- "I now realize why the Alien Machine was rejecting our Codex. The instructions were being garbled by the second set of DNA - the aberration. We found a new specimen today - a pure and intact specimen. Its DNA is completely pristine and I have high hopes that this is the breakthrough we were looking for!"
- —Dr. Earl Serrano about "Rosetta"'s discovery.[1]
"Rosetta" reassembled.
"Rosetta" was the name given to a set of pure alien remains found on Tau Volantis by the Sovereign Colonies research expedition. Dr. Earl Serrano described the creature as almost fish-like in appearance and anatomy.
History[]
"Rosetta" was the name assigned to the corpse of an alien entity found encased and perfectly preserved within the ice of Tau Volantis by one of the SCAF digging expeditions. The remains were taken to a facility for study by Dr. Serrano and his colleagues, where they eventually realized that the Alien Machine that they were also studying could only be interfaced with using the unaltered DNA of the aliens themselves. This made "Rosetta", frozen solid and perfectly preserved from the Necromorphs, vital to the project of creating a Codex to interact with the Machine.
When General Mahad ordered the destruction of all of the scientific samples and data in response to the worsening Necromorph outbreak, Dr. Barton aboard the CMS Greely sent out an encrypted message to the scientists on the surface, instructing them simply to "HIDE ROSETTA". By this time, the frozen body of "Rosetta" was sliced into a number of cross-sectional slabs. Despite the chaotic situation, at least a few scientists who survived the initial stages of the cleanse order managed to partly succeed in the task, taking a number of "Rosetta" slabs from the Biology Wing and scattering them in different areas of the research complex.
Arrival of Isaac Clarke[]
- Ellie: "It looks like they used magnetomic forensic neurology, which produces a data stream stored in the Codex. It's like they lifted the codes for the Machine right out of her brain."
- Isaac: "Well, that sounds familiar. At least they didn't poke her eye out."
- —Ellie Langford and Isaac Clarke comment on the "Rosetta" experiment's similarity to the Noonlight Diagnostics Machine from Titan Station.
The "Rosetta" lab after Scenario Five.
Isaac Clarke first heard about "Rosetta" via Jennifer Santos, who intercepted an encrypted radio transmission being sent from the CMS Greely to the planet's surface. After Isaac explored the Greely and decrypted the message, the two speculated that "Rosetta" may be a key female scientist in need of protection from the purge.
Later on, Isaac and the remaining crew members, Ellie Langford and John Carver, learned the truth about "Rosetta" and were forced to locate the frozen sections of its body, scattered throughout the different wings of Facility Two. Once all of the slabs were found and sent back to Ellie and Carver, they used a machine capable of probing the dormant mind of the alien to discover what happened to its race and find out about the secret of the Markers.
"Rosetta"'s body was presumably destroyed when Isaac activated the sterilization sequence so he, Ellie and Carver could escape Jacob Arthur Danik and his men after they raided the facility, though this was never confirmed and it is entirely possible that being encased in the ice protected the body from the gas.
Trivia[]
- "Rosetta", as viewed slab-by-slab, has no visible organs whatsoever, only a thick and solid cross-section.
- The main menu of Dead Space 3 is animated in the form of "Rosetta"'s remains; each slab represents a different screen.
- "Rosetta" is most likely named after the Rosetta Stone, a stone that provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs. The term "Rosetta Stone" is also sometimes used to represent a key in the process of decryption of encoded information.
Gallery[]
