The first map actually done by FM since the beginning of the scenario, Hackers is formed mostly from a series of concentric curves. The map writing invites one to zoom out in Forge, but I must admit I have no idea what the map looks like. Also, from Forge, it appears that the rocket launcher room is purely a tease.
You're accompanied in many areas by vacuum Bobs, who did a decent job of standing up to the enemies on Normal. You'll also notice pretty quickly that the Cyborgs which have apparently emerged from the crashed alien ship will readily fight the Pfhor without even needing to be bezerked (of course, with no Pfhor available, they'll attack you as usual). You can explore some outdoor areas initially, but you won't get any health or pattern buffer until you jump into the ravine bisecting the starting area and making your way into the ship proper. Here, you will learn that General Dire seems to have completely lost his marbles, stolen an experimental weapon, and vanished somewhere inside the alien ship. The reference to bullets as "nails" is a bit of a giveaway, as that slang comes from Quake, to which FM quickly migrated his modding efforts to once Evil was finished (a perfectly understandable move, as the Quake 1 engine is a far more powerful piece of technology than Marathon Infinity).
There are several screenshots from this level on the official Evil site, but they aren't very accurate to the final scenario. One shot has the player wielding a Pfhor staff, a weapon which we won't encounter for some time. Another features a Devlin, which isn't on the final version of the level, and a (dead) Mystic Drone, which is also in the far future. This page also contains some other oddities, which we'll get to as they become relevant.
This level is an extermination mission and uses the "reserved 7 monsters" trick, so you need to kill every single enemy on the map (including, as I discovered, any remaining Bobs who hate you for killing too many of them) before you can teleport out. Aside from the loads of Fighters, Cyborgs, and Drones on this level are two "boss" monsters. The first of these we'll encounter is a Mystic in a circular room to the north. The Mystics are a very well-drawn monster, even if they aren't all that dangerous. They fire a stream of projectiles at you, and are also armed with an energy shield that makes them tremendous ammo sinks (at least until we get the Pfhor staff). Their sound effects are also excellent, with a slimy, sibilant quality that's unlike anything in the original games. Unfortunately, they have a huge weakness in that they flinch when they take damage; keep your fire on them and they won't ever get a chance to hit back. You can punch them to death easily without even having to dodge around, but it takes a very long time. Also watch out for the (tiny) explosion that results from their death.
The second unique monster is General Dire, who turns out to be an assimilated VacBob with a ton of health (I believe his death blast is also upgraded). How this thing managed to reach a command position in the human military will be explained later in the scenario.
Once he's dead, you can pick up a new weapon: The Athena railgun. This can be very powerful if used properly, mostly due to its use of the "persistent and virulent" physics flag, which causes its projectiles to pass through monsters and do additional damage to anyone else they hit until they crash into a wall. The secret to the Athena's power is that its shots have a small blast radius, as you can see by shooting a monster with it at point-blank range and taking a huge amount of physical damage (strangely, this doesn't happen if you merely shoot a wall with it). So, imagine what happens when you shoot through two monsters standing too close to each other: Monster A gets hit and takes damage, the impact's blast radius reaches monster B and he takes damage, the projectile passes through to damage monster B, but the blast radius of this second impact reaches monster A and he gets hit again- both monsters have taken double damage from the shot, and if there are additional monsters nearby it can happen again and again. This lets the Athena make short work of large crowds of powerful monsters.
At the end of the level, we see what the Mystics are: A Pfhor "master race" like the S'pht'kr. This doesn't contradict anything canon, but unlike the S'pht, the Pfhor masters are radically different physically from their servants. We're also sent off to find a second spaceship that also crashed on the planet a very long time ago; surely a master race would have more reliable transport? :P
