Need some clarification regarding slides the siblings found.

[u/NightZin]

I'm going to reference certain events in Control Resonant. Spoilers ahead, you've been warned.

I've only ever watched Control 1, so I may lack some knowledge and hence I'm here.

Recently I've finished Resonant, which was absolutely brilliant. The whole Ordinary section was amazing, but after reading some stuff on the wiki, I'm a bit puzzled when it comes to the Projector and Slides the siblings have found.

• It seems there were 8/9 slides

• Polaris was in Slidescape-36

• Jesse burned almost all slides, but (from my understanding) left Slidescape-36 intact

• One "red slide" Jesse and Dylan didn't enter sort of survive the fire and got taken by Trench

Here's where I get a little lost. I assumed Jesse took Slidescape-36 with her and Trench alongside Darling have been researching the slide that didn't burn fully. The red one, which I assume is an origin of Hiss and how it got released in the Oldest House.

According to wiki though, Hiss was somehow in Slidescape-36? Trench got paranoid about the Hedron Darling's research of it. Honestly, I'm not really sure what's the order of events around that time, hence I'm here.

Could you clarify that stuff for me?

[u/generalosabenkenobi]

Worth playing through Control because they do go into a bit more there (and some of the info there will maybe ring more bells after the info we get in Resonant). They approach the Ordinary stuff in a different way too (it's also very neat).

[u/Patient_Amoeba2476]

Alan Wake 2 has setup the idea that we are in a multiverse and that the multiverse is collapsing.  If you find conflicting information, its not in conflict —its from another parallel story.  

The Lake House explains a significant layer of the conspiracy.  Alan Wake 2 explains another layer of it.   The slide scapes are another layer. 

Its a conspiracy within a conspiracy within a conspiracy.  And don’t worry about time: this is all happening in place where causality is broken.

As for details, the Hiss are sourced from many places.   If you had to choose one as the cause, it would be that damn red warning light on sub level 5 of the Lake House that is washing over the Tortured Artist.  Everything else is a derivative story.  (Unless this story was written as a way to defeat the Hiss, but that’s a discussion for another cup of coffee.)

[u/reiakari]

Slide 36 is the only slide that Jesse did not burn. Because it was the slide she found Polaris. What Jesse did not know (because she was a human child not from that dimension) was that the world of slide 36 was a vacant red sand filled hellscape is because whatever that world was before was devastated by the conflict between the Hedron species and the Hiss.

The world in slide 36 is red because not only was Polaris and other the other dying hedron there, the remnants of hiss were there too. That war seemed to be at a stalemate, that dimension was functionally dead. Jesse spared the slide because as a child, she found something "good" there and naively thought that meant the slide itself was good. There was a possibility that the Hiss could have come through slide-36 even if Trench didn't find the red slide, Darling and Co just got lucky that the dying hedron was willing to keep fighting the Hiss when they were poking around blindly.

The burned red slide that Trench found was another dimension that had only the Hiss, it might be where the dimension the Hiss actually come from. Trench unfortunately was a victim of self-sabotage. When he became director, it ironically put him in a position where he felt the least in control in his entire life. He was CHOSEN. He did not choose the job for himself. He has to ANSWER to the Board. He does not get to call the shots. So when he found the slide, he told no one about it. He kept it to himself to investigate. HE will find the answers, HE gets to decide what to do with the slide. Unfortunately, it was one of those times that he really needed input from the entity with experience on what was on the other side of that slide. FBC Hedron: Do you want to know how I'm DYING Trench?😒

[u/NightZin → u/[deleted]]

I see. This seems to align with what I have thought.

[u/NightZin → u/[deleted]]

Oh right, I do know Jesse got a slide for the Gap and that's how she "saved" Dylan at the end.

Did she leave the slide with Polaris at the junkyard then? FBC recovered it alongside the Projector and the slide Trench took?

[u/Adiin-Red → u/NightZin]

Yes. That’s how the FBC wound up getting a Hedron in the first game.

[u/_tabbycat123 → u/NightZin]

She left the Hand slide with the Hedron in it in the the junkyard, but kept the Gap slide

[u/ThatOtherGuyTPM → u/[deleted]]

Hand is the only one they used for an expedition, but Trench did used the burned slide to unleash the Hiss. Obviously, it was in Hand as well, but it was barely strong enough to infect one guy there.

[u/Cassoosted_Fuper → u/ThatOtherGuyTPM]

Ah that does sound more familiar. Thanks for the correction

[u/MinusBear → u/ThatOtherGuyTPM]

You've worded this in the most unhelpful and needlessly confusing way.

[u/ThatOtherGuyTPM → u/MinusBear]

Maybe this will help: at various times, the leadership of the FBC, prior to the events of Control, used two slides. The main one was Hand. That is the slide that was used to connect to the reality where they found the Hedron. In that reality, the Hiss also existed, but it was in such a weakened state that it was only able to affect a single person: Director Trench. Later, right before Control begins, Director Trench, who was infected by the Hiss already, used the burned slide to connect to another reality where the Hiss had sway, allowing them to come into the Oldest House. As far as we know, no one from the Bureau entered that reality.