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	Message: : Chapter 5: Antiquity Stage 1: Kingdom Valley : : Act 1: Dust and Echoes of Eden : Last time on Tour of Duty, we succeeded in destroying the Jjaro dreadnaught : Mighty Philanthropy, set the Drinniol rebellion in motion and finally : learned just who and what the Jjaro are. Now, I’m in the endgame: a : gigantic Jjaro Dyson Sphere they built as a fortress world against an : enemy Leela doesn’t seem to know about. But I can guess and I’m surprised : it didn’t click with her. As you can see above, I’ve taken my helmet off : as I recognise that sky. : : “drictelt ’06–‘07” : I enter the timezone in deep space before I subsequently teleport into the : shield world. : : ***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM MONITOR 343 GUILTY SPARK*** : Welcome, [?reclaimer]. I am the [monitor] of this installation. I am very : pleased to find you alive and unharmed. I assume you fled here from one of : the fallen defense vessels. We are presently on the lowermost deck of the : installation, in a cargo waystation. : The [?enemy] has already breached the installation’s entry defences, and : transported many numbers into the inner sanctum. Thankfully you appear : well armed, and I hope that I may aid you to stop this incursion and : resume the mission before it is too late. : ***MESSAGE CONTINUED AS IMAGE*** : The Halo parallels come to a head here. Not only am I in a Halo ring combined : with a Shield World, but 343 Guilty Spark actually appears in person! : He doesn’t refer to himself by name and the translator interprets monitor as : “watcher” but we all know who he is. He technically only appears in : terminals instead of a monitor shell but still. In the earliest build, : even before the complete Eternal X 1.0.3 and in the long scrapped Halo : alpha this mod is based on, there was no ambiguity attempted or otherwise : about Spark’s identity and the Dyson sphere itself literally was Halo : Installation 04 instead of simply sharing a function. This is honestly the : best twist in the game. : : “Puzzling. You brought such ineffective weapons to combat the W’rkncacnter’s : Ayakashi/Kamalas, despite the containment protocols.” : : : The Ayakashi are back and now there’s more of them than just banshees. : They’re the main enemy from now on, serving the exact same purpose as the : Flood in Halo. And, I have a confession to make, but that will wait until : we’re on the cargo elevator. There’s fusion turrets to help you out and : they are on our side from now on too. Just be careful not to run in their : line of fire as they don’t discriminate if there’s an ally blocking them. : Quickly, I flee up a lift to the north down some lovely blue metal and : crystal tunnels to a 1X shield charger. Fusion ammo and zero-point nodules : for your portable Halo and Dark Energy Sword (better nickname than Jjaro : lightsabre given it’s made with a singularity) are your best friends for : all of Chapter 5. Eternal X Omega 1.2 strives to make this Chapter easier : than it was in Omega 1.1 and the original Eternal X 1.0.3, but I haven’t : played this version yet and just watched Narcogen and Blackstar stream it : (with Forrest and Lia themselves too!). : I run around the upper hallways, activating bridges and collecting ammo. I : recommend The Shudaki Way for the banshees and save the Fusion Rifle for : other enemies as the rifle is trickier to aim and banshees can be hard to : hit. I find the first plain health terminal (red/orange/yellow bar) in a : while next to a security station filled with fusion batteries and a : portable Halo next to another Comm terminal. : : : Hathor is not only still alive (which I could guess) but she appears to be : referencing terminals from the original Eternal X that no longer exist. : She hints to us of this place and warns us of the land in the sky above : Kingdom Valley in my dreams. She’s had them too. If she does make at least : 1 reference to it in 1.2, I’ve forgotten where that is. : Anyway, the Dark Energy Swords are duel wieldable and you used to be able to : find the second one or even both at once by this terminal instead of the : Wave Motion Cannon, which was on a shelf. Now the second lightsabre has : been moved to another map, which was a problem in Omega 1.1 but less so : here as we have fusion on our side too. We can also use the plasma : flamethrower to kill banshees, but it’s slower and a lot more dangerous. : Ammo thus gained, I save my game and dive inside the waiting cargo elevator. : The doors seal and lock the banshees out, though some do sneak in the : closing doors. : : Wait, it gets worse! : : Confession time! In older builds of Eternal including the original Eternal X, : the ayakashi were exactly the same ones from Pathways into Darkness. You : only had headlesses, nightmares and banshees, as the shocking spheres were : used for fusion turrets. : : I actually hated the idea that Forrest would change them at first as I felt : it broke the connection Marathon had to Pathways into Darkness somewhat. : However, he didn’t actually get rid of them: he simply redid them to look, : sound and behave scarier and boy did he succeed. I actually like them now. : What this means is that the Eternal X Omega 1.2 PID monsters are not : ayakashi now, but Kamalas, which are the exact same thing but are Swedish : demons as opposed to Japanese. I first heard of them from Swedish : developer KillMonday’s excellent adventure game Fran Bow: : : Does the Kamala behind Dr Deern look familiar? It’s a nightmare. Whereas : ayakashi can be dark but are also bright and colorful looking, Kamalas are : exclusively shadow demons like the Banshees, but with teeth. : The headless have been replaced with Skitters now too. All of them make : horrible moaning and snarling sounds that sound like they’re echoing down : a dark cave during a very strong earthquake and their screams when you : kill them…*shudder* The W’rkncacnter is also fully awake in this world and : all of its dream manifestations are out to play. The original Marathon : Eternal X was how I first saw the monsters from Pathways into Darkness : until I saw a video Let’s Play and finally got to play the OSX port : emulated on Windows. Now that I have a Mac of my very own and Pathways : into Darkness was faithfully ported to Aleph One so that Windows players : are no longer left in the dark, I don’t need that emulator anymore. : All the Ayakashi used Marathon specific projectiles which was honestly : stupid. The headlesses are supposed to spit green, stinky bile from their : squid radula/lamprey eel mouths but instead in Eternal they fired fighter : shots. Nightmares are meant to fire ball lightning that looks like a : plasma globe or a planetarium toy but they used S’pht shots. : Now in Eternal X 1.2, the skitters use their actual web shots, appearing as : dark matter so they’re even heavier and while nightmares still seem to use : S’pht shots, they are supposed to be firing ball lightning anyway so : it’s less of an issue than the headless. That meeting up above didn’t go : so well: : But I don’t want to ride the elevator again! : That’s it. The gloves come off for me too: : Thunder, Thunder! THUNDER! THUNDERCATS HO! : : : I…I’d recognise that sky anywhere. It’s the floating rough ocean from my : dreams. All this time, my dreams of Kingdom Valley high up yet still : within the valley itself, the waves of the sea crashing in the sky; It’s : the Jjaro Shield World except it’s also a Halo ring at the same time. It : gets better as 343 Guilty Spark is here too! :) Why they went through the : trouble to recreate Kingdom Valley, the bay at the end of Refraction : Canyon and the White Acropolis mountain range in Egypt on Third Earth in : this Dyson Sphere I don’t know. Maybe it’s like Ringworld where the : titular not Halo original structure had 100% accurate maps of Earth, : Mars and even Kzin worlds. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find my reference to : that again when fact checking this, sorry. : : : Infected? They aren’t the Flood. Oh, wait. Ayakashi can kill you if you can : see them or encourage you to kill yourself if they cannot. Succeeding : either in doing so or eating you if a ghost turns you into one of them. : The W’rkncacnter’s nightmares must be able to do the same. Kamalas : normally prefer to keep their victims alive just to fuck with them as they : feed off their misery and don’t normally kill unless they are that bored : or hungry. It’s unclear if they share their Japanese brethren’s tendency : to infect others to reproduce. : You thought this level was easy? Well it kind of is, maybe moreso than the : older versions. This was only the first map: : https://youtu.be/VxnGQkIatN8?list=PLSIc_ImBpiJDQaQ-PgJJK42WQzFi8_8N5&t=15 : Act 2: The Dead Live In The Catacombs : I snatch up all the fusion ammo I can and draw my rifle. Guilty Spark : contacts me soon after. : : : “Drictelt ‘06” : The hallway has skitters waiting for me and it’s very dark. Nightmares lurk : around the corner as do banshees. When the skitters die, they dissolve : into a bloody mess and are twisted apart by raw entropy with a chilling : roar like the wind in a cave is alive but dying in agony. : : Past the north door behind the nightmares is a lovely underground courtyard : with waterfalls. : : How were those made? I don’t see any visible linedefs. Were they textures on : lines that can only be seen in Weland or are they actual objects? I think : it’s the former when I look at the map in Weland. The north door has a : pair of skitters behind it. A flooded passage leads to a broken door and : the other door’s locked. I go east into another flooded area that’s also : flooded with Kamalas. : : The button at the end opens the left bulkhead where I meet a nightmare and a : bunch of skitters. : : The blue crystalline metallic tiles and glass panels would be great for a : swimming pool map. Another button barely opens the bulkhead you can see. I : can’t crouch (yet) so there’s no way under there. Damage Incorporated : source code would come in handy assuming it still exists. I head northwest : to a third button that opens the other bulkhead. It takes me through an : infested passage of lovely turquoise tiles to the first bulkhead. Some : more flooded catacombs full of monsters later I come to a stairwell up to : a large water tank. : : This looks strikingly similar to the transponder square waaay back on the : Marathon in chapter 1. Unlike on the Marathon, this one is much easier. : The guardian’s terminal is in the opposite corner diagonally to me. : : It’s the Dreamcast logo! I’m more familiar with the red logo but I’ve seen : the blue one too. : : The door next to the terminal jams when I try to open it. I jump off a ledge : through the door just down from this one in the square tank room where I : find a pattern buffer. The passage loops back to the start but I go all : the way west and drop into a dark room with a lift and locked door, where : I find the artifact the guardian mentioned up some dark stairs. : From there, a long winding blue flooded passageway loops back to the now : unlocked doors in the north room of the waterfall courtyard. : : Act 3: These Caves Can’t Be A Natural Formation : Someone built them. So they must lead somewhere. : I start on a mountain in the valley overlooking a tall structure with fusion : turrets as the sea in the sky foams overhead. : : A billion skitters come up the mountain pass as I descend. The portable Halo : fires too slow to be effective here so I switch to the fusion rifle after : a couple of shots. Inside the structure is a shield terminal, 2 pattern : buffers, an oxygen terminal and a Comm terminal inside a small door : between the save points where 343 Guilty Spark is waiting. : : : A word of warning: all the kamalas respawn constantly as the W’rkncacnter is : just dreaming up more, just like their PID counterparts. Do not try to get : 100% kills and just run if you’re overwhelmed. Use the Wave Motion Cannon : if there’s a large group blocking the way you need to go. The 2 small : towers on either side of the entrance steps are lifts with a button in the : bridge up top. The button opens the northeast entrance to Spark’s data : centre. 2 of the 3 doors down here are locked so I take the second : elevator up. : : This canyon isn’t too tough but the nightmares are hard to hit so be prepared : to use the wave motion cannon. Just hit every switch to raise the rocks on : the left and use the shield terminal at the end if you have to. : : That’s not actually a bridge, but a fish ladder. Except the highest pool here : is just as empty as the bottom so what’s the point? They may look like koi : fish but the nightmares can fly and they aren’t the intended inhabitants : of this world anyway. I like the giant taps though. Ahead is a room with : giant cylindrical tape decks and a school of nightmares I promptly wreak : the nerves of with my Big Fucking Gun 7777. The turrets don’t even get a : shot in. The button unlocks both of the data centre doors back where I : came from. : There’s an elevator in the corner that serves as the southwest entrance. I : return along the veranda to the other entrance and deal with the kamalas : that were released. The west door has a 4 way function with pretty cyan or : light turquoise lights that are going haywire. The east door heads through : a power room of some kind whose switches open 2 of the junction doors but : alert a nightmare. : The buttons open the exit into another junction and one of its doors. Past : that is a tall machine of glass tubes and lights that can only be the : Monitor’s primary databanks. : : I feed him the chip and take the long way back to the terminal as the : entrance lift doesn’t work after it lowers. : : : Wait, WHAT? Is this how the Jjaro’s original biological form was wiped out? : While you might be able to see it coming, I think this Dyson Sphere has : the exact same weapon as the Halo Array, except it doesn’t need 7 of : them to do the job. More on that later. For now, we go on to what is both : one of the best and one of the worst levels in the chapter and possibly : even the whole game. : Act 4: Deep in the Grotto : 4th Level: Tools, Swords, Keys to Superweapons. : : X1 refuel =x3 : “drictelt ‘07” : 3 plus arrow pointing at sector 496 : “21 gloei 22 bank 23 zealwater 24 bankwater 25 bank 26 bankwater : 27 bankwater 28-29-30 bank 31-32 bankwater 33 bank : Aaron 2018.11.24” : This map is one of the best because it plays my favourite song in the game : next to Rushing: A remix of Leela combined with Covenant Dance from Halo. : I consider this Marcus’s theme and by extension one of my own. This is the : only time this song plays and that makes it stand out. There’s also nice : caves and lots of cool air duct exploring to reach the switches you need : to push. Why is it one of the worst levels too? KAMALAS ARE FUCKING : EVERYWHERE! They can ambush you at the save and shield terminals on the : upper gantry inside so these ones aren’t safe. The kamalas outnumber me : greatly and they JUST. KEEP. COMING. It’s hard to avoid them too. You can : only run. : Worse, the fusion turrets patrol the air ducts to help you out but they can’t : seem to tell that banshees aren’t solid creatures so their attempts to : kill them end up flying straight through and hitting you instead. There’s : next to no room in the vents to dodge comfortably either. It was worse in : older versions where fusion shots did nothing to banshees so the turrets : were completely useless against them. : Now I run down a cave to my immediate left for something I’ve been looking : forward to all chapter. : : Yes, both Dark Energy Swords at long last! I wish I could use these and the : portable Halo in other mods as well, though there’s no plans to add the : latter to Marathon 1 Redux despite it being a cut M1 weapon to begin with. : It’s likely due to it requiring either balancing the ammo unfairly or nerf : the weapon as the Wave Motion Cannon is that overpowered, so people may : not use anything else especially on Total Carnage. It doesn’t have the BFG : 9000’s invisible tracers but it doesn’t need them. : Marathon’s combat has always been about playing rock paper scissors with : certain enemy types and keeping a favourite gun for general use only E.g. : flamethrower for weak enemies whose weapons you can’t scavenge or get : enough ammo for anyway like fighters, fusion pistol for S’pht, stalkers, : drones and hunters, explosives when things get hairy and the rocket : launcher for even tougher enemies and juggernaut tanks only. : : : Thunder, Thunder! THUNDER! THUNDERCATS HOOOOO! : : OK, I’m done milking that. : : Here’s the library’s main entrance. The terminal is the same as the other one : and I can’t remember if the door is locked or not. Don’t expect clear : directions through the caves as I’m just as lost as you are. Some of the : vent grills are blocked off until you hit certain switches. I’m able to : find an open duct hatch somewhere up some rocks to the south and I come in : next to a low wall on my left. Even the vents are sealed by Hathor. : I come to a basement room on the east end and I hop through some side ducts : to a big blue vault. I turn off one switch and activate another one, : opening the exit and flooding the room as the central atrium is flooded : itself. : : Make the atrium your rally point as there’s a shield terminal through the : hatch behind me as well as those things. It may be tricky getting out : though. Up the stairs from the shield charger I find the exit terminal but : a forcefield blocks me and pushes me out. : : This is Hathor’s final resting place. If I am to reach her, I need to hit : every switch in the side rooms I can. This means saving, fighting my way : to the vents, trying to find an exit vent I haven’t been to yet and push : the buttons inside. I’ve been having less trouble with this Chapter than I : normally do but I’ll spare you any deaths on my way to the remaining : databanks. I return to the room I was in but save my game in the opposite : side duct then jump down instead of continuing to the vault. 4 more : switches get flicked and the room flooded. : Is all this water liquid cooling or is it leaking in from the creek outside : and the floods are destroying the databanks? : A locked hatch I found earlier to the west end of the ducts is now open. I : come out in a dark room with Kamalas trying vainly to get in through the : sealed exit. A switch in an east room opens the doors to another button, : but the door next to it jams. : I go through the other doors in the main room to reach it. The button by the : exit floods the place when it opens but the current makes it impossible to : use the shield charger. So use it first if you are low on shields or : actually hurt as you won’t be able to when the water comes. : It’s possible to glitch through the forcefield guarding Hathor but I don’t : know how it does it. It feels like cheating. Further south in the west air : vents is an already flooded room. The switch is in the middle. : As I traverse the vents looking for the next duct exit, a note on nightmares. : At least in the original Eternal X, on Normal and lower they were normal : green nightmares. On Major Damage, they were all replaced with Greater : Nightmares, which as you’ll remember from my Pathways into Darkness Tour : of Duty are blue, have armour impenetrable to everything except Jjaro : weapons & possibly explosives and firing tracking shots. On Total : Carnage you get grey nightmares, which function like normal ones but they : are tougher and fire faster. I don’t know how those differences are : conveyed in Eternal X Omega 1.2, if they are there at all, given that this : version has Kamala nightmares instead of Ayakashi ones. : On the lower east side, I find an empty dark vault that banshees will quickly : flood. I can’t flood it with water as there’s no way switch that does : that. I have to hit the only up the small lift opposite the air vent : anyway. : Further north in the east ventilation ducts is another vault whose buttons I : push the open doors and flood the place. Then it’s back in the air ducts : for the final databanks in the north of the library. The western one has : cramped cyan tile tunnels. I also had opened the main door beforehand as a : shortcut. : : Oh! What’s this? This wasn’t here before. Yes, Liacrow/Shining Raven added : this new part of the grotto caves to 1.2 as an extra. It’s a deep hot : spring with mulitple active camo armour abilities in it. : : Marathon vets and Vidmasters already know this but picking up more than 1 : shadow chip makes you more transparent and less likely to be seen. This : never happened nearly as often as it could have been useful in the main : trilogy, giving the impression that it was next to useless. I say “next : to” because if it was dark, you wouldn’t be seen unless you got close but : in more brightly lit areas, you may as well not have it. : Guess I’m too used to Halo and Halo 2’s ones. : I find an interesting glitch that was preventing me leaving: : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MDwKzH4ez8&t=1286s : Trade the waterfall transparency glitch this room has in 1.1 for this one. : Finally the forcefield is deactivated and I confront Hathor for the final : time, taking the 2 Dark Energy Swords I find. : : : : : *Wham!* The Kill Your Television terminal in Marathon 2 was not just a : reference to a book nobody’s heard of: Hathor is the woman in the story : and I am the 1000 name man. : Speaking of what Hathor tells us and what she says next, Hathor also seems to : be like Tex from Red vs Blue: no matter what she does, she always fails : just before she can achieve victory. : This may even have something to do with the fact she died back on Tau Ceti IV : but was somehow revived as essentially an AI, so not even a cyborg : anymore. It hits even harder as her original human self, KAP’s (who is : still alive and well in this timeline, thank Solaris) middle name is the : short form of the name of Dr Leonard Church’s wife, his memory of whom Tex : is based on. : : What was the point of that battle back then in the garden? It wasn’t the : garden of Eden (assuming that Eden and Genesis were the same garden) but : were Hathor and I Adam & Eve in a past life? : : The Jjaro Dyson sphere is exactly like the Halo Rings. While it’s purpose and : appearance double as the Shield Worlds from the same games, its main : weapon is also identical. It doesn’t just kill the W’rkncacnter and its : ayakashi & kamalas, it kills everything. Human, Kaminari/Reshep Cat, : Pfhor, whatever. It’s designed to wipe the galaxy clean of ALL sentient : life. You don’t believe her? Ask the monitor. This Dyson sphere has the : power of all 7 Halo rings. So it appears. If it only has a maximum range : of 25000 lightyears and there’s others, no-one’s saying this time. : : : I do trust you, KAP. She has a plan: in the distant past, there’s a solution. : A way to stop the W’rkncacnter and prevent Hathor becoming the flames of : disaster without firing the Jjaro Halo planet: we use the ship’s Trih Xeem : device and fire at the then, waking W’rkncacnter’s core before it gets : strong enough to defend itself from such an attack. : With that, I take Hathor with me and we travel through time for what may be : the last time. Tune in next time for our mission done by Viking Boy Billy : in Chapter 5 Stage 2: Full Circle, followed by its Lost Episode : counterpart. Don’t miss it!
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