System Shock 2 Marathon Comparison Episode 5


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System Shock 2 Marathon Comparison Episode 5

Posted By: Lion O Cyborg Date: 6/9/23 2:00 p.m.

System Shock Marathon Comparison & talkthrough Season 2: System Shock

Episode 5: G4 Sunbathing 2: Electric Boogaloo
Act 1: If I Had an Assault Rifle, I’d Make Someone Pay – Recreation: Athletics lobby & crew lounge
Welcome back to the System Shock 2 Marathon comparison. Last time we saw the big twist with SHODAN’s return and we reprogrammed simulation units for her. Now we go up to level 5 for untold riches…Excuse me, wrong game, and that game was in a very underrated gem of a movie.

“Delacroix? Delacroix! It’s Cortez. We’re locked in here! …Hey, who are you?” Soon after he sees us, a security bot chases him off and guns him down. This isn’t in the vanilla game and he seems to run off for no reason and disappear.

OK, I know this isn’t in vanilla or even older versions of my mods, unless this is part of the texture quality mod I have. A vent to my left breaks and some worms drop out.
***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM SHODAN***
"Your colleagues have managed to set up a transmitting station in the athletics sector of this deck. The transmitter is intended to send a message to the Earth, to warn them of the events that have occurred in this ship. However, it will also draw power away from Xerxes, making him vulnerable to my will. Once you do this, I will control the primary data loop. The annelids are unaware of its presence, but guard the area for their own purposes. Find the transmitter and activate it.”
***END MESSAGE***
We can’t even get in the athletics section without a keycard and to get that, we have to get into the crew quarters on this map, which is also locked with a keycard. The card is in the garden but we also want to visit the shopping mall for items and for our main objective here.

Yes, this mission is basically a repeat of the CPU servers mission from System Shock 1. If you remember, you had to blow up the servers on levels 1-6 to get digits of the systems authorisation code needed to set the self-destruct sequence on Space Colony Citadel’s reactor. The code was randomised normally except for a bug in both versions of Enhanced. Now it’s the same code regardless and it’s found a different way: we have to cycle through otherwise useless art terminals on this level to find a piece of the transmitter code, which gets recorded in our notes automatically. If it has a bracket next to it, then that means it’s the start or end of the code. Those terminals are all over the level in all 3 maps and not all art terminals have code pieces in them.
This is the bomb code puzzle from PID combined with G4 Sunbathing in Marathon as we need it to send a message to Earth.
***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM XERXES***
“This is Xerxes. The deck 5 shopping area will be closed until further notice. We apologise for the inconvenience. The family of the Many grows with every passing moment. Glory to the flesh. Glory to the mass.”
***END MESSAGE***
Sometimes I mishear that last part as “glory to Damascus”. (Da, mass, as it’s pronounced by middle-eastern characters in Assassins Creed) The mall can be entered but of course, all the shops are shut or taken over by eggs and hybrids.

This must have been recent. However, Delacroix is 1 step ahead of us and we never see her. She may by the System Shock equivalent to her, but she isn’t a French Brigid Tennenbaum.

According to TV tropes, this is apparently meant to imply the mall is full of spiders, but I always thought it simply meant it was full of enemies in general including hybrids, robots and midwives guarding eggs. An irradiated nurse’s office has nanites in it and another one with biomass on the walls has a wasp egg & a farting egg, the former whose healing organ I loot as well as eating worm noodles off the floor. Yet another nurse’s office just down the hall has a red monkey and a pattern buffer in it.
A room with small spiders who ambush me has crates and even a security crate full of life rings for the swimming pool on this deck as well as a paltry amount of ammo. A log by the garden bulkhead complains about the wasps.
Act 2: God Will Sort the Dead – Recreation: Garden section
The pattern buffer here is right around the corner. The keypad to a recharger is broken and I don’t have the talent to fix it. Luckily this is what I hoard auto-repair kits for. Then I hack it open. A button in here opens the door if we found the other way in through a Many nest down the ladder in here. The other opens a trapdoor up the ramp by the pattern buffer.
“Babies must sleep. Babies must rest. Wise is the one who does not waken them. Leave this place now. Or we will wound you, as you have us.”
I don’t listen. The eggs are poison fart ones and wasp ones. At the end is a cache of food, drink and cigs someone threw over the edge of a viewing platform above. I can hear a robot above but I don’t know if it’s a security bot or an assault bot. The trapdoor by the pattern buffer leads to a maintenance area above the dance floor in the bar. Grenades and cyber modules are here.

Worst dancefloor ever. Of all time. The lights are cool but it’s tiny and there’s pillars in the way.

I wonder if that’s Bronson? She’s crying into her drink, the bottle of which is discarded still full of vodka on the bar. Maybe she’s alone and can’t find love. Ironically, the bar is called the Bon Chance (Good Luck) Lounge and the electric piano plays what sounds like a smooth jazz version of Girls Just Want to Have Fun as her ghost drowns her sorrows. This wouldn’t be the last time a Shock series game would use a remix of that song: Bioshock Infinite has a steam organ remix in its theme park & fun beach level, revealed to have been made as the in-universe composer plagiarised the original IRL song from the future using a tear into that time period which we can later find in his studio playing that same song.
https://youtu.be/n6TPN7ri8mk?t=2130
In System Shock 2’s case, it’s likely just a regular remix/cover as this game takes place in the future, not the past. 2 cyborg assassins ambush me out of the toilets when the ghost disappears. Outside I find a pool hall with a code piece in the art terminals here. The Many contact me again and they have had enough: “Mistrust is the tyranny of the individual. Your own kind sees you as a threat. Why do you murder our unity? No matter: the line is drawn. You will cease to be. It is just a matter of who will bring your end: us, or you.”

In vanilla, I think the code appears on black screens. Very clever having them appear on actual paintings in the mods. The Persistence of Memory is a very fitting painting to use here as it foreshadows a major reveal at the end of the game.

There’s goodies we want in there including cyber modules. Nearby is a 2 storey dining room with loot in it such as more modules and another cyborg ambush out of a blatant monster closet. It’s pitch black in here so I use my PSI Flame Shield and lightsabre as a torch. Luckily there’s a light switch.

Should we be seeing this? This terminal has no code. What a bugger. The kitchen and freezer has nothing good in it either. A small meeting room or VIP dining area has a log from Rebecca telling Tommy to go on without her if she doesn’t make it to the one remaining escape pod.

Assault bots are military robots from the Rickenbacker. They’re basically green security bots with a similar chassis to maintenance ones. Also that BFG blast? That’s a fusion cannon. Ironically, the assault bots are the easiest to dodge so long as you have plenty room. Deus Ex’s assault bots are called military bots and they’re giant, armed with missiles and machineguns (I think they have missiles? It’s been a while). In Human Revolution, they look like giant cyberpunk combine harvesters and are just as dangerous until you use a single EMP grenade to make them explode.
Behind it is a sealed room with a broken pistol and some ammo you can only get with telekinesis. The freezer for this dining room has some good stuff in it including yet more modules and some organs inside worm eggs. Next door is the chemical storeroom which has some caesium I need to add some blasting kick to a blue implant I found. I’ll just give you the cliffs notes for the research this time: It’s a WormMind implant, which makes every 4th hit or so subtract PSI instead of health. It’s useless, especially for a PSI user as it means wasting ammo.

Remember the groves in the first game and Arcadia in Bioshock? This isn’t much better than the groves: there’s still no water and less plants than you’d think. Unlike System Shock 1 there is swimming in this game so the decision not to have ponds or lakes in the garden is stupid. SHODAN is getting annoyed with how long I’m taking and pulls a Durandal on Eat It Vid Boi at me, though she’s less direct.

There’s a log from Tommy here too, looking for Rebecca.

We just need a second big pit like this full of water with some fountains and we have a pond. Sadly it wasn’t to be. The log in this hollow is from Curtez about the next exotic weapon, the Viral Proliferator. It uses worm clusters in beakers for ammo and can be used to infect the Many worms with a virus or use a toxin against humans. The latter is good for hybrids but it also harmful to us as well. The former is good for full worm enemies like spiders and maybe the final hybrid form later.
I enter the door in the wall of plants or ivy. This place is creepy: someone screams around the corner but when I rush to save her, there’s no-one there. Just a cyborg midwife, some dead bodies, meatnoodles and the wasp eggs the cyborg was guarding. The Many mock me, using language I’ve heard from real people online and voices in my head when on a risperidone withdrawal/sleep deprivation high in the dead of night when thinking about my plans for living in Asia for work and my desire to be with the exact friends I’d also have as coworkers & a girlfriend:
“You seek your associates. But you cannot find them. You are so very alone. How does it feel to be one against the infinite?”
A nitro hybrid and a pair of small spiders show up for good measure. Entering the makeshift crypt, a pair of cyborgs show up to defend the worm eggs they put here.

The shallow graves imply at least someone wanted to give the dead crew a proper burial, but lacked the means to properly mummify their bodies nor a decent cemetery. The corpses have useful items on them including cyber modules, nanites, ammo, PSI hypos, a well maintained grenade launcher and standard issue armour. A worm infested body by the worm piles and wasp eggs has the crew quarters card.
***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM SHODAN***
“You perform well for an insect. Transmitting cyber modules”
***END MESSAGE***
A grate in the ceiling of the tunnel will collapse if you stand on it, dumping you back under here. At the top of the ivy hill the crypt is under is the bulkhead to the shopping mall.
Act 3: Please Excuse Our Yubis – Recreation: Shopping Mall section
A surveillance camera I can’t see from the doorway sees me and sounds the alarm while I’m fighting a security bot. Luckily the security terminal is right here so it doesn’t last long. There’s cyber modules on a body in the toilets with whiskey around him.

If you came to the mall first from the athletics section, this is the first place you’d fight assault bots. There’s another security bot here too.

It’s not quite the level of something like Bon Accord Mall in Station Square (circa 1995-2007), Waverley Mall in Central City, the Giles Centre in the same city near the suburb of Currie or even Bon Accord’s little sister opposite it, St Nicolas Mall but it gets the job done.
***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM XERXES***
“This is XERXES. TriOptimum reminds you that there are only 163 shopping days until Christmas. An extra work cycle just twice a week will give you the spending money you need to make this holiday a very special one.”
***END MESSAGE***
Ha! Something tells me the Many don’t seem to care much about Christmas and the uninfected humans have more pressing concerns anyway, not the least of which being it’s July. Who does Xerxes think he is, Grandpa Lou in the Rugrats episode Let It Snow?

How about some real clothes for a change instead of crappy uniforms? I still haven’t burned my Project SEARCH one yet. The first egg in here farts, the other 2 are wasp mines.

There’s no children on the ship. Good thing too: imagine what a child hybrid would look and sound like, or worse, a baby hybrid infected by its mother, thinking she was trying to help her baby? *shudder* Sweet dreams tonight! Wasps and worms guard cyber modules in a shop whose electric sign is damaged. The 3rd OS upgrade station is here. I take the upgrade that prevents PSI burnout from hurting me. A mod bonus is that it no longer wastes PSI either.
Finally, I upgrade my Standard Weapons skill to level 6, unload and throw away my pistol before levelling up maintenance and endurance.

I hear they’re the champions. They were gonna call it Target but you know how stupid people are, you have to spell everything out. Butterfly was taken. The art shop just down from here has code pieces in it.

Along with followup Death Metal singer Shadoh Claw, soon to be famous double act Lion 0 Saiborg Willy & Kor0n3 Titties and male idol Tailz Prostate.

They’re not clones: they’re just protocol droids. Also, wouldn’t clones count as human children given the actual process involved with cloning? That kind of makes the marketing look suspicious.

The one on the left looks like someone’s getting a spanking, the code piece one looks like a Terry Pratchett movie scene and the one on the right looks like something from Assassins Creed (2007-2012).

The rest of the description says that many human programmers consider it a valuable skill to be able to read and translate the code without machine assistance. Much like reading/listening and writing/speaking any material in any language other than your own.

This segways into my favourite part of this section of the level:

To put it bluntly, this is a vtuber brothel. You can pay an extortionate amount of nanites to have sex with hard light holograms. Brought to you by Cover Corp and Vshojo!
Okayu Nekomata, Coco Kiryu AKA Kson Onair, Marine Houshou, Projekt Melody, IRyS and Nyanners would feel right at home in this love hotel, Okayu, Marine & Melody especially. There’s even male holograms working here too so I guess TriOptimum are giving those cultists from holostars (*disgusted retching/heaving noises*) the respect they deserve too. Maybe TriOp will force Cover to disband the holostars brand and incorporate the male tubers into Hololive Proper alongside the girls where they rightfully belong, as well as make opposite sex collabs & off-collabs between all 3 regional branches mandatory as they (and I when I join Hololive) also deserve. But I digress yet again.
Sadly Korone & I don’t have a room here for the two of us (yet). I hack the replicator and buy one of every room key.

I guess this was the last dance for Lance Vance.

Odd how this isn’t a double room: According to Gay Ben, he specialises in co-op.

All the hologram units are broken. FUCK YOU ESRB FOR MAKING IT LIKE THIS!
I doubt it’ll happen but I hope the System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition version of this place actually has working Hololove talents, complete with Hot Coffee style first person minigame with NO CENSORSHIP REGARDLESS OF REGION, all known VR Headset support included. If you excuse the pun, this game doesn’t pussy out of showing us literal vaginas in the penultimate level so less monstrous ones being used for their intended purpose are not much to ask. I ain’t shitting you either, we actually see those monster squid but the location is spoiler territory.
18 year long dehydration induced rant aside, there is a silver lining to coming into Nikki’s room: Rosenburg left a huge stockpile of nanites here as he said but also a lucky 10 cybernetic modules, cigarettes and wine.

That’s the viral proliferator we learned about in the garden. It’s worth checking out.

The assault rifle is the best weapon of the game, bar none. Standard bullets deal a lot of damage on fully automatic setting, anti-personal rounds shred the Many like cheddar cheese on a pizza and armour-piercing turn all robots and cyborgs into well tossed metal salad. Required maintenance knowledge for it is fairly cheap too.
I find the pattern buffer for the mall in a security station. The holding cells next to it have a wasp egg and cyber modules in one of them. Rebecca left a log by the surgical unit in the treatment room next door. She was bitten by an annelid spider and begs Tommy to come quick as she tries to antidote the poison.

This is the Von Braun’s casino, for when you want an after security shift game of bridge or try your luck at the pachislot machines.

Bioshock would have more classic 1-armed bandit designs to the flashy modern ones here.

Don’t bother playing the slot machines in System Shock 2, even in mods: Unlike Bioshock where you can definitely win a few times, the house always wins.

Is this some kind of aquarium? There’s very spooky sounds down here. They sound like the laughter of ghosts during happy hour at the bar behind me. Anatoly Korenchkin left an audio log here to Vladimir, telling him he and William Diego have agreed to turn the ship around and return to Earth. He says Miri and the entire board will come over to their way of thinking, implying he intends to infect them with the Many.

This is the Von Braun’s cinema. The actual amount of nanites required to build the items in replicators seems to be fairly arbitrary under regular circumstances and price gouging is common, as evidenced by the fact the prices can be lowered by hacking the vending machines, likely to the amount of nanites the machine actually needs for the items, stripping away the profit charge and VAT number. How is this tangent relevant? Don’t buy anything from the vending machine in here. Here’s why:

Some things never change. Bioshock would make the same joke in the theatre of the Fort Frolic level which is that game’s counterpart to this deck. In vanilla, hacking the replicator actually makes the snacks more expensive, implying the cinema staff hack the machine themselves to charge extra when they’re feeling especially malicious. In the mod, hacking it lowers the prices to normal ones, so I buy I whole load of Sweet William cigars and Coca Cola, the latter to heal my lungs after chain smoking.

Unlike the cinema on the Executive level in System Shock 1, this one isn’t a grass covered school AV room but it actually looks like a cinema. Bioshock 2 would have a similar design to this one in Dionysus Park except that cinema has a balcony.

Act 4: The Big House – Recreation: Main Crew Quarters and Athletics section

The main crew quarters of the Recreation deck is the best one as it feels like a luxury hotel. It kind of resembles the Security level in the first game a bit, what with the central elevator to the Command deck and smaller elevators to the mezzanine level above. I even find a log from Delacroix in a similar place to a security level log in the first game by one of the entrances.

Another log in one of the downstairs sleeping quarters has someone say they’re lucky to be winning the basketball tournament as constant power problems on the court (due to humidity from the swimming pool next door) caused the lights to go out on their last game. The sleeping quarters are all really gruesome: biomass, dead bodies, eggs and overturned furniture litter the floors. One elevator is broken and breaks open a wasp egg if you try to call it, releasing the insects inside.

Hmm. Oddly, this is familiar to me. One upstairs room has a ghost collapse on the floor crying.
I feel really dirty so in the cleanest room I can find so far, I take a shower to clean all this blood and dirt from the garden off me.

I think in vanilla those showers don’t work at all. At least I don’t remember them working. The mods add the ability to use them similar to Deus Ex & Splinter Cell 4 (version 1). Another room has a guy who apparently drank himself to death. He has the card for the athletics section. Next door in a wasp & worm egg infested quarters is another code piece, possibly the final one? There was also one I missed by the crew lounge at the start but I got that when I returned from the mall. In the room with the keypad I find cyber modules, heavy armour which is the 2nd best in the game but requires high strength to use, and the viral proliferator. Simmer for a few minutes in tellurium, mix together with orange juice & technetium before finishing under the grill.

Next is the athletics section. SHODAN gives me more XP for entering. The door to the swimming pool is broken but the basketball court is open. Inside is the most monstrous Many form yet.

Remember those from the Many’s vision and SHODAN’s reveal? Those are Rumblers, the next stage of human/annelid hybrid mutation. The lights go out as soon as you enter the basketball court. Use PK Fire or anti-personal bullets to kill this thing. Researching its innards will have to wait until the exotic weapon is finished cooking.

You can just see the deformed face of the human this rumbler once was. The vanilla model is really tame: the face on its shoulder is easier to see but the toothy mouth is instead a generic parrot like beak. Not as scary as this.
Viral Proliferator
Summary: The viral proliferator requires an exotic weapons skill of 4. The first modification to this weapon increases the clip size, while the second modification reduces the ammo usage. Both modifications also increase weapon damage. This weapon releases a host of anti-annelid virus in an explosive radius. The virus can be tailored to infect pure annelids or humans and human/annelid hybrids. Press and hold down the trigger to fire – when you release the trigger, the viral payload will detonate. Don’t let it detonate too close to you when it’s set to affect humans!
Analysis: This weapon appears to have been cobbled together from human technology and annelid parts. Judging by the stock and trigger, it was built by humans. The central hexagonal core is an energy-rich media, ringed with receptacles containing nanites-virus hybrids. Release of the virus hybrids into the core will cause cycles of replication at nanites, rather than biological, speeds, building up until the payload is released. Additional energetic charges will disperse the viral payload in an explosive radius. The media must be replenished with annelid tissue- these worms can be collected in standard laboratory beakers. The proliferator can be set to release virus hybrids tailored against pure annelids, or tailored against human or partially human targets.
Recommendation: In close quarters against annelid foes, this weapon is extremely powerful. It might even hurt annelids that are unharmed by other weapons. However, when targeting human targets, it will be hard to avoid damaging yourself.
It uses the worm piles you can collect in beakers but as I’m not using exotic weapons, I just recycle those worms for a ton of nanites and then eat the worm piles for health using my WormBlood implant. The hint that it can be used against annelids that aren’t damaged by other weapons means that in vanilla, this is the only weapon that can kill the annelid wasps. Don’t use the pure annelid setting on rumblers: they don’t look it but rumblers are not pure annelids, they’re hybrids. I toss the weapon on the floor of the basketball court and research the rumbler’s organ.

There’s no code for this keypad anywhere so the game expects you to hack it. However there is a code for it: 12345. I hear notorious steam troll, Sonic hater & cyberbully ikagura has the same combination written on his luggage. Inside is some prisms for the fusion cannon & stasis field generator as well as a surgical unit activation key.

Looks like I ripped out its entire mouth. Deep fry in molybdenum with a nice batter. Remember to salt the fries!
Rumbler Organ
Analysis: This organism marks a further evolution of the first-stage Annelid Hybrid. Discernable human elements are minimal above the DNA level. Muscle tissue density has increased twenty-fold, and adrenaline production has increased proportionally. Brain tissue is extremely dense, which would normally indicate a creature of extreme cognitive ability, but the brain stem has atrophied to a useless stub, and there is no analog to a human spinal column. All muscular activity is controlled locally by alien cells designed for this purpose. It appears that this creature is an evolutionary stage between an earlier-stage human-annelid hybrid and a third, unknown form.
Recommendation: This creature is extremely dangerous, being, in effect, a heavily muscled host designed to protect a highly evolved yet unconnected brain. The peculiar chemistry of this hybrid’s brain tissue indicates a latent psionic predisposition.
Rumblers are possibly the closest we get to the big daddies in Bioshock, even though they aren’t really the same kind of thing. Bioshock 2 introduced a new big daddy also called a rumbler in reference to it, being based on a scrapped design from the first game. While I was researching the rumbler, I came across an armour vest made of flesh in a vent in the crew quarters upstairs rooms, like something Leatherface would weave. Needs barbecued or kitchen grilled in a marinade of hassium and technetium.

"WormSkin armour
Summary: This armour provides both combat and environmental protection, and increases the wearer’s Psionic ability by 2. However, it slowly drains PSI points.
Analysis: This worm skin has been fashioned into a crude body covering, suitable for a human to wear. The skin is far tougher than its biochemical makeup would suggest, and further investigation demonstrates a subtle repulsive effect that appears to be psionically generated. The fact that the effect is still active, in conjunction with the slowly continuing metabolic processes in the skin, indicates that the skin is in some sense still alive.
Recommendation: Wearing the worm skin as a piece of armour will provide some physical and environmental protection, and will increase the wearer’s PSI statistic. However, it will be a continuous psionic drain on the wearer to keep from being attacked and consumed by the skin.
This armour is near useless: It doesn’t protect you as much as regular armour & power armour and its benefits are undermined by the constant PSI drain. The description is confusing too, as it implies once we run out of PSI, the armour will start draining our health too. No thanks, I tested it to make sure and sure enough, that’s exactly what happens: once you run out of PSI, the worm skin slowly starts to eat you or at least infect you into a hybrid. Fuck this armour.
Mind the worm piles on the floor of the basketball court. Through a vent is the swimming pool.

This reminds me of the small kiddy pool off the side of the main pool in Inverurie, just up the stairs past the spectator seating. Unlike the main pool, that one didn’t have a deep end though. I couldn’t find images of the kiddy pool but here’s the swimming pool in question I had swim class at late in primary school (early on we often used St Andrew’s built-in pool).

The kiddy pool is through that opening in the top centre of that last image.
Sadly, the Inverurie pool has been demolished as has the high school next door to make way for a shitty new high school building that looks like an ugly modern art metal heap. St Andrew’s School where I went for primary school is set to suffer the same fate, but it’s currently still standing and has a construction site in the car park, implying that builders are tearing down the insides first. It’s disheartening, as it means elements of my beloved past are being erased, leaving me less and less reason to continue living in Europe.
Anyway, the lights being on means I inserted the recharged battery into its socket, restoring power both to this room and the basketball court next door. There’s a recharger in the pump room by the socket if you haven’t charged it yet.

The oxygen metre similar to the one in Thief was added by the mods I have installed. In vanilla, there’s no oxygen metre, forcing you to guess when you need to resurface. The body has some nanites on him. The pool is also a little small for serious swimming.

Remember the basketball we picked up way back on Earth during the training level? This is where we need to use it. We need to throw it into the basketball hoop to trigger the Easter egg here. Unlike the Half Life 2 Episode 2 & Black Mesa achievements regarding the garden gnome, purple top hat & pizza, this Easter Egg isn’t shit because we have an actual inventory to carry the ball in without being forced to hold it in front of us the whole way and having it slow vehicle sections to a crawl. The ball also only takes up a single inventory space tile so it’s not a hassle to carry. Taking the grav lifts up to the balcony, I find the transmitter at the end guarded by 2 cyborg assassins. Standing on the edge of the balcony, I throw the basketball into the hoop. It’s tricky as unlike Deus Ex, this game doesn’t have a proper throwing mechanic.

A BANANAS Re: Join Us?
“Things are going according to plan. We’ve managed to turn the Many against SHODAN, and you’ve been stupid enough to stick your neck out for that overbearing uber-computer. Why not join us? While you’ve been stockpiling ammo, med hypos and high-tech gadgets, we’ve collected every last piece of nuts, bananas and coconuts on board. Just say the word and you’ll get plenty to eat, an attractive hirsute companion, and a tire swing of your own. In the end, isn’t that what really matters?”
So the monkeys are the reason why the Many oppose SHODAN and why she wants us to kill them. That’s actually a good idea as imagine what the Many would be like if they still followed SHODAN. Sadly I can’t join the monkeys as SHODAN would kill us and the game won’t let us anyway. I presume we do side with the monkeys after the end of the game but the ending FMV doesn’t show us that. This is like finding the terminal that reveals Durandal called the Pfhor to Tau Ceti but it takes much longer to find and it’s similar to either the credits terminals or discovering Hats Off to Eight Nineteen. It’s also similar to Durandal and us freeing the S’pht from the Pfhor except unlike the S’pht, the Many are genuine bad guys albeit not technically evil, just lethally misunderstood.
Deus Ex had a similar Easter egg where you’d throw the basketball into the hoop and a message would appear onscreen: “sign him up for the knicks!” with another message appearing later. Deus Ex: Human Revolution has one of its own but it’s just an achievement and nothing else.
I input the transmitter code and send the message. The code is 14106. Unlike the first game but like PID, the code is the same every time you play.
***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM SHODAN***
“You have done well. You have sent a message to Earth. The crew sent all of the information they have on the Many: their behaviour, their technology. The message will arrive in 92 years.”
***END MESSAGE***
***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM XERXES***
“This is Xerxes. Primary datta loop comprised. Primary datta loop comprised.”
***END MESSAGE***
***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM SHODAN***
The transmission has been tampered with. No matter, we will kill my creations right here. Stand by.”
***END MESSAGE***
***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM XERXES***
“Warning: datta systems compromisssed. Hossstile AAAAIIIIII”
***END MESSAGE***
***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM SHODAN***
“I have weakened Xerxes. I am accessing the primary data loop. I am merging my entity with the ship. My glory is expanding, filling the arteries of this vessel. I am in control. I am…no. It is hopeless. The cancer has spread throughout the Von Braun: they fill every crack and crevice. They overwhelm. There is no option. I have activated the primary elevator shaft. Take it to deck 6. I will tell you my wishes when you arrive.”
***END MESSAGE***
So it seems the Many are too spread throughout the ship to allow them back to Earth. Like the Flood, we cannot allow a single worm to make it back to the planet. The primary elevator shaft is in the middle of the big tower in the crew quarters, similar to the missing main elevator to the Central Control Room in System Shock 1’s Security level. The name is misleading as it only goes to the Command level.

Next stop: the bridge of the Von Braun and SHODAN’s plan to deal with the Many!

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: System Shock Marathon Comparison & talkthrough Season 2: System Shock : : Episode 5: G4 Sunbathing 2: Electric Boogaloo : Act 1: If I Had an Assault Rifle, I’d Make Someone Pay – Recreation: : Athletics lobby & crew lounge : Welcome back to the System Shock 2 Marathon comparison. Last time we saw the : big twist with SHODAN’s return and we reprogrammed simulation units for : her. Now we go up to level 5 for untold riches…Excuse me, wrong game, and : that game was in a very underrated gem of a movie. : : “Delacroix? Delacroix! It’s Cortez. We’re locked in here! …Hey, who are : you?” Soon after he sees us, a security bot chases him off and guns him : down. This isn’t in the vanilla game and he seems to run off for no reason : and disappear. : : : OK, I know this isn’t in vanilla or even older versions of my mods, unless : this is part of the texture quality mod I have. A vent to my left breaks : and some worms drop out. : ***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM SHODAN*** : "Your colleagues have managed to set up a transmitting station in the : athletics sector of this deck. The transmitter is intended to send a : message to the Earth, to warn them of the events that have occurred in : this ship. However, it will also draw power away from Xerxes, making him : vulnerable to my will. Once you do this, I will control the primary data : loop. The annelids are unaware of its presence, but guard the area for : their own purposes. Find the transmitter and activate it.” : ***END MESSAGE*** : We can’t even get in the athletics section without a keycard and to get that, : we have to get into the crew quarters on this map, which is also locked : with a keycard. The card is in the garden but we also want to visit the : shopping mall for items and for our main objective here. : : Yes, this mission is basically a repeat of the CPU servers mission from : System Shock 1. If you remember, you had to blow up the servers on levels : 1-6 to get digits of the systems authorisation code needed to set the : self-destruct sequence on Space Colony Citadel’s reactor. The code was : randomised normally except for a bug in both versions of Enhanced. Now : it’s the same code regardless and it’s found a different way: we have to : cycle through otherwise useless art terminals on this level to find a : piece of the transmitter code, which gets recorded in our notes : automatically. If it has a bracket next to it, then that means it’s the : start or end of the code. Those terminals are all over the level in all 3 : maps and not all art terminals have code pieces in them. : This is the bomb code puzzle from PID combined with G4 Sunbathing in Marathon : as we need it to send a message to Earth. : ***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM XERXES*** : “This is Xerxes. The deck 5 shopping area will be closed until further : notice. We apologise for the inconvenience. The family of the Many grows : with every passing moment. Glory to the flesh. Glory to the mass.” : ***END MESSAGE*** : Sometimes I mishear that last part as “glory to Damascus”. (Da, mass, as it’s : pronounced by middle-eastern characters in Assassins Creed) The mall can : be entered but of course, all the shops are shut or taken over by eggs and : hybrids. : : This must have been recent. However, Delacroix is 1 step ahead of us and we : never see her. She may by the System Shock equivalent to her, but she : isn’t a French Brigid Tennenbaum. : : According to TV tropes, this is apparently meant to imply the mall is full of : spiders, but I always thought it simply meant it was full of enemies in : general including hybrids, robots and midwives guarding eggs. An : irradiated nurse’s office has nanites in it and another one with biomass : on the walls has a wasp egg & a farting egg, the former whose healing : organ I loot as well as eating worm noodles off the floor. Yet another : nurse’s office just down the hall has a red monkey and a pattern buffer in : it. : A room with small spiders who ambush me has crates and even a security crate : full of life rings for the swimming pool on this deck as well as a paltry : amount of ammo. A log by the garden bulkhead complains about the wasps. : Act 2: God Will Sort the Dead – Recreation: Garden section : The pattern buffer here is right around the corner. The keypad to a recharger : is broken and I don’t have the talent to fix it. Luckily this is what I : hoard auto-repair kits for. Then I hack it open. A button in here opens : the door if we found the other way in through a Many nest down the ladder : in here. The other opens a trapdoor up the ramp by the pattern buffer. : “Babies must sleep. Babies must rest. Wise is the one who does not waken : them. Leave this place now. Or we will wound you, as you have us.” : I don’t listen. The eggs are poison fart ones and wasp ones. At the end is a : cache of food, drink and cigs someone threw over the edge of a viewing : platform above. I can hear a robot above but I don’t know if it’s a : security bot or an assault bot. The trapdoor by the pattern buffer leads : to a maintenance area above the dance floor in the bar. Grenades and cyber : modules are here. : : Worst dancefloor ever. Of all time. The lights are cool but it’s tiny and : there’s pillars in the way. : : I wonder if that’s Bronson? She’s crying into her drink, the bottle of which : is discarded still full of vodka on the bar. Maybe she’s alone and can’t : find love. Ironically, the bar is called the Bon Chance (Good Luck) Lounge : and the electric piano plays what sounds like a smooth jazz version of : Girls Just Want to Have Fun as her ghost drowns her sorrows. This wouldn’t : be the last time a Shock series game would use a remix of that song: : Bioshock Infinite has a steam organ remix in its theme park & fun : beach level, revealed to have been made as the in-universe composer : plagiarised the original IRL song from the future using a tear into that : time period which we can later find in his studio playing that same song. : https://youtu.be/n6TPN7ri8mk?t=2130 : In System Shock 2’s case, it’s likely just a regular remix/cover as this game : takes place in the future, not the past. 2 cyborg assassins ambush me out : of the toilets when the ghost disappears. Outside I find a pool hall with : a code piece in the art terminals here. The Many contact me again and they : have had enough: “Mistrust is the tyranny of the individual. Your own : kind sees you as a threat. Why do you murder our unity? No matter: the : line is drawn. You will cease to be. It is just a matter of who will bring : your end: us, or you.” : : In vanilla, I think the code appears on black screens. Very clever having : them appear on actual paintings in the mods. The Persistence of Memory is : a very fitting painting to use here as it foreshadows a major reveal at : the end of the game. : : There’s goodies we want in there including cyber modules. Nearby is a 2 : storey dining room with loot in it such as more modules and another cyborg : ambush out of a blatant monster closet. It’s pitch black in here so I use : my PSI Flame Shield and lightsabre as a torch. Luckily there’s a light : switch. : : Should we be seeing this? This terminal has no code. What a bugger. The : kitchen and freezer has nothing good in it either. A small meeting room or : VIP dining area has a log from Rebecca telling Tommy to go on without her : if she doesn’t make it to the one remaining escape pod. : : Assault bots are military robots from the Rickenbacker. They’re basically : green security bots with a similar chassis to maintenance ones. Also that : BFG blast? That’s a fusion cannon. Ironically, the assault bots are the : easiest to dodge so long as you have plenty room. Deus Ex’s assault bots : are called military bots and they’re giant, armed with missiles and : machineguns (I think they have missiles? It’s been a while). In Human : Revolution, they look like giant cyberpunk combine harvesters and are just : as dangerous until you use a single EMP grenade to make them explode. : Behind it is a sealed room with a broken pistol and some ammo you can only : get with telekinesis. The freezer for this dining room has some good stuff : in it including yet more modules and some organs inside worm eggs. Next : door is the chemical storeroom which has some caesium I need to add some : blasting kick to a blue implant I found. I’ll just give you the cliffs : notes for the research this time: It’s a WormMind implant, which makes : every 4th hit or so subtract PSI instead of health. It’s useless, : especially for a PSI user as it means wasting ammo. : : Remember the groves in the first game and Arcadia in Bioshock? This isn’t : much better than the groves: there’s still no water and less plants than : you’d think. Unlike System Shock 1 there is swimming in this game so the : decision not to have ponds or lakes in the garden is stupid. SHODAN is : getting annoyed with how long I’m taking and pulls a Durandal on Eat It : Vid Boi at me, though she’s less direct. : : There’s a log from Tommy here too, looking for Rebecca. : : : We just need a second big pit like this full of water with some fountains and : we have a pond. Sadly it wasn’t to be. The log in this hollow is from : Curtez about the next exotic weapon, the Viral Proliferator. It uses worm : clusters in beakers for ammo and can be used to infect the Many worms with : a virus or use a toxin against humans. The latter is good for hybrids but : it also harmful to us as well. The former is good for full worm enemies : like spiders and maybe the final hybrid form later. : I enter the door in the wall of plants or ivy. This place is creepy: someone : screams around the corner but when I rush to save her, there’s no-one : there. Just a cyborg midwife, some dead bodies, meatnoodles and the wasp : eggs the cyborg was guarding. The Many mock me, using language I’ve heard : from real people online and voices in my head when on a risperidone : withdrawal/sleep deprivation high in the dead of night when thinking about : my plans for living in Asia for work and my desire to be with the exact : friends I’d also have as coworkers & a girlfriend: “You seek your : associates. But you cannot find them. You are so very alone. How does it : feel to be one against the infinite?” : A nitro hybrid and a pair of small spiders show up for good measure. Entering : the makeshift crypt, a pair of cyborgs show up to defend the worm eggs : they put here. : : : The shallow graves imply at least someone wanted to give the dead crew a : proper burial, but lacked the means to properly mummify their bodies nor a : decent cemetery. The corpses have useful items on them including cyber : modules, nanites, ammo, PSI hypos, a well maintained grenade launcher and : standard issue armour. A worm infested body by the worm piles and wasp : eggs has the crew quarters card. : ***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM SHODAN*** : “You perform well for an insect. Transmitting cyber modules” : ***END MESSAGE*** : A grate in the ceiling of the tunnel will collapse if you stand on it, : dumping you back under here. At the top of the ivy hill the crypt is under : is the bulkhead to the shopping mall. : Act 3: Please Excuse Our Yubis – Recreation: Shopping Mall section : A surveillance camera I can’t see from the doorway sees me and sounds the : alarm while I’m fighting a security bot. Luckily the security terminal is : right here so it doesn’t last long. There’s cyber modules on a body in the : toilets with whiskey around him. : : If you came to the mall first from the athletics section, this is the first : place you’d fight assault bots. There’s another security bot here too. : : It’s not quite the level of something like Bon Accord Mall in Station Square : (circa 1995-2007), Waverley Mall in Central City, the Giles Centre in the : same city near the suburb of Currie or even Bon Accord’s little sister : opposite it, St Nicolas Mall but it gets the job done. : ***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM XERXES*** : “This is XERXES. TriOptimum reminds you that there are only 163 shopping days : until Christmas. An extra work cycle just twice a week will give you the : spending money you need to make this holiday a very special one.” : ***END MESSAGE*** : Ha! Something tells me the Many don’t seem to care much about Christmas and : the uninfected humans have more pressing concerns anyway, not the least of : which being it’s July. Who does Xerxes think he is, Grandpa Lou in the : Rugrats episode Let It Snow? : : How about some real clothes for a change instead of crappy uniforms? I still : haven’t burned my Project SEARCH one yet. The first egg in here farts, the : other 2 are wasp mines. : : There’s no children on the ship. Good thing too: imagine what a child hybrid : would look and sound like, or worse, a baby hybrid infected by its : mother, thinking she was trying to help her baby? *shudder* Sweet dreams : tonight! Wasps and worms guard cyber modules in a shop whose electric sign : is damaged. The 3rd OS upgrade station is here. I take the upgrade that : prevents PSI burnout from hurting me. A mod bonus is that it no longer : wastes PSI either. : Finally, I upgrade my Standard Weapons skill to level 6, unload and throw : away my pistol before levelling up maintenance and endurance. : : I hear they’re the champions. They were gonna call it Target but you know how : stupid people are, you have to spell everything out. Butterfly was taken. : The art shop just down from here has code pieces in it. : : Along with followup Death Metal singer Shadoh Claw, soon to be famous double : act Lion 0 Saiborg Willy & Kor0n3 Titties and male idol Tailz : Prostate. : : They’re not clones: they’re just protocol droids. Also, wouldn’t clones count : as human children given the actual process involved with cloning? That : kind of makes the marketing look suspicious. : : The one on the left looks like someone’s getting a spanking, the code piece : one looks like a Terry Pratchett movie scene and the one on the right : looks like something from Assassins Creed (2007-2012). : : : The rest of the description says that many human programmers consider it a : valuable skill to be able to read and translate the code without machine : assistance. Much like reading/listening and writing/speaking any material : in any language other than your own. : : This segways into my favourite part of this section of the level: : To put it bluntly, this is a vtuber brothel. You can pay an extortionate : amount of nanites to have sex with hard light holograms. Brought to you by : Cover Corp and Vshojo! : Okayu Nekomata, Coco Kiryu AKA Kson Onair, Marine Houshou, Projekt Melody, : IRyS and Nyanners would feel right at home in this love hotel, Okayu, : Marine & Melody especially. There’s even male holograms working here : too so I guess TriOptimum are giving those cultists from holostars : (*disgusted retching/heaving noises*) the respect they deserve too. Maybe : TriOp will force Cover to disband the holostars brand and incorporate the : male tubers into Hololive Proper alongside the girls where they rightfully : belong, as well as make opposite sex collabs & off-collabs between all : 3 regional branches mandatory as they (and I when I join Hololive) also : deserve. But I digress yet again. : Sadly Korone & I don’t have a room here for the two of us (yet). I hack : the replicator and buy one of every room key. : : : I guess this was the last dance for Lance Vance. : : Odd how this isn’t a double room: According to Gay Ben, he specialises in : co-op. : : All the hologram units are broken. FUCK YOU ESRB FOR MAKING IT LIKE THIS! : I doubt it’ll happen but I hope the System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition version : of this place actually has working Hololove talents, complete with Hot : Coffee style first person minigame with NO CENSORSHIP REGARDLESS OF : REGION, all known VR Headset support included. If you excuse the pun, this : game doesn’t pussy out of showing us literal vaginas in the penultimate : level so less monstrous ones being used for their intended purpose are not : much to ask. I ain’t shitting you either, we actually see those monster : squid but the location is spoiler territory. : 18 year long dehydration induced rant aside, there is a silver lining to : coming into Nikki’s room: Rosenburg left a huge stockpile of nanites here : as he said but also a lucky 10 cybernetic modules, cigarettes and wine. : : That’s the viral proliferator we learned about in the garden. It’s worth : checking out. : : The assault rifle is the best weapon of the game, bar none. Standard bullets : deal a lot of damage on fully automatic setting, anti-personal rounds : shred the Many like cheddar cheese on a pizza and armour-piercing turn all : robots and cyborgs into well tossed metal salad. Required maintenance : knowledge for it is fairly cheap too. : I find the pattern buffer for the mall in a security station. The holding : cells next to it have a wasp egg and cyber modules in one of them. Rebecca : left a log by the surgical unit in the treatment room next door. She was : bitten by an annelid spider and begs Tommy to come quick as she tries to : antidote the poison. : : This is the Von Braun’s casino, for when you want an after security shift : game of bridge or try your luck at the pachislot machines. : : Bioshock would have more classic 1-armed bandit designs to the flashy modern : ones here. : : Don’t bother playing the slot machines in System Shock 2, even in mods: : Unlike Bioshock where you can definitely win a few times, the house always : wins. : : Is this some kind of aquarium? There’s very spooky sounds down here. They : sound like the laughter of ghosts during happy hour at the bar behind me. : Anatoly Korenchkin left an audio log here to Vladimir, telling him he and : William Diego have agreed to turn the ship around and return to Earth. He : says Miri and the entire board will come over to their way of thinking, : implying he intends to infect them with the Many. : : This is the Von Braun’s cinema. The actual amount of nanites required to : build the items in replicators seems to be fairly arbitrary under regular : circumstances and price gouging is common, as evidenced by the fact the : prices can be lowered by hacking the vending machines, likely to the : amount of nanites the machine actually needs for the items, stripping away : the profit charge and VAT number. How is this tangent relevant? Don’t buy : anything from the vending machine in here. Here’s why: : Some things never change. Bioshock would make the same joke in the theatre of : the Fort Frolic level which is that game’s counterpart to this deck. In : vanilla, hacking the replicator actually makes the snacks more expensive, : implying the cinema staff hack the machine themselves to charge extra when : they’re feeling especially malicious. In the mod, hacking it lowers the : prices to normal ones, so I buy I whole load of Sweet William cigars and : Coca Cola, the latter to heal my lungs after chain smoking. : : : Unlike the cinema on the Executive level in System Shock 1, this one isn’t a : grass covered school AV room but it actually looks like a cinema. Bioshock : 2 would have a similar design to this one in Dionysus Park except that : cinema has a balcony. : : : Act 4: The Big House – Recreation: Main Crew Quarters and Athletics section : : The main crew quarters of the Recreation deck is the best one as it feels : like a luxury hotel. It kind of resembles the Security level in the first : game a bit, what with the central elevator to the Command deck and smaller : elevators to the mezzanine level above. I even find a log from Delacroix : in a similar place to a security level log in the first game by one of the : entrances. : : Another log in one of the downstairs sleeping quarters has someone say : they’re lucky to be winning the basketball tournament as constant power : problems on the court (due to humidity from the swimming pool next door) : caused the lights to go out on their last game. The sleeping quarters are : all really gruesome: biomass, dead bodies, eggs and overturned furniture : litter the floors. One elevator is broken and breaks open a wasp egg if : you try to call it, releasing the insects inside. : : Hmm. Oddly, this is familiar to me. One upstairs room has a ghost collapse on : the floor crying. : I feel really dirty so in the cleanest room I can find so far, I take a : shower to clean all this blood and dirt from the garden off me. : : I think in vanilla those showers don’t work at all. At least I don’t remember : them working. The mods add the ability to use them similar to Deus Ex : & Splinter Cell 4 (version 1). Another room has a guy who apparently : drank himself to death. He has the card for the athletics section. Next : door in a wasp & worm egg infested quarters is another code piece, : possibly the final one? There was also one I missed by the crew lounge at : the start but I got that when I returned from the mall. In the room with : the keypad I find cyber modules, heavy armour which is the 2nd best in the : game but requires high strength to use, and the viral proliferator. Simmer : for a few minutes in tellurium, mix together with orange juice & : technetium before finishing under the grill. : : Next is the athletics section. SHODAN gives me more XP for entering. The door : to the swimming pool is broken but the basketball court is open. Inside is : the most monstrous Many form yet. : : Remember those from the Many’s vision and SHODAN’s reveal? Those are : Rumblers, the next stage of human/annelid hybrid mutation. The lights go : out as soon as you enter the basketball court. Use PK Fire or : anti-personal bullets to kill this thing. Researching its innards will : have to wait until the exotic weapon is finished cooking. : : You can just see the deformed face of the human this rumbler once was. The : vanilla model is really tame: the face on its shoulder is easier to see : but the toothy mouth is instead a generic parrot like beak. Not as scary : as this. : Viral Proliferator : Summary: The viral proliferator requires an exotic weapons skill of 4. The : first modification to this weapon increases the clip size, while the : second modification reduces the ammo usage. Both modifications also : increase weapon damage. This weapon releases a host of anti-annelid virus : in an explosive radius. The virus can be tailored to infect pure annelids : or humans and human/annelid hybrids. Press and hold down the trigger to : fire – when you release the trigger, the viral payload will detonate. : Don’t let it detonate too close to you when it’s set to affect humans! : Analysis: This weapon appears to have been cobbled together from human : technology and annelid parts. Judging by the stock and trigger, it was : built by humans. The central hexagonal core is an energy-rich media, : ringed with receptacles containing nanites-virus hybrids. Release of the : virus hybrids into the core will cause cycles of replication at nanites, : rather than biological, speeds, building up until the payload is released. : Additional energetic charges will disperse the viral payload in an : explosive radius. The media must be replenished with annelid tissue- these : worms can be collected in standard laboratory beakers. The proliferator : can be set to release virus hybrids tailored against pure annelids, or : tailored against human or partially human targets. : Recommendation: In close quarters against annelid foes, this weapon is : extremely powerful. It might even hurt annelids that are unharmed by other : weapons. However, when targeting human targets, it will be hard to avoid : damaging yourself. : It uses the worm piles you can collect in beakers but as I’m not using exotic : weapons, I just recycle those worms for a ton of nanites and then eat the : worm piles for health using my WormBlood implant. The hint that it can be : used against annelids that aren’t damaged by other weapons means that in : vanilla, this is the only weapon that can kill the annelid wasps. Don’t : use the pure annelid setting on rumblers: they don’t look it but rumblers : are not pure annelids, they’re hybrids. I toss the weapon on the floor of : the basketball court and research the rumbler’s organ. : : There’s no code for this keypad anywhere so the game expects you to hack it. : However there is a code for it: 12345. I hear notorious steam troll, Sonic : hater & cyberbully ikagura has the same combination written on his : luggage. Inside is some prisms for the fusion cannon & stasis field : generator as well as a surgical unit activation key. : : Looks like I ripped out its entire mouth. Deep fry in molybdenum with a nice : batter. Remember to salt the fries! : Rumbler Organ : Analysis: This organism marks a further evolution of the first-stage Annelid : Hybrid. Discernable human elements are minimal above the DNA level. Muscle : tissue density has increased twenty-fold, and adrenaline production has : increased proportionally. Brain tissue is extremely dense, which would : normally indicate a creature of extreme cognitive ability, but the brain : stem has atrophied to a useless stub, and there is no analog to a human : spinal column. All muscular activity is controlled locally by alien cells : designed for this purpose. It appears that this creature is an : evolutionary stage between an earlier-stage human-annelid hybrid and a : third, unknown form. : Recommendation: This creature is extremely dangerous, being, in effect, a : heavily muscled host designed to protect a highly evolved yet unconnected : brain. The peculiar chemistry of this hybrid’s brain tissue indicates a : latent psionic predisposition. : Rumblers are possibly the closest we get to the big daddies in Bioshock, even : though they aren’t really the same kind of thing. Bioshock 2 introduced a : new big daddy also called a rumbler in reference to it, being based on a : scrapped design from the first game. While I was researching the rumbler, : I came across an armour vest made of flesh in a vent in the crew quarters : upstairs rooms, like something Leatherface would weave. Needs barbecued or : kitchen grilled in a marinade of hassium and technetium. : : "WormSkin armour : Summary: This armour provides both combat and environmental protection, and : increases the wearer’s Psionic ability by 2. However, it slowly drains PSI : points. : Analysis: This worm skin has been fashioned into a crude body covering, : suitable for a human to wear. The skin is far tougher than its biochemical : makeup would suggest, and further investigation demonstrates a subtle : repulsive effect that appears to be psionically generated. The fact that : the effect is still active, in conjunction with the slowly continuing : metabolic processes in the skin, indicates that the skin is in some sense : still alive. : Recommendation: Wearing the worm skin as a piece of armour will provide some : physical and environmental protection, and will increase the wearer’s PSI : statistic. However, it will be a continuous psionic drain on the wearer to : keep from being attacked and consumed by the skin. : This armour is near useless: It doesn’t protect you as much as regular armour : & power armour and its benefits are undermined by the constant PSI : drain. The description is confusing too, as it implies once we run out of : PSI, the armour will start draining our health too. No thanks, I tested it : to make sure and sure enough, that’s exactly what happens: once you run : out of PSI, the worm skin slowly starts to eat you or at least infect you : into a hybrid. Fuck this armour. : Mind the worm piles on the floor of the basketball court. Through a vent is : the swimming pool. : : This reminds me of the small kiddy pool off the side of the main pool in : Inverurie, just up the stairs past the spectator seating. Unlike the main : pool, that one didn’t have a deep end though. I couldn’t find images of : the kiddy pool but here’s the swimming pool in question I had swim class : at late in primary school (early on we often used St Andrew’s built-in : pool). : : : : The kiddy pool is through that opening in the top centre of that last image. : Sadly, the Inverurie pool has been demolished as has the high school next : door to make way for a shitty new high school building that looks like an : ugly modern art metal heap. St Andrew’s School where I went for primary : school is set to suffer the same fate, but it’s currently still standing : and has a construction site in the car park, implying that builders are : tearing down the insides first. It’s disheartening, as it means elements : of my beloved past are being erased, leaving me less and less reason to : continue living in Europe. : Anyway, the lights being on means I inserted the recharged battery into its : socket, restoring power both to this room and the basketball court next : door. There’s a recharger in the pump room by the socket if you haven’t : charged it yet. : : The oxygen metre similar to the one in Thief was added by the mods I have : installed. In vanilla, there’s no oxygen metre, forcing you to guess when : you need to resurface. The body has some nanites on him. The pool is also : a little small for serious swimming. : : Remember the basketball we picked up way back on Earth during the training : level? This is where we need to use it. We need to throw it into the : basketball hoop to trigger the Easter egg here. Unlike the Half Life 2 : Episode 2 & Black Mesa achievements regarding the garden gnome, purple : top hat & pizza, this Easter Egg isn’t shit because we have an actual : inventory to carry the ball in without being forced to hold it in front of : us the whole way and having it slow vehicle sections to a crawl. The ball : also only takes up a single inventory space tile so it’s not a hassle to : carry. Taking the grav lifts up to the balcony, I find the transmitter at : the end guarded by 2 cyborg assassins. Standing on the edge of the : balcony, I throw the basketball into the hoop. It’s tricky as unlike Deus : Ex, this game doesn’t have a proper throwing mechanic. : : : A BANANAS Re: Join Us? : “Things are going according to plan. We’ve managed to turn the Many against : SHODAN, and you’ve been stupid enough to stick your neck out for that : overbearing uber-computer. Why not join us? While you’ve been stockpiling : ammo, med hypos and high-tech gadgets, we’ve collected every last piece of : nuts, bananas and coconuts on board. Just say the word and you’ll get : plenty to eat, an attractive hirsute companion, and a tire swing of your : own. In the end, isn’t that what really matters?” : So the monkeys are the reason why the Many oppose SHODAN and why she wants us : to kill them. That’s actually a good idea as imagine what the Many would : be like if they still followed SHODAN. Sadly I can’t join the monkeys as : SHODAN would kill us and the game won’t let us anyway. I presume we do : side with the monkeys after the end of the game but the ending FMV doesn’t : show us that. This is like finding the terminal that reveals Durandal : called the Pfhor to Tau Ceti but it takes much longer to find and it’s : similar to either the credits terminals or discovering Hats Off to Eight : Nineteen. It’s also similar to Durandal and us freeing the S’pht from the : Pfhor except unlike the S’pht, the Many are genuine bad guys albeit not : technically evil, just lethally misunderstood. : Deus Ex had a similar Easter egg where you’d throw the basketball into the : hoop and a message would appear onscreen: “sign him up for the knicks!” : with another message appearing later. Deus Ex: Human Revolution has one of : its own but it’s just an achievement and nothing else. : I input the transmitter code and send the message. The code is 14106. Unlike : the first game but like PID, the code is the same every time you play. : ***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM SHODAN*** : “You have done well. You have sent a message to Earth. The crew sent all of : the information they have on the Many: their behaviour, their technology. : The message will arrive in 92 years.” : ***END MESSAGE*** : ***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM XERXES*** : “This is Xerxes. Primary datta loop comprised. Primary datta loop comprised.” : ***END MESSAGE*** : ***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM SHODAN*** : The transmission has been tampered with. No matter, we will kill my creations : right here. Stand by.” : ***END MESSAGE*** : ***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM XERXES*** : “Warning: datta systems compromisssed. Hossstile AAAAIIIIII” : ***END MESSAGE*** : ***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM SHODAN*** : “I have weakened Xerxes. I am accessing the primary data loop. I am merging : my entity with the ship. My glory is expanding, filling the arteries of : this vessel. I am in control. I am…no. It is hopeless. The cancer has : spread throughout the Von Braun: they fill every crack and crevice. They : overwhelm. There is no option. I have activated the primary elevator : shaft. Take it to deck 6. I will tell you my wishes when you arrive.” : ***END MESSAGE*** : So it seems the Many are too spread throughout the ship to allow them back to : Earth. Like the Flood, we cannot allow a single worm to make it back to : the planet. The primary elevator shaft is in the middle of the big tower : in the crew quarters, similar to the missing main elevator to the Central : Control Room in System Shock 1’s Security level. The name is misleading as : it only goes to the Command level. : : Next stop: the bridge of the Von Braun and SHODAN’s plan to deal with the : Many!

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