Amelie Strand, the sixth Extinction Entity
An Extinction Entity, abbreviated in EE, is a living being whose existence triggers mass extinctions, and is the bridge by which a Death Stranding occurs.
Overview[]
Throughout the history of life on Earth, at least five EEs are believed to have lived and died, each the catalyst for a prior mass extinction event (the Big Five), which ultimately resulted in significant changes to the world's biodiversity. From archaeological findings of chiralium connected to prior Strandings, the previous EEs were a woolly mammoth, a neanderthal, a dinosaur, a trilobite and an ammonite. Each of these five EE's corpses were found to be frozen in time, not suffering biological decay, and possessed an umbilical cord similar to BTs called "strands," which tied them to the Beach. This includes the modern, sixth EE, and cause of the current Death Stranding: Bridget Strand.
How a living creature becomes an EE is unclear, though it likely begins at conception. In Bridget's case, she experienced extinction-related premonitions since infancy, culminating in the splitting of her body (Bridget) in the living world, separated from her soul (Amelie) which became trapped on the Beach. EEs possess such a deep connection to the Beach that they can be considered inseparable from it, and it is through their Beach that an EE binds the living to the world of the dead. This results in the initiation of a Death Stranding.
The mass extinction causing effect of an Extinction Entity can be considered their function. Their very purpose is to cause a mass extinction. An EE cannot willingly fight against their purpose, but they can bend the rules to delay or lessen the extinction event. Amelie believes that all previous EEs had the power to end all life on Earth, but instead chose to let some life prevail in the end, due to their own attachment to the living world. This leads to the in-universe theory that EEs are a natural part of the cycle of life and death in a reality dominated by entropy. Each entity's Death Stranding altered the world in such a way that in the wake of death and destruction new lifeforms emerged, and were able to flourish.
Notes[]
- The ammonite corresponds with the most recent extinction event of the Big Five, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event (known as the KT event), making it the fifth EE, which also was the death of all non avian dinosaurs, but the dinosaur could also have been from the previous extinction event. The oldest was the Permian–Triassic, which would be the trilobite. The mammoth and Neanderthal are unclear, since both of them would be from long after the Fifth extinction, with the last Neanderthal vanishing only 28,000 years ago. However it's possible the events in death stranding don't entirely correlate with our own.
- Should an EE go against their purpose, Amelie believes they can be "punished." In Bridget's case, she developed cancer in young adulthood as a consequence of delaying the start of the sixth Death Stranding. She stalled the sixth extinction by choosing to cut off the living world from her Beach, but as a consequence must live alone on her Beach for thousands, or even millions of years, until the extinction happens. It is currently unknown if, as Amelie said, Bridget was truly punished by obstructing the "world's process" through the Extinction Entities, or if her cancer was just a coincidental occurrence. If she was indeed punished, it remains unknown what entity or force caused her cancer and caused Bridget to be a separate being from Amelie. A possibility, given the "world' process", is that the universe itself punished Bridget, rather than being a coincidental occurrence.
- In her Amelie persona, the sixth EE have a red colored dress while in her EE persona the dress is blue, the color of death.
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