We’re finally going to see some plot this episode. Exciting!
“And yet it moves” is supposedly a phrase muttered by Galileo after his trial, showing that he could not truly recant the evidence in front of him; an act of scientific defiance. This makes it a stock Deep Historical Quote™ that gets thrown around a lot, but it’s not terribly relevant to this arc aside from the very general connection to scientific progress.
Unlike in previous episodes, we don’t start in the suspension lab. Ros hears someone telling her to wake up while she’s blacked out, then:
An intercom tells her Something is wrong with this room. Identify it. Ros wants to know what’s going on, but the intercom just passive-aggressively repeats the instructions. Obviously, the abnormality is the empty planter on the right, as the room is otherwise symmetrical. The gate lowers, and Ros proceeds to a new room.
The same thing happens as before: Ros demands answers, and only gets a passive-aggressive repetition.
This one is an actual puzzle! Standing on one those purple squares will activate a switch and add a number to the counter. There are six of them in total, and I have to select the right combination to reach 43. It’s very easy once you figure out the trick: they’re in base 2. I trip 32, 8, 2, and 1 to get 43.
There’s another room after this, but it’s just a very simple and boring maze. Disappointing.
Sorenson apologizes for the confusion, and says “they” insisted on this test. The white-coated scientist in the background walks over.
She introduces herself: “Kara Fatima, EROS Project, Research and Expansion division.” Sorenson says the Inquiry is currently allied with this “EROS project”, so she will attend the next mission briefing. She doesn’t like Typelog’s presence on the ship for some reason.
Sorenson also asks if Ros is a creation of EROS. Seems like something they should have asked earlier, but he might be doing it for Ros’ benefit.
Kara: “Negative. Physical tests did not match anything we are capable of. Not yet, anyway.”
Really? It sure sounds like Ros is normal aside from the protein. Cutting-edge future scientists can’t manufacture a single protein, seriously? Just how complicated is that thing?
I really like this opening, though. Even though it’s short and a rather dull fakeout, it’s exciting and different, and this kind of bizarre yet sophisticated whimsy is very fitting as an introduction to EROS, as we will soon see. It does, however, show that we totally could have gotten a more substantial cliffhanger if the ending scene had lasted just a little longer and Sorenson heard that agents from a new, unknown faction wanted to speak with him.
The scene ends here and I get a walkaround breather, but I don’t get further explanation until the briefing so I’ll skip to that. Kara sits in, and Sorenson explains that she’s going to serve under me during her stay here.
Kara is decent, but she’s not good enough for me to want to replace Marie; they have the same auroral skill, but Marie has better defense. Her hull is a major problem, not just for her subpar defense, but her two weaknesses as well. She does have more AP than Marie, though, and her moderate contact skill gives her a lot more offensive potential than most SOLs. I might have her replace Tez after I plug one of her weaknesses, we’ll see.
The most notable thing about Kara is that she is probably the best minority portrayal in the game. Neff is competent and intelligent, but he’s extremely emotional and informal in a way that treads dangerously close to the stereotype of the jive-talking black sidekick. Kara is much more professional, though she does stumble more in regards to scientific stereotypes — I’m actually not entirely sure what science she actually does. I’ll talk about this more in her personal chats.
Kara then explains just what EROS is.
Kara: “‘A Passion for Science’ is our motto. We embrace the coupling of emotion and logic to further our learning. […] “We do whatever hasn’t been done. Mechanical, biological, exploratory… We have an extensive laboratory network.”
In other words, they are the emotion to Typelog’s logic. (Or the Apple to Typelog’s Microsoft, perhaps.) I find this very interesting; most media portrays science as a purely logical and intellectual field, cold and devoid of humanity. But of course science isn’t like that in reality; scientists are people and are subject to the same emotional drives and biases as everyone else. Using the science faction to explore emotion while using the business/bureaucracy faction to explore cold logic is a reversal of our expectations and allows the story to examine these common themes from new angles.
The reason we haven’t heard of them before is because they’re off the grid. Somehow, like the Sikohlon, they’re able to work outside of Typelog’s network. Unlike the Sikohlon, they are completely unknown to the rest of the world thanks to cloaking technology, and the invisible asteroid last episode was one of their research labs. Somehow I feel like someone should have collided with them earlier, but space is pretty big and they probably make some attempt to avoid people. This feels off, to me — it’s a bit too late in the story for a completely new organization to come out of nowhere, especially since, as we will see, they’re far more plot-relevant than Typelog. Typelog’s presence was foreshadowed from the very beginning, but there’s nothing to even hint at EROS’ existence prior to this. The existence of yet another organization that can magically ignore Typelog also undermines Typelog’s power and omnipresence, which was basically the only thing they had going for them. Typelog was introduced as an almighty panopticon, but the further we go in the story, the more they seem like overblown chumps — so why did we waste a whole arc on them?
Tezkhra is obviously interested in their segmentation methods, but Mahk is less enthused by their secrecy. Except then he goes on to say he would have enjoyed the same privacy for the Sikohlon’s methods, which confused me. Is he supposed to be jealous?
We then learn that Sikohlon crafting technology has been leaked to the public. We will never learn how this happened or why. I’m sure the developer has an explanation written down somewhere that he thinks is blindingly obvious, but I can’t figure it out and this goes nowhere as far as I can tell.
Tezkhra: “Not content with sharing my technology, it seems someone has done the same with Sikohlon crafting tech.”
Neff: “Yep. I’m not sayin’ Typelog had somethin’ to do with it, but things’ve gotten a lot more interesting out there.”
Mahk: “Impossible. Typelog had no access to our databanks.”
Really, this is setting off so many red flags for me. The characters draw an explicit comparison to Typelog only for Mahk to immediately shoot that option down. That just screams that there’s a third party using Typelog as a patsy. I guess it could be EROS? But I don’t see why they would care.
Regardless, it does work as a plot device, and neatly integrates gameplay and story by having characters react to the power escalation. From now on enemies will have stronger weapons (though still not strong enough to make me worried), and status effects (which are mostly irrelevant).
It occurs to me that this would have been a better example of Typelog’s corruption last episode. Unlike Tez’s Stardraw tech, this is a clearly irresponsible information breach with obvious and dangerous consequences. Hacking and infiltrating a rival organization is also a much bigger deal than just plagiarizing one guy, and would cement Typelog’s power: the Sikohlon thought themselves safe, but in truth none can escape Typelog’s greed and persistence. Oh oh oh, and that would be an effective smokescreen: the Stardraw leak is what’s going to be important in the long run, but if it’s paired with another, bigger leak, it gets drowned out in the panic, and that would also explain why Tezkhra doesn’t have time to explain everything. Plus that would provide a reason for the Inquiry as a whole to reject Typelog like I said last time: the Sikohlon are their allies and spreading destruction is counter to the Inquiry’s goals of peace, so it makes sense that they’d want nothing to do with the company after that.
The only possible downside is that this could change the audience reception to EROS: here, they’re a miracle solution, but if a previous rival of Typelog’s was already humiliated, that casts doubt on EROS’ capability. I do think it’s important that EROS is seen as flawless and amazing from the outset, though I’m sure you could still make it work with some handwaves.
On to the briefing. EROS’ secrecy means they need the Inquiry to perform more overt tasks for them. This, however, is just a test of Ros’ capabilities. Sorenson publicized the blueprints for Hab Zero in an attempt to help other survivors rebuild, but some of those survivors are violent criminals and have used the plans to create scary fortresses called “nests”. This one is too close to one of EROS’ research stations for comfort. Rather than attacking (which the Inquiry crew is steadfastly opposed to for some reason despite the fact that these rogues are definitely killing people), Kara just wants to bug their relays for spying purposes. I initially assumed this was so they could see an attack coming if the rogues tried to attack their station, but apparently they just want to see if they’re connected to other groups. I’m not sure how that helps with their immediate problem, unless they’re totally confident in their ability to avoid detection and this really is just FOR SCIENCE.
After the briefing I can talk to all the new NPCs who have popped up. A lot of them have notable things to say.
“They concluded that, other than the protein, there is nothing out of the ordinary. Reassuring, yes?”
So, confirmation that they could totally copy her capabilities with blood transfusions, and also that EROS’ biotechnology department is terrible. Seriously, we’ve been producing proteins for decades in the modern era! This thing can’t possibly be that complicated!
What. Apparently EROS flunked history class. Xenophobia can produce greatness in the short-term, but it always leads to ruin in the long term. Working together and pooling resources leads to exponential increases in happiness and progress. They’re scientists, they should know this! Though scientists who are obsessed with keeping their projects secret from everyone else might have different views of things.
Yes, emitters remove the need for breathing too, just in case you had any doubts about them being magic. This one actually does make the most sense, though — breathing is used to generate energy, and saying that emitters can pump that into cells is actually one of the more reasonable claims so far.
Also wow EROS do you not have psychology/neuroscience departments? It’s a hard-wired instinct, there’s nothing deep and mystical about it.
This I just like. It’s bizarre, unsettling, and vaguely unethical, all of which is perfect for EROS.
Hm, that’s interesting, you’d think they’d be all over him. I would guess they have access to other hybrids, so he’s not a novelty to them — perhaps they even created him?
Hmm. I wonder if EROS had anything to do with the colony’s collapse. Does Kara feel guilty?
It might be hard to tell from the tiny sprites, but like Erudite from Divergent, all EROS agents wear glasses. I can’t believe they’re necessary, given how advanced medical science must be by this point, so they must be doing it solely for the image. I actually think this kind of ridiculous, childish posturing makes perfect sense for them to do. My only objection is that I have a hard time believing the “smart people wear glasses” trope has endured for so long; this is supposed to be millions of years in the future. This guy shows that no one else remembers it, so who are they doing it for? I suppose it could be some ancient tradition of theirs that nobody understands anymore but that they keep doing out of inertia.
From this, I think it’s pretty clear by now that EROS is more flash than substance. They’re posers who put a lot of effort into looking sophisticated but are actually pretty clueless and incompetent. I am certain this is intentional and an important thematic point, for reasons that will hopefully become clear by the end of the episode. I’ll go into more detail when we get to the relevant scenes.
This is just weird, though, and something I didn’t notice until Mahk brought it up. So what, despite all the posturing about how well-integrated lacertians are, there’s actually still horrible racism? That’s not something you can just drop in halfway through the story! Why do they do this? What’s the point of this? It’s totally illogical to arbitrarily limit your talent pool! And of course it’s never brought up again, because this story loves to dump little details with heavy implications on us and then never address them.
Oh yeah, and there’s also this little detail. All your crewmates have personal lockers that they leave unlocked for some reason, and you can raid them at the cost of personal trust. Tezkhra’s, however, is locked, and you can never open it. He apparently removes the contents at the start of this episode, but we never learn what those contents were so this mystery just sort of fizzles without a clear resolution. It could be where he was storing his notes, maybe? Seems like an awfully small space for that, but computers have gotten pretty tiny already, they can probably store petabytes on thumb drives in this setting.
And the shop FINALLY upgrades its weapon components! …They’re still obsolete junk, of course (level 3, when the norm is now levels 5-7), but at least I can buy somewhat respectable weapons now if I need to fill some gaps in a pinch.
Raiding the new treasure boxes also gives me enough carboderm to advance Soran’s sidequest. This is a thermal auroral weapon, which has decent attack power but costs 4 AP to use. He wants 40 carboderm next, which I’m pretty sure is more than the previous two tiers combined. Ughhh. I’m definitely not going to make that by the end of the game, and I’m not even sure it’s the last one.
Neff explains this mission’s gimmick: At the end of every turn, the rogues’ scanners will notice me and increase the suspicion counter. This gets worse the closer I am to the orange region. In addition, all the enemies here are scanning probes, and if I can’t destroy them in the first round of battle, they’ll send an alert that increases suspicion. So basically: this is a stealth mission, though I can still crush everything in my path if I’m strong enough. Normally this would be trivial, but you’ll notice that my CP is extremely low. It’s impossible to cut through the orange zone in a single turn; if I go in there at all, I’m guaranteed to get a massive suspicion spike.
Well, I tried. You’d think the avoidance options would actually be useful here, but, as per usual, they’re not. This is mainly thanks to the fact that stealth costs a lot of CP, which you don’t have. The scanning probes are pretty weak anyway, so it’s best to just sweep them.
You may notice that there’s a very tempting treasure node right in the middle of the hot zone. It’s impossible to grab it and get out of the zone in the same turn, so I bite the bullet and…
…
I can buy this. I can buy this any time I want. The super-risky treasure that nearly cost me the whole mission rewarded me with filler junk.
It is sometimes reasonable to randomize treasure rewards. This is not one of those times.
Fortunately I still manage to finish the mission by the skin of my teeth, with 981 suspicion. Kara is impressed with my discretion, which amuses me given how stupid that move was. We’ll assume she’s stunned that I somehow managed to blunder my way to success anyway. As a reward, I get a level 7 weapon shell and 20000 credits! Woah, these guys know how to make it rain! I like them better than Typelog already.
I get new articles on my return.
Alright, finally we get confirmation on suppression! Sort of. Turns out I was wrong and it was purely mental! That’s boring, but it does explain how Tez was able to crack in small increments. This still should have been explained in more detail, and I still think it’s a rather odd setting detail. The mention of chemical suppressors also muddies the waters — were some people taking those before, or was that developed after the Shine to help people cope? At any rate, this gives me a new lens to examine the personal chats through.
And… huh. I assumed Tez’s suppression broke a lot later than this, in a scene where he explicitly confesses it to Ros. I’ll have to think about this more when we get there.
This, on the other hand, is just a gameplay hint. The Hole and Corner is an area where you can buy high-level weapon components. (This is actually redundant, since the splice vendor already tells you to investigate Splice 6 if you talk with her.) Finding it is actually pretty tricky and requires a bit of luck. I have just enough cash to unlock Splice 6, so let’s get it out of the way now.
I haven’t talked about random missions before, since they’re just opportunities for money and item grinding. I actually think the game does a good job of making them engaging. The objective is to investigate a bunch of nodes — that option is available in story missions, but most players probably won’t take it because of how stringent the time limits and other effects are. The grinding missions therefore expose players to an often-overlooked gameplay mechanic, which I think makes them a lot more interesting than they could be otherwise. And you don’t just get vendor trash:
Occasionally, investigation will yield a tiny snippet of Typelog data instead of an item. This sure looks an awful lot like data pirating, come to think of it; I doubt Typelog is terribly pleased by our poking about. Most of the snippets are too short to yield useful information, but they’re often glances into some behind-the-scenes bureaucratic stuff, like here, which interests me. (This one, I think, is just a dramatic irony joke — in The Reconstruction, fih’jik have four-fingered hands and thus presumably have a base-8 counting system, so this is probably a reference to that.) This is an excellent way to spice up these random missions, and they provide another completionist metric, since there’s a limited number of them and they’re all recorded in one of the submenus. The only weird part is that some of them are direct quotes from story cutscenes… including some in the future, so Typelog data apparently exists in a higher dimension that transcends time. What’s baffling about this is that there’s a separate pool of snippets for every set of splices you can unlock per episode, so how hard would it be to save the story quotes for splices you can only unlock in future episodes?
These missions also have a unique BGM, which I appreciate. I think it sounds pretty neat; it’s a lot peppier than the story mission theme.
The enemies here are actually a bit tough for me (some actually have better attack power than episode 2’s bounty hunts!), but I blunder my way through until…
That one’s a different color, it must be special!
The transport ship never does anything and goes down in one hit if you attack it. If you defeat all the red ships, it starts to fly away and you can follow it to the Hole and Corner.
Oh, so close and yet so far. The black market has one vendor for each component (including status effects and boosters for extension shells), but they only sell one thing at a time, and it’s totally random. So this doesn’t actually solve the randomness problem, it just gives you an extra roll after every mission. Especially for properties, where there are six potential options, you can easily still get stuck in a rut where you can never get the specific thing you need. If I did this, I would have kept the one-per-mission limitation, but I would have given the player free choice over which one they wanted.
Fortunately, what the developer lacked in polite game design he made up for in flavor text. There are tons of NPCs who flow in and out of this area every mission.
“They use no method of recording at all, yet they continue to flock to this place. How can they remember it, then?”
An excellent question with no answer. And apparently people can just opt out of Typelog’s services with no consequences even though Purity Point seems to show that’s impossible. What is consistency. (Once again, this also diminishes Typelog’s importance, since their services are apparently totally unnecessary.)
Libertarianism strikes again. If it weren’t for that bit in The Reconstruction I would assume this is meant to reflect the character’s beliefs and not the creator’s, but in light of that I can’t be so charitable.
And for some reason this guy speaks in broken English despite that making no sense. I can’t possibly believe there’s a single lacertian who can’t speak proper English by now, even if a handful somehow managed to dodge the uplift classes or whatever. They’ve been interacting with humans for millennia, they should have gotten everything purely by osmosis in that time.
Finally, there’s… this thing. Supposedly he is a character we know and it’s possible to figure out who based on his speech style. Unsurprisingly, nobody has come to a conclusive answer despite this game being out for four years now. My best guesses are Soran, Tezkhra, and a character we’ll meet next mission, but heck if I can narrow it down further than that.
Onto the next briefing:
EROS is pleased with Ros’ performance and wants to hire us full-time. This is one of their research stations.
Sorenson: “It is carrying live specimens on board, hence the hab domes. They are quite fragile.”
What? Are those literally glass domes? Why??? We like those in sci-fi because they look pretty, but there’s no practical point to them! If the animals need a natural-looking environment for some reason, surely they can project an image of a sky onto a heavily fortified structure with their super technology?
EROS is nervous that the lab will be attacked, so Ros’ fleet is to escort it to a safer location. Kara downplays the danger by saying they have MOD units for backup and Ros’ behavior is just to help them fine-tune the AI, thus guaranteeing something bad will happen, as mandated by narrative law.
Kara: “Due to [the station’s] mass, stopping is no simple matter. A full reversal can take half a subspace to complete.”
Super future science is not very impressive. Perhaps this is supposed to be intentional? As I mentioned last episode, secrecy and factionalism inhibits scientific progress, so EROS’ paranoia should actually hurt them, especially since they’re also wasting resources on posturing.
EROS has purposefully disabled the relays here to hide themselves, so we’re flying blind. My job is to scout ahead and destroy any miscreants before the station runs into them. This is trivial for the first few turns, but just as the station is approaching the dock, Kara starts freaking out and ordering the navigators to change course. The station manages to come to a stop in the space of one node, sooo… is that “half a subspace”?
The reason for this promptly shows itself. Even EROS’ unpredictable complications are way more exciting than Typelog’s!
It’s apparently too late for my fleets to flee to the Inquiry, so Kara’s plan is to hide everyone in the cloaking field. (Also, that relay appears to have winked out of existence…?) You can actually fight the swarm on certain nodes, but it’s a waste of time, since you can’t beat them all. The EROS station will always make it there just fine, even if you don’t clear the path — apparently they didn’t need defense after all? The real challenge is getting all four fleets to the other side of the map…
…And I actually fail to do this, because I wasted too much CP on ambushes in an attempt to get the preemptive strike achievement. HUBRIS.
But hey, at least we get to see the game over screen! That’s a rare privilege. This seems like it was made with episode 2 in mind — “termination of funding” doesn’t make a lot of sense when Typelog is no longer providing the funding, unless it’s supposed to be Sorenson himself saying the project is a failure and they have to give up. (Saying that Ros is irrecoverable is also weird when not all mission failures end in her dying, unless the implication is that they kill her if she fails to defend Hab Zero or rescue the quarantine vessel?)
I continue to screw up my next few attempts until I realize I can just stick Dazsk and Luke in the same fleet and make things way easier on myself.
Despite all the stuff about how Lessers are so smart now omg, they are completely fooled by this and go in another direction. I guess they don’t have very good mapping systems…?
The nodes stay red even after they leave. I presume there was some technical difficulty involved there.
Kara invites them onto the station, and says her supervisor wants to speak with them. There’s some chatter as they marvel at the displays for a while before he arrives. The optional characters get input too, which I appreciate; The Reconstruction was pretty good at integrating its optionals into cutscenes, but here they’ve been pretty absent from the plot.
Rami: “What do you think, Boss? Should we even fool with these people?”
Oh hey, it’s been a while since I’ve gotten a dialogue choice in a story cutscene! Well, while EROS certainly seems weird, I am generally in favor of science, so it can’t hurt to learn more. I’m rewarded with PT boosts for the four scientists (Neff, Rami, Tez, and Deirdre).
Then this guy shows up. I’m not sure why he looks so old when the emitters are supposed to make everyone immortal; perhaps they can only stop aging, not reverse it, and he was already old when he was first exposed.
He introduces himself as Willis Jameson, “head of biological research.” He seems pretty blase about the horde invasion, saying it was exciting. He promptly starts talking like a supervillain:
Willis: “With our boundless knowledge behind your military arm, why… we could have a hand in everything.”
Marie: “We’re not looking to hand anything, Willis. We just want society to stand up straight again.”
Willis: “Of course. But, what if it wills itself in the other direction? Could you use force to convince it otherwise? […] The worst is yet to come. We’ve seen it before. We’ll see it again.”
Rami: “Uh, what? We were all just fine and dandy until the Shine knocked everyone’s screws loose.”
Willis: “Were we, now?”
And… he just walks off. Well, he may as well have been holding a giant neon “I’M EVIL” sign that whole time. I’m… not entirely sure what he’s referring to with the last line, either. With the revelation that EROS has been hiding in the shadows the whole time, it makes sense that they’d know (or be responsible for) something terrible that was hidden from public consciousness, but this never goes anywhere from what I can remember. Still, it’s nice to get introduced to the big player up-front this time, and his erratic personality is certainly more interesting than the wooden Typelog agents of last episode.
Kara: “Willis has a mind none of us could compare to. therefore, it is fitting that he hold a leadership position.”
Wow, they really are Erudite. I actually like this, though, since the story actually bothers to demonstrate exactly why this is such a terrible idea instead of just throwing it in for a quick potshot at those evil eggheads.
The crew then talks about the horde, and Kara believes they purposefully exploited the cloaking field around the station so EROS wouldn’t see them coming. I don’t see why they couldn’t have just happened to wander into a blackout zone, but there are no coincidences in fiction, so sure.
Unsurprisingly, Lewis flips out over this new information. So, once again, there is clearly something very unusual about all this. The ordinary criminals, despite supposedly being much smarter, can’t coordinate to nearly this degree, and outside of Lagarto we haven’t seen this level of cleverness from them either. What in the world is facilitating this? It’s not that Lessers were always this intelligent and everyone just underestimated them, because this is new behavior.
But never mind plot holes, it’s time to explore my favorite area. This is the first time that visuals are used to their full effect: every area up to this point is nothing but cold, sterile grays and blues, with maybe some white if you’re lucky. After spending hours in that environment, the sudden appearance of these bright, vibrant colors hits you like a truck — and the lights in the background move too, for an even more bedazzlement! It reminds me of Orthodox churches, a flood of visual stimuli that elevates you from the mundane and gives you a sense of transcendence. It says “This is a special place.”
Like Typelog, EROS has a theme that plays here. It has a smoother, deeper quality than most other themes in the soundtrack, evoking a similar sense of newness and dissonance. All in all, this is definitely the best area in the game just from a design and aesthetic standpoint.
There is also flavor text galore here. The Typelog superhub condensed its most important information into the three history files, but here, interesting stuff is spread all over.
Oh, so they do serve a purpose! I’d wager that that’s just an excuse, though.
Huh? Marie said it was a desperate scenario where only a few survivors escaped the apocalypse. I’m sure those traits were required for the few people who accomplished it, but this seems like a pretty warped spin on it. Perhaps that’s supposed to be the point.
Hmmm. Sounds like they were behind the Sikohlon leak after all.
These look like they should be foreshadowing for something, but they aren’t. Perhaps this is a glimpse at the cutting room floor?
Poor Chac. :(
Uhh, how? If they mean without emitters, sure, but most people like natural gravity and atmosphere.
In Fever, Farla speculated that civilization had collapsed so far that nobody remembered how science actually worked and were simply attempting flashy movie science in the hopes that something would stick. I’m going to take this snippet as evidence that this is the case for EROS.
So have they actually proved this, or is this just racism?
I… think this is legit foreshadowing for a much later plot point, but it’s rather roundabout if so.
I see this EROS agent is an English major.
She does not elaborate. So there is a reason, we just never learn it. Pointing out your plot holes doesn’t fix them, game.
These monitors actually do foreshadow some later plot points. The second one is particularly interesting, I’ll have to remember it…
Uh, really? Lizards may be a primal fear but they’re definitely not the biggest one. It sounds like this author is just making stuff up to sound smart… which I find very believable for EROS.
Sounds like they’re trying to hack Typelog. Sketchy. Could they have been behind some of the data pirating last episode?
And this is just funny. They’re trying so hard to sound smart!
“EROS smiles upon any sort of ingenuity, even if your methods may seem less than socially acceptable.”
But that’s not all! There’s also a sidequest going on here, where finding access cards can unlock further areas. I think this is a neat mechanic that makes the information all the more enticing. It’s a little risky — stereotypically, players prefer material rewards for their effort — but, given that this is a story-based RPG, I think the developer knew his audience well. The first two cards are very easy to get — you get a level 2 card just for leveling up, and you can buy a level 3 card from a dealer in the black market.
Some say these creatures are more intelligent than they appear. Their ability to learn how to pilot combat craft is a more obvious sign.
…So is it reasoned behavior, or instinctual? Make up your mind. Them learning from getting shocked seems too obvious, so I presume this means they avoid them even if they’ve never seen them before. So… they have some kind of energy sense? But Tezkhra should have it too, then… which would actually explain why he’s recording more memory data than normal, come to think of it. And his augmentations might interfere with it, explaining why he’s not consciously aware of it… interesting.
Tezkhra is not as perceptive as I am. Or maybe he is, and he’s just in denial.
Uh, really? The crest and tail differences seem a lot more notable than lacertian dimorphism, which seem limited to nearly-indistinguishable differences in frill shape.
…Wait.
Well, it looks like I just solved a four-year-old mystery. It feels… very underwhelming. All this time I thought the plant merchant was an important character, but he’s actually just a random NPC? Bah.
A level 3 card unlocks this area.
I’m not sure what this is supposed to refer to. The rogues?
Nah, I’m pretty sure you can’t beat mind-reading.
That’s it for this facility; this door will never open. It’s just here to imply there’s more to the facility than what you can see. The superhub had similar dead ends. Still, there’s plenty of delicious text in this area alone!
And I think I’ll end it here, now that we’ve covered the introductions. Plot happens next update.