I Miss the Sunrise/WMG
Note: The "Jossed" and "Confirmed" folders are spoilers by their very nature. Peruse at your own risk.
Confirmed
Tezkhra is a Lesser.
His identity has been suspect for a while -- enlarged frame, white sclerae, and an apparent relation to another Lesser -- but the real kicker? Typelog fragment 2-2-8: "...strange-looking Lesser. Black scales, white eyes. Stranger still, it didn't appear to be immediately hostile..."
- Possibly Jossed -- in the genetics lab of the EROS facility, it can be clearly seen that Lessers have gigantic tails. Tezkhra's is shorter than Daszk's, which makes this unlikely.
- And as of his final interaction scene in episode 4, confirmed! Tezkhra was originally one of the prototypes referenced in the abandoned databanks, and was on the verge of death when Rami came across him. Tezkhra requested that Rami alter his body to make him more like a lacertian, and somehow, the augments worked. This was so obvious, though, that when it finally comes out, the rest of the crew admits they already knew.
Jossed
The Shine is an event that counteracts technological progression, and occurs when a civilization reaches the highest echelon possible.
Think about it. It only triggered once technology had reached near-perfection. Immortality and far-space travel had already been achieved. The Shine stopped all progress and knocked civilization back as it desperately scrambled to rebuild. This could also explain why it left planets alone, if it's some kind of "nature versus technology" thing -- it could be trying to force humans to stay earthbound instead of venturing across space. However, this wouldn't explain why it didn't touch planet-sized machines, either. Or why it didn't touch the machines on those planets...
Perhaps it was instated by ancient aliens who collapsed under the weight of achieving technological perfection, and they set it up to forcefully prevent other civilizations from making the same mistake... Although, if destroying communication and killing billions is the lesser of two evils, either technological perfection really sucks for some unknown reason, or the aliens are just selfish Complete Monsters.
Alternatively, the Shine wasn't created by sentient life, and is simply a force of the universe that prevents technological progression for some reason.
- Jossed! It was a man-made disaster, apparently caused by an experiment in teleportation technology that went horribly wrong.
Regardless, the Shine is very likely magical in origin, so we will probably get some major tie-ins to The Reconstruction when we learn about its nature. Which brings me to my next stab in the dark...
If the above WMG is true, then the Watchers were instated on the planet of The Reconstruction to prevent it from happening again.
The presence of humans and lacertians in The Reconstruction pretty much guarantees that survivors of whatever horrible cataclysm occurs during I Miss the Sunrise (you know there's going to be something) settled there. If the characters of IMTS learned the truth about the Shine, and the truth about the Shine is the above WMG, then the Watchers may have been instated in order to prevent technological progression from passing the point at which the Shine triggers, since they appear to destroy the world every thousand years or so.
- Major support for this theory: In The Reconstruction's Golden Ending, Rami mentions that the Cycle of destruction was meant to be carried out when technology started appearing.
- Jossed -- nothing so complex! The Watchers were instated to collect qualitative data, since Willis thought living beings would be better for that than computers. The Cycle of destruction was simply to prevent inhabitants from creating high technology, taking to the stars, and turning against their masters, as colony 503b did.
Prediction for the plot of And Yet It Moves...
Calling it now: The plot will be about cat people who specialize in Extension shells appearing out of nowhere and making all the scientists giddy that they found another sentient species, before the cat people start blathering about the Supreme One and how the nonbelievers must be purged.
- Jossed! The plot is about a new group, the EROS scientists, and their morally questionable experiments.
The fortieth merit will be awarded upon completion of the game.
Legarto Desperado will return to help you out in episode 4 if you saved him.
Fighting is what he's best at -- the hectic situation coming up will be the perfect time for him to lend aid. And there's no way he can just disappear after the super-important decision of doom dealing with him. Of course, his help can't be too important, since it's possible for the player to kill him...
- Jossed! He doesn't appear at all in episode 4.
Speculations on the sixteenth playable character...
Space Lizard has said on his blog that he's lowering the amount of playable characters from 20 to 16. Like in The Reconstruction, the final crew member will require all the others in order to be recruited. The sixteenth character in The Reconstruction was a huge shocker and completely changed a lot of the story's context, so this one will probably be a shocker as well. Speculations as to who it could be are below...
- A fih'jik, assuming they're going to appear. A character of a unique species, providing insight into their strange new culture could be very intriguing and fitting for such a special character.
- The Black One.
- Virgil, assuming he doesn't turn out to be Evil All Along.
- Dehl, through Time Travel wackiness.
- Someone completely new who will be impossible to predict.
And as of episode 4, none of these guesses are correct! It's Ivoronus, "father" of the Sikohlons.
Daszk will kill Tezkhra.
It would be suitably tragic and heart-rending. Perhaps it would not even be a conscious betrayal, knowing Daszk. Or perhaps he has Obfuscating Stupidity?
Otherwise, the obvious candidate is the Black One, but that seems a little too obvious...
"After looking at the WMG pages, I think it's hilarious that you speculate that the woobiest woobies in both games are secretly homicidal psychos. I wish I could be that subtle."
- Additionally, this means that Moke won't be the Lesser who kills Tezkhra in the backstory of The Reconstruction either.
Unconfirmed
Virgil will pull a Havan.
There's something about the guy that just seems sinister. And it would be interesting to see how the other characters (and Ros?) might react.
If the above WMG is true, then the mysterious lacertian Ral was talking to will pull a Skint.
If they aren't the Black One, they're definitely vying for the spot of "most likely Big Bad candidate" (and still may be even if they are...). This is similar to Skint being painted as the Big Bad up until The Reveal right at the end.
Fih'jik will appear at some point.
(Although not necessarily known as 'Fih'Jik', as that was probably a term invented by the surface-dwelling subjects, just as the Lacertian subjects named themselves 'Shra')
Take a look at this Typelog fragment:
"...proposed Credits be divided into eighths. Preposterous. What civilization would measure anything in pieces of 8?..."
What civilization indeed? Perhaps one that counts in base 8...like the fih'jik. According to Ques' gigantic glossary in The Reconstruction, fih'jik have four-fingered hands (meaning they count in base 8), a notable oddity, seeing how every other species has five-fingered hands.
Either that fragment is a cruel, intentional Red Herring specifically targeted at crazy over-analysists, or it's foreshadowing that fih'jik will appear at some point in the story. (If this is true, that would make that fragment contain some Dramatic Irony...)
- Also, it's heavily implied that there are no native species on the PLSE surface that was the setting for The Reconstruction - it was terraformed and all sentient species were derived from a genetic donor (Tezkhra supplied the Shra DNA, EROS employees probably supplied the DNA for the Humans/Fortians). Logically, there would have to be a space-age fih'jik species from whence the DNA for the surface fih'jik came from.
- More foreshadowing - There are four weapon classes, but only 3 species classifications. It wouldn't be very useful to have the player character specialise in non-combat skills by powering up eXtension modules, so perhaps the Fih'Jik were held back from the beginning make the player choose a more 'standard' specialisation for their character.
- It's such a given, that when (when) the Fih'Jik are introduced it will be an untwist for most of the audience.
Specifically...
Fih'jik, or their predecessors, will appear in Forever And Ever.
There are already a number of Typelog fragments that foreshadow their existence, and now we have an episode title named after a common phrase in The Bible that refers to the divine. This practically screams that the zealously religious fih'jik will make an appearance in episode 4, especially since this would be the perfect time for them to reveal themselves: Tensions are high and the galaxy is on the verge of war. Injecting a third party into the mix would increase the drama, and possibly give Virgil a reason to take Ros out of stasis.
- Conversely, there's no evidence that Space-faring Fih'Jik would be religious, so the Bible quote is only circumstantial evidence. Religion is cultural, not genetic, and the PLSE projects are covert experiments where the subjects are unaware that EROS even exists, so there would be no transmission of religious ideas from genetic donors to the surface dwellers. Hence, the Fih'Jik religion is an original idea of the Fih'Jik on the surface. The 'Supreme One' may in fact be a Space-fih'jik who was misinterpreted as a God (cf. Clarke's Third Law), just as the Si'Shra's deity was.
- ...Possibly confirmed! (Though not in the way proposed here.) We do see one creature that is very likely to be the first fih'jik in Kara's final interaction scene, but we don't know for certain.
If fih'jik do appear, they will have already mastered latent energy.
This might explain why they are so religious -- they believe it is a divine gift. However, this almost certainly means they haven't reached space technology yet, since magic can only be used on Surfaces. It would provide a very good reason for why their species was added to the latent energy project, though...
'Five' will be a playable character -- that, or he's one of the ones that was cut.
Carboderm is synthetic Lacertian skin
It's called L-skin for a reason. The Lacertians have awesome regenerative capabilities, and somebody eventually synthesized some of their skin, so it became the all-purpose supergoop that they make spaceship and hab hulls out of.
Tezkhra and The Black One are neither Lacertians nor Lessers
...But rather a strange energy-based alien that exists by taking possession of Lacertian bodies, inducing slight physical changes. Neither are 'normal' Lacertians, as both have had augmentations which is a biological impossibility with Lacertian flesh. The Black One has also been through at least three different bodies, the first augmented, the second not so and the third form was assumed from an ordinary Lesser right in front of the protagonists.
The Black One made a comment that 'these small minds' of lessers cannot retain his full consciousness, implying that his mind is not Lesser, and that with each new possession, he loses a little more of his consciousness. Tezkhra may not be aware that he is one of these aliens (having lost that knowledge after going through so many bodies), which ties into his problem with memory retention. This would also explain how he persisted after being murdered by the Lesser on the PLSE surface of The Reconstruction and his 'soul' preserved in that magic crystal guarded by the Tatzylvurm.
#0001 is The Black One.
In the final computers of the abandoned databanks, 0001 says that the emitter radiation is failing on him for some reason, and he is starting to age again. This causes him to grow increasingly deranged and desperate, becoming obsessed with immortality. What if his method of self-preservation was to transcend the physical entirely, and transfer his mind into a host body? This would explain why he is so antagonistic towards Tez -- he recognizes him as one of the failed prototypes. It would also explain the "these small minds" comment.
Alternatively, 0001 transferred his mind into Tezkhra, and The Black One is another member of the project. Wouldn't that be interesting.
Alternatively...
0001 preserved himself by uploading himself into the network. Like what Ral tried, only it actually worked. This would explain the voices contacting Ros -- the ending of episode 4 phrases them as if they're running off of a program's protocol. The voices are also very likely to be 0001's, what with them repeating his Madness Mantra.
Alternatively alternatively, both of the above theories are correct
0001 knew his mind would not fully survive the transfer into a host body, so he uploaded his memories and higher consciousness into a system beforehand.
Virgil has some connection to the scientists mentioned in the abandoned databanks.
The idea just struck me. It's confirmed that Virgil was a member of the original Breach in episode 4. The scientists whose logs are mentioned in the abandoned databanks seem to all be members of the Breach. What if Virgil was one of them? He seems to know far more than most people do, and sometimes has vague, philosophical ramblings.
Now granted, he must not have known that much, since he was just as shocked by The Reveal in episode 3, and doesn't seem to know the truth about lacertians either. But he does seem to be connected somehow...
The "old man" referenced by Lazarus is #0001.
Really, this is so obvious it does not need further explanation.
The Ouranos siblings were created by #0001.
Really, this is also obvious. 0001 was/is obsessed with how "time is quantifiable, and therefore finite", and he was also obsessed with his inevitable, approaching demise. The correlation between that obsession with time and beings who can transcend time is too uncanny to be a coincidence. It is also heavily implied by numerous sources that the Ouranos siblings were creations of EROS anyway. This would also explain the lack of any memory of or before the Shine; they were created in the suspension chambers before 0001 performed the experiment.
Dena is the first fih'jik.
EROS already created one sentient, fully-functional species; why couldn't they create another? It would also fit the theme of history repeating.
Episode 5 will be an example of an Unexpected Gameplay Change.
Space Lizard has mentioned on his blog that episode 5 will be "something very special indeed", and after the events of episode 4, it does not seem like the normal gameplay formula will be used, since Ros is separated from his/her fleet. What if it uses a different system of gameplay entirely? Perhaps not too different -- maybe a Call Back to The Reconstruction, if Ros is taken to a Surface? It could even be a Backdoor Pilot for The Drop.