The Dead Space franchise is rife with sorrow, terror, and melancholy, making for a really captivating and immersive experience. If you do not care about these things, the setting includes hallucinations, ancient structures, hidden government machinations, cultist religions, and aliens, huge, terrible, grotesque aliens, to name a few.
The protagonist Isaac Clarke or one of the Markers, or objects that generate concentrated and focused electromagnetic radiation that modifies and reanimate dead tissue on a cellular level, resulting in Necromorphs, are usually the focus of the games. The main enemies are the Necromorphs. The words Necromorph come from the Greek words Nekro, which means dead, and Morph, which means shape.
These monsters seek to infect and attack anything that moves, with the goal of converting all living things to their kind. The complex narrative and range of Necromorphs, from small abominations to gigantic monstrosities, were the reasons why the Dead Space franchise caught the gaming world by storm.
Surprisingly, the Necromorphs have a lot in common with monsters from other movies and games, such as the Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise, John Carpenter’s The Thing, Leviathan’s creatures, and so on. The Necromorphs, like the Xenomorphs, travel through vents and hide from prey in order to execute a surprise attack.
Additionally, they are both parasitic in nature and have the same morph suffix. Both the Necromorphs and The Thing are parasites that reshape their hosts’ bodies and generate limbs and tentacles to battle.
The Necromorphs’ designs and shapes are enough for them to star as the main antagonists in any indie horror film, and it is safe to assume that they would have made the great late H.R. Giger proud. With the news that the Dead Space franchise is resurrecting, it is only right to get a quick rundown of what is occurring in the Dead Space Universe and learn everything we can about the Necromorphs! Let us get this party started, shall we?
Dead Space 1
The first Dead Space game was set in a futuristic world of 2508, a world that was on the verge of extinction due to the indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources. But as is the nature of humanity, it found a way around this near-extinction level threat by exploring the far reaches of outer space in ships called Planetcrackers to harvest extraterrestrial resources of different barren planets.
The first one of these Planetcrackers was called the USG Ishimura, which was carrying out an illegal mining project on a planet named Aegis VII. The backstory of the game reveals how an artificially created Red Marker was behind the issues that started to take place in the game.
You should know that an alien Black Marker was found on Earth in 2214, and the government wished to have it replicated so that it could be weaponized. But there were dealing with science and forced that they didn’t quite understand, and in the attempt to do replicate the Black Marker, humans created organisms that infected corpses and reanimated them into monstrous abominations called the Necromorphs.
The two key stakeholders in the franchise are the Earth’s government and the people who follow Unitology, a new religion that worshipped the Red Markers. This religious movement came up after Micheal Altman, the one who was contracted by the government to study the Black Marker.
Nevertheless, on Aegis VII, a few colonists discover a Red Marker kept hidden. But after the discovery of the Marker, several people, including the colonists and the crew of USG Ishimura, go through spells of hallucination and violent urges; this mental illness was ultimately followed by their transformation into Necromorphs.
Later, the authorities receive a distress signal, and an engineer named Isaac Clarke is sent on a maintenance ship named Kellion to investigate and repair USG Ishimura. Isaac would have to find a solution to this unseen and unimaginable Necromorph infestation on Aegis VII while dealing with the troubles of his missing wife.
Necromorphs- Creatures Worse Than And Beyond Death
As you already have a little idea, these creatures are nothing but reanimated corpses of humans and animals that were created because of a recombinant extraterrestrial infection. The resultant creatures are highly aggressive and attack anything that moves or any organism that is still alive and uninfected.
They have a single point agenda of acquiring more bodies to infect and convert so that the infection can reach all living organisms. While some believe that they are the heralds of humankind’s ascension, they are nothing but the result of exposure to the Markers and their enigmatic influence.
These Markers control the Necromorphs, but the Markers themselves are controlled by a group of extraordinarily huge entities called the Brethren Moon. These creatures are created when organisms of an entire planet get converted into Necromorphs, either through infection or death. On a new planet that the Necromorphs seek to ravage, their sole purpose is to infect every unfortunate organism so that a new Brethren Moon could be created.
Infection
As already discussed, Necromorphs come into existence due to Markers; these are double-helix-shaped structures that broadcast intense and concentrated electromagnetic signals that have the capability of altering any dead tissue at a cellular level. This transformation reanimates the dead tissues and the entirety of the dead organism into Necromorphs.
Furthermore, this signal also hampers the minds of intelligent and sentient life forms and results in mental disorders such as dementia or provoking homicidal and suicidal thoughts; this change of the mental and psychological state sets the stage for a Necromorph infection.
However, Markers are not the only source of infection, and it can take place by virtue of the Necromorph pathogens or the reanimated cells that were initially transformed because of the Markers. As it happens, the most common type of Necromorphs that spread the infection are Infectors and Swarms.
An Infector’s sole purpose is to spread the Necromorph infection: the infestation. It is typically formed of human legs and torso, while its wings are formed from the host’s skin, fused to the broken legs. The Infectors wrap the victim into their wings and extend the beak to stab it into the skull to finally inject a yellow fluid. Living beings are known to suffer from symptoms like catatonia, paralysis, impaired breathing, etc.
These symptoms are essentially mental and do not directly lead to death, but the victim becomes easier prey for the Necromorphs to hunt. Victims who happen to ingest Necromorph tissue undergo a gradual transformation and starve to death, eventually becoming Feeders. But it is important to note that the host organism or tissue has to be dead for the Necromorph pathogen to do its work.
After the host’s death, the recombinant properties of the infection come into action. The cellular functions go in what can be called a self-destruct overdrive, leading to the creation of new and strange biologically active compounds that serve as the energy storehouse of reanimated tissue and flesh for further mutations. This process is obnoxiously violent and equally quick.
It so happens that bones break and they are reshaped and reconfigured to give the undead organism an absolutely new and grotesque form. The entire process takes place within seconds in an exothermic reaction, producing huge amounts of heat. This heat often leads the organism’s blood to boil while it is still in the arteries and veins; this causes the skin to rupture.
Since the reanimated corpse doesn’t need organs, they are broken down and transformed into surplus musculature, which provides the Necromorph with additional physical strength. Because they don’t have to carry out vital biological processes like respiration and digestion, the Necromorphs become extremely hardy and can survive in extreme environments, including space. The lack of vascular activity can be explained by the fact that they don’t go through hemorrhaging when in space.
Physiology and Types
A newly formed and pure Necromorph tissue appears translucent and pink in color. These pink tissues can consume and reconstruct necrotic flesh, but when injected into a living organism’s bloodstream, they can convert living flesh into Necrotic flesh. Also, it is capable of independent movement and often sticks to surfaces.
The type of Necromorph that’s being created always depends on the location, circumstances, and size of the host. For instance, Lurkers are created from organs, human infants, dogs, etc., whereas Stalkers are created from human twins.
On the other hand, some Necromorphs like Brute, Graverobber, Tripod, etc., are created from more than one human; this indicates that Necromorphs are capable of recombination and body melding. The most powerful Necromorphs, however, are created when a Necromorph tissue is inserted into the brain of an intelligent life form.
A prime example of this sort of a Necromorph would be the Hunter, which was created by a crazy Unitologist named Dr. Charles Mercer. The Hunter was an artificially manufactured Regenerator type Necromorph. Unlike other usual Necromorphs, the Hunter had extensive regenerative capabilities and could regenerate severed limbs within a short span of time. Another such Necromorph was the Ubermorph.
Behavior
Necromorphs have a reputation of being mindless killing machines, but in reality, they are more intelligent than commonly perceived. They often display cooperative behavior and a tactical approach when going for a hunt. They often hunt in packs of mixed types and have quasi-specific roles, like stealth, ambush, etc.
This naturally requires a certain degree of strategic planning and thinking, something which would not be possible without communication and intelligence. From sneaking up on their prey and playing dead to making use of their numbers to outnumber a victim, they do it all. In this regard, Necromorphs are similar to the Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise because both the creatures use vents to travel and hide from prey to launch a surprise attack.
Furthermore, they both are parasitic in nature and share the same suffix of morph. They also have a collective intelligence that allows them to coordinate while attacking. It was initially believed that the nexus of this collective intelligence lay with powerful Necromorphs such as the Hive Mind, but now it is a well-known fact that the Brethren Moons control all Necromorphs from incredibly long distances.
When not engaged in hunting a live victim, the Necromorphs wander around aimlessly in search of new victims. If a target is at a location that is unreachable or when the target is at a considerable distance, the Necromorphs attempt to intimidate the victim by growling and howling. Beyond pack tactics, the creatures have never been observed to interact directly with one another, with the exception of Stalkers.
Having said that, Stalkers are known to have the most robust sense of pack cohesion and intelligence. In Dead Space 2, it was seen that one would peek around the corners to lure Isaac, and another would ambush from another direction, taking him by surprise. Furthermore, the Necromorphs called Fodders are known to carry and make use of melee weapons, this signals the fact that they might be evolving on a mental level.
Strategic Dismemberment
Various Necromorphs have various vulnerabilities and disabilities. Several combatants have perished only because they didn’t know the specific vulnerability of particular Necromorphs. While some wounds that may kill Necromorphs wouldn’t kill humans, there are other wounds that would definitely kill humans but not Necromorphs. For instance, a human can survive even if they lose all their limbs, but a Necromorph would not.
And while humans would die if their heads were severed, Necromorphs would survive. But as is the case with all organic systems, blood loss leads to death. Even Necromorphs ultimately become lifeless when enough blood is spilled by amputation of all limbs and head. This can also be achieved by shooting relentlessly at the torso, but this consumes a great deal of ammo.
Another effective way of slaying one of these creatures is through burning them because burns change the tissue structure of the organism. In this regard, they share an uncanny resemblance with the creature from John Carpenter’s The Thing. Both the Necromorphs and The Thing effectively die through incineration, and both are parasites that mold the host’s body and develop appendages and tentacles to fight. In fact, this parallel deepens in Dead Space 3, in which the setting is that of a frozen, icy planet just like the setting of The Thing.
If it’s a Guardian that you are facing, use only long-range or medium-range weapons like explosive canisters, etc., instead of short-range weapons. In the case of Leapers, it is wise to cut off its arm and then shoot the head. Simply cutting an arm will take away its ability to run, but it can still leap towards the prey. The best way to kill one that is Pregnant is to shoot the shoulders as it doesn’t involve bursting the sac. However, slashing off the two blades pretty much does the trick.
Origin Of the Necromorphs – The Prequel Story – Explained
The comics are set in 2508, centuries after humanity managed to narrowly evade extinction caused due to indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources. We started to gather resources from uninhabited planets by cracking them in three years using ships called the planet crackers.
This story takes place in the second year of the mining operation on a planet named Aegis VII. The colonists and miners discovered a large monolith, which was later identified as a Red Marker, an object that was of theological importance to the Unitologists. However, the Red Marker was an artificial copy of an original alien Black Marker.
The discovery of the Marker was soon followed by the destruction of the colony by reanimated and mutated corpses. If you wish for us to deep dive into this comic in another video, please feel free to let us know in the comments.
Deadspace Downfall (Animated Film)
The film is set after the events of the comics and before the events of the 2008 game. It opens with a video message from the security chief called Alissa Vincent, in which she says that USG Ishimura was lost and that both the Marker and the ship needed to be destroyed. The story picks up from the discovery of the Marker in the comics in an area that had shreds of evidence of ancient human mining.
Later the Planet Cracker Ishimura arrives, but by now, the colony on Aegis VII has suffered from catastrophic changes with several deaths and cases of violent psychosis. Soon, the Marker is brought aboard the ship under the command of Captain Matthius and Dr. Kyne. This led many of the Unitologist crew members of the ship to worship the Marker, including one Samuel Irons, an engineer.
However, Alissa Vincent is angered by the decision to bring the Marker on board because she believes that it was the reason why the colony tore apart. But it’s too late because Necromorphs are overrunning the place in great numbers and violent forms. Vincent then takes her sis-member team to investigate a disturbance, only to find that the Necromorphs are killing people to take over the ship.
But Necromorphs are not the only problem because Alissa’s own team members have started to grow insane and kill one another. One of the crew people attempted to crash the Ishimura into Aegis VII, but that attempt was somehow thwarted. In the end, Alissa Vincent only manages to make the video message and send a distress signal which was received by the maintenance ship Kellion.
Dead Space: Aftermath (Animated Film)
This film is set after the events of Dead Space 1 and serves as a prequel to the second installment of the survival horror franchise. In Aftermath, we follow the accounts of four survivors from the ship USG O’Bannon that was sent to investigate the mysterious events on Aegis VII.
After EarthGov loses contact with O’Bannon, EarthGov sends another ship to investigate and bring back the survivors, which included chief medical officer Isabella Cho, chief science officer Nolan Stross, engineer Alejandro Borgas, and security officer Nicholas Kuttner. It was on route to the EarthGov base called Titan Sprawl that these four survivors gave their accounts and described their horrific experiences.
Kuttner’s team was tasked with fixing the failing gravity on the facility, but they found fragments of the Marker, which would have sold at a terribly high price to the right buyer. However, upon touching the piece of the Marker, Kuttner suffered from a psychotic episode and damaged the device that was supposed to stabilize gravity, but he was soon restrained. After narrating this, Kuttner escaped but only suffered from another hallucination that caused him to go into the vacuum of space and die.
On the other hand, Borgas’s story revealed that the team failed at fixing the gravity stabilizer and was forced to abandon Aegis VII. Subsequently, Aegis VII was destroyed, and several members gave up their lives in the resultant damage. Interestingly enough, Borgas knows too much about the Marker and gets killed by the government agents after his interrogation. As for Stross, he reveals that his mind has been taken over by the Marker while he was researching the Marker’s effects on corpses and carcasses.
He unknowingly unleashed a Necromorph infestation on the ship O’Bannon. When Stross came back to his senses, he left to save his family, but there he suffered from another violent hallucination and killed them instead. Because of the Marker’s impact on his mind, Stross is kept alive.
The most interesting of these was Cho’s accounts, which revealed that she was the one who freed Kuttner from his restraints to help her fight the Necromorphs. She partnered with Borgas and Stross, who then decided to throw the piece of Marker into the ship’s drive in order to jump-start the ship and simultaneously destroy the Marker.
When the four made it to the drive room, they realized that they were the only survivors of the Necromorph infestation, and although they managed to destroy the Necromorphs, the ship remained stranded in the middle of nowhere.
At the Titan Sprawl, she realizes that EarthGov plans to recreate a Marker and refuses to join them in doing so. Naturally, she is lobotomized and framed for being the terrorist that brought about the catastrophe on Aegis VII, USG Ishimura, and O’Bannon. Meanwhile, Stross is kept in an asylum with Isaac.
Dead Space Martyr (Novel)
This novel is set in the year 2214 and hence serves as a prequel to the franchise. It details how humanity discovered the first Black Marker, an object that has the capacity to produce limitless energy, but at the same time, its power leads people to grow psychotic and reanimate corpses called Necromorphs.
The storyline essentially follows how Unitology was born and what was the role of geophysicist Michael Altman, who was first hired to study the Marker but ended up unwillingly founding the religion of Unitology, that worshipped the Markers. The Dead Space franchise wanted to convert the games into a trans-media franchise because the games were a hit, and they wanted to ride the commercial high tides.
Dead Space Martyr was a result of this move and focused on one of the core aspects of the game, i.e., Unitilogy. Unitology was initially supposed to be a religion that focused on the representation of irrational thoughts and actions that were prompted by the unknown, but it was also supposed to ask its followers to look for simple answers and solutions in a complex world.
Altman proved himself to be an unremarkable man who could do wonders when put in a difficult situation. There was also a second prequel novel named Dead Space Catalyst, which dealt with the period in which authorities were experimenting with the Markers.
Deadspace Remake On The Verge!
While fans would be a bit disheartened to know that the Dead Space remake has been pushed for a release in the latter part of 2022, there are some exciting new details around the game. Firstly, Isaac Clarke would speak in the original game’s remake instead of being a silent protagonist, and Gunner Wright would voice him in the way a polite Victorian child would speak. Moreover, this time around, dismember is not going to be easy, but it is going to be more detailed, convincing, and realistic.
With the recent innovations in simulated limb severing tech, one will be able to see flesh getting ripped apart and gauge the level of damage done. Dead Space games are not aptly credited for having diversity in weaponry, and with the new game, we hope that problem will get fixed. Furthermore, the remake will let the player actually float instead of hop around. It only makes sense because the games are essentially set in zero gravity.
As far as the story is concerned, EA and Motive would largely stick to the source material and the universe set by the games, comics, etc. However, they would positively enrich the lore and make the remake fit perfectly in this broadened universe. This is definitely a welcome move because the original story was simply iconic.