The First Crumblings of Samuel's Sanity

[GameChanger]

Samuel J. Stuhlinger. Love him or hate him, we all know he's a little crazy. From what we've seen of him, we know right off the bat the guy has both Paranoia and Schizophrenia. He's also always spouting his totally 100 percent true conspiracies to the group. Just from his appearance, we know he's a basket case.

 

When did he become like this is the big question here. Russman would've quickly stopped mentoring Stu as a child if he had such mental issues, and Stu's kinda bad at keeping his mental troubles under wraps. Logically, he couldn't have had these disorders right when he was born. In some cases, these disorders are "triggered" by significant/traumatic events. As shown in Die Rise, Samuel is revealed to have been a part of The Flesh. We even get a split-second shot of him chomping down on an arm (Nom.)

 

 

As we have seen in the O4, 115 creates side effects on a living human. By Stuhlinger ingesting that arm before TranZit begins, he's allowed an unknown level of 115 to enter his system. Similar to Richtofen, the 115 slowly made Stuhlinger insane. The last of the side effects seems to be his ability to hear voices from the Aether. He wasn't always calling out conspiracies. At first, he was just a scared guy in the Apocalypse who sought refuge in a survival group.

 

 

Hope you enjoyed my already obvious "Theory". Here's some random stuff that didn't belong in its own thread.

 

According to this, Stuhlinger is apparently a  CIA Agent. Keep in mind this is coming straight from the horse's mouth. The article comes out close to Buried's release, so maybe this was scrapped character development?

 

Made this a while back. IT'S HAPPENING

 

Compared to Die Rise's intro, the Earth is has insane amounts of fractures. I'm honestly surprised that there's still SOME structural integrity left.

 

[Dummkopt]

Super cool I wasn't aware of that article, much appreciated info. So do you really think the C.I.A. agent idea was scrapped? To me it gives even more insight on his paranoia. Of course the element 115 has taken its toll on everyone, as having the world end around you, but certain things he says, liking knowing what the zombies really are, could back up the fact he is C.I.A. . 

 

 

Guess it's time to comb through slade's quote thread, again xD

[GameChanger]

Super cool I wasn't aware of that article, much appreciated info. So do you really think the C.I.A. agent idea was scrapped? To me it gives even more insight on his paranoia. Of course the element 115 has taken its toll on everyone, as having the world end around you, but certain things he says, liking knowing what the zombies really are, could back up the fact he is C.I.A. . 

 

 

Guess it's time to comb through slade's quote thread, again xD

It would kinda make sense he's a CIA Agent too, so hopefully it got cut due to time constraints and will be featured next 3arc game. He's following in the footsteps of Broken Arrow operative Russman, and his crazy ramblings may have a hint of truth to them.

[Slade]

Now these are the kinds of threads I love. Kudos to you friend. 

Certifiable nut-job C.I.A. (ex) Agent. Genius.

 

I think the idea wasn't scrapped, but rather never really explored (yet). Just general backstory that they made up for Stuhlinger but somehow it hasn't yet appeared in the actual game.

Game companies tend to do that often. It helps the voice actors establish their characters. 

 

(Much like T-Dog in the Walking Dead. His actual backstory (stop laughing, he has one) is actually based on his actor's, IronE Singleton)

[PINNAZ]

Good stuff G.C.

I hadn't seen that Stuhlinger actors article before. Hard to tell if that is true or not. I imagine he gets a brakedown of the character & gets to explore from there.

Anyway, nice post mate. Keep 'me coming.

[GameChanger]

Good stuff G.C.

I hadn't seen that Stuhlinger actors article before. Hard to tell if that is true or not. I imagine he gets a brakedown of the character & gets to explore from there.

Anyway, nice post mate. Keep 'me coming.

The site is a UK fansite for game series Sam & Max, but it does seem legit to me. I doubt Boat is wrong with Stu's character description especially this late in development, so I think this was a subplot that didn't make it just yet.

[Rissole25]

I think Samuel may have had these issues from a young age. Now they may not have been apparent. It is a bit hard to tell though. We know Russman raised Samuel, but their relationship doesn't seem like that of a father-son, but of just friends. It's weird. I wonder how Russman came to raise to Stu? If Russman worked at Broken Arrow, Samuel most likely knew as well, and probably learned some stuff. That could be a part of his whole conspiracy thing, because Russman (his father figure) worked at Broken Arrow. I don't even know what Broken Arrow was though.

[PINNAZ]

We shouldn't take the game files name as canon, but Stuhlingers file name is "Reporter". (See picture name attached)

Interesting that his character idea started as this.

[Stop Mocking Me0]

I think his simple nature of a conspiracy theorist proves him to be highly involved with politics, but the fact that marelton, an American scientist, doesn't know him means he's likely hush hush. If he was a general reporter that would make sense, however his imediant turn to eating corpses shows stulenger's madness endued much earlier then the others,  and surely a trained CIA agent shouldn't just jump off the deep end? 

 

Some odder points are samule's extreme distaste in misty. It may be jealousy, or it could be something much more sleeper-agent-y and sinister. Or it could just be the two's natural distain from each other… 

 

OR it could be something linked to her defense of marelton, who apparently knows Russman somehow. We know Russman was a part of a broken arrow project/incident, and marelton was a tattle-tale of the underground zombie research. Is it possible that marelton was the reason russman was fired? And for what reason? Surely it must be something horrible if russman KNOWS what happened yet both marelton and stulenger know very little about him. It almost appears as if russman KNOWS marelton knows about him, yet russman KNOWS if he randomly shoves off marelton the other two will as questions as of his dangerous works, and russman knows that if he uses some of his old energy on killing marelton, he won't be able to fend off the hordes, as well as Misty and Stulenger. He may have had an opportunity as well, but was stopped by richtofen by cleverly hiding a message in the bus station as well "stop russ" in which rich. means he needs to not kill marelton. 

 

Also, this is just me, but If I was a reporter and I had caught wind of an agent being expelled from a super huge project, the first place I would have gone is to him. SO we may have motive for a possible reason for samule finding out russman. 

 

 

Now another point I'd like to discuss: Russman's memory. There's a large possibility that it's a simple factor of his growing age, but there's the other possibility that one of the others is deliberately blocking his memories with drugs, it wouldn't be hard for a scientist like marelton, who would benefit GREATLY for russman forgetting why he hates him. Then again, what if stulenger is also trying to keep russman from remembering something that HE did and the old man knows? 

 

 

And my final question: Misty, it's a bit odd, don't ya think? That somehow, three strange men with political background and sinter history all wound up together, but for no particular reason a fourth girl with no background, or even evil history,  is added in? I doubt her only purpose here is just filler…. Purhaps russman isn't the only one losing his memory… Marelton took a shine to her, but why? He's stated before he's emotionless and calculating. That could just be a lie, but what if he just fears misty's bad side far worse then anything samule and russman have to offer…. 

 

 

 

 

There isn't much proof behind these theories, at all, and none should be taken for fact. I hope in the next game we can get a sort of archives area, like the terminal in BO1, that shows a bit more in-depth history of the four new characters.