Last time, the villain contacted Ros and revealed her crew is wasting their time trying to look for him. Instead of alerting her friends and the authorities, she chose to keep this a secret because she’s terrible. Today, the game forgets about that and remembers there’s supposed to be a war going on.
Before continuing the plot, I’m going to investigate a secret area first. There will be more context for this in the bonus section, but for now, you get to place yourself in the shoes of Ros’ crew and go in with no understanding of this place.
They trigger an alarm when they walk up, but this man lowers the gate and tells them to come in. He introduces himself as Doctor Burkle. You may notice that he has the EROS uniform; the crew points out they’ve never seen a lacertian EROS agent, but he dodges the question with a noncommittal “Yes, well, these are rather strange and desperate times.” As they’re talking, a Lesser walks up. Tezkhra flips out and draws his gun, but Burkle just calmly tells the Lesser to go back to reading. It does so. Marie flies off the handle at this, but Burkle explains the Lessers here are actually quite docile, and he’s been observing them. Marie still feels murdery, but Burkle agrees to let them explore as long as they keep this place secret.
You thought you’d go a whole episode without any freeroam sections, didn’t you??? Well never fear, the flavor text is here!
In the intro Kara confirms that this is a very old EROS facility. If you talk to her here she also says it looks like this is a small part of a larger facility that broke away. So yes, it does seem they took over a while ago.
This is the study area, it looks like.
Some of them are making clever observations.
“…but some are more interesting. Craft instructions, and weapon building plans. Stuff they shouldn’t have…”
This would be more ominous if the Lessers weren’t already Mary Sues capable of commandeering and piloting anything. This would just be formal education on stuff they can apparently already figure out on their own.
Karma.
I think this is cute.
Mahk wonders what went on here before the Lessers took over. Combined with this, that implies something shady. Those look like operating tables and that container seems to be filled with blood, so it could be a dissection room. Or vivisection? Might not be such a bad thing that the Lessers slaughtered everyone here.
Looks like someone had a slip of the tongue. Ivoronus is bad at keeping secrets.
Ros, meanwhile, is far too good at keeping secrets; in the bonus section we will learn she knows exactly how they got here and why there’s no craft. If it weren’t for that, this would be a clever bit of mystery-building. It almost reads like you’re supposed to find this place before learning the information that accompanies it.
“I still say we ought to vaporize the entire facility.”
Jeez, why is he so genocidal? This is especially bizarre after his personal capstone scene, where he learns he’s a Lesser. (No, I don’t think that’s a spoiler, it’s so blatantly obvious it’s lampshaded in the scene itself.) If people showed the same mercilessness to him he wouldn’t be where he is today, so why can’t he empathize with their position? Just… Jesus, is this a Hitler thing where thinks the only way he can be pure is if he eradicates everyone else? But he never displays any long-lasting angst or self-hatred that would imply that. Regardless, the game still treats his genocidal advocacy like a cute quick, which is incredibly messed up.
The Lessers love Daszk, of course. Oddly, they say Ros has no scent at all. Did the developer just forget to alter the text for a LAC Ros, or is that intentional? Shra in The Reconstruction definitely do have an odor, but if Tez is a Lesser so are they. If lacertians are indeed scentless, this would be a clever hint toward that fact.
“We claimed this land for ourselves. We drove away the beings that infested it and called it our own. Soon, my brothers and sisters will be wise enough to join me in leaving it behind. We will not be stopped. We are superior beings, and as such, we deserve to live freely, just as you and your kind claim to do. Our wild kin on the outside have much to learn as well, but such will come with time. We… we will not be stopped.”
And of course, we need a reason why preserving the facility isn’t the obvious right choice. I still don’t see this as enough justification to kill all the other Lessers who seem like pretty harmless, innocent souls. The horde is already inexplicably hypercompetent and organized, how can this Lesser make them any worse? It sounds like she would teach them speech and reason too, which would actually be hugely beneficial to everyone else. The reason everyone has a kill on sight response to Lessers is that they can’t be reasoned with; if that changes, then they’re just another faction that people can negotiate and get along with. This really just comes across as even more reason to spare this place.
On one hand, they’re Lessers. No one would miss them, except maybe Doctor Burkle. A dozen or so dead Lessers would be for the best. On the other hand, they are still living beings, and haven’t shown any hostility to you. Could you say the same for them afterward? However, if left alive, they might pose an even greater threat in the future, especially if they taught things to the Lesser Horde…
Oh no, if the oppressed class gets basic education we might have to treat them like equals! The horror!!!
This game’s morality is really messed up sometimes. At least it acknowledges the only reason you could possibly have for killing them is racism and unsubstantiated fear. If the Lesser horde didn’t run on magic and plot contrivance, and if the resolute Lesser had a more violent, warmongering attitude, I could maybe see a valid argument that killing them would save more lives in the long run. But as it is, we have no reason to believe this will have any impact on the horde’s dangerousness. The worst-case scenario has already happened – the barely-conscious ragemonsters somehow formed an organization of unparalleled power and efficiency that destroys anything in its path. What “greater threat” will these cute babies pose? They don’t seem aggressive at all, so they probably wouldn’t want to join the horde. Even the visionary one didn’t try to jump us, so she’d probably be open to some nonviolent solutions. And even though she had some worrying supremacy talk, it seemed like she mostly just wanted Lessers to get a fair shake. Even if they really think she’s such an existential threat, surely they can lure her into a back alley and kill her quietly while leaving the others alone? It’s utterly horrifying to murder a bunch of innocents just to off one person who might theoretically be a threat to you at some point maybe.
This whole thing just feels really weird, honestly. The narrative has spent the whole game insisting Lessers are vicious monsters who can’t be reasoned with, which seemed to be corroborated by their transformation into an all-consuming hive mind, then all of a sudden right at the end it’s all no wait there’s totally moral nuance here I swear!!! It’s not at all surprising – the last game was all about how racism was wrong (as long as the oppressed were saintly victims who didn’t fight back) and the developer is a reptile lover so of course the hated lizard race isn’t just a one-dimensional boogeyman – but this has to be the most trite and token way of showing it. This could have been an opportunity to finally tell us what was up with the Lesser horde and what its catalyst was, why Lessers are displaying so many traits people said were impossible, what their real motives were… but those things are still mysteries. I’d also like to know why these ones are so chill when we’re told they’re naturally violent – obviously the researchers wrote them off too quickly, but why the discrepancy? What’s the real truth? Are they all this reasonable by default or are these ones freak mutants? If Burkle has been studying them he should know this stuff, but he doesn’t give us anything. Like a lot of the stuff last episode, this is the sort of thing that would make a good piece of a larger plot arc, but it’s not a satisfying conclusion in and of itself. The logical conclusion to the Lesser plotline would be directly engaging with the horde and learning their mysteries, not this irrelevant tangent.
I’m also disappointed The Black One is never brought up throughout all of this. Does no one remember he started with a cybernetic leg and thus must have had access to a sympathetic surgeon? And we have a Lesser-sympathizing doctor right here. He’s the only person who can logically plug the plot hole. What does he know about Blacky? Why did he help him? We’ll never know.
But enough of my rambling, let’s not be the Space KKK. Sparing the facility increases imagination and decreases aggression. I find it disturbing that the game is implying that genocide is the logical option. The logical evidence says there is no reason to kill them – if you do, you are motivated by emotional fear and prejudice. It might have been better to sidestep the issue and make this a lawful/flexible choice instead, since you’re going against established wisdom by giving the ragemonsters a chance.
For all that this series just loves to preach that racism is Very Wrong, its attempts to engage with the topic sure are horrifying. It acts like ruining peoples’ lives with irrational prejudice is just the natural, logical state of things and we shouldn’t blame people for perpetuating it. If you want to consider maybe not propping up slavery and genocide that’s fine but it’s not like it’s objectively better than maintaining the status quo, there are reasonable arguments for both sides you know? Actually, the more I think about it, the more this reads like the murder option is the one the developer actually agrees with while the spare option is the one he feels obligated to play devil’s advocate for. The murder justification just has such a… self-evident tone to it, if that makes sense.
In conclusion,
Well. Anyway. Neff agrees to wipe this place off the grid, and Burkle thanks me for sparing the Lessers.
Burkle: “I am so delighted that you’ve shown empathy for these creatures. Very few ‘civilized’ people could say the same.”
Indeed.
I hope so, buddy. I hope so.
That may have seemed random but it’s actually sorta relevant to this upcoming mission, so let’s get to that. Neff mentioned an important meeting going on last time, so let’s peek our head in. Everyone’s been waiting very patiently for me, I’m sure.
Willis and Sorenson are arguing about a superweapon of EROS’.
Willis: “This weapon uses Stardraw tech to devour entire stars. It can vaporize an entire subspace at once!”
So it’s Starkiller Base?
But ah, we finally see Stardraw tech used for something actually bad. If Tez had actually thought of this possibility, that would explain why he was so freaked out, and as a bonus, would foreshadow this instead of it coming out of nowhere.
Anyway, Willis had been swapped with the good twin and is suddenly very concerned about the ethical implications of engineering projects. He wants Sorenson to protect him while he dismantles the weapon. Sorenson has likewise been swapped with the evil twin and is refusing to help.
Sorenson: “You started this war. You betrayed Typelog, and us… all of humanity, and now you are suffering the consequences.”
Willis: “Nonsense! Neither Ral nor myself want anything to do with this war! Are you truly this blind?!”
Okay but he did objectively start the war. Sorenson isn’t insinuating that Willis wants to partake in the war, he’s just saying you made your bed now lie in it. This sounds like they’re each hearing two different conversations. In order for this to make sense, Willis needs to address the accusation – “yes, but can’t you see I’m trying to make amends now?” – or his motive needs to be something that makes “neener neener not so funny now is it” look like less of a morally bankrupt response. If, for instance, EROS had intended to use the weapon themselves but lost control of it and now fear it will be used on them, that would fit the “suffering the consequences” bit. But right now the two conversation threads are working at cross-purposes, and that’s really bizarre.
Also yes, Ral is such a saint that she opposed the war despite the fact that EROS tried to kill her. We’ll learn more about this in the bonus section, but I think that’s pretty hard to swallow. Like I said earlier, the game seems fixated on the mantra that war is always terrible and meaningless to the point it ignores that people can have legitimate reasons for going to war.
Willis: “Humanity has been craving a war since the Shine. They want anything to feel vindicated… to feel in control!”
Yes yes humanity is terrible we get it. I don’t see how a war makes people more in control, though, given that it’s characterized by unprecedented dangers and surprises. After they conquer the other side, maybe, but Typelog was already on top before this. I’m not clear on how a war benefits them.
Anyway, Sorenson has gone full ends-justify-the-means and wants to use the weapon to destroy one of the armies and force their surrender.
Sorenson: “It could be just the sort of intimidation you need to force the Typelog military branch into surrender.”
Willis: “Absolutely not! Do you not think the other EROS commanders will use it the first chance they get?”
The two continue to exist in just slightly out-of-sync alternate universes, and are becoming increasingly frustrated as their side of the conversation crosses the void and fails to reach the intended recipient’s ears.
Seriously, how is Willis’ response in any way a rebuttal or contradiction of Sorenson’s plan? He’s saying they could use it to make Typelog kneel, and Willis’s response is “You’re wrong we would never do that, and you need to stop it because we totally would do that!” Am I horribly misreading something here? Maybe the idea is that Sorenson is literally saying they should use it as intimidation, as in, not actually using it, while Willis is afraid that if they leave it out it will actually be used. But how would it be possible to intimidate someone with a weapon if they don’t know its power? Pointing it at EROS might do it, but the others would almost certainly require a demonstration before backing down. The whole thing is really unclear.
Especially because Sorenson goes on to say that he doesn’t care, because even if it’s used, forcing an end to the war with a massacre would still save more lives in the long run.
Willis: “What… happened to you? Don’t you understand? Whoever controls this weapon will be unstoppable!”
What happened to you? Since when does this guy care about ethics or moral responsibility? Again, if a non-EROS faction planned to use the weapon and he feared it would burn him too I could totally see that drawing the hermit out of his cave, and it would add a whole new layer of moral complexity to this by making Sorenson’s “haha you reap what you sow” snark justifiable but still bullheaded. But I don’t see why the Willis we know would care about this. If EROS uses it to destroy Typelog and establish themselves as supreme rulers of the galaxy, that can only benefit him! More resources for his mad science projects, and fewer people bothering him about how they’re all going to die. If he’s supposed to have had a genuine change of heart, we needed to see that line drawn, not just be told that one scene later he’s suddenly a completely different person. To make matters worse, there’s an optional scene later that implies he hasn’t changed his tune one whit, so why is he acting so different here?
Unfortunately, Sorenson has decided to hold the idiot ball and refuses to help, despite the fact that one of the factions permanently capturing the weapon would almost certainly create more suffering and destruction than the war. This is especially egregious when he was just told that there’s an omnicidal maniac on the loose who could swoop in and steal it. If Sorenson believes the weapon will end the war and that he’s the only one responsible enough to use it, he should want to capture it himself, use it, and then immediately dismantle it. That is the best solution that aligns with his goals. Instead he’s just being obstinate and willing to let the world burn for no reason.
Fortunately, Ros uses the proactiveness she’s been hoarding all game to mark the coordinates and plan an expedition herself. Good protagonist, doing things! Why couldn’t more of the game be like this? When I head to the fleet dock she summons the crew for immediate departure.
Aaaand for some reason they don’t ask any questions before running out the door. Ros couldn’t have briefed them just a little? As the person in charge, she has apparently inherited Sorenson’s dickish obfuscation habits and only now springs the trap that this is completely unauthorized. Bizarrely, everyone just goes along with this because they’re good but very dumb people who trust Ros far more than she deserves.
“Abandoned” starts playing here, probably because the developer justly realized it was too awesome to only use on a plot-irrelevant boss fight. And it’s far more deserving of the soundtrack, because for once we have a truly difficult and climactic mission! You need to place one fleet at each of the control points and hold that position against waves of enemies for 5 turns – and the battles themselves are actually kinda difficult, in that they sometimes last more than one round! You need to use your entire force effectively, and you’re under attack from all sides. It took all game, but we finally have an exciting gameplay challenge!
Unfortunately, it still isn’t a very good climax. Like every other final mission, this came out of nowhere, and has the additional problem of throwing a wrench into the main plot thread we’re supposed to be focusing on. This should have everything to do with Lazarus – it’s exactly the kind of power they can’t let fall into his hands, and if Ros can take it, he should have the resources to make a bid too. Instead this is all we get, after Ros gives the order to take over the weapon:
Rami: “Does this have to do with Lazarus? You think he’ll show up?”
Ros: “Maybe.”
And then he never does.
The failure state could have been a good opportunity to implement him, like if he swoops in, steals the weapon, and uses it to blast Ros, but instead it’s just… Sorenson shows up, and that means you have to retreat? Lame. Not terribly surprising, though; even though it makes no sense for Lazarus to completely ignore this, the game has demonstrated it’s not subtle enough to have a villain lie about his motivations. We can safely take him at his word that he’s going to sit on his hands until Ros takes the battle to him.
This could have been a great climax to the war plot itself, if we engaged with that plot more directly, saw the damage, saw what drove people to create something too powerful… But this episode isn’t really about the war, it’s about Lazarus. Since a war isn’t something you can just ignore the game is trying its best to wrap that up now, but it’s just too rushed. The two plots are both trying to cram themselves into an extremely limited space, which makes the individual threads choppy and unsatisfying and the main plot schizophrenic. We needed more room to build up Lazarus, and we needed more room to build up to this.
We encounter a few new enemies here. They have big explosions when they’re defeated, which I think means they have the same defense as bosses. Still not enough to matter.
Once I succeed and hold the weapon for 5 turns, Sorenson shows up and it plays out basically exactly like the game over sequence, only now Ros can retort that they have the weapon so everything’s cool now. Sorenson just throws a fit about how terrible it is that his trump card is winning his battles for him without his permission just because he warehoused her for no reason. I would be more sympathetic to this if he hadn’t spent the whole game being colossally incompetent. I can’t blame Ros for wanting to subvert such an impotent and idiotic authority, especially one that irrationally hates her. Sorenson has given no justifications for any of the questionable decisions he’s made – which, again, is something that could have been fixed if this was more spread out.
Then the creepy voice from the scout MODs starts telling Ros to show them her power by using the weapon to end the war. This leads to the final Important Choice™:
That voice is right. You can end the war right now. You just have to prove you aren’t messing around. You could turn the weapon against Typelog or EROS to scare one or the other into surrendering and ending hostilities. Or, you could turn it against the invading Rogue fleets or the Lessers. It’s the same message, but against actual enemies. Or, you may destroy the weapon and surrender like Sorenson has demanded. The war will continue to rage on…
Okay, how are Typelog and EROS not “actual enemies”? Part of the problem is how detached we are from the conflict – we hear a lot about the rogues and Lessers tearing things up in the previous episodes, but other than our run-in with Lagarto we never saw the effects for ourselves. All we’ve seen of the superpowers has been them menacing an innocent group and then being so willing to murder some interlopers that they put their own lives on the line for it. Society seemed to doing alright even with rogue and Lesser attacks, but it was the war that completely ruined things. The big two sure seem like bigger threats to humanity than the opportunists nipping at the edges.
Well, let’s go over our options.
The Rogues are barely human any more. They strive only for their own survival, no matter who gets hurt. Now, it’s their turn.
Citation needed. Aside from Lagarto, the only rogues we’ve seen (Jazzy’s girls and Alicia’s group) have been pretty neutral and were only trying to survive on their own. Dehumanizing the whole group seems extremely premature. Let’s not massacre people we don’t really know anything about.
The Lessers are incapable of fear or sympathy. You may destroy a few now, but ten thousand will take their places.
This would be the obvious choice, but we just learned the important lesson that Lessers are people too. That’s another thing that makes the Lesser habitation feel token – its placement makes it seem like its main purpose is just to make you reconsider this choice, rather than giving you actual insight into the Lessers. Tacky, lazy, shallow. But if they are people, I’ve already decided not to kill people I don’t know anything about, so this option is out.
Typelog has forgotten their responsibility to society. Perhaps a reminder is in order to set them back on track.
EROS created this device. It is time they learn about humility. A crippling blow like this would send them into retreat.
Now this is where things get interesting, because these factions I do know about. And, knowing what I know… what reason is there to kill Typelog over EROS? They may not be saints, but their sins pale in comparison to EROS’. They tried to do a genuinely good thing, and EROS sabotaged it out of spite. This weapon was an EROS creation, likely intended to wipe Typelog off the map. There is evidence linking EROS to jamming pulses, making EROS chiefly responsible for the lives lost to the technology even if Typelog adapted it too. Actually – do we have any evidence Typelog uses jamming pulses? We’ve only seen it used once, and that was by EROS soldiers. Even if they do, I’ve noticed that every single one of their units has “MOD” in the name. While EROS sends manned fighters that can get caught in their own jamming pulses, Typelog is the only faction we’ve seen that refuses to throw people into the meat grinder, even for something as important as this weapon. Think about that. “Forgotten their responsibility to society”? Hardly. They may be the only ones who have remembered.
Over and over again, Typelog is the injured party. As far as we can tell, they have done nothing to imply they’re just as bad – yes, they’ve done some privacy violations and are generally creepy, but that starts to look pretty irrelevant compared to Willis’ casual crimes against humanity. If the game really wanted to sell its “politics are meaningless, everyone’s horrible” stance, it needed to actually show both sides being equally evil – and when the opposing side starts at mass murder, that’s a pretty high bar to clear. Typelog’s policies need to actually kill people instead of just minorly inconveniencing them. For instance, what if they were the ones to invent the jamming pulse? If they did it specifically because their reliance on unmanned drones made it work to their advantage, that might even cancel out the good karma from the whole “not being a meat grinder” thing. Even just having them be the ones attacking Alicia’s hab would have gone a long way – making it personal for the heroes is a cheap tactic, but it works.
In general, I think the problem it that Typelog is too grounded and realistic, while EROS is something out of a B movie. Typelog engages with insidious, first-world problems like surveillance and corporate control; that certainly has its place, but that place is not in the background of cackling mad scientists doing over-the-top impossible things. You can’t pit those two things together and expect to get moral nuance out of it, because they come from two separate worlds. The tones just clash too much.
The device makes use of items you have never seen. They could be valuable or even useful to you in the future. In addition, if the device is sufficiently damaged, there will be no need to defend it from other factions’ control. However, its use as a trump card in prematurely ending the Typelog and Eros war will no longer be possible.
This is the option I took the first time I played because I’m a wuss. Now, though, I’m more open to ethics math. Sorenson is right: if killing these people will save more people later by ending the war, that’s a good deal, especially when these forces are probably going to die in the next battle anyway. But of course, that’s a big if. This only checks out if this definitely does stop the war and if the war can’t be stopped by any other means and if I know for certain that the death toll from the war will be higher than the number of people I kill now. And even if all those things are certain, it would still be a moral obligation to check for another, less destructive option that could accomplish the same thing. (I don’t know why Ros doesn’t think to blow up an uninhabited planet, for instance.) In real life, killing the few to save the many is always a dicey decision because you can’t know for certain it will have the effect you want, or that it will save more lives even if it does work.
However, this being a video game I’ve played before, I do know with absolute certainty that this will have a beneficial result. So,
I would probably feel more guilty if EROS wasn’t full of cardboard caricatures with nonsensical motives.
This makes Ros more aggressive and flexible, which makes sense, but I think that involving the lawful/flexible axis here is kind of a moot point. Ros already chose to disobey orders by coming here in the first place. The only truly lawful option would be to do nothing and let Sorenson handle it – even dismantling it would be done of her own initiative, which seems more of a case of her morals coincidentally aligning with her superior’s rather than a matter of loyalty and obedience.
Tezkhra is horrified because he’s only against mass murder when it can be traced back to him.
Willis: “… they just wanted to regain control of their own property. Why did… what… what were you thinking?”
THEY WERE GOING TO KILL PEOPLE WITH IT. YOU WERE TRYING TO STOP THEM FROM DOING THAT REMEMBER??? There could have been many good reasons for Willis to feel shocked and betrayed by this, but the game had to pick the one that contradicts the previous scene because as usual it’s incapable of keeping track of its own plot. Ugh.
Kara isn’t happy with this either and tries to apologize. Sorenson says the remaining EROS forces have fled, and he’s coming to make Ros face the music.
And the war is over. That dramatic plot point sure came and went pretty quick, didn’t it?
Ros: “I had to show we meant business. A few dozen went down, but it’ll save a bunch more.”
Wait wait wait, a few dozen? You mean I was only targeting the forces in the vicinity? I thought I was annihilating their whole army! I should have hit the Typelog forces, then! That would have been equivalent to the “blowing up planets” scenario – since Typelog only uses robots, it would have been a sufficient show of force without killing anyone. I assumed that if this was a large scale attack I’d be hitting manned ships too, but… ugh! This is why games need to be clear about the context of these things! Whatever, EROS still deserved it.
Sorenson decides to be a mature adult and commend Ros for accomplishing his goal even though she went around him to do it. Everyone gets a level up, and he diverts funds back to Ros’ operation, which translates to a truckload of cash and a max-level weapon component. Nice!
Willis: “… you turned against EROS as a whole. You turned against me. I should not be here at all.”
I’m not sure why you were here in the first place, Doctor Crazypants. Because today is character derailment day, Tez is suddenly and inexplicably in favor of the massacre. While “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” fits with the Spock archetype, it makes no sense in this specific context. Tez has too many emotional attachments, both to the misuse of his technology and to EROS itself. He has been head-over-heels for EROS for the past two episodes even after a reveal that made one of their own members resign in protest, and he has consistently shown that he feels an extreme responsibility for any misuse of his technology, most recently as of the very last scene. The idea is probably that he’s just putting on a strong face, but why would he want to do that? If he disagreed with this, that would show he has matured beyond his initial shallow characterization and must acknowledge the emotional attachments clouding his judgment – he would find himself unable to support what he knows is logically the best option, prompting character growth. (Plus, just from a narrative perspective, it would be surprising and therefore interesting for the Spock to break cliché and oppose the utilitarian option.)
Willis: “You say that because it was your technology that made it possible. You disappoint me.”
He’s really bad at paying attention, isn’t he? Tez somehow manages to avoid rising to the bait.
At this point Sorenson decides it’s time to chew Ros out. He accuses her of defying his orders, to which she shoots back that he hasn’t given her any orders since the start of the war. I’d say that’s a decent comeback, though it’s rather purposefully dodging the point – he may not have given her any explicit orders to stay put, but she did interfere with a critical situation without his permission, which is a pretty dodgy thing to do. Unfortunately, they don’t keep going, even though this could have been a great opportunity to call out Sorenson’s irrationality and finally pry out his reasons for trying to lock away his trump card. Instead Thomas just takes the opportunity to remind everyone of the deal.
Sorenson: “It is a difficult situation, you must admit. Ros is too valuable an asset to just remove from service.”
WELL THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE USED HER INSTEAD OF LOCKING HER AWAY AND THROWING A HISSY FIT WHEN SHE DECIDED TO HELP YOU ANYWAY.
Am I the only one who can remember previous scenes? Seriously? I give up. I give up. I’m going to assume Sorenson is just doing this to annoy Thomas and move on.
Sorenson goes on to admit his grandstanding is pointless because Thomas has definitively proven he’s Ros’ rightful owner, so Sorenson has no choice but to comply. The crew objects and says Ros should choose for herself, but Thomas just says science projects don’t get to make real people decisions.
Thomas: “Ros is a tool. A living weapon, with a role to play. We cannot risk it on her emotional whims.”
What “role”? He said he was going to lock her away forever. This is looking more and more like Thomas is secretly planning to use her for world domination.
The game then tries to get profound and throw all the Important Choices™ back in my face.
Thomas: “You’ve let her make decisions far outside of her scope! It’s a rather destructive habit! The rogue commander, Lagarto Desperado! You released him! A continuing menace to society! […] “What of this ‘Deirdre Renea’ civilian? Stolen away from the only home she knew?” […] “Let’s not forget the run-in with Colony 503b. You endangered your crew and deliberately disobeyed orders.”
On a first playthrough, this is a pretty electrifying moment. The crew rebutts every one of his accusations, making this a scene where your decisions are warred over, simultaneously challenged and reaffirmed by two sides, hopefully making you think about them more deeply. That’s powerful! That’s good! That’s exactly what video games should strive for!
The problem is, this plays out the exact same way even if you make the opposite decisions. No matter what you do, Thomas will find fault in it and the crew will find some way to defend it – which makes sense, as these are (ostensibly) nuanced dilemmas with no right answer, but to me at least, it completely shatters the illusion. It makes it look like Thomas is objecting not out of genuine moral principles, but purely out of spite. It doesn’t matter what Ros actually did, he’ll reach for any excuse he can find to diss her. That’s totally in-character, especially if I’m right and he’s playing up the outrage for the sake of ulterior motives, but it completely demolishes any claim this scene has to a genuine moral discussion. It especially demolishes the “hey, maybe the jerk has a point” aspect, which is the main thing it has going for it. This would be a million times stronger if there actually was a way to please him: not only would that elevate Thomas from being a cardboard obstacle, but it would mean your choices actually matter. Is it worth being evil if it means Thomas treats you more favorably? Probably not, but it would be an additional consideration, even if only as a “your approval fills me with shame” moment.
Of course, another reason this falls flat is because, well… the game didn’t really succeed at making these nuanced choices. I stand by the assertion that there is an objectively right answer to all of these, except maybe Lagarto. I already went over my reasoning when I made the choices, but I think this is the point where even the game has to acknowledge it. Just look at how far Thomas has to reach and how much he has to twist words to make saving Deirdre and sparing the colony sound wrong! “Stolen away from the only home she knew”, really? He’s barely trying. The smackdown is far more effective on the evil route where his accusations actually carry weight. This makes it way too obvious that he’s just full of hot air, making him easy to dismiss.
Like so many things in this game, this was a good idea in theory, but falls short in execution.
Thomas: “Everything that has happened… the war, the armaments, the failed reconstruction of civil society… It can all be traced back to you. You are a driving force that should have never been unleashed!”
And he finishes with this, which is just patently absurd. The reconstruction failed because Sorenson was incompetent and didn’t make Ros try hard enough, and the war is explicitly due to a specific event that Ros in all likelihood mitigated. Ros has actually been a good little tool throughout the whole game, as I have repeatedly complained. She has been shockingly proactive throughout this arc, but in order for this accusation to have any weight, she has to have been acting like that for the entire game, and she hasn’t. All this does is provide another reason why the crew shouldn’t have been under Sorenson’s thumb the whole time.
Ros: “Oh yeah? And what are you gonna do about it?”
Oh Ros, you were doing so well. Thomas just starts frothing at the mouth and saying that after she stops Lazarus he’s canning her and NEVER EVER letting her back out!!!!!
Thomas: “Society does not need one superpower – no matter how seemingly benevolent – with this much influence.”
The game continues to oversell her abilities. Sounds like he should be more concerned with the fact the Inquiry now controls a Death Star than the status of someone who needs truckloads of support to do anything.
Thomas tries to drop the mic, but Marie interrupts and does the thing where the hero’s friends speak truth to power.
Marie: “Come on. Seriously? After all we’ve been through? Nobody’s got the nerve to stand up to this clown? With all due respect, Major… and Commander… go to hell. Ros’s ours. We’re not just gonna giver her up.”
Rami: “You’re damn right ’bout that. I’m not normally the violent type, but I’ll break your face open here and now!”
Tezkhra: “When order is impossible… change is the only option. Ouranos has ensured we change things for the best.”
Mahk: “Ouranos has shown me just how horrifying the universe can be. I could not have been more thankful.”
Neff: “She never asked for any of this. Yet, we’re still here. We’re still alive! And we’re in control, too!”
Daszk: “Ros saved my life. Like, really. No foolin’. I still got to make it up to her, somehow…”
Kara: “Ros has the spine to be able to make the tough calls. No one else in this room can say the same.”
Alicia: “Ros’s definitely got guts. I didn’t think you big-time suppressed types had any left, you know?”
Luke: “Ros fetched me outta the middle of nowhere! No complainin’, no nothin’! That’s a good thing, y’know!” oh believe me I complained plenty
Chac: “Ouranos saved me from myself. If you have never fought yourself before, it is not pleasant, nor easy.”
Jessamine: “Ros fights the good fight! There’s always a good fight, even if you’re bad at doing it sometimes!”
Deirdre: “I’ve learned so much outside of home. Stuff I couldn’t even imagine! You know who first showed me that?”
Cassidy: “It’s good to see who’s who and what’s what, rather than stickin’ your head in the sand forever.”
Cole: “Mmmyup.”
Ivoronus: “Ros is the strongest being I know. Surely you cannot think that power will stay contained forever?”
Marie: “Face it. You can’t have her. She’s ours. Even if you take her, we’ll just take her right back. Got it?”
Yes, very touching. But it begs the question: did I earn it?
What has Ros actually done for these people? The optional characters, sure, she helped them in specific ways they can point to – I think Chac and Deirdre’s affirmations are genuinely poignant. (Cassidy’s is pretty limp though.) But the main crew can only give vague, generic platitudes. Possibly as a consequence of Too Many Characters, none of them are allowed to elaborate beyond one line, which necessarily cripples anything they could bring to the table. She’s shown them the world? Changed things for the better? No, she hasn’t. This is the first time she has taken a real stance on her own; for the rest of the game, she has been wholly at other peoples’ beck and call. Most of what they like about her should really be attributed to Sorenson – like, saving Daszk’s life? She stood by while her crew threatened to kill him and then locked him up! It was Sorenson who corrected that mistake; Ros never lifted a finger for him. The only thing she’s really done of her own volition is talk with them between missions. That is a perfectly reasonable thing to get attached to her over… but I also have a strong suspicion that this scene plays out the exact same way no matter what actions you take, and that cheapens it.
I always tell people that the reason I prefer cats to dogs is that cats choose to love you, while dogs are obligated to. Maybe this is a weird hangup, but to me, that means cat love is far more valuable. If a dog loves me, I can’t tell if I deserve it – dogs continue to love you even if you’re horrible to them. If you do something a cat doesn’t like, it will let you know – and by extension, that means that if they’re nice to you, you know you did right by them. They keep you on the straight and narrow by giving you feedback on your actions.
Maybe I’m just in a cynical mood, but when the characters’ love and allegiance is predestined, it feels hollow. Token. Checking a box. Things have more meaning when you can lose them, when your choices really matter. If Thomas’ declaration was met with silence, that would have been a powerful and chilling moment, reminding me that maybe I should have been nicer to my crew when I had the chance. Interestingly, the game does do that in one case – if you target the rogues with the weapon, Alicia will despise you and refuse to speak in your defense here. I would have appreciated it if there were a few more characters with such uncertain loyalties. Possibly I’m missing the point, and the game was never supposed to place such importance on player choice and it just wants to use its sappy tropes in peace – which is fine, but Ros still needed to have done more to justify this kind of undying loyalty.
Still, this does a much better job of selling the BFF narrative than The Reconstruction did. At least characters aren’t actively hating each other in-between insisting they’re like a family.
Anyway. Thomas is unimpressed and just reiterates what he said before. Sorenson prepares to locate Lazarus, and tells Ros she’s under watch.
One last thing:
“You might have stopped the war, but you’ve made enemies… and some are closer than you think.”
One of the consequences of firing the superweapon is that you’ll be permanently locked out of one of your crewmates’ personal events – Neff for Typelog, Marie and Alicia for the rogues, and Daszk for the Lessers. The others are more overtly hostile about it, but Kara is a bit harder to read. The “some are closer than you think” seems to imply she has turned against you too. That seems OOC, considering that she has spent the entirety of this episode and most of the last thoroughly disgusted with everything EROS does. Perhaps the idea was for her to talk a big game but have second thoughts once her former compatriots actually suffered, but that wasn’t portrayed very well, and makes her pretty fair-weather besides. Characters should stick to their beliefs!
This is super long, so we’ll conclude the episode next time. Stay tuned for the only boss fight I have meaningful commentary on!