Baby, baby, baby, yeah. Let's [REDACTED] Control

We’re close to completing our mission to stop the Power Plant from exploding, which means the Directorial Override is within sight. Soon, we’ll be able to go to any sector we want. Before we get there, though, we have a lot to learn. New abilities, new information, new weapons… there’s a lot in this video. I recommend sitting down before you start watching.

Part 7: Directorial Override Polsy Youtube Documents

And with that, I’ve caught up to my recording backlog. I held off on recording further for a few reasons, but the main reason is that I want to know where you want to go next. This is one of the rare times in this game when we can explore new territory rather than going straight to the next mission, and it’s a sizeable detour. Granted, there’s not much to do in the Containment Sector at this point, so you’ll probably spend most of the video staring at the nearest clock, but there’s stuff to do and materials to create a new form for the Service Weapon, if I end up collecting enough of them. So, let me know what you want me to do in the next video! Should we proceed to the Research Sector to look for Marshall and Doctor Darling, or should we take a side trip to the Containment Sector and see where they keep all the weird supernatural stuff they’re not studying?

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A filler episode would be the perfect chance to summarize what we know, what we can infer, and what we think we know. This game has so much Lore and Backstory, and Plot spread out so much, we kinda need a refresher. I vote Containment.

Emily’s excitement over SCIENCE! will never not make me grin. She’s like an excited puppy.

Am I the only one who thinks Mr. Janitor is like Jesse? Bonded to a, for lack of a better term, Being of Power? It would help explain how he knows what Jesse’ “inner monologue”, which isn’t him so much him hearing her thoughts as it is him overhearing her conversations with Polaris.

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I don’t necessarily think Ahti is bound to an Object of Power, but something is definitely Up with him, I’ll give you that much.

Ahti doesn’t feel like the kind of weird you get from being bound to objects of power, he feels more like the kind of weird you get from being the only employee to survive 3 or more regime changes. If anyone thinks to check he probably has the highest clearance imaginable because no matter where it is, it needs to be cleaned up some of the time.

The vote was pretty overwhelmingly in favor of taking a detour to the Containment sector, so that’s where we’re heading next. First, though, I wanted to make sure I was as prepared as I could possibly be, because the Hiss enemies are going to get tougher from this point and the Countermeasures in my list are all specific to the sectors I won’t be returning to for a while, so things will slow down on the growth front if I don’t take the time to clear a few to-dos from my list. I’d intended to make this a short montage to stick at the front of the first Containment sector video, but… well, I’ll explain more when I get around to posting that. So this is a short video without any real progress, but we do get to see Ahti again, we get to take on a couple of optional missions for decent rewards, and we get to see one of the very strange things that seem to happen after the major update.

Part 8: Getting a Better Grip Polsy Youtube Documents

These days, it’s always nice to play something like Control or Alan Wake because everything in the real world feels very wrong, so it’s nice to get a short dose of a reality that makes sense. I’ve been powering through Alan Wake in preparation for all the references that will be showing up soon, and I’m nearly done with the base game now. I understand so much more about this game, and it will be good to be able to point out the references as I go. Night Springs is only the beginning. Speaking of beginnings, this is only the first half of part 9, because time is more of an illusion recently than I’m used to and I accidentally made an hour-long video. At least there’s a good break point in the middle. I’ll post the second part with the documents in a few days, but for now, the department so exciting I forgot to pause the recording: Logistics!

Part 9a: The Containment Sector Polsy Youtube

And, as a little bonus to make up for not having any documents this time, another joke I ultimately decided not to put in the video proper but couldn’t pass up.

Bonus video 2: Memes are a vital part of Control

It’s time for the second half of the Containment Sector, for the time being. This time, we’re taking the time to kill time in The Clocks, the department that time forgot. But I’m wasting your time with the same pun, and it’s so bad, it goes beyond being a Dad Joke and turns into a Grandfather.

Clock joke!

… just watch the video.

Part 9b: The Clocks Polsy Youtube Documents

Okay, I think I’ve spent enough time putting off the main objective. So here’s one more video of putting off the main objective, as I finally get around to exploring the Research Sector, home of Dr. Darling and all the experiments he’s been overseeing. Containment may be full of neat stuff, but this is where they do the cool things to the neat stuff. To put it in more scientific terms, this is where discoveries are made and the boundaries of knowledge are pushed farther and farther into the infinity that can only be insanity. It’s really amazing.

Part 10: The Research Sector Polsy Youtube Documents

A word of warning about the documents in the next few videos: We’re starting to get into documents that describe the underlying mysteries of the story that will be explained in the endgame, naturally with the critical portions redacted. Of course, I’m filling in those redactions as I go, and in many cases, it’s very obvious what they’re referring to. I’m putting warnings alongside the documents themselves and also mentioning this in the videos, but I want to say it once in the thread just to be clear - you will spoil some of the game’s biggest surprises if you read what’s behind the black bars. As such, please don’t discuss those portions in the thread until the game itself has made them clear. If you have suggestions for corrections, send me a PM or contact me through other means.

Those hexagonal pictures in Darling’s office are diagrams of the dimensional planes, or how the dimensions of an object changes depending on the Observer’s relation to said object. Think of those holographic cards where the picture changes as you tilt it.

That makes sense. We’re going to see a lot of them, though, and in a few different contexts, so it seems to me that they have more than one meaning.

There are a lot of parts of the FBC that could be considered the nerve center of the operation - Central Executive, Ahti’s office, whatever the heck Dr. Darling’s hiding… heck, even the Research Sector as a whole. But the nerve center of the human body is the brain, and that’s intricately tied to the mind, in the same way that the heart could be said to be related to the soul or a Participation ribbon relates to the persistent, hollow sense of failure that plagues your entire existence. Today, we’ll be looking into how the FBC studies the mind - not so much the things that the mind can do, but the mind itself, as an entity. It’s all a means to an end, of course, but in the same way that you can write better programs the more you understand about how a computer works. Psychology is kind of an antithesis to me personally, seeing as how I seem to have made it my life’s purpose to defy every conclusion that a psychologist has ever reached, but I can’t argue with the importance of the Parapsychology department, nor with the rewards it contains. My favorite ability in the game is just around the corner. There are just a few minor… inconveniences along the way, shall we say?

Part 11: Parapsychology Polsy Youtube Documents

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It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Stuff has been going on in my life as well as in the outside world, and I’ve been trying to do something a little extra to go along with the LP, with little success so far. Fortunately, I think I know why that is, and it will work better after this video than before it, anyway. So, hopefully, I’ll be able to get that done without too much more trouble. Meanwhile, I think we’ve left Marshall waiting for backup long enough, don’t you?

Part 12: Quack Quack Polsy Youtube Documents

I hope nobody thought I’d forgotten about this LP. I’ve just been tied up trying to do something a bit special, but it hasn’t come together yet, so I’m just going to move on and, if it ever gets made, stick it in the appropriate position in the playlist. For now, I’m just going to wrap up the loose ends in the Research Sector before moving on with the story. I feel like the Guided Imagery Therapy should be more profound than I found it, but maybe it needs to be experienced directly. However, I find the bottom of Central Research much more interesting, for numerous reasons.

Part 13: Dr. Yoshimi Tokui’s Hypnotic Adventure Polsy Youtube Documents

Also, I’m not quite done with the latest DLC yet, but I think they’ve really got their fingers on the pulse of what we wanted from it. Now I’m a bit sad about how I’ve been allocating my Skill Points in this playthrough.

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Oh man. I just got Control after watching an ep or two of this back when you first posted them, since it just came out on Steam and I’m one of those people who refuses to use Epic.

I’m glad you explained the thing about the Hypnosis Lab sidequest, because I got there on the PC and I was like “There’s GOT to be something here, what am I missing?” and spent forever looking around and shooting everything before I gave up. Now I know.

Trying to keep on something of a schedule from here on out, I’ve got another video ready to go. We’re pressing on with the story this time, returning to the Maintenance Sector for some Black Rock Prism. All of the Black Rock is just beyond the Atlas Chamber, which may have a purpose, but even after playing as much of the game as I have, I still don’t know what it is. Reminds me a bit of Fez, though.

Part 14: The Atlas Polsy Youtube Documents

One of the best parts of Control is getting information from many different sources and finding connections that bring pieces together to give you a deeper understanding of some of the events in the Bureau’s past and present. Sometimes, it seems clear that the developers redacted portions of documents just to avoid having to put in specific names or numbers, or because no concrete details could possibly rival what players are likely to imagine if given the space to do so. But at other times, the redactions become obvious once you learn more, even if it’s not always clear why certain things would be redacted. Granted, it takes time and attention to comb through the game in that much detail, so I understand why some people might not bother. But they’re only playing part of the game, in my opinion. All of this is to say that while there will be a bit of excitement in this video, it will largely be gathering information and learning some very interesting things rather than making much progress. This is something that I decided I would do long before I actually started the LP, so I hope you’ll all indulge me. After this, it will be almost entirely progress for a while.

Part 15: Neighbor of the Beast Polsy Youtube Documents

Most of the world is watching an election wind down as I write this, and by the time I get around to checking for replies to this thread, we’ll know which side is the plaintiff in the inevitable lawsuit over the results. So I want to get away from all that for a bit and go stare at rocks. To be fair, these are probably some of the most interesting rocks around. The Quarry Threshold is probably one of the biggest single, open areas in the game, so I really can’t cover it all at this point. We’ll be back a bit later to check all the nooks and crannies. We’re just here for a single Black Rock Prism right now.

Part 16: The Quarry Polsy Youtube Documents

We’re very close to our goal now. We have the Black Rock Prism that Marshall wanted, and she owes us a lot of information. But there are just too many things to do around the Oldest House to go straight there, don’t you think? I’m sure Dylan won’t mind waiting just a little longer while we do some sidequests.

Part 17: Golden Suit, Green Thumb Polsy Youtube Documents

I’m going to be pretty much out of commission for the rest of the year as far as LP work goes, so I want to get this posted before things get hectic. This time, we’re delving into the Panopticon, home to all of the Altered Items and Objects of Power that aren’t elsewhere. There’s a lot of neat stuff to see here, but I’m not ready to go out of my way to see it all just yet. I think the reason for that will be clear once we capture that Benicoff TV Langston asked us to deal with in the last episode.

Part 18: The Benicoff TV Polsy Youtube Documents

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It’s been an eventful month and change, hasn’t it? That makes one less year until we reach the point when people will swear this game couldn’t possibly have been made before 2020. There are times when it feels very much like a product of 2020, especially when things go as wrong as they did during this recording. At least the problem in this video is not unique to me - the game is just broken, and the closest thing I’ve seen to an official answer is “No, it’s supposed to work that way” from someone who I think didn’t understand the question. But let’s not focus on that, because there’s something here that goes very right, and it’s easily one of my top three scenes in the game. We came to the FBC to find Dylan, and possibly also answers, but mostly Dylan. Now, we’ve found him, or at least, something very like him. As for answers… yes, we find some of those too. I’m just not entirely sure I know what the questions were.

Part 19: Not Dylan Faden Polsy Youtube Documents