Mysteries of the Mem Cakes (and Agent 8's Memory)

[@HUMAN-mo7eb]

They should make the mem cakes into a actual eraser

[@dusty0896]

And have them be edible as well

[@descalled]

they did

[@dizzy8387]

I've seen a ton of unoffical ones but they are always an inasane price ☠

[@ricardomarin459]

Im pretty sure there were an official collab to.make official erasers

[@dizzy8387]

@@ricardomarin459 Ohh I’ll have to look into that

[@17junhos]

My guess about the whole "mem cakes from Agent 8 and Cuttlefish" quote, is probably because Eight needed help carrying the mem cakes for Marina to analyse, and asked Cuttlefish for help. (there's 80 of them after all, they needed to make sure they aren't damaged during transportation and needed to be done within a reasonable amount of time due to Marina's tight scedule)

[@JustAnotherHaiku]

Yeah this is my interpretation too--either Cuttlefish was holding onto some of Eight's mem cakes or he helped bring the mem cakes to Marina.

[@Josuh]

Yeah this seems like it

[@MrEel-dc4kh]

I like to think that it's possible to create mem cakes without sanitization. Memories are data, so if mem cakes are condensed memories, then you could copy the memories over and condense the copied data.

[@17junhos]

@@MrEel-dc4kh It very much looks like it, based on what's said in the video. Sanitisation is a 2 step process, with the first step being the extraction of memories. Without the second step, the subject might as well be "grayscalled" until either the memories return or new ones take its place, the latter of which could be interpreted as the second step of sanitisation.

[@klemontyme]

I love how all the individual meaning of the Mem Cakes are represented through poetry. Poetry is indeed such a wonderful form of art and expression.

[@m.a.ddragon939]

Always gotta remember that if some piece doesn’t fit or something doesn’t seem correct that it might have been mistranslated

[@TheCosmicCloud]

@@m.a.ddragon939 I don’t speak Japanese myself, but I exchanged messages with Japanese-speaking Splatoon fans who said that the Dev Diaries are pretty much translated 1 to 1 with only a couple of localization changes for the sake of making sentences flow better. Weirdly, the “mem cakes from Cuttlefish” thing is present in the original version

[@Freelancer837]

Splatoon 3 has, for better or worse, been much more of a direct translation rather than localization like usual. That's why Marina's character is so different in Side Order even.

[@GamingGreen21]

@@Freelancer837 I appreciate that she apologized for essentially slandering the Octarians in Octo Expansion, both by suddenly deserting them and implying to us that they oppressed and overworked her

[@rocktoo7603]

800,640 total mem cakes. Man.

[@MyPhone-hl1di]

That's a lot of erasers

[@rochelleyoung1403]

@@rocktoo7603 REAL

[@aaronconner1440]

I'm starting to find it concerning that the possibility that one mem cake could be made from multiple Octolings mixed together hasn't been ruled out...

[@Coco_GS]

It’s video essays like this that really make me wish they actually fleshed out Side Orders narrative as much as Octo Expansions was, rather than focusing strictly on the Roguelike Gameplay.. Mistranslation or not, a lot of Side Order really just felt as though we weren’t getting as full of a picture as we would’ve liked with how many tie-ins with OE this DLC had. Regardless, it’s always great to see some talk about Octo Expansion, as it’s still my absolute favorite thing to come out of the series to this very day. Excellent job, cosmic!

[@LucillePalmer]

thats primarily why i havent stomached the cost to buy it :(

[@Makoooooooooooo]

Tbh I thought mem cakes were erasers when I first saw them, I was like “that’s a pretty cool splatoon eraser”

[@BookWormYuri]

Nintendo should make mem cake erasers bc I would buy them all

[@Scorbunzx]

I want to know what agent 4 studied like biology mechanical engineering stuff like that. I used my calculator to get this number 80 levels and 10,007 test subjects =800,560 thrown out men cakes…wow

[@Magic_Ice]

I wonder how large that pile would be? Each one is small but x 800k it would be pretty big

[@Freelancer837]

I wish we got anything of Agent 4... (also Neo Agent 3 since they're also ignored for some reason as well)

[@ChronoMoth]

you also have to take into account thats a rough estimate as possibly subjects that left halfway or so through might have kept their own collected mem cakes so 800,560 is more so a maximum in an unknown range

[@Stone_RedSkye]

i am no closer to finding out what would happen if i ate a mem cake. Would i be instantaneously cursed with decades worth of a tormented octo’s memories and die from a triple heart attack, or would it be like chewing on brittle stringy neuron chalk? These are the real questions my dude

[@TheCosmicCloud]

Dunno if you were looking for an actual answer to this but I’ll try to give you one lol I’m not sure if they’re edible. They’re meant to look like both erasers and kamaboko (fish cakes). And when you beat a level in Octo Expansion, Eight has an animation that kind of looks like they’re eating it. But then they show their Mem Cakes to Iso Padre and Marina, so… I guess they DON’T eat them. Iso Padre refers to them as food though. And they’re called Cakes. Basically, it’s confusing. As for what would happen if you DID eat one, Marina mentions that some Mem Cakes are made from the memories of multiple people. But I don’t think ALL of them are. For example, the ones we collect in OE seem to just be Eight’s. So it just depends which one you decide to bite into. One of Eight’s? Probably nothing too bad One made from a number of Octarian soldiers? The horrors await

[@Stone_RedSkye]

@@TheCosmicCloud That’s very interesting actually. I don’t think the mem cakes are actually food since by ‘cake’ they probably mean the definition: a flat compact mass of a substance, or something that hardens after a while. Or like caking yarn but instead of weaving string into a ball, it’s compressing a lifetime of memories into an eraser looking collectible. If they *are* sweet for whatever reason like an actual cake then i think the texture would be like a tough and more brittle lucky charm marshmallow

[@GamingGreen21]

@@TheCosmicCloud Not so much that they're made from multiple people, but those mem cakes are so similar that she couldn't pinpoint a single person. It's like if you found a memory of riding a bike and I found a slightly alternate memory of riding a bike. Do we have our own, or each other's? Hard to say

[@TheCosmicCloud]

@@GamingGreen21 The exact quote is "If it wasn't bad enough that their origins are hard to trace, I can't rule out that a single mem cake could be made from multiple Octolings mixed together." Honestly this line is worded really strangely, but she does seem to imply that one mem cake can come from multiple people. I'm not sure really sure how or why they would be mixed together, or why Nintendo would even include this detail, but it's there.

[@Freelancer837]

If I had to guess why Octo Expansion was so much more fleshed out and better than every other Splatoon release? It's probably that it was the only ACTUAL full release that got to do everything. Splatoon 1 was a prototype game, so it wasn't going for anything big. Splatoon 2 was them rushing to get the game on the Switch. Splatoon 3 was them rushing to put out another active Splatoon game because uh oh, they killed Splatoon 2 too early and the Switch 2 is still a ways away. And Side Order similarly was a rushed development that seemingly cut a lot out of it and kept shifting release dates, on top of it being made by a junior developer team who clearly didn't know what they were doing. Octo Expansion is seemingly the only big release that actually got the time, effort, and care to be treated and deliver as such. It's a shame too because Octo Expansion is NOT something that can't be topped. Far from it even. It's just that nothing else has even been given the resources to even ATTEMPT to give us more of at least that level of quality again.

[@dartcolors1073]

The inner Agent 3 fight, to me, is 8 remembering who they are and what they do. They're part of the octarian army, fighting inklings, and that’s all 8 is sure of. It's their most prominent and undisputed memory, mainly because it was so recent, literally causing them to crash into the metro, but also because it's all 8 has ever done. Agent 3 in 8's mind was so strong because their military upbringing and training is drilled into their head, that inklings are scary being that are strong and ruthless. Beating inner 3 is not breaking that cycle of being a differnt person, it's 8 accepting themselves for who they were and what they did, and learning to live with it. But why even make mem cakes in the first place if tartar only needed sanitized volunteers to make his ooze? If this was explained in octo expansion in some way, im sorry, it's been a while since i played the story. Other than that, why make the memories into solid form anyways? The prize and incentive does make sense, but that doesn't explain why tartar would wipe out the memory of a volunteer, keep their memories, then just throw it away later. Maybe mem cakes are a way of writing history since tartar couldn’t go to the surface himself and document world events? I just feel like the whole "documenting their existence and contribution to the world" is a little extreme considering tartar already stores all the information needed from all 10,008 applicants, and he was already planning on wiping out the world anyways. Besides the *why* the mem cakes, I have a theory on *what* the mem cakes. Mem cakes are partial recollections of full memories, meaning there are a whole lot *more* mem cakes than there are levels, and that each mem cake isn’t a full or completed memory, being cut off due to the limited size of them, or tartar not giving a damn, or it's just un needed, to fill it up all the way. This would explain why 8 still doesn’t have their memory back in side order and their lapse in memory as even the holes in their memory have holes. The "mem cakes from cuttlefish" could mean that they tested out the sanitization on him, given that Marina and the other octo engineers were reverse engineering the sanitization process, but that's both incredibly risky and stupid, but that's all i got. It being unclear about 8's memory and why Acht was also transported bothered me sooooo much and left me wanting more story or gameplay that fully explained it, but 8 being a playable character means it's hard to write a single truth about a person that's supposed to represent the player. Sorry for the long comment, i just reaaaaaally want to talk about this.

[@TheCosmicCloud]

Interesting take on Inner Agent 3! Honestly I’m not sure it’s meant to be something that dark, because the Calimari Inkantation (which plays during the fight) is meant to be the thing that breaks Eight free from their clouded perspective on the world. We know from the personality chart that Eight looks up to Agent 3 to some extent, so they might be so powerful simply because Eight was in awe of their skill. It’s pretty vague though, so I think there are several interpretations that work. As for removing subjects memories, I think Tartar would want subjects to be a blank slate at they entered the tests, acting on instinct and without distractions from their past lives. I personally think using the Mem Cakes as an incentive is enough to justify their existence. I also do think it is a form of record keeping, although why Tartar would use Mem Cakes rather than simply recording the data digitally I can’t say. To your last point, I definitely agree that subjects might have more than 80 Mem Cakes or that each Cake might not truly restore a memory. In retrospect, Nogami does describe them as “fragments of memories,” not WHOLE memories. One way to interpret this might be that Eight only recovered a part of each memory, and needed the Memverse to fully restore the memories to their soul And don’t worry, I like long comments! It’s fun to discuss these things in depth

[@keynanmartinez]

Love how Mem Cakes where a foreshadow to Side Order with the weapons.

[@Rystrix]

The reason I love stories and video games so much is because there are so many little hidden details that can unravel an entire new story. It really shows you the incredible depth in such a small world. It’s even weirder thinking about it considering how small and insignificant we are in reality. Everything in our world is so unbelievably small compared to everything else in existence.

[@lor5827]

man side order really did murky up things with octo expansion at times, I understand wanting to give closure to kamabo corp and that these characters so tied to octo expansion would have a story that follows up that story, but I sometimes wonder if it would have been better if they didn't go in that direction What we're left with is still very speculative and like you said, pretty much breaches on headcanon levels, but if things were kept simplier it would have probably felt better. Maybe if side order had a more thought out conclusion instead of not really having an end to support the roguelike format we could have had a more definitve picture of these events

[@TheCosmicCloud]

I definitely have some mixed feelings about the way Side Order elaborated on the lore of OE. For the most part, I was glad to see it referenced at all. I think it's very in character for Marina to want to research and help the Sanitized Octarians, and it was a logical way to provide more lore about Kamabo Co to the player. I can even understand why Eight didn't get as much of a focus this time around; when you get down to it, Side Order is really just a story about Marina and Order. That said, I think they definitely should have been more clear about the impact the story had on Eight, and I don't really know why they danced around the idea of Eight being Sanitized. I think it would have made for a cool reveal and an interesting character moment if it were baked into the actual narrative (and it would make perfect sense considering the setting). It probably would have also cleared up any confusion about Mem Cakes. But yeah, the gameplay structure definitely limited how much of a story could really be told

[@Lìnne1196]

800,640 mem cakes holy shit that’s a lot

[@GamingGreen21]

An interesting thing about 8's mem cake poems is that you can essentially treat each section as a major factor of 8's thought process when it comes to their past vs their future. At first, they only had the Calamari Inkantation and Inkopolis Illustrated to guide them, and the resulting subjects were relatively simple. But starting at the Salmonid section, I noticed 8's references to Inklings getting more gray than bright "These dirty squids could use a bath." "Let the intruders know the score!" "Another squid? I'm gonna hurl." This and Marina’s dialogue between the Octo Expansion chat rooms and Side Order proper leads me to believe Inner Agent 3 was actually the visual manifestation of 8's established memories clashing with the ideals present in the Calamari Inkantation, "surpassing the hero within" and "feeling like the freshest Octoling ever" sounded to me like 8 winning back their right to choose their perspective Also if Cuttlefish did have mem cakes, the least I think that means, judging by his attitude at the end of Octo Expansion and the beginning of Splatoon 3, is that Cuttlefish forgot _why_ he was racist for a while there. (Like he forgot all about that bridge of peace by the time Splatsville lost their Zapfish)

[@TheCosmicCloud]

@@GamingGreen21 I like that perspective on the Mem Cakes! I don’t know if they necessarily get darker as you go, but I do appreciate that Eight was allowed to dislike certain elements of inkling culture. Cuttlefish’s attitude toward the Fuzzy Octarians is a whole other issue… I want to talk about ROTM eventually but there are a million things I do not like about that story lol

[@EvieTheTransEevee]

I just feel like adding my perspective to this. I do believe multiple test subjects can be active simultaneously. To my knowledge at the very least, while Iso Padre did *give up*, he never explicitly lost. By extension, he is still an active test subject under Kamobo Co.. I imagine that since a unique user ID card needs to be scanned to enter each test, it's likely the have a few subjects testing at any given time, and each station has a mem cake for each subject correlating to their ID. These cakes are then added to a collective dump when the subjects explicitly fail (presumably if they run out of CQ Points) or are blended. As for the replacing the thangs, we know that there are multiple blenders as can be seen during the final boss. I imagine there's a few of each thang in rotation at any given time, allowing for multiple subjects to be active, before each thang needs to be returned when the subject fails or is blended.

[@TheCosmicCloud]

@@EvieTheTransEevee It’s definitely vague enough to be interpreted multiple ways. I mostly went with the explanation I did because I wanted to stick as close as possible to sound evidence when arguing that I think the OE Mem Cakes belong to Eight. I’m not super committed to the “one subject at a time” part, but it seemed to line up best with the OE interviews and lore from Side Order. It definitely gets a little confusing when looking at subjects like Iso Padre, because it’s not really clear how Tartar would determine if they had quit. I don’t know if the NILS Statue weapon necessarily confirms that there were multiple blenders to kill subjects. Those ones might have just always been a part of the weapon. But I’m not against the idea entirely

[@literallymalware]

After your sanitization video, this is the perfect follow-up

[@thealexellucas]

I've decided that my 8(Viii) got their memory fully restored after side order and went on to work security for Pearl and Marina which lead to them meeting with my player octoling who's their perpetually lost and extremely clumsy sibling that ironically helped develop the memverse on the extreme order side. Further notes, Viii is banned from turf wars due to developing cannibalistic tendencies in the deepsea metro, one of their reasons for leaving was to follow their sibling who they assumed left first (really they just tripped their way to the splatlands from octo valley and spent a good while lost). As for my player octoling they are great friends with agents 1 and 2 but despise the Squid Sisters but doesn't connect the two due to extreme face blindness relying on scent and hearing to identify people, they believe that the desire for freedom was inherent to the octolings and would've chosen it eventually without their interference; the Calamari Inkantation makes them especially irate. Also both octosibs identify as nonbinary.

[@Matias-fh2hf]

A theory for the "Cuttlefish mem cakes" is that cuttlefish could have escaped the "memory station" in an earlier part before the wipe where memory is collected and caked, so he wasn't yet wiped and tartar understands that he used to be great but since he never completed any tests he saw him as washed up but worth including. Just a theory but I think it patches up the hole quite well

[@donbototo5068]

it would be kinda funny that they tryed to wipe his memory but since he is too dryed up and too strongwilled to forget what he did it didnt work

[@TheCosmicCloud]

I’m pretty sure the implication is that the removal of Mem Cakes is what causes the memory loss. There isn’t a “memory wipe” step. It doesn’t make sense that Cuttlefish would have produced Mem Cakes but not have lost his memory. It also seems unlikely to me that Cuttlefish would have “escaped” from anywhere considering his main role in the current day has been little more than sitting around and getting kidnapped. It’s also weird that he wouldn’t bring that up at the start of the game

[@itsdripnovababy]

9:44 “Last thing I remember” HMMMM… Stupid theory time, Craig over here was very partially sanitized, and the events between the fight and how he got into Deepsea Metro ended up getting fuzzy as result.

[@calcudragon6316]

you kinda rambled about this on a live stream but thanks for making it a full video. i took the same interpretation from OE and SO, and seeing someone else who cares a lot about Eight's characterization reach the same conclusions is really validating.

[@evotopia456]

Amazing video! I recently talked abt this myself on my Twitter, and I have to say I’m so happy there are so many other fans of this character the way I am 💗🤎 thank you so much for making this video!!! It’s like you answered my prayer!!

[@OwoiaGamejolt]

I love your videos man, keep going no matter what happens. 👍

[@a-s-greig]

...this series is _insane,_ and I can't thank you enough for your earnest examination into the _pathology_ of this game, via its story mechanisms. ...my _personal_ conclusion is that *Japan needs therapy.*

[@anikanamisu2456]

Another BANGER video you are an AMAZING KZbinR

[@Mati-kun]

Thank you for the interesting lore/theory.

[@pileofhazelnuts]

I think the cuttlefish quote is just cuttlefish helping carry the memcakes. He has no part of his soul in the memverse and so wouldn't need restoring.

[@TheCosmicCloud]

Well, the palettes we use in gameplay aren't from people who were Sanitized (besides Eight), just people whose souls were pulled into the Memverse by Order. The fact that Cuttlefish doesn't have a Palette almost makes things *more* confusing, because the status of his soul is completely unknown. At the time of the quote, the Memverse wasn't ready to restore Sanitized souls anyway. Marina just wanted to use their mem cakes for research. So... while I would like to believe Cuttlefish doesn't have mem cakes, I don't think the lack of Palette makes it any more clear

[@ariswang4922]

it could be that the memcakes from 8 and cuttlefish aren’t their own, but rather salvaged from the remains of the test facility separate form the warehouse, and 8 and cuttlefish are just helping out.

[@TheCosmicCloud]

@@ariswang4922 I feel like if that were the case, Marina would have described them traveling back to the Deepsea Metro together rather than making it sound like she went alone. Either way, they would still be “from” Kamabo Co, so that would be strange wording

[@nickolias7292]

Perhaps Kamabo Co. had a mechanical process for sorting memcakes that only works when a test is completed, and obscures the owner of the cake otherwise.

[@Blueshadeguy]

My mind just got snaped in half that alot of info

[@christophercordero9352]

1) maybe Grizco was using a more dangerous version of the sanitization process on Cuttlefish to both produce mem cakes and leak him in his ink swimming state 2)maybe 8 does have all her memories but they aren’t being absorbed, like how a old save is sometimes corrupted through updates and time or orals how old data can’t be read properly by a new system (amnesiac agent 8), The Order process could be a way of properly intergratimg the memories within 8 into themselves to get rid of the disconnect they feel of their old memories. Everything is pinned on a board but lacking the connecting string.

[@TheCosmicCloud]

1.) The events of Alterna and Side Order happen around the same time canonically, so Cuttlefish would not have been captured by Grizz yet. What Grizz did to Cuttlefish is barely explained by the game, so I can’t say for sure what happened, but I really doubt it had anything to do with Sanitization. As far as we know, Grizz had no idea Kamabo Co. existed. 2.) I think this would make a good amount of sense. Another comment suggested that the Mem Cakes might contain only part of a memory, while the Spire of Order was able to restore the entire memory. I think it’s equally likely that Mem Cakes are just not a reliable way to restore memories due to them being physical objects. I like the idea that the Spire of Order is basically a save file editor for Octarian minds/ souls; that’s actually a really cool way to think about it!

[@christophercordero9352]

The Octarian mind is like computers because of all the drums and edm they listen too lmao

[@Kraken-rex9743]

Well i do have to say, thanks for clearing through all this stuff, it helps alot, and that's saying something for me since i know lots of this franchise's lore already(also who you voting for grand festival)

[@TheCosmicCloud]

I’m leaning toward Team Present

[@PoisonedElite]

iirc octo expansion directly says via isopadre's dialogue that the memcakes of test subjects are supposed to be rewards for clearing tests. the impression i get is that marinas comments about finding mem cakes in the dump was talking about the mem cakes from the sanitized octolings used as enemies in stations as well as some of the memcakes coming from the dead or failed test subjects

[@bathilra5364]

I love how much more horrific they have made the tests done in kambo co it really adds to the idea that everyone who went through those tests where victims

[@Tatsers]

The way I see it, by collecting the mem cakes Eight could only get a vague idea of how her past looked like. The octoling mem cake reminded her of a childhood friend but she doesn't actually remember the friend, etc. Idk if that's what the writers intended but it makes sense to me :P

[@donbototo5068]

you know it would be pretty funny that cuttlefish actually have memcakes but that his will was so strong (and his body too dryed up) that his memories are basically encarved to him and are unable to be wiped, that would also exolain why he was so special to mister grizz and why his brain or soul was important to his plan

[@underthepale]

As an aside, I love how *that* is never really expanded upon, and probably, never will be...

[@nateroo1486]

I always thought if the memcakes as an echo of a memory. Not the full thing but enough to shake memories out of a damaged mind, which is why i think the recollections are more poetic than literal diary entries. It'd also explain why 8's memory is incomplete despite getting all their memcakes. They have to literally be destroyed and reinserted into the brain to get full memory back. And yeah, as for cuttlefish, i do think he was just there to help move a large amount of memcakes without damaging them. Especially if it was more than just 8's and Marina needed help moving over 10 thousand of em but even 8's 80 would need some help moving considering how big they are. I dont think he has any. If he did itd probably be when Agent 3 got infected and Cuttlefish was caught but that seems unlikely.

[@Jamal_DX]

To the thing with memcakes from cuttlefish, maybe he didn't lose all of his memories and only a few parts of them? I don't know if that would really work and how that happened, but it might be possible I think

[@aaronconner1440]

I'm starting to find it concerning that the possibility that one mem cake could be made from multiple Octolings mixed together hasn't been ruled out...

[@VertinKeptTime]

3:48 Personally I like to believe that Eight and Three were established rivals, at one point Eight was captured and put into the Vat, which is the prt of the sanitization process that strips you of your memories, but clearly was able to escape before Tartar could fill in the void left by the sanitization process with its own brainwashing shit. Then after escaping just happened to encounter Capn and Three by happen stance as they were the only people really patrolling for octarians at that point. A fight ensued, the floor gave way and eight and capn fell into the metro

[@camdenzeigler6954]

Or maybe it happened BAC? Instead of of fight, tube, crash

[@camdenzeigler6954]

Maybe the inner agent 3 fight is what cuttlefish was talking about when 8 fought 3?

[@camdenzeigler6954]

In octo valley

[@TheCosmicCloud]

​@@camdenzeigler6954 ​When you start the Inner Agent 3 fight, a textbox appears that says "Your memories of that day, 2 years ago, have returned." This is referencing the battle between Agent 3 and DJ Octavio, which Eight witnessed. The fight between 8 and 3 before Octo Expansion is a different event

[@cameronkatz5335]

I feel like the Memcakes from 8 and Cuttlefish could mean that 8 and Cuttlefish possessed the memcakes (earned through the Deepsea stations) not that that there were memcakes made from Cuttlefish’s memories.

[@_V.Va_]

Splatoon does better with lore dumps on Logs than it does telling its own story in the actual cut scenes.

[@melodymanic1007]

I know they're more likely to have eraser merch, the mem cakes remind me more of cereal marshmallows

[@feli-.-]

Didn't Marina state in her Dev-Diary that Mem Cakes were produced by multiple memories of different octolings? The only way I can explain this following your theory is that Tartar only created one memory containing mem cakes when the sanatized octoling was a value test subject. This would mean that every memory of a sanatized Octoling who wouldn't be allowed to go through the tests was instantly squeezed together with others right?

[@TheCosmicCloud]

@@feli-.- Marina says it’s possible SOME Mem Cakes came from multiple people. The way she words it makes it sound more like the exception than the rule. I still think the Mem Cakes in Octo Expansion belong to just Eight. For the sake of the theory, my guess is that Tartar would mix together similar Mem Cakes AFTER discarding them (maybe to save storage space?). It’s a weird detail that isn’t really used by the game outside of that one Dev Diary, so I’m not sure what else to make of it

[@feli-.-]

@@TheCosmicCloud that makes sense xD

[@Spaceboy7438]

On the whole "the mem cakes arent actually eights memories" misconception, i feel like people often forget that developers/writers usually have a clear intent when writing the "lore" for any piece of media. To me, at least, the purpose of deep lore and background detail is to enhance the main story and themes of said media. So why would the writers make a piece of lore that goes directly against their stated intent for how you are meant to discover eights character? they wouldnt. I think people tend to forget that lore doesnt exist in a vacuum, its a part of the story and in most cases its main purpose is to enhance said story.

[@TheCosmicCloud]

Definitely. Looking for developer intent is the main reason I’m so into the lore myself, but I think a lot of people interact with the series in a different way, looking to fit things into their own idea of what the story is or should be. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when it comes to talking about characters that HAVE been written with a clear purpose in mind, it can be a little frustrating

[@miquelfire]

About the "There's only one subject being tested" thing. What if there are multiple tracks that allow multiple subjects to be tested at once, and there are, in fact, multiple sets of the "thangs" to collect? For all we know, if there's at least two sets of testing going on at once, there might be a few other subjects who were doing stuff before completing or giving when Agent 8 started.

[@TheCosmicCloud]

@@miquelfire That seems highly unlikely to me. For that to be the case, both the Deepsea Metro and Kamabo Co would have to be exponentially larger than we currently believe them to be. The metro lines we are able to explore are built around the “Central Station” of the Deepsea Metro, which is also directly underneath the NILS Statue. There isn’t really any implication of other metro lines or test chambers. I get that one set of tests might seem inefficient for the large number of subjects Tartar has tested, but this is something that has been going on for potentially 100 years or more. Based on what we have been told, I think it makes more sense that there would only be one set of Thangs

[@Silly_Sulky_Seli]

about the random Cuttlefish in the post, I know you said it's close to the original text but I didn't see any examples so I'm still willing to bet it's supposed to be cuttlefish as in othercephalopods and not the captain

[@miumi2212]

Did u know that ,,Agent 8" isn't a ,,Agent'' (8, is also my Fav.)

[@tetmassreviews5787]

10:45 He fought and won in the great turf war. He is a war hero. If tartar knew who let alone what cuddlefish did in the war he would be prime to be in the muck. The line of not really caring about him. Tartar was in a fit of rage. He wasn’t thinking or acting clear see cap3 semi sanitization. Tartar sprayed 3 with the controlling goup. Not the memory removal. It was rushed. 3’s memories and will was kept. But still insert tartar because it’s right beside the inklings brain. I assume sanitization can occur without the memory removal. But it can have people break free with the willpower and memories. Tartar was in desperate need to win. So. A rushed Job. And a quick insult to something like captain cuddlefish while still being a war hero and worthy of being blended. He still sees cuddlefish as below him/humans. So the line.

[@s3v.e1v]

I feel like we would have got way more lore if they kept the original side order that they showed in the teaser 😢

[@godwincobblah2999]

Glen fiddler?

[@bodyofwater99]

Glen Fiddler.

[@EngineerMonkeyBTD6]

Glen Fiddler.

[@spore4ever91]

My two cents on the mem cakes: who’s to say that they were actually unorganized? Maybe the mem cakes contain some sort of data that kamaboco is capable of reading, distributing each memcake exactly where it needs to be as its subjects traverse the deepsea metro. The system might look like a mess to an onlooker, but every cake could be found on a moment’s notice by tartar and delivered.

[@Hewer86]

Hang on, so some of Eight's mem cakes come from the magazine on the train, but their memories were already extracted by the time they got to the train, right? So either they somehow read that magazine beforehand, or the memory removal was some continuous process that still continued after they had started doing tests, neither of which make much sense. Am I missing something here?

[@TheCosmicCloud]

@@Hewer86 I think the idea is Eight read the magazine before their memories were removed. There could have been other issues of Haikara Walker that made their way to the underground. The one on the train is just there to allow the player to “imagine Inkopolis” (return to normal multiplayer)

[@theseerllama]

i always thought the mem cakes were like those cheap cookies you get from harris teeter

[@happyc4eva]

8 lost her memory from her fall but but since her memories were probably still in her subconscious they could still be extracted as memcakes. since Captain Cuttlefish didn't fall and suffer amnesia his memcakes were still taken out but he had no memory loss

[@happyc4eva]

or Marina might have gone up to cuddlefish directly and analyzed his memcakes outside of the metro

[@TheCosmicCloud]

@@happyc4eva Whether or not Eight lost their memory from the fall or from Sanitization isn't super clear, but we know for sure that Sanitization DOES cause memory loss. The act of turning memories into Mem Cakes requires the memories to be physically extracted from the person. Marina extracting Cuttlefish's Mem Cakes herself is a possibility, but I find it unlikely that she would do that to him, even if it aided her research. Cuttlefish appears in Splatoon 3's story mode with his memory intact, so it wouldn't make sense anyway.

[@CreekBoltGaming]

Alright,full story: the nieces humialted her and she locked herself in her room,the man told his sister they're leaving,sister rolls eyes,next day they're evicted they beg and uh man gets called names and etc.

[@theminiyosshi2901]

18:07 I need a gif of this

[@reshiee69]

Counterpoint: Cuttlefish has mem cakes cause he 100% has dementia (this is a joke but you know). Marina found a cure for dementia in the splatoon universe.

[@godwincobblah2999]

7:30 don't believe every Prochara thumbnail you see☠🤣🤣🤣

[@EmmaSantangelo-gw7zc]

i think the reason why tartar still let cuttlefish in the blender is because he used to be a strong soldier, tartar would know this by 1 seeing him battle or 2 seeing his mem cakes if he has any. but not cuttlefish is old and only focus on rapping tar tar has lost much interest.

[@danamarvelstar]

3:00 underwater?

[@skullzans]

Good video

[@Morthous]

If 8 was sanitized, then why is their skin not green like Acht's?

[@Ex0t1cButt_ers]

8 only went through the memory wiping process. After that, the subject would have to be injected with the weird ooze to be brainwashed.

[@Ex0t1cButt_ers]

Basically, 8 only went through a single step, whereas Acht went through the whole process

[@Morthous]

@@Ex0t1cButt_ers ok, thnx

[@Ex0t1cButt_ers]

@@Morthous you’re welcome

[@flyiny]

Love mem cakes

[@NaujNthlariBly]

If I had a monkey I'll eat a mump cake

[@saraanikkel]

wait what if 8 fell went throgh some blended ink fell some more and hit the ground>(p.s im only 8 so my spelling is a little bad)

[@papughh]

OH MY GOD BANGER INCOMING BANGER INKOMING ME WHEN AGENT 8 AGENT 8 MENTIONED IF EIGHT HAS NO FANS I HAVE DISSOLVED AND IM NO LONGER ALIVE LIVE LAUGH LOVE AGENT 8

[@AdrianCorpus-f8p]

Cool for cool.❤

[@SMGlitch]

Yo

[@hungrypizzafox]

Cool 😃👍

[@Freelancer837]

I'm still so disappointed that Side Order changed the idea that Agent 8 got their memories back after Octo Expansion. Fine, whatever. It's dumb, but you're going to do something good with this, right...? Right? Aaaaaand they didn't do anything with it and didn't even confirm if Agent 8 has their memories back after Side Order... Acht didn't even have to go through the process yet she somehow got all of her memories back for free (despite it not even making sense how she was there in the first place) but Eight gets nothing? Splatoon 3 blows so hard.

[@shrimpshufflr7745]

It's implied that acht was sucked in the same way everyone else was (a sea cucumber phone or maybe something else if order figured out how) and Acht mentiones that they were actually damaged on the tower. So realistically acht could have recovered some memories or maybe marina expedited the process before she was mind controlled, since it's not like everyone went in at the same time.

[@Somefox5]

God dammit having one test subject at a time ruins the story for my twin agent 8 ocs >:[[ Edit: I guess it's time for rewrites ._.

[@Samieisgone]

i wish side order was more about eight them acht, i like acht but we never learn of eights backstory which i really wish we did after completing her pallet

[@dizzy8387]

skibdii fortnite

[@StarbitO]

You have no honor

[@dizzy8387]

@@StarbitO my bad 😓

[@hunterchichester5720]

Oh no, cringe

[@VertinKeptTime]

3:48 Personally I like to believe that Eight and Three were established rivals, at one point Eight was captured and put into the Vat, which is the prt of the sanitization process that strips you of your memories, but clearly was able to escape before Tartar could fill in the void left by the sanitization process with its own brainwashing shit. Then after escaping just happened to encounter Capn and Three by happen stance as they were the only people really patrolling for octarians at that point. A fight ensued, the floor gave way and eight and capn fell into the metro