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	Re: Eternally Perplexing Questions
	Posted By: rampancy	Date: 3/12/08 9:06 a.m.
	In Response To: Re: Eternally Perplexing Questions (Forrest of B.org) : Your Ancients/Ori analogy is spot on. So then, would it be safe to guess that the Wr'kncacntr have their own ships/outposts/stations then? : Sufficiently Advanced Technology Indistinguishable From Magic. Heh. Dugg for the Pratchett reference. Reminds me of a girl I know who's a Prachett nut who I'd love to ask out, but doing so would be at least as foolhardy as releasing a Wr'kncacntr... : Tech shrinks over time. The cybernetic Jjaro had 60-odd million years to : shrink it down. Huh? So the dreadnought we were on was actually much, much, much older than the sphere then? I assumed it was from about the same period as the Sphere. I mean, how could it? Otherwise, how could the technology be miniaturized by the Jjaro if the Jjaro were all gone? : There's a confusion in terminology between characters. The Jjaro were a : biological race who became technological who then ascended (I use that : term myself as well) to the Outside. They are the only such race with : which we are familiar to we have a tendency to call all such ascended : being "Jjaro", but there are other such beings who do not share : the same origins as the ones that we call by that name. : Hathor stopped it long enough to let the W'rk dreams in; killing her : reignited it and wiped out most of the higher life in the galaxy (65 : million years ago) - just like what happened in our own recorded history. : Then, millions of years later during the Pfhor War, the Pfhor blew it up : and it actually physically destroyed most of the galaxy. In that timeline, : at least... Oh, okay, that makes sense now. I was really confused about it because when we get inside the sphere I'm not entirely sure if we get inside the sphere immediate after the W'rk breach it at the climax of the Jjaro-W'rk war, or if we get inside it in the "present" (i.e. at the height of the Pfhor Empire) time. If it's the former, that would mean that Hathor would have gotten to the sphere millions of years before we did, travelling in time as she left the Dreadnought. Is that accurate? : Nope. That's how the Jjaro disappeared from our galaxy millions of years ago. : Technically they weren't all wiped out by the W'rk; a lot were killed by : the Sphere, as planned. However, a lot of Jjaro by that point were : cybernetic beings who went on to atone for their sins - individuals like : Yrro and Pthia - before finally ascending to the Outside. Wait - so the Jjaro weren't all inside the Sphere? : As for the ending: it's a tragedy. It's supposed to be depressing. But it's a : tragedy with a glimmer of hope. How exactly that hope is realized is up to : other scenarios to tell - any sequel to Infinity is also a sequel to : Eternal. Just win the Pfhor war and live happily ever after. This, and the paragraph below is an example of why I feel less enthused than I should about Eternal - maybe I really am an idiot, but I just didn't get any of that at all from the terminals - and that's a shame, because it truly adds so much depth to an already rich storyline universe. Maybe it was further fleshed out in the dream terminals, and I didn't notice - I don't know. I'll have to play it all again to see (urgh). God, I wished someone could make an OS X version of Durandal Terminal Browser. I sort of wish you could flesh that out more blatantly in an ending chapter screen (like the Trilogy and all of the other major scenarios). I think I remember mentioning you having troubles implementing something special with that, which is why you left it out - still, I think it would be a nice touch, a pleasant cap-off to such an epic scenario... : The only catch: the Sphere is still out there somewhere, with the dying : remains of the biological Jjaro, the dreams of a W'rkncacnter, Hathor in a : cybernetic body, and a copy of you from another time, all frozen in : temporal stasis. It would be horrible if someone were to open it again... Huh!? How could the Sphere still exist when it was completely blown up by the trih xeem? (And I thought it was Hathor who did it, not the Pfhor, when she took off in the Pfhor ship that landed on the Sphere. Didn't The Monitor mention that?) How did Hathor even survive in the first place, and how did we---how...ohhhhhh... Man, my head hurts... OH, and one more thing. What's the purpose of the inactive switch and locked door at the end of Where Giants Have Fallen? (And what about the other outer Jjaro door which is also locked?) Ok, so from my last few comments, it seems I have a serious bone to pick with Eternal - and in many cases I do, but I have to say, there are so many incredible things you did with this game that in some ways really does surpass Rubicon X - and I have to say, the reason why I feel so critical of this scenario is that I love it so much. For example, I'd love to see more people playing this, but the problem is that on the basis of the plot alone it really comes across as being more directed to the hard core 'thon fans (I was seriously thinking about offering to write up a little short story for you to provide something of a mini-prologue for people new to Eternal, but then again, maybe it was by design). The biggest thing though, is something which I remember someone else raising - storytelling by showing as opposed to telling. There really isn't a lot of flavor text-filled terminals in many of the levels, with the exception of the Pfhor ship levels, but even then there isn't much there. You've created this beautiful, incredible world for us to play in which gives so much more while taking us right back to the original world Bungie made for us so long ago - and it's sort of a letdown for me to take it all in when its crammed into the ending terminal. I mean, maybe some extra terminals like the ones in Halo 3, giving the final days of the Jjaro a personal touch; or perhaps some Pfhor terminals further outlining the chaos ensuing from the Drinniol rebellion...if you're up for it, I'd be glad to help you in some capacity with it. Anyway, I want to say that in many ways, I liken this scenario to Marathon RED: an incredible, exhilarating roller-coaster ride of a game which grabs you and refuses to let go - in the process you still noticed the very apparent flaws (I was very close to giving up on the game at Where Giants Have Fallen and on Run, Coward) and while you can't ignore them, you're almost having too much fun to notice. It's a really innovative scenario which almost has too many ideas to use. (And I mean that in a really good way, too.)

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Replies:

	Eternally Perplexing Questions	rampancy	3/11/08 12:34 p.m.
	Re: Eternally Perplexing Questions	Forrest of B.org	3/11/08 3:54 p.m.
	Re: Eternally Perplexing Questions	rampancy	3/11/08 5:31 p.m.
	Re: Eternally Perplexing Questions	Forrest of B.org	3/12/08 7:56 a.m.
	Re: Eternally Perplexing Questions	rampancy	3/12/08 9:06 a.m.
	Re: Eternally Perplexing Questions	Forrest of B.org	3/12/08 10:34 a.m.
	Re: Eternally Perplexing Questions	Forrest of B.org	3/12/08 2:20 p.m.
	Re: Eternally Perplexing Questions	rampancy	3/12/08 4:33 p.m.
	Re: Eternally Perplexing Questions	Forrest of B.org	3/13/08 7:54 a.m.
	Re: Eternally Perplexing Questions	Forrest of B.org	3/12/08 11:19 a.m.
	Re: Eternally Perplexing Questions	rampancy	3/12/08 4:37 p.m.
	Re: Eternally Perplexing Questions	Forrest of B.org	3/13/08 8:25 a.m.

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