Dave The Diver: On Aberrations

Dave the Diver: On Aberrations

Between a scattering of recently discovered islands rests a jewel of paradise, mystery, and a hint of exotic danger. The famous Blue Hole has found a name for itself among the most envied tourist destinations among the world, with a gorgeous view, thrills to experience, and rich natural resources… but on a day like this, the scene has become anything but recognizable as the bustling hub described. That is because a ponderous fog has decided to linger over the lagoon by the time my vessel reaches port.

Despite the warm weather, I could feel my hairs standing on end from the very moment the clouds had enveloped our ship. Aside from the occasional day like this, fog horns would usually be a rare sound to hear across the bay. Since the discovery of the area, vacationers have enjoyed a tropical climate punctuated by mild storms. It all paints a picture so drastically unlike the eerie one I have pursued to this end. By sunset, I know that the white mist outside will give way to a crimson haze. With it, begins the investigation into the unusual animals only spotted on previous fogged nights: What familiar aberrants have made their way to the region, what are they capable of, and to where they fit within the additional puzzle of Blue Hole’s astounding ecosystem.

The Fog Coast, Part One

The hour is roughly 10pm, and “Blue” Hole has turned to a sight otherworldly. Thick, red vapors and an eerie silence hang in place of what was a starlight sky over the whistles of dolphins a mere night ago. The locals claim that the lagoon is an inscrutable locale, whose underwater geography both hosts an impossible collection of species and undergoes rapid, unexplained changes every few hours. On a night of crimson fog, it has been made enigmatic even from the surface view. Rocks easily seen by daylight make sailing close to the shorelines a hazardous endeavor along a coast with no lighthouse or other navigational indicators. It is a coastal venture treacherous, but also rewarding, for much more hides under these waves than the rocks. A watery gyre is barely seen at the edge of shiplight, and at its core, I have heard there can be found treasures far more interesting than mere gold.

• Encyclopedia Entry No. 83, 84

[Testimony of a local fisherman]

“Now it’s not unusual for cod to happen up close to the shores at night. Obviously, I was hoping for it or I wouldn’t have been fishing in that stuff, but there was something else going on with these fish. Something not right. They weren’t taking to the bait, but they just kept coming up closer. Like they were trying best they could to get up on my ankles without getting stranded. Almost like they see someone standing on the beach and that’s all they’re interested in. Not that I let them, but they got close enough to tell something ugly about them. The only thing I managed to get hooked snapped my line before I could figure out what I was even looking at, other than big teeth and nasty looking eyes.“

Analysis: Our first descriptive cases of mutated cod corroborated with archived specimens from off the coast of Greater Marrow. Though there are instances where residents have managed to capture these codfish whole and live, no success has been found in attempting to keep them or any other mutated fish in captivity, due to their propensity to die shortly after they are harvested from the ocean. The two ‘flavors’ of tainted cod found here include the Fanged and Three-Headed variants, with no cases of hypertrophy. Their behavior has observed to feature heightened predatory behavior, to the point of stalking and testing large animals as oppurtunistic targets. They approach sluggishly at first, and lunge to close distances. They pose some hazard to swimmers, notably the unarmed, but can be reeled or netted as readily as any scrod. The three-headed cods are generally larger than the fanged variant, and both can be found close to the surface during a fog night.

• Encyclopedia Entry No. 79, 80

[We join the crew of a commercial trawler, company left unnamed to permit this revord of the onboard operations. As the ship coasts upon the outskirts of one of the smaller outcrops, fishermen gather at the fresh haul to do their work. Mackerel from all global ranges and climates incredulously line the deck of the vessel, meticulously sorted into an array of containers. One worker calls out as an unusual sight is plucked from the pile- a brown shiner with half a dozen too many eyes for an average fish. The bosun indicates for me a specific container the individual is packed into. What I find there is a collection of similar wretches, scales still twitching and mouths gasping wet with a shimmering fluid.]

“We don’t actually come across that many of them in the nets. One for about every hundred of the healthy ones. Their meat is considered tainted and has to be separated from the catch, but we aren’t allowed to return them to the environment either. They’ll stay on ice for now, later today they’ll be dropped off with a merchant who’s agreed to handle the… disposal.”

Analysis: In spite of the sheer diversity of mackerel to be seen at Blue Hole, these turned pacific mackerel are the only shared species between Greater Marrow and this living collection in such regard. Specifically, the Many-Eyed and Grotesque mackerels found in shallower coastal water. Like most aberrants, they are prone to agitation and exhibit territorial, if not predatory aggression at first contact. Like all aberrations, their blood runs a purple hue, and their sightings dry up once the fog has dissipated.

• Encyclopedia Entry No. 91, 92

[Shared anecdote from a lionfish diver]

“You have to really love a place like Blue Hole to do what I do. A lot of people don’t think of lionfish as an invasive species here, but they can do real damage to reefs where they’re not native, and ours are no exception. Worse still is that they’re far more aggressive here than anywhere else in the world, and not any less venomous. I thought if anyone was prepared to do a part in protecting local animals from these new pests, why not me? And yeah, I bagged a few. I speared things with a few too many eyes, a few too many heads, a few too many teeth. I found these great big ugly fish with no eyes at all that still would come right at you. And then I saw a… thing. The thing, Reason I don’t go night diving anymore. Came out of the dark like a ghost, black bones and green light. It didn’t look like something that should have even been real. I was lining a shot up and I felt like my arm had taken a lion’s barb. I didn’t even know what happened, that thing sparked, and I felt pure pain pulse through half of my body. Everything was panic after that. Panic to get back up and the hell out of the water. Fingers were still tingling almost until morning. All I know that I know is, I’m sticking to day hunting.”

Analysis: What’s to be expected was found in observation of the Tusked grouper. Despite their blindness, they show no hesitance to begin tracking and pursuing any nearby disturbance of water they sense. While their sole offensive boast is a strong mouth full of elongated teeth, the Voltaic variant wields a far less conventional weapon. When approached to a range of a couple of meters, it is capable of discharging a potent shock. Likely, this is utilized both as a defensive and hunting technique, similar to the currents produced by an electric eel. Similar accounts have attested to this stunning capability, reporting temporary paralytic effects from direct contact with the fish. Mechanism of this ability remains unknown. Especial caution recommended in presence of Voltaic grouper, not only for the risk of attack, but also from the drowning hazard posed by their stray arcs.

Addendum: Close Encounters of the Piscine kind

I bear news of startling implication, as have many other watchers of the peculiar, for what was once a hesitant speculation has come to pass as prophecy.

It is happening. The corruption of marine life has finally been confirmed to be on the rise, spread beyond what once we assumed were its contained boundaries, and even with it, arrives the infamous Marrows miasma. From one wonder of the world, now these grotesque creatures are finding themselves visitor to another- the Blue Hole tourist destination; a craterous lagoon gaining renown for its own rumored mysteries and for being home to a global headquarters of exotic dining.

There is still no answer to whether the crimson fog is what induces the mutagenic infection to take hold, or if the fog itself is a product of the rift-spawn’s presence. All we can be certain of is that the fog does indeed signify the arrival of these tenacious breeds. At least, as of yet, the weather anomaly has been noted to not bring any significant risk to boats and ports it passes over, other than the decreased visibility. Compared to what has been noted of its qualities closer to its source, it appears that crimson fog is of no special concern this far away from the Marrow Islands. A previous disappearance of a cargo vessel around Blue hole has also been confirmed as not associated with any red fog event. Nonetheless, local advisory already warns mariners and swimmers of lingering in the coastal fog after dark, and more than a couple wirlpool incidents have been correlated with it.

Yet, just as in their home waters, the fog signals a warning for most to avoid, and an exciting trail for some to follow. Merchants and devotees of a fledgling religious movement are flocking to the atoll in their interest for the tainted fish, and to sate their demand, more brave fishermen have risen to the task of harvesting specimens. Amazingly, new reports have even come in from some who were fearless enough to spearfish for these aberrations. For the very first time now, we have up face to face sightings with living aberrants! Never-before-seen details about some of their wild behavior and ferociousness is, and longer a matter of conjecture, thanks to anonymous accounts from the Blue Hole region.

[Fog Coast - Part One]

[Fog Coast - Part Two]

[Black Cliff - Part One]

[Black Cliff - Part Two]

[Jellyfish Basin - Part One]

[Jellyfish Basin - Part Two]

Aberrant Fish

The first hint many an angler will get of the dark, insidious secrets these waters hold,

and yet, they are the first thing to be accepted as only another flavor of mundane.

The game text calls them grotesque. The fishmonger calls them corrupted. You get to call them a bonus. Rather than fear and revile them, tradesmen will pay a shiny extra penny to add them into their stock. They are gestured to and spoken of, but never truly elaborated on by the townsfolk. They have probably been here long before most of them, and so will be here long after they are gone. They were certainly here before you. Maybe you don’t need their answers, and yet if you are like me, you still witlessly question and keep dredging for more.

Like many things pulled from those cursed depths, they whisper flecks of madness from an impossible voice. What messages do they carry, and what forces do they play vessel to? Are they the lingering embers from a long-extinguished calamity, or are they harbingers of the next one to come?

I believe we have already seen signs of fire with our own eyes- impossible, great beasts that prowl the four (now five) coasts, the dying cult, gibbering fog…. That damned book. These tortured creatures are but another form of the same smoke.

To the question of where they came from, if your fisherman pokes around enough and braves the darkness, he may have already found a response in one of the many obelisks scattered around the map. Specifically, I refer to this.

This would suggest the aberrants themselves are what leaked in through the cracks that the largest of all monsters wants to rend apart? Not entirely, but in part. For the researcher at the Stellar Basin came to her own conclusion I want to factor in.

Her words give credence to the possibility that it is actually those greater beasts themselves at the heart of the corruption. I think she was half onto something, because what if these twisted forms, both large and small, were blooms along the same set of festering roots?

The more dark stones you disturb in the frenzy of your own madness, the more you learn about the age before your arrival, about the islands, and especially about their current guardians. The Mindsuckers- carrion puppet masters given a home, the Basin creature- a spore that miraculously survived its dive to the abyss, and the Serpent- lifeless stone made animate and malicious, all had their creation remembered in great detail by the obelisks. Some hints point that their emergence was rather recent, relative to even more powerful beings, such as the leviathan.

Maybe there are even more unseen horrors far below, blessedly out of our reach, for now. My view is that the malformed beasts are the aimless children of that unfathomable thing which waits beyond the veil. With them came its influence, and its corruption, and from them it continues to spread to all life surrounding. The smaller rifts were always a transformative disease upon the harbor’s fish, but with the rise of the new monsters, the sickness runs farther and less avoidably than ever. Whether these aberrant spawn are a gift to the worthy, or another deceptive evil that leads to madness remains left to be seen.

I will be giving a spotlight to each of these fascinating specimens at the back of Dredge’s encyclopedia, including those found in the Pale Reach, for further comment and appreciation. Updating the list below as we go along!

[#79-84]

[#85-90]

[#91-96]

[#97-102]

[#103-108]

[#109-114]

[#115-120]

[#121-126]

[#127-132]

[#133-138]

[#139-144]

[#145-150]

[#163-168]

[#169-174]

[Bonus I. Night Angler]

[Bonus II. Serpent]

[Bonus III. Basin Creature]

[Bonus IV. Mindsuckers]

[Bonus V. Unseeing Mother]

[Bonus VI. “Narwhal”]

“Zim did the worst thing ever to Dib in Dark Harvest”

Nah.

“Omg Zim did the worst thing ever to Dib in Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy”

Wrong. The most fucked up, sadistic, and effective thing Zim did to Dib happened in “Dib’s Wonderful Life of Doom” and there is no close debate to be had on the matter. That walk of humiliation and genuinely upset “you stink, Zim” after being shot by a muffin instead of some instant alien death beam let you know loud and clear that one incident was going to take a hell of a lot longer to get over than rubber pigs and a moo can.

Invader Skoodge unironically vibing to “Human Music” though

Bare with me i have a ton of thoughts about this I need to try to get out in one big vomit blast

The worst part is how it’s NOT that hard to sell the “Penelope betrays the gang” premise. That’s a completely workable and believable follow through from the third game, where she was introduced as a twist villain off the bat. She’s cute and has been great to her friends as seen but she is not a fundamentally good person. She’s not, and that doesn’t count against her as a character, either. Dimitri is not a good person. He’s every bit the same sleazy, self absorbed lounge lizard you beat the hell out of in Paris. He helped the Cooper Gang for the same reason his once fought against them, because it aligned with his own interests. I’m sure he feels a lot more warmly towards them now, but that doesn’t mean he agrees with their moral code. The same with Panda King. His character development that suits him to joining the gang has NOTHING to do with atoning for or feeling a hint of remorse for the countless people he has killed/exploited; it’s freaking about putting aside his deserved embarrassment so he can come through for the daughter he abandoned when she needed him. Everything else for the gang was repaying a debt.

And Penelope is not that different from King or Dimitri in this realm. She was a career criminal with an enormous, merciless death count who tried to kill the gang when they were inconvenient to her ambition (to only provide her skills to “the best”) and joined them when she found the cards fell differently. She absolutely did not align with Sly’s principles of honor and integrity as the Black Baron. She rigged every tournament in her favor, cheated her ass off, and tried to literally yeet Sly off of a plane rather than accept losing at her own game. The Black Baron was not an imprisoning role she felt restricted to play… it was the Hyde to her Jekyll. The costume and her technology let her actually defy restrictions and be every bit the ruthless dogfighting blowhard she couldn’t be otherwise. Black Baron was someone who reveled in blasting his opponents out of the damn sky threatened his own staff with, and I quote “If we lose- if I lose, I’m going to take it out on all of you.”

What I’m saying is all of those qualities she showed when she was the Baron didn’t leave after she ditched the disguise. And it saved Bentley’s freaking life in Bloodbath Bay when she brought that side of herself back out again.

I really want to remind all of you that Lefwee is the only trilogy boss that was straight up MURDERED by a member of the Cooper gang.

I shit you not, Sly, Murray, Bentley, none of them have never actually killed a main antagonist directly. Clockwerk/Clockla? Carmelita was the one who laid the hate chip to a final rest. The Mask of Dark Earth? Also the cops (and it kind of just exploded on its own technically). At worst you only get the Batman treatment from Sly once you’ve made him an enemy. Penelope fed an entire man alive to hungry sharks and did a victorious emote over his final cries. It had me jaw dropped for what a suddenly dark closer it was, because we hadn’t seen something that nonchalantly brutal since Arpeggio’s death.

“Stand and take it!”

Point is, Penelope had the guts all along. Her widdle innocent Coco Bandicoot ass appearance completely belies a cheeky genius capable of utterly savage things if backed into a corner or taking a chance to chase glory.

You think Bentley’s romantic jealousy toward the crush Penelope was kindling for Sly was the only insecurity of his that had been obviously bleeding through to the surface? You think his frustrations about being paralyzed were the only things he probably found Penelope a cathartic ear to vent to when they became closer? Those chapters leading up to the heist on Kaine Island were a subtly tense period regarding Bentley’s view of himself and his role in the brotherhood. He explicitly was starting to ask himself some of the same questions that set Dr.M up for an ugly fallout with his and Conner’s relationship. Dr.M was a test for both Sly and Bentley to acknowledge some of their faults and remember what truly mattered to them, which both of them passed. Wholesome and wonderful.

But Penelope only joined on board for maybe the last few months or so of this team actually being a team. I don’t doubt that she fell in love with this mental powerhouse who could finally match up to her competitively, in fact I think the realization that it was actually Bentley and not Sly who had outsmarted her during the ACES played so so much into that. So what does that leave of her impression of Sly? All of this work, all of this sacrifice on some of their parts, to get Sly in spitting distance of his family inheritance, and then after Bentley invests every bit of faith against the doubts he probably clued her in on, this “lifelong friend” mf goes missing in action. No note, no goodbye, god forbid Bentley also told Penelope about the discovery that his BFF actually just ran off to elope with the very cop that tried to put all of them behind bars for years now.

Bentley of course knows Sly like a brother and where the man’s heart and commitments actually are. He knows that Sly earned that trust and he came out of the third game more solid than ever in his respect for the Cooper legacy and their leader.

….Did Penelope?

cause I’m not gonna lie,, I think the freak not.

Without Sly in the picture, Bentley proved capable of inventing fucking time travel and hijacking the entirety of Thiefnet. Thinking that the raccoon was only holding back dude’s potential wouldn’t even have just been in line with her in-character beliefs, it was more or less exactly what Dr.M concluded just by observing the gang from the outside. Penelope is right about Bentley. What makes her wrong in the important sense is her disregard for where Bentley actually is his own person with other priorities and ambitions besides that of the Contessa or Muggshot…. or the Black Baron. She can’t “become a villain again” because she actually never stopped being a villain, see?

And that’s why I’m so fucking mad about what thieves and time did with that raw premise. Bringing Bentley’s character development a little closer to the foreground now that we’ve pretty much finished with Sly’s coming of age? Making the part of him that’s a good friend who believes in Sly’s principles confront the part of himself that we all know had been making more devious and destructive plans over the years? Setting up this philosophic showdown between a genius thief with honor and a genius thief without honor where they still love each other but also have their own higher priorities tugging them apart and it’s agonizing for both of them?!? Jesus Christ that would actually be a story worth tolerating Bob Cooper after all!

It was a good idea and Sanzaru kind of dragged it over the drain and slaughtered it. The execution feels so hamfisted and abrupt, they obviously don’t show a lot of understanding for Penelope’s motivations, and honestly wtf is Le Paradox even here for? Paradox absolutely did not have to be here to make this work and he kind of slaughters it a little bit harder, because now you have to actually sell me the bigger bridge that Penelope, who’s risk averse, hard to impress, and arrogant as all fuck would volunteer as an underling to this joker. That actually, she needed him to be able to kill Sly who she already sees as an intellectual inferior. Yeah, real boss babe baddie you cultivated there, stooping down to be a dragon in chief instead of the main antagonist herself.. not! If Penelope weren’t here, Le Paradox would just be a shameful clockwerk wannabe beating a dead horse at best. She shouldn’t sell out for some skunk, she’s frustrated that Bentley sold out for some raccoon.

If he had to be there, the roles honestly should have been swapped regarding who’s the one atop all operations. Give her room to at least pretend she’s forced to do something she doesn’t want to. Give her that red herring to try and distract the team away from finding out who’s actually trying so hard to kill Bentley’s best friend. Give her that chance to be Mr “pugilism is my passion” again until the new mask is literally ripped off and she has nothing left but excuses. By all means, let this coward be riding a smug high about throwing an entire arsenal at Sly, but not about breaking Bentley’s heart. Don’t reveal her to actually be stupid for no other reason than to grant Bentley a soapbox to monologue about how dumb she is and how she knew nothing about him. Really the biggest problem with the whole thing was that the cooper gang was actually already apart and realizing their identity outside of the trio. Sly 3 ends with Bentley accepting Murray and Sly giving him space he uses to do exactly what Penelope wants tbh??? They were happy partners in crime with no hint/foreshadowing that they would end up fighting over the Master Thief code, and then she for… some reason??? Decided to stage a cause for the gang to come back together… so she could get rid of sly for the offense of… getting the gang back together. I don’t get it either.

It was a decent first draft, but they should have gone about it any other way than the route of a writer trying (intentionally or not) to convince you instead that the grand moral of everyone’s relationship drama (looking at what they did to my poor Carmelita too) was just “bros before hoes” and no one in the Cooper gang gets to fall in love without someone completely compromising everything they believe in and are, actually.

I’m not angry that they did it. I’m angry that they did it badly.

im bored

Y’all think it’s a joke when they just flat out started shamelessly leaning into it at some point