This was supposed to air last week, but I decided it’d be best to postpone new posts until the Blogger/Wordpress War was at least somewhat resolved. Also, I’m a real boy now! We won’t have to fuss with that silly “guest reviewer” nonsense anymore.

Anyway, it’s time to wring a few drops of character development out of everyone… and investigate those mysterious databanks.

Like last time, Marie opens by talking about the new faction. She’s a lot more trusting of them than she was of Typelog, though; her only concern is that she doesn’t fit in with them, since she’s not a sciencey type. She says they’ve got a single stated goal, which, they do? They haven’t actually said anything about themselves, beyond the fact that they’re scientists. I feel like I missed something. Plot hole? Anyway, somehow this draws her to compare our goals — they have some abstract idea of furthering science, while the Inquiry has a concrete goal that feels impossibly daunting. I’m not sure why she feels the need to compare that, those are two completely different things. I tell her that’s why we should work together, and, in a complete reversal of her attitude toward large shady organizations last episode, she thinks that’s a great idea.

Marie: “What about you? They made you run that gauntlet when you woke up. How did it feel?”

“Equal parts scared and bored.”
“Annoyed.”
“Like I’d imagined it.”

Aw, I thought it was fun! But it was also quite trippy and dreamlike, so I suppose I’ll say that.

You know, I like the idea of the personality mechanic in theory — even if you know the right thing to say, Ros might not be capable of it — but if Ros is supposed to be a player stand-in, it’s far too limiting. I can’t say what I actually feel, and in that case what’s the point? If the game had given a better explanation of what personality traits meant what this might have been more reasonable, since you could prepare for it, but this is just annoying.

Next:

It’s time for some deep existentialism. She waffles about how technology does everything for them now and renders all physical needs unnecessary.

Marie: “Emitters grow our cells. We don’t even have to breathe.”

Oh hey, some info on emitters! So they are still growing cells? I guess that makes more sense than making it so cells don’t have to divide, but it raises the question of how the Purity Point people are still around. The reason radiation kills you is because your DNA gets shredded to the point that your cells don’t know how to grow anymore. Emitters may be magic, but even they shouldn’t be able to force a cell to make essential proteins if the DNA for it just isn’t there. The fact that they eliminate the need for breathing implies they’re fueling the cells with energy… somehow… but healthy life requires a lot more than just energy. Otherwise we’d be able to survive off of nothing but sugar. The emitters would have to be providing people with raw materials for proteins and the like, and I don’t see how they’re doing that.

Marie: “But from what I remember, life hasn’t gotten any easier. It’s all just… different now.” […] “It’s like we don’t know how to keep up with our own leaps forward. Not physically, not emotionally.”

Yeah no.

Look. I had appendicitis when I was in high school. Appendicitis is fatal if untreated. That means that if I hadn’t had quick access to good surgeons with anesthetics, antibiotics, and sterile blades, I would have died. And I’m someone with no major diseases or disabilities; I’m sure many others would have a dozen more examples they could pull out. Technology only makes life “different, not easier” if by “different” you mean “able to experience life at all.”

Anyone who says crap like this is free to travel to one of the many, many places in the world that still doesn’t have what first-world nations would consider basic technology and see exactly just how ~not harder, just different~ living there is. You know, places where things like these are common sights because people don’t have access to proper sanitation or protective clothing. Places where you can’t travel anywhere beyond what you can reach on foot. Places where you’ll starve if anything goes wrong with the weather patterns or if the soil goes barren because you can’t rely on imported food. Places where no one will have any idea how to help if you suddenly come down with an unexpected, debilitating disease — aside from, perhaps, trying to get you to a city hospital in the hopes that their medicines can do something. But you know, I’m sure that’s not any harder than a life of sitting in a comfy American house having Deep Thoughts about if technology really makes us happy, I mean really.

It is also painfully obvious that this is written from the perspective of someone who has no disabilities, physical or mental. Before we understood what mental illness was, our solution was to kill, torture, and imprison everyone who had it. Even after we understood that these people were actually sick and needed help, we had no idea how to reliably treat them until we had a good understanding of neurology and psychiatry. I have a friend with ADHD — he’s a genius, but when he forgets to take his medicine he can barely function. A hundred years ago, before we knew how to treat his condition, he probably wouldn’t have been able to attend school at all. He would have no way to live the life he really wanted. Physically, well, it’s obvious that someone whose lungs are fated to solidify and make them die a slow and painful death literally needs technological advancements to survive at all, but technology makes life a lot easier even for people with less immediately fatal disabilities. Just try telling someone with a prosthetic limb that scientific advancement does nothing but move the goalposts on life. I’ll wait.

Now, it’s theoretically possible to make a more nuanced argument that, while technology leads to objective life improvement, it may become so normalized that it appears to cause no change from a subjective standpoint. I’d say that only really happens when you grow up with new tech, but since people archive their memories, I could see something similar going on. It is possible that Marie does not currently have her memories of what life was like before humanity could wave a magic wand and completely eliminate disease and starvation, and that if she did she’d recognize just how good she has it now. But that’s a much weaker point to make. All you can really say with it is that people should learn to appreciate what they have and put it in context, which… okay, I guess? But it doesn’t really fit with a post-scarcity society where they’ve solved basically all problems.

“Things were better right after the first Breach. We had wonderment. We had purpose, and drive.”

Alright, this does fit with my theory on why EROS is coming apart at the seams, but we clearly still see people with wonderment and drive. The fact EROS can’t let go of their wonderment and drive is kind of the reason they’re going to these lengths in the first place. And even outside of EROS, we have people like Ral and Deirdre who are still motivated to do stuff. Heck, even outside of scientists — what about Sorenson? He seems pretty motivated. Whether or not you feel purpose and drive is simply a state of mind. Anyone can have it no matter the circumstances, as long as they have passion for something. If Marie feels burnt-out (maybe the idea is because she’s so old, I dunno), that’s her problem, she shouldn’t blame it on kids these days. And maybe she should get some antidepressants.

“Then we saw how empty and unwelcoming space really is, and we tried to make it like home…”

…So, running off into the unknown without any clear hope for the future gave people purpose and drive, but having a clear goal destroyed it? Humanity runs on backwards logic in this, apparently.

“You should be glad. Glad you never saw what we did to it. But, if things keep up, we may do it again…”

So possibly Marie is one of those Luddites who thinks technology is the reason we screwed the planet and that more technology will only make it worse. I don’t think it makes sense for her to have this perspective, though. Most of those people today feel that way because technology has only ever caused them problems and hasn’t come up with a solution yet (or fast enough). Polluting technologies have created tons of problems, but science hasn’t come up with very effective ways to clean up its messes yet. Here, though, technology did come through — it gave them an escape route in the form of a ship that could travel between stars, plus the emitters to ensure they would live to see their destination. That’s a pretty impressive breakthrough! Technology hurt her, but it also saved her. A more nuanced perspective is called for in that situation, I think.

She starts rambling about how I’m the only one she can talk with, and that she considers the crew her family. Uh, okay. I ask what about her real family, because that seems like the sort of thing Ros would say after Marie made such a big deal about it. Marie just says she’s willing to put them on the backburner for now, and that she shouldn’t throw away what she has with the crew.

Marie: “And who knows? Maybe we’ll find a real family for you one day, Ros. Would you like that?”

Uhh I’m pretty sure Ros did have a real family and you got them all killed, Marie. Amusingly, all the dialogue options I get are pretty much the same (declining), which makes sense for someone who should have absolutely no concept of family. Marie hasn’t even done a good job of explaining what family is or why it’s so important to her, so Ros has nothing to go off of.

Marie finishes by saying she doesn’t know if she wants them back or if she hopes they’ve moved on and are content where they are. I’m not sure why the latter has to preclude the former; I guess she’s not willing to abandon the Inquiry just to be with her family, so they’d have to uproot themselves instead. This is both a relateable conflict and actually very relevant foreshadowing for what’s coming in the next episode, so it pleases me.

Moving on. Rami wants to know if I’ve ever thought about how complicated machines are, how many steps there are between input and output, and if I’ve ever realized just how many things could go wrong. Oookay, kind of awkward to bring that up now. I say well now that you mention it that is kind of scary, to which he hastily backpedals and says he shouldn’t have brought it up. Are you drunk, Rami?

He then brings up the same point Willis did in the main story, that using biologicals in place of machines would actually work better since emitters are magic and keep living things in perfect shape forever. You know, now that I think about it, that’s actually a really interesting idea: what would a high-tech world look like if everything was biological rather than mechanical? I believe I’ve heard about it in some sci-fi stories, but I’ve never seen it really explored; the tool breeders in All Tomorrows are the closest I’ve seen. Imagine how freaky it would be to have living spaceships and computers and everything! That would have created a much more original aesthetic for this game while also showing the transcendence aspect far more effectively — humanity has changed so much that even the fundamental basis of their technology is completely different than what we’re used to. Because really, this is a debate their civilization should have already had, long before the Shine. Emitters should absolutely re-contextualize all technological progress and spur this kind of biotech thinking, so why is Rami the only one who’s giving it any thought?

Apparently machine-people was sort of like pre-Shine life was like; everyone acted like a soulless robot.

“But now we’re free from that.”
“It still is, for some.”
“Never again.”

I have no idea why I picked that. I must have thought the others were too aggressive. He just shrugs and goes yeah I guess.

Rami: “Until organic arms can do everything this baby does, I think I’ll deal with it. Thanks, Boss.”

So yeah, cybernetics are objectively superior to organics. Why does everyone hate them so much?

Rami: “So, like, it hit me just how simple a spacecraft really is. It moves. That’s about it.”

Ah yes, engines are so simple, however did I forget. You know, Rami, maybe you should stick to doctoring and leave the philosophizing to the engineers. Of course he moves into how this is what the spaceship ~wants~ and its needs are so simple.

“You make it sound so easy.”
“If only everyone else agreed.”
“They can do some crazy things.”

Rami is all OH BOY FINALLY SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS :D so I guess he didn’t pick up on my sarcasm.

Rami: “It’s really not fair, is it? We make the things fight our wars now. They get hurt, not us…”

So you’d prefer to throw warm bodies into the meat grinder? You first.

I finally get the chance to burst his bubble in response to this by saying “Craft cannot feel pain, you know.” He has none of this, obviously.

Rami: “O-of course they can! how do you think they know to disengage? Did you never think about that?”

Yeah why don’t you just sit this one out and let the people who actually know what they’re talking about have the Deep Thoughts, mmkay?

He says it’s because he’s a cyborg so he feels a kinship with machines. Uh, no, we have a lot of cyborgs here and you’re the only one who’s like this. Accept that this is your special brand of weirdness.

I assume the game is trying to draw a parallel here to, say, Daszk — if part of you is something people don’t respect, it makes sense for you to feel uncomfortable about that. The problem is that this is just not a sensible comparison to being mixed-race in any way. Machines aren’t people, and no reasonable person would claim a cyborg’s prosthetics are taking over their brain or making them inhuman. Machines are objects, so we see the human first, with the prosthetics being a supportive part of the human. The way people treat machines has no logical relation to how they treat cyborgs — and while yes, people who abuse and take out their frustrations on inanimate objects definitely raise some red flags, that’s a general warning sign and not a specific one. People don’t see cyborgs as part inanimate object outside of absurd morality plays with no bearing on reality.

We apparently are in one of these absurd morality plays, because even though I encourage him by saying cyborgs are awesome, he says people think cybernetics make you inhuman.

Rami: “They have machines, and machines don’t have a soul, but… I’m human! I got plenty of soul!”

Yes, obviously. Why would anyone think differently? This is impossible to take seriously. He doesn’t elaborate further, he just ends by saying it felt good to vent. Well, that was a bizarre conclusion. Maybe if he had given us some actual information on how people hate AUGs and why this bizarre tangent would have been worthwhile.

His brain doesn’t have as much space as other lacertians do and his memories fill up too fast. Well, if it wasn’t obvious he was a Lesser before… He rationalizes it by assuming it’s due to his tendency to overanalyze everything.

“So cut it out.”
“Have you tried not doing that?”
“That’s your confession?”

Aw, no nice responses? Well, it doesn’t seem terribly important, since he seems to be functioning just fine. I can assume there’s something deeper here that’s bothering him, but if he’s not going to volunteer that information there’s nothing I can do to help him. He just gets flustered at my response and says this is super important to him, but I still don’t see why. If this was actually affecting his performance, or if it was getting worse and he was afraid he’d eventually lose his memory entirely, I can see why he’d be so concerned. But without that urgency, this just looks like a harmless quirk.

He then awkwardly segues into talking about The Black One. Typelog has nothing on him. So hm, do they normally keep detailed information on Lessers? I do imagine that a talking one would be worth investigating. This would imply that either Typelog never cared about him enough to record anything, or this is the first time he’s manifested since his previous incarnation. Both of those raise the question of why, though the latter could easily be explained by some magic shenanigans. We then get more waffling over if Tez erased his memory of Blacky and oh if only he hadn’t maybe we’d know for certain but as I explained in the main plot this is a waste of time.

He goes on a small soliloquy about how sad he is that not everyone embraces science. For once, I can relate to him. Then he starts angsting about how insignificant any one person’s contributions are and therefore his efforts feel pointless. Aaand he’s lost me again. Isn’t the entire point of science that everyone builds off of everyone else’s small efforts so we can achieve something greater than ourselves? That’s true of everything in civilization, really. Are people really so isolated in this world?

Tezkhra: “I do believe I have learned something. Merely working is not enough. I must change something.”

And so Tezkhra discovers the glorious world of engineering. Unfortunately he doesn’t elaborate on exactly what he plans to change. For all his assurances that he can confide anything in me, he sure is cagey about the stuff that actually matters.

The developer realized he should probably have more than one cyborg suffer discrimination, so Tez has caught the bug too. Together with Rami’s scenes, this episode really plays up the cyborg hate, which is just awkward when it hasn’t been mentioned since the prologue. It feels incredibly token, like the developer only remembered it now and had to hastily shoehorn it in. At least it makes a modicum of sense for Tez; other lacertians can’t get augments, so it’s understandable for there to be some resentment and jealousy from them. (We got a bit of this from Mahk back at the beginning, but he just thought it was unnatural.) It’s a shame we never see him directly interact with Chac or Daszk.

But that would make too much sense, so no, he’s getting normal, standard-issue discrimination. He’s annoyed that people heckle him with questions about his augments all the time. I tell him they’re just jealous.

Tezkhra: “Jealous? No. Very few are proud of the negative stigma that augmentation represents.”

THEY MAKE YOU OBJECTIVELY BETTER. HOW IS NO ONE JEALOUS OF THAT. The game keeps trying to sell this “negative stigma” thing and it continues to make no sense. Why would a high-tech society hate cyborgs? Tez then proves my point by saying most of his augments are actually optional performance boosters, so it’s not just a hackneyed disability allegory. (This does explain how he was able to remove them without ill effect in The Reconstruction, but that just makes it all the more annoying that jumped on the anti-tech bandwagon so readily.)

Tezkhra: “It… seemed appropriate at the time. Why would I not want my physical form in peak condition?”

I say I would. His only reaction is “… Hmm…” Ugh, does he want me to agree with him or not??? I have no idea what he’s trying to get at here. If he’s just venting to get his own thoughts in order, Ros’ contributions are pointless and there should be a respectful silence option.

That’s the end of his chats, but before we continue, I’d just like to show his second weapon upgrade dialogue:

“Ouranos. Always a pleasure. My Stardraw project is progressing well, but… I am afraid I need your assistance. By tuning the emission’s wavelengths to resonate against all layers of L-Skin hull material so that…”
[pause]
“Ah, forgive me. Anyhow, if you come across a Polymorphic Hull Type, know that it is desired.”

Science characters nerding out is always adorable to me for some reason, I guess because my friends and I are a little like that in real life. It always makes me sad when the cool hero dudes just react with a bored, glazed look, though, because I always want to know more. Where’s your scientific curiosity, fearless hero types? I think that’s probably one of the reasons I love the Discworld books so much: when the nerds start rambling there the heroes listen, because they’re smart and know science is important. And of course, that gives the reader more worldbuilding knowledge too.

He apologizes and says he’s just venting. He clings to the idea that Sikohlon craftsmanship still makes their own weapons superior, and notes that Ivoronus doesn’t seem bothered at all. Mahk thinks he’s just hiding his anger, and I can agree, which Mahk appreciates. With the context of the third mission briefing, however, I have my doubts. He was extremely glib and candid during that meeting, even to Mahk, which makes me doubt he’s the type to engage in complex emotional facades. But I still find his “breaking my monopoly is good for business” excuse unbelievable, so who knows.

Supposedly, Ivoronus said the purpose of their training and weaponcraft was self-protection. I thought it was business? Only now does Mahk question exactly what they were supposed to protect themselves from.

“Lessers?”
“It is a bit much…”
“Your Father would know for sure.”

Agreeing with him makes him annoyed this time, though, and he just retorts that space is clearly so dangerous that there must have been a good reason. Uh, I didn’t disagree with that? I just don’t have any idea what that reason is. I can see why it could be interpreted that way, though. Darn it, I probably should have appealed to authority.

Mahk: “Hm! Look at me, discussing family matters with the likes of you. And you… listening steadfastly… We are… allies regardless. We seek a common goal. We… have to assist… to protect one another.”

Tsk tsk, Mahk, it’s not episode 4 yet! You have to wait another arc to start flirting with me!

Come to think of it, this does make it weird that he’s exclusively homoromantic. Just look at this, he’s clearly head over heels for Ros no matter what gender they are, even this early.

He remembers Marie scolding him back in episode 1. Well, it’s nice to have continuity. He acknowledges that he deserved it, and says he’s trying to be better now. I get a whole bunch of trust boosts, and… that’s it. Seriously? That’s the dramatic capstone for him? Mahk’s chats are amusing but they’re so insubstantial. Especially given that he’s a returning character, we should really get more information on his development.

He’s talking about space. No one person can hope to see it all (…couldn’t they, with emitters?), but their computers can capture data for everything.

Neff: “Our signals shoot out at the speed of light!”

Ughhh, so they are limited by light speed. I was hoping I could be nice and assume they had quantum communication, but nope, the game just shot itself in the foot. This limitation never comes up even though it logically should, given how large mission maps alone are. Characters can fly all over the galaxy but there’s never any delay between mission control and Ros’ fleets. This is just going to get even more egregious in episode 4, too. I brought this up back in episode 2 when he discussed the Shine moving at light speed too: when writing stories like this, you need to either create an FTL handwave or acknowledge the cap as an important influence on society. I honestly don’t see how it’s even possible for them to maintain a galaxy-wide civilization without faster-than-light communication; practically everyone would have to be in their own little world, since it’d take thousands of years to communicate with even relatively close outposts. Typelog is supposedly holding the entire galaxy together with their network, but I have no idea how they’re doing that; even if they have outposts covering every mile of the galaxy, they can’t communicate internally on any reasonable timescale.

Neff thinks this is good, though, because the light shell will ensure our information will outlive us, blasted to every corner of the universe. Uhhh sure I guess, but it’ll degrade into uselessness pretty quickly. He laments that physicality makes us insignificant on a cosmic scale. I tell him to snap out of it and that our actions still matter, which he appreciates. He goes on a weird tangent about how our thoughts our energy so it’s disappointing we got physical bodies. Uh, okay…?

He’s drunk Rami’s Kool-Aid and is wondering if he might have a point. (He does, however, acknowledge Rami’s obsession is “crazy”. Thank you, Neff.) He’s speculating if it’s possible for machines to lie.

Neff: “If your craft knew it was about t’be shot down, would it lie to you in order to save itself? Like, would it trigger the battle abortion protocols early? And… would it know to do it every time?”

This actually raises an interesting point: Why would you assume machines would want to save themselves in the first place? Living organisms are optimized for survival, but they only got that way after billions of years of trial and error — and I can’t help but think the fact organisms are self-replicating had a big influence. Organisms need to survive to reproduce and propagate their behavior, but a machine’s creation is determined wholly by external factors. A machine that prioritizes self-preservation won’t get to replicate that pattern in the next “generation” — if anything, I think we’d see that as a defective trait and remove it from future robots. Machine evolution should be much closer to selective breeding than natural selection, and selective breeding definitely does not prioritize survival. Even if they did become self-aware and spontaneously evolved aberrant behaviors like this, those behaviors would be completely random; maybe they’d want to get destroyed. You shouldn’t assume robots would have the same values and incentives as you, that’s being anthropocentric!

Unlike Rami, he does have evidence for his theory: he’s seen computers making… computational errors. I tell him that’s not the same thing as lying.

Neff: “Yeah, that’s true, but how can you tell? Does the machine know the difference? I guess there’s mutual respect going on. The machines talk to us, and we keep them fed and running.”

Ughhh Neff I thought you were a computer scientist why are you talking nonsense too. Are you taking the same drugs.

He… does not actually explain this, he just describes what Typelog stores. The only important information is that Typelog apparently discards information it deems unimportant, and there’s somehow an algorithm to automate this. Uh, don’t brains do that automatically? Seems pretty counterintuitive for a recording device to edit itself. Neff thinks it’s all super cool and wants to make something just as important. His idea is FTL communication, because this single conversation exists in a separate universe where that’s an actual concern.

Neff: “There’s a whole big galaxy out there that we can’t keep tabs on all at once because of our setup now.”

O rly?

He’s still hoping that they’d come back for him if they’re still around. He figures that they’ve probably dissolved by now. He says he looks up to Ros. That’s about it.

He asked people what they think is wrong with him, and got predictable responses. He’s sad and thinks it shouldn’t matter if he’s a good pilot. I agree with him, but that just makes him feel like piloting is all he has and that if he ever screws up at that he’ll be locked in a cell again. You know, I really feel I should get the opportunity to apologize to him for that at some point. He wants to improve himself, so he’s going to ask about how he can change.

Mahk and Tez told him he should try being a regular LAC, but they were too dickish to explain the term to him so he just got confused. Currently he just wants to try to get smarter. This just gets him tangled up, though, because he feels like he has to be smart in order to figure out how to get smart. He ends by saying he needs to think about this more.

And that’s… it. I really feel like these things should have a coherent theme and flow to them and end on a satisfying note. This kind of meandering is just bizarre.

And now, the newbie.

Kara: “In your hand sits a small creature. You’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s stirring awake. You don’t know if it’s dangerous, or poisonous, or parasitic, or just harmless. What do you do with it?”

“Uh, is this still the test?”
“Destroy it.”
“Why would I have it at all?”

Ugh for once I actually want to give a meaningful response but none of the options are any good! This personality system is too restrictive. I end up going with the last option. Predictably, Kara just gets annoyed and says you’re not supposed to think about that. She explains the point of the thought experiment was to gauge subconscious reactions, then muses that that might not be terribly relevant, since society values informed and rational decisions. I dunno, it’s still important to see how people might perform under pressure.

Interestingly, this does imply they have some form of psychology, if Kara is drawing off of standard knowledge rather than this being her own weird thing.

Nooo, give me more science! :( She informs me her Typelog ID is forged to allow her to blend in better with the Inquiry.

Kara: “Therefore, from your view, I am a complete fabrication, right? Just a means to a greater end?”

…No? What? Is this another test? Unfortunately all I can do is boggle at how they can forge Typelog IDs. She smarms that they broke into that system the moment Typelog made it. I suppose if they had inside agents even then, it would be easy.

Kara: “Strange things can hide in those numbers, Ros. I wish I could tell you exactly what.”

I figure the IDs were supposed to be more important at one point, like we would learn what all the numbers meant and what they said about people. Currently the only information we have is “5 is for anomalies”, and that was from supplemental materials. That’s disappointing, I do like puzzles.

She then starts speculating about the end of the universe, and if they’ll live to see it. A resonable concern for immortals. EROS has apparently thought about it a lot.

Kara: “Our main concern is whether we’ll unlock all of its secrets before the final death of all reality. And if we do, can we prevent the inevitable? Or, was the Shine meant to prevent that as well?”

Oh hey, legit foreshadowing! I’ve missed that.

Every EROS agent wears the white lab coat as a uniform, but underneath everyone wears vests of different colors. She asks me what I think they signify; given how spontaneous I know EROS to be, I say “Nothing.” She says this is correct, or it was originally — after wearing the same colors for so long, they became identifiers associated with the individuals. Apparently nobody knows if this was intentional or not; it tickles me to think EROS does silly stuff like this so much that no one can tell for sure.

And… that’s the end. A pretty weird note to end on, honestly. This probably should have been swapped with the last one. Overall, for being the stiff scientist character, Kara is… very unscientific. We know the specialties of all the other scientists and their research is frequently brought up in the plot and personal chats, but Kara just says some generically sciencey-sounding stuff and then moves on to philosophy. I have to say I’m disappointed. I’ve come to expect a bit more from this game than filling in the gaps with cheap, hasty sci-fi cliche.

To avoid ending on a completely lackluster note… I promised I’d cover the abandoned databanks here, so let’s get started on that. The area has a special BGM, “Forgotten“. It’s a slower and more washed-out version of the EROS theme, mixed with a lot of bits and pieces from other tracks. I think this is fitting, and leitmotifs and shared melodies are always cool.

“I had to tell someone, though. But not together. Log screens. A few. Each a piece of the truth. Someone’s smart enough to find ’em.”

So I didn’t show this, but back in episode 2 one of the NPCs noticed the Purity Point screens and said it looked like someone was trying to get a message out on purpose. The obvious conclusion, therefore, is that this was that someone. The problem is that the timeline doesn’t make sense: this place is supposedly ancient, and this is one of the earliest notes. But the logscreens only showed up recently — they aren’t present prior to episode 2. Further complicating matters is the fact that they appear in the Inquiry and Habitation Zero, which are post-Shine buildings. Even if we dismiss their sudden appearance as a gameplay mechanic, how could they have possibly found their way there if this guy released them eons ago? And why hasn’t anyone found them before this? Or maybe someone did, and spread them around so more people could find it? This is too convoluted.

“A joint venture, away from those who’ve forgotten our origins. A hand, guiding we who dared venture forth into the unknown.”

So I presume these are all people from Earth, and the rest of EROS was the next generation. It seems they had a “kids these days” fit and ran off to do research on their own without telling anyone.

And huh, a dozen? I only count seven, including Cole. Where are the other five hiding? Perhaps they bled off like the Turnstones did, but before they made any notes.

Uh, I’m pretty sure stone is way more susceptible to warping and deformation. ‘Cause it, you know, cracks, which is a pretty bad thing when it’s all that’s keeping you from the void of space. To make this not completely insane, I’m just going to assume the outer shell of the ship is still metal, and only this lab part is stone. Still doesn’t make a lot of sense, since stone should erode much faster than metal.

“The central rotational core serves as false gravity; a design from our primary benefactors. Maintenance could be an issue. Tiny cracks have already formed in spots on the floor. You can see the Cherenkov glow from the +ih emitters’ reactors below.”

So the stone is already cracking right from the start, and they see nothing wrong with this. How did this thing stay together this long? Also, given that H comes immediately before I, I presume this is an earlier version of the +ii emitter. You may recall Typelog’s history records stated that the +ii emitter was invented before space travel, so this doesn’t match up. Possibly it’s just a different type they preferred to use, but it’s still an odd detail.

Wikipedia informs me that Cherenkov radiation is most commonly found in nuclear reactors and particle accelerators, so are emitters nuclear-powered? Technically all you have to do to get it is push an electron through a dialectric really fast so it could be something else, but I will give the developer some credit and assume he was intentionally going for a well-known association rather than vomiting out random science jargon because it sounded cool. But still, shouldn’t that make emitters super radioactive? Their magic life energy is described as “radiation”, but it’s also clearly defined as separate from harmful gamma rays. Do they produce some kind of backwards radiation that fixes cells instead of breaking them?

“The most sensitive portions of our projects are sealed off behind card-scanning doors of impossibly high access levels. that should keep any unwanted eyes from prying until we are ready to come forward with our newest developments. The rest of our facility has become a dumping ground for scrap material and wasted containers. It’s becoming difficult to breathe.”

I showed this one already, but I’ll include it here for completeness. This is a bit confusing; I thought they already broke away from their supervisors, and indeed that was the entire point of this facility? Why are they still running into bureaucratic interference? Are the supervisors the five unaccounted-for staff? Did they get pushed out airlocks or something? This makes less sense the more I think about it.

Also strange that breathing is a concern, since the emitters are supposed to take care of that. Maybe these old models didn’t have that feature?

“As children, we’re always told that ‘we can do anything,’ ‘anything’s possible.’ What if we can cure our most lingering ailment of all…?”

Huh? I thought they were pre-breach? Do they really remember that far back, or are they observing what they’re teaching the kids now?

“They could not cooperate with one another; nor with their environment, their world, their reality. So, we founded a new one.”

Uh…? I’m not clear on the timeline here. It sounds like the Earth exodus just happened and they’re still reeling from its effects. Why would this guy be talking about it in such familiar terms otherwise? But at the same time, the first note implied that this was long enough after that for a new generation to arise. I’m confused.

“If so, there is no reward, no gain for your sacrifice. If such a reward was guaranteed, the unknown poses no threat. There would be no reward for returning from such a state; anyone could do it. Yet here I stand, beyond front of progress.”

Well that sure was a lot of word vomit. I’m not sure if there’s actually anything important here or if it’s just there to sound deep.

“We’ll let the excitable fools upstairs take credit this time. They haven’t had a turn since the last iteration of Polymer L.”

So I presume this is the birth of cybernetics? “Polymer L” likely refers to L-skin (carboderm)… which is odd, because I always assumed the L stood for “lacertian” and it was based on their regenerative properties, but this is clearly before lacertians were discovered.

“Zero. Zero. Zero! Nonzero! Zero! Why must this spike drill itself into my mind! What does it mean? What does it mean?!”

As you can probably tell, this was the “brilliant man” who invented the latent energy probe. He doesn’t sound much like Tezkhra, but neither does The Blue One in The Drop, so we can assume some personality changes occur between hosts.

“The most terrifying aspect? It’s not evenly distributed. It was localized some place, at some point. But now it’s spreading.”

Wha… how can he possibly know that.

“I must… find more spikes. Find a pattern. Patterns are the universe’s most brilliant beacons. There must be a pattern…”

Ah, now he’s starting to sound like Tez.

A level 3 keycard unlocks a large area to the north. It looks like they were growing animals here, and eventually succeeded. I’m not sure what the plants are doing here, though; it’s the only area with any traces of life. I have to wonder how they’re still alive after what has probably been at least a million years. Are the emitters keeping them alive too?

“So little life… they must not know just how alone we are. What a desolate, lifeless wasteland outer space turned out to be.”

You may also recall that I found Cassidy by checking the “terraform unnecessary” log on this computer. Strangely, one planet was removed from the “terraform necessary” list as well, but as far as I can tell there’s no purpose to it; inputting those coordinates just leads to a normal exploration mission. Not sure what’s up with this.

A level 4 keycard unlocks this little alcove off from the big room.

“Given the rapid completion of the PH project, I feel we are well within the realm of plausibility here. We shall be lonely no more.”

Okay screw it it’s spoiler bar time, it’s stupid of me to keep vaguely wringing my hands over how I can’t talk about this yet. Don’t highlight if you don’t want to spoil a twist that’s coming next episode.

I think I get it now. PH is “potential human”, isn’t it? And PB must be “potential botanical”… and PL is, of course, “potential lizard” or “potential lacertian”. I was totally shocked by the reveal in episode 4, but in hindsight there actually is a lot of evidence pointing to it. Intuiting the pattern becomes a lot easier when you have the full context, but I think it is actually possible to piece this together in advance. The game actually managed a proper mystery for once! I feel like this would work a lot better if we got to see what the PH and PL specimens looked like, though. Just giving us the botanical samples to extrapolate from is a bit obtuse.

“Technology has allowed us to live forever, and although these so-called ‘Splice’ explorations have been fruitless so far… …do we really want to go so far as to fill up all that empty space with living things? Plants? Animals? People?”

Someone’s cranky. What exactly are they doing outside of the biology? Are there other labs we’re not seeing? That could actually explain some of the gaps, if the places holding the detailed research notes and other projects were destroyed because they insisted on using STONE BUILDINGS seriously I’m still not over that.

“The poor creature flopped off the examination table and straight into the plasmatic bars. Naturally, with no eyes, it didn’t know. There is barely enough material left that we can salvage for recycling. Maybe we should forego the sentience aspect for now.”

This makes me wonder if the Lessers’ ability to sense plasmatic bars was added intentionally, to prevent this from happening when they tried making sapient subjects again. But in that case, why don’t regular lacertians have it? Were they confident enough to remove it at that stage, or was it an accidental mutation unique to Lessers after all?

“That explains why traces of the energy have been found clinging to impact debris and dust almost all of the time. Could it be related to some specific element, like magnetic fields are? And why haven’t we found more of it?”

Oh hey, actual logical deduction! I still don’t know how got the initial information in the first place, but if he is The Blue One and The Blue One does have a magical affinity for this, that could go a long way towards explaining it. There is some dubiousness in using “a wizard did it” as an explanation in stories that aren’t pure fantasy, but I am willing to give the fantasy subplot some leeway on that.

Unfortunately, that’s all for now. The really interesting stuff is behind those two doors, but I can’t get through them until episode 4. Technically it is possible to get the next card level from Kara if you reach 200 personal trust with her, but she’s really hard to please so realistically that’s not happening this episode.

So as you can see, there really isn’t much here, so I don’t know why Ivoronus thought the entrance alone would scare Ros straight. The only truly incriminating bit is #3849’s note, but even that one isn’t very obvious, and EROS could easily deny it as unrepresentative of their larger body — Willis basically does that already by saying the station is an irrelevant relic. There are plenty of intriguing hooks here that hint at something sinister lurking behind those doors, but nothing concrete yet.

Still, it’s fun to read these, and to slowly progress through the notes. Lore and background details are always great. It would be more interesting if they related to the present day more directly, though (which would also make Ivoronus’ motive make more sense). We’ll only ever meet one of these researchers in the main plot — or two, if I’m right about #98A2 being Tezkhra’s past life. Who’s #3849? Who are the two biologists, #1213 and #0EF7? I have no clue, and that feels like a missed opportunity to help us learn more about the history of present-day characters. There also could have been effective tension by revealing these mad scientists were still at large, but I have no idea if they are now. If they are, they certainly haven’t been making the news.

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