Last time, I destroyed the universe! Let’s go back in time so I can condemn it to a slow agonizing death instead. Trigger warning for suicide, by the way.
Also this is crazy long but I am so far past caring. Just think of it as a special double feature episode because I love you so much.
One interesting thing is that the title screen changes after the ending. There’s no music, either, just unsettling silence. I didn’t know you could do that in RPG Maker, so it comes as a surprise! It’s a neat trick, and it does encourage you to fix your mistake if you dared to trust the scientist.
“Whoever he is, we can’t let him get away with what he’s done. Not just the Inquiry. Everything.”
Before getting down to business, I’d like to change Ros’ motive to be more appropriate this time. This is one thing I didn’t get into last time, but it makes absolutely no sense for Ros to even consider the Progenitor’s proposal. The man is evil. Comically, absurdly over-the-top evil. Despite all his claims of wanting to save humanity, he has callously destroyed everything he could for seemingly no purpose, including the home Ros is (supposedly) very attached to. The high-minded deliberation on whether or not his plan will really work is not something Ros and the others should care about at all: the Progenitor made this personal, and that emotional motive overpowers any milquetoast philosophy you can come up with. They are absolutely doing this for revenge, and any claim to the contrary is denial.
(This is another writing lesson, by the way: Don’t mix emotional and logical motives like this. Emotions will always be more immediately attractive and compelling – that’s a useful tool, but it means they’ll drown out anything they have to compete with. A clever writer can draw attention to that dissonance and use it for some purpose, but generally, if you want the characters and readers to be able to dispassionately judge a logical proposal, you’re going to need to dial it back.)
The rest of the cutscene plays out as before, but this time I call his plan what it is.
Marie: “The Commander has spoken! You’re going down, old man. For Sorenson… the Shine… everything!”
See what I mean?
And now, because I’ve been playing a goody two-shoes, it’s time to reap my karmic reward:
Killstealing! Lagarto, Colony 503b, and whatever side of the war you helped with the superweapon (Ral, in this case) show up and eliminate some enemies for you, assuming you weren’t a dick and didn’t kill them. It’s… a nice gesture, I guess, but still comes off pretty underwhelming, especially since the game previously played up those choices as super huge deals. The Progenitor’s MODs are tougher than usual fare, but they’re still pretty trivial, so this assistance is more symbolic than anything else. It might be legitimately helpful if you missed a bunch of optional characters and have gaping holes in your fleets, but any fleet that can’t get past the normal mobs…
…isn’t going to stand a chance against the mission’s gimmick. All four battles are against a full set of powerful MODs, and you don’t have enough CP to ambush all of them in a single turn. The battle system is still so easy that you might be able to squeak through with a fleet of 3, but if you missed all or most of the optionals you’re totally screwed. Might have been nice if one of the assists weakened those a little bit. Even only knocking one down to the strength of a normal encounter could make this mission possible for a limited roster.
I would have appreciated a more story-based bent to these consequences, like if they added additional scenes that changed certain aspects of the ending. There’s actually a particular event coming up where their assistance could have actually made a difference, so I’m disappointed they just disappear after ticking off the token “returning the favor in my hour of need” box.
Also, Ral says something interesting: “You have eluded us for far too long, Progenitor. We shall end your schemes here and now!” So apparently not only is it possible to hide from Typelog after all, Typelog seems to have known the real cause of the Shine for a while now and kept silent about it because [not found]. Is Typelog an omniscient panopticon or not, game?
Progenitor: “A battle of wits and wills. So be it. The winner shall inherit the ashes of the universe!”
And we get a really forced callback (call forward?) to Havan’s pre-battle line. All it does is remind me what a better villain Havan was. It doesn’t even make sense in this context: the point Havan was trying to make was that everything was already over and all anyone could do now was fight over scraps – he was mocking the pointlessness of it all as well as demonstrating his own myopia, because clearly the only reason people would fight him would be for the same reason he would: because they want his stuff. But the Progenitor’s motives are the total opposite: he doesn’t want the ashes of this universe, he wants to build a glorious new world from the remains! The winner here inherits his device and thus the new universe, not the ashes of the old one.
Does the developer not even realize what made his best scene so effective? That’s depressing.
But okay, mission start. Obviously there’s a unique BGM, “Enclosing”, and I highly recommend listening to it. Quick question: when you think of final dungeon music in RPGs, what words come to mind? Epic, sweeping, and triumphant would be my guesses. “Enclosing” is almost antithetical to paradigm. It’s tense and dramatic, but I don’t feel particularly empowered by it – it’s not even that loud. It instead evokes a sense of grim determination: a last stand at the end of the world. Which is exactly what this is! It’s also really good with leitmotifs and callbacks – towards the end you can hear the ominous tones of “Lights”, but given more teeth in combination with the percussion line that booms like an execution march, and the voice-like sections even call all the way back to the title screen music. It’s a really amazing mix of both fast-paced tension and slower, more solemn undertones, while subtly hearkening back to important moments in the storyline. It plays during battles, too, so it’s never interrupted.
Buuuuut… I just can’t help but feel it lacks something compared to The Reconstruction’s final dungeon music. “Enclosing” takes an unusual approach to tone, but it’s still recognizably… videogamey, if that makes sense. It plays by the rules, it has a sense of professionalism. The spire music may not have been as pleasant to listen to, but there’s no denying its shock value. Just as the world and narrative had been torn completely asunder, so too did the final dungeon music throw all adherence to typical rules out the window – it was a completely twisted, terrifying, and uninhibited scrawl of noise designed to unsettle you. Even the music was nothing like you expected or heard before; it stripped away whatever last vestiges of normalcy you were trying to cling to at that point. It perfectly mirrored the player’s and characters’ response to the situation, and it was able to do that because it was so unusual and unique. “Enclosing” is much more professional, engaging, and technically better-constructed, but it also lost some of that unique spark. And that’s really an apt comparison between the two games as a whole, isn’t it?
I clear out a few enemies. The Progenitor has one MOD for each weapon type, in addition to the weak scouts that still show up for some reason. They’re actually about as hard as bosses, I’d say; they’re able to inflict close to 500 damage pretty consistently, and their defenses are actually pretty good. Still not real threats, though. The final line before the purple nodes is also called the “chaotic zone” and contains both Lessers and rogues; presumably they’re supposed to be vying for control, yet they both seem to cooperate for the purposes of killing me.
At the end of the second turn, The Black One shows up and tells me the Lesser horde is approaching, so I need to finish before they arrive and trigger the device. So, I do have a turn limit after all. Weirdly, this is a karmic reward too: trying to help Blacky in episode 3 gives you an additional turn.
The Black One: “Your leader… showed mercy… no, pity to a being unfit and undeserving of it.”
Nnnno, I only saved you because I wanted to wring the truth out of you. I thought this was understood. No explanation is given for why this delays the horde. It’s not like he even shows up earlier or anything. If his respect for me encouraged him to fight the horde himself instead of just sitting on the sidelines that could have been a perfectly fine explanation, or even if the turn limit didn’t change but he doesn’t warn you at all if you don’t rescue him, that could work. Instead the turn limit changes due to magic.
Progenitor: “Of course the Lessers are invited. Well, Ouranos? You’d best be quick to beat them to the punch.”
The Black One: “Oh, shut up.”
That was… suspiciously informal. Almost like he’s had to listen to this guy before. I really think I’m on to something with my crackpot theory!
The Black One: “Blue One… our fight will have to wait. For now… continue to aid these beings. Your knowledge has poisoned this reality, but there is still time to treat the consequences.”
I thought he said he wasn’t going to fight any more? I guess he was lying last time, then. And I’m guessing this means Stardraw tech is based on some knowledge from the latent energy “wellspring”, further corroborating my theory.
The Black One: “If we are still here when the device triggers, it will be the end of all things! Do not let that happen!”
Are you going to explain what you mean by that now that we’re on the same side? No? Okay then.
The perimeter fights all have the same format: three offensive MODs plus two new ones called “???BARRIER”. They have the same Shine Flash ability as the scouts, but they can deal about twice as much damage with it for some reason. As you may expect, they have pretty good defenses, but they’re mostly just there to waste your time. If you beat the other MODs first they won’t give you much trouble.
Progenitor: “You have arrived! And with such strength! I knew my decision was a wise one.”
WE’RE COMING TO KILL YOU YOU LUNATIC. Why does he still act like I’m aiding his plans? If he actually did have a secret contingency to turn this to his advantage that would have been really clever, but no, he just acts like wrecking his stuff is all according to plan.
Progenitor: “You do realize that if I cripple your craft this close to the Core, they too could be absorbed into the fold?”
This does not actually happen, as cool as it would be. It doesn’t even make sense anyway – their navigation systems are still active, that’s the whole point of the evacuation sequence. If they can’t get auto-absorbed by being around the thing normally, why would they get eaten when their jets are pointed the other way?
In a game full of very disappointing battles, the Progenitor is, unsurprisingly, a very disappointing final boss. He’s exactly as strong as Colony 503b, with the only difference being that he can change which health types he attacks. The one impressive thing is that he starts with a full entourage of MODs, which as I previously said can inflict about the same amount of damage and take a smidgen of effort to put down. A full onslaught can tear you up pretty bad here. It’s still not difficult to take them out, though. Interestingly, he does get to summon reinforcements, but only one MOD per round, which is also easily dispatched. Once you get to that point, he simply can’t deal enough damage to take you out.
The music, “Fortissimo” (which sounds like it should have swapped titles with “Pianissimo”), is also disappointing. It would be fine as anything else, but it doesn’t even sound like fight music, just a very slow and contemplative… thing. That might have been fitting if we were actually meant to contemplate what we were doing here, but we’re clearly not because the Progenitor is a paper-thin strawman. It also quotes Typelog’s theme, which is just weird when the Progenitor is associated with EROS. “Enclosing” was extremely fitting, but this doesn’t capture the emotional tone of the scene at all – where’s the indignation? The vengeance? The justice? The culmination of everything we’ve been working toward? It doesn’t even quote the main theme, which is a travesty in a final boss theme. It probably would have made more sense if this and “Pianissimo” switched places, honestly – the ending where you beat up the nerd and take his lunch money should get the funky, fast-paced track while the one where you become a robot and kill all your friends gets the cerebral contemplative one.
Speaking of killing my friends, this battle does what I said The Reconstruction’s final battle should have done and brings in new characters to replace downed ones. This more than anything makes the fight a foregone conclusion: even though the MODs have decent damage output, even if you’re playing recklessly there’s pretty much no way you’ll run out of reserves before the Progenitor runs out of health. It’s bad enough when you only have the main party members, if you’ve gotten the optional characters you’re pretty much invincible.
And even then you probably won’t need it. Even though I was purposefully being as reckless as possible to show off this mechanic, the Progenitor just spent the entire fight idiotically spamming this attack on Marie even though she has a pulse resistance and can easily tank it. I kinda get the impression the AI only registers vulnerabilities, not resistances.
He also brings back Havan’s gimmick even though we don’t have the handwave of MAGIC to explain how it works this time. Especially because this thing seems to be stationary – how is it still functioning after I’ve torn the hull open? How can this guy survive getting his life support wrecked but the life support AND the hull, oh no? It’s not like it makes much difference – though effectively tripling his health does make him last a lot longer than most bosses, multiple attacks still ensures I can take him down before too long. Maybe if I didn’t get reinforcements he could have lasted long enough to be dangerous, but…
Uhh, isn’t that thing part of the extremely delicate device we weren’t supposed to damage? Shouldn’t blowing it up be bad?
The attacks stop, so they board and enter the chamber.
9_9 Let’s just assume the stress of the fight did it and not that they could have just waited for this to happen.
Of course, this still doesn’t solve the problem of his device still being active. Marie tries to get Tez to help, but he just freaks out over how it’s all his fault and runs off. Helpful. Neff then confirms that the Lesser horde is approaching – which is a problem, because if they set off the device, this will all have been for nothing. Ros gives Neff control of the Progenitor’s MODs, and then it’s heroic sacrifice time. Neff chooses to stay behind and throw himself at the horde to protect the device.
I really do not like this part. So many stories, it seems like, are so in love with the idea of dramatic heroic sacrifices that they shoehorn them in without bothering to sell why they’re meaningful or even why they’re necessary at all. What frustrates me about this scene is that it’s so avoidable. We’re given one out right off the bat:
Ros: “Let me take the controls! You need to get to safety!”
Thomas: “Absolutely not, Ouranos. You will return for debriefing at once. Everyone else is expendable.”
Ros: “What?!”
And then Ros and Neff proceed to follow the order from the douchebag they hate and have no loyalty towards, because…?
Then people bring up the Progenitor’s previous threat of getting shot down near the device being an instakill, so WHY DON’T YOU JUST FLY FARTHER OUT YOU IDIOT. This is especially grating because getting disabled when they were actually fighting the Progenitor – so, when they were right next to the device – didn’t do anything, but now, when they should be further out, suddenly now the deathzone activates? It’s pure plot fiat. It’s stupid. But even if we accept this ridiculous plot contrivance, it shouldn’t even matter, because look:
Look how much space he has! Look how far away he already is! Comparing the scale between the mission and this cutscene, he’s definitely farther out than the crew was during the boss battle! And yet there’s still a huge buffer between him and the horde! If being this close is a problem, there is nothing stopping him from moving a bit farther out! This is not a necessary sacrifice! This even has an easy fix: just say the horde destroyed their support beacon so now if he gets shot down his craft will be destroyed for real, like what (supposedly) happened to Lazarus. But no, stupid plot contrivance out of nowhere!
Alicia then brings up the possibility of just shutting the thing down, but that isn’t possible because plot fiat (and also because Tez is being useless). I will grudgingly concede that the Progenitor never intended for this thing to have an off switch, so it could very well be something complex like a nuclear meltdown that can’t be easily negated. Still annoying.
Like. Okay. I get that, in a story about immortality causing people to lose track of their lives and morals someone choosing to die for a cause is pretty thematically relevant and stuff. But this is just the worst possible way to go about it – it’s so painfully forced and contrived and comes out of left field, and those contrivances make it look more like a suicide than a sacrifice. And besides, didn’t we already do this with Sorenson? It’s not even particularly meaningful – the characters don’t really react to it, and just, why Neff of all people? I really did not expect this from the utopian futurist. He has so much to live for, but he’s choosing to throw it all away because… what, he couldn’t come up with a better idea? Maybe Ral’s nihilism got to him and now he’s like Ivoronus and feels there’s no point in life anymore. Thanks, Ral.
And then it gets worse. How can this get worse, you ask?
Ros: “You can’t hold them off alone…”
Chac: “Commander, t’was an honor and a privilege to serve you. But, t’is time that my fate catch up to me. I was indebted to the universe to be allowed to live this long. Now, I shall repay it in kind.”
That’s right, the depressed guy is committing suicide after all and the story is portraying this as a totally healthy and heroic decision, because that’s not messed up at all! Also:
“[I would never again wish I had died]. Without a functional body, it is difficult to have any lasting effect on the universe, isn’t it?”
Remember that? Seems he’s done a complete 180 on his views on suicide.
But wait, we’re not done!
Ros: “Cassidy and Cole… I thought you wanted to retire?”
Cassidy: “Yeah, well… you can’t always get whatcha want, you know? Plus, we have a name to live up to!”
Cole: “Mmmph… feller says we ain’t gonna live forever anyway… mmm… might as well make it worth it.”
Because if you can’t live forever you might as well die now, apparently!
Neff: “All right! Now it’s a party!”
Yeah, a suicide party.
At least this one isn’t surprising, since he already told us this is exactly how he wanted to commit suicide.
Mahk is devastated and begs him to reconsider, but Ivoronus just tells him “Enough, Mahk. You have been sniveling and pleading since I joined. You are a man. Act like one,” because he’s an abusive piece of garbage who can’t be bothered to care about other people’s feelings. He then goes on this weirdly religious spiel about how “All things are judged at the end. Whether there is time for atonement before oblivion, however…” and WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN. If you don’t believe in a god or afterlife how can there be “judgment”? Are you a nihilist or not? He also finally acknowledges that being a weaponsmith makes him kind of responsible for all the violence that’s happened and only now realizes that that’s a bad thing he should regret. I see he belongs to the Tezkhra school of moral epiphanies. Too little too late; if Ivoronus was a major player we got to understand personally before the eleventh hour this might be meaningful, but as-is it comes out of nowhere.
Ivoronus: “Enjoy your universe, and your lives… however short or long they may be. Just… enjoy them…”
I’m pretty sure Ivoronus is the dev’s mouthpiece, so here we finally get some insight into what on Earth is going on here. This seems to be saying that we need to stop stressing over the fear of death and just enjoy it while it lasts, which is a common philosophical creed. I’d even say it makes a pretty decent point; no sense fretting over the inevitable. But I think it misses a greater point, especially in this context.
It’s very easy for a twentysomething dude with his whole life ahead of him to say this, but it’s not very helpful advice to anyone else. What does this platitude offer to an old man on his deathbed, who can’t enjoy life because his body has betrayed him and he knows the end is just around the corner? Or maybe that person can accept their own death – but if they know a terrible disaster is going to cut short the lives of their loved ones, what then? How are they supposed to enjoy life? Where are their comforting platitudes? We see both of these hypothetical people represented in the Progenitor, and the narrative has no answer for them – except, perhaps, that they’re wrong for caring and should just give up. Sounds familiar.
But the message gets mangled even further, because in this universe, death isn’t a certainty. They’re already performed miracles of science – just because the current model is imperfect doesn’t mean true immortality is impossible! And apparently, even the destruction of the universe itself can be averted – The Black One’s objection wasn’t that the Progenitor’s plan wouldn’t work period, just that The Blue One would mess it up. The Progenitor was right: they truly can live forever, if they only try. And they have decided not to try. This is not some grand self-actualization of the characters coming to terms with and conquering their demons. This is not a deep philosophical breakthrough. This is not a noble sacrifice. The characters are choosing to die, because the author has decreed that choosing to die is Good and choosing to live is Evil. The narrative constraints he chose for his setting actively undermine the point he is trying to make.
Even within the immediacy of this scene alone, the platitude is contradicted – Cole just said they can’t enjoy their lives if they know they aren’t going to live forever. Because of that, I can’t see any true, consistent meaning in this. I can’t see this as the meaningful, honorable sacrifice it’s supposed to be. I see this as five people snapping under the strain of a terrifying revelation and finding different, mutually exclusive ways to rationalize their suicides. This is nihilism taken to a horrifying and incomprehensible extreme. Death is inevitable, so why bother doing anything? Might as well kill yourself! Nothing matters!
And this is particularly strange because, from what I personally understand of nihilism, heroic sacrifices should be incompatible with the philosophy. If there’s no greater or lasting meaning to anything, dying for a cause is stupid. That’s a terrible extreme itself, but I think there’s a useful idea in it: you shouldn’t be so quick to throw your life away. Circumstances where your death can accomplish more than your life are, in truth, exceedingly rare, and I would argue people who believe otherwise are actually influenced by a deeper depression they’re not acknowledging.
Think about what all the characters are giving up here. Neff’s VR idea may have been torpedoed because the game hates science, but he’s still a brilliant technician who I’m sure could come up with an equally revolutionary idea – and if nothing else, he would be invaluable in rebuilding the communication networks ravaged by the war. Chac – everyone invested so much in his well-being and recovery, and now he’s revealing that their efforts were worthless and he still can’t enjoy what’s left of his life. He didn’t just say he wanted to make a lasting effect on the universe, he said he needed to be alive to do that – now he’s forfeiting that chance. Cassidy and Cole are eyewitnesses to vital historical events, making them irreplaceable; they themselves said that it was wrong for them to run and hide, that maybe if they stuck with it they could have turned society away from this path, but now they’re just running away again. And Ivoronus – if he really wants redemption, well, the path to redemption isn’t going out in a blaze of glory. That’s the easy way out. Redemption is facing the wrongs you’ve caused head-on, weathering the hatred and despair of those you’ve hurt, and working to repair the specific damage you did. It is a life’s work. And all these people – all of them are beloved by the crew. Mahk, in particular, needs Ivoronus, the last remnant of the only family he’s ever known. He does not need a harsh lesson in how Daddy’s suicidal so he needs to be a man and shoulder all this horrible grief on his own. I thought we already went over this, didn’t we?
Deirdre: “[Sorenson] really cared about us more than himself. But still, it was a selfish thing he did. We still need him.”
Remember that? Sacrificing your life isn’t always a completely noble act. Remember also how Sorenson’s sacrifice was a cruel deconstruction of the idea because everyone could have survived if Ros had stayed behind? But no let’s toss that out the window, it’s not like thematic consistency is important or anything.
Everyone’s lives have value. Everyone has something they can contribute, something they can do to make society a better place. Even the most dour interpretations of nihilism would have trouble refuting that point absolutely, I think – even if nothing else, I’m pretty sure nihilists place value on their own lives, since self-preservation is pretty hardwired into us. Sometimes, sacrificing your life really is necessary – but that should only ever be a last resort performed only after all other avenues are exhausted. These characters could have saved themselves if they had just tried harder – fly away from the device, hang back to let the MODs do as much damage as possible, hit-and-run tactics… something, anything! But they don’t try. The moment they see an opportunity to throw their lives away they take it, because they don’t believe their lives have value to themselves or others. They care about the others more than themselves, it’s true – but still, it’s a selfish thing they’re doing. Selfish, and pointlessly self-destructive.
Neff: “It’s been fun.”
The ending theme, “Everything”, starts playing here. I highly recommend listening to it. It’s beautiful, and captures the tone of the ending perfectly: nostalgic, mournful, and so very, very resigned about it all.
As you can see, the battle is unwinnable; more reinforcements will appear as soon as you clear the field. The game lets us fight the hopeless battle ourselves because integrating gameplay and story is super deep, man. Unfortunately it completely bungles the execution by having our performance be absolutely meaningless. Which, great job reinforcing the soul-crushing nihilism, but it rather defeats the purpose. If the same result happens whether they take out 1 Lesser or 100, then why do they have to stick it out ’till the bitter end? Why couldn’t they hang back and let the MODs take care of it? If their performance is meaningless, their sacrifice is meaningless. They did not have to do this. Once again, they chose to die for no reason. (It also demonstrates that the aid from the other four is completely unnecessary, since Neff is apparently able to fight off the horde just fine on his own if you don’t recruit the others. They die for nothing.)
And to further underline just what a farce this is, The Black One helpfully informs us in the next cutscene that this was completely unnecessary because we had an immortal in our pocket who could have fought in their place. But no, even though we know from the mission map that he was right next to them the whole time, he doesn’t say a peep during Neff’s dramatic speech and only helps them with the thing that’s supposedly his one and only motivation after it’s too late. Because having Deep Thoughts is more important than actually helping people.
The Black One: “This factor of death… the uncertainty… the finality… I see how the Blue One was corrupted so easily.”
WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN. Now that Tez has left the fold and everyone’s finally realized Blacky is unambiguously on their side, is he going to finally explain his cryptic jargon and tell us what the heck was going on this entire game? Haha no he just immediately runs off. Silly me, thinking the ending would give us resolution or something!
We then learn that the crew has fragmented – for some reason most of them bailed and only these guys returned to the Ezekiel. Why? Sure, Thomas is a dick, but after all those dramatic speeches about friendship and spending this entire time sticking together like glue they suddenly split without even saying goodbye? How does that make any emotional sense?
One of the crewmen also informs us that the horde is “becoming fragmented” and “dispersing”, so despite spending the whole game as an invincible diabolus ex machina they are completely undone by the loss of the three whole ships I beat before Neff got killed. Because your performance in that battle doesn’t matter, I can’t help but read this as the MODs and Blacky being the ones to actually turn the tide, so once again the sacrifice was completely pointless. Seriously, how did they manage to push back the horde when no one else, even real militaries, couldn’t? Did Blacky pull some deus ex machina magic trick out of his hat? You know, this could have actually worked if Blacky had some special connection with the other Lessers like what was hinted at during his early scenes, but the game dropped that so we’re now left with no explanation for this. It’s just two inscrutable nonsensical plot elements running into each other.
We then cut to Tezkhra, who has gotten over his freakout enough to start investigating the machinery. Unfortunately it’s too advanced even for him and he can’t figure out how to turn it off. Also, for some reason this is what gives him a “what have I done???” breakdown even though he was able to stay calm even after I used his tech to murder a few dozen people. One crazy guy trying to use his tech to save the universe seems… less morally dubious than that, to me.
Tezkhra: “What did he mean… that I poisoned this reality? Who… what does he think I am? I didn’t…!”
Gee, it’s almost like speaking exclusively in cryptic nonsense is counterproductive or something. You brought this upon yourself, Blacky.
Tez also goes to the doors and says “Sealed shut… the Core must be beyond here. If only I could touch it… just once… I could know for sure.” YEAH CAN’T SEE HOW THAT COULD GO WRONG. Gods, Tez, did you just stop paying attention after the Stardraw reveal? I’d believe that, actually.
Tezkhra: “One docked craft remaining… a transport carrier… I have to… I have to get away! Have to get away… where I can’t do any more damage! Not… not until I know for sure…”
And once again he chooses to run from his problems and responsibilities instead of actually fixing his mistakes because he’s a worthless coward. If he had just been willing to stick it out and help people this time instead of passively letting it spiral out of control yet again that could have given him some semblance of redemption and given him actual character growth. Instead he shows us he has experienced zero character growth and is just as awful and stupid as he was three episodes ago, and thus he has exhausted the last dregs of my sympathy.
We then cut back to these guys, who inform us that Tezkhra’s cowardice has led to yet another problem: the only way they can think of to safely dispose of the device is to throw it into a black hole. I figure that if it’s so delicate that just the Lessers blasting it is enough to set it off then being crushed by a black hole won’t be much better, but okay fine, nothing else has made sense so far. Thomas has conscripted Ros into doing this (what happened to her being oh-so-valuable and everyone else being expendable?), except also Ros says she volunteered? Everyone acts like she’s definitely going to also get sucked into the singularity and this is another heroic sacrifice, but, why? They have super engines, it should be easy to just get within its gravity, detach the device, and then fly off. Willis even says it’s possible for her to survive but I don’t get why they aren’t acting like that’s the most likely outcome? But Mahk is tsundere for Ros so this makes him really sad.
Ros: “It’s okay, Mahk. I volunteered. We all have a place, a purpose, a job to do. This is mine.”
The game really won’t let go of this “everyone has a purpose” thing as if it’s a major theme, but I don’t see how it can coexist with the other major theme, which is soul-crushing nihilism. Nihilism is a defiance of that fatalism pretty much by definition, and we’ve seen a heck of a lot more in this story to reinforce purposelessness than purpose. Not sure what’s going on here.
I mean, I can sort of see how you could do something interesting with this. In a world that is so blatantly empty and uncaring, people cling to anything that they feel gives their lives purpose – that’s why religion has such appeal. So, it would make sense for characters to grapple with this purpose vs. purposeless conflict… except that religion seems to have vanished from this society so it makes no sense for them to be talking in such mystical terms and with such certainty. It would also help if this theme was explored consistently throughout the whole narrative instead of suddenly popping up out of nowhere in the ending.
Ros: “If I am trapped in the well and can’t make it back, I just want to say… thank you. For everything. For your support, and your sacrifices. For giving me a chance at living, no matter how brief it was.”
This would be sweet if I hadn’t done the pessimist ending first and discovered none of them deserve this. Did that ending just take place in an alternate universe where everyone is horrible and stupid?
Then Mahk is also tsundere for Tez or something so he’s going after his ship (which they detected leaving recently).
Mahk: “I lost my family and Father, and I could do nothing! Now I am about to lose Ros as well…! I can not lose Tez too! He’s… he is all I have left!”
GEE IT’S LIKE ORPHANING YOUR KIDS IS A BAD IDEA OR SOMETHING. If Ivoronus hadn’t decided to teach him the very important lesson that sometimes your parents are suicidal and you just have to suck it up and deal maybe he wouldn’t have run off to poison that planet with a dumb extremist philosophy before dying pointlessly, but then we wouldn’t have The Reconstruction so instead everyone has to be horrible.
Thomas reacts coldly to this and Marie calls him out on being a callous sociopath.
Thomas: “Of course. It is called survival, Sarazon. None of us would be standing here were it not for my intervention.”
[CITATION NEEDED]
I think it’s notable that the bad guy gets the last word here. All goodness and hope in this world is an illusion. There is only oblivion, and those strong enough to recognize it.
There’s a fade to black transition to just Rami and Marie in the command room. They say everyone else has left. Marie has finally realized she’s in a universe that hates proactiveness so she’s decided to throw in the towel and bail like the others.
Marie: “[Let’s go to a] nice Surface world somewhere. Some place out of the way. No noise, no stasis tanks…”
Uh, don’t they need stasis tanks to live? They do remember Purity Point, right? But Good people hate technology and Marie is Good, so it’s time to go back to the bush. It’s not like we need technology to live, after all, it’s just a senseless distraction! Thanks for showing us the light, game.
We then get to see obligatory conclusion scenes for all the characters who didn’t kill themselves. Jessamine discovers that all but two of her girls got killed in the war, so they did indeed need her leadership and it was pretty awful of the Inquiry to keep her for themselves. Jess is so broken by this that she decides to give up her life of adventuring and settle down somewhere to wait out what remains of her life. (Also, apparently the whole galaxy was watching the showdown so everyone knows about the emitters now.) Deirdre is spurred by the mortality alert to finally help the Pure Ones directly instead of passively waiting for someone else to fix them for her. Somehow they’re capable of speech and motion and can feel pain despite the fact that Kara explicitly said they already deteriorated past that point because what is consistency. Alicia conveniently forgot all that business about being stuck with Marie until the end and ran back to her rogue buddies without telling her because what is consistency. Or satisfying character resolutions.
Alicia: “Ros was good people. She never once got a break in life. Nobody deserves that kinda fate…”
And she has kind words for Ros. If you attack the rogues with the superweapon she instead calls you a power-tripping maniac who deserved what you got, so this has a small degree of meaningfulness because I sort of earned it, albeit just by virtue of not being a completely horrible person.
Alicia: “Unpack a few of those triodes. I feel like venting a little against some Lessers. Who’s with me?”
Also Lessers are back to being mindless punching bags. Remember that little subplot proving Lessers were capable of civilized behavior and everyone was being unreasonable racists by treating them like boogeymen? Because the game sure doesn’t.
We then cut to Luke, who Typelog is apparently happy to have back on board for some reason even though he stole from them. I don’t even care anymore. He gets a mindwipe so he can stop being haunted by his bad memories, but his old personality is getting uploaded into the improved mind/machine project so unfortunately some form of him will stick around to annoy people for eternity.
Then we learn that poor Kara hasn’t gotten the memo that doing things is futile and has conscripted Daszk into helping her learn how to shut down the Core so Ros won’t have to get eaten by the black hole. She’s scanning the research station for the Progenitor’s notes but can’t find anything, and apparently Ros was an idiot and never told anyone about what she found in the abandoned databanks so Kara doesn’t know she’s searching in the wrong place.
Then Willis shows up and awkwardly infodumps that Dena escaped with the fih’jik embryos because we need to set up the sequel. Still doesn’t explain why she crashed on that planet over all the ones in the galaxy but maybe she can sense latent energy and was drawn to it, why not.
Willis: “I merely wonder what sort of mischief she’s getting herself into right now… it amuses me.”
The most responsible scientist.
Kara tries to enlist his help but he ignores her so he can whine about how the powers that be are shutting down biological research now that the emitter secret is out. Uh, didn’t they already know about that? Even assuming they never cared enough to check the final office, the no lacertians policy heavily implies they know the truth about lacertians, and the Progenitor’s notes about emitter failure were in the same room as that reveal. They can’t have missed it. But whatever, sure, they had a convenient memory lapse. Point is, they’re moving on to robot bodies and stuff now. Also Typelog’s succeeded at the mind/machine interface thing as we saw with Luke even though Willis said their idea was completely wrong so I’m guessing he was lying to cover up an even pettier motive back in episode 3. Kara is understandably frustrated at his attempt to change the subject and presses him for information. Even though he obviously knows exactly where to look he decides to be unhelpful and dismissive because he’s a dick:
Willis: “In another lab, in another place, perhaps? I only dealt with biological matters here. Or, if you can find Tezkhra and talk sense in to him, maybe he could be of help to you after all?”
[…]
Kara: “Tezkhra is out. We’re doing this ourselves. A little more help would have been nice, Doctor Jameson.”
Willis: “A shame, that… Be sure to sterilize the hemoscanners when you are through with them, yes?”
For the love of God, game, does he know about the abandoned databanks or not? If he doesn’t then what was the point of all the fuss about how quickly he got a breakthrough in Kara’s personal plot and how he used the exact same notation? Were we supposed to think that was a coincidence? But if he does why isn’t he willing to even point them in the right direction? Does he just hate Ros and Kara that much? (Granted, I did target EROS with the superweapon so this could have been some neat fallout from that, but this actually plays out exactly the same regardless of your choice.)
Kara: “I’m not giving up that easily. Not like everyone else did. Ros… just stay alive a little longer…”
Poor, poor Kara. When will she realize that all is futile and the universe will bend over backwards to punish her for thinking otherwise?
Finally, we cut to Ros, who runs into some rogues who help her guard the Core. Also there are some Lessers that seem to want to help out too because nothing has ever made sense in this game, so why start now?
It’s not quite over yet, though. Someone still has to get his comeuppance. The music stops and we cut to Tezkhra, who is trying to escape the galaxy. His computer tells him he’s been awake for too long and needs to go into a stasis tank, and he screams to stop asking him that. I’m not clear why he can’t, though. Their craft seem to operate almost completely on autopilot, and it’s not like he’s taking a very complex course. Why can’t he go to sleep and just keep the engines running?
But suddenly, The Black One’s theme starts playing! Tezkhra’s ship gets blasted and he starts going down.
Okay, now that’s interesting. We already know about the emitters from The Reconstruction, but the carboderm is new info. Presumably it was used to build the shra capital, which would explain why the thing appears invincible. It could even explain the lack of obvious entrances, since carboderm is supposedly smart technology or something, so it might be able to create openings on demand.
Tezkhra: “PLSE Surface… If Jameson finds out I interfered with the project, he will bar me from the results.”
Isn’t it interesting how suddenly he goes from incoherently unhinged to calm and collected the moment something personally affects him?
He looks around a bit and some shra show up. He introduces himself and tries asking for help, but they run off. He decides to vaporize some of the overgrowth below the cliff so he can see where the first emitter went.
Tezkhra: “I should start small. One hundred permille of collected input. I need to be conservative.”
But the blast is way stronger than he anticipated, and…
This is so stupid. Does he not have an absolute scale to check against? Basing your power output on a fraction of an unknown number is useless. You’re a bad scientist, Tez.
Tezkhra: “Utter devastation… well, if I wasn’t in trouble before…”
And once again his reaction is completely self-motivated. He boggles at how he could have collected so much energy. While he’s running over the possibilities, a hero appears.
FINALLY. Shame it doesn’t stick. Maybe in the sequel? One can hope.
(This is also hilarious in the context of how he described it in The Reconstruction. He tried to dress it up as this big dramatic assassination and nope, rock to the head while he was nerding out.)
I’m really confused by this, though. Blacky said he no longer cared about Tezkhra in episode 3, and we just learned why: it was the Stardraw technology he was really worried about, and killing Tez now won’t put that genie back in the bottle. Evidently there’s something else he wasn’t telling us, but what? Is Tezkhra inherently harmful to reality in a way separate from the Stardraw danger? If so, why did he surrender during episode 3? Judging from his comments during the final mission, the real danger wasn’t the Core, it was that Tezkhra’s presence would mess it up somehow. So why did he ever stop gunning for Tez?
The Black One: “Sssyahaha! Yes! Yes! Blue One… you’ve nowhere to run now! There is but one final task at hand…”
What is he talking about? ERROR YOUR PLOT RESOLUTION IS IN ANOTHER GAME, that’s what. Given that we know Tezkhra’s spirit does get trapped here (and gets trapped again at the end of The Drop), presumably he would have just reincarnated like Blacky if he was killed elsewhere but there’s something special about the Drop that can trap the energy ghosts, and this is necessary for… some reason. Could the Drop be the “wellspring” or gate Past Tez was talking about? Who knows! We’ll just have to wait a decade for the sequel to come out.
(And for some reason the shra decide this is the best time to come back and mistake Blacky for Tez even though they look and act really different, because we need to establish the mixup for The Reconstruction.)
The music starts back up again in time for us to see Rami and Marie fiddling while the universe burns. They wax philosophical a bit.
Marie: “Nothing lasts, anymore. Not even us, apparently.”
Rami: “Maybe that’s how it’s s’posda be.”
YOU ARE ATHEISTS WHY WON’T YOU SHUT UP ABOUT THIS
Rami: “Do you think we oughta keep tryin’ to get back to ‘normal’, though?”
Marie: “I can’t say. I mean, we saw what happened when one guy tried to speak for the entire human race.”
…It worked out pretty well until selfish idiots sabotaged him?
Oh wait, you were talking about the Progenitor, not Sorenson, my mistake. Because only scientists can be power-tripping control freaks.
Have a sort-of title drop.
Then Rami’s phone starts ringing.
Rami: “Yeah? Who’s this? I don’t recognize your Header Info. Verify your H. I. tag number?”
[pause]
Rami: “… … …Tez?!”
[pause]
Rami: “That can’t be you… can it? You disappeared! Everyone was saying you were… d-dead!”
I didn’t cut anything. It seriously ends right there. Boy, that sure must be confusing to people who played this before The Reconstruction! I can see why the full conversation was cut, though, because IMTS retconned it pretty thoroughly. In The Reconstruction, Marie and Rami talk as if they have intimate knowledge of the PLSE project, but they clearly don’t in this version of events. I’m amazed to see that Tezkhra’s character remains perfectly consistent, though! He was a selfish coward then and lo, he was a selfish coward long before then too. The only new thing he picked up was some narcissism.
So yeah, that’s it. That’s the “good” ending. The “optimist” ending. Nothing actually changes. All the heroes succeed in doing is making sure the universe sticks around a little while longer, but nobody does anything about the fact the Big Crunch is right around the corner, so emphasis on “a little”. They don’t even succeed at their initial goal of picking up the pieces; the galaxy is still just as much of a mess as it was when they started, possibly even moreso. The status quo seems disrupted, no thanks to them, but it’s unclear exactly how and by how much. Where are they supposed to go from here? I had the “optimism” that things would improve and existence didn’t need to be wiped clean… what good did that do, exactly? I don’t see any indication that things are going to get any better from here. Everyone but Kara seems to have completely given up hope. It looks to me like society is just going to circle the drain until the emitters crap out and they die. How is that an “optimistic” outlook? What’s the point of “optimism” when there is nothing to be optimistic about, no drive, no hope for the future? They blew up the only person who was actually trying to fix things! How is that “optimism”? Is the lesson of this supposed to be that my optimism will always be betrayed, that my faith in humanity was misplaced, that I was wrong to ever hope?
This is a terrible ending. There was no satisfying resolution to anyone’s personal character arcs (if they can even be called that), there was barely a resolution to the central plot thread (yes, we found what caused the Shine and stopped it from happening again, but there were a lot more problems the crew was supposed to deal with), and the big setting mysteries remain completely open-ended because the developer is determined to keep that sequel carrot dangling in front of us for all eternity. The only real point the ending addresses is the horrifying inevitability of death, but it provides no answer or recourse to the problem other than soul-crushing despair.
We’re not quite done yet, though. There’s still a superboss to defeat.