Audio Logs

Audio Logs are collectibles in Brink that can be obtained by completing missions. Audio logs are not awarded for leveling your character or for completing the challenges.

Each audio log is a personal journal entry recorded by a minor or major character. Major characters' logs are described as "encrypted". The characters that have recorded audio logs are: Security Corporal James MacLeod, AWU General Secretary Joe Chen, Security Captain Clinton Mokoena, Professor A. Habib, Founder Barbara Elmhurst, and Welder 2nd Class Lugard Adebayo.

Viewing and obtaining the logs

Collected audio logs can be found in Dossier section of the main menu. Logs that have not yet been unlocked will have a padlock icon on them, indicating that they cannot be played.

There are 32 mission-specific audio logs and 42 common audio logs, for a total of 74. Each mission awards 2 audio logs; one is for simply winning the mission, and the other is for satisfying all of the primary objectives. The common audio logs are awarded when the mission specific audio logs have already been awarded (ex: replaying a mission), or when the objective requirements haven't been met (for example, failing to defend one or more of the objectives, but winning anyway).

You will obtain most of the audio logs while going for several other achievements (completing the story lines, what-if missions, Tough as nails, etc.), so leave this one for the clean up.

The most easily missed audio logs are the ones that require that you "shut out" the opponent by successfully defending the first objective. This can sometimes be tricky in co-op/versus play, so setting up custom freeplay games (1 vs 0) on those maps and simply letting the clock run out will usually suffice to mop up those pesky audio logs.

Additionally, keep in mind that it is possible to jump into a co-op/versus game where one or more of the offensive objectives have already been completed, so running through those levels on custom freeplay will allow you to confirm that you did indeed satisfy all of the objectives when you win the mission.

Finally, objectives that seem to be mutually exclusive do not have to be satisfied explicitly...

Example #1: you do not have to actually "Disable the Bot" on "What if: Chopper Down]]" (Resort, Security) if you are able to "Defend the Pillar". Satisfying "Defend the Pillar" by shutting out the enemy will get you both audio logs (or doing shut-out twice in custom freeplay).

Example #2: you can get both audio logs on "Day 7: Attack on CCity" (Container City, Resistance) without actually satisfying the "Disable the Maintenance Bot" objective. If you manage a shut-out by satisfying "Defend the Gate" and the bot hasn't come around at that point, you will still get both audio logs (or doing shut-out twice in custom freeplay). Although you can switch sides to bring the bot forward in custom freeplay, it has been confirmed that it is not required for the audio log to be awarded.

Since you only get 1 audio log per win on solo, you will need to complete each mission twice (making sure to complete all of the primary objectives at least once), and then replay levels another 42 times (any levels, campaign or freeplay, even the same one over and over). You get 2 audio logs per win when playing online (co-op or versus), so you only need to play through once (assuming you can complete all primary objectives for each mission), and then only 21 level replays.

Source (includes mission specific list of audio logs): http://brink.addicted-gamer.com

Complete list of audio logs

Captain Clinton Mokoena

Mokoena's audio logs are encrypted personal journal entries, which give background on Security activities leading up to the events of the game. Mokoena describes conflicted feelings regarding Security forces; though he is fiercely loyal to his men, Mokoena privately disapproves of their conduct and use of excessive violence.

Encrypted personal journal 03/27/43

Another ridiculous Council session. The Founders seem in deep denial. They keep hoping things will just work out, and we'll all just get along. They're appealing for a calm that just isn't appropriate or possible. That rogue Chen sits there, radiating dishonesty while that Director of Maintenance got roasted again for not miraculously solving all problems at once. The guy's only doing his job, without the resources he needs to do it properly. I know the feeling. He deserves better.

Encrypted personal journal 12/08/44

Some hotshot under my command disregards direct orders and lands on Pelgo 104D. He finds the place is NOT falling into the sea, he finds clear signs of human habitation. He stakes the place out, and sees terrorists and known sympathisers coming and going. We've bugged the place and are keeping it under surveillance. The Director of Maintenance looked me in the eye and declared that pelgo structurally unsound, and told me to stop patrolling near it. And I believed him. And now we find there's been a terrorist safehouse there for months. I think it's about time I paid him a personal call. Get CounterIntelligence to recommend a suitable replacement.

Encrypted personal journal 03/21/45

How many police chiefs have been in this situation? Ordering their men into battle, with rifles, as if they were soldiers? How has it come to this? Surely there's a peaceful, political solution? Surely ANY political solution is better than this? Of course, that's what Chen's betting on: that I'll be reasonable. That I'll be humane. That I'll be weak. I won't let him wreck this place. I can't. The Ark must survive. I have to stop him tearing this place apart into rafts or the Guests will die, one family at a time, of thirst and exposure, before they ever see land. I never signed up to start a war. But it's the only way to end one.

Encrypted personal journal 03/26/45

How can you keep a peace when the people clamor for war? How can I keep order, when Terrorists kill my men and melt away into the slums? This has to end. A short sharp shock may bring the Terrorists to their senses. Perhaps we can avoid a war. Just a few limited raids, minimal collateral damage, seize evidence of their plans, discredit that bastard Chen, end this madness.

Encrypted personal journal 03/27/45

Why did I ever think I could end this quickly? Chen's clearly been planning a war for years. All the time we spent in negotiations, just wasted, while he built up his army. I've been played for a fool. No more half-measures from now on. This threat must be met head-on and stopped. We must fight fire with fire.

Encrypted personal journal 03/30/45

Chen's smarter than he looks but not as smart as he thinks he is. He thinks it's a clever move to rouse up an extremist rabble to do his dirty work for him. A few outrages, the Ark falls into chaos. Then he can blame me for the violence, while he keeps his hands clean. After this he'll present himself as the reasonable solution to the crisis he caused, and get the Founders to give him a permanent seat on the Council. Over my Dead body.

Encrypted personal journal 04/01/45

Chen doesn't know what he's started. He doesn't know what desperate people will do once they're given a Cause. Does he seriously think he can control his thugs once they get the scent of blood? He's riding a Tiger. He better hope he can keep finding it fresh meat. Or the Tiger will turn.

Encrypted personal journal 04/02/45

I have a hard enough time keeping my men in check. Some of them persistently use excessive force but are too useful in a fight to get rid of. Some of them are just thugs but their comrades, out of loyalty or fear, won't testify against them. Well, a general fights with the troops available. But once this is over, I swear I'll return Security to the sort of force I can be proud of, even its just me and two raw new recruits.

Encrypted personal journal 03/12/45

Chen keeps offering his followers peace. But some of them don't want peace. Some of them are having the time of their lives. And some have no talent for peace. I know better than most that not everyone who made it to the Ark was an innocent refugee. Perhaps once, Chen was an idealist, but when you start an armed Resistance, compromises have to be made.

Encrypted personal journal 02/28/45

Honor, Integrity, Trust: these are not just empty words to me. But my moral convenience is not the issue here. What is at stake is the fate of the Ark, and its entire population. I have to be realistic: if I spoke out I would be neither understood nor believed. There would be panic, and lives would be lost. If it was just my life at stake, if that would guarantee the lives of the people in my charge, that would be a sacrifice I'd be happy to make. But that's not the choice.

Encrypted personal journal 02/18/45

My men place their lives on the line every day. Partly they do this for each other. Partly for the good of all. But mainly because I order them to. And they conceal their natural fears, discipline their minds and bodies, are shot at sometimes wounded, sometimes killed...because I say so. If some of my men occasionally fail to observe every nicety required of them by civilians who have never faced anything more dangerous than words...then I will back them. As they back me. As they back the Ark.

AWU General Security Joe Chen

Chen's audio logs are encrypted personal journal entries, which give background on Resistance activities leading up to the events of the game. Chen describes frustrating and ineffective negotiations with the Founders, and he reveals a secret: the Arkoral used to build the Ark is breaking down, and cannot be repaired.

Encrypted personal journal 07/23/43

These Founder talks are going nowhere. Talks about talks about talks. One step forwards, two steps back, nine steps sideways. How they ever got this place built, I cannot imagine. They bicker, they interrupt each other, they apologise, they bicker some more. All this talk, and they never get anything done. If they spent a tenth as much energy actually acting as they do deliberating, we've have found a way to fly the Ark to cloud mountain by now.

Encrypted personal journal 08/12/43

How sly are the Founders! They haven't survived this long without learning to divide and rule. Only now do I realise they're playing for time all along. What else could explain their inability to ever get anything done? No, they have something up their sleeves. Either Security is preparing something major against us or they know of a plot against me within the Resistance. That would explain everything. They're dragging out negotiations, making a few minor concessions, while their plans to depose me gain force. I've worked too hard for too long for the people of Ark to lose now. I'll have to escalate. Unless we go for broke now, we will lose all momentum. And I will have lost.

Encrypted personal journal 11/21/44

Is there any way at all to avoid this? I've been over it in my head a hundred times. If only the Founders would listen, if only Mokoena were less proud. I've tried. I've tried so damn hard to find another way. But with this sickness...we're all running out of time. Can we do what we have to do without bloodshed? No. If I don't strike back, I'll be betraying my people. Or leaving the job to some extremists. I can't do that. This is the lesser of two evils. I must act.

Encrypted personal journal 02/12/45

We have a traitor in our midst. I have been informed the fascists are secretly surveiling one of our safehouses. A mole within our ranks must have tipped them off. It makes me sick to think that one of our own - someone I've trusted with my life - is informing for those scum. I'll find him. I don't care what it takes.

Encrypted personal journal 02/15/45

She denied it to the end, but she was clearly guilty. Amazing how she thought she could escape the consequences of her crimes. Another traitor uncovered and dealt with. Watch her husband. Perhaps, as he claims, he knew nothing of her crimes. Perhaps not. Watch him, watch who he meets: he may try to make contact with her spymasters in Security.

Encrypted personal journal 03/25/45

Finally, we can bring the missile online. All that talk about radiation contamination from the ship's reactor has turned out to be a complete exaggeration. It's just that my hair is already thinning, and the others aren't that much younger than me. It's probably just nerves, or psychosomatic. That's all there is to it. I must set a good example to the movement, I can't be seen to avoid the ship. I'll make a point of making inspections there, with the true believers.

Encrypted personal journal 03/19/45

The passion of my comrades is admirable. But some of them go a little too far. I cannot fault their enthusiasm. But they have a tendency to take things literally. And they don't appreciate that to attain our political goals, we must occasionally pretend to be more fearsome than we ever want to be. I hope they realise that. We're not beasts slavering for vengeance, we just...I just need to be able to convince the Founders I'm the safe, responsible option.

Encrypted personal journal 03/23/45

How much inspiration is enough? How many rousing speeches is too many? Perhaps I have roused a rabble, but right now we need a rabble. So what if some of them were forced into criminal acts before? We need violent men. We need men who'll face Security guns. Maybe once we have peace, we won't need them so much. No, they'll need calming down. Perhaps I'll make a few examples to MAKE them calm down. I will cross that bridge as and when. There'll be plenty of time for calmer minds once we've won this war.

Encrypted personal journal 02/19/44

It's incredible how the Founders have managed to persuade the general population that the entire world ended with the Flood. They talk down to us with such certainty, so sure that no one else is out there, no one to reach, no one to help us. They must think we're idiots. Do they really believe that every mountain was drowned? Bah.

Encrypted personal journal 11/08/43

Odd. One of the original Founders was talking Talking TALKING at me after the Council meeting today. The usual rubbish: "we have to pull together to survive, any effort to find help from outside is pointless," the same old story. I made it clear the people don't accept that as an answer and nor do I. And for a moment...I don't know, he hesitated, as if he was considering telling me the truth. And then he just went on as before. What was he thinking? Was he about to admit they only keep us here as slaves so they can live in luxury? Does he think we Guests don't already know that? How these buffoons ever got the money together to build this place, I will never understand.

Encrypted personal journal 10/27/43

So what IS out there? However bad things got the world has had decades to right itself. Humans survive, we persist, we make the best of things and carry on. Anyone who thinks that the world out there is in as bad a shape as us, or worse off, lacks dignity of soul. The human race did not exhaust its capacity making the Ark. Elsewhere, over our horizon, civilisation continues, and can be reached, and MUST be reached for us to survive.

Encrypted personal journal 02/18/43

One of Mokoena's lackeys sneered at me today: "If you hate the Ark so much, why don't you just leave?", he smirked and turned away. Such hatred. And such ignorance. I don't hate the Ark, how could I hate the Ark when my blood build it? I gave more than any Founder or old world Venture Capitalist to build this place. The Chens built the Ark. We built it...and I will save it.

Encrypted personal journal 11/09/44

Oh little brother, sometimes I think I can hear you screaming. Trapped inside the mould as the chute valve fails and the seed Arkoral pours in, setting hard as rock, binding you forever inside that tomb: Internal Buoyancy Chamber M247 of the North-facing Hull of Founders' Tower. I won't forget you, little brother. I can't forget you. No one else stays trapped here. I swear it. NO ONE.

Encrypted personal journal 01/11/45

You know, if you close one eye and ignore the rust and stink of our slums and that damn Security wall, and just look up as the last of the sunlight reflects off Founders Tower...it's still beautiful. I still feel pride in my heart to have helped build it. Within sight of old San Francisco. Was...was that the last time I saw land? Will I ever see land again? Ach, maybe I've lived long enough. My ticket back to whatever's left of the world should go to someone else. Someone younger. Someone with less blood on their hands.

Encrypted personal journal 12/09/43

Building Land at Sea. It strikes me as a miracle. Too good to be true. Hah. I was opening a clinic the other day. A little girl, no more than five, asked me "If we made all the pelgo's out of Arkoral, why don't we just make some more for all the people?" Heh. I think I was able to cover it by doing the Politician's Laugh. I think I got away with it. If only people knew. We can't build new pelgos, we can't even repair those we're already crammed upon. The Arkoral strain is dying out, sterile. We can't make more. We HAVE to find land. The Ark could crumble into the sea any day now. I...I should tell the Council, they need to...No. No...They'd blame Maintenance, and I'd look bad...and Mokoena would win. I'm not having that. I'll find help from outside. I have to.

Encrypted personal journal 07/12/43

Some Moderate said - no, Accused me - of having a big ego. Me! Joe Chen! As if I could survive without a big ego! As if I could have got this place built without a big ego! The Ark still floats because of me! The Ark will survive, because of me. The Ark will be free, free of the Founders, and free of Captain Clinton Mokoena BECAUSE OF ME. The Mild and the Meek do NOT inherit the earth, they get salt water, a horizon full of it. The future belongs to Those Who Mean To Prevail. And that's ME.

Encrypted personal journal 01/24/44

The Founders are fools. All of them. I've told them - I've told them a hundred times and a dozen different ways about the problems with the Arkoral. Well, OK, not ALL of the problems. I can't tell them that the Arkoral itself is dying, they'd blame Me. I'll solve this problem, I'll save this place, without making Mokoena king of it. So I explain away the failed Structural Integrity Tests results by blaming ocean acidification, or "Saline Corrosion of Cheap Unsealed Ferrous Rebar", or - haha - "Structural Fatigue Due To Excessive Vibrations Caused By Security Helicopter Downwash, Or Erosion From The Wakes Of Security Patrol Boats"! HAHAHA, oh you should have seen Mokoena when I said that with a straight face in the council meeting! He nearly shot me there and then!

Encrypted personal journal 09/10/44

What makes Mokoena run? What drives him? I know he hates me. I know he'd lay down his life for the Founders, although why anyone would put himself in the way of a bullet for those buffoons is way, WAY beyond me. He doesn't even seem to genuinely hate the Guests, unlike half his men. Duty? Honour? Pah, the man means nothing to me. He stands in the way of Freedom and Survival. He must step aside. Or fall.

Encrypted personal journal 11/20/44

I've given up on the Founders. they won't listen to reason, in fact their entire lordship over the Ark DEPENDS on them not listening to reason. I can't tell them about the real Arkoral problem. They would blame Maintenance, and so discredit me, giving Mokoena a free reign. No, never. The guests' historic claims of political equality, equal water rations, they're already going nowhere. The Founders dismiss out of hand even the possibility of finding or accepting outside help. Perhaps they need something to focus their minds, to grab their attention. Perhaps I need to provide that Something. Time to talk to my Lab Rat and the Shipwrecker.

Security Corporal James MacLeod

MacLeod's audio logs are unencrypted personal journal entries, which give background information on the catastrophe that caused the seas to rise. He describes how he found the Ark and joined Security.

Personal journal 12/31/43 Pt 01

Hello, hello, hello...testing testing...OK. Wow. Well. OK. Um, the reason I'm doing this, the reason I'm sat here like a bampot muttering into a microphone is...actually I have no idea. I don't know what I'm thinking. I guess that if I don't make it, or none of us do, that there'll just be something remaining, some fragment of the people who lived here. I don't know if you actually want to hear it, but there's not much I can do about that so...here goes. Ahem. I was born in 2005 in...well I suppose it doesn't matter where I came from, it's where I ended up that matters. The Ark. Eventually. Long story. This requires a drink. Hang on.

Personal journal 12/31/43 Pt 02

You cannot imagine...at least, I HOPE you can't imagine the Panic when the seas rose. It wasn't...it wasn't like a huge tsunami swept in carrying all before it. Just the tides got higher. The weather got more extreme. Droughts. Then floods. And storms, lots of storms, pushing waves inland and up tidal estuaries. And then the freshwater table started getting contaminated with the seawater. And then crops began to fail. Not all at once, it wasn't like Sunday it was fine and Monday nothing grew. It took a while. But eventually, after a few years of this creeping...creeping Change...everyone realised that it wasn't going to change BACK, you know? Things were changing for good. For keeps, that is, not for the better. Certainly not for the better.

Personal journal 12/31/43 Pt 03

So, everyone starts heading for higher ground. I mean, literally as well as metaphorically. But it turns out that a lot of the most fertile agricultural land is very near sea level. Or, as we soon found out, AT sea level, or was often completely covered by the damn sea. And they tried new crops, and they didn't work so well, and so we had to learn to live with the sea, and get our food and our fresh water some new way. And of course, who'd been doing the most high-profile work on sustainable living at sea? The Ark. So yeah, you could say The Ark was on all our minds.

Personal journal 12/31/43 Pt 04

Everyone had heard of the Ark, of course, but it was a bit of a joke. We'd seen the photo ops, but it was, well, it wasn't For Us, you know? It was where the celebrities went and the dodgy gene scientists and the techno-hippies. And of course, it was all secret, no one knew where it was. Some bright sparks on the internet started working out flight times and fuel ranges for the aircraft that were coming back from Ark, landing in San Diego and Puerto Vallarta - well before that got flooded, so then it was out of Guadalajara. Anyway, nobody knew for sure where The Ark was. And it was clear that was they way the Ark wanted it.

Personal journal 12/31/43 Pt 05

Things got...things got really bad. Things got like you read about, or see in movies, you know? Just Every Man For Himself stuff. It's amazing how fragile a thing an Economy is. People just started...Taking stuff. Because they needed it, or thought they needed it, or were afraid someone else would take it first. And when you can't keep your own stuff because it's Yours...you end up having to, like it or not...look, it was just really bad. But I only did what anyone else would do, just before they'd thought to do it. What can I tell you, I'm a survivor.

Personal journal 12/31/43 Pt 06

You know that phrase "Law and Order"? I always thought it meant The Law, you know, the police and Courts and that. But what it really means, what you really miss...is Order. Is people getting along in peace, you know, no shouting or grabbing or fights breaking out over nothing. Well, sometimes it wasn't over nothing. Sometimes it was food or water, often water, actually. Sometimes it was medicine. People will do anything for their kids. Anything. But all I had was me, so I looked after me. Because no one else was going to, were they?

Personal journal 12/31/43 Pt 07

So I was working pretty hard keeping body and soul together, you know? You couldn't afford to be too fussy who you worked for. I had some employable skills. Much more employable than in Peacetime and Plenty. So I was doing no great, but OK, compared to most, but you could see it was all sliding downhill. And then a pal I'd served with in the forces dropped me a line, said he had a wee bit of business going on, needed someone he could trust, and we'd seen right by each other before if you know what I mean. And he knew I could handle myself in a tussle. And very handy that proved, as it turned out.

Personal journal 12/31/43 Pt 08

Um, where was I? Ohhh yes. So yeah, it was a total mess. Huge herds of people, mobs trying to get on board the ships. The only crowd control that works is bullet-based, you know? And the paying punters! Man, there's nothing more pathetic than millionaires who just realised their money won't Buy anything any more, except a place on our deck. So there's a bunch of these punters, sold off everything for the last "official" ship to Ark and of course it's not official, it's a scam, but this one, the skipper does actually have a decent notion where the Ark is, unlike most. You'd hear of ships coming back after just a few hours, minus all the punters, you know? And then picking up a fresh load of punters for all their worldly goods. Not my idea. Not my scene. Our ship was better class than that. Just.

Personal journal 12/31/43 Pt 09

... and these buffoons have no idea how to conserve water, you know, just panting away in the sun. And I was used to rationing my intake, keeping in shade, gob shut, you know? So when the punters start complaining and getting rowdy, they're already half-beat anyway, we just have to give 'em a few light taps to calm 'em down. It's all a bit tense and grumpy, but no one Dead, no one deep-sixed. But man, we're glad to start seeing the mid-ocean marker buoys saying "Private Property, Turn Back". And then we see the perimeter breakwater and man, the SIZE of that thing. It really is amazing. But problem's not over yet.

Personal journal 01/01/44 Pt 10

So, it's all a wee bit tense. The Ark Security chaps are pointing shooters at us, yelling at us to turn back. Our punters yelling and greeting. Someone drops something, it goes Clang, and anything sounds like Bang when you have a gun, so someone starts slotting, you know, with a 9 mil, someone else opens up with an AR. Chaos. The punters are headless chickens. And I'm just keeping my head down, but also making sure no one else gets hurt, you know, pulling them behind cover, giving them a wee tap to quiet 'em down, that sort of thing. And when the drama calms down and Security boards us, this huge black Saffy -- I don't know he's the Captain -- he asks me my name and what I'm about. And after a five minute medical, and oath, I'm barcoded, kitted out in blues and drinking my first canteen of desalinated Arkwater. I am now a proud member of Security. Cushty.

Welder 2nd Class Lugard Adebayo

Lugard Adebayo's audio logs are unencrypted personal journal entries, which give background on his personal life leading up to the events of the game. Adebayo describes various aspects of life as a Guest, including the filthy conditions in which they must work, and the sacrifices that the Resistance makes to continue fighting Security.

Personal journal 02/19/44

All I know is this place. I mean, I've seen the TV, I've seen how the world used to be, how we all used to live on soil, on concrete, above solid rock. I even read a book about it. But land, "dry" land...that's just something from a story. Walking for hundreds of metres in a straight line. Not being able to see the horizon. Trees! Trees everywhere, growing wild! I'd like to see a wild tree. Maybe one day I will.

Personal journal 02/21/44

Things are pretty bad in the Guest slums. I guess it's amazing we've lasted this long. It's not like the Founder Pelgos; everything here's made of bits of old ships and the salt sea air, it eats steel up. We don't have mineral oils any more and the new Bio-Grease won't weatherproof it. You can't stop the steel from rusting, then flaking, then just crumbling away. It just takes a few weeks for the salt and the damp to turn bright shiny bare metal to brown to red rust. And you can't patch it with Arkoral. Oh no, it won't grow or set and it just seals the moisture in so it rusts and rots where you can't see it. That's how Ark is right now: you can't see the rot, but you know it's there.

Personal journal 02/24/43

Guests come from all over. Some used to be rich, used to Own Land, they say. Haha. No one's owning land now. We're all sorts of everyone, in the slums. All of us the same colour: red! Doesn't matter what colour you start off as, a few years in the slums, any sort of maintenance work, once you get the rust under your fingernails, it never comes off. We're the Guests. We own this place. And one day soon...we'll run it.

Personal journal 02/26/43

My father, he says things are too turbulent these days. "Don't rock the boat," he says. "Work hard, stay at home, don't get mixed up with any nonsense." He says he's seen real bad times, trying to get to Ark, losing Mum...he doesn't want to see them again. He works hard to keep the Ark floating. So do I. In fact, all I've ever done is work for the Ark. Doesn't mean tomorrow has to be like yesterday. Don't rock the boat he says. I say: this boat needs rocking!

Personal journal 03/01/43

It makes me sick to hear the Founder preach to us about what a 'miracle material' Arkoral is. I hate Arkoral. It stinks. It stinks of fish mess. Once it dries, it's not too bad. But if you work with Arkoral, you get splashed. And you get that seed stuff on you, it never washes off completely. It stains. It scars you. But if you're a Guest, you're marked even before then. The bright red dust under your fingernails from all the rust in the slum Pelgos. That gritty feeling. You can't ever get it out, can't ever get clean, not even if you scrub until you bleed. I was ashamed. I just wanted to be a Founder kid, clean and normal. I didn't want to be a 'Dirty, Smelly Guest'. But Chen understands. He doesn't hide his Arkoral scars. His blood is in this place. He knows what it means to work. He knows what's good for Ark.

Personal journal 03/01/43

We did some work with Sacrificial Anodes: Zinc blocks that protect steel from corrosion. But we ran out of Zinc. It's hard to mine for metal when it's under a mile of sea, you know? And...ah...and ah, yeah, well, actually...the main reason we ran out is because we needed the Zinc to make ammunition. Lead for bullets we can get from the old ship ballast. Brass for the cartridge cases is harder: Zinc from the anodes, Copper from the oligodynamic water filters. My father, he wasn't too happy about that, said we'd all get sick without the filters. I told him it was just temporary. He said you can't save the Ark by destroying the Ark. Ah, bless him. He's a man of peace. But we don't need peace now, we need Action. And that's the sort of man I am.

Personal journal 03/25/43

You know what? To hell with the Founders. To hell with them telling us what to do. I respect Work. I respect my Father. I can't respect someone just born into money, who's never worked a day in their lives. Let's see them break a sweat for a water ration for a change! Let's see them eat kelp every day, see how they like it! Who cares what they think? I'm PROUD to be a Guest. I make Ark work! I'm proud to have red fingernails, proud of my Arkoral scars! The Founders are Nothing!

Personal journal 03/29/43

Some of my friends, they join Security. You believe that! They're not my friends any more, I can tell you. They sold their pride for an extra water ration and a blue uniform. Turned on their people. Still rusty red-handed like us, but working for the Founders, keeping them living in luxury, while we live like scum. Filth. Chen said on the radio, it doesn't matter who those people were before, they're Dead to us now. Dead!

Personal journal 04/12/43

Last night, I heard Chen speak. In the flesh. It was a million times better than hearing him on the radio or only seeing him on TV. He explained everything. He makes it so clear. How we live like slaves so the Founders can live in luxury. "We Guests," he said, "we've subsidised the Founders for too long". Well I know I've had enough. I've had enough of Security arresting people for no reason, giving me the evil eye, picking me for another "random" search. They want a Resistance fighter? They got one now. I'm with Brother Chen.

Professor A. Habib

Professor Habib's audio logs are encrypted personal journal entries, which give background on his work at refugee camps near the Mediterranean prior to the events of the game. He describes how he was taken to the Ark by plane after Ark officials heard about various Arkoral-related experiments he had conducted.

Encrypted personal journal 07/19/43 Pt 1

We had seen many people like them before, back when they had things and thought they were better than us. They called themselves Westerners, but they were just from the North. They used to come as tourists, as Big Men, to stand in front of old things, buy old things. Never new, never things we made or grew. But when things changed. Well, a lot of things changed.

Encrypted personal journal 07/19/43 Pt 2

The weather got more fierce. Heavier when it rained. And then when it didn't rain, it didn't rain for a long time. Of course, we were used to that: the khamsim, the sirocco, the simoon, we'd been living with heat and dust storms all our lives. The pale people...not so much. Their agriculture could not survive. Their economy could not survive. And they were not....how do you say? Tough. They had not Survived anything before. They had no skills, no mentality. But they learned. Well, the ones who survived, they learned.

Encrypted personal journal 07/19/43 Pt 3

They kept coming. It didn't matter what we threatened, or how many we sent back, they kept coming. We told them we couldn't take everyone. But it's not far across the Mediterranean, they came in ships, in tiny boats, in rafts, tried to just float across. And it's a long coast, very hard to stop everyone. And they arrived in such terrible state, in shock, dehydrated, malnourished even. We could not close our hearts.

Encrypted personal journal 07/19/43 Pt 4

No one had seen pale Refugees before. No one had seen whole camps of pale refugees before. And so many of them! White refugees fleeing to Africa, from chaos and disease and violence at home. It was funny. At first. They were in shock, like sheep in a slaughterhouse. Then they tried to treat it like a holiday, a joke. But cholera, typhoid, packed into those camps, not so funny. We gave all we could, but we could not save them all. You never can.

Encrypted personal journal 07/19/43 Pt 5

So we had all heard of The Ark. We used to say: why don't we just go to Mount Ararat and wait for it? But it wasn't for us, you know? Celebrities, rich hippies. Some bad science. And it was in the Pacific, a world away from us. Some interesting engineering, but it was, we thought, silly. Real world, real problems, needing real solutions, not some...Eco-Boutique, you know? They were off in their own world, and we were still in the real one, trying to save it for everyone, not just the rich few, you know?

Encrypted personal journal 07/19/43 Pt 6

We'd been doing feasibility tests on the early strains of their Arkoral, doing some interesting things with it, things they hadn't thought of. Reducing the seeding time, making it faster, using monofilament to increase tensile strength, make it more flexible. So the Ark people asked who was doing these things. And then asked about my other degrees and, well, they asked me to come to Ark. Told me to make a rendezvous, a last flight while they still could, picking up key personnel, bringing them to the Ark. And I said No.

Encrypted personal journal 07/19/43 Pt 7

I didn't want to move to the Ark. I know, I know, it's ridiculous. Tens of thousands of refugees from all over the world desperately trying to find a way there, and I'm ASKED to go and don't want to. But I didn't want to abandon my people, even the new people. I thought I should stay, and help. And maybe I should have but...The Ark offered Security. I was afraid. I was afraid in my own home. I was afraid for my country, for the future. Things just seemed like they'd keep on getting worse. All of a sudden I realised...there was no future there.

Encrypted personal journal 07/19/43 Pt 8

It was odd, leaving my country, taking a plane when almost no civilian flights were still running. And it took so many flights, so many men with guns. It was terrible, seeing the faces of all those who could not come with us. What do you say? What CAN you say? Some of those places were about to fall apart completely. Some already had. It was rule of the wolves. I still see their faces, through the wire fences, their eyes drilling into me. They knew it was going to get worse, and I'd be somewhere safe.

Encrypted personal journal 07/19/43 Pt 9

We have one last flight to get to the Ark. Our plane, with the Ark logo on the tailfin, is being refueled. There's a mob pressed against the perimeter fence, all the way round. Hundreds of pairs of eyes staring at us. When the plane starts its engines, they let out this...this ROAR. And the fence gives way. Our guards hold them back as long as they can, but warning shots don't scare them any more. One of the guards...he sacrifices himself, draws the mob's attention, holds them off for a few seconds. To save us. He gave his life so we could leave. Because he believed my life, my knowledge, my skills...made me worth more than him. I think of him every day.

Encrypted personal journal 07/19/43 Pt 10

We only just make it. The plane is only just nose-up when we run out of runway. The undercarriage hits foliage before we start to climb. I can hear shots hit the fuselage. And then the pilot doesn't fly out over the sea, he flies back inland, and dives back towards the ground! He tells us later he does it to misdirect anyone plotting our course before dropping down below radar. But at the time...land was the last place we wanted to be.

Encrypted personal journal 07/19/43 Pt 11

Once he's sure we're not being tracked, the pilot heads us back out over the sea, flying under radar height. After the adrenaline high, the slump. I only realise I'm asleep when someone shakes me awake. It's very cold. We're flying so close to the sea, you can see the wave crests. There's nothing but ocean, we're flying nowhere. What am I doing? We belong on land! We can't live here! And then I see the first marker buoys. And then the beginning of the perimeter breakwater. And finally,...the Ark.

Encrypted personal journal 07/19/43 Pt 12

No one forgets the first time they see Founders Tower. It's better than on the TV. It's like an ivory spear, white against blue. The Arkoral scatters the light, so it seems to glow. And this huge heap of refugee housing, shipping containers, ships swaying at anchor. The lower Ark hadn't all rusted by then, it was still every kind of colour. It looked like a children's toybox, all jumbled up, all floating in the middle of the sea. And I thought: this is it...this my country now.

Barbara Elmhurst

Barbara Elmhurst's audio logs are encrypted personal journal entries, which give background on her conflicted feelings regarding the Guests. She describes the developing enmity between the Guests and the Founders, as well as her varying reactions to the hatred that the Guests show toward her.

Encrypted personal journal 02/08/44

We Founders call them "the Guests", like they're one people, one tribe, who all showed up at once. But the Guests were... are... everyone. Every possible nationality, ethnicity, religion, class, profession, standard of education. There's nothing united about the Guests... other than resentment of us, even though we saved them. And Chen. He feeds their anger, channels their bitterness, and then gives them guns! We have enough problems already. Chen makes them all worse.

Encrypted personal journal 04/28/44 Pt 01

Even though the Ark's location was supposed to be a secret, the Guests just kept coming. So many of them, so many ships. Some of the Guests were clearly criminals and bandits. Some were clearly dangerously sick with highly infectious diseases. And we let them all in. We didn't have to, but we did, because it was the right thing to do. We Founders turned over our Ark to everybody... And now we get lectured on how selfish we are.

Encrypted personal journal 04/28/44 Pt 02

We had the Arkoral plants working around the clock and still couldn't make enough buoyant accommodation. We did what we could. We went to double - then quadruple shifts, we designed simpler Arkoral pontoons so we could build new Pelgos vastly faster, we... What? "Did we skimp on construction standards?" No. We had to adjust them, that's all... .OK, yes. That one was a mess. No getting away from that. In Engineering, if you make a mistake, people die. We definitely dropped the ball on that one.

Encrypted personal journal 06/30/44

I don't get it. The Guests, they work in Engineering, Maintenance, Recycling, they see the system, they see how short we are of resources, spare parts, time. What do they expect? Do they think we actually have power to spare, we're just not bothering to let them have any? That we can purify more water? Desalination is already working round the clock. What more can we Founders do for them?

Encrypted personal journal 07/12/44

I keep hearing the same thing from Chen: the Ark was in chaos and only the Guests saved it. Like we Founders were a bunch of...wrist-flapping effete horizon-gazers incapable of fixing an algae filter or turbine capacitor. We BUILT the damn place, without any assistance from them AND moved the entire thing from the coast to mid-ocean AND the only reason there was chaos was because THEY turned up, uninvited, in their tens of thousands. YOU try housing thousands of men, women and children at once. THEY brought the chaos, they WERE the chaos.

Encrypted personal journal 09/29/44

Yet more time burnt away on Consultation Meetings with the Guest representatives. What a bunch of thugs. Chen's radicals, to a man. They transparently care more about their political movement than the welfare of the people they claim to represent. They keep raiding the clinics, then they demand we re-open them so they can steal more of the supplies we Founders provide, and hand them out to the Guests, claiming it's a gift from Chen. Why are we bothering with this?

Encrypted personal journal 11/25/44

You know, there are plenty of Guest success stories here. There's plenty of Guests who have worked their way up, taken advantage of the housing and medical supplies and education and opportunities we've offered them. Why, through the scholarship programs, I've met dozens of smart young men and women who all started off on the Guest pelgos. Why can't they ALL be like that? It's up to them to take advantage of what we ALREADY offer, not demand more. Chen should be telling them to work harder, not strike for more water.

Encrypted personal journal 01/16/45

Another Consultation Meeting with the Guest representatives. More rantings and poundings on the tables about water rationing. They demand an end to rationing. We politely request they stop sabotaging the desalination plants. They claim that's a Founder lie. We show them the surveillance footage. They claim it's faked, and we're not negotiating in good faith. What a waste of time. Hard to keep one's temper when they bite the hand that feeds.

Encrypted personal journal 02/24/45

Another secret Council meeting, Founders-only, and Mokoena, with the usual furious shouting and table-banging. All the public meetings are so formal, so polite. I wonder what Chen would think if he saw how vicious the real meetings are. And always the same two topics; what to do about Chen's "Resistance". And whether to tell them about the failed mission to re-establish contact. I hate keeping secrets. Surely honesty is the best policy?

Encrypted personal journal 03/09/45

Today I was spat on by a Guest. In a clinic. It didn't seem to matter that I was treating her child, or that I had volunteered my time to work there, as soon as she realized I was a Founder...she spat in my face. What has Chen told her about us? What must she fear, to hate me so much? How can we trust these people?

Encrypted personal journal 03/19/45

Captain Mokoena wants to tell the public about the mission. I tried to reason with him. I told him if we told Chen we HAD tried to re-establish contact with his precious waiting outside world... but everyone on the mission was killed in the most... brutal way... there'd be chaos. People would die. And...if people knew that all there was waiting out there for us was danger...we'd lose Hope. The Ark has survived for forty years on energy from the wind and waves and sun, but without Hope...I don't think we'd survive. The truth is dangerous. The truth can kill us. Mokoena's desire to tell the truth is admirable, and in a better world we could, and should. But this isn't a better world. And we simply can't.

Encrypted personal journal 03/28/45

This is all the Guests' fault, all of it. They came here in their tens of thousands and they used everything up and we broke the Ark to keep them alive and now they're killing us. Killing us! They should just get back on their boats and go back to wherever the hell they came from. Especially if they're so keen to spend resources, OUR resources, resources that WE NEED, to just wander off and find super magic land where everything's free and fine. If we're such morons, if they're such geniuses, if they've got it ALLLL worked out, let them swim to dry land and leave us alone.

Encrypted personal journal 04/01/45

What's this?..."Demolish the house and build a boat. Abandon wealth and seek survival. Spurn property, save life. Take on board all living things' seed"...who... who sent this?