Far Cry 5: Resist Ending Explained (Long Post)
Alright. I know a lot of us were confused, disgruntled, and disappointed with the resist ending from Ubisoft. I myself didn’t mind the wonderful view we were left in at the bunker, but still, why would anyone drop 3 nukes on rural Montana? Was it all a bliss hallucination?
The big question we have here is Why Montana?
1) First, we have to consider location. Hope County is fictional, but Marshall Burke and Sheriff Whitehorse both mention Missoula, Montana, which is real, and how it’s only a few hours away from Hope County. An important location to note is Malmstrom Air Force Base, which is the control center for all nuclear missiles in Montana. [1] It’s right outside a place called Great Falls, which is about a 3-4 hour drive Missoula, and also the location where Ubisoft shot footage for the first promotional videos of the game. [2] Hope County is supposed to be somewhere south-west of Missoula, but that crosses over into Idaho. [2] But it would be somewhere in the general area.
It’s also interesting to note that directly south of Great Falls is an area called Eden
2) Montana was one of several states used to store nuclear missiles during the Cold War. During this time, the U.S. stockpiled over 1,000 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) throughout the Great Plains, which includes Montana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming. [3] Great Falls alone housed about 200 of them and was one of the epicenters of nuclear storage during this time. [1]
These ICBMs were also called Minutemen III missiles because they actually contained 3 separate warheads. Many of these missiles would later be dismantled in an effort to reduce the number of nukes in the U.S., but there are still a great number of them buried underground.
Conclusion: Nuking Montana was not just a shot in the dark. If the enemy wanted to cripple our ability to fight back, they would just have to target the Malmstrom Air Force Base, which controls most of the nuclear warheads in Montana. It wouldn’t stop us entirely, but it would break a leg, so to speak.
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Another explanation I’ve seen regarding why there were 3 nuclear warheads dropped during the ending is that it was all a Bliss hallucination.
What is Bliss? Bliss is a drug composed of a flower that heavily resembles Datura Stramonium. There are several mentions of Bliss being composed of Scopolamine, a drug that causes hallucinations and can lead to death in high doses. The flower’s shape is also similar to another plant called Brugmansia, nicknamed Angel’s Trumpet.
1) Datura Stramonium goes by many names: Jimsonweed, Devil’s Snare, Thorn Apple, Moon Flower, Hell’s Bell’s (AC/DC anyone?), Devil’s Trumpet, Devil’s Cucumber, Locoweed, Jamestown Weed, you get the point. [6] For a flower being used by a religious cult revering God, it sure has a lot of names referring to the Devil.
The Moon Flower is also known to contain Scopolamine, which will be touched on later. Datura is highly toxic and overdosing can easily lead to death. Side effects include delirium instead of hallucinations, tachycardia (high heart rate), amnesia, and hyperthermia (high temperature). Symptoms set in 30-60 minutes after exposure, last anywhere from 24-48 hours. [6]
Similarities between Bliss exposure and Moon Flower intoxication: death in high doses, amnesia, visual appearance, and the presence of Scopolamine. Whenever the player comes out of the Bliss, they have no recollection of how they got to where they are or what they were really doing while drugged. Death from overdose is mentioned several times during the cutscenes, I believe.
2) Scopolamine is a drug with an interesting history. First, the basics. Scopolamine is also called Hyoscine, the Devil’s Breath, or Burandanga because it can be extracted from Brugmansia (Angel’s Trumpet). [8] Scopolamine is commonly used in medicine to control postoperative nausea/vomiting and treat motion sickness. It’s fine when processed properly. However, it can also cause memory loss after exposure and drowsiness, which criminals use for robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault, most commonly in South America. [8]
It’s said to rob people of their free will and make them docile and controllable because they are more “open to suggestion”, as commonly seen in the game. People who have been exposed have been said to lead criminals to their home and help them rob them of their belongings. [9] The drug can be injected, slipped into a drink like a date-rape drug, inhaled, or blown in your face like a powder, as Faith Seed does before you enter the Bliss. [10] It has also been reported to work like a “truth serum” in that it makes people more likely to talk candidly about things. In higher doses, it can cause hallucinations. This has earned Scopolamine the unofficial title of “Scariest Drug in the World.”
there should be no question as to whether Scopolamine is the main ingredient in Bliss. The effects of Scopolamine are almost exactly the same as Bliss. It causes memory loss and makes victims more open to suggestion. For the cult’s purposes, it makes them easier to convert or brainwash. It can cause the hallucinations the Deputy experiences throughout the game. I’d be curious to know if John ever used it to extract honest confessions. It is mentioned in The Book of Joseph that Bliss does contain Scopolamine. The drug containers in the Arcade editor also refer to them as Scopolamine. [5]
3) Brugmansia is another flower very similar to the Moon Flower and the white flowers in the game that Bliss is made from. The only difference is the color. Brugmansia is also called Angel’s Trumpet. More religious references. This flower also contains Scopolamine and shares many of the same side effects including hallucinations, amnesia, and death from overexposure. [9]
4) Bring it all together and it’s easy to see how all of these plants are related. Hallucinations, loss of free will, amnesia, visual similarities, and they are all potentially deadly. I also want to state that just because Bliss is very similar to these plants and drugs, it doesn’t mean they are the same. At the end of the day, Bliss is a fictional drug and there is still so much we don’t know about it.
Conclusion: While the theory that the resist ending was all a hallucination caused by the high exposure to Bliss from when Joseph knocks over the vats full of the drug is valid, I just don’t believe it. Every time the Deputy enters the Bliss, the Bliss world is tinted green. During the Boss battle against Joseph, that green haze was present, but the moment you beat him and transition to the cutscene, the haze disappears.
Also, the Bliss is used to make the victim more open to suggestion. If Joseph was influencing us through the Bliss, he would have done it from the beginning. Why would he have us hallucinate a battle where he lost? He wouldn’t even have to bother. As to the duration of the drug, who is to say? They used adrenaline to bring us out of the Bliss at the prison. Wouldn’t a firefight where we are fighting to save our friends get the adrenaline pumping?
Add to that the previous argument for why Montana was nuked so heavily, and I honestly believe the nukes were real and it wasn’t a hallucination. Everyone is free to believe what they’d like about the ending considering they were pretty shitty. There just wasn’t anything canon that would suggest to me the ending was a hallucination. Hopefully, this long ass post was useful to somebody. I spent all morning on this. T.T
1]http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/werner1/
2]http://farcry.wikia.com/wiki/Hope_County
3]https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/20/minuteman-missiles-hidden-silos-america_n_1897913.html
4]https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/life/my-montana/2014/09/21/montana-plays-cold-war-role-malmstromsace-hole/15911403/
5]http://farcry.wikia.com/wiki/Bliss
6]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura_stramonium
7]https://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2015/sep/02/devils-breath-aka-scopolamine-can-it-really-zombify-you
8]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyoscine
9]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brugmansia
10]http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/324779
