Providing Solutions

So apparently I'm not doing enough to really help the community. In fact, somehow I've just been reciting lines from the book of Missing Elephants. Not sure how that happened. Pretty sure I missed something somewhere. But whatever, that comment came from someone who was overreacting as much as I was (okay not neeeeeeearly as much as I was, but you get the point) and I think we're past that now so I'll stop pretending to be spiteful about it. Fact of the matter is that he may well be right, so I'd like to try spitting out something a little less speculative and a little more concrete, in hopes it could prove more helpful for runners. And even if I wind up repeating things that have been said before, I can at least say I was among the first to compile the data. So here goes.


You want to escape from the Construct? Here are some proven methods of escape and/or survival from the Construct. I'll start with the terrible ones so we don't end on such a downer and you can get the "this guy is crazy" thoughts out of your head right away so I can build myself back up to sanity near the end.

1) Commit an "Act of Despair" (IE - Kill Yourself)
See? I told you the first ones were terrible. But it's a legitimate escape. Not one I would really suggest, obviously. But if you are at the end of your rope and have absolutely negative zero other options...? Can't say I would blame you. Better peacefully by your own hands then whatever horrible fate you'd suffer at the hands of the Construct.


2) "Embrace the Archangel"
Yup, not keen on working for Slendy? Not a problem! There are dozens of other terrible creatures that would just love to have you for their eternal slave. This option provides about all of the same general benefits of being a Slender Proxy, provided of course you're allying yourself with something that doesn't immediately take complete control of your body as soon as you submit to them. Your survivability rate will be about equal to that of the average Slender Proxy, so if you're lucky you could actually live a pretty long time that way... but you're still working for a monster. But hey, at least you've got protection from the Construct.

Again, not a stellar option, but if you're looking to serve but you just really freaking hate the Construct, then there are other options.


3) Join a Cult Town
This is actually a pretty nice deal if you think about it. Provided you're accepted, you'd basically get all of the protections and convenience of being a Proxy, but without having to actually go around doing a bunch of really nasty dirty work. You still have to make sacrifices alongside the rest of the town and you've got to put up with that whole "Worshiping the Construct as a God" thing, but otherwise your life would be pretty normal and if you're lucky, you may well even live long enough to die of old age. This also provided that no one in town suddenly decides to be An Hero and fuck everything up for the rest of you.

It's a gamble, by no means perfect, and you'd probably have a hard time living with yourself... but it is an option. Probably the best of the really terrible ones.


4) Kill the Construct
I'm just not gonna elaborate any further on this one. It's an obvious solution. But until we have a means of actually accomplishing it, it isn't worth dwelling on. Granted, there is A's method... but his demon was in his own mind and what he found when he vanquished it was even worse, so possibly not exactly the best route to take... Hard to say. We'll just leave this one on the shelf for now....


5) Cause the Construct so much trouble he literally just gives up on you
This is not easy. This is not easy at all. You're practically foolish to even attempt it, but it is plausible. I'm throwing out a reference to Operation Wintergreen with this one. They had a lot of casualties, though some were never quite confirmed... but two survivors walked away at the end, alive and free of Construct activity. I suppose if you wanted to be a dick, you could say Michenab was wrong and the reason we haven't heard anything else from him is because he's dead. But I don't think so. He was smart. He knew he was out, so he stopped fucking blogging. Let's not give the Construct any reason to come looking for us again by continuing to talk about it.

So yeah, get yourself a well rounded group together and really give the Construct hell. Cause so much trouble and collateral damage that the Construct literally just gives up on you because you aren't worth dealing with anymore. You're ahh... you're probably never gonna pull this one off... ^.^; But hey, worth mentioning.


6) Make Yourself Undesirable
This kind of ties into the last one a bit, but the gist of it is that you make the Construct lose interest in you. Not because you're trouble necessarily, but because you're no fun. Perhaps this means you've become legitimately unafraid and the Construct can no longer feed off your fear or... whatever the hell he does. It's the kind of thing I would potentially tie to a change in perception. (Perception is Key and all that)

Theoretically, I'm largely drawing from what Nightscream told me, here. In response to why Proxies kill the Construct's victims. To paraphrase, the victims Proxies tend to go after with intent to kill are the ones that the Construct no longer shows interest in. How this comes about, he couldn't say, but the end result is that the Proxies come in to clean up the mess left in the Construct's wake. Which is still pretty awesome really. It means that it's possible to legitimately escape the Construct and not be bothered by it anymore. You may still have to deal with a few Proxies coming after you, but lets face it, dealing with another human being is much, MUCH easier a task than dealing with the Construct. Maybe you'll even get lucky and they'll send one of the less competent ones after you. Probably a great opportunity to fake your own death and then "disappear."


7) Kainic Acid Injection
Yup, Jay's old experiment. An injection of neurodegenerative agent, straight into the hippocampus. Kind of a scary thought, especially if you're thinking of performing it on your own and have no medical background but... It Works. It's one of the only proven methods of escaping the Construct we have that has never been rebutted. There are obviously risks. We're talking about significant memory loss and possible brain damage. Jay labeled the treatment as a "Last Resort" for a reason. Not to mention that should you manage to re-expose yourself to the Construct (like, maybe you had Marble Hornets bookmarked on your computer or something) then there is a high potential for relapse. Between Jay's own experiments and everything that happened with Redlight, I'd say that much is indisputable. You can relapse.

But otherwise, it's proven effective. Perhaps just getting the Construct completely out of your head removes the link he has to you. Cuts him off from finding you or trying to mess with your head. I'm speculating on that much... but clearly something severs the connection and you're free. So if you were going to take this method, you'd need to do two things first... One, eliminate all resources, links, symbolic references, everything and anything having to do with the Construct from your environment. You'd probably even want to go so far as to have a new identity prepared for you in advance. Second, consult a professional! You do not want some inexperienced runner jabbing needles into your brain. The risk of brain damage is high enough as it is, the least you can do is have an actual doctor delivering the injection to ensure that there is the least probably likelihood of permanent damage. We are talking about your brain here. Don't take any chances.


And that's pretty much all I've got. That's the best I can offer right now, going off what I know. For speculations sake, honorable mention goes to...
*"Get Up High" - The Rules still apply, generally, for those who truly believe in them. M's still alive after all. But none of this third story bullshit. Get up high means get up fucking high. If the elevator doesn't go above 20, you're in the wrong fucking building.
*Open Water - I still haven't really followed all of the details surrounding the supposed safety of it. But also from The Tutorial was the suggestion that water was a safe place to hide. So basically get yourself a boat and get out on the water. Preferably open water, like... the freaking ocean or something, I would imagine. "James" never really expanded upon that bit very well, so I don't know exactly how it's supposed to work.
*Slender Sanctuaries - These places have been popping up here and there for a while now. They seem capable of offering safety from the Construct, but as we've seen in two recent incidents(Hope and The House, though the latter seems to have recovered I guess) these places are not perfect solutions and can disastrously fail. In fact, I'd wager that the more people these safe houses take on, the more difficult it will be for them to maintain their protective offers. Eventually, if they gain enough popularity, they're going to become overcrowded and unable to handle their population, in addition to painting a bigger and bigger target across themselves. They're worth a shot, but just make sure you find out exactly HOW they're able to offer their protect before blindly seeking them out and getting yourself stuck in a worse situation when "the terrible secret" comes out. I'd have added this to the regular list above, but I've yet to see a successful sanctuary last very long.

So... yeah... honestly hope that might help someone out there. There aren't any perfect solutions out there just yet... but it's only a matter of time, I think.