Try looking at yourself through the oculus or planetary lens.
What those quotes show, helpfully, is that the nouns for each object are what the PC thinks they should be: itâs âhomunculusâ for âscribbleâ because the PC thinks itâs a homunculus, and âEnsignâ for the PC because thatâs how they see themselves.
That said, yes, I donât think the PC is a homunculus: I think theyâre some form of vibration echo animated by some form of homunculus, as far as that makes senseâŚ
I donât understand why youâd think the PC isnât a homunculus, based on the oculus + lens results; especially the oculus.
As a reminder:
Smoking gun, right?
Because of the definition: âA homunculus is not a daimon or a servant. It is a seed of animation without volition, a quickening spark. It cannot act or move on its own; but in combination with other works, it may become something greater.â
Combining that with
ââŚto combine an aitheric vibration â the transitory structure â with a spark of animation. This is a well-understood technique to create a self-sustaining aitheric form, e.g. memory daimons. But if the supra-aither or soul-aither exists, suggests Gopinathan, then the same technique may be appliedâŚâ
and
ââŚChuang argues that the soul exists in an as-yet-undetected medium, a soul-aither as it might be. The echo is then a transitory vibration of this substance. Lacking volition or identity, the vibration is not self-sustaining. Chuangâs computation of the characteristic decay time accords with observationâŚâ
gets me to the âPC = homunculus + echo vibrationâ theory, and
ââŚthat the form or structure of a thing may be joined to the spirit or essence, thus replicating the thing itself, is the foundation of modern practice. Indeed, historians argue that the âmarriageâ metaphor of ancient alchemy prefigures this principle. But to apply it recursively, parsing the structure and spirit of the spirit itself, requires the utmost careâŚâ
gets me to a âGreat Marriage = combining a homunculus and an echo vibration into something self-sustaining (like the PC)â theory. The recurring words throughout â spark/spirit/soul and structure/vibration â make me think these texts are supposed to be understood together somehow.
Now that you mentioned it, I never used the cube for anything, either. I always used a crystal (quartz or fluorspar, depending on what was handy) for an orderly environment.
I regularly used it for the ritual looking for an âorderly and preciseâ environment, even after I discovered that orderly was good enough.
I always used the gleaming calipers. Take that, Sarge.
I went Syndesis-route and solved it with the ballast without knowing that was something that was under discussion. Hooray!
I put the ballast in the observatory crawlspace â went down there on the assumption that the rubble end of it was the same crawlway and that I could send it through, it lit up, so I dumped it there.
I hadnât thought I had a choice about first dragon initially as the examine message I got first for the homunculus was that it looked like a bird. So I took it to the birdhouse. It was only later I realized it was probably optional, and that ex-lairs could still be leverage points.
How many things were optional? I donât remember if any of the locks just had plot behind rather than needed info. And was there a way to make a universal solvent for giggles? I missed the places spark list and was shy one spark for a very long time, so my order of operations was weird; I also spent forever trying to reverse the centrality lodestone to solve the Cracks maze â Iâm assuming that was impossible?
I difnât clean the calipers every time though, but I sure did on the last â I was hoping it would affect the ending, but that was not the ending I expected.
After the first few resets, I totally didnât bother cleaning the calipers.
I donât think reversing the centrality lodestone is possible. Itâs certainly not necessary, as the cracks get fixed once the right dragon is revived.
Yeah â it took me forever to notice that even once fixed, because I was so stuck on the idea. There was a non-default message for reversing part of it, and I hadnât yet realized all the ritual changes we had to come up with were single changes.
Oh, yeah, did the medical seal have a use?
I never found one! I guess I thought at one point there might be a locked cabinet in the Medical Wing, but I never saw anything like that.
You can â in fact, I didnât find out there was another solution to this puzzle until I went into the hint thread to help out.
Gold-mercury will work for the fulcrum creation, with the restrictions on sequence above. Thereâs even a very pointed message if you try to alloy the mercury with the still-phlogisticated gold rod.
Iâm highly amused at the number of alternate solutions coded without stopping the fact that thereâs generally only one thing to do next. I did solve at least one puzzle (the chime/aither/zafranum question) by looking at it with the question âwhy do I have these ingredients I havenât used? what would I need to be able to make simultaneously? oh, duh.â I.e. backsolving, a bit.
Wow, I read through the hint thread but didnât see that one. Thatâs cool. (Edit: I see itâs just been posted at the end of the thread.) That still doesnât explain the three gold alloys using the splicer though (using the mercury doesnât require the splicer).
Yes, there are more than a few cool things going on with this game. One is the task batching and shifting from lower level tasks to higher level strategy. Another is the multiple solution threading required by the fact that you can revive the dragons in any order. And as you say, there are often multiple solutions to a puzzle, even if that puzzle is the one that you have to do next to proceed.
The quicksilver amalgam question made me realize something else. If quicksilver is mercury, a silvery metal thatâs liquid at room temperature, then why is quickcopper, i.e. orichalcum, a solid rod? Why isnât it a coppery metal thatâs liquid at room temperature?
Probably for historical reasons: orichalcum is a (supposed) metal alloy related to the Greek stories of Atlantis and (also supposedly) had an appearance similar to gold. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orichalcum
I think calling orichalcum âquickcopperâ is a zarf invention. Google doesnât see those words co-occurring very often. google.com/search?q=quickcopper+orichalcum
Iâm allying with what appears to be the minority view that the protagonist is definitely NOT a homunculus, and is also not Ctesc. Reasons:
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The protagonist thinks of himself/herself as Forsyth. The map, produced âin the throes of crisis,â is by Forsyth, and typing âx forsythâ produces the same response as âx selfâ (as with other verbs).
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The homunculus is explicitly described as âa seed of animation without volition, a quickening spark.â The protagonist certainly acts with volition/purpose throughout the game.
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The silver scrawl (referred to as homunculus) conjured by the Great Marriage fits the definition provided aboveâit is a âquickening sparkâ in the sense that it breathes life or animation into the malfunctioning dragons. Since the silver scrawl is demonstrably different from the protagonist, Iâd say theyâre not the same thing.
However, Iâd be willing to believe that the protagonist is an echo animated by a homunculus. Iâd also be willing to believe that the character in the epilogue is NOT Forsyth. I do not understand what the simple sealing has to do with any of this, though, since it is not a part of the Great Marriage that creates the homunculus.
Actually, re-reading the four fragments found near the dragons (which I think must be crucial to understanding the plot, given their important placement and lack of in-game function), Iâm pretty certain that the protagonist IS an echo (or âvibration of soul-aitherâ) animated by a spark (or homunculus)âhis soul has been duplicated or mirrored, hence the endless resets. That still leaves the questionâŚwhat are the scrawls, silver and black? Theyâre described as alien but familiar, and they are all necessary to animate the four dragons (via subsumption) and complete the great marriage.
Is it possible that these scrawls are the souls (or the animating part of them) of the five principal characters? The silver is Forsyth, and the four black scrawls are the other four echoes. This fits with the fact that the echoes tend to end up in the dragon lairsâŚ
When you guys are saying that the PC is ânot a homunculus,â you mean that the PC is ânot merely a homunculus,â not that the PC is ânot a homunculus at all,â right?
When I say that the PC âis a homunculus,â I obviously donât mean that the PC is inanimate. Iâm saying that the PC is an animated homunculus, remaining agnostic about what exactly is animating the PC (echo vibrations, perhaps, or anything else; we just donât know).
Iâd say itâs more correct to state that the homunculus is animating the PC, but yesânot merely a homunculus.
Yeah, I think weâre actually all mostly in rough agreement on what/who the PC is, just arriving there from different ends 
Nice find on âx forsythâ, kittenhoarder: I donât think anyone else had caught that yet!
I think the EC probably is Forsyth, because theyâre always thinking about their work cleaning in the alchemy lab, which is where Forsyth is assigned (at least as a note in the mirror-marcher records). Itâs just possible that the EC is one of the four named characters, but if so then who that is changes depending on which dragon is alive, which all seems a bit messy.
Yeah, but of a mystery that. Also, the EC I think is referenced as not knowing much alchemy, and if theyâre Forsyth theyâre a complete novice. I think the key is the alien scrawls the EC sees in the epilogue â there is some alien influence in the ship, and I think it somehow gets involved in whatever the EC tried to initiate.
I think there might be something in this. But the first silvery scribble that appears is referred to as the homunculus the animating spark â at least thatâs what the PC thinks it is â whereas what appears in successive subsumptions is the actual dragon you animate (which is I think a homunculus married to an echo, like the PC): itâs coloured like the dragon.
I donât know. âAlienâ refers to things of a non-Gaian aither. Thereâs an alien ship, and the polar oil, the black graffiti: all of them donât have a familiar planetary association. The black graffiti is âclearly associated with the wreckâ through the oculus. All of this is either from some actual form of alien life, or it could be an echo of the marcher and its dragons and crew in alien aither â we know that alien aither makes weird things happen. In that latter reading, your ideas work; in the former, itâs all actual alien life mucking about with (or helping save) the marcher.
Speaking of the polar oil, any idea what itâs all about? Obviously it appears to be some kind of ferrofluid⌠but why does it react to the chasm pillar? How does the alien ship know that the pillar exists? If this were a System Shock game Iâd be convinced that the whole first half of the game is an elaborate scheme to get a hapless Ensign to allow the alien oil to hijack the shipâŚ