Hello everyone! Farla is busy this week, so you’re stuck with me. To make up for getting bumped in January it’s going to be all I Miss the Sunrise, all the time.
“His Master’s Voice” is the name of an old British record company. The name refers to the claim that their records were so perfect that a dog would be unable to distinguish the recording from its owner’s true voice. I presume this is meant to refer to Typelog and their ability to perfectly record all sensory information, but I think this is a bit too specific a reference. To me at least, the phrase connotes copying, cloning, and deception. If we are the dogs in this metaphor, that means we can’t trust our own senses, because we can’t know what’s real and what’s a copy. That leads to expectations of distrust, betrayal, and surreal horror, which is… not at all what this arc is about. I believe I may be thinking about this more than the developer did.
These are Typelog agents. They confirm that they have no data on her. Interestingly, they note that she has a valid personal ID but no matching history for it, implying it was fabricated. Mysteries.
They revive Ros and bring her to the assembly room. Typelog is apparently not angry about the misuse of their technology, because they’re forming an alliance with the Inquiry. Typelog is basically hiring my fleet as a mercenary unit to aid in their own goals. Sorenson believes that helping them can only be a good thing, since they are kind of an essential pillar of society. Tezkhra also thinks they doth protest too much about being ignorant of Ros’ past, so we might be able to learn something about that too.
Ros: “Then I don’t have to worry about my history. I’ll make the most of what I have now.”
This is in response to Marie telling her not to get her hopes up. I like this. A lot of amnesiac characters angst so much about their past and are obsessed with figuring it out, but as a player I don’t really care; it’s something I’d like to know, but what really matters is how I build the future, not what happened in the past. Since Ros is the player character, I appreciate that she reflects this pragmatic attitude.
Mahk says that the Sikohlon don’t trust Typelog. Marie tells him to behave himself, since they really do not want to make powerful enemies right now.
Sorenson: “As always, be mindful. Do not travel alone. Stay near the Inquiry as often as possible.”
Hm, I forgot about this. It’s nice to see that there’s still tension. I may have captured one criminal ringleader, but that doesn’t eradicate all crime and danger. Unfortunately this is more tell than show, as we’ll never run into any major criminal threats like last time.
Then I get the briefing for the first mission. We start with some exposition on what happened while Ros was asleep. After repairing the comm station, the Inquiry crew connected with a Typelog superhub – a supercomputer for storing memory data. With how dependent people are on memory storage, these things are lynchpins of society, so everyone’s really excited about reconnecting to one. This is what got Typelog’s attention in the first place. Then the agents start talking.
Female Agent: “As with known Surfaces, the sheer mass of Typelog’s superhubs shielded them from devastation following the Shine.”
This is something that’s been mentioned before but I don’t think I brought up: large things weren’t damaged as badly by the Shine. This will make negative sense once we discover how the Shine works, and I don’t think it works well with the general scope of the story either. This is supposed to be post-apocalyptic, showing a crippled society that has to rise from the ashes. Telling us that all the important stuff is still totally fine and you just have to fix the communication networks really takes the wind out of that. There’s much less fear and desperation now. If instead everyone thought they just had to repair the relays only to discover that the things they were hoping to connect to had been destroyed, that would have been a much more dramatic and sobering plot arc. (Saying that large things like habitations were destroyed while small ships survived would also fit the idea that lots of people died and now it’s up to small individual groups to do everything.) It would also force the people to come up with a new solution instead of just returning to the old way of life, which is a theme that’s come up in the personal chats and would also just be more interesting in general.
Possibly the idea is to lull us into a false sense of security by having everything work out so well, but I just don’t think there’s enough space and time for that. The game’s just too slow-paced.
Anyway. Marie immediately asks if this means they can search for individual people once the network is restored. This is a nice detail: if you’ve been chatting with her you know she’s searching for her family, otherwise it’s mysterious enough to draw interest but not vital enough to make you feel lost.
There’s an awkward bit where Typelog has to explain the concept of payment for services rendered to remind us that this is THE FUTURE where ordinary things have become strange and unusual. Basically, they’ll agree to fund the Inquiry’s operations if I do some jobs for them. The first job is to capture some Lessers.
Male Agent: “Typically, when a craft reaches a critical state in an engagement, its safeguards trigger and force escape as quickly as possible.”
This is useful information. Yes, the explosions are just for dramatic effect; everyone who’s defeated in combat remains perfectly fine. This is meant to show how safe and insulated from death the society is, and it’s also a weight off my conscience. However, this really seems like something we should have learned earlier, not as an offhand detail in a cutscene a quarter of the way into the game. Come on, I thought this is what the articles were for! There are an awful lot of important setting details that we just never get a full explanation on.
The point is, in order to capture the Lessers I have to outwit the evac routine by shooting them down on special trap nodes.
Female Agent: “All we require is your ability to force the Lesser’s craft to disengage in proximity to one of these ‘traps’.”
why are there scare quotes
The agents say there’s nothing to worry about, because they’re already contained one and just need my fleet to engage it in combat, easy-peasy. I’m sure absolutely nothing will go wrong.
Marie: “So… just one? Versus all of us? Well, a job’s a job, I guess. But why not just send MOD units to disable it?”
Female Agent: “We tried. It did not prove… cost-effective.”
Like with The Reconstruction, I do appreciate that the game is taking the time to justify why I’m the only option, even if it’s pretty handwavey. An army of MOD units should totally be able to take down a single Lesser.
Unsurprisingly, things get a bit more complicated. Two more Lesser fleets have shown up; Neff wonders if they’re trying to save the trapped Lesser, which Mahk dismisses as impossible because Lessers are cavemen etc. This is also an opportunity for me, of course; if I can capture the new Lessers too, Typelog will be pleased.
This mission is very easy to complete but very hard to complete perfectly, which I think is good; a normal player won’t be stonewalled, but it’s a good challenge for a completist. I actually screw up my first time through and have to restart! The real hard part is that, as you might have noticed, I only get half as many movement points as normal. This means it’s not possible to have one fleet do all the work if you want to finish the mission within par; you must split your resources and have a second fleet do some fighting. (You also have to beat the mobile fleets last if you want the treasure the stationary Lesser is blocking, which is a further time constraint.)
My first time through, I assumed I could just have the first fleet swing around and get everyone, and realized too late that Neff was the only one who could attack in time. I think he probably could have won if the enemies hadn’t turned out to have systems weapons.
The next time through, I condense the stragglers and things go much smoother, but…
I got a level 5 component here on my first run. Hate you so much, RNG. As a reward for completing the mission on par, I get a level 5 ballistic shell. Ugghhh. Maybe I should swap Tez out for an AUG if the game insists on giving me nothing but ballistics. For my hard work in capturing all three Lesser fleets, I get… 4000 credits and nothing else. Beating the MOD master gave me more than that, and that was way easier. Typelog is a cheapskate.
Afterward, Tez wants to know what the Lessers are going to be used for, but just gets the ”That information is not within the scope of our operation at this time” excuse. Sorenson then distracts everyone by saying they get to personally visit the superhub now. Neff is all OH BOY :D because he’s a computer nerd.
This area is our introduction to Typelog’s leitmotif. I like it, it’s very serene and relaxing.
Marie isn’t very impressed, even though it seems like this should be exactly what she wants if she’s trying to search for someone. The agents say they have more jobs pending, but for now everyone’s free to explore the superhub. This is another fun walkaround area, though not as large as Hab Zero.
The main draw are these history articles:
So yes, the emitter was invented before space travel, meaning the mass sterilization had to occur afterward. Although, if there were only a few hundred in the initial exodus and everyone left on Earth died, that does actually explain why they’d want to get their numbers up first.
And… huh. This says that the +ii emitter was invented before humans left Earth. I think that contradicts something later, but I’ll bring that up when we get to it.
I’m pretty skeptical of the idea that we would ever “gladly” abandon an uplift project; given how much we love animals now and how much the humans love the lacertians here, I’d imagine everyone would be very sad and disappointed by their failure. There might even be some particularly determined scientists who refused to give up… ones that give augmented legs to certain Lessers, maybe?
The first sentence brings up the question of how long a spin is. I assumed it was roughly equivalent to a day – in episode 0 Mahk says I “won’t last three Spins out there” without Sikohlon weapons, implying it’s a fairly short measure of time – but this sounds more like years. This is why consistency is important.
And wow, I’m kinda scared of Typelog now. They’ve made themselves totally indispensable to society; they have a monopoly on what is basically the only essential service left. That gives them an unprecedented amount of leverage over, well, everyone really. I think it would be reasonable to say that they were truly altruistic during the suppression, since in a post-scarcity society there is no logical reason to be selfish and screw everyone else over, but now? I don’t trust them.
There’s delicious NPC flavor text too.
Typelog Agent: “Ros Ouranos, ten billion lives dance all around you. Can you hear their immortal songs?”
Typelog Agent: “Ros Ouranos, our systems see what you miss, feel what you forget, know you better than yourself.”
For representing the “cold logic” side, Typelog’s employees are awfully poetic.
Luke: “Ros Ouranos… D-ah, I mean, uh Ros! Gah, they got me doin’ it now. Let’s… leave soon, yeah?”
Luke demonstrates Typelog’s quirk: whenever they address a new person, they start by using their full name. It is indeed creepy, and a good way of demonstrating how all-knowing they are.
Ral is the white-haired woman on that platform. She’ll be important later.
There’s also some interesting new dialogue back at the Machinatorium:
Woah, that’s a really big deal. If they really hate Typelog so much, why don’t they form a competing brand and break the monopoly? Maybe they’re afraid that’ll make them too much of a threat to Typelog; perhaps Typelog is willing to tolerate some people going off the grid but not having their business actively threatened.
As per usual, we also have some new articles.
Uh, you okay there, Tez? I think I know what this is referring to, but it’s a spoiler so I can’t talk about it yet.
Hm, not really sure what to make of this. Seems like pretty standard “technology will fail us” cliche. It also feels pretty inaccurate, at least from my end – the real determining factor in battles is firepower, not pilot skill. I don’t care how fast the Lessers are, they still can’t do jack with their peashooters.
Actually, come to think of it, if the Lessers are stealing craft, wouldn’t this actually help them? If they’re bad with the automatic systems but good at manual control, why would you make more ships that operate on manual control? That’s handing them the advantage on a silver platter when they inevitably steal your new models.
We also get more racism. Once again, their pack mentality is being built up as something really important; apparently, they weren’t capable of cooperating at all before this. So yes, this behavioral shift must have required some kind of catalyst.
And now, a sidequest. There are four of these screens scattered around: two in the superhub, one in Hab Zero, and one on the Inquiry. They spell out a coordinate that I have to input, like with Luke last time.
The crew tries to make conversation, but the person just starts babbling nonsense about purity and impurity.
Tezkhra: “There is something seriously wrong with their speech and movement patterns, Ouranos.”
Why is Spock using slang. I think my brain needs to reboot.
The crew decides to wander around and investigate. This place has a special BGM, “Purity“. Like Typelog’s theme, I also find it serene and relaxing, though in a completely different way. It’s warmer, more homey… and I also notice that part of it seems to be quoted in the ending theme, which is interesting. I presume this is supposed to be the “home” motif, then.
The inhabitants here consider machines to be corrupt, so there’s no technological debris anywhere. Tezkhra and Chac are deemed too impure and are quarantined, yet for some reason other cyborgs are allowed to wander freely.
Inhabitant: “We move not. Corrupt moves. Purity is still. At rest. Solid. We are the pure. We move not.”
Although given this I doubt they can actually enforce anything, which implies Tez and Chac quarantined themselves to be polite while Rami just does whatever he feels like.
Marie: “Nice, quiet, civil. I missed this. I think these guys are on to something. Wouldn’t you say so too?”
Marie is incapable of noticing how obviously messed up this is because something something fair and balanced.
Luke: “I could hide out here. If it wasn’t for you guys, I mean. It’d be easy to hide from any Typelog data thieves, anyway. And I don’t mean because it’s all la-dies, either! They’re, uh, not exactly much for conversation, you’ll notice.”
Oh Luke, you’re not fooling anyone.
The inhabitants also mention a “small one” that they haven’t seen recently. Possibly relatedly, I can find a set of small handprints on one wall that opens to reveal…
She notices Ros, who introduces herself. The woman introduces herself as Deirdre, and says she’s been trying to repair this craft so she can escape. Ros calls the rest of the crew over, and Deirdre gives them some history: the inhabitants thought machines were impure and tried to throw everything out, but they missed this room. Deirdre was mostly ignored, so she was able to sneak off here and educate herself on craft maintenance. Then everyone stopped moving and started babbling nonsense. Marie explains it’s because they had no stasis chambers. The Typelog article touched on this earlier, but now we get more detail: apparently overcrowding your memory banks doesn’t just make you lose memories, it turns your brain to mush. Somehow. I feel like, logically, even if brains did have an upper storage limit, the only glitches would be in the memories themselves, not in unrelated mental processes. Oh and also, I thought the stasis chambers were just for sleeping and the memory banks were a different machine? Do people regulate their memories from stasis chambers? How can they do that when they’re asleep? I am confused?
(And this also gives Typelog even more power than we thought. If they cut off your access and you fill up on memories, that’s not some minor reversible ailment, your brain self-destructs. Seems like a pretty easy way to get rid of anyone they dislike.)
Rami then gives her a checkup, and says she has really bad radiation poisoning. In the process, he casually mentions that Tez had the same problem at some point, which is why he had to be augmented. While I appreciate some more clues for the mystery, that was really forced, especially since the two of them are otherwise extremely cagey about it so the sudden openness feels out of character.
The emitters are the only thing keeping the inhabitants alive. (Since radiation damages DNA and emitters seem to make it so cells don’t have to divide, that could actually make sense.) This is a problem, since it means Deirdre could drop dead if she’s ever brought outside of an emitter zone. I would also be worried about the emitters here malfunctioning or running out of power, but they appear to be magic because that never seems to be an issue. Rami says she’ll get better if he augments her, like he did with Tez. But that makes too much sense, so it’s time to shoehorn some moral dilemma into this!
Marie: “Well now wait just a minute! That’s basically kidnapping! We can’t just take her away from her family!”
What does that have to do with anything. She never said anything about family, she just said she wanted to get away. It appears that Marie has transformed from psychotic ice queen into Emotion Warrior, which is a bit better but still a really bad female stereotype.
Mahk: “Mmm. This is her home. And these people exist this way for some reason. It is not our right to judge.”
THEY EXIST THIS WAY BECAUSE THEY ARE INSANE DID YOU EVEN LISTEN TO A WORD SHE SAID
Deirdre points out that if she’s augmented she’ll never be accepted again, since she’ll be considered impure. She starts getting really weak, but the last thing she says is that she wants to do it anyway.
Marie: “I still don’t like it. It’s not our job to take her against the will of her family. Even if they can’t express it.”
YOU JUST SAID THEIR BRAINS ARE MUSH. WHO ARE YOU TO SAY IT’S THEIR WILL. WHAT IS HAPPENING I DON’T EVEN.
…After the rational and obligatory nonsense sides have both had their say, I get to make the final decision.
So in other words, do I save someone’s life or do I go against their explicit wishes and condemn them to a slow and painful death so I can pat myself on the back for upholding some bizarre interpretation of traditional family values? Why is this even a choice. If she wanted to stay then this would feel more like a real choice. In that case, saving her would be the option that involved shoving my own morals and desires down her throat whether she liked it or not, and there are actually reasonable arguments to be made on the pros and cons of that. Instead this is acting like just ~staying with her family~ is morally equivalent to saving her life, which is baffling and abhorrent.
This choice marks an important decision that will affect, among other things, your very own personality. Make your choice carefully.
Oh right, this is our introduction to another mechanic. So, in addition to choosing Ros’ personality at the start, you can further hone her outlook through important choices like these. It’s a neat idea, and gives us a better grasp on what the terms actually mean. This is also why I chose to start Ros with the default, average personality: I think it makes the most sense for her to emerge from the pod as a perfectly neutral individual who is shaped and developed by the choices she makes over the course of her journey. Fitting for a blank slate self-insert protagonist, yeah?
Anyway, there is only one option here that isn’t bonkers and also evil, so I’m taking her with me. In fairness, the game seems to recognize the other option is evil? If you choose to make her stay, she sneaks aboard the Inquiry and forces you to augment her anyway, but she hates you afterwards.
This decision has profoundly affected you. Your Mentality is slightly more Logical. Your Behavior is slightly more Flexible.
The first one makes perfect sense, but I’m not sure how this makes me unlawful (which is what “flexible” actually means), since I’m complying with Deirdre’s own desires and the other inhabitants aren’t really sane enough to constitute a clear authority. I guess it could be trying to say I’m willing to do my own thing instead of going with conventional wisdom? But in other choices that’s usually considered “imaginative” (counter to logical because as we all know logical people are dead inside), so I don’t even know.
Back at the Inquiry, Deirdre’s operation is a success. The doctors muse about how weird her smallness is. It’s pretty clear that Marie is the only one who knows about children and is therefore the only one who understands what’s up with that. She asks if Deirdre wasn’t fully-grown before she left her home planet, but Deirdre just shrugs and says she doesn’t remember.
Then Marie wants to send her back to Purity Point because she’s the emotional woman. Deirdre is like were you listening when I said I couldn’t go back, and Mahk suggests she joins the crew. She agrees.
Marie: “Uh, what? And put her into danger, just like that? She… she’s just a… tell them, Commander!”
Sorenson: “I know she may look fragile, but she had the courage to come with us. Ros, if you would have her…”
Hmm. It’s interesting that Marie appealed to Sorenson as if he knew about children too. I’m not sure if his response is genuine ignorance of if he’s trying to hide something from her.
Deirdre is a pretty solid fighter. She’s basically a more defensive version of Rami with a bonus action point. However, the best defense is a good offense and I only want one ballistics user on my team right now, so she’s not replacing Rami.
Red Lotus Cannon is a thermal ballistic weapon, which can’t be replicated in the Machinatorium. I’m not entirely sure how it works, actually; the animation just shows red flashes when the missile hits, and the description just says it causes a “thermal burst”, which isn’t terribly descriptive. Is it spreading some kind of volatile incendiary? That seems like it should fall more under “chemical” than “thermal”.
I think I’ll end here today. Sorry this was short, but there’s another sidequest coming up that really has to be paired with the next mission. Until next time!