- Main article: Aliens
"Rosetta" reassembled.
Rosetta was the name given to a set of 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 a alien entity found encased and perfectly preserved within the ice of Tau Volantis by one of the SCAF digging expeditions. The remains are taken to a facility for study by Dr. Serrano and his colleagues. They eventually realized that the Alien Machine that they are also studying could only be interfaced with using the unaltered DNA of the aliens themselves. This made Rosetta, frozen solid and perfectly preserved vital to the project of creating a Codex.
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.
Dead Space 3
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 are forced to locate the frozen sections of Rosetta's body, scattered throughout the different wings of the research compound. Once all of the slabs are 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 it's 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 can escape Danik and his men after they raided the facility.
Trivia
- Rosetta, as viewed slab-by-slab, has no visible organs whatsoever, only a thick and solid cross-section.
- The main menu 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.
- Rosetta Stone is also sometimes used to represent a key in the process of decryption of encoded information.