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	Message: : TOUR OF DUTY : 25 – Requiem For a Cyborg : The name. The Story page gives an odd likeness to a movie that I don’t : think I’ll be rushing to acquire in quite such the same way as I might : Miller’s Crossing (even if all I ever do is talk about that one). In : general, a requiem is a Mass for the dead, or a Mass celebrated for : repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons . Thanks : Wikipedia. And that combined with the Story page reference … and whatever : else I bring to the table myself … I take to suggest that we are going to : die a lot here. We are that cyborg. In the past I have taken it to be for : Durandal, but he’s not exactly a cyborg per se, and actually, he’s not : really dead – “He’s behind you!” – oh, no, I’m not going pantomime. Then : again, our destiny has been linked to his, which must be part of the : reason why we’re still running around on orders to do random stuff, trying : to save or at least avenge him … it’s not like we’ve got much else going : on. Nay, in fact as far as the end screen has it, we never feature again : :(. : There is also the fact that the map is shaped in about as cyborgy a fashion : as they could manage: : Anyway, Last time on Tour of Duty we had a very clear objective … well, at : least to those of us with planet-sized brains. We found a crazy secret : with weapons as far as the eye could see, burninated the countryside and a : few Pfhor, climbed to great heights, and apparently managed to initiate : something to help bring the S’pht’Kr back, as Thoth had figured it all : out. At least that makes one of us. : Here, with the cyborg metaphor, we start in the neck area. There’s a big : platform in the middle, and at the bottom of it there is a handy dandy 1x : recharger, but we’re staying up here for a bit. There are windows here, : and they look out onto a rather pretty and peaceful space scene. Indeed : something had gone terribly awry with my textures, as all I was seeing : here was a series of vertical lines – had to switch off Open GL shader : mode, I blame the latest NVidia drivers, and possibly that my A1 is not up : to date. : To the north is a door, leading into the head. Opening it reveals a bunch of : Compilers and some Fighters. Retreating back into the neck, the shotguns : we picked up in the Rental Trucks secret come in handy – the Compilers can : be a right pain otherwise. When all are dead, going a bit further into the : head, just down one step in fact, brings in more Fighters and some : Troopers. This time we turn to the Tozt, either from KYT or RT. We’ll be : using it a lot this level actually. So, definitely best not to cause both : encounters to spawn at once, as Compilers still don’t die in a fire! : Now our head is clear. Inside are a terminal and a pattern buffer. And : surprise! It’s not Thoth on the other end of the line. : : This should really have been our first clue, but everything is so cryptic at : this point, and the last time we saw these gorgeous textures we were on : Durandal’s ship, so I guess I never took this in fully. We have “boarded” : the Hfarl, a ship that means nothing to us at this point, and barely meant : anything to me until about 12 hours ago, to be fair. As far as we know, : that took the form of Thoth teleporting us up there from Lh’owon, because : he’s just that good. : ** : Okay, PS beat me to it using that terminal picture just moments ago and : making it all seem so obvious. I think the problem with my understanding : until recently is that I missed the point on various terminals where we : get reports such as the above – from the one on the first level here, to : the personal diary terminals of Medicine and then various levels in : Infinity. Thus I never paid enough attention to them, and certainly never : bothered to link a ship name on a seemingly random level such as this with : the final screen … but those days are over :). : ** : Next we head down that big lift shaft. There’s that 1x recharger I mentioned : earlier, and a switch for the lift. Around the corner there are heaps of : Fighters, and they really do like dying in a fire! There’s one at the end : of the corridor that doesn’t wake up, so go teach him a lesson! There are : several doors coming off this corridor – we’ll take the first on the right : for starters. Here there’s another window, and then another lift, from the : top of which we hear Trooper and maybe Compiler fire. This may lead to a : Trooper coming down, or a Trooper killing a Compiler. Either way we need : to remember that there are two Troopers and a Compiler up there on TC! : There’s also another pattern buffer, and a switch next to it. When we hit the : switch we see out the window to the left a platform rise from … the : outside of the ship. I never got this part before either. These things : were keeping the ship clamped to / docked with another entity here, : possibly something it was refuelling, given its description as such a : vessel – we’re releasing it so that the humans can get away in it. This : also reveals another similar station a ways away, and we can see the : switch, but unfortunately the windows are closed to the vacuum of space : :(. : On my ToD playthrough I managed to wake up more Fighters and Troopers while : up here, then met them at the door below at a time when I was annoyingly : low on health. Not sure exactly where they came from. The next door on the : right from the corridor isn’t far enough away to house that other switch : station, but it does house several Troopers, some ready to teleport in, : and two in secluded alleys – they sometimes take a bit of waking up … and : then a bit of putting to sleep. : Then we have the left side of the corridor, which has three doors coming off : it! If we take the first, there is another door just behind it! Then an : empty round room with three odd white raised triangles coming in from the : edges – here we wake up more Fighters in the next room, another one with : white triangles, and this completes the loop around to the second door on : the left of the corridor. Just before it there is a narrower corridor off : to the right, with a Projectile Fighter heading our way. Along this : corridor are a couple of dead-ends, an interesting-looking dropoff around : to the right, and a secret around to the left. : Tabbing the wall reveals a circuit panel. Smashing the panel reveals that : we’re on an express elevator to hell, going down. At the bottom there are : some alien weapons, and two more circuit panels against the far wall – : just far enough apart to happily house a hidden terminal in the middle. : How about that? : : : This is the one that was mistakenly reported as being on Where the Twist : Flops in the strategy guide. More flavour stuff, with classifieds from : Durandal, Thoth, Tycho and Leela, respectively. And they pretty much hit : the various nails on their various heads. Especially to confuse, irritate : and teleport randomly around . : Breaking the circuits down here toggles the state of the lift. I guess if you : hit one from the platform you could get back up, but not with fists … all : that does is reveal that the back texture of the lift is Pfhor slime. : Conveniently however, all is not lost, as reading to the end of the : terminal teleports us back up into the neck. And on with the show. : From here there isn’t much sense of order in the level. I already mentioned : the dropoff near that secret, so I’ll take us that way. The passage below : leads to the room beyond the end of the main corridor. This time around I : had already been there and woken up the Pfhor and Compilers, and possibly : on account of that, several Compilers met me in that passage, and then : they met my shotgun … cos they ain’t got one. Then I found that room : empty, but I don’t think it usually would be. The room beyond is the more : interesting one anyway. Lots of Pfhor slime, lots of Pfhor, and Invisible : Compilers – maybe that is a side-effect of proximity to the slime? : There are three switches around the outside here, and what must be done : should be clear. Each one fills up one of the few pools that isn’t already : filled with slime. Hmmm. Maybe I should say each one fills up the : refuelling tanks? Is that what’s going on here? Otherwise uneventful : anyway, and we return to recharge and carry on. The third door on the left : from the main corridor looks out over that end room, and houses a terminal : with a Durandal logon image, but even so it is just a repeat of the Pfhor : ship warning from earlier. : There’s just one more area left – through a door that I ignored earlier just : to give things some semblance of order! Just off the second white triangle : room we find a door leading to a lift that is seemingly Pfhor controlled, : and may bring down a Trooper, Invisible Compiler, or both. Then when we : kill them, the lift stops. There’s a switch nearby, but it’s still : interesting to observe. Up the top we realise we have found the second : switch station for releasing the ship from its bonds. There’s also an : oxygen charger here, because I guess we need a bit on the next level, and : we might have been thirsty for it from KYT/RT … or indeed we might be dead : if we never found that secret switch on KYT. : Now both terminals have updated to display a message from Thoth. : : One of Hamish’s favourite lines appears here, along with an interesting : opener – “the human wheel” makes me think of Vitruvian Man, which is a : central image to Marathon: Tempus Irae. Alternatively it could just be : referring simply to the concept of a wheel, which returns to the same : point repeatedly as it turns – this also makes me think of The Matrix: : Reloaded. Are we sure this is the first time the S’pht’Kr have been : recalled? : They’re on their way back here now, anyway. And we’ll see them starside.
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