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PF Volunteers - Minnow
Posted By: Steve LevinsonDate: 7/3/04 7:19 p.m.

I know it's been a few days since my last post for the volunteers series. There are 3 very good reasons for this. Firstly, the story starts to get quite a bit more complicated at this point. Secondly, I've been playing the game for the volunteers series and just couldn’t stop - indeed, I finished it a few minutes ago. Finally and perhaps most importantly, I've started my sabbatical. Hooray! For the next year I will be visiting colleagues and doing research all over the U.S. and the world. In any case, I had to move my office yesterday to make room for the person who will take my place during the coming year, who is moving her stuff in today. And I've been busy making arrangements for all the places I'll be visiting. But enough of this - let's talk about Phoenix Falling.

Minnow is the first level in chapter II, Artificial Strife. The first chapter was titled Static Silence, BTW. Up to now we’ve been dealing with Shaki, a decidedly rampant AI who has been ostensibly using us to get systems up and running but who obviously has other plans. Presumably he is one of the colony’s 2 class V AI’s and according to him, the only surviving AI. On the last level, however, we received a couple of cryptic messages from what is likely the colony’s other class V, Mece. Minnow is a Mece level - it's now time to get to know him better and do his bidding.

The player starts the level in a very large, dark room populated by wasps and invisible compilers. There are at least a couple of approaches here, but fighting it out is not one of them. Even after disposing of the wasps and compilers, there will still be a couple of compilers that are nearly impossible to kill that will continue to shoot at the player from on high. There is an introductory terminal as well that can be read, since the M1 engine puts all activity on hold, or the player can read the same message on a terminal that they will come to more conveniently in a few minutes. No point in reposting it here - it's pretty much just a rant from a very disturbed AI who want’s to make sure you’ve been paying attention to his messages and to know that you are now working for him.

Minnow is an incredibly interconnected level with a lot of places to explore and some incredibly cool eye candy. The best way to survive is to head into the room and immediately locate and pass through a door on the north (left) wall and to head straight down a long corridor, bypassing all alcoves and fights until reaching a large room with a pattern buffer that can be used once the monsters already there and those following you have been dispensed with. Just a warning - don't go past the room with the pattern buffer until after saving your game - you'll need to go there soon enough, but it’s an ambush.

Rather than proceed with a walk-through, I’m going to describe all the areas the player will want to visit, which can be taken in any order and which can be found through exploration. First of all, immediately adjacent to the pattern buffer room is a similarly large room with a compiler reading a terminal and a few other monsters keeping him company. The compiler, it seems, was reading about the colony’s AI’s - nothing we haven’t already read about. Most of the rest of the level is reached through a long corridor off the pattern buffer room, but there are a lot of troopers and projectile fighters here. A good strategy is to lay down a bunch of mines at the entrance and then advance and retreat, letting the mines take out the initial salvo. Down this corridor is a stairway that leads up to a few places the player will want to go. First and foremost, the player can jump off the stairway part way up, head down a ways and then make an immediate right into the first opening. They will be rewarded with an alcove containing a 2X shield recharger. There are a number of things that can be explored from this same general area, including a switch that is visible through a slot in the pattern buffer room. I have yet to figure out what that switch does, however.

Jumping off the stairs and heading back across the stairs (your have to go right and double back to go left), the player can jump across to a blue room containing three bizarre terminals, each one a soliloquy on the meaning of the color red. These are a bit reminiscent of the “color of hate” terminal in Rubicon, only much more cryptic. One of these, however, ends with an important hint:


Well do you want to talk, no questions however? No? Then leave. Come back here when you feel more like talking.

Hmm . . .

If the player goes to the top of the stairs, they will end up in a pair of circular rooms at the east end of the map, with a lot of friends. The visuals are pretty cool, and there is a major stash of ammo on a ledge overlooking the southern room. It is accessed via an underground passageway and an elevator. Just west of these rooms is a circular room that can be accessed via a door from the southern room, via the corridor that leads to the shield recharger or directly off of the initial room. Other than the compilers that live here, this room is of significance as there is a maze at the southern end of the room. Within the maze, in addition to compilers and wasps, are two key terminals. One of these is a rather lengthy story of a fisherman that ends with a rather interesting paragraph about the last minnow in the fisherman’s bait pail:


The man grasped the gasping minnow in his hand and held it aloft. Its scales shimmered in the light of day and its tiny body quivered in a frenzy. The fisherman contemplated the minnow for a long time, wondering if the little fish was afraid, or just reacting instinctually. "Not today," the man said, as he put the minnow back into the pail. For that instant, the man was Fate-yet the minnow was totally unaware. You, as well as I, am a minnow.

Not only does this give us the name of the level, but it says a lot about our own predicament. The other terminal is quite a lot less cryptic. It is from Shaki and he tells us that an “alien” AI has infiltrated the network and that we should ignore it. He implores us to only listen to him. Alien? Not quite. Do we have a choice of which AI to follow, or not follow as the case may be? Not in this scenario, which is strictly linear (hint to Matt if you want to make things more interesting).

There is one final place to explore - a large rectangular room in the center of the map that is accessed from the same 3-way door as the circular (maze) room. Within this room is a terminal with a poem that has immense meaning as will become clear only as the player reads the final screen for the scenario. But who or what left this poem on this terminal? This is our first encounter with an entity we will not understand until the very end. Remember this poem:


The Night always comes
As It came to Us
Before the Shadows
When We were still young

As the Sun descends
Night seeks your body
Will You dream of Life
When You are asleep?

The Night is Cold and
Covers Everything
Conscious Ones will fall
As memory fails

Our World is growing
But getting so thin
The Cold Breath of Night
Expands the Darkness

I am Those that live
A Dream persisting
Borne on Eagle Wings
Our Memories pass

The player leaves the level via the left terminal in the blue room. For those playing along with the volunteers series - the next level is best played by booting up under OS 9 or earlier - not in the Classic environment - if at all possible.

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Replies:

PF Volunteers - MinnowSteve Levinson 7/3/04 7:19 p.m.
     Re: PF Volunteers - MinnowDr. John Sumner 7/4/04 4:51 a.m.

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