Dead Space and Conflict — Part One — Nature and Technology

13 min readDec 10, 2022

All stories need conflict. If Frodo could just waltz into Mordor and huck the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, then there would be no Lord of the Rings. Video game narratives operate similarly, often necessitated by their design as games: what challenges players between the title screen and the end credits? Sometimes, it’s the literal, exterior forces standing in the way: Orcs of Middle Earth, Moblins, or Koopa Troopas. Other times, it’s internal: a schism between beliefs and philosophies, or a battle against one’s own mind, seen more and more prevalently as the narrative evolves and changes. Conflict’s primary purpose, no matter the form, is simple: to add uncertainty as to whether a character’s goal will be achieved.

Conflict is what drives the Dead Space (2008–2013) series, in more varied ways than many other series I can consider. It approaches conflict in a number of concrete ways, but begs, with each entry, to frame those same forces a little differently.

Let’s start with the first entry, Dead Space (2008). Players control engineer Isaac Clarke, responding with a small crew to a communications blackout on the USG Ishimura, a large-scale mining and “planetcracking” vessel over the planet Aegis VII. Isaac’s girlfriend, Nicole, is also aboard the Ishimura, so Isaac has a personal stake in the mission, as well. The routine operation quickly takes a turn for the worse, as horrifying, twisted creatures, dubbed “Necromorphs,” attack and scatter the responding crew. Their arrival craft is quickly destroyed, and the experience becomes a fight for survival, both against the might of the Necromorphs and the indifference of space. As such, consider the main conflicts as Against Nature and Against Technology.

Complete story spoilers for Dead Space to follow.

Nature’s Wrath, Technology’s Bane

“Nature,” in the case of Dead Space, is somewhat dependent on what players know, based on what information the game presents in its narrative. Based on what’s presented to players, the Necromorph invasion can be seen as a force of nature, propagated by the influence of the Marker found on Aegis VII. Kendra, one of the non-player characters in the game, describes the creatures as “Bio-recombinators.”

“They take dead tissue, absorb it, and mold it into new forms. One iteration seems to have the sole purpose of infecting corpses. The others…well, seem to be making corpses to infect.”

The Necromorphs in Dead Space are an embodiment of nature the same way any animal in the wild is: they seek to survive, and to survive means propagation by whatever means. They are not malicious, necessarily (no matter what vibes the shrieking and stabbing give off), they simply seek to exist. They are existing in the only way they know how, which, by their very nature, puts them in conflict with our protagonist. The Necromorph seeks to multiply by making corpses to infect, so it strives to make a corpse out of Isaac. Isaac is in conflict with this: if he dies, then he experiences a notably horrible death and cannot help Nicole. So, he survives, so as to avoid pain (the human experience, amirite?), find Nicole to ensure her safety, and escape to live out his life.

But the Necromorphs do not have any moral quandaries about the pursuits of others. Screams and protests do nothing to deter them. They are an infection that seeks to spread, like a virus. They are either so far below people that they are truly so one-track minded as to spread, or so far beyond people as to seek complete assimilation with other lifeforms. Neither is less terrifying to consider.

Additionally, the vacuum of space surrounding the USG Ishimura can also be considered the ultimate force of Nature; asteroids, zero-gravity regions, a pocket of breathable air amidst a vast, vacuous void, all things that simply are, but are also a massive threat to human survival, given the circumstances. Most of the Dead Space experience is trying to escape this bubble in the middle of space and trying to keep it from popping in the meantime: prevent asteroids from shredding the hull, ensure oxygen can filter throughout the ship, open up a communications relay for an SOS broadcast. The Necromorphs can be seen as the primary, short-term source of conflict (what with their bladed limbs and penchant for running at you all willy-nilly), but the threat of space, the overall need to survive is the long-term conflict. You could be the most crack-shot Space Engineer this side of the cosmos, but even you have a limited oxygen reserve if the hull gets ripped up.

Space is a different beast of Nature. Whereas humanity has adapted and come up with ways and methods to survive (for a time) in almost every Earthen biome, from harsh deserts to dense forests, space just is. Without advanced tools and equipment, it is physically impossible for a human to live for long in space. The threat here is not simply death, but the absence of safety. Shelter can be constructed in the wild, but not on an isolated bubble in space; the shelter is already constructed and launched, and nothing can help you if it buckles too far against the indifferent machinations of space.

Technology’s Bane

On either side of Dead Space’s conflict lies the natural: fleshy, stabby Necromorphs, and the cold, empty vacuum of space. In the middle, swinging back and forth between those polarities, is the conflict with Technology.

Consider the USG Ishimura again, that bubble within the vastness of space. While it is threatened by complete destruction and breakdown multiple times, what’s fascinating is watching its small-scale breakdowns as a result of technology, both as designed and as it breaks down. The ship uses Gravity Panels to maintain the artificial gravity in space; as the Necromorph invasion spreads, those elements of the ship start failing, and all parties (human and Necromorph alike) can accidentally walk into a malfunctioning panel and be violently thrown into the ceiling. A simple feature that gives the crew a sense of mundane normalcy becomes one of its most dangerous elements when tampered with. In this sense, the vessel becomes more unregulated: technology is still doing something by its design, but it now comes into conflict with Isaac’s survival.

Famously among players, the USG Ishimura is equipped with quarantine lockdown sequences: when certain rooms in the ship detect foreign matter (like Necromorphs), they go into a total lockdown until the issue is addressed and disposed of. This, naturally, locks players in a confined space with waves of Necromorphs bearing down on them from all angles, sirens blaring and alarm lights flashing. While an effective feature in theory, the very feature designed to keep people safe ends up doing potentially fatal harm. No matter how many times I play Dead Space, I always end up feeling most tense in locked-room situations: a fatal flaw of the ships design, and a direct conflict with Technology.

Science and technology also pave the way for Necromorph-based issues. The recurring antagonist, Dr. Challus Mercer, has been researching the Necromorphs and created one of his very own: The Hunter, a marriage of the horrifying natural when prodded with just enough unfettered science.

While exceedingly strong on its own, the Hunter’s main boon is its ability to regenerate lost limbs, throwing a massive wrench in the tried-and-true method of survival: cutting off the limbs of Necromorphs. It takes unconventional methods to even temporarily slow the hunter, and an entire shuttle rocket to actually kill it.

The “rescue” ship encountered in the later chapters, the USM Valor, is also chock full of shocktroopers, all outfitted with in-suit Stasis-modules. Stasis modules, in-game, allow for users to produce small-scale time dilations, forcing objects and organic creatures to move at a decelerated rate (from the user’s perspective) for an amount of time. When Necromorphs assimilated into the shocktroopers, they assimilated with the Stasis modules, granting them the perspective of everything moving at a decelerated pace. From Isaac’s perspective, they fly around the room and rush him at breakneck speed, and are easily one of the most terrifying elements in the game.

Technology, for all that it’s designed to make human living easier and more efficient, is at some of its narrative best when its design goes awry, or when it’s used in some unexpected and terrifying way.

Controlling the Uncontrollable

Horror games excel by making players feel trapped with the horror elements, be it due to infrastructure (you’re in a building and can’t escape), geography (you’re in the middle of nowhere, so the only way out is through), or circumstance (my lover is trapped and needs saving!). Dead Space somehow capitalizes on all three of them, all at once, all throughout the experience. Isaac’s struggle revolves around being trapped in and trying to survive in a hostile world, against hostile creatures, trying to make that hostile world more survivable, even just for a little while. But something always snowballs and goes wrong: more Necromorphs show up after he’s killed a bunch; another system on the Ishimura is failing. Isaac is in a constant state of slapping bandages on various problems, unable to get the ship operational long-term. His lot is to maintain some level of control over the uncontrollable, putting him in conflict with Nature and Technology throughout.

Given the circumstances, the USG Ishimura is going to keep breaking down. Even if Isaac flushes out one major problem, another will crop up in time. Everything that Isaac encounters took a mere forty-eight hours to manifest, and he is only one person in a massive vessel. Systems were bound to continue failing, if only for the sheer rate of reproduction the Necromorphs are capable of. Complete breakdown was inevitable, if not for Isaac ultimately escaping the doomed craft.

On the Necromorph side, there is no reasoning with or controlling the Necromorphs at this stage: they are single-minded, and are far beyond or well beneath the needs of humanity. It twists and corrupts what humans have normalized, both physically and mentally, scarring and destroying people both directly and psychologically. The Necromorph organism is a force of nature, plain and simple. Thinking that anyone is capable of stopping, containing, or controlling nature in the long-term is a fool’s errand. Nature always wins out, because nature simply is. If it can’t overcome its obstacle, it can almost always outlast it. And as finite as our human lives are, individually and on the grand scale of existence, that might be among the most terrifying thing of all.

Hubris and Humanity

At the center of the Dead Space narrative is the Marker: a twisting structure chiseled with markings and glyphs, completely alien in its design and language. It is at the epicenter of the Unitology faith in human space: a religion that espouses tenets of transformation and rebirth, all while calling for the abandonment of reason and unwavering faith in its followers. The Markers, according to Unitology, were the sacred catalyst that would reunify humanity with their divine alien creators after death.

Objectively-speaking, the Marker has the capacity to influence the minds of those around it, to a great distance: its effects could be felt throughout the surface colony on Aegis VII, and throughout the USG Ishimura when it was brought onboard. On the surface, it triggered myriad responses in people: some became highly depressed and began suffering from dementia and insomnia, while others grew manic and paranoid, performing gruesome acts of mutilation, both to others and themselves: the first wave of preparation for new Necromorph hosts. From Dr. Mercer:

“Do not abandon your faith! What’s happening on the colony is not a tragedy. It is God’s work! The truth is even more fantastic! On the planet below us, we have found a Marker! Can’t you see, God’s plan is unfolding, and we are its inheritors! We will ascend, as we always knew we would! UNITOLOGY IS TRUTH! And your death is the first phase of this transformation. Do not be deterred by the physical methods of transformation. Soon, you will be beyond any physical concerns! You must have faith in the process. Where are you going? You fools! This is what we’ve been searching for all these years! This is what we have been waiting for.”

Others, like Isaac, would see images and hallucinations of loved ones, guiding them towards specific actions or paths. All of those are terrifying in their own right, but perhaps more terrifying is its origin. But perhaps the most terrifying is that the threat is not nearly as alien as we would want to believe. Again, from Kendra:

“The Marker? This divine relic? Made by man. They reverse-engineered it a couple of hundred years ago from the real Marker, a true alien artifact recovered on Earth. They dug it up, studied it, and made it their own. Then they brought it to Aegis VII and activated it. And you’ve seen the result. The stuff of nightmares.”

Research on the original Marker was with the intent to discover a source of renewable energy. Its intent may have been noble to begin with, but it quickly devolved into a thing of blind faith and fanaticism. People studied the Marker, created duplicates, and scattered them throughout space. All this after having seen the results of the Marker’s influence: the Necromorphs. In this case, the hubris of humanity is the source of natural conflict. Whether they pursued it out of scientific curiosity, or a faith-driven crusade, or some unholy blend of the two, humanity’s stance that they had a modicum of control over the Marker proved to be their undoing on Aegis VII.

Even though those same people may have been acting in accordance with the Marker’s influence, the Marker knew how to influence them, how to make them think it was their idea, a good idea. The Marker operates far beyond human comprehension: a force of nature that sees humanity as a blip, a resource to be influenced and, in time, assimilated. It is a creation of technology, a manmade force of nature.

Forces Beyond Our Comprehension

“Geomythology,” according to Dorothy Vitaliano, who coined the phrase, is “the study of the actual geologic origins of natural phenomena which were long explained in terms of myth and folklore.” “Man,” Vitaliano continues in a separate study, has always sought to explain his natural environment.” Natural, earthen structures were given form by deities, or giant animals; lightning and thunderstorms were associated with Thunderbirds and Gods of Thunder; a giant catfish was responsible for earthquakes. Perceiving the natural as divine traces back as far as humanity has believed in higher powers. But science has shown, across the board, that there are logical explanations for all of these things.

Even the Marker, even the Necromorph contagion. Unitology explains the transformation as the process of unification, of life after death, but it’s far simpler than that. It’s just the natural order at work: The Marker seeks to spread its influence, and so it does; Necromorphs seek to make more of themselves, and so they do; the most devout Unitologists believe this to be way to salvation, and so they perpetuate the process.

Perhaps most telling, though, is humanity’s perspective on nature as a source of conflict to begin with. If it stands against humanity, even passively, it is opposition. When a hurricane crashes inland, when a natural fire rages out of control, when an earthquake rocks an area, it’s a hazard. It simply is. It only becomes a disaster “is when a natural hazard meets a human population.”

Nature is, thinking long-term, unstoppable. It is a force that can outlast anything that stands against it, capitalizing on the one thing humans lack: time. Even if Isaac succeeds on the Ishimura and Aegis VII, even if he stops this onslaught, prevents additional destruction here, there are still other Markers in the universe. They will wait. The Marker, and the Necromorph contagion, only became an issue because there were humans around to tamper with it. No humans, no hosts to influence and infect, no Necromorphs. But perhaps it always knew in some deep, old way: for as long as it was buried underneath the Earth, something would eventually evolve to try and comprehend it. And so, it waited, simply because it could. That is the core of Conflict with Nature, and that is why Dead Space is as terrifying as it is.

Conclusion

Conflicts with both Nature and Technology are integral to the story in this first installment, and in the rest of the series, but once they’re established, they can take a back seat to other, more personal forms of conflict. Next, in Dead Space 2 (2011): Conflict with Society and Conflict with Self, or “Men will literally hallucinate-fight their dead girlfriend for years instead of go to therapy.”