Sorry this post is long and disjointed. Just throwing everything I can think of at the wall (though I didn’t comb through everything in Transylvania or Kaidan, so there could be more stuff there).
Pretty sure I remember Scriv mentioning Dr. Moreau before, so references are within the realm of possibility. The hyena bits could be for anything from splicing, to research, to leftovers (what makes them glow? does it help ease brainwashing? omnomnom). I did just notice they have horns, though, so that’s fun. I feel like the humanoid-proportioned not-pterodactyls lend more to the Moreau idea, if they’re created rath–…rather than…local myths. I just had a thought and will get to it later.
The other display is a sun mural, mounted on a wall (I initially thought it was on the floor). It actually has multiple pig heads, and I’m inclined to think those are goat heads (horns seem too thin to be gazelles). Also, some of the legs are from Familiar models (implying either that they also make and take apart Familiars, or just implying that they’ve had to, say, sew a foot onto a leg and suchlike when they accidentally got overzealous while harvesting). I wouldn’t call it a trophy display, not quite. It’s a sign of the cult’s pseudo-religious fervor. A transformative work, elevating those who joined but began to doubt. A shrine. See the similarities between it and what one of the named members has done (from the Morninglight lore):
Seeking alternate subject. Initiate analysing scan: Betty.
We like Betty. She is a plump sweetling, with a big smile. Betty once had self-image problems, but she overcame them. A Morninglight poster decorates her wall. Much-read pamphlets sit in her bathroom. Philip Marquard’s audio book on self-actualisation plays in her earphones. Fresh signatures fill the forms on her clipboard. Bottles of Morninglight dietary supplements and nutrient pills fill her medicine cabinet. By her bed is an autographed picture of Philip Marquard, the one she secretly kisses before going to sleep. Every night she dreams of freeing herself from her mortal shell and ascending into the cosmos to soar with the whale-mollusk gods.
There are new recruits chained to Betty’s walls. She has their signatures. They tested as having self-image problems, as she once had. Smiling, she tells them they are all beautiful. She opens them with a knife, shows them the beauty inside. “Look!” she says, tears streaming. “We are all made of stars!” Then she practises eating stars, waiting for enlightenment to take hold.
Oh hey, it’s what
Cassini was alluding to in her dialogue! I mean, there’s probably more of these, and individuals all over the place…but it’s a specific example to point to so she can say “I told you so.”
Average global response time for a Morninglight representative to hit a forum thread discussing trigger topics like unemployment, depression, economic uncertainty, is forty-five minutes. We looked into it, and there’s no spambots, no automation. That means thousands of manual searches and responses. Hello, crazy cult. And still Morninglight are filed under “not an issue” on our grand plan, even though our spooks are all hello, red flag, red flag.
In the tent prayer area, there are displays of the paintings of Marquard (as seen in My Bloody Valentine), which folks are worshipping in front of. As you do.
Can anyone tell what is wrong with the poster? There’s white around the black, making me think it’s scratches/tears and dirt…but it could also be burned, or Filthy.
It’s hard to say exactly how much the ML knows about us–they do have the internet (at least for those who actively scour the internet for recruits), and I suspect the higher-ups might be allowed to keep up with worldly goings-on, despite the general isolation they push (from the ML lore; see also FNF in general):
Radical cells organise violent protests, terrorist acts, and aggressive rituals nurture chaos and uncertainty, to drive people away from the established institutions and into their loving arms.
However, they do have the beginnings of information on us even before the news–via the personality test, evidence of what they have on the tablet, and the turn-in for Obstructive Persons:
The mansion on the hill looks so surreal, like it’s on the border between existing in this world and the Dreaming Prison. The shrubbery enhances that. I’m inclined to bet that’s Marquard’s place.
There are regular filth-puppy guardians inside the cavernous area, which could be the dungeons we see later in the video. Other possibilities…it might lead to the Dreamer Marquard has been in contact with? Or maybe it’s just Marquard’s basement. Or both! Also from the lore:
The patriarch, Philip, handsome and earnest of smile. His wife, Elisa, equally photogenic. Their two children - Alexandre and Kathrine, eight and eleven years old, pretty little replicas of their parents. And, of course, there is a beautiful, purebred dog. A lovely portrait. But the photo album pages are stuck together with blood and worse. Down in the basement…
It also could be where they’re keeping the artifacts they’ve been shipping from Transylvania and Egypt (and elsewhere?).
Any idea what the symbols on these tiles are? The bottom one is obviously a sun, but I’m not good at recognizing real-world influences.
The child’s area @Gryph posted–I am 99.9% certain the crate box model they used is Red Hand. (They have old wooden box models that don’t have a tiny, faded, Red Hand symbol on the bottom-right corner of each side. Thus, I must assume every use of it is deliberate. ;P)
Okay, so, if our new fun flying mobs are, in fact, created from people…it could be what Che was alluding to (both more figuratively and literally than I expected, given my personal butterfly tangent):
The Morninglight is about change, about improvement, about shedding our shells and, you know, sprouting wings. Like a motherf*cking butterfly, my friend.
See also: the FNF propaganda:
Isn’t it time to let go? Isn’t it time to soar?
