I have put the narrative into chapters if you are only curious about particular elements of the story.

Please bear in mind that my interpretation is down to information I have extracted from written and recorded sources from within the game plus a lot of my own speculation and thinking. As you will see there are some elements that I still do not fully understand but I have explained everything and linked everything together as simply and effectively as possible.
It goes without saying that this does contain heavy spoilers for the plot of the game so I implore that you look at this only when you have completed the game!

Enjoy what I have written, and feel free to add things that I have missed and or correct things that I have misunderstood. Thank you.

The war did not end in 1945. In this version of events, ♥♥♥♥ Germany had conquered Europe and North Africa with ease and without any organised attempt by their enemies to stop them, their military occupation withstood for many years. In the early 1940's, the German High Command was already considering the military application of nuclear power long before their adversaries. The United States’ lend-lease program extended to the Soviet Union in 1944 but it did little to stop the German war machine as it captures Moscow in 1948 and, with the death of Stalin only a few weeks later, a German victory in the war was on the horizon. The Allies did not form until the early 1950’s when American neutrality finally came to an end and the Soviet Union was able to turn the tide of war and push the Germans out of its territory. The Polish underground resistance aided Russia as its armies marched through ♥♥♥♥-occupied Poland, with their enemies closing in, the Germans realised the situation was becoming extremely dire. By the early 1950’s, the ♥♥♥♥’s were prioritising their resources to the rapid production of nuclear weapons and had orchestrated two plans to ensure the victory of the Reich. The first was to detonate nuclear weapons on top of the enemy nations to neutralise them completely, but if this was not achievable then the second plan was to detonate nuclear weapons all across Germany and occupied-Europe in order to disable the Allied military advance, but this would effectively turn Europe into an apocalyptic wasteland. This second plan was exactly what transpired in 1960, effectively ending the war through total atomic annihilation. From the Allied perspective it can be seen like this plan was a ♥♥♥♥ suicide pact, a way to avoid surrender and escape punishment for their war crimes. They likely thought that by fulfilling this plan the ♥♥♥♥'s ensured their own destruction, but that was not the case.

The game tells us that in 1949 there were discussions among the upper echelons of the ♥♥♥♥ party that the tide of the war was changing. The Soviets were pushing them back and American neutrality seemed to be coming to an end. As already mentioned they came up with two plans involving nuclear weapons, however what I did not mention was that the second plan involved much more than just damning Europe to atomic annihilation. Some time around the late 1940’s, the ♥♥♥♥’s came up with a contingency plan they called ‘Operation Submergence’ which had three phases. The basic idea was that the Germans would build a series of extremely large and sophisticated nuclear bunkers, in Germany and in other occupied territory, that would serve as large underground cities that would house a sizeable population of citizens and allow them to live there comfortably for around 15+ years. These bunkers would have administrative offices, scrapyards, workshops, forges, factories, houses, parks, medical wings, laboratories, farms, hydroponics, entertainment facilities, schools, libraries etcetera. The goal would be for the ♥♥♥♥’s to round up a whole bunch of loyal Aryan peoples with a diverse range of skills and occupations to allow the bunker colony to function for a long period of time. So, If the first phase was to build the underground cities, and the second phase was to have those bunkers function for 15+ years in the case of nuclear detonation then what was the third phase? Well, the ♥♥♥♥’s wanted the bunkers to fulfil an additional duty as part of Operation Submergence. The scientists, engineers and mathematicians were told that over the course of the 15+ years in the bunker they were to research and develop more advanced weapons, tools and armour, and the military personnel were instructed to train the bunker population into a skilled German army division. The goal was that by the time the bunker colonists re-emerged to the surface, these new German army divisions equipped with new advanced weapons and armaments would be able to win the ‘ultimate battle’ against enemy occupiers and rebuild the Third Reich from the ashes of the nuclear wasteland. Spoiler alert, in the case of the bunker in Paradise Lost, this plan does not come to fruition.

Paradise Lost focuses on the Gesellschaft bunker which was built on the outskirts of Kraków, Poland. As far as the game tells us, this bunker was of particular importance because it was built before the conception of Operation Submergence for other purposes. According to documentation, in 1953, computer engineer Kurt Hartmann receives an award for the development of the E.V.E program in Gesellschaft (a program that has been in development since the early 1940’s). The program saw the development of a sophisticated computer system with a computing power that was 50,000x greater than the American ENIAC. The system was built with an outlet whereby someone could physically connect themselves to it. The program would use a neural communication system which connects to the hippocampus in the brain and would, in theory, help to unlock unused parts of the brain. The system would in turn, extract information from the host to further develop its own form of ‘artificial intelligence’. Its not massively clear what the ♥♥♥♥’s purpose was for this program but it can be assumed it was to serve some nefarious purpose for ensuring victory for the Third Reich. However, before that, the program would be hooked up to all systems within the bunker and thus when a person or ‘host’ was hooked up to it, it would be incredibly easy to process information and control everything that is going on in Gesellschaft. It worked most effectively when the ‘connected host’ (otherwise known as the ‘bio-component’) worked together with a secondary non-connected host who operates one of the many terminals throughout the bunker. The E.V.E is at the centre of everything that happens in the story of Paradise Lost.

Another important part of the E.V.E program, is a ♥♥♥♥ initiative called the ‘Quelle der intelligenz’ program (‘Source of Information’). For me personally, it took a lot of thinking to truly understand what the point of this program was. Sometime in the 1940’s, the ♥♥♥♥’s had created a large secret facility in Gesellschaft which acted as a prison, a hospital and a school/nursery all in one. Documents from Heinrich Himmler state that the bunker would receive shipments of non-Aryan fertile Slavic women, as well as a large supply of non-Aryan Slavic male semen. The women were taken to this facility and despite the cleanliness and modernisation of the facility what they would not realise is that they were being subjected to a program where they would be artificially inseminated and would systematically produce non-Aryan children. Those children would be separated into different roles based on intelligence, and they would be schooled and indoctrinated within this facility. This all begs the question, what was the purpose of this horrific program? Before I realised the women and children involved were Slavic and therefore ‘non-Aryan’ according to ♥♥♥♥ ‘master race’ ideology, I assumed it was a facility that would raise and indoctrinate ‘Aryan’ Germans who would serve as the future citizens of the Third Reich. Depending on where you go in the game you may miss documents explaining this completely but the purpose of this program was to create non-Aryan intellectual specimens who could act as bio-components or ‘sources of information’ for the E.V.E program. As it turns out, the younger the ‘bio-component’, the better control and functionality they have over the E.V.E program. However, according to ♥♥♥♥ test results from 1954, if you are hooked up to the program for an extended period of time (around four months) the system starts to damage your hippocampus due to the stress caused by rapid flow of information and stimulation of electrical impulses. In short, it destroys your brain functions which would eventually put you in a vegetative state. Any Slavic child that ends up in this state is subjected to ‘special treatment’, meaning they are euthanised, buried and forgotten. I do not understand all the details but the ♥♥♥♥’s were experimenting with the ability to create artificial intelligence by allowing the system to extract and process information from the bio-components. The Slavic children created in the Quelle der intelligenz program were just test subjects for the program to feed on. What the ♥♥♥♥’s couldn’t figure out is how to stop the rapid degradation of the bio-components brain.

Just as a side note, any Slavic children in the QDI program that had ‘Aryan’ features were handed over to German families. Those who were found not intelligent enough for the program were subjected to field work or factory labour, jobs that were expected from those who were not Aryan.

It was a lot to cover but now that everything involving the ♥♥♥♥’s and its plans and programs have been covered we can now move on to the next part of the story. As already said, in May 1960, nuclear detonation commenced and Europe was plunged into an apocalyptic wasteland, just before that the bunkers involved in Operation Submergence were filled up with skilled German ‘colonists’, which of course includes Gesellschaft. What the ♥♥♥♥’s did not know, was that along with their Aryan colonists, Gesellschaft was infiltrated by agents of the Polish underground resistance. Phase 2 of Operation Submergence barely got off the ground as not long after the colonists settled into the bunker, the Polish underground resistance forces launched an attack against the ♥♥♥♥ occupiers in an event that became known as the ‘battle of the bunker’. The two most significant figures within this resistance force was Dominika Wasiewicz, who was second officer in command of the unit, and Lucjan Kolenda who was a Polish scientist collaborating with the resistance.

During the battle, the ♥♥♥♥’s used the E.V.E program to initiate defence and strategic measures to beat the Polish resistance forces, the AI calculated a strategy that involved moving German citizens away from the battle so they would not interfere with the ♥♥♥♥ counterattack. The host initiated the strategy but what they did not know is that the AI made a mistake and sealed all these citizens inside an unventilated hangar which caused them all to suffocate. There were two parts to the Polish attack, the main battle took place on the second floor but Lucjan and Dominika’s team infiltrated the fourth floor which is where the laboratories and the E.V.E programs main core was located. On the fourth floor, Dominika kills Obengruppenfuhrer Wilhelm Sonnenbruch who was acting as the secondary, non-connected host of the E.V.E program. Lucjan takes over and attempts to override the system (He already has prior knowledge of how to operate the program) and becomes impressed by just how sophisticated the program is. He manages to take control and rewrites the defence protocol so that the system identifies the ♥♥♥♥ occupiers as the intruders and uses one of the offensive strategies that the AI in the system calculates to defeat the ♥♥♥♥’s and ensure their victory. After the Polish resistance forces won the battle, it is implied that the German citizens were beyond saving due to the tragic evacuation plan that the E.V.E program created. However, they could still go to the ‘Quelle der Intelligenz’ facility and release all the Slavic women and children that have been trapped there and they can uncover what the ♥♥♥♥’s were trying to achieve.

From what I understand, Lucjan was the one who first located Gesellschaft for the Polish resistance and uncovered that there were Polish people trapped there in some ♥♥♥♥ program. Within the bunker he was accompanied by his daughter Ewa but we do not learn anything about Ewa’s mother. The game tells us that one of the women that the Polish resistance release from the facility is Slawa, and we know that eventually her and Lucjan become very close and get married. Overall, when the battle ends, the Lieutenant who was leading the Polish resistance unit is found dead and thus Dominika takes up the leadership position, she gets Lucjan to turn off the E.V.E program for good. From then on, the Polish resistance unit takes over the bunker, they hunt down any remaining ♥♥♥♥’s, they try to locate any German civilian survivors but to no avail and eventually they settle in and establish their own colony in Gesellschaft. The tragic thing is that none of the women are able to get pregnant and have children due to exposure to radiation and thus the expansion of their colony is not feasible.

Over the course of the next four years, slowly but surely the survival of the colony in Gesellschaft is looking more and more bleak. Livestock cannot reproduce, things are breaking down, people are getting sick and others are getting annoyed by the darkness and cold of the bunker. Multiple times over this period, Lucjan goes to Dominika and tells her that the only solution they have to fixing these issues is by turning on the E.V.E program, which could re-activate a bunch of the bunker’s systems. In every instance, Dominika shuts down the idea and reiterates the same point which is that the program is dangerous and requires too much to operate (bio-component). By 1964, Lucjan starts investigating into the E.V.E program and what the ♥♥♥♥’s were trying to do with it and upon looking at the dire situation of the colony, he saw that it was up to him to experiment with the program. We know that the program can only operate when connected to a bio-component and we know that children allow for better control and functionality of the system. Thus we know that Lucjan got his daughter Ewa to act as the connected host and he would act as the secondary non-connected host. In 1964, he began experimenting with the agricultural systems and it became clear that the system can be overloaded quite easily and needs further studying. It is clear that Lucjan became quite obsessed with the program and his constant use of the system means that Ewa is constantly having to be re-connected to the machine and as discussed earlier, prolonged connection to the system causes dire consequences to the bio-component.

Much of my interpretation of the story is built by information extracted from the notes and recordings in the game, but also a bit of my own thoughts and logical speculation. This next part will massively rely on speculation because I am still yet to fully understand what is actually happening but I am going to try and write it in an understandable way. At some point between 1964 and 1966, notes and recordings suggest that ‘miracles’ start appearing throughout the bunker: livestock appearing out of nowhere, things start getting fixed and people start recovering from illnesses. The appearance of miracles correlates with Lucjan and Ewa re-operating the E.V.E program, so thus it can be said that the miracles occurred as a result of the machine but things like creating new livestock seems beyond the ability of even the E.V.E program. Due to the appearance of these miracles people start to wonder if its actually a result of divine intervention, the biggest supporter of this idea is Lucjan who preaches to the people that it must be a result of gods from Slavic paganism, most notably Veles, god of earth, waters, livestock, and the underworld. If these miracles were a result of the program, than surely Lucjan would know it was the program, so if that is the case then why is he telling everyone that it is the result of divine intervention? One of my theories is that he is tricking people into believing it’s the gods when really it’s the machine but what is the purpose of this? Also, all documents suggest that his belief in the gods is strong and genuine. Lucjan becomes the biggest supporter of this belief in divine intervention and persuades many of the colonists to think the same way, together they create a religious community. Lucjan is named the high priest and many look to him for guidance. However, Dominika refuses to believe in such nonsense and many colonists agree with her, the disagreements between the groups became so strong that eventually Lucjan and his following permanently reside themselves in the village they built on the fourth floor. While Dominika and her people permanently reside themselves in the estates on the bunkers third floor. Both groups seem to work together and communicate for a time, but this was the start of tension and suspicion between Dominika and Lucjan.

By 1966, tension starts to escalate between the two factions nicknamed the ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers’. Things reach the point whereby Lucjan utilises the E.V.E program’s defence system to monitor the activities of the non-believers and has turrets erected on the main bridge that separates the estates from the tunnels that lead down to the dam structure that resides next to the village. Lucjan’s faction has the most control over the farms and hydroponic facilities and thus they have decided that for the betterment of everyone the food would be split in three ways. One-third goes to the believers, one-third goes to the non-believers, and the final third would be used as an offering to the Slavic Gods during a ritual process carried out in the village. To Lucjan this is an arrangement that both keeps the peace and shows respect to the gods who have performed miracles for the colonists. Dominika and her people are outraged, seeing the believers waste much-needed food on a silly offering is complete lunacy to them. Dominika and her people are so outraged that they plan an attack on, presumably, the food processing and hydroponics areas of the bunker. Dominika uses the program to contact Lucjan, and tricks him by pretending to accept the three way split when in actuality she found a way to manipulate the AI in the system to shut down the turrets on the main bridge. She succeeds, but Lucjan is able to get Ewa to activate security barriers to slow down Dominika’s people so the AI has time to turn the turrets back on. Dominika’s people reach the bridge, so Lucjan in desperation tells Ewa to authorise lethal force from the turrets and prime the already installed explosives on the bridge. It does not need to be said that there is something seriously wrong with a father telling his daughter, who is connected to the system, to authorise the use of lethal force against their own people. In the end, Dominika’s attack fails and the use of lethal force ensures the death and injury of many of her people, a result that only proved her point that both the program and Lucjan were very dangerous.

When talking about Ewa and her condition, we must once again dive into the realm of speculation because a lot of aspects are not completely clear. As we know, Lucjan’s plan for the colony involved using the E.V.E program and its systems which led to him having to get his daughter to act as the bio-component, the host who was connected to the machine. Its clear that Ewa was not always connected to the program as she had memories of the village, her father as the high priest, her friends, the rituals and ceremonies conducted in service to the gods. I think it is accurate to assume, based on recordings of conversations between Dominika and Lucjan, that Ewa’s degrading brain condition started to get incredibly worse prior to the collapse of relations between Dominika and Lucjan and their factions. In around 1966, it most likely became known to Lucjan that Ewa was started to suffer issues with her memory and becoming extremely ill and delusional. He knew this day would come, he was able to shut down various systems and improve the longevity of Ewa’s brain functionality which is why she had persisted far longer than the ♥♥♥♥ test subjects but it was clear that nothing would stop the inevitable. Her condition was becoming known to all the colonists, and Lucjan was hiding the nature of her illness and what provoked it. It even came to the point when he decided that the best course of action was to fake her death, make the colonists think she died, when in actuality he would permanently hook her up to the machine and find a solution. Lucjan found ♥♥♥♥ records talking about an experimental ‘super soldier’ drug called ‘D-IX’ that was being manufactured and tested to aid in the ‘ultimate battle’ which the ♥♥♥♥’s had prophesised. He found that the drug could serve multiple purposes, including the ability to relieve the stress on the hippocampus and improve the longevity of Ewa’s brain functionality for far longer than he could have hoped for. However, it wouldn’t allow her to be disconnected from the machine, If she was to be unplugged from the machine then she would die. From this moment forward, he is relieved that his daughter would live for longer but he became obsessed with finding a way to permanently save her. Many tried to show their condolences to Lucjan, including Dominika, but all they could see was a man obsessed with his work and refusing to show grief or accept what had happened. None of them knowing that Ewa was alive and Lucjan was trying to find a way to help her.

His experimentation and research into a solution for Ewa continues after the deterioration of relations between the believers and non-believers. Lucjan continues to experiment with the D-IX and develops a way to use it as a lethal gas, coming up with a contingency plan which involved using it in case of another attack by the non-believers. Also, he developed a vaccine which he would give to the believers to ensure they would not be affected in the event that the D-IX lethal gas be deployed. To get the believers to take the vaccine he would come up with some testament that it was the will of the gods. By 1967, Lucjan was fully aware that deterioration of the hippocampus was due to bio-components processing too much information and operating too much at one time. The ♥♥♥♥’s overlooked many ways in which they could have relieved the stress placed on the bio-components but nothing he found could act as the permanent solution he was looking for. That was until he made a discovery, something the ♥♥♥♥’s had completely missed. The ♥♥♥♥’s were experimenting with the possibility of having multiple bio-components connected to the program at one time so the processing of information can be shared between both hippocampus’s therefore massively relieving the stress on the individual bio-component. Thus, the hosts could operate the E.V.E program for far longer. However, none of their experiments successfully produced the results they wanted apart from one, where the neural communication between the two bio-components was a lot stronger and more efficient allowing them to operate the program for over two years. The issue was that the ♥♥♥♥’s could not repeat this particular experiment and were unaware of what made these subjects standout. Lucjan notes down that he had discovered what the ♥♥♥♥’s had missed, the two test subjects in that particular experiment connected so well because they were siblings. It was from this moment that he realised that a way he could permanently save Ewa is by connecting a sibling to the program and relieving the stress from her hippocampus. Maybe he could even transfer all stress of the program over to the sibling, effectively sacrificing them, to allow Ewa to be disconnected from the machine and survive. As you could guess this is what finally leads us to understanding the reason for Szymon’s existence.

Lucjan comes to the conclusion that he needs to have a second child, a child that could be used as a second bio-component that could save Ewa. Lucjan married Slawa, one of the women imprisoned within the QDI facility. He knew he could have a child with her but he was met by the issue that none of the women could get pregnant because of radiation exposure, thus he further experiments with the D-IX drug. He found that by slightly altering the drug components it could serve as a stimulant for genome altercation which would allow Slawa to become pregnant, and it was successful. No doubt that Lucjan probably told the believers that it was another miracle granted from the gods and not an experimental ♥♥♥♥ drug. Overall, his plan was coming to fruition. Another thing Lucjan put into motion in 1967 was his plan for an exodus, he most likely believed that once Ewa was saved and disconnected from the program that him and his people could leave the Gesellschaft bunker and find a new home, a new paradise.

In November 1967, while focusing on helping Ewa, Lucjan does not realise that Dominika and her people were organising another attack. This time it would be similar to what their Polish forces did during the battle of the bunker seven years prior. This once again is purely my interpretation of how this battle goes as very little detail is provided to explain what actually happened. I assume that Dominika organised her people into a small army and told them to express their loyalty to Lucjan and the gods to get his attention, thus they could be invited to the village and launch an attack. Lucjan took the bait and told her people that if they want to prove their faith they would come to the village. Dominika’s plan was working and while her people acted as the distraction and prepared for the assault, she would sneak down to where the E.V.E programs main core was an attempt to the destroy the program or at least try to get to Lucjan, who I assume is on the fourth floor at this time. Lucjan gives a speech to Dominika’s people telling them that they had made the right choice. However, the AI detects movement down by the core and detects damage, Lucjan realises it’s a trick and instructs the AI to deploy the D-IX lethal gas before the non-believers can force their way into the village and conduct their attack. Ewa has no choice but to watch the events that transpire. Dominika causes damage to the main core in an attempt to get to where Lucjan is, but the AI detects her movement in a buffer zone and initiates a lockdown which traps her. Ewa is given no choice but to choose an appropriate punishment for Dominika’s actions. As for Dominika’s people they all die to high levels of lethal gas dosage, her attack on the main core caused the bunker ventilation system to malfunction killing pretty much anyone left in the vicinity who were not vaccinated against the D-IX drug. Lucjan declares that the unfaithful have all been wiped out and attempts to assure Ewa that it was for the greater good, that everyone who matters are still alive but this does little to make Ewa think anything her father did was justified.

Now we start to come to the end of the story. By 1968, Szymon is born, Slawa first thought it was all a miracle of the gods, unaware of Lucjan’s plan. Lucjan introduces Szymon to Ewa, telling her that he will join her soon and that he would save her. Ewa, having lost all faith and trust in her father and disapproving his plan, does not want him to connect Szymon to the machine. It is not explained as to how this happens, but we know that Slawa finds out about Lucjan’s plan to sacrifice Szymon to the program in order to save Ewa, who isn’t actually dead. As a result of finding out Lucjan’s plan, Slawa loses all her love and trust for her husband and decides to escape Gesellschaft with Szymon. She was only able to escape because Ewa initiated the systems necessary to allow them to escape, because she too did not want her father to complete his plan. That is why the first couple minutes of the game shows a terminal allowing a woman to leave the bunker, with her final words being “thank you”. Slawa and Szymon leave Gesellschaft and Lucjan behind. Lucjan realises that they had left and was no doubt distraught and angry that he could not carry out his plan and save his daughter. He decides to carry on with his planned exodus, he organises his followers and they too leave Gesellschaft behind. Lucjan makes the decision to leave his daughter in the depths of the bunker, but he knew some day that Szymon would return to Gesellschaft in search of answers as to where he came from and what his destiny is, it would then be down to him to find Ewa and make the choice as to what to do next. Ewa would spend the next twelve years alone in the bunker, the D-IX keep’s her brain functioning the whole time but she ends up losing her memory of what she was, who her father was and what had happened in the past.

Then we finally reach the journey we experience in the game itself. Szymon grows up, his entire life is spent in a small bunker in Kraków with his mother. In 1980, when he is twelve years old, he decides he has had enough and wants to venture out into the world, he wants to know what his mother had hidden from him regarding his father. As we know, she does not get the chance as she falls ill and dies, likely as a long term result of radiation poisoning or even maybe a long term effect of the D-IX drug that Lucjan had given her. In the end, Szymon is left on his own and it is down to us, the player, to experience Szymon’s journey and watch as he navigates the Gesellschaft bunker, finds Ewa and unravels the events that had transpired there. In the end, Lucjan’s prediction came true and we have to make the ultimate decision.

While I was writing this I think I understood why the game is called ‘Paradise Lost’. For every group that is involved in the story they all see Gesellschaft as there own paradise. The German civilians see it as a paradise that will allow them to escape from the nuclear apocalypse, the ♥♥♥♥’s see it as a paradise where the future of the Reich would be created, Dominika’s people see it as a place where they can escape the war and Lucjan’s people see it as a paradise that is blessed by the Slavic gods. However in all cases, each of their paradises are lost. The German civilians perish due to the E.V.E program, the ♥♥♥♥’s are beaten by the Polish resistance and their plans are foiled, Dominika and her people are eventually betrayed and killed by Lucjan and finally Lucjan and his people decide Gesellschaft never was a paradise for them and decide to commit to an exodus, leaving the bunker behind forever.

Therefore ‘Paradise Lost’ invokes the idea of many seeing Gesellschaft as their own paradise only for events to prove them tragically wrong.

Thank you for making it to the end!

Also thank you to the developers for a great experience.