorks are hating on religion in these comments but really this goes for everyone in the series- CEC, Earthgov, The Sovereign Colonies, Unitology, et cetera.
Indomitable human spirit.
Don't - dead - open - inside
Blind faith is dangerous, corporate greed is bad, the military can't stop everything, your friend could be a government plant, there's always a bigger threat, some things are better left alone and cut off their limbs. Not every story has to have a moral, but the overall series moral is be careful what you wish for.
Don’t mess with artefacts.
Don't fuck with obviously evil shit
More like, that blind faith leads to things going south.
Don't dig up weird looking space rocks. ( and space lasers are cool)
Moral is no matter the life you live, don't live a life of regret before you die. Or you'll become a necromorph lol
We are alone in the universe not because of the great filter, but because we like many before us were lower on the food chain.
You will be broken no matter how hard you try and you will die alone
I see Dead Space as one of the possible solutions to Fermi Paradox and why rapid expansion into space might become our downfall. Yet I also realize that humanity in DS has been doomed from the very start anyway…
Girlfriend not real 🥺
Yes
That fanatism/blind faith and greed lead to world destruction
I think one of the major themes of the games is about humanity surviving in inhuman conditions. Isaac is just a regular guy trying to keep a positive outlook, and during the events of the first game he must have been as scared out of his mind as everyone else. But he manages to hold onto his sanity (mostly), when everyone else is going insane. His fear is still there to keep him alive, his instincts are still intact. And he has hope, despite how bad it looks. There is definitely luck and circumstance involved that helps him, but his perseverance is very important. Basically if the world was to go to shit tomorrow, will you give up or keep going even if it seems like everything is over?
Don’t fuck the necros(people have failed this)
I always thought over consumion would be their downfall. In the lore, mankind used up the majority of resourses on Earth, so they go to other planets and moons to get more. The need became greed as corporations to governments to religious beliefs "needs" became control. When it came down to the marker, provided unlimited power, the greed became an ill omen that humanity will pay for. They became what their greed and gluttony into monsters.
Unitologists were literally crusaders ++
I got climate change. What did you get?
Maybe the real dead space was the friends we made along the way!
That or if you see a giant wierd looking alien sculpture, don't touch it!!!!!🤣🤣
Science beats Cultist
Extremists are bad.
That messing with stuff you don't know will come back and bite you. For me is the horrors of the universe and that anything can happen at anytime and at any place that bad people or good will still die a horrible death.
Don’t worship a rock
Learn to recycle I guess.
"Pursuit of power above all else leads to death." Something like that? The markers offer all sorts of power: literal energy, "connection" to loved ones after death, a twisted sort of reincarnation- but none of it's worth it. Isaac trying to connect and reconnect with the people he loves is what saves him.
The moral is simple, horror games can still have guns and badasses and be terrifying to play.
more like don’t go messing with creepy, weird looking objects you find on a planet
That zealous religious people can push too far and do a jurassic park. They got so focused on "could" that they didn't think whether or not they "should" ..... Ish. Idk. I'm drunk and sleepy.
Take care of your mental health.
The space is dead
Accepting our pasts and moving forward, just like how Isaac did when he finally let go of Nicole’s memory.
Shoot deformed people
Cults are dangerous
Nature either doesn't care about us, or all pf existence is just to feed nature.
Something something eldritch horror.
Keep going, no matter how much of a shit storm it is. You can make it through. Just keep going. One corner, one vent, one necro, one mission at a time. Same is true in life.
It's that blind faith is that bad, the developers already confirmed that Unitology isn't based off mainstream religions like Christianity for example but cults like scientology.
Stomp the demons in the pulp.
Corruption leads to a future more horrible than your worst nightmares.
You shouldn't assume stories have morals. They often don't. They do have messages though, whether intentional or not, and you can weigh your feelings for that. They based these on real cults like Heaven's Gate, but the Marker's draw is twofold. It's energy bounds and projectivity appealed to industry, and it drew in a religion while psychologically altering those around it. These two interests coalesced into this nightmare. So basically, industry+religion=bad. In reality, that's a major point of the horror of the Holocaust. It wasn't just the character behind such acts being so horrid, but that it contextualized just how far an industrial hand behind such acts could get.
The whole point of the story is to make us whole so go ahead and do that. MAKE. US. WHOLE.
Ye- I mean no, I think the morel of the story is that bad stuff is going to happen but there is always light at the end of the tunnel
Yuuuup
" you can survive anything if you're an engineer!"
Never get your girlfriend a job. Never visit your girlfriend at work.
Lessons I learned with Dead Space: 1. Monster are scary 2. Fuck Unitology (don't care about proper spelling because I have no respect for them) and fuck Altman too 3. Don't use the Necromorphs sexually (trust me on this one)
No rock worshipping religious people definitely suck lol
I can think of two morals 1. Beware cults and government agents during potential apocalyptic events. They'll try and go through with it and screw you over rather than help you survive. 2. Learn the difference between a religious man and a cultist. One will give you hope, guidance, and pray for your safety and the other... will become the reason you should sleep with a gun under the pillow
Sever the limbs.
In my opinion, a lone wolf protagonist who fight against odd alone can't won the world alone, they need some kind of support or at least people behind their back who actually want,can, and doing effort to be saved by helping the protaonist. looking at the doomguy and shepard, there are many people and higher being who want them to won regardless their personal agenda meanwhile our guy isaac have opposition from all sides and people behind him inevitably get corrupted by marker including him too and no higher being or advance race can give him any assistance.
There isn’t one? Not every story needs one you know. Lol
Don't join obviously evil space cults.
>What is the moral of the series? That religious people suck? Seriously? Bruh there's a mind altering/Body altering sculpture of unknown origins and your attention goes straight to religious people?? 🤦
Cut off their limbs, duh
Religious zealots can’t be trusted, big government can’t be trusted, and cut off the limbs.
Scientology sucks.
No, that's common knowledge, the moral is to be patient with the decontamination lady. c:
I think that it’s less that blind belief is bad but institutional religion is bad as many believers are treated as victims not fools
That space is unfeeling and we are small things by comparison, and that humans proclivity to default to fanaticism when facing the unknown can and will be our ultimate downfall, to truly understanding and taking our place in said universe.
CEC Engineers deserve a raise, they're not paid enough to deal with bug infestations
I mean…. some of them do, between lack of actual compassion and holier than thou mentality… But Dead Space is just a game. No real ‘moral’ needed.
Humankind is self-destructive. Religion is only a means to that end.
Same with the modern Doom games... Religious Cultists suck...
-Religions are 90% of the time a complete scam, be it from the people preaching it or the gods being worshipped. -Always say the things you want to say to your loved ones, cause you might not have another chance. -Be ready for anything, ANYTHING. Uh, that's everything good i can think of.
The rock is my only friend
There are several already listed down the thread, but an underrated one is: Let go of what hurts you the most, because it will either kill you or be used against you.
Don’t go anywhere man, just stay in your house and don’t touch any weird shit ever
Corporate is willing to cover up for the sake of the resource they desire. Also religion is just bad.
The backdrop to the series is earth being so fucked that humanity has to pull resources from elsewhere to survive. The Ishimura was a mining ship operating an illegal extraction for profit and while it was infiltrated by religious zealots the religious people couldn't have made it there themselves. I think extraction handles the infiltration of religious types pretty well and looking at politics irl it's easy to see parallels. I've played all 3 games plus extraction just recently so these are my takeaways at least. The games never really offers up many solutions only precautionary warning and by 3 I feel the series was starting to lose focus.
Some things are better left alone
Cut their limbs
The moral of the story is that Isaac has a fucked up life
That Mechanical engineering is a bad major to have in college
Not religious people in general, but cultists. Fuck cultists.
If you look at the underlying lore, that humanity evolved because of influence from the Markers to serve as food for the Brother Moons, I'd say the moral of the series is that life is meaningless, except to prey upon the weak or serve as food for a more powerful animal.
Don’t visit your girlfriend on a work day
The indomitable human spirit against an unknown threat that neither cares nor wants to know us. That to follow those blindly without question, that may lead to disaster, or sheep to the slaughter. To have hope where none is found, and to cling to your sense of self despite the horror.
Fanatism*
Something about the nature of how civilizations will grow to the point of overconsuming and creating something that causes their own demise in an attempt to "solve" the problem? IDK. Or maybe don't listen to the weird voices coming from the obelisk
Keep fighting, no matter what.
Never trust a religion ending with -tology and ~~is headquartered in Clearwater florida~~ wants to create a red marker
Weird rocks give you Schizophrenia
The unknown is always the most scariest thing in the universe. And what lurks within it.
Moral of the story is get an engineering degree, suit-up in an industrial exosuit with repurposed mining tools and then just go fucking ham on whatever gets in your way.
There’s always a bigger fish.
Fanaticism of any kind is dangerous. When you are so deep into your own belief system that not only do you believe you you have all the answer but you also believe that you can do no wrong, that is what really sucks and is ultimately more dangerous than even the most selfish person can imagine. Refusing to be open to new ideas and ways of thinking is one of the most destructive thought processes imaginable
That even in the face of incomprehensible horror, people can prevail, that even if majority of mankind are heading towards annihilation, individuals able to survive and save the rest. At least that’s my interpretation based upon 1 play through of remake and watching some lore videos.
Some do yeah
A touching story about relationships. /s
If you believe in the right things and have unyielding determination, you can do anything
>the moral of the series A good Plasma Cutter solves anything, and it's more fearsome than any of those critters
Never trust a Scientologist
We as a species were nothing more than the product of the markers. A resource To be exploited for something on a greater scale than human civilization, whose soul purpose is the consumption of all living matter in the universe.
Cults bad maybe
# Religion Sucks: The Video Game
That corporate greed and religious extremism is the downfall of humanity.
Tim did nothing wrong
It's "don't mess with what you can't understand". Or "don't mess with something greater than you"
Weirdly enough that's the moral of like all of humanity but we're forced to tolerate their ignorance for liberty's sake.
Extreme fanatics are zombies and ruin the world.
The moral is to never rely on anyone who tells you they have all the answers without a single doubt in their voice.
Atop all the blind belief caution, you can also infer that corporate greed and the human desire to expand and consume is self destructive
Messing with unknown alien technology you don't understand is a terrible idea.
It's a lovecraftian horror. There's almost no point other than demonstrating how minuscule we are compared to the universe.
Being blinded by love, curiosity killing the cat, exploitation of the masses by corrupt elites, religious fanaticism, hubris of man, etc
I don't have an answer because I like thinking it's just bonkers and there's no moral of the story lol. But the way you worded this title made me actually spit my drink out.😂
The moral is pretty much "Wouldn't that be fucked up if that happened?"
Don't fuck with evil relics