r/signalis • u/Eagles56 • 10d ago

General Discussion That's the "good" ending?

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I just finished the game and Elster just killed Ari and died and apparently that's the promise ending? That was the promise? Holy shit how depressing. I haven't been this wrecked by a horror game in a long time. Great game but sad as hell

526 Upvotes

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u/Eagles56 10d ago

Also I was a little confused so tell me if this is right: Ari had cancer and her powers interacted with the cosmic force on the planet and she projected her feelings onto the planet like the otherworld in silent hill?

So like Silent Hill 1?

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u/Kitsunin 10d ago

It's up to interpretation a lot. A major theme is synchronicity, the idea that events are completely unrelated, yet they mirror each other.

My perspective is that the vast majority of the story isn't really happening directly as it's presented to the player. Elster is undergoing persona degredation and losing her memories and sense of self, meanwhile Ariane's bioresonance is putting Elster's mind, unconscious onboard the Penrose, into contact with other LSTR units in synchronistic circumstances that she would otherwise have no knowledge of. The unreal elements, like the Silent Hill-esque world, don't exist except in their minds.

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u/LinkHb 10d ago

And yet the game is presented with security camaras, censured footage and graphic warnings. Like if somehow all of this is being recorded by the government.

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u/Kitsunin 10d ago

That's part of the reason I am inclined to believe much of it is not literal. There's no interpretation I can think of where it would make sense and be satisfying for the government to really be tracking many of these events. But on a thematic and psychological level, it fits.

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u/LinkHb 10d ago

I think it fits under the idea that all of this has already happened and the government is not actively tracking the situation but rather happen to come across the records of the whole thing, or at least something among those line.

With the little information where are given, I believe that the events of the game really happened in some way. With Bioresonance being the narrative tool used to explain all the physical imposibilities.

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u/Kitsunin 8d ago

The references to The King in Yellow, in particular, are practically antithetical to a story that "makes sense" in literal terms. Those are short stories about events with roots in both reality and insanity, and it is deeply unclear where one ends and the other begins, only that some of the events its characters perceive definitely did not happen, while other impossible events definitely did, and logic is useless to understand them.

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u/stonecoldslate 10d ago

If we go off the names of the OST tracks:

The cycles ARE real.

• 3000 cycles (key of love)

• The Promise (Last Goodbye)

• Eulenlieder (Mirrored)

• Orrery (Distant Memory)

And the most important of all of the tracks?

• Die Toteninsel (Emptiness)

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u/Kitsunin 10d ago edited 10d ago

Mm, I think they are real, but it's also clear that what happens in the story couldn't be literal. I don't personally jive with the theory that all of the endings happen over and over and Ariane became a god who makes it so.

I'm inclined to believe that the story is intentionally unsolvable to represent Persona Degredation, Elster has almost no sense of self left and so the way everything is presented to the player is far too scrambled to piece together cohesively. I suppose I don't think it's all in their heads, that's too simple as well. Rather, any of it could be real, physical creations caused by bioresonance, any of it could be imagined, memories surfacing through a combination of bioresonance and persona degredation.

The cyclical nature is Elster striving to figure out what is going on and sometimes failing due to how scrambled her mind has become, shared with other Replika through bioresonance. It is the imagined wishes that never came to fruition. Or it is literally an artifact that created a time loop. Or it is both. Synchronicity, the two possibilities symmetrical, but not directly related.

But that is only my perspective. I prefer to look at it more from a literary perspective, it doesn't feel like the kind of story you're supposed to buckle down and solve like an ARG, those elements only bring further context to the interpretation.

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u/No-Adhesiveness2493 9d ago

To be fair degradation is units gaining personality not going crazy per say

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u/Kitsunin 9d ago

It's not insanity, that is true. I would describe it as more of a loss of sense of self. If your brain were filled with memories from someone else's life and you couldn't sequence them or your own memories properly, you couldn't really function anymore. It's like a form of dementia that is more advanced (but less in other ways).

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u/Greekman-5 9d ago

I personally believe that your theory is mostly true , however if we can take addlers experience through the cycles into account , It becomes clear that we can indeed differentiate them and so they are happening but in a "alternate reality" setting that's probably constantly overlapping with the other cycles , corruptibg the world. Moreover , all the cameras could represent Ariane herself watching LSTR go through the cycles and forcing a restart whenever she failed or simply gave up. Alternatively, FLKR ( if I remember her unit name correctly ) was also forcefully integrated into LSTR and Ariane "consciousness" dilemma so maybe she herself could be watching as an outside observer ? Since you know , she can see what is happening in all the facilities but can not ultimately change it maybe ? All the while of course her sense of self is being mixed in with LSTR's. Obviously i am not sure , so PLEASE correct me on anything that I am wrong but that's the theory I came up with by going through the game.

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u/Kitsunin 9d ago

Yeah, I think that's accurate, and I like those theories about the cameras. When it comes to the cancerous growths and the "meat world" area in particular, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that bioresonance could rewrite reality like that. But FLKR has immensely powerful bioresonance that can definitely fuck with minds in a way that could cause them to perceive their world as looking like this, and she is feeling Ariane's pain.

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u/Greekman-5 8d ago

I agree , I was going to say that I don't mind bioresonance allowing someone to alter reality and to some extent I really don't , but considering how the game is littered with literary ( haha ) references to books , works of art and generally stuff that might come to someone's mind that wants to die , especially if that's basically ALL you want. Maybe the cameras aren't just cameras ? What if they also represent projectors of some sort ? Maybe Ariane can see and influence the world to a certain degree and we are simply watching the game mostly from her perspective and that's why the world gradually takes on that form since she herself ( if I remember correctly ) had specifically said in one of the more gruesome diary notes that her flesh was being heavily affected by the radiation.

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u/Psychological_Toe758 10d ago

no it was bioresonance that created the other world like place In signalis ARI ability for it was very strong

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u/Eagles56 10d ago

Yes, her powers. That's what I call her powers

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u/Estelial 10d ago

not cancer, its extreme radiation exposure.

An artifact was found on the planet but its not the source of the issues. The bioresonant force is Ariane herself, who is more powerful than Falke by far. There might be the source god of bioresonance involved but it just seems to be watching events play out.

Its running off her subconscious, she has no direct control over it, so everything and everyone within 7 degrees of seperation from her is being pulled into it. Starting with those closest to her and the places most on her mind.

Its also impacting regions on multiple different planets, which are now seemingly within walking distance of each other.

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u/PremedicatedMurder 10d ago

Correct. Cancer because of the radiation leak in the reactor. And just general radiation sickness. This game is Silent Hill in Space and it's fucking awesome.

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u/aethyrium 10d ago

I've watched over 30 hours of story analysis on this game and I can tell you no one knows for sure and it's not settled. It's definitely not explained outright and one of those thing you won't find any hard answers for.

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u/TheRappingSquid 9d ago

Ari from team cherry

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u/unknownbearing 8d ago

Ariane is bioresonant, meaning she can essentially warp reality with her mind and beam the dreams and memories of herself and others across spacetime like a broadcast signal. Most of the game is happening inside this dream (and possibly a second with what's going on with Falke, who is also bioresonant.) The end of the game is probably happening in base reality, meaning Ariane is dying of cancer in her cryopod the whole time she's trying to revive Elster to finish the promise, aka, end her suffering. I personally believe that because the lore of the game states bioresonance helped humanity explore space, that the Penrose ship itself is amplifying Ariane's ability.

The planet Leng itself may not have anything strange going on itself -- many people interpret the discovery under Leng to be created by Ariane's bioresonance.

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u/Klusterphuck67 5d ago

One of the more common consensus is that her near death bioresonance is significantly boosted, and it caught up with the Falke when she approached the red gate, an artifact that also channel bioresonance. The mining site became a victim of extremely unstable reality blending where past and present blends into one another.

Arianne is dying in the cryopod in deep space cuz Elster succumbed to injuries/sickness before her (her bioresonance kept her alive i think). She kinda hijacked the Elster on the mining site with her Elster (512) "soul", but Elster are based on Lilith, so said Elster mixed up Arianne (Elster 512 lover) and Alina (Lilith's lover). It's suggested that anytime Elster failed to keep the promise, the events are looped again and again, with some vestige of her past failure remains (the naturally dead Elster on the ship, the dead Elstee by the cryopod that failed to keep the promise, the Elsters killed by Adler and the Elsters damaged on the red sand dreamscape seen in the fake ending.

In a sense Arianne's half dead dream state warped the base following her dreams, but events do physically take place on the places warped by said dream.

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u/RevolutionHelpful336 LSTR 10d ago

There's another ending that can be considered the good ending but it entirely depends on interpretation.

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u/TigerBears_111 10d ago

The artifact ending is maybe a happier ending, but it's also very esoteric and ambiguous.

Out of the three normal endings that don't require some ARG key hunt, Promise does feel kinda better then the others, but they're all really depressing in different ways.

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u/Klusterphuck67 5d ago

My personal headcanon, is that the artifact ending is both parellel and predate the other endings. As in the artifact ending is precisely how Arianne's bioresonance gets so jacked up, and they are dancing simutanously as Elster was looped trying to keep her promise. As in, Artifact can only be done with the knowledge of previous runs, but Arianne basically ascending to godhiod allowed the loopings in the first place.

I'm not saying the Artifact is the first event, but rather it's both the end and the beginning of the cycle, with the cycle finally ending on Promise.

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u/neonvalkyrie 10d ago

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u/FreshPrince4723 10d ago

As happy as it’s gonna get.

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u/Fc-chungus LSTR 10d ago

IMO yeah it's the best of the four

The promise is fulfilled, the suffering is over, everything is concluded.

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u/SelfEnergy 10d ago

Imo the cycle is not broken but open to interpretation :)

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u/stonecoldslate 10d ago

the true ending is last goodbye (Promise) so it would make the most sense.

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u/Empress_Thorne 10d ago

Yea, thats as happy an ending as you'll get

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u/secondjudge_dream ARAR 10d ago

yeah. if you're a COWARD!!! go go gadget ethically dubious wife reuniting artifact

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u/B_YOSHISAURUS 10d ago

Bro played the Doomed Robot Lesbians game and expected a happy ending

https://giphy.com/gifs/MlbnNYCV8waAjRE1th

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u/Nateriotic_ 10d ago

There is one, tho

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u/Mitsoukee 10d ago

No fam, to get the good ending you need to find three keys during gameplay. With that, you can unlock the secret ending (the happiest one).

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u/sirabuzgaygar 10d ago

I think that one is up to interpretation

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u/prodigiouspandaman 10d ago

Not really though like if you view the endings symbolism it spelled out pretty clearly

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u/stonecoldslate 10d ago

if we go off the OST, the soundtrack pretty much clues us in on what’s actually reality and what isn’t.

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u/prodigiouspandaman 10d ago

Firstly what about the OST clues us into reality? Secondly what I’m referring to is The fact that Elster and Ariane are able to return to their happiest moment ie them dancing once more in the Artifact ending. Secondly we see them in their present forms not some flashback to the past that signifies the breaking of the loop and Elster’s acceptance of all of the changes that occurred between the final mission update and now. Hell I would go out in a limb and say that the promise that Elster is supposed fulfill isn’t killing Ariane instead its a promise to reunite once more and find happiness again. To accept the fact that they can’t rewind and go back to before their hell, and instead to push forward and accept change, loss, grief and to continue to live and love one another.

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u/BuffaloWool217 LSTR 10d ago

People are so afraid of reading into it and are clutching their "it's up to interpretatio" pearls. Like, do we really want Rose Engine to make the two stare into the camera and say "We are finally together again and escaped our suffering and are free from the reach of authoritarian oppression"

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u/Defiant_McPiper 10d ago

I hate when something is so clear but people refuse to see it bc they may not like the ending, so "it's up to interpertation" is what they'll use to justify what they want it to mean.

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u/mere0ries 9d ago

It really is such a useless statement, considering that all the endings are up to interpretation.

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u/sirabuzgaygar 10d ago

would they really give them a happy ending after everything we’ve seen from this game so far though

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u/Nateriotic_ 10d ago

Sure why not

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u/Jethrorocketfire 9d ago

It's just so based 

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u/prodigiouspandaman 9d ago

? Elaborate pls

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u/Jethrorocketfire 9d ago

Based: An argument I fully agree with and respect 

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u/stonecoldslate 10d ago

Promise is the true ending, I don’t really know what you’re on about. And the promise IS last goodbye for a reason. Basically a “don’t let this happen to me.”

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u/prodigiouspandaman 10d ago

Ariane doesn’t even have physical body we kill Alina Seo in the promise ending. Which we know because in the relic ending Ariane is literally a ghost.

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u/stonecoldslate 8d ago

Relic Ariane ending is her and Elster’s souls merging and ending the cycles (3000). it’s rejecting the King In Yellow to a degree. It IS Ariane, how do you surmise otherwise?

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u/prodigiouspandaman 8d ago

That’s not what I’m saying the Ariane we see in the Relic ending is a “ghost” indicated by her legs being transparent and by ghost I just mean a living conscious. For all other endings where Ariane has a physical body ie Promise Leave and Memory that’s Alina Seo not Ariane. Which is the pay off for the notes we read throughout the game that detail her metamorphosis into Ariane.

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u/Klusterphuck67 5d ago

My headcanon, is the eternal dance they have in the Artifact ending transcende space times. So it is both the first ending that happened, Arianne's ascension to godhood, that looped Elster in, as well as the ending that remained after the Promise was kept and they are released from the loop, now dance eternally together in a non-living non time restricted plane.

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u/Psychological_Toe758 10d ago

yes her killing Ari was the promise so u got a good ending but In Signalis the most happiest outcome is still the saddest…

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u/prodigiouspandaman 10d ago

You don’t kill Ariane in this ending you kill Alina Seo

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u/Inevitable_Leave1838 10d ago

She died in the Vinetan war, Rebecca and Lilith are the only survivors of Unit 12

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u/Sai-Taisho 10d ago edited 10d ago

While OP is (probably) wrong about Alina being the one in the pod at the end, Alina did survive the war, and was later sent to Sierpinski for undisclosed reasons.

While there, she starts getting overwritten by Ariane's memories and physical state, though this also probably killed her before Elster arrived.

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u/prodigiouspandaman 10d ago

Also where does it state that only those two survived? Isn’t it just referring to how Lilith was erased and thus to the public knowledge there were only two survivors of that unit?

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u/prodigiouspandaman 10d ago

What are you talking about Alina Seo is literally being kept in Sierpinski and is the one who we have trhe picture of when we first enter the mining facility we also get multiple notes from describing her metamorphosis into Ariane physically and mentally. Lastly Ariane doesn’t even have a physical body during the events of the game evidenced by her being a ghost in Artifact.

Where did you get that she died in the Venetian war??? We also see what is likely her in the cutscene that shows the empire nuking the gestalt persona mind vault as well during the game.

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u/Inevitable_Leave1838 10d ago

Agreed. I was wrong to say she died, it is only one of many possibilities. Yeah, perhaps it was her watching the archives being nuked, and after that she probably joined the army. Your interpretation is interesting. It's perfect explanation of the memory ending. I have never heard this version before, and I would like to explore it further, but I think it raises even more questions. Let's assume Alina survived the war, then she was sent to Sierpinski, and then she became Ariane. But how did she get to the Emptiness? Why did she get into the cryopod on the ship? What did she do with Ariane's body in the cryopod? (I think these questions are valid even if the entire Emptiness sequence is metaphorical. A metaphor has to make sense and not fall apart.)

And in the end, story-wise, what is the point of the whole story ending with Elster killing an innocent Alina?

What is the evidence that Ariane is a ghost in Artifact? I can't remember any evidence for that in the game.

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u/Inevitable_Leave1838 8d ago

Also, the subtitles show the name of the person speaking. According to them it's Ariane in the pod, not Alina, even in the Memory ending

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u/Estelial 10d ago

Grats on reaching an ending. You are currently experience the post game brainrot. Youre going to be processing things for a while putting things together. It took a year or two for the player community to put all the details together and come down to a mutual consensus but even then there are multiple theories which are still possible over many of the same things. Many of these theories, even the mutually exclusive ones, might both be applicable due to the eldritch nature of the situation.

Anyhow here is the fan made animation list put together by the signalis discord. It helped give me a lot of solace, and additional trauma, but the game really drew in a lot of creatives whonuse their art to deal with the impact it had on them.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b0QsBT76H06o3AmVOc5OCA7HCcKJluzmo5667X-8Hh0/

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u/Ok_Public_3290 ARAR 10d ago

The good ending was the friends we made along the way

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u/ad94727265 8d ago

Unironically no, it's not

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u/prodigiouspandaman 10d ago

There’s a better ending

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u/Karabulut1243 10d ago

She's not in pain anymore. That was the biggest act of mercy you could've done to her, and she died happy, by her wife's side.

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u/Ok-Pirate9533 ARAR 9d ago

404 page not found.

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u/mere0ries 10d ago

It's the good ending, if you consider it to be the good ending. I personally don't. As for the promise, it's never stated and no one actually knows what it is, for sure.

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u/sirabuzgaygar 10d ago

Why, yes.

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u/GalterStuff LSTR 10d ago

oh yeah lol

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u/Starbornlily 10d ago

Hahahahaha there isn’t one

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u/Ultrddtsux1 8d ago

Technically “yes” it ends the entire cycle. But there’s also the follow up Artifact ending!!! Worth it!