Strife: Endings

Strife: Quest for the Sigil (often just called Strife) has a multitude of endings that allowed the player to feel immersed with their decisions. This page is dedicated to these endings to assist those trying to speculate what actually is going on in the plot-line. These endings are broken up into Dead Ends and 3 Official Endings with final dialog and imagery that occur at the end of the game.

Dead Ends:

 * Dead Ends are defined by a action taken by the player to cause the plot-line to halt permanently in some fashion. Some of these are designed by the developers intentionally to punish gamers for making the wrong choices. Some however are due to oversights in the game's programming and can mean the same thing. Most of these Dead Ends have been patched by the The Original Strife: Veteran Edition which helped prevent the killing of quest givers until they are deemed unnecessary. More details on this topic can be found here, by a fellow community web-page.

Bad Ending :

 * This occurs when the player loses / dies at the final boss (the Entity). Video can be seen here.

Semi-Bad Ending:

 * This occurs when the player believes the Oracle and kills Macil. Then continues the game and defeats the final boss. The reason this outcome is Semi-Bad is because you're forced to skip a third of the game's maps and no cure for the disease is ever found and the plot twists reveals something is possibly wrong with Blackbird and could mean you've been lied to all along. The ending even details the human race struggling to survive etc. Video can be seen here.

Semi-Good Ending:

 * This occurs when you kill the Oracle and also believe Macil is telling the truth, then follow the story-line and defeat the final boss. This is considered the good ending because you finally get to see Blackbird and the Front finds a cure for the disease. But whether this is the truly a good ending or not is yet to be determined due to the nature of plot twist in the Semi-Bad Ending. Video can be seen here.

Speculation:
Note: Many of these ideas are from the community on varius forums or in person discussions and recompiled here in my own words for all to think about or add to.
 * Sigil owners in-fighting: It is known from the story-line that all the owners are fighting for all of the pieces of the Sigil so they can become one with the One God (aka Entity). And from this, assumed to be not truly a single Order, but possibly a fractured order and many leaders fighting for their own goals. This means, even though the Oracle and Macil are not officially of the Order. But could mean that all of them were at one point together in the order and fought for power of the pieces. It's possible that the Oracle is indeed in league with the Order and acting as a false prophet to lure rebelling peasant into a trap. Or that the Oracle tried to over throw the Order and failed and was shut out. The same could be said for Macil. Perhaps he attempted the same thing and was thrown out of the order or physically lost his host body through punishment and found some new body to possess. There's a lot of possibilities here for pre-game story content that we just don't know. But we do know that the will of the entity or one god or disease all had the same goal. To get all all the pieces by any means possible.
 * Programmer not having a spectre: It is widely believed that the programmers spectre was the same one in the Ruined Temple. As to what caused it to be there is unknown. Speculation is that it was somehow exorcised from the programmer, or left him for a greater unknown purpose like to attempt to communicate with someone else, or maybe because the programmer's body was too decayed and incompatible to possess or maybe it takes time to possess someone new and the spectre was meditating in some form. What is known in the dialogs, it is mentioned that the programmer has grown nervous and increased security in great lengths to protect himself from the actions of his enemies.
 * The Sigil weapon having it's own sentience/will:
 * Facts: When you wake up after killing the Programmer, you are told it's an intelligent weapon. (But that could be just only what the researcher knew at the time.) The Sigil possesses the player (basically with it entuning itself to the strifeguy).
 * Theory A: Did the entity not exist and only spawned because we created it with the full Sigil.
 * Theory B": It speaks through those with the virus only.
 * Theory C: See below for Blackbird on the ship! Because she maybe linked to it as well.
 * Theory D: Each piece is technically a spectre that solidified.
 * The entity's likeness being similar to that of the Spectres:
 * Facts: The possessing spectre's all look to have cracked tips or possibly teeth or broken shards of glass, while the entity itself, along with its 2nd forms has no cracks and more egg-corn shaped.
 * Theories: Does this mean the others were broken pieces of the original entity or actually other just as powerful entities on the ship that became broken due to the wreck itself? Or do they grow from the disease itself and manifest from the originally host's own body? (This would make it impossible for them to leave their host's bodies, but make the programmer's situation even more confusing.) Or do they just exist like scouting minor entities finding ways to free it's master.
 * Why the Order's soldiers is already behind the Sigil's lock:
 * Theory A: This could mean that the Order already found a way inside the ship. Supported by the fact there are dead human bodies and a dead acolyte on the ship.
 * Theory B: Or that the robots themselves were apart of the original crew... But none of these robots are ever found inside the ship itself beyond the first separated section. Just in the dirt/cave like areas. Also the robots found here are only the non-human required robots to help support the original crew theory. But it is also important to point out that brain stems are used in some of these robots, but these could have been a different species all together from their last planet.
 * Theory C: Maybe the developer's just needed to include some sort of fight sequence & placed bodies to make it look like the crew died and just ran out of time. Note: Game was rushed and some of the work here is clearly vacant.
 * Blackbird being on the ship all along: She only showed at the end of the game and quite quickly. The images show her coming from a structure from within the ship glowing, and saying information that feels rather dismissive of the information and how real time news actually travels.
 * Theory A:She was a captive on the ship: Only supported by the fact she shows up immediately after the defeat of the entity and the background she's on. As if emerging from the ship.
 * Theory B:Imprisoned as part of the egg: Her emergence looks to be coming from the egg holder.
 * Theory C:Blackbird being the Entity: You only get Blackbird talking to you after reaching town, and only appears at the end of the game. Possibly due to the disease taking full hold of you mentally and finally taking form of her after destroying the entity. Also in the semi-bad ending she is the Entities voice! Plus the entity is well aware of everything happening at all times apparently. Counter argument: Everyone in the Front is aware of her existence and that all women had to be hidden underground from the order which supports her story. But to counter that, perhaps the entity was active in everyone's minds as well as part of the disease.
 * One God may refer to their states of completeness: imagine each of the spectres are capable of becoming the one god and technically the egg / the entity is the same except is the one god too. Meaning you could have multiple one gods and they could all join as well.
 * Facts: Each spectre/entity share appearance similarities and each fire a different part of the Sigil's attacks. Also the Loremaster mentioned combining the pieces but could be referring to just the sigil alone. And the final boss is made up of multiple spectres.
 * Theory: This is because each are at different states of completeness. As in, a lone spectre is Sigil A attacks. A spectre that combined with 1 other spectre is Sigil B attacks. A spectre that combined with 2 other spectre is Sigil C attacks and so on etc.
 * Interconnected multidimensional beings: Perhaps the reason each specter only uses one piece of the Sigil's attack is because each is only one piece of the entity/it's power. Meanwhile the entity uses them all because it's the complete being. The Sigil acted as a link to or conduit for its power on the physical plane... acting as kind of a gateway for it. This would coincide with the the idea that the Sigil is acting like a key... as only the one that could open it would be the one with the Sigil/it's power. As such it is assumed they would be loyal to it as they are possessed by part of the entity when they make contact with it. Thus the person opening its lair is assumed to be freeing it, and its next intended host. Except since you only gain the pieces AFTER destroying those's pieces of it, you are free from its control b/c that spectre within the weapon is no longer there. Thus you are able to maintain your free will and are able to destroy it instead, using its own power against it. Counter argument: So since it's a conduit/gateway for the entity to manifest in the user, it's possible that the more you use it the more you risk becoming a new host for a part of the entity. So depending on the the user and how much he used it. It could have caused a different ending...But it didn't... Which is a fact we know... it's possible the devs didn't go deep enough into this factor to make it work. Also want to point out that if the entity was fully destroyed, then the Sigil will either become powerless OR if it is still working, may summon a new entity or the same entity is still alive.
 * More eggs: Hard to tell, but it looks like the walls in the entity's lair are covered in eggs.

Summary:
As you can see, there are a lot of speculation about the true plot details of the story and how everything works together. This is truly a game with a complex story that requires a second look through for your own opinion. Let's just hope if this ever gets a second official game attention, that the new developers take the time to increase the complexity as well as answer the questions we all seek. Something with this many variables would make for an easy plot win for those die hard sci-fy lovers.