Bags of Manchurian Gold
| “ | All that glisters is not gold; often have you heard that told.
|
” |
– The Curator, hinting on the nature of the Manchurian Gold. | ||
Manchurian Gold is the main force behind the horrors in The Dark Pictures Anthology's first installment, Man of Medan.
Overview[]
Creation[]
Manchurian Gold is the name of an extremely hazardous chemical bio-weapon. In the game, it is depicted as a yellow-green translucent mist, although in its true form it is crystallized and looks like a powder. It was developed by the United States military in the 1940s, in the aftermath of World War II, as a potential weapon for use against enemy forces in future conflicts. The chemical is so named because it was created in Manchuria, China.
The existence of the chemical is top secret and was made at the chemical weapons facility disguised as a water purification plant. Even during the transportation of the chemical on Ourang Medan, almost the entire crew had no idea what kind of cargo they were transporting. This secret continues to be hidden even after 72 years, as the military will shoot the surviving characters if they learned the name of the ship.
Effects[]
Through numerous tests on human subjects, it was revealed that Manchurian Gold is capable of causing severe hallucinations in the victim, often causing them to see other people and objects as supernatural beings and with prolonged exposure causes a heart attack, leaving fearful grimaces on some victims. Also, the effect persisted for a long time even while in the air. Knowing about this property, the military wanted to deploy the chemical in dense enemy territory like trenches and bunk houses to cause the opposing infantry to effectively be scared into killing each other.
However, the main problem of Manchurian Gold was its instability - even with the slightest interaction with water and electricity, the chemical begins to quickly evaporate and uncontrollably spread. The military also had yet to devise a way of deploying the weapon with the accuracy needed to avoid intoxicating their own troops at the same time. However, they couldn't come up with a suitable solution to the problem and simply used gas masks.
Weaknesses[]
When the Manchurian Gold was first released onto SS Ourang Medan, its effects were extremely powerful and resulted in the death of the entire crew as well as the crash of the B-29 rescue plane. Even after 72 years, Manchurian Gold hasn't eroded and continued to be on the ship. Despite this, its effect is noticeably weakened, since the characters began to experience hallucinations after 40 minutes on the ship. Also, in order to disperse the gas, intoxicated person must breathe clean air for at least a couple of seconds to wear it off, either by going to a place with fresh air or by using filters.
Moreover, the longer the person breathes the chemical, the longer the hallucination dissipation time will be (Brad hallucinates in 2:32 AM and dissipates the gas in 2:48 AM, breathing filtered air for 2-3 seconds; Conrad hallucinates in 1:43 AM and dissipates the gas in 2:44 AM after breathing fresh air for about 15-20 seconds).
Man of Medan[]
1947[]
Manchurian Gold's box being broken by lightning.
In 1947, the Ourang Medan was tasked with transporting the Manchurian Gold from China to San Francisco through an unorthodox shipping route to avoid detection. However, after the ship briefly stopped to investigate a potential man overboard, a freak lightning strike from a storm caused the seals of the containers for the chemical to rupture and subsequently be exposed to both sea water and the electricity from the lightning.
The mist byproduct of the agent was dispersed throughout the ship and the effects rapidly set in, forcing the entire crew of the ship to kill each other through their hallucinations or die from stress-related heart attacks. After numerous attempts at a distress call failed, later attempts to salvage the ship by military rescue plane were unsuccessful when the aircraft was shot down by a hallucinating survivor.
2019[]
Manchurian Gold affects Fliss, making her see the ballroom instead of Cargo Hold 2.
Many years later, a group consisting of Alex, Brad, Conrad, Fliss, and Julia discover an airplane wreck and found a document about Manchurian Gold with attached coordinates. When they were captured by three pirates, they found the document and, thinking that the Manchurian Gold is some sort of sunken treasure, they sailed along the coordinates. However, the chemical mist hadn't dispersed in the seventy years since the containment leak, so when the group found the wreck of Ourang Medan and boarded, they soon began to hallucinate.
While fleeting glimpses and silhouettes of ghosts, sounds of an unknown origin, or other phenomena are common, the hallucinations caused by Manchurian Gold manifest primarily from a character's recent memories or actions. Depending on certain choices made throughout the game, some main characters can be subjected to the effects of Manchurian Gold in numerous ways that imply the supposedly supernatural forces on board the Ourang Medan aren't what they appear to be.
The characters who survive their ordeal can either leave the Ourang Medan without discovering the true nature of Manchurian Gold or can deduce what happened to the original crew through numerous secrets left behind to discover. If the survivors are able to contact a military station for help and also discover the ship's name, the US military will either arrest or kill them for discovering the wreck, implying that the modern day forces are aware of Manchurian Gold's existence and carefully try to hide it from the world.
Trivia[]
- The true nature of Manchurian Gold can be hinted at much earlier than the collectible secrets allow. The Curator, when offering one of his hints on future events after Act 1, implores the player that "all that glisters is not gold".
- In the game, Manchurian Gold began to spread when lightning directly struck it. However, in the comic, the chemical began to spread when the wires broke and hit a puddle through which the electricity hit the cargo.
- Manchurian Gold is similar to the saliva of the vampires, the antagonists from House of Ashes, as they both cause hallucinations and panic attacks in victims.
- Manchurian Gold may be based on one of the theories of the crew's death on the real SS Ourang Medan - according to it, sea water entered the ship's hold and reacted with the chemical cargo, releasing toxic gas from which the crew died.