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	Tempus Irae Volunteers - Revealing Science of God
	Posted By: Steve Levinson	Date: 12/5/03 3:23 p.m.
	My apologies, but this is a very long post. Be patient - I will get to the specifics about the level design, but there is so much to explore from a philosophical standpoint and we will start there. The title of this level is from a Yes song, but I think the title has more significance. There are couple of "God-like" issues being pursued here. First of all, there is the information that we just obtained from Repository 7: The Pfhor command mecha is based on the core image of the AI you knew as Tycho; this should not be a surprise, as many of the Pfhor mecha have been based on this image. We find it curious that your kind would be capable of creating a thinker that would be so admired by the slavers, and at the same time be capable of creating Durandal, a thinker having much in common with our (/group-neural-network?). This is an interesting comment and it explains a lot. The S'pht not only feel indebted to Durandal because he freed them, but they feel that he is like one of their own. This concept is a good part of the background for my story Welcome to the Revolution and for Ernie's adaptation The Tale of Seefit. I believe that Durandal was able to gain the trust of the S'pht because he was able to communicate so effectively with them. He understands them, and they seem to understand him. Tycho, on the other hand, was very much an experiment gone bad - an attempt by S'pht to engineer an AI similar to Durandal but to specifications laid out by the Pfhor. But I digress . . . We have made another discovery, however. This particular mecha, on board the K'alima, is based on two core images that have been metastasized. The second core image is that of yourself. Your core pattern has been stored in Pfhor pattern buffers since the attack on the Marathon, where you came aboard their ship to destroy the tool of our enslavement, the Pfhor atrocity, the hybrid (/master?). At some point, a Pfhor scientist must have recognized your pattern for what it was, and then put it to use. This is a very interesting and original concept. I'm not sure that I buy it, as Durandal clearly indicated at the start of M2 that the pattern buffers on Lh'owon and by inference, on Pfhor ships were used to transmit your pattern up to his ship. In this sense they were passive devices and hopefully shouldn't have harbored a lingering pattern, but then this does not explain how you were able to use pattern buffers after Durandal was destroyed. My own interpretation is that both your cybernetic implants and the S'pht and Pfhor pattern buffers are Jjaro in origin and that they facilitate in some way a link between you and your future memories, allowing you to avoid the mistakes that resulted in your death. But it's quite possible that your pattern or thoughts would be passed through these pattern buffers and, hence, perhaps the Pfhor could reconstruct your own intelligence and use to to build a new AI. Frankly, from everything we've seen about Pfhor science, I'm not sure they could achieve anything so bold - unless they were helped by their enslaved S'pht. This is truly the science of God. We believe that the command mecha aboard the K'alima was pursuing you individually when we activated the modified drives aboard this ship. Examining some fragments of high-level command protocol logs from the K'alima, we have reason to believe that this Tycho-Marine command mecha forged several verifications in order to pursue you. What we do not understand is how that command mecha knew that we would bring you aboard the Sh'aptide. This enemy has a dangerous (/intuition?). And hence we now know how it is that the Pfhor have been able to anticipate our every move, as has been alluded to in numerous terminals. It is you, or rather an AI based on You, that is driving the Pfhor and that seems to be seeking you out specifically. The second revealing science of God comes from the first terminal on the level itself. After some of Leonardo's rambling about 1499 and the war with the French, he reveals something of S'bhuth's attempts to communicate with him in Italian, in his dreams: Often when I dream of this figure, I find that my own mind must struggle to encompass what the figure is attempting to communicate -- as if a vast number of tiny, very logical voices speak in consort, and harmony, and out of that consort, rises joy, anger, fear... ...but in this dream, it was the figure's mind that seemed to struggle to encompass my way of thinking. My logical conclusions, my discoveries, my workbooks arise out of my passion for nature, and work... I saw myself reflected in the shadow, but backwards. I no longer fear this grey figure; I only wish I knew what manner of spirit or... or thing it is. I find this passage fascinating. The S'pht more than likely have no means of verbal communication. If they had one in the past, there would certainly be no need for one in the present since they can communicate their thoughts directly almost in a sort of Borg-like collective consciousness. So S'bhuth cannot communicate with Leonardo through verbal communication and must find another way, and one that is not threatening. He chooses to do so in Leonardo's dreams, at a time when he is perhaps more susceptible to direct thought transmission. And it is a two-way process - S'bhuth is learning about Leonardo, reading his thoughts and coming to understand his system of logic, which must seem incredibly simplistic compared to his own. Initially he simply reflects Leonardo's thoughts back to him, like a mirror. The level itself is fairly intricate with many areas to explore. One minor gripe is that there is a secret right at the beginning that is easy to miss until it's too late. I really have a problem with secrets that can be lost due to limited availability. It's incredibly frustrating to realize that you forgot to try for it after you've saved your game. I really like, however, the way this level evolves bit by bit. It starts out as a seemingly simple structure, but one that becomes more and more interesting as section after section is revealed by your actions. First there is just a simple castle, but then there is an outdoor area with a Jugger and some nice ammo and a 3X power-up that the player will probably want to leave until the end. Then there is a second outdoor area with a waterfall that you can walk across. You'll come back here a lot, and this time you won't likely miss the stairway that is built in to the brick wall. Then there are some more passageways and then a 3rd outdoor area with a MOAH to play with. And then you open up a new series of passageways that finally reveals something of the true scope of the level. The one gripe is that you must backtrack - a lot - and there are areas that must be traversed over and over again. You eventually come to a room with a checkerboard floor and an entrance to yet another outdoor area with parapets and another castle across the way. After some intense battles, you find you can drop down into yet a fifth outdoor area, fight some friends and walk through a waterfall to a hall of drones. From here you take an elevator that leads to the room with the manuscript. An underground passageway returns you to an earlier part of the level, where you can now make your way to a parapet where you will find the exit teleporter. But wait, there is a second parapet to your right (the one with the enforcer) that can be reached with a simple rocket launch (aim down, run backwards and then fire off two rockets in quick succession. This leads to a room with a secret terminal: Con lei foss'io da che si parte il sole, E non ci vedess'altri che le stelle, Sol una notte, e mai non fosse l'alba, E non se transformasse in verde selva Per uscirmi di braccia, come il giorno Ch'Apollo la seguia qua giú per terra! Ma io sarò sotterra in secca selva, E 'l giorno andra pien di minute stelle, Prima ch'a si dolce alba arrivi il sole. To be with her when the sun fades, To be seen by none but the stars For one night, never to greet the dawn, She never transformed into green wood To flee my arms, as happened the day That Apollo harried her across the Earth! But I shall be under the earth, And the day will be filled with tiny stars Before such a sweet dawn shall arrive. Rather fanciful - anyone here know italian well enough to tell us if the English is a faithful translation of the Italian? Overall, this is a very fun level to play. The spoiler guide has some interesting information on the construction of the map. This is the only solo map in the scenario with regenerating ammo. The Nardo team felt that the difficulty was such that a play could easily run out of ammo or health. I didn't come even close to this problem, so for me the regenerating ammo and power-ups seems superfluous - not that I would forgo picking them up. I'll be loosing all that ammo soon enough, anyway.

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Replies:

	Tempus Irae Volunteers - Revealing Science of God	Steve Levinson	12/5/03 3:23 p.m.
	Re: Tempus Irae Volunteers - Revealing Science of	Mark Levin	12/5/03 5:06 p.m.
	Re: Tempus Irae Volunteers - Revealing Science of	Gholsbane	12/6/03 3:05 a.m.

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