Grounded 2: Where to Find the Alliance Unlikely Data Folder

Data collectibles in Grounded 2 are easy to walk past, and Alliance Unlikely is one of the sneakier ones. It is not on the pond floor, despite the objective text pushing you underwater, and it is not sitting out in the open. It is tucked inside a small cave cut into the rock above the waterline, and the only way up is a twig that doubles as a ramp.

Quick answer: The Alliance Unlikely folder is in a cave outcropping along the north wall of Skunk Pond. Swim to the large twig sticking out of the water, walk up it into the cave, and take the folder off the table.

Alliance Unlikely location in Skunk Pond

Skunk Pond is the anchor point for this collectible. Open your map and look at the northern edge of the pond, where the water meets the rock face. The entrance you want is a dark gap in that wall, raised above the surface and marked with a purple symbol tied to the Stranger. If you are swimming at water level, you will look straight past it.

Area: Skunk Pond, north wall
Access: a large twig extending out of the water, used as a ramp
Landmark: purple Stranger symbol on the rocky outcropping
Exact spot: a metal table with a computer monitor inside the cave

How to reach the cave and collect the folder

Get into the water at Skunk Pond and swim toward the north wall. Keep the rock face on your left or right as a guide rather than diving, since the pickup is above the surface.

Find the large twig that juts out of the water near that wall. It is the largest piece of debris on this side of the pond and it leans up toward the rock, which is the giveaway.

Climb onto the twig and walk up it like a ramp. It carries you out of the water and onto the rocky outcropping where the cave mouth sits.

Player walking up the large twig at Skunk Pond with the pond objective shown on screen — The twig doubles as a ramp out of the water, even while the on-screen objective still points to the bottom of the pond.

Head into the cave. Inside, the space opens into a cluttered little workspace built into the rock, with wreckage and equipment pushed against the walls.

Interior of the small cave above Skunk Pond filled with scattered equipment — The cave interior is cramped and full of salvaged gear, so the table is easy to miss on a first pass.

First-person view of a yellow electrical panel attached to wreckage inside the cave — Panels and wreckage line the cave walls around the workspace.

Move to the metal table with the computer monitor on it. The yellow folder labeled ALLIANCE UNLIKELY sits right beside the monitor. Interact with it to pick it up.

If you end up circling the pond floor looking for a buried container, you are in the wrong place. Get back to the surface and look for the twig.

How to confirm you picked it up

The pickup registers immediately. The folder’s full text opens on screen with the ALLIANCE UNLIKELY header and a close prompt at the bottom, and the collectible is added to your data entries. The map also stops treating that cave as an uncollected point, so if you reopen it after grabbing the folder, the marker at the north wall reflects the pickup.

What the Alliance Unlikely folder says

The document is the Stranger weighing three ways to move against Ominent’s operations down in the abyss. Each option is written out as a short pros and cons list, which is where most of the lore value sits.

The Alliance Unlikely document listing three options with their pros and cons — The folder opens straight into the three-option breakdown once you collect it.

Option	Pros	Cons
Send soldier	Full control, efficient, tried and tested	No thumbs, no signal below checkpoint
Diving bell	Safe/dry, chill protection	No thumbs, time consuming, need to swim out if things go wrong
Alliance with the crazies	Thumbs, brains, motivated	Basically Ominent with a chip on their shoulder, have their own pointless agenda

The three candidates map onto soldiers, diving bell spiders, and Ominent rebels. The tone of the notes is dismissive of all three, which is the point of the title: none of the options is a clean fit, and the signal problem below the checkpoint is the recurring sticking point.

Close view of the ALLIANCE UNLIKELY entry with a button prompt to close the document — Close the entry with the on-screen prompt; it stays readable from your data collection afterward.

Once the folder is in hand, the cave has nothing else to offer, so you can drop straight back into the pond and carry on. It is worth remembering the twig trick, though, since raised outcroppings like this one hide more than one collectible in the park.