This event, triggered by “the global warming epidemic,” ignited a string of bloody conflicts, known as the Resource Wars. Planet cracking – the process by which an entire astronomical body is pulled apart for the harvesting of it’s natural resources – only became necessary after an extinction-level event on Earth. But, as is evident from the Dead Space saga’s backstory, humankind’s legacy is far less than utopic. I think the Black Marker sought to raise up a species that would gradually mature beyond petty internal conflict, one that would band together as a whole to peaceably explore the stars, and one that would eventually transcend its own biological finitude, joining itself to the collective consciousness of the Markers, thereby becoming one with it. I think that humankind as a species failed to conform to that plan. If the Black Marker on Earth had designed humankind by means of carefully guided naturalistic processes, then I think we can safely assume it had a plan – a sort of ultimate end – for the intelligent species it was engineering. This would make a great deal of sense especially if the Markers were originally designed to foster the development of intelligent species, as I have argued elsewhere. Why do I suspect this? Well, if the Black Marker found on Earth in 2214 had arrived there with the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs over 65 million years earlier, then it likely played a significant role in humankind’s evolutionary development.

As much as it pains me to say it, I think this ending – the total extinction of humankind – is arguably the best ending the story could have had. I suspect that this is exactly what was supposed to happen and that it was the intention for the saga from the very beginning.

I suspect that the populations of Earth and all her off-world colonies have been consumed by the Brethren Moons, leaving no survivors, not even Isaac Clarke or John Carver.

As much as I’d like to think otherwise, I have a suspicion that the so-called “cliffhanger ending” of Dead Space: Awakened was exactly how the saga was supposed to end.

Dead space 3 awakened how to win ending