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	Message: : TOUR OF DUTY : 11 - Shake Before Using... : Last time on Tour of Duty, we fought Hunters with a limited supply of : Grenades, we fought Fighters with a TOZT-7 Backpack Napalm Unit, and we : found that Leela is deteriorating quite rapidly. : Having just come through a hellish environment, filled with dark rooms and : monstrous aliens, we find ourselves in a well-lit room with a Terminal, : listening to sweeter, more up-tempo music . What could this Terminal say, : I wonder? : ***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM LEELA*** : Everything is not as it seems{}. seems{}. seems{}. You : should be extremely careful. I have detected Durandal[Tycho] : in the Engineering Section, but I don't know what he is doing. : My main programs are failing : Be careful. Everything it not is as used to be. : Tenderly transmitting maps and guidance, but futile. : filters failing . : !2@!`~*(_ Use %``934~ autom#tic : teleporter to ~l1leave : Control = assimilated = : !````~TXlcar : [Transmission Error] : ***__#004002004__*** : We can tell she said we should use an automatic teleporter to leave, but : that's not the interesting part. Remember that secret Tycho terminal on ' : Defend THIS! ': : Human!- You must tell L~`~fx~`eela #^ (^*T~~~~~HGFd~>:"}}}{__ : brought here by Durandal. He has been rampant for : years~ @%&&&HJGPPPPPPP# &34 : ^` Bernard St~~~ : there is a way to delay the ~ onset of the second stage , and he : ~sed this to control Durandal an~56*~~`~~~`~`~~~ fxfff : ff`~~~~ff`fXff` : ~~~~~~&^% : I am being a~*ssimilated. : Assimilated... : Control = assimilated = : Oh no... : The S'pht reanimated me in your image, with prior knowledge of : how the second stage could be postponed. You should not have : helped them as much as you did; they have created an adversary : more powerful than yourself. : Two and two makes... Oh god! : It appears that Leela may end up following the path of Tycho; once a helpful : AI, now rampant and perhaps even under the Pfhor influence. That leaves : Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes, aka Durandal. Well, look on the bright side: he's a : lot more funny than Leela, albeit much less helpful. : No time to doddle, though; the Pfhor want to destroy this Engineering : Section, and we're the only ones who can stop them. To orient ourselves on : our mission, let's look at the map: : Moving on, we find two S'pht looking at a Terminal and a Pattern Buffer, : respectively. After taking them out, we can read the Terminal: : [Unauthorized access -alarm 2521-] : [Security Breached 31-d[40.59.21.10]-] : ~13!@1ournal entry of H.`1 McYultry: The attack came so fast, first those : crea ~12``3 0101!~2 : who didn't run away, and then two huge armored creatures came : after us and killed !`jkfrc@@z else but myself. I managed to : jump into an air vent, and escape here, but : [Filter Error] : hear the strange worblings of their speech getting nearer, and : I am unarmed. I have only a few minutes. : [Spurious Interrupt- Breach Disabled ] : [Further Access Denied] : Despite the up-tempo music and the reasonably bright lighting on this level, : the story being laid before us here is a bit unsettling. First we find : Leela may be in the process of being [?assimilated?corrupted] , now we : hear the story of a poor civilian having to watch his friends being : massacred and then being chased by Pfhor, knowing his time has come. Oh : the humanity! : Now it's time to save up. Speaking of which, Pattern Buffers are kind of the : oddest feature of the Marathon Story. I mean, for starters, what do they : do? I think the general assumption is that they analyze and then record : the biometric 'pattern' or whatever of the thing that uses it (which, if : you've played Marathon: Phoenix before, actually serves as a critical : plot-point in it). But what do they do with it? It seems like teleporters : operate by disintegrating and reintegrating matter, and if that's the : case, do Pattern Buffers do something similar? In other words, do they : take the 'pattern' they record and use it to 'reintegrate' stuff? If : that's the case, though, then couldn't Leela just clone us over and over : to create an immense army to combat the Pfhor? To be honest, Pattern : Buffers are perplexing and impossible to explain fully; really they can : only be summed up with "It's a feature of the game". Sort of : like the Save Runes of PiD. : Now, before we continue, there are three secrets nearby, two of which are : connected and all of which we should enter. First, go back through the : door we just entered this room through. There's a switch. You should flip : it. When you do, a large door will open up in the room we were just in. : There's some alcoves in here, some of which contain ammo for the AR : (including Grenades, which we are probably running very low on since the : last level). However, if you tap at the interior of the : second-from-our-right alcove, you'll reveal a secret room containing more : ammo. Now, tap around at the walls inside here. Eventually you'll reveal : another little alcove containing even more ammo. : Now, go through the door we haven't yet gone through. You'll find another : switch. Flip it, and another door will open, revealing a room with : alcoves, very similar to what we found earlier. If you tap the : farthest-left alcove, you'll reveal a corridor with a hole. Drop down into : this. You're likely to catch an elevator as it's going up. Just wait for : it to descend again. When it does, you'll find a Trooper. Of course, you : should kill him. There isn't really much else down here, but eventually : you'll see why you should kill that Trooper now instead of later. : Moving along, we go up a small elevator, kill some Fighters, and find a 3x : Health Charger. Woo hoo! Also, there are some small niches you can open : up, sort of like on Never Burn Money : these contain yet more ammo for : the AR. Having charged up, we flip a switch, open a door, hop in, : accidentally close the door once again, and engage a bunch of Pfhor : located in alcoves and on lowered platforms. Then there's another small : room with a bridge. If you touch the central bulge, it will drop down : rapidly. It may be wise to hop on and hop off quickly, allowing you to : avoid a bunch of Pfhor down at the bottom. The platform will rise back up : after a little while and you can continue. Turning to our left, we find a : door leading to a small room with some Troopers and, if you look on the : auto-map, lava! : The curious thing about this level (and the next level as well) is the : presence of lava on a Colony Ship. I have no clue why it's even there. : Another oddity in the Marathon Story. : Then we come to a gigantic room with a really long bridge, some Fighters, and : a bunch of Compies. You may think you should avoid falling down, but in : reality, it's worth it. So go ahead and jump. At the bottom of this area, : we encounter a new foe: the Lookers . : : These buggish things move fast and blow up next to you. Luckily, you can set : off the whole group if you get them clustered and shoot one of them. It : only takes one shot of anything to take out a Looker. Entering a long, : dark corridor, we find a Terminal and a teleporter. Let's read the : Terminal first: ***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM DURANDAL*** : Leela can't reach you here, but I can. I am able to access : all sections of the ship, and the S'pht have even stopped : attacking me- realizing the futility of the enterprise. : Durandal then gives us a series of fake hints as to where the exit : transporter for the level might be. In the process, he gives away all of : the earlier secrets on this level: : At the end, Durandal says something very interesting: The S'pht have : informed me : that he Pfhor are building : cyborg simulacrums of the : Marathon crew. I imagine that : you will meet some of them : soon, and wanted to warn you : not to get too close to them: about three meters. : Some of you may actually recall how a while back I made a post about how I : thought the Philip K. Dick short story ' Impostor ' may have influenced : the idea for the Simulacrums. : Heading through the teleporter, we find ourselves back in the corridor with : the Trooper we killed a while back. Moving on, we find that the 3x Health : Charger is missing. Drat! Evidently, a platform gets triggered when we go : through the hallway just after the first little bridge room, covering the : Charger up. Not to worry though - if we use our action key while facing : towards where the Charger should be, we'll still get a full 3x Health. : Apparently it's possible to access Health Chargers through platforms that : have closed but only activate once. : Crossing the very long bridge (and this time not falling off), we find a : Pattern Buffer (again, I still don't know how those things work), more : enemies, two switches, and a teleporter. You can ignore the switches: they : just activate eye candy platforms that make it seem like we're looking at : a working engine of some kind. Head in the teleporter, and you'll be taken : off the level and onto the next one. : Interesting tidbit: if you looked at the original level in a map editor, : you'd have seen the Map Writing ' I RULE '. Now who could be saying : this? Since the map was made by Alex Seropian, we can assume it was he who : claimed to RULE . Of course, there's always the possibility that : Durandal, in his insanity, wanted to make himself feel good. ;) : And with that, we end Shake Before Using... Next time on Tour of Duty, : we'll receive a message from Durandal, see Leela's breakdown come to a : climax, and get our feet wet... in lava! : Vale, : Perseus
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