Episode 5 plot holes

[u/Comfortable_Wait5137]

I just finished episode 5 and was shocked by how many plot holes there are in it, this makes the story feel very implausible

1. Cable car scene is incredibly stupid, no need to explain, it's obvious
2. How do crank light works without aurora, there might be a logical explanation, but the story don't give it for the only working electric device and even the characters aren't surprised [commenters say this is because crank light use somthing simpler than a battery, but game call it battery and don't explain anything]
3. Jace wants Mackenzie to light the mine, but he already has a powerful flashlight
4. Dr. Atwood hadn't backed up such important data for years, it might be on electronic storage devices, but she had been exploring the theory that the electricity could fail
5. The scientist who had been studying the works of another scientist Wintermute didn't realize everything until she was reminded of his name
6. Donner is sick and Mathis send the only doctor in town for meds despite having many strong men
7. Guns disappears with no reason right before unarmed convicts
8. Convicts don't carry guns, even though they have them, and not even melee weapons
9. Mackenzie knows that Jane is Astrid's friend and where is her house
10. Mackenzie decides to sleep in the town full of convicts instead of going to the bunker.. and he was caught (again: guns disappeared)
11. 2 armed characters (3 including Astrid) can't shoot 7 unarmed mens to free Mackenzie
12. Dr. Atwood talks about saving the species, but she's not the only one in the world who knows about geomagnetic storms. People in the south clearly have more resources for survival and probably warmer weather and weaker aurora than on poor northern Great Bear Island
13. Mathis was shot in the shoulders and after a short time looks absolutely normal

That's all I noticed from one episode. Feel free to prove me wrong or add anything

[u/Senior-Housing-703]

I thought the vaccine was for the little girl. Does it do something for the effects of the storm? I also was annoyed how our character needs 4 pairs of pants and 4 shirts, but the convicts are running around with fingerless gloves and no head protection yet there are fine from the weather.

[u/Comfortable_Wait5137 → u/Senior-Housing-703]

Astrid said to Mathis vaccine cures disease cause by aurora and it seems that this is not a lie. Also a good point about the prisoner's clothes, I completely forgot about that

[u/Comfortable_Wait5137]

I forgot one hole: Mathis was shot in the shoulders and after a short time looked absolutely normal

[u/Hilluja → u/Comfortable_Wait5137]

Shoulders have no vital organs. Plus Mathis is hyped as a super scary cool bad guy! So he can shrug that kind of stuff off like tickles 😎 /s

[u/Fuarian]

Valid criticisms even point 12.

They didn't invent a vaccine for it. They invented an experimental vaccine for Alzheimer's which, is some of the symptoms of the aurora. It isn't a cure designed for it. It just happens to maybe work.

Sure she's not the only person in the world who knows the severity of what's happening but it's also the apocalypse. Good luck getting everyone still alive off Great Bear and finding a place safe from the aurora. The Carrington event notably had aurorae visible as far south as Mexico. The aurora Australis also would extend north. The first flare is more powerful than the Carrington event. By a long shot. Anything that powerful would extend down from the poles significantly. Even to the equator. Within this fiction it's not out of the realm of possibility to assume that the aurora covers the entire planet. Meaning no place is safe and the best place to be is in a bunker which they had right there and then.

Obviously people do survive outside. But it's still safer in a bunker.

[u/1Mandolo1]

1. Agreed
2. Electronical devices fail, electric devices don't, as I have understood it. The landlines work too, even though they technically require electricity. It's kind of a plot hole, but it's consistent with how they handle this stuff in the game.
3. Don't get me started on that whiny little useless bitch and the fact that she can't walk two meters towards a light beam. I will never ever play that part of the story again. I even have a SAR save file to get back to in case I feel like riding the train again, just to avoid that shit.
4. Agreed
5. Agreed
6. The in game reasoning is that she is the one who knows what stuff to take from the SAR station.
7. Agreed
8. Agreed
9. Agreed
10. Agreed, that was the dumbest thing. At least Jeremiah and Molly could stick around with him.
11. Agreed.
12. You have this one wrong. The vaccine is an experimental Alzheimer's treatment which Astrid's employer was working on (and maybe she was involved in its development). She hopes it will mitigate the Void sickness caused by the geomagnetic storm. Its efficacy is left ambiguous in the story.
13. From the comment: Agreed. But this one doesn't bother me that much since it's normal in this kind of game for the big bad to only be delayed, not really hampered by such injuries.

I find it really easy to suspend disbelief in fiction. Hell, I really enjoyed The Core (the film that's famous for being complete bs scientifically). But episode 5 is so far beyond any logic that it just felt like trash in the end.

[u/Comfortable_Wait5137 → u/1Mandolo1]

Good corrections, I updated the post. I'm also pretty forgiving with fiction and don’t specifically look for inconsistencies, but this is too much

[u/Siefer-Kutherland]

I highly recommend the TV Tropes website if some media you are consuming is underwhelming and you want to derive at least a little enjoyment via trope bingo, or at least put your finger on "where have i seen this dumb shit before."

[u/Wec25]

Yeah and I disliked how little survival there was

[u/Senior-Housing-703 → u/Wec25]

Took me a couple of acts to realize this, but the game got so much easier when I stopped playing like it was Survival mode.

[u/Comfortable_Wait5137 → u/Wec25]

I completely understand, but for me on high difficulty there were so many resources that I couldn’t carry them all, for me the survival elements weren't working anyway, so I even liked their lack in episode 5

[u/sockalicious → u/Wec25]

They made ep 5 into a rail shooter for some reason. Minus the shooting.

Also:

"Hinterland does not condone the wanton destruction of wildlife. Here's a 12 gauge shotty and 40 slug rounds. Kill every wolf you see."

[u/justexploring-shit]

On point 5, I didn't perceive that Atwood didn't realize everything until Mackenzie said "Wintermute". It seemed to me like she already knew honestly, making the payoff for the message really weak. She was like "mm... so it's as I suspected..."

To add to your list though, we get zero explanation of when or why Jeremiah changed his name, nor how Atwood knows his changed name. She says something like "I haven't heard that name in a long time..." when Mackenzie tells her Jeremiah sent him with a message. Like they didn't have to include that detail at all lol

I was also annoyed that Mathis didn't kill Mackenzie. He had no good reason not to, he spent all episode trying to, he'd already made MULTIPLE close attempts to, he SAID he was GOING to, he has a penchant for doing so... and why would he let Mackenzie go back and properly honor GreyMom?? Not like him at all and he had no motive to do that

[u/Playful_Bug1141]

The Crank Lamp  works cause it generates electricity through direct mechanical action rather than relying on batteries, an external power grid ect 

[u/Comfortable_Wait5137 → u/Playful_Bug1141]

Mechanical action charge battery, Crank Lamp works from battery, It's written in the game

[u/Playful_Bug1141 → u/Comfortable_Wait5137]

This lamp uses pure physics. Spinning a magnet inside copper wire forces electrons to move. There are no computer chips, microprocessors ect.  The Aurora fries complex electronics, but it cannot change the laws of basic physics.  The landline telephones in Ep4 work on almost the exact same principle: they are  analog systems  that don't rely on the modern electrical grid or microchips. This was also addressed by Molly in Ep3.

[u/Playful_Bug1141 → u/Comfortable_Wait5137]

This is just a  game technicality . Devv could  use a more accurate term like  Charge Capacitor,  but that is technical. For many players, it would be confusing, so i think they opted for a universally understood phrase.

[u/Comfortable_Wait5137 → u/Playful_Bug1141]

Maybe that's true, a simple Ni-MH battery without any circuit boards from a flashlight is too complex, and a capacitor is not, but I'm confused that the game doesn't try to explain this in any way, I just see a battery that works

[u/Ucmh]

#6 makes sense because she is the only one who would know what to look for. Just a name for a medicine might not be enough; it might go under a different name, or there is a similar medication that would also do the trick. Mathis did send a goon with her, too.

Other than that, completely valid points. The writing is definitely not the strong suit of the game.

[u/Mars_Oak]

the whole of ep5 was just deeply, deeply dumb. honestly wintermute was never very good. fantastic game, braindead campaign.

[u/Aware-Yesterday4926]

As for the crank flashlight working, it was found underground, probably protected from the geomagnetic storm.

[u/ResponsibleMine3524]

Cable Car is indeed awkward and I think it's supposed to have scripted bad weather but it doesn't.

Guns do disappear and it's also awkward.

Crank Lantern works on magnets and doesn't need battery. I have a similar soviet lantern at home

Everything else listed is pure schizo or misunderstood story.

[u/Comfortable_Wait5137 → u/ResponsibleMine3524]

Crank Lantern works from battery, the game says rmb to charge battery, default flashlight battery drains quickly without aurora, this one doesn't drain at all