Gosh. Over 7,000 words, a new record?
Okay, so this is the long-awaited next level. Perhaps in the spirit of the name we should have written it together? We could have delayed it further and made it even longer :). But no, I could not have done it the kind of justice you just did. I was confused at times, wondering just how much I did not know about this level, but most of it was just memory and/or differences in how we ate the path. I did not, however, know about the weapons secret in the dungeons. Would have been cool for N&BS to have worked that one with their coop perks.
I vaguely remember that volunteers expanded discussion, and boy is there a lot up for debate. Very interesting that you took the time to write all those words but were too lazy to do your own pics / fully detail the map ;). A picture tells a thousand words, but our medium is predominantly words. There are many things that cannot really be represented clearly in pictures, and the mysteries that abound here are among those. On the subject of timelines, I think that those with Tycho are all related in some way, but there are differences, as has been discussed much over the years.
There is a reference to the work with encryption stamps and R'chzne, but as you said, there is also inconsistency with the Yorick timeline, or at least an ignoring of what we have assumed to be K'lia folding into orbit. Confound Delivery seemed to move through so much story in one go, and yet Tycho was planning to send us to Durandal's ship following it, which -is- where we went the next time we had T for company. Perhaps one of those things where, behind the scenes, we actually try many more timelines than we get to observe in the game, with our being shown the most useful, in terms of information gathering? Or just the first time we try a new 'adjustment' of some sort? Then cue a series of amusing clips from yet more failed timelines, Groundhog Day / Edge of Tomorrow styles? The latter for sure warrants more discussion in its links to gaming, both through the concept of endlessly saving/loading and learning, and through that of time travel or at least repeating the same period a number of times. Either way, the 'day' represented in Infinity was usually a pretty bad one for the SO. EoT needs more discussion, but not right now.
Fascinating map editor investigation on your part, re BoBs and sims in Enforcer slots, and especially the explanation of BoB overcrowding and lack of attacks. I leave still unclear as to why they went to the bother at all, though. They were still playing with interesting concepts in the engine, hmmm? The effect is disorienting, especially with the sims that appear as enemies and don't talk right. It provides a certain dreamy element to a non-dream environment, assuming that's what this is.
Equally interesting observation of the fact that cutting the power doesn't really cut much power, and we don't really know if we succeeded as far as Tycho is concerned at this point. As we continue to the close, we will see how we take our own initiative more so from here anyway, or at least, in game terms, we get tossed around loyalties and are forced towards our Destiny.
Okay, time to get to work on slimy things; do you have a map up yet? I forget. And I need to do term pics. For now, conveniently our film festival here ends today, so I will have more time :). And are you doing Church and Grendel? I forget ... as if from an old dream. Or did I get that wrong?
