"Regarding Susie [FILE-INT-RESPH] - Haltmann's Archives" is a high quality lore video and an internal "file" in Haltmann's Archives. It is the final reward of Arc 1 of The Susie ARG.
Summary[]
The video opens with a dated display with President Haltmann's logo. A large warning is displayed in red text:
[WARNING]
THE FOLLOWING FILE IS UNDER RESTRICTED ACCESS PROTOCOL AT $97659C
This internal archive contains sensitive and confidential information.
Unauthorized access is prohibited and will result in immediate termination.
All views and interactions with this file will be monitored.
Proceed at your own discretion.
[Haltmann Works Company]
Following this, the color scheme changes to yellow and the advertised file is shown, in a format similar to all Haltmann's Archives videos starting with "[FILE-02]".
The file consists of an assessment of President Haltmann and his ultimate goal of finding and securing his daughter Susie, which has thus been the main objective of Haltmann Works Company ever since their occupation of Grandiose City in the Christmas Comeback Crisis. Dr. Andonuts begins by describing Haltmann, as he cannot retain any memories of him following his death, then delves into information regarding Haltmann's iteration in his game of origin, Kirby Planet Robobot, contrasting it with the Figment of Haltmann seen in the Central Canon Continuum: in the game, Haltmann could not originally recognize Susie, and the two were destined to never meet each other following their transformations due to the influence of Star Dream. These characteristics contrast with those of the Figment of Haltmann, who was greatly determined to find Susie at all costs and was fully able to recognize her, enough to never be satisfied with any other "alternative iterations" of her.
Andonuts then notes how all attempts to materialize Susie have been unsuccessful, first through the Figment Transportation Device installed by Wood Man on SiIvaGunner's computer, then later through Project AIRTH and the SiIva A.I.. He describes how Figments are physical constructions of ideas whose aspects are defined by the main sources of origin that comprise them, citing himself as an example, as he is composed of traits of his character, both positive and negative, taken from threemainsources. He then theorizes that the sources for the Figment of Haltmann were Kirby Planet Robobot and the CCC itself, the latter having influenced Haltmann through the prevalence of rips featuring "The Noble Haltmann", a motif related to him. Susie has never had a significant presence in rips, but did also have a connection to "The Noble Haltmann" through her performance of the song in Kirby Planet Robobot, a connection that The Voice Inside Your Head had previously attempted to use on Haltmann by having Haruka Amamiperform the song as Susie. However, due to the song already having Haltmann as its representative Figment, the connection to Susie is entirely overridden.
From all of these established facts, Andonuts concludes that Haltmann's eternal separation from Susie is an aspect of the characters that was preserved in Haltmann's iteration as a Figment, due to being an important plot point in their game of origin, meaning that Susie cannot physically exist alongside Haltmann, but the idea of her still remains, fragmented and scattered throughout all of existence due to the attempts to materialize her as a Figment and the conflicts present in the metaphysical narrative.
After the file ends at 9:27, the video shows a pitch-black void, and dialogue from an unseen individual begins appearing at 9:35. At 10:44, the speaker is revealed to be Susie herself, who appears in the void and states that she will explain her situation soon, but needs time to rest, and asks that the viewers enjoy the holiday season in the meantime.
The ultimate goal of [Haltmann Works R&D] has been to locate and secure Susanna Haltmann, with all projects being secondary to this main goal. [SiIvaGunner] and its associated qualities have naturally seemed the best avenue for this, with countless amounts of time placed into this wing of the company above all others.
Despite this, information about Susanna is highly scarce, almost intentionally so. For the longest time, I had been unaware of what she had even looked like in full, understanding her through passed-down information. Haltmann Works R&D, especially my colleagues in the [Figment Research Division], ran under the assumption that we would understand, or be told, or... figure out, somehow, that we had finally done the correct job.
That's all we really had to work with - tens of thousands of hours, years of research and development, on a collective hope.
Recent... "developments" in my life have caused me to reevaluate the information I am aware of, in addition to what I am newly knowledgeable of. This information is highly scattered, but consolidating the points here could serve to illuminate everything that... well, could've happened.
It is the compounding interest of several years' worth of loose threads, and I worry that covering the full breadth of this topic will still be incomplete in perpetuity. Despite this, I believe the evidence at my disposal is enough for me to attempt a "final diagnosis" of sorts, within my realm of expertise.
For future referencing, below are notes of his physical characteristics: Older male of indeterminate age. Unknown species, but definitely the same as Susanna. Silhouette best described as "Egg-like." White skin, purple hair, and blue eyes. Floating appendages (arms, legs). Prominent mustache, combover. Consistently wears a purple business suit with pink and gold accents; gold earpiece on right side.
I've come to accept that I cannot recall anything directly about Haltmann, and have had to rely on old archives and backup data to maintain any real understanding of him. I can observe him in old photographs and hear him in audio recordings, but the moment I stop engaging with any primary source of his existence, any level of detail just slips out of my mind.
Even pouring what feels like days into meticulous note-taking and archival study, I'd never be able to pick him out of a crowd without a description. Thank goodness we spent all of that time re-organizing our internal libraries a few years back...
Haltmann's goal, indelibly, was to procure his daughter Susanna. Considering that this matches the goal of the company since the occupation of [Grandiose City], it is reasonable to attribute this to its founder in absentia.
It's remarkable, though not surprising, that this singular objective was apparent in every aspect of his work. It's hard to find documentation where Haltmann discusses something completely unrelated to Susanna at all, actually... under the framing of the company's main direction, and how all profits were ultimately part of that, anything related to Haltmann Works Company is inherently part of the same conversation.
This is one of the main reasons I've found it so difficult to untangle the man from the mission - even in the scant records where Susanna is not explicitly mentioned, her presence still lingered, reshaped by her absence and imprinting itself on the remnants of his legacy.
I have been in continued discussion with [The Joke-Explainer™ 7000] after our shared recent experience, asking for any relevant information to my research stored in her database. She has confided in me that this description matches his "point of origin"... with some heavy caveats.
The first point is that Haltmann could not physically recognize Susanna originally. This surprised me, as it clashes heavily with his iteration as a [Figment], but ultimately matches with... conversations I have seen [The Voice Inside Your Head] have. This discrepancy is something to note - even if I did not know her in her entirety, there is iconography representing Susanna across the entire company, and the records show that he was able to truly recognize her, without doubt.
The second is that Susanna was destined to never meet her father again... not to be confused with never meeting Haltmann again. She did, after all, find her way back to him eventually, but by then, neither of them were the same people.
Susanna was pulled away from her world at a young age by a powerful machine: the Mother Computer, or [Star Dream]. And when she came back mentally morphed from... wherever she'd been, Star Dream's malignant influence had removed Haltmann from who he once was.
Whatever part of him might've remembered her was gone.
Susie was just another worker in Haltmann's sprawling empire - someone he never spared a second thought for, even though she worked as his top secretary. She was right there, standing by his side, and yet her identity didn't even register for him...?
Comparing this to the Haltmann I've read about across hundreds of logs that reshaped entire industries, squandered fortunes, and drove himself to ruin for the mere hope of finding her again... it baffles me. All of the same information we have on her as a subject stemmed from him, after all.
From the way I've seen the late president obsessively search for this girl, it makes it all feel like she was... an end goal for him to reach. Something that would magically repair his broken heart. He idolized the idea of her, seeking some means to retrieve the perfect version of his daughter.
We suggested alternative methods, alternative iterations of Susanna, but every idea ended in prompt dismissal by the man. It all felt "fake", in his own words. It wasn't HIS Susanna. And then, at the end of it all...
The psychology of others is by far my weakest suit, but... I have to wonder if he ever believed that finding his daughter was possible.
All these things in congruence lead me to a concerning theory. Or rather - these three things and their lack of congruence.
It... may have something to do with another incident I have seen records of. At a point where I did not understand what I was witnessing - before I really started to understand the Figmentization process.
The specifics of what happened and why have eluded me for a very long time. The step-by-step, the "what" and "what happened next" was to some degree obvious, sure - but with my newfound knowledge, I think I understand the "why" now.
In conducting my research for the preliminary stages of [Project AIRTH], I was granted one of exclusive access to the [Figment Transportation Device]. Logs from the Figment Transportation Device show that during [The Voice]'s control, in-between batches of other [Figments], there was an attempt to summon Susanna Haltmann.
It can reasonably be assumed that this attempt ultimately ended in failure: the Figment Transportation Device spat out several error codes, there are no records of Susanna entering the tower, and of course - with out surveillance state, we would have already found her.
Haltmann had previously expressed rage at how The Voice attempted to dupe him with a fake - a different person dressed as his daughter. Perhaps this was an attempt to cover up the failure of his original plan...? I digress.
Records show (Report 06-C0010, C0025, C0124) that Haltmann's immediate course of action after the company's hostile takeover was issuing an executive order to seize SiIvaGunner's computer, in an attempt to crack the program open. However, all efforts ultimately failed, as the program refused to yield any meaningful response.
To my knowledge, it is not known if [President Haltmann] was aware of the [Figment Transportation Device's] specific error, but the fact of its existence was what jump-started funding into [Project AIRTH], and later the [SiIva AI], which we have been pouring endless amounts of money and work hours at [Haltmann Works R&D] into. I now recognize the degree of futility in this effort.
Figments are, in essence, the physical construction of an idea made manifest.
It is the collective sum of various thoughts and ideas with the same thematic baseline - the ultimate distillation of a concept. Because of this, aspects of a Figment can either be a positive or negative influence on them as a person, depending on the origin of said aspect.
To give a clear example of this... I will use myself as a point of reference.
I am the [Figment] of Dr. Andonuts. I am a combination of different sources relating to my person, originating from 3 main points. I do not feel comfortable writing these points down, but it is fairly easy for you to figure out if you... dig for it enough.
I am not any of these "versions" of myself - I am a combination of all of them. The "platonic ideal" of Andonuts!
However... not all of my sources of origin are to my benefit. Two of the three have conflicting points of memory that rattle around in my head... thoughts about an alternative life for me, one of a monster in disarray for reasons of my own doing. This 'iteration' of me is completely antithetical to my origin point.
It causes me a great deal of stress whenever I think about it hard enough...
This idea of Figment sources leads me to the conflicting concepts surrounding Haltmann and Susanna. In the case of Haltmann, I believe his sources are his game of origin... and [The CCC] itself.
SiIvaGunner's most potent power is to create and strengthen Figments and their core ideas. This delves into metaphysical territory, but I have noted a particular motif that has great importance to the channel: "The Noble Haltmann". It can be deduced that this motif is connected to Haltmann himself. Perhaps its prominence on the channel ended up strengthening him as a person, which may have pushed him away from his original characterization.
Susanna, in contrast, does not seem to carry this same connection to SiIvaGynner. But... Something I'm wondering about now is the Voice's "fake Susie trick". Judging from logs of past conversations I had with Haltmann, and... external sources that have allowed me to view this particular plot, I find his behavior during the endeavor to be peculiar. It's almost like the performance was familiar to him... like it's happened before.
I wonder if Susanna could also have an established connection with "The Noble Haltmann" as a source. Maybe this is why the Voice had the fake Susanna perform it - a gambit to trick Haltmann in a manner that relates to his meta-origin. But a contradiction emerges from this: the late president is already notably connected to the theme. He... "overrides" her, in a sense, and takes the singular place as a representative of the full concept, even though that isn't completely factual.
This led me to research Susanna and Haltmann within their primary game of origin. Conversing with Joke-Explainer has given me a good deal of information on this particular subject. The two ended up permanently separated from one another forever by Star Dream, and Haltmann was unable to use it to bring her back.
When I heard this, it almost instantly reminded me of what happened with the Figment Transportation Device and its similar failure in pulling Susanna into The CCC. This recontextualized the discrepancy between Haltmann's differing ability to recognize his daughter in our world and his own.
My theory is that because the original story revolves around that innate separation from his daughter, his Figment form is somehow intrinsically unable to reunite with his daughter. As far as I understand, this reality works under some kind of narrative upheld by [the world beyond ours], and our existence as Figments influence the minds of those who uphold said narrative. But it seems like the state of who President Haltmann was as a Figment and who Susanna should be as a Figment clash with each other.
It is a "cosmic irony" that Susanna cannot be pulled into this world. With the President in his right mind in The CCC, maybe the Figment Transportation Device - and the SiIva AI as well - couldn't overstep the boundary set by their collective states of being.
Haltmann and Susie's ideas are intertwined - if Haltmann exists, Susie also has to exist, because that's part of who they are. And because they are so important, and so intertwined that they must coexist, but are destined never to meet, what happens is exactly that - the Figment Transportation Device malfunctions, and in an instant Susie as a person ceases to exist.
The idea of her still exists, because it has to, but Susie as a physical being does not. It is as fundamental a force of the universe as gravity - making sure apples never fall too far away from the tree.
So what exactly could have happened to her? If the error caused the process to be aborted... then I suppose it would be the... inverse of the Figmentization process.
Which, if the Figmentization process would be to consolidate... oh, no.
Scattered. Shotgunned across reality as quantified. One person, a unified idea, spread razor-thin across... everything.
To be in such a state of intangibility that you're almost nonexistent... my god. Is that even survivable? How could it be? It must be - her memory still remains in this world, but... it would be almost impossible to be... cognizant.
...poor Susie.
Everything that has been presented to me up to this points, and everything that I've strung together, leads me to believe that she was... doomed before the attempt to materialize her had even been made. I cannot see a way that Susie could've easily been brought into the world - it conflicts with the metaphysical narrative too much to be allowed to happen.
Short of a miracle, Susie Haltmann and President Haltmann will never meet.
[FILE END]
[The file is closed and the video shows a pitch-black screen. After several seconds, text begins appearing on-screen, as sounds of ocean waves play.]
"Short of a miracle." ...how tragic.
That doctor had a good head on his shoulders.
Too good, perhaps... he's fighting something he can't control.
Irrelevance.
The tides of time. The disenfranchised.
The forgotten, over what is considered... "important".
This was for them.
To give them a new chance. To let these things - these people - be uncovered from their dust. A new chance to try... before it all goes away.
That's why I brought you here.
..."Susanna Patrya Haltmann."
It feels nice to hear that name again. It feels... completing.
Do you remember her?
I would be surprised - she wasn't very important in the grand scheme of things.
But if I may, for a moment...
I'd like to slightly revise the script.
[Susie appears on-screen in fragments, with her eyes closed and her hands clasped together. She opens her eyes and the video cuts to black and becomes silent as text continues appearing in a dialogue box, with the first line being accompanied by a voice clip of Susie laughing. The sounds of ocean waves resume afterwards.]
Susie: Heehee...
I know you may have a lot of questions. I did too.
I will explain in due time. I am... very weak. I need to rest.
For now, I will let you proceed with this information.
Please enjoy the remainder of the holiday season with your family, if you can.
I will make myself clear when I am ready to discuss again.
[The dialogue box and sounds begin fading out.]
Thank you for your continued business. I ask that you keep me in your thoughts.
I'll be right back.
History[]
This video was initially discovered in the unlisted playlist RE:SPH (originally named "RE:"), the link of which was pieced together from the strings shown at the end of the five internal Haltmann's Archives files from each branch of The Susie ARG. It was then premiered on the channel soon afterwards, and was set as the featured video for returning subscribers, replacing "Christmastime is Here - Snoopy Concert".
