#bachelor route

[bachelordaniildankovsky]

PITCH

An adventure game about time traveling combined with medical investigation200s and a city manager simulator elements. Life is Strange meets Papers, Please in a bizarre Art Nouveau setting of the Eurasian Steppe.

GAME LOOP

In general, the player's task looks like this: it is necessary to find out how to fight death. For this purpose, the player has to get answers from the future, which has not come yet. To unlock the future, it is essential to delay the spread of the epidemic.

To do this, you need to create a vaccine against the plague and pass a series of edicts. But you can also go around the city and eliminate the sources of the plague. And you can combine all of these activities in your own unique sequence.

VISUALS

[nuropunkslut]

LETS FUCKING GOOO

[glitteringpoet1685]

Getting new Bachelor route information:

Remembering what's going to happen in the Bachelor route:

[pseudoquiddity]

New Pathologic 2 models

A lamp and a camera <3

The camera looks like any old fashioned daguerreotype tripod camera, but there's a slide I don't understand. The lamp looks like it's designed to easily move around (vertically?) and direct light elsewhere.

Found here:

[nasty-redacted]

Something i drew the first time i played pathologic classic hd

[alilich]

the bachelor pitch website, recreated

this official website with a pitch for bachelor route was found on jan 2nd and then promptly sniped by IPL, without us getting a good wayback machine copy. i've been working on restoring it, and at this point i think it's rather faithful to the original and worthy sharing!

not perfect YET - namely, the mobile version kinda sucks, - but i'll be looking to improve it over the upcoming weekend! (more info under the cut)

some liberties have been taken in developing this page:

first of all, all source code has purged, and the website was rewritten from scratch - this is to avoid copyright conflict with readymag, the website builder IPL used. such services often allow exporting code, but only limit it to business clients and usually forbid editing the exported code in any way

the mobile version seemingly wasn't a thing that IPL considered with this single-page pitch/"business card" kinda website, but i'll still try to get it to work - my main goal is to ensure all assets load in a harmonic way, while IPL's original website was skipping some of them on mobile

unused assets/disabled elements were not restored. i honestly don't really want to tangle through readymag's messy messy ripped code to find out how were they supposed to look like. also, all of them are developer portraits with their names and contact information, and i don't know which of these people are public personas and which arent :^)

a little "about this page" button was added, including my contacts for incase anyone wants to tell me anything important, or (HOPEFULLY NOT) IPL will have problems with this website being present and would like to ask me to remove it

the chosen by IPL fonts were restored - i'm not sure if the saved .html file that i possess didn't preserve them, or were the fonts simply failed to load on some platforms..? either way...

AND ALSO, if you happen to have screenshots of the PC version, feel free to DM me, and i'll be happy to tweak the layout for better historical correctness!

FINALLY, currently i'm using for reference a saved .html shared by abyssal + screenshots shared by lillia, both on pathomodding discord - so thanks a lot to them because otherwise i would definitely not have enough patience for this project lol!

[amigdal]

I'm back with Pathologic (and I have more)

Bachelor: Burakh? Can I help you? Burakh..? Artemy: OYNON WEARS GLASSES

[lillialuna]

HUGE BACHELOR ROUTE NEWS AT 1AM ON NEW YEAR'S???

This seems awesome, now why does it sound famil-

Oh my god this literally just Trauma Team

[excalibutt]

so the Bachelor Route is going to be be pretty different from what I've seen a lot of people expecting ( and I've seen some reactions that were disappointment or anger) and honestly I'm really excited for the changes. We've been in hiatus for a while so I get the shock some people might be feeling.

do you remember what discovering this game the first time was like for you? I'm excited for that again. I genuinely have no idea what we're in for and that's fun. Obviously I'm not the Art Police but I do want to give it a fair chance, and I'm genuinely really excited for the new thing because I don't know what we're in for.

[ladyarrowhead]

The poetics of the Vlad the Younger vs Vlad the Older in so far the Haruspex and Bachelor Route are just keeping me up, and Vlad the Younger being a possible adherent, supposedly only removed for the sake of not accidentally auto-game-over as the Bachelor just adds to how interesting this choice is to me. Lots of musings below this, I do not know where I am going with this

Additionally, "Panacea Blackmarket" ALSO takes place on this day in which Vlad the Younger is linked to it, something that Daniil first detests ("The man won't let a single penny past his purse! It occurs to me that he is no better than Bad Grief), with a hint of Dankovsky-typical "wait maybe the worms framed Vlad for this, let me check"). The Bachelor is only to change his opinion once he finds out that Vlad is now trying to "make amends" by distributing the panacea to the people he had doomed (Yes, people do change a lot. Before, I was convinced that this man was beyond salvation. I thought that nothing less than death could make the leopard change its spots. But I see a new man before me now. His former self has died; but not before he gave the entirety of his panacea stock to Mark Immortell.)

"Subterrarean Rot", to me becomes interesting because Daniil very much likes to align himself with the truth and slowly and surely has been shown and expected to lie tooth and nail to protect himself. Finding our who is behind the Termitary's state, Daniil is originally to decide who to deliver to Taya, but his journal entry is SO interesting about this:

The whole thing proved to be a trivial affair, but no less terrifying for it. When Isidor informed the Olgimskys of the impending outbreak, it was the younger who did what the elder did not dare to. But as the consequences became known, it was the father who shielded his son from the ramifications. A double deceit. This being known, I am in a strong position to speak with the Olgimskys.

I remember my jaw dropping at this when I found out Vlad the Younger, who had seemed so reasonable, had been the one to lock up the Termitary, but Daniil describes him as doing "what the elder did not dare to." Calling Vlad the Younger out, he is more than ready to carry the consequences, while Vlad the Older decides he will take the blame for his heir. When Taya asks Daniil to bring him "who is responsible for it", he (and the game's writing in so far), identify Young Vlad for it.

So how would Daniil decide then when this is how it comes about? When the man is showing so much change? Well, he can take a third option and just not decide - he brings Taya her toybull instead.

And oh goodness? The potential conflict of "the truth is my shepherd" seeing a person who makes an effort to change (if genuine or not that, like so many things, another question) to deliver someone? The choice to take a third option because, in the end, what does this matter if there is a town to save?

It just says so much about what could be Daniil's priorities. It's fun! And then we have Artemy...

"A Son Will Not Be Punished For His Father's Sins" is already named in a very interesting matter - and it immediately calls back to the Haruspex's own position as a "son". This takes place on the day Artemy claims his inheritance in front of Foreman Oyun - it is the day where, unlike the Bachelor, Artemy himself CANNOT avoid making this decision - one of the Olgimsky men needs to die.

There are two fun layers to this - on the one hand it is learning that Taya does not directly care who of the guys she is getting (something I think she also mentions to the Bachelor but I cannot check right now) and learning more about the polcies of the families in the Steppe. Artemy learns it is common among the merchant families that one sacrifices himself to protect the heir at all costs - and that what matters is that someone is punished for a crime that is committed.

Artemy's journal entries for the quest are very interesting leading into this:

So, Vlad the Heavy surrendered himself to Tycheek's daughter? It's clear enough that he isn't the real culprit… I only have to decide if I should tell her the truth. I wonder how that story ends…

Once again, Day 8 offers another quest from Vlad the Younger, because we are all about parallels. This time it is "Below the Ground" where Artemy is asked to retrieve the book detailing the kin's history from the tunnels which may or may not have been a setup given that the tunnels are closed directly once Artemy has entered them . While the book itself is not succesful, it makes Artemy wonder about the parallels between him and Vlad as Vlad himself is also apparently trying to unearth something - though he speaks of him with much more distance (So, Vlad the Younger has managed to reach beneath the ground as well. Is he trying to emulate what I am doing? He has found life down below, just like I have. [...]The ancient wisdom of the Kin was concealed there, locked away until the moment I unearthed it. I'm almost amused by the coincidence.)

Surrendering Vlad the Younger to his death to Taya in also, wonderfully, framed as Artemy taking his place among the kin:

Yes. Let Vlad the Younger die. Whoever makes a decision will be held responsible for it. With every passing day, I feel that the life of the Kin is my own life. I must protect it and avenge its suffering. Whatever fate had in store for these few thousand people, Vlad the Younger is directly responsible for their death.

No. Let Big Vlad die. I should inform Georgiy of my decision. I wouldn't describe Vlad the Heavy as a sentimental man. If he chose to die, he must have had good reason to. Or could it be that he thinks he deserves the punishment?

Surrendering Vlad to Taya matches with Artemy taking his own place - and Vlad the Younger is thus not punished for his fahter's sins but his own, meanwhile Artemy is about to take his father's place and heritage, trying to finish what Isidor created.

An honourable mention goes to the entry as to letting Taya kill Vlad the Older instead:

I am excited to find out more about this, if there is more - knowing this is Pathologic there is certainly more but it will not bring more clarity. But what is it for Artemy then, to be the one choosing it is time for the father to die and thus for Young Vlad to take on his heritage? It certainly is missing the poetry of the entry when choosing Vlad the Younger - but it makes it just as interesting.

[bitchkovsky]

cant believe canon dankovsky time loop in the bachelor route. this is for ME

me in 2021 writing my fanfiction: what if… time loop? time loop, anyone?

devs: [yes!!!!! YES!!!!! sicko image]

[torse]

Wait...

Rotate that-

ENHANCE!

I SAID ENHANCE!!

if you think I know how my brain works, you are wrong

[gremlinaristocrat]

Calling it now, Mark Immortell in P2 Bachelor Route will just be a mildly-magical theater kid you have to protect who gets some weird ideas about reality after talking to Aglaya, the omnipotent weirdo screwing with you this time will be Bad Grief after his enlightenment in Artemy's run gives him bullshit timepowers

[phantomjack]

I’m so fucking ashamed of myself. We got new plaguefinder lore with the bachelor arg and I didn’t even talk about it. Me. The plaguefinder guy. Don’t worry. I lost my shit about it in private do not worry. But now we have CONFIRMATION-OR AT LEAST THE IMPLICATION THAT SOMEONE AT THANATICA MADE IT, AND THAT ITS A PROTOTYPE. WHY? WHY IS HE BRINGING IT WITH HIM? TELL US YOUR SECRETS DANIIL

[audipiu]

Mechnikov's day Messages post

As we know, on 15 May Fyodor Vitin posted this picture of two heavily redacted responses from the Central Bureau (or equivalent) responding to a request for the detective services to investigate/search (presumably) some suspicions or leads he may have had.

In this post, I'm going to try to collect the information discovered by others (notably on reddit in this thread) and follow up on some of these things, and extrapolate a bit on the connection of this post to others made by Vitin.

I'll start from the more obvious leads/clues and end with more general points & discussion. I'm going to proceed with the assumption that we're all familiar with the post, so check it out beforehand please!

196-17-1

The numbers used to file Vitin's request were flagged as a possible index entry for page 196, line 17, word 1 of Mechnikov's Etudes sur la Nature Humaine: Essaie de Philosophie Optimiste (Part II, 1903). This is supported by the date of publication of the post as well as the partially visible cover page of Mechnikov's work in the first post by Vitin ('the Beginning')

This word (of the original French volume) is ibid., referring to E.B Tylor's Primitive Cultures (vol II). I cannot access the Russian translation, which thyminesquared on tumblr flagged as the reference, but the corresponding page is p. 114 of the English original. The cited part refers to worship of dead ancestors, and the offering (or first pick) of the fruit harvest to them.

Tylor in turn cites Reverend George Turner's Nineteen Years in Polynesia: Missionary Life, Travels and Research in the Islands of the Pacific (1861):

Page 88 of George Turner's book essentially recounts the same story (duh, this is how citing works), but also on the next page goes on to talk about the fear of the 'disease-makers' in the culture.

According to Wikipedia, the name/word Tanna means 'earth'.

I find this line of research interesting for a few reasons. For one, thematically it fits Pathologic rather well, and I would argue is also meant to embed the themes into a relatively coherent historical context, which may have influenced the story but also makes it more plausible. This is despite the anachronism of the game, since we know the ballpark of the time period. It furthermore embeds the character of Vitin (or whomever is referred to in the Mask post) into the field they are supposedly studying. For example, Tylor has a section on fetishes (non-sexual), and the word fétiche is used in that post.

I think this is the primary reason we are (seemingly) led down this path, it is implausible but not impossible that 196-17-1 would turn out to be something different. I checked some of his other works on immunology to be sure, the words made no sense (e.g. finalement (finally), important, [207] elements). The three works mentioned all describe the same kinds of phenomena, and it is difficult for me to see what specifically could function as a clue or key here to unlock 'the next part of the puzzle' so to speak. One connection that did occur to me is whether we are meant to draw a link between the seasonal festival mentioned in the 'Mask' post and the types of rites mentioned in these works. I don't know what the fit or conclusion would be.

The second reason this is interesting is more 'meta' and ties into the above point. The question that arises prominently for me is how to understand the nature of this ARG, especially in comparison to the Feverish Feeling ARG? As stated, I don't find this to point at a specific clue that is useful later and I think that raises the question whether this ARG is preponderantly meant to offer fun little contextual hints and easter eggs at the Bachelor route rather than lead to something else. I don't want to discount anything though, because answering this requires more Vitin posts.

eiamrucdvrturxoevecid

The text that appears at the bottom of the image in the Messages post was quickly flagged as a ciphertext or anagram of sorts. I know very little about ciphers, but using the site linked by Reddit user DeepForceAlpha, I did try a bunch of suggested ciphers. My takeaway simply from the ratio of vowels to consonants would be that this is indeed an anagram, and not a phrase meant to be cracked using a cipher key, because shifting the alphabet produces mainly unintelligible consonant strings (but I could be wrong). The other interesting possibility is that it could be a key itself to a future ciphertext.

This is another one of those clues where the question about the ARG's nature rears its head, because if as suggested by @cr-pisacs-evil-brother in this very in-depth post you should check out, the string is meant to make many different words without using all of the letters that are all correct answers simultaneously, then I don't think it's very useful as a clue in an ARG meant to lead somewhere. I sincerely hope this doesn't come off as rude, I am simply thinking about the 'meta rules' of an ARG and how Ice-Pick Lodge would have to construct it so it would work for us who have to solve it. This however does not mean I am definitively right, obviously.

Likewise the suggestion by Reddit user Own_Sympathy_9814 that the answer is MAVRUD + VERIDIC + EXECUTOR leaves me puzzled. There is a lot to be read into that, and I don't find the suggestion that The Marble Nest is a twyrine based hallucination very convincing - especially as the voices within the DLC near the Stillwater reference Dankovsky being sick/feverish (or at least this is my interpretation). Coincidentally, I think this is a very interesting easter egg within the DLC because not only do they say 'feverish' they also refer to a house burning down. The parallels to the Accident post are rather obvious. For this reason, I am rather tempted to flag this as relevant and something to think about in the future.

On the other hand, if the three words are meant to draw attention to the DLC as a source of the next clue they would perhaps work? It is possible that we're meant to read the posts within the frame of some story we have to construct. In this context, I think the mention of Voronika Kroy and seemingly her picture in the post can be adduced as hinting at some sort of continuity and context we are meant to read into it. This however will have to be a separate post.

General thoughts & comments

Apart from the above, things that I am wondering about have indeed to do with the surrounding context we can read into the post.

Why are messages redacted? Who has redacted them and who is actually in possession of them? Usually institutions redact sensitive information in the context of for example an access to information request, however this would only pertain to information sought, not the accompanying note explaining here is the info you asked for. The other explanation might be e.g. criminal investigations or the like, but again I do wonder about it nonetheless. I am probably reading too much into it and the point is to generate intrigue for us?

The mask image appears in the next post as well, singed this time. What is the significance of this repeat? In the Messages post it looks to be ripped from a dossier/spiral bound notebook, which could indicate that it has been stored by someone else for archival etc purposes? Maybe research purposes...

Right now my hunch is that Vitin has somehow gotten wind of the Feverish Feeling ARG's happenings and decided to dig deeper with the help of the authorities.

These are things I hope to return to in the future, but I'd like to wait for a new post before that, at least if there'd be one relatively soon. I would really like to know what other people think about how the posts relate to one another and all things that strike you as odd! (and maybe also what sorts posts would be useful idk)

[thedaythealienscame]

you dont understand I'd entirely given up on hearing about the bachelor route at all. i dont even care if it isn't good i just want to say some stupid dialogue and make fun of daniil again and have fun with the TIME MECHANIC and see artemy tower over me and talk to him so much <3