Sam's Westward Expedition is an expedition undertaken by Sam to connect isolated survivor communities across America to the Chiral Network and rescue Amelie from Homo Demens in Edge Knot City. This expedition is in direct succession to the Bridges I Westward Expedition.
Life as a freelance[]
A delivery that ended in tragedy[]
Freelance porter Sam is transporting cargo to Central Knot City when he is interrupted by the approaching Timefall. Sam loses his trike while evading a mysterious woman and takes shelter in a nearby cave. There, he learns that the mysterious woman’s name is Fragile. After evading a BT in the cave, the two have a short conversation and Fragile offers to hire Sam under her delivery company, Fragile Express.
Sam arrives at Central Knot City and discovers that a citizen has committed suicide with the body on the verge of necrosis. As a repatriate with DOOMS, Sam is given an emergency assignment to accompany Igor Frank and Corpse Disposal Team 6 in a truck to drive to an incinerator and dispose of the corpse. During the ride, Sam and Team 6 encounter Timefall and a zone full of BTs. The truck is overturned, and Sam becomes unconscious.
When he wakes up, the corpse they were transporting starts to become necrotic. The driver, trapped under the vehicle, is grabbed by a BT. Igor shoots the driver, preventing him from being consumed and causing a voidout. Suddenly, a hooded man appears before Sam and Igor, pointing at something in the distance. Igor starts shooting and is soon grabbed by gazers. Afraid of being consumed, Igor tosses Sam his BB unit and attempts suicide by shooting himself in the head. He misses, and something unseen yanks him upward, causing him to begin levitating. He attempts to kill himself again by stabbing himself in the torso with a knife. Sam picks up the BB unit that Igor tossed him, and the oradek points toward what the hooded man indicated: a colossal BT. Igor, floating toward the giant BT, is consumed by it, triggering a massive voidout that kills Sam and destroys Central Knot City.
Westward expedition[]
Back to Bridges[]
Sam revives and is later taken to Capital Knot City where he meets Deadman, a member of Bridges' medical team. Deadman has Sam deliver morphine to the dying President of the UCA, Sam's adoptive mother Bridget Strand. Bridget pleads with Sam to rejoin Bridges and help realize her dream of "reforming America" before succumbing to her illness. She makes a contract with him using her last bit of strength before dying. Sam later takes her body for incineration but, on site, refuses to incinerate BB-28, the Bridge Baby involved in the Central Knot City voidout. With BB-28's assistance, Sam evades a horde of BTs that are approaching him due to the increasing chiralium in the area. He then decides to take BB-28 as his own Bridge Baby.
Upon returning to Capital Knot City, Sam receives a message from his estranged sister, Amelie Strand. She informs him that over the past three years, she led an expedition across what remains of the continental United States. During this expedition, she made contact with isolated cities and settlements, and set up terminals that would connect them to the Chiral Network. The Chiral Network facilitates instant communication and data transfer across vast distances through the Beach.
However, upon reaching the last city on the west coast, Edge Knot City, Amelie was captured by a terrorist group known as the Homo Demens. This group opposes Bridges' reconstructionism and wants to guarantee Edge Knot City's independence. Amelie pleads with Sam to follow her expedition and complete the Chiral Network, thus "reforming America." Sam reluctantly accepts the mission, with the ultimate goal of rescuing Amelie and having her take Bridget's place as the President of the United Cities of America.
The expedition begin[]
Following the instructions of Die-Hardman, Bridget's personal aide and Director of Bridges, Sam begins his journey by connecting the Bridges facilities in the eastern region: the Waystation West of Capital Knot City, the Distribution Center West of Capital Knot City, and the Wind Farm. After three years of isolation, the people at these facilities had begun to lose hope.
Upon finally arriving at Port Knot City, the last city in the region from which he can reach the central region by navigating the large Ground Zero, Sam confronts the same hooded man from before, who introduces himself as Higgs. Sam fights an aquatic BT which Higgs spawns, but thanks to the hematic grenade made with his blood, Sam defeats the BT and can continue his journey thanks to Fragile, as Fragile Express is the only company with a ship that can traverse the lake.
During the traverse, Fragile tries to speak to Sam about Higgs, but the porter falls asleep. During the sleep, Sam dream, or remember, of one of his ecounter with his sister, Amelie, on the Beach when he was a child. Here Amelie comfort little Sam by giving him a dreamcatcher, convincing him to return to the world of the living. Upon his awakening Sam has arrived at the port of Lake Knot City and here he is assigned the task of connecting not only the remaining cities, affected by terrorist attacks, and the structures of the region, but also of the prepper communities. Lacking the resources to build new structures and nodes, Bridges decided to use prepper shelters to boost the chiral network and leverage Fragile Express's credentials to build popularity. On his private room, after another "dream-memory" of his younger self and Amelie, Sam is aproacing by Fragile who gave him her misanga, that will give him ID as an associated of her company, that will help him with the preppers. Here Fragile, told briefly of her situation and, given the continuous meeting, suggests to Sam that something keeps bringing them together.
After that Sam begin his journey to extend the chiral network from Lake Knot to South Knot City, first by connecting the first three prepper of the zone and then continuing down, passing by the disto center at south, to deliver the prototype of a delivery bot, connecting another group of preppers, including two who later decide to get married, and then arriving at the gates of the South Knot. At one point Higgs, disguised as a member of Bridges, delivers a package to Sam for South Knot. During the journey Sam has a doubt and discovers, opening the package, that what he is carrying is a thermonuclear bomb. Fragile, who relives what happened in the past, advises the courier to throw it in the tar pit just outside the South Knot. Having saved the city, Fragile opens up to Sam, telling him everything and making him promise that, once Higgs is defeated, he would leave him to her for revenge.
Nightmare in open dreams[]
Sam is left with nothing but to connect the South Knot but once he does, a supercell appears above the city, sucking Sam inside it. Later, a mysterious man, who repeatedly appeared to Sam when he connected to his BB, climbs a tar pit pulled by skeletal soldiers who he then sends into action.
Sam wakes up in what appears to be a battlefield. Sirens, tanks, soldiers and planes battle it out as an incredulous Sam tries to cross, until he reach a treanch. Here he as a vision of the mysterious man who seems to sense him. During the fight, between Sam and the skeleton soldiers, the man keeps murmuring that he wants "his BB back" and "remember". Eventually Sam manages to get the better of the man who, with a last effort, clings to BB-28's capsule. During the contact Sam experiences another vision of the man seen from inside a capsule. Later Sam finds himself outside the South Knot distro center, visibly shaken and confused about what happened, and is contacted by a worried Mama. Sam joins her in the laboratory, Mama can't go out because of her baby, and here he not only meets Mama but also discovers that her baby is a BT and is attached to her with an umbilical cord.
One soul in two bodies[]
Sam is surprised to see the BT attached to Mama who is not only breastfed but once finished "falls asleep", confirming the harmlessness of the creature. Here Mama explains to the porter that even though her daughter is dead her body still produces breast milk for her. After the explanation for her impossibility to get out, Mama explains to Sam that the event he experienced in the supercell really happened but that in the real world it happened in a few seconds even if the HQ is still analyzing the data. Suddenly a new chiral peak occurs which not only knocks out the lab's electricity but also wakes up Mama's BT which starts crying. Mama expected chiral spikes as Sam connected structures but the spikes are more than she expected. Anticipating this possibility, Mama and Bridges had inserted a limiter in Sam's Q-pid that evidently doesn't work as it should. To avoid making the situation worse, like another Death Stranding, Mama gives Sam a new Q-pid in which to install a limiter, but she has to take it to someone who can rewrite the software to make it work properly. The only person who can do that is Lockne, who is in Mountain Knot CIty, on the other side of the mountain range.
A new spike shakes the lab and not only is BB-28 agitated but a BT tries to take Mama's daughter. Knowing she can't keep going like this, Mama opens up to Sam about how, while awaiting a C-section, a terrorist attack hits the facility, leaving her trapped under rubble for days. She survived giving birth there and her daughter died who became a BT. Incredulous Sam doesn't understand how she can remain tied to the dead and not live on the outside and Mama sarcastically replies: "C'mon, you of all peolpe?", since he ad been doing pretty much the same thing for a decade. Before dismissing him Mama asks Sam for a sample of his blood, which due to his being a repatriate can be useful. While taking the sample Sam notices that Mama's touch is as cold as a dead body. A new peak make Mama's BT starts crying and Sam walks out of the lab. Once out his task is confirmed: he must connect Mountain Knot to the network and in the process also add a waystation and a distro center.
Die-Hardman then advises Sam to leave Lake Knot again, with Fragile who has lent herself to help him. Once the two structures are connected, passing through a field of Homo Demens and rescuing a member of Bridges in the middle, Sam has a new dream of the beach and a crying baby, when both Amelie and Higgs show up, stabbing the woman in the unresisting neck and takes her Quipu. Sam comes to with the hologram of Amelie in front of him informing of how Higgs and his men entered Edge Knot City, with her trapped in a now dead city full of BTs. Though Amelie has managed to hide for the time being, she pleads with Sam to continue expanding the network in order to save her. Sam notices that Amelie doesn't have her Quipu around her neck but before Amelie can answer him, the woman leaves. Once he arrives at Mountain Knot, however, Sam is chased away by Lockne herself who should help him. Here Die-Hardman, knowing the importance of Mountain Knot, reveals to Sam that Lockne is Mama's twin and that, following Mama's accident, the two no longer speak and Lockne has cut ties with Bridges. The only one who can help him in this situation is Mama, so he joins her at her laboratory.
Once there, Mama gives Sam new handcuffs to which she has incorporated a weapon, made with her blood, that can cut BTs' umbilical cords. There is nothing left but to test them, and Mama volunteers by offering her daughter who confesses to be Lockne's daughter who, unable to have children, had asked her sister to act as a surrogate mother. When the child died, Mama didn't feel like telling her sister and disconnected from the network. However, realizing that she cannot go on and wanting to tell her sister the truth, she decides to sever the link with her "daughter". A reluctant Sam proceeds to sever the cord: the BT is taken by another and Mama collapses to the ground. In a race against time to get Mama to her twin, Sam is forced to face Higgs again who summons a leonine BT from the tar. However, this new creature is beaten by Sam who manages to bring Mama to Mountain Knot. Here the twins finally succeed and reconcile. Mama asks Lockne to fix Sam's Q-pid and connect to the network the two of them have designed to bring the world together. When Mama breathes her last, Locke explains to Sam that Mama's body was dead but was kept alive by her daughter's BT, then she puts on the handcuffs and something unexpected happens: Mama's soul reaches her sister becoming one again, like in the uterus. From here Sam can reach Edge Knot and Die-Hardam informs him that in the supercell he was in a battlefield of over a hundred years ago, probably some kind of Beach. In the private room, however, Sam realizes that Lou, so he started calling his BB, is not there when Deadman suddenly appears with Lou in his hand, who has a serious problem.
Reallign "Lou"[]
Deadman, states that the infant requires realignment between the worlds of the living and dead after having veered too far towards the former by bonding with Sam, a factor that could not only create problems for its functions but also dangerous for the world. Furthermore, Deadman reveals that the realignment procedure may erase Lou's memories, but that failing to perform the procedure would result in Lou reaching the end of her functionality within merely days following. In Sam's private room shower stall, Deadman divulges to Sam classified knowledge of BB technology, and what he has managed to discover regarding Bridget and Die-Hardman's questionable history. Sam is left without Lou to create distance between himself and the infant for the realignment procedure's efficacy, and works to expand the Chiral Network coverage in the area surrounding Mountain Knot City by connecting nearby preppers to the network: the Doctor, Roboticist, Mountaineer, Photographer, and Spiritualist.
After expanding the network to the area surrounding Mountain Knot City, Sam travels to a cabin in the mountains to meet Deadman and reunite with Lou; just as he nears the cabin, a supercell sweeps over the area and transports the three to a WWII war-torn Beach. After rendezvousing with Deadman in a sewer and reconnecting to Lou, even if Lou seems to be more bonded with Deadman this time, Sam is able to again defeat the Combat Veteran and, when the porter again makes physical contact with the Combat Veteran, he, Lou, and Deadman are subsequently transported back to the world of the living. During the contact Sam experiences another vision of the man, badly injured, seen from inside a capsule.
Hawakening after an entire day inside his private room, after the nightmare of a doll inside his BB pod, Sam is again confronted by Deadman: he is the one who brought the two insiede after the supercell events and reported to Capital Knot, thanks the Fragile's umbrella. Here Deadman apologizes with Sam, having found out that "Lou" was the name that Sam and his wife, who committed suicide ten years earlier, had chosen for their unborn child, thus discovering the truth about Sam and Bridges. When he confesses this to the porter, Sam denies it and Deadman tells him his true story and how he does not have a soul, as he is born artificially, but now he feels connected to him and to the BB. Deadman also reveals to Sam the true identity of his pursuer on the Beach: he is Clifford Unger, a former Special Forces soldier of the United States military. After the conversation Sam is thanking a shower when he's contacted by Heartman who tell him the Beach as a type of multiverse and that all the deaths in the battlefields have created war-torn Beach, where the deads experiences cycle endlessly, like a loop.
Snowing truths[]
Approaching completion of his mission to make America whole, Sam travels to Heartman's lab, bringing the researcher Mama's non-necrotizing corpse as well as dog tags taken from the Combat Veteran. Here Sam discover the conditions of Heartman, who's heart stop every twenty-one minutes that he spent on the Beach in sarch of his family, and tell him his story, then he moves on to examine Mama's non-necrotizing body, Clifford's dog tag and then, Bridget's umbilical cord, a cord that Heartman immediately realizes is not human but more that of a BT. After a cardiac arrest, Heartman asks Sam to connect to the network the research centers of the scientists of the first expedition intent on studying the earth before the Death Stranding, and the secondary station near Edge Knot City.
Finally, Sam connects three nearby preppers to the network: the Geologist, Paleontologist, and Evo-devo Biologist. Heartman confides to Sam that Mama's dead cells were full of chiralium, and that her daughter, although a BT, was her soul, so the body does not decompose, a condition similar to Bridget. Suggesting a possible Sixth Extinction, and the presence of umbilical cords in five undecomposed ancient entities, Heartman suspects that Bridget, and consequently Amelie as well, is an Extinction Entity, like the previous creatures. Not trusting Die-Hardman the conversation is not recorded.
Finishing the Rebirth of America[]
The expanded network coverage from having connected the aforementioned preppers to the network allows Sam to expand the network to a waystation construction site in the deep southwestern part of the central region near the shore of the western tar belt. Once Sam brings materials to the site, the waystation-to-be is connected to the Chiral Network, providing the final push necessary for the network to reach the West Coast, what is left for Sam is to cross the tar belt to reach Edge Knot City. In the end Sam finds a way to cross the tar belt in peace, until he finds Amelie who makes him sink.
On the Beach, Sam finds Amelie singing "London Bridge Is Falling Down" and when he tries to follow her, the man sinks again only to wake up on the other side of the tar belt, outskirts of a decimated Edge Knot City, where he is briefly harassed by Higgs, showing off his abilities, about Amelie's status as an extinction entity and challenging Sam to reach her first.
Notes[]
- Sam's westward expedition take inspiration from the novel Journey to the West, a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en.
- Another inspiration, which the game also mentions through a line from Sam, is Super Mario Bros, a platform game developed and published by Nintendo where the protagonist, Mario, need to traverse the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue Princess Peach Toadstool from King Koopa/Bowser. In the game Sam compare him to Mario and Amelie to Princess Peach.