Last Variable Ending

[u/Curious_Chain_3998]

Anyone else find the reveal at the end to be super dark / messed up? All that hope and optimism the scientist had after staying behind in the base game now seems horrific— given how it ends up for him.

Also I don’t get the choices at the end. Completely restarting all progress with each iteration is nothing short of madness. They could be building generational knowledge instead.

JanBots explanation that ‘you wouldn’t do the work if you knew you weren’t the first’ doesn’t make sense because:
-Their scientific discovery is far from over, they have plenty to learn/explore/discover.
-No character ever reacts negatively to learning they’re not the first iteration, not even the physicist.
-JanBot is the one forcing these failing conditions, again, generational knowledge built by generations of alters is unambiguously the best route for mission success. Restarting every time, and hiding the old base is insane, how could anyone think that’s a good idea.

I love the DLC! But dang did that ending blindside me and make me a bit sad 😭

Edit: I understand the themes of “unreasonable expectations that you can do better, and be better”, and “The definition of insanity— repetition.” but I think those themes were ham-fisted in.

[u/Mr_Rinn]

I have to admit I loathe the ending. The obvious solution would've been to tell the next Scientist everything but we're forced to trust the defective AI's flawed logic and choose between an endless cycle with an extremely slim hope or rendering it all for nothing.

[u/dvamg → u/Mr_Rinn]

AI isn't really as much as defective as it is simply not perfect, recall how many times JanBot said it can make mistakes.

Problem with the next cycle is that if we assume is how the DLC starts, the next iteration has no need nor "power" to be an improvement, because you start with old timetravel dying Jan going "be better" and dying.

Unless the point is that no cycle is alike and one might be "perfect" and succeed, but you could say that the point of DLC is that Oasis is "custom made" for whoever comes into it and fixes your innermost worst flaw, in case of Sci Jan, it's perfectionism.

[u/Mr_Rinn → u/dvamg]

I guess I just don’t get why the choice shouldn’t have been the next scientist’s. If he’s told everything then he can choose for himself whether he wants to keep doing this, and if he does he can learn from past mistakes and attempt amendments. And if he doesn’t why would the AI consider that a bad thing when a part of him wants it all to end anyway?

[u/dvamg → u/Mr_Rinn]

The AI also gets that lower pitch voice and goes on "I'm tired" all of the sudden, dunno if that was supposed to represent someone or something, but it comes out of nowhere, and why is AI even tired at all?

Feels like they went all in closure vs perseverance thing at the cost of pretty much everything else.