I think Sybil gets taken over by the Process. Those two Camerata guys killed themselves to avoid the same fate, I think.
Isn't it a spoiler that you have to fight Sybil?
Anyway, the fact that she got turned is a given. But what's more interesting in my opinion is that she's the reason Red got attacked in the first place. According to her files, she was infatuated with Red. Seeing as her advances just ricocheted off Red, mainly because she was together with 'him', she got furious and falsely convinced the Camerata that Red was an easy kill (Red already being on the Camerata list for her songs "Signals" and "We All Become" describing the true nature of Cloudbanks society ("I won't become a number in the system" and so on)). When Red got teleported away from the stage, Sybil stayed behind, wanting to face Red again. Somehow she knew she'd be back.
What did you really know about Sybil prior to fighting her? I didn't know anything.
It was evident she merged with the Process somehow, got assimilated by it, but why? After the Transistor changed hands, the Process went out of control and started killing everyone, but literally no one else ended up like Sybil. So I'm thinking she didn't get attacked, she didn't die, something else must have happened. I can't imagine it happened on her own accord. She doesn't understand the Process - who does? - she doesn't have an unusual connection with it, and besides, it can't be reasoned with. I guess it's just an unexpected interaction. A glitch.
Oh my god.
Humming the vocals to an instrumental song played from the music player in the sandbox.
That hits the feels way harder than any combo.
Huh. Okay, recursion finished.
After the first time I finished the game, I was convinced there was an alternate ending I'd missed, wherein Red doesn't absorb herself in the Transistor. The Goodbye() achievement seemed to refer to this: I thought "recurse through the story" meant that, like Bastion, there was an in-universe reason for everything happening again. So when I got to the end a second time, and found no interaction points other than the stranger's body, I thought I must have missed something, that maybe getting defeated by Bryce made something different happen (I'm still not sure?). But you don't have a choice.
I guess it's the only way, Cloudbank is a ghost town by now, it doesn't really matter if you put everything back the way it was. Red's the only one left alive.
I still can't honestly say that I understand what the Camerata really wants. I get that they want to end the recursive cycle of change for the sake of change - though as to why, I'm still baffled - but exactly how they go about achieving that is a mystery. When Asher Kendrell said "How could we achieve this with just our four voices?" he was apparently being literal, but I still haven't seen anything that indicates the people whose traces are recorded in the Transistor are actually capable of something other than unlocking Functions to fight the Process.
And, anyway, if the Transistor was keeping the Process in check before they lost it to Red, what did they do before they invented the Transistor? Bryce explained that it took a lot of work before he stumbled on the idea that would lead to the Transistor, but he also claims that the Process is what makes the changes to the weather and stuff in Cloudbank, and as far as I can tell this is not a recent development. It's just another way in which everything changes, and nothing changes. The only way that this would make sense is that the invention of the Transistor also allowed Bryce to mold the Process into something physical, something material, when it was just an abstraction before. Presumably that would also make it more useful to the Camerata.
So that leads me to wonder what kind of a city Cloudbank actually is. Remember how, in Bastion, you got all these hints and clues toward a far larger and elaborate world from Rucks' stories? Transistor is almost the exact opposite. There is only Cloudbank, and the only hint at there being something else is "the Country", which just has to be a euphemism. Cloudbank is big, and there's just as much potential for storytelling, but by all appearances it seems that the world ends with the city. When the reporter gives her last news report among the survivors, she says that beyond the border there is nothing, and that they decide not to abandon the city. What if they just can't?
On the other hand, there's still the stranger's suggestion to 'skip town'. He suggests this twice, and the first time Red decides to do the exact opposite. The second time... well, you know what happens. So that kind of throws a spanner in my theory, but still, the stranger is an outsider. He's not a Cloudbank citizen, even the Camerata didn't know who he was. He's a total mystery. So we don't know where he came from, but is it possible he might not know? That Cloudbank is all there is? He definitely knows a lot about the city, so it does seem unlikely, but it never seemed like leaving the city was actually an option for anyone.
Question - how close am I to the end?
I just found 2 guys dead near some whiteboards. only 1 left....
Been too busy to play anything lately, but if I know I'm close, maybe I can fit the time in...