Sooo here's some thoughts. I'm not on the up-and-up about all the 'open secrets' or whatever, so if I'm a year behind on this go easy on me. Having played Tenebra - and with the knowledge about Naragi I now have - I thought it might be worth revisiting Ken. And woah, this is some seriously interesting stuff. In UT2 we see a lot of the same characters we hear talk in Ken, but by that point Laporte knows quite a bit about all of the characters, and the presence of some names we don't see here (and, well, duh) leads me to believe that the pieces of dialogue at the end with the jump nodes was mere hallucination. So I'm just going to talk about Ken here.
Anyway, the point of this thread was to talk about a startling revelation I had. Again, if this is common knowledge, I apologize for this veritable essay, but it blew my freakin' mind.
I believe that the characters with lines in the latter half of Ken are all Nagari sensitives. It's worth noting that it's been alluded to numerous times (especially by Samuel Bei, and his DESTINY HE SAW IN A DREAMMMMMM - IMO it's telling when that phrase appears in UT2) that significant Nagari contact may happen in dreams, and my hypothesis here is that Laporte is literally hearing (albeit possibly not in real time) their dreams.
Steele: "Walk the perimeter. Check your six. They sneak in through dreams. Walk the perimeter. Check your six. They can't get in if you lock them out. Walk the perimeter. Check your six."This is pretty alarming. Steele guarding his mind from intrusion? As if the GTVA knows more about Nagari than I previously thought, including how to train one's mind to resist it. The implications are staggering.
Simms: "I'm drowning in blood. Please wake me up. I'm drowning in blood and I don't know how to swim. Please let me wake up."Pretty obviously some kind of nightmare, probably fueled by her unit's massive casualty rate. This supports the "Laporte is hearing other Nagari sensitives' dreams" hypothesis. On a more discussion-worthy note, recall from the end of UT2, when the Ken anima said something to the effect of "There were others, but you were the most promising." Simms is just as rough and violent as Laporte, but she broke under the weight of her comrades' blood. Falconer's theory is correct: what makes Laporte so amazing is that she doesn't allow the weight she carries to break her. Possibly not a connection there, but Simms sure does act like someone touched by a Shivan mind sometimes, no?
Toqueville: "Did we do the right thing? We couldn't let them go through with it, not once we knew. We will not be tools. But... was it right?"Early foreshadowing of contingency MORPHEUS. There is no way Laporte could possibly know anything of the sort, certainly nothing that could lead to a hallucination of him saying something like that. Interesting implication that the civilian leader of the GTVA has had some kind of Nagari contact.
Byrne: "They think me a coward. But they don't understand. This war will never be won by force of arms. It may not be won at all. We need more time..."Holy crap. Byrne too? A Federation admiral? This is astounding to me, not because of the obvious reference to Shambhala, but because of the implications of Byrne's name even being here given my hypothesis.
Martin Mandho: "Why are they silent? No one has heard a whisper in more than a year... what does it mean?"It's possible that he could have offhandedly mentioned something to this effect in front of Laporte - they do know one another. But I highly doubt it. However, because there
is room for doubt, I don't believe this is strong evidence. However, it is still noteworthy because being an Elder means he is highly likely to be a Nagari sensitive, making it interesting to see his name alongside some others here. That fact lends some credence IMHO.
Whew. Steele, Simms, Toqueville, and Byrne being Nagari sensitives? That was quite a surprising thought to have. What I cannot decide on is whether Ken reached out to these people to show these thoughts to Laporte - "I have given you everything I can" he says, just before their lines - or they are long-time Nagari sensitives, if not to the same degree as Laporte, Bei, or the Elders. We've had no other hints - so far as I can tell - about Simms, Toqueville, or Byrne. Steele's bit is incriminating, however. Walk the perimeter. Check your six. They sneak in through dreams... What else could that possibly be, other than a defense against Nagari intrusion? Maybe he's just a paranoid dreamer.
But I'd like to think there is significance there.
Now, an interesting point to ponder... What's the difference between the pilot from the Aquitane's Kappa wing that got lost in the nebula, or the pilot from the FS1 intro, and someone like Bei or Laporte? One type of Nagari contact seems to simply be, as Ken said, opening a person's mind to see what's inside - seeing through his eyes, or visiting his dreams in this case. Another is some sort of limited communication, and perhaps something more sinister, along the lines of subliminal conditioning (at least, this has been hinted at several times). Which category do these characters fall under? Maybe there is no difference, maybe not. Can anyone be subject to Nagari contact? Is it that anyone can be "hunted" but only a few "sensitives" can be communicated with? If what we see in the mission Ken is the result of the Ken anima "opening the minds" of various characters and relaying this to Laporte - and we suppose that this can be done to anyone - there is perhaps less significance here than I thought. Except with Steele. No matter how I look at it, Steele must be afraid of Nagari intrusion into his mind.
There are still so many mysteries surrounding Nagari.
