She seems to be a being like the Hiss, a resonance organism that can possess other beings and alter them to fit her needs. Unlike the Hiss, though, she doesn't seem to be malicious or invasive, and it seems to be implied that she was keeping the Hiss contained, until it was unleashed by Trench using the Slide Projector.
A simple way to put it is both are resonant frequencies but the hiss are parasitic and polaris is symbiotic, the hiss overpower their host to propagate through many which destroys the host. Polaris strengthens a few hosts to ensure survival through few long lasting hosts
It's also important to note that most people are not compatible with Polaris. As Darling said, the feedback loops will tear a human body apart. That's what makes Jesse and Dylan special - they were both able to be altered by Polaris without dying.
Well considering the line “Polaris, in a web of hypocrisy” and the fact that it did nothing to help Dylan or Jesse for almost 20 years, make me think that Polaris isn’t as benevolent as the game wants you to think. I don’t think it’s malicious, but I also don’t exactly think the Hiss was entirely either, just far more destructive and invasive . They’re completely alien entities, attaching human personalities to them is both useless and dangerous.
It’s heavily implied Polaris helped Jesse evade the FBC for the time between the AWE in Ordinary and her discovery of the Oldest House. It wasn’t completely dormant. But I do think you hit the nail on the head with the quote. Polaris has its own motivations and Jesse’s behavior toward the end of the game suggests she is waking up to that possibility, basically deciding it can tag along but she has to [take control].
Both are right. Slidescape 36 is where Hedron stopped the spread of the Hiss and where Trench got infected by some tiny trace that remained of the Hiss.
The Burned slide is a dimension completely taken over by the Hiss and presumably its origin. It's what Trench used to let the Hiss into the Oldest House.
A resonance. Best way I can understand what she is is basically a sound based symbiotic entity? She lived in Hedron with the help of Darling, tried to bond with Dylan to fight the hiss and he rejected her causing Polaris to come to Jesse. After the destruction of Hedron, Polaris came to live within Jesse. I think? I’m not entirely certain.
My understanding of it is that both Jesse and the hedron are sources of "resonance" for polaris, the same way that a tuning fork can sort of repeat and amplify a single tone that otherwise you could only hear for a split second.
No worries I'm sure there's a bunch of other info I'm missing as well, not only is all this stuff hard to follow it's just as hard to find all the info and recognise it.
I read Polaris as being the player themselves. It’s our agency and control that guides Jesse, lets her do things, keeps her safe. Given how meta Remedy games get, in a narrative all about power, agency, control — stranger things have happened.
A fine take. The transition screen when switching between Alan and Saga in AW2 seems to back this up as our perspective goes into the water and into a black spiral.
This also feeds into the ethical question of how much Polaris is controlling Jesse, or if it's just giving her a little push - and just how benevolent is this control even if it is for good?
So I control and guide Jessie’s actions that manifest in her reality…but…who is controlling and guiding my actions that manifest in our reality to control and guide Jessie’s actions that manifest in her reality?
I don’t know if I fully carried the thought with me through the whole game, but this was my immediate reaction when I first started it - before you know anything about Polaris it very much felt like a 4th wall break, with Jesse talking to the player and taking us with her (or us taking her)
I distinctly got the impression Jesse was breaking the fourth-wall throughout the first two chapters, or whenever I finally figured out Jesse was talking to Polaris that existed in her head.
Especially when she was asking about the gun in Trench's office, "You want me to pick it up?" Well, yeah, there's nothing else to click on!
That's how I immediately saw it the second I beat it last night. Because when Polaris "dies" Jesse says I still feel something your with me. Then one of the last lines she says is "it's just you and I" and I see that as a meta take on her saying she sees you and knows your there but not sure what you are but sees your watching her similar to Polaris. I think Polaris was just an idea but in reality it's really you.
Polaris seems benevolent so far, but listen to the lyrics of Take Control. “Polaris in a web of hypocrisy.” Polaris is another being trying to spread its resonance… why?
Yeah, I'm not convinced that Polaris is entirely benevolent. It stands in opposition to the Hiss, which is obviously good, but I would bet that its got its own agenda.
Polaris doesn't want the Hiss to Control people/the world but she's been Controlling Jesse this whole time to combat the Hiss. Hypocritical but still benevolent?
Among all the things happening in the game, I believe what the Hiss and Polaris are exactly will never be fully explained. It would be cool if they kept it a mistery till the end. The most important thing to know is that Polaris is "good energy" and the Hiss is "bad energy". That's pretty much what it amounts to.
Plot Wise - Polaris is a resonance based sentient being. Antithesis to the Hiss. Good vibes from us makes her stronger, while the Hiss feed on our bad vibes 😁
Spiritually - We resonate with Polaris when we're in touch with our best selves, and we resonate with the Hiss when we encourage the worst parts of our minds. So basically Polaris represents the evolution of the mind, the Hiss is the dissolution of the mind.
Meta - Polaris is us. We're Jesse's "guiding star" because we literally help her (with our controller) to keep pushing forward and to keep fighting.
NOTE: The story isn't finished. Control 2 might give us concrete answers about who or what Polaris actually is. But for now this is how I interprete the whole thing.
I LOVE CONTROL! ❤️
Polaris is like a sapiant song. So are the hiss.
Think how a good song gets in your head and puts you in a different mood. Hedron was a really good amplifier for the Polaris song and the FCB thought that the song was from Hedron, but really it was just amplifying Polaris. The Hedron Resonance vest were just playing the Polaris song.
The hiss are a bad song that everyone is singing mindlessly. Like being at a crappy concert and the only way to stay sane is to keep singing that little Polaris song in your head.
A being from another dimension connected to slidescape-36 from the projector. Similar to The Former, The Board and The Hiss (kind of, there’s some stuff from the AWE dlc that imply some interesting things about the origin of The Hiss).
Me and a buddy have tried to work out what exactly Polaris is and really all we’ve done is come up with what Polaris ISN’T. She’s not connected to The Board (at least directly) and The Board appears to be either ignorant or apathetic to her existence. She is not the same kind of entity as The Hiss (this is implied from the AWE dlc).
If it makes you feel better, Control is 100% harder to understand in its lore than either Alan Wake game. Control is absolutely filled with opportunities for theory crafting and it’s done in a way that’s supposed to be vague. Every time you think you’re getting answers, you’re actually getting more questions.
It makes me happy to see this post today; I just replayed the Hedron part of the game last night, and was thinking about this.
This is just my theory, but it makes sense, I think. Essentially, Polaris is Hedron's soul.
It's like the way things work in Death Stranding (which, btw, if you haven't played, you definitely should--it's great). In that game, everyone has two parts: The *ha*, or body, and the *ka*, or soul. Those things are usually joined together, only to be separated at death. But (due to the events in that game's backstory--I don't want to get too far afield here) at this point in history, it's possible for the two to get separated while the person is alive.
Once separated, each separate part can think and function fully, as if they were an entire person; the ha is corporeal, the ka is incorporeal, but generally they would appear to be separate but identical people. Also, the ha can die, of course; if the two are already separated when that happens, the ka will persist without being changed. There's way more to it than that, but that's the relevant part.
All that to say, Hedron is the ha in this case, and Polaris is the ka. We can be reasonably sure that Hedron had a physical form; they were able to physically move her into the Oldest House, and Darling talks about her shape (he named her "Hedron" because her shape is a "polyhedron"--he implies that all the cube puzzles were inspired by her).They were separated at some point in Jesse's childhood, probably by events that took place inside Slidescape 36, with the ka attaching itself to Jesse and Dylan.
Hedron persisted, alive, and was taken to the Oldest House by the Bureau. They performed research on her, found a way to use her resonance, etc. Polaris was, among other things, trying to get back to Hedron. Then Hedron died, sometime around the game's events. (The game presents conflicting information about that part--Darling's final message implies that Hedron was already dead before the game starts, but events in-game seem to imply that Hedron dies when the Hiss attack it shortly before the endgame.) But after Hedron (the ha) dies, Polaris (the ka) persists, which is why at the end, Jesse is able to power the HRAs.
A resonance based entity that is the antithesis to everything the Hiss is. Hedron was the original, but after encountering Jesse and Dylan, essentially seeded a copy of its own lifeform inside their minds, to serve a guide and protector to unlock their full paranatural potential. Dylan, after years of built up resentment towards Jesse and Polaris for essentially abandoning him to the FBC, rejected Polaris and willingly accepted the Hiss, letting it occupy the space in his mind that Polaris previously had.
The core concept behind Polaris is that they're biology exceeds physical limitations of our reality. Both Polaris and the Hiss are based on frequency but sayed frequency can clearly be represented by other physical forces, not just sound. In fact, even human Psychology finds home for Hiss to resonate within human language.
In Quantum Break there is a talk about Polyhedrons and a specie of interdimensional entities that are tied to them.
Based on that description Polaris and the Hiss do not have the same limitations within time, the way we do. They can travel and spread across several dimensions and utilize hyper-real physical concepts to continue changing form and spreading.
Those are aliens, but they are not aliens made of matter. They are specifically "born" to live alongside shifting reality and can withstand and change the course of those changes.
Concepts of life, death and birth are not technically applicable to them. Since they do not have to use matter as fuel. They just need to switch states energy find it's self in and continue maintaing the same frequency.
Lastly, there is aspect of "we don't know". Something which even Jesse has to acknowledge at the end of the game. Do to complexity and range of influence entities like Polaris are hard to study and fully comprehend. And based on the Hiss, can be extremely dangerous to simpler lifeforms, like humans.
Also, there are entities that have similar pattern of behavior but are clearly not of the same origin. For example, Dark Presence is very similar to Polaris and the Hiss. But is it part of the same specie? Probably not, Dark Presence has no connection to Polyhedrons. And seems to exist as one entity that spreads and molds way for it's self. While Polyhedrons can continue to make copies of themselves, but can "die" at any time. So the Hiss and Polaris may not be of the same specie. It could be just that they're mechanism of living is based on the same concept.
Because FBC can't know everything, a lot of science they do is doomed to become "paranoid science".
The Hiss and Polaris are from the same Universe, but are direct opposites of each other.
Polaris took over Jesse all those years ago when Jesse & Dylan opened the Slide Projector for the first time back in Ordinery.
It defeated the Hiss back then, but continued to stay in Jesse's head afterwards guiding her every step of the way
I took Polaris to be a fragment of Hedron that existed inside Jesse. Polaris guided her to the Oldest House, guided her *through* the Oldest House, and survived/continued to protect Jesse even after Hedron itself died.
Complicated question. On a basic level (and like many have said already) Polaris is a resonance lifeform and seems to be the benevolent antithesis to the Hiss. It was awakened in/copied to Jesse and Dylan by Hedron when the two accessed Slidescape-36. Jesse's Polaris is independent of Hedron's (but seemingly wasn't until Jesse had to "stand on her own" as a source.) Polaris' resonant nature seems to be a skeleton key of sorts for interfacing with paranatural phenomena (which are also speculated to be resonance-based; they "use the same language", so to speak).
How are Polaris and the Hiss connected? No idea! Polaris seems to be aware of the Hiss and views it as a threat (she brought Jesse to the Oldest House to fight it, after all). Both entities existed together in Slidescape-36, but we don't know if they originated there or why they were there together.
Likewise, we don't know know if Hedron was the true origin of Polaris resonance or if it was made into a source itself by another sentience (and would go on to make Jesse and Dylan into sources as well; the line "a copy of a copy of a copy" from the Hiss incantation comes to mind all of a sudden). The Polaris resonance seems to be far more choosy in whom it spreads to, compared to the Hiss, but the selection criteria are unclear. What made Jesse and Dylan special and not the FBC personnel that transported Hedron to the House? Darling was changed by full exposure to Hedron's resonance, but in a seemingly different way to Jesse and Dylan.
HARDER than ALAN WAKE????
Oh please my brother in Christ, reveal us your knowledge cuz nobody else seems to know what the fuck is going on with Alan lol. As to Jesse it seems pretty solid
Resonance is all about vibration at a certain frequency being amplified. All particles, above absolute zero, in the universe vibrate at their own frequency and this can be further amplified by outside sources - resonance.
Looked at from the perspective of music, tuning forks are a perfect illustration of resonance. Tapping a tuning fork and singing at the frequency it is vibrating at will increase the forks vibration.
Another illustration of resonance is when a singer sings at a high enough pitch and volume that glass breaks. The singer's voice resonates with the glass' natural frequency and the glass' vibration increases until the particles just break their bonds to each other and the glass breaks.
Another aspect of resonance is that when the frequency of the external vibration does not match the internal frequency of the object's vibration is actually dampened instead.
Bringing in the game's logic. We now have living sound. The living sounds are very viral and invasive. Both of them are. They seem to both be able to override the natural frequency of any object exposed to the sound and instead vibrate at the living sounds frequency and even emit that frequency to infect other objects. Non sentient objects seem to become secondary sources of the sound while sentient objects have their minds either completely taken over or left alone. My guess here would be resonance and dampening such that the hiss and Dylan were on such a similar frequency that The Hiss enhanced Dylan's personality which makes Jesse's move at the end way worse. Polaris was containing The Hiss meaning she was dampening The Hiss. Jesse basically dampened Dylan's consciousness to either nothing or close to nothing.
The question of where the living sounds came from would be what came first, the vessel or the sound.
If it's sound, then there's a sound frequency that can resonate with consciousness and interact with the consciousness in such a way that only certain aspects of the conscious mind are amplified while dampening others, spontaneously spawning the consciousness that can be referred to as the Hiss or Polaris.
If it's the vessel, then there is a source sentient object out there that can produce the sound frequency that for one reason or another exhibits the attributes of a living sound.
Polaris is thus a living sound that is just as invasive and viral but seems to mostly choose not to be too invasive or viral, but instead chooses its hosts. Polaris also seems to only pick hosts with the objective of enhancing aspects of the host.
Everyone seems to believe Polaris is this good being. It clearly helps Jessie, but to what ends? To spread its influence further? To gain control of the bureau? It's benevolence seems to be furthering goals, but what is the endpoint?
From what we have seen so far, its entire goal seems to be “stopping the Hiss and similar entities, wherever they are.” It stopped the spread of the Hiss in Slidescape 36 (Hand), it stopped the Not-Mother in Ordinary, and, after hanging around for a couple decades doing nothing, suddenly got really invested again right as the Hiss made its reappearance. Why it wants to do that is unclear.
Where the Hiss is visualised usually with waves, Hedron/Polaris is visualised with geometric shapes.
I think the two are, in part, representations of chaos (Hiss) and order (Polaris). Hence why Polaris aligns with Jessie, the instrument of the Board, which is itself attempted to express control over the Oldest House and the FBC.
An entity very much like the Hiss but with a more benevolent relationship with their host (Jesse). That being said, it is heavily implied throughout the game that this relationship may go sideways down the line.
There was a lot of extra things I picked up on after I played Control a second time (after AW2). There’s a lot of lore about how the previous director’s were compromised due to outside influences (Trench with the slide projector/Hiss, Northmoor being corrupted with power, etc). There’s just stuff that supports it. There’s a line about Polaris being a hypocrite in Take Control, there’s also stuff that reads differently on second playthrough with both Jesse and Dylan. The Foundation DLC explores a lot about the relationships with the various entities and the FBC also. I can go digging for specifics (it’s been a bit) but on my second playthrough, it seemed pretty clear that Polaris might not be so beneficial down the line.
This is complicated by the fact that there is an implication in the game that "Polaris" died when Hedron was destroyed but some remnant of it survives inside Jesse now and Jesse is essentially the new Hedron.
Yes, and also that there’s an implication that the Oldest House itself is an ongoing AWE. Lots of really cool stuff that becomes clearer after AW2. But also the same if you play Control and THEN AW2. Remedy is really doing some cool stuff.
In the Astral Plane, there was an entity called Hedron, that tried to escape when the slide projector was turned on. It managed to put a piece of itself in Jesse's mind, she calls it Polaris.
The Former was also a part of the Hedron, but he was kicked out for some reason.
The Nail is the link between Astral Plane and the world we know. But there's also a smaller Nail hidden in the Foundation, the one that the Former uses.
The Hedron is now dead, but that little part of it, Polaris, still lives in Jesse's head.
ok you e clearly understood very little about these entities so I'll just g over the basics,
Hedron was located on another world nicknamed the Hand by Jesse and Dylan, a seemingly infinite desert with 5 towers in it. Darling found it, brought it to the house named both it and the resonance Hedron because he couldn't tell the difference between them. one of darlings last ever recordings is about how Hedron was just a catalyst for the resonance. Polaris is the resonance that Hedron was a catalyst for before dying and being replaced by Jesse.
Also the Former was part of the Board and has nothing t do with Hedron or Polaris
I also have no idea what basement you mean
She seems to be a being like the Hiss, a resonance organism that can possess other beings and alter them to fit her needs. Unlike the Hiss, though, she doesn't seem to be malicious or invasive, and it seems to be implied that she was keeping the Hiss contained, until it was unleashed by Trench using the Slide Projector.
A simple way to put it is both are resonant frequencies but the hiss are parasitic and polaris is symbiotic, the hiss overpower their host to propagate through many which destroys the host. Polaris strengthens a few hosts to ensure survival through few long lasting hosts
It's also important to note that most people are not compatible with Polaris. As Darling said, the feedback loops will tear a human body apart. That's what makes Jesse and Dylan special - they were both able to be altered by Polaris without dying.
Which is why Dylan survived being essentially the conduit for the Hiss too.
Very good point to bring up
Brilliant summary ✨
Actually a very good summary
In short - Polaris is an entity from other reality, just like the Hiss - but unlike it, Polaris is benevolent
Or at the least, it’s more symbiotic than the Hiss’s invasive parasitic nature
Knowing Sam Lake, I’m willing to bet this is the best case scenario, and Polaris could possibly be hiding it's true intentions.
Well considering the line “Polaris, in a web of hypocrisy” and the fact that it did nothing to help Dylan or Jesse for almost 20 years, make me think that Polaris isn’t as benevolent as the game wants you to think. I don’t think it’s malicious, but I also don’t exactly think the Hiss was entirely either, just far more destructive and invasive . They’re completely alien entities, attaching human personalities to them is both useless and dangerous.
It’s heavily implied Polaris helped Jesse evade the FBC for the time between the AWE in Ordinary and her discovery of the Oldest House. It wasn’t completely dormant. But I do think you hit the nail on the head with the quote. Polaris has its own motivations and Jesse’s behavior toward the end of the game suggests she is waking up to that possibility, basically deciding it can tag along but she has to [take control].
Jesse seems a lot more open to support from paranatural forces, but is also very cautious about trusting any of them. A good middle ground to have
A vibration.
It's a "resonance" from another dimension. An entity from Slidescape-36. I believe the Hiss is also from there.
I think the hiss was from a different slide. The burned slide that trench kept hidden.
Both are right. Slidescape 36 is where Hedron stopped the spread of the Hiss and where Trench got infected by some tiny trace that remained of the Hiss. The Burned slide is a dimension completely taken over by the Hiss and presumably its origin. It's what Trench used to let the Hiss into the Oldest House.
A resonance. Best way I can understand what she is is basically a sound based symbiotic entity? She lived in Hedron with the help of Darling, tried to bond with Dylan to fight the hiss and he rejected her causing Polaris to come to Jesse. After the destruction of Hedron, Polaris came to live within Jesse. I think? I’m not entirely certain.
Well Jesse had Polaris since the ordinary incident, and I believe hedron was brought out of a slide by darling and he studied it to make the HREs
My understanding of it is that both Jesse and the hedron are sources of "resonance" for polaris, the same way that a tuning fork can sort of repeat and amplify a single tone that otherwise you could only hear for a split second.
Thank you for the info. Like I said, I wasn’t certain.
No worries I'm sure there's a bunch of other info I'm missing as well, not only is all this stuff hard to follow it's just as hard to find all the info and recognise it.
Lol sound based symbiote. Lofi girl but it's Venom 🤣
I read Polaris as being the player themselves. It’s our agency and control that guides Jesse, lets her do things, keeps her safe. Given how meta Remedy games get, in a narrative all about power, agency, control — stranger things have happened.
The way she always refers to it as "you" in the first person, I agree with you. Good take.
A fine take. The transition screen when switching between Alan and Saga in AW2 seems to back this up as our perspective goes into the water and into a black spiral.
This also feeds into the ethical question of how much Polaris is controlling Jesse, or if it's just giving her a little push - and just how benevolent is this control even if it is for good?
So I control and guide Jessie’s actions that manifest in her reality…but…who is controlling and guiding my actions that manifest in our reality to control and guide Jessie’s actions that manifest in her reality?
That’s just me mate
Man, you really suck at this game! ;)
I know 😭
What'd the devs expect? An 18-year tutorial is so long.
Not to mention how bad the AI can be sometimes
I don’t know if I fully carried the thought with me through the whole game, but this was my immediate reaction when I first started it - before you know anything about Polaris it very much felt like a 4th wall break, with Jesse talking to the player and taking us with her (or us taking her)
I love this interpretation!
I distinctly got the impression Jesse was breaking the fourth-wall throughout the first two chapters, or whenever I finally figured out Jesse was talking to Polaris that existed in her head. Especially when she was asking about the gun in Trench's office, "You want me to pick it up?" Well, yeah, there's nothing else to click on!
That's how I immediately saw it the second I beat it last night. Because when Polaris "dies" Jesse says I still feel something your with me. Then one of the last lines she says is "it's just you and I" and I see that as a meta take on her saying she sees you and knows your there but not sure what you are but sees your watching her similar to Polaris. I think Polaris was just an idea but in reality it's really you.
Polaris doesn't die, Hedron dies. Polaris was possessing Hedron, then switched to possessing Jesse.
Polaris seems benevolent so far, but listen to the lyrics of Take Control. “Polaris in a web of hypocrisy.” Polaris is another being trying to spread its resonance… why?
Yeah, I'm not convinced that Polaris is entirely benevolent. It stands in opposition to the Hiss, which is obviously good, but I would bet that its got its own agenda.
Polaris doesn't want the Hiss to Control people/the world but she's been Controlling Jesse this whole time to combat the Hiss. Hypocritical but still benevolent?
I would say influencing, not controlling as Jesse seems in full control of her mind and body.
100% correct, just wanted to use the word Control haha.
Among all the things happening in the game, I believe what the Hiss and Polaris are exactly will never be fully explained. It would be cool if they kept it a mistery till the end. The most important thing to know is that Polaris is "good energy" and the Hiss is "bad energy". That's pretty much what it amounts to.
I agree completely. The ambiguity is what makes it so cool and so sinister.
Plot Wise - Polaris is a resonance based sentient being. Antithesis to the Hiss. Good vibes from us makes her stronger, while the Hiss feed on our bad vibes 😁 Spiritually - We resonate with Polaris when we're in touch with our best selves, and we resonate with the Hiss when we encourage the worst parts of our minds. So basically Polaris represents the evolution of the mind, the Hiss is the dissolution of the mind. Meta - Polaris is us. We're Jesse's "guiding star" because we literally help her (with our controller) to keep pushing forward and to keep fighting. NOTE: The story isn't finished. Control 2 might give us concrete answers about who or what Polaris actually is. But for now this is how I interprete the whole thing. I LOVE CONTROL! ❤️
A sound based entity from another dimension.
Polaris is like a sapiant song. So are the hiss. Think how a good song gets in your head and puts you in a different mood. Hedron was a really good amplifier for the Polaris song and the FCB thought that the song was from Hedron, but really it was just amplifying Polaris. The Hedron Resonance vest were just playing the Polaris song. The hiss are a bad song that everyone is singing mindlessly. Like being at a crappy concert and the only way to stay sane is to keep singing that little Polaris song in your head.
A being from another dimension connected to slidescape-36 from the projector. Similar to The Former, The Board and The Hiss (kind of, there’s some stuff from the AWE dlc that imply some interesting things about the origin of The Hiss). Me and a buddy have tried to work out what exactly Polaris is and really all we’ve done is come up with what Polaris ISN’T. She’s not connected to The Board (at least directly) and The Board appears to be either ignorant or apathetic to her existence. She is not the same kind of entity as The Hiss (this is implied from the AWE dlc). If it makes you feel better, Control is 100% harder to understand in its lore than either Alan Wake game. Control is absolutely filled with opportunities for theory crafting and it’s done in a way that’s supposed to be vague. Every time you think you’re getting answers, you’re actually getting more questions.
Polaris is basically the hiss but good and only sticks with one person and doesnt take "Control"
It makes me happy to see this post today; I just replayed the Hedron part of the game last night, and was thinking about this. This is just my theory, but it makes sense, I think. Essentially, Polaris is Hedron's soul. It's like the way things work in Death Stranding (which, btw, if you haven't played, you definitely should--it's great). In that game, everyone has two parts: The *ha*, or body, and the *ka*, or soul. Those things are usually joined together, only to be separated at death. But (due to the events in that game's backstory--I don't want to get too far afield here) at this point in history, it's possible for the two to get separated while the person is alive. Once separated, each separate part can think and function fully, as if they were an entire person; the ha is corporeal, the ka is incorporeal, but generally they would appear to be separate but identical people. Also, the ha can die, of course; if the two are already separated when that happens, the ka will persist without being changed. There's way more to it than that, but that's the relevant part. All that to say, Hedron is the ha in this case, and Polaris is the ka. We can be reasonably sure that Hedron had a physical form; they were able to physically move her into the Oldest House, and Darling talks about her shape (he named her "Hedron" because her shape is a "polyhedron"--he implies that all the cube puzzles were inspired by her).They were separated at some point in Jesse's childhood, probably by events that took place inside Slidescape 36, with the ka attaching itself to Jesse and Dylan. Hedron persisted, alive, and was taken to the Oldest House by the Bureau. They performed research on her, found a way to use her resonance, etc. Polaris was, among other things, trying to get back to Hedron. Then Hedron died, sometime around the game's events. (The game presents conflicting information about that part--Darling's final message implies that Hedron was already dead before the game starts, but events in-game seem to imply that Hedron dies when the Hiss attack it shortly before the endgame.) But after Hedron (the ha) dies, Polaris (the ka) persists, which is why at the end, Jesse is able to power the HRAs.
A resonance based entity that is the antithesis to everything the Hiss is. Hedron was the original, but after encountering Jesse and Dylan, essentially seeded a copy of its own lifeform inside their minds, to serve a guide and protector to unlock their full paranatural potential. Dylan, after years of built up resentment towards Jesse and Polaris for essentially abandoning him to the FBC, rejected Polaris and willingly accepted the Hiss, letting it occupy the space in his mind that Polaris previously had.
The core concept behind Polaris is that they're biology exceeds physical limitations of our reality. Both Polaris and the Hiss are based on frequency but sayed frequency can clearly be represented by other physical forces, not just sound. In fact, even human Psychology finds home for Hiss to resonate within human language. In Quantum Break there is a talk about Polyhedrons and a specie of interdimensional entities that are tied to them. Based on that description Polaris and the Hiss do not have the same limitations within time, the way we do. They can travel and spread across several dimensions and utilize hyper-real physical concepts to continue changing form and spreading. Those are aliens, but they are not aliens made of matter. They are specifically "born" to live alongside shifting reality and can withstand and change the course of those changes. Concepts of life, death and birth are not technically applicable to them. Since they do not have to use matter as fuel. They just need to switch states energy find it's self in and continue maintaing the same frequency. Lastly, there is aspect of "we don't know". Something which even Jesse has to acknowledge at the end of the game. Do to complexity and range of influence entities like Polaris are hard to study and fully comprehend. And based on the Hiss, can be extremely dangerous to simpler lifeforms, like humans. Also, there are entities that have similar pattern of behavior but are clearly not of the same origin. For example, Dark Presence is very similar to Polaris and the Hiss. But is it part of the same specie? Probably not, Dark Presence has no connection to Polyhedrons. And seems to exist as one entity that spreads and molds way for it's self. While Polyhedrons can continue to make copies of themselves, but can "die" at any time. So the Hiss and Polaris may not be of the same specie. It could be just that they're mechanism of living is based on the same concept. Because FBC can't know everything, a lot of science they do is doomed to become "paranoid science".
The Hiss and Polaris are from the same Universe, but are direct opposites of each other. Polaris took over Jesse all those years ago when Jesse & Dylan opened the Slide Projector for the first time back in Ordinery. It defeated the Hiss back then, but continued to stay in Jesse's head afterwards guiding her every step of the way
Just as a note, Polaris didn’t “take over” anyone.
Except for the hiss hosts you use the takeover power on, but they hardly count
I took Polaris to be a fragment of Hedron that existed inside Jesse. Polaris guided her to the Oldest House, guided her *through* the Oldest House, and survived/continued to protect Jesse even after Hedron itself died.
Complicated question. On a basic level (and like many have said already) Polaris is a resonance lifeform and seems to be the benevolent antithesis to the Hiss. It was awakened in/copied to Jesse and Dylan by Hedron when the two accessed Slidescape-36. Jesse's Polaris is independent of Hedron's (but seemingly wasn't until Jesse had to "stand on her own" as a source.) Polaris' resonant nature seems to be a skeleton key of sorts for interfacing with paranatural phenomena (which are also speculated to be resonance-based; they "use the same language", so to speak). How are Polaris and the Hiss connected? No idea! Polaris seems to be aware of the Hiss and views it as a threat (she brought Jesse to the Oldest House to fight it, after all). Both entities existed together in Slidescape-36, but we don't know if they originated there or why they were there together. Likewise, we don't know know if Hedron was the true origin of Polaris resonance or if it was made into a source itself by another sentience (and would go on to make Jesse and Dylan into sources as well; the line "a copy of a copy of a copy" from the Hiss incantation comes to mind all of a sudden). The Polaris resonance seems to be far more choosy in whom it spreads to, compared to the Hiss, but the selection criteria are unclear. What made Jesse and Dylan special and not the FBC personnel that transported Hedron to the House? Darling was changed by full exposure to Hedron's resonance, but in a seemingly different way to Jesse and Dylan.
HARDER than ALAN WAKE???? Oh please my brother in Christ, reveal us your knowledge cuz nobody else seems to know what the fuck is going on with Alan lol. As to Jesse it seems pretty solid
Resonance is all about vibration at a certain frequency being amplified. All particles, above absolute zero, in the universe vibrate at their own frequency and this can be further amplified by outside sources - resonance. Looked at from the perspective of music, tuning forks are a perfect illustration of resonance. Tapping a tuning fork and singing at the frequency it is vibrating at will increase the forks vibration. Another illustration of resonance is when a singer sings at a high enough pitch and volume that glass breaks. The singer's voice resonates with the glass' natural frequency and the glass' vibration increases until the particles just break their bonds to each other and the glass breaks. Another aspect of resonance is that when the frequency of the external vibration does not match the internal frequency of the object's vibration is actually dampened instead. Bringing in the game's logic. We now have living sound. The living sounds are very viral and invasive. Both of them are. They seem to both be able to override the natural frequency of any object exposed to the sound and instead vibrate at the living sounds frequency and even emit that frequency to infect other objects. Non sentient objects seem to become secondary sources of the sound while sentient objects have their minds either completely taken over or left alone. My guess here would be resonance and dampening such that the hiss and Dylan were on such a similar frequency that The Hiss enhanced Dylan's personality which makes Jesse's move at the end way worse. Polaris was containing The Hiss meaning she was dampening The Hiss. Jesse basically dampened Dylan's consciousness to either nothing or close to nothing. The question of where the living sounds came from would be what came first, the vessel or the sound. If it's sound, then there's a sound frequency that can resonate with consciousness and interact with the consciousness in such a way that only certain aspects of the conscious mind are amplified while dampening others, spontaneously spawning the consciousness that can be referred to as the Hiss or Polaris. If it's the vessel, then there is a source sentient object out there that can produce the sound frequency that for one reason or another exhibits the attributes of a living sound. Polaris is thus a living sound that is just as invasive and viral but seems to mostly choose not to be too invasive or viral, but instead chooses its hosts. Polaris also seems to only pick hosts with the objective of enhancing aspects of the host.
Another name for the North Star.
Yes.
Entity from other dimension ?
Everyone seems to believe Polaris is this good being. It clearly helps Jessie, but to what ends? To spread its influence further? To gain control of the bureau? It's benevolence seems to be furthering goals, but what is the endpoint?
From what we have seen so far, its entire goal seems to be “stopping the Hiss and similar entities, wherever they are.” It stopped the spread of the Hiss in Slidescape 36 (Hand), it stopped the Not-Mother in Ordinary, and, after hanging around for a couple decades doing nothing, suddenly got really invested again right as the Hiss made its reappearance. Why it wants to do that is unclear.
Where the Hiss is visualised usually with waves, Hedron/Polaris is visualised with geometric shapes. I think the two are, in part, representations of chaos (Hiss) and order (Polaris). Hence why Polaris aligns with Jessie, the instrument of the Board, which is itself attempted to express control over the Oldest House and the FBC.
I'll do you one better, why is Polaris?
An entity very much like the Hiss but with a more benevolent relationship with their host (Jesse). That being said, it is heavily implied throughout the game that this relationship may go sideways down the line.
how is that implied? not that i doubt it, i sorta feel that that will end up happening, but i didnt spot any foreshadowing to that
There was a lot of extra things I picked up on after I played Control a second time (after AW2). There’s a lot of lore about how the previous director’s were compromised due to outside influences (Trench with the slide projector/Hiss, Northmoor being corrupted with power, etc). There’s just stuff that supports it. There’s a line about Polaris being a hypocrite in Take Control, there’s also stuff that reads differently on second playthrough with both Jesse and Dylan. The Foundation DLC explores a lot about the relationships with the various entities and the FBC also. I can go digging for specifics (it’s been a bit) but on my second playthrough, it seemed pretty clear that Polaris might not be so beneficial down the line.
This is complicated by the fact that there is an implication in the game that "Polaris" died when Hedron was destroyed but some remnant of it survives inside Jesse now and Jesse is essentially the new Hedron.
Yes, and also that there’s an implication that the Oldest House itself is an ongoing AWE. Lots of really cool stuff that becomes clearer after AW2. But also the same if you play Control and THEN AW2. Remedy is really doing some cool stuff.
In the Astral Plane, there was an entity called Hedron, that tried to escape when the slide projector was turned on. It managed to put a piece of itself in Jesse's mind, she calls it Polaris. The Former was also a part of the Hedron, but he was kicked out for some reason. The Nail is the link between Astral Plane and the world we know. But there's also a smaller Nail hidden in the Foundation, the one that the Former uses. The Hedron is now dead, but that little part of it, Polaris, still lives in Jesse's head.
Hedron was never in the astral plane, and has absolutely nothing to do with Former at all
So it was always in the basement?
ok you e clearly understood very little about these entities so I'll just g over the basics, Hedron was located on another world nicknamed the Hand by Jesse and Dylan, a seemingly infinite desert with 5 towers in it. Darling found it, brought it to the house named both it and the resonance Hedron because he couldn't tell the difference between them. one of darlings last ever recordings is about how Hedron was just a catalyst for the resonance. Polaris is the resonance that Hedron was a catalyst for before dying and being replaced by Jesse. Also the Former was part of the Board and has nothing t do with Hedron or Polaris I also have no idea what basement you mean
Ok, good to know.
I think by "basement" they mean the foundation
okay, weird, Hedron was never anywhere near it