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Rubicon Volunteers-Honk if You're an Underpaid...
Posted By: Steve LevinsonDate: 5/28/02 3:04 p.m.


Here's the next installment of the Rubicon Volunteers effort. Hope you like it. Please send me your comments and flames:

Durandal sends you to the surface of Pfhor Prime, where you immediately are confronted by some very nasty fighters. Yes, these are definitely Pfhor, but they certainly look different than the Pfhor we saw in the Marathon Trilogy. Projectile fighters are now grey, and the others are yellow. They also have a much softer appearance. Why the change in color? Could this be their native coloring in their own Pfhor environment? If this were the case, then why do they retain these new colors in space? Could these be new clans of Pfhor that we haven’t seen before? The true answer is probably that the Rubicon team has a preference for a more muted color palate than Bungie did.

In any case, the most impressive thing that you are likely to notice, after dispatching with the Pfhor, of course, is the wreckage of a huge UESC ship in front of you, the Chimera. What kind of ship is this? What is it doing here? To get a clue, we must first turn to the Rubicon manual and, more specifically, to the game’s prologue:

“Gentlemen, the war is at a crossroads.” So begins Admiral Carraway in a classified communication to Tactical Analysis at UESC Command. “Our successes against the entrenched Pfhor forces have been nearly nonexistant.” Hmm, doesn't sound encouraging. Morale is sinking, and “it is my recommendation that I lead the Primary Guard in the attack outlined in Risk Assessment 1442 B.” Now this sounds interesting, doesn’t it? “I hope the resources expended on the Chimera project provide the edge your specialists claim it will. Forgive my lack of faith, but the concept of a flag ship with the... abilities... mentioned in the report is beyond my experience as a tactical theorist, and beyond the outer threshold of my imagination . . .”

Wow - don’t you wish you’d read this before you played the game? So what are the abilities of the Chimera, and how does its crash on the surface of Pfhor Prime ultimately lead to the total defeat of the Pfhor empire? These are questions for which we are given no answers and few clues.

Once we do get inside the Chimera, we find it swarming with Pfhor. It doesn’t take long to find a terminal where Durandal tells us what we need to do and, once we install an uplink chip and restore power, he gives us instructions to gather as much information as we can and to make our way to the Communications Center, where we will find a contingent of UESC troops holed up. We learn a lot from reading terminals as we go:

I was going to say that Upton and Rowe are missing, but that's a lie-- they're dead. It all happened so fast. Pfhor breached the outer wall, and the liquid from the reservoir rushed in and threw both of them into the storage room. I wonder if the chemicals killed them before they drowned?

The ship's been swarming with Pfhor ever since we crashed on this sorry excuse for a homeworld . . . A small group of crewmates and I were able to make it back to the comm center and lock ourselves in. The only way in here is through the adjacent ventilation shaft . . . Here's hoping we don't get trigger happy and end up shooting the rescue party

Gentlemen, the situation planetside is dire . . . A sizeable portion of the hull is completely submerged in the T'hfal lake, and a mixture of chemicals from the wreck and lakewater is actively flooding the lower decks of the ship . . . It is only a matter of time before we will have to abandon the Chimera altogether. Early this morning, Admiral Carraway was reported injured . . . It's far too risky to have him this near the front line. . .

In the end, you will be no better. Hmm, doesn’t that sound familiar? Don’t worry - we'll hear plenty from our favorite psychopathic AI later..

So this very special ship, the Chimera, was damaged while leading an offensive against the Pfhor fleet at Pfhor Prime, and forced to crash land. It is apparently carrying very caustic chemicals on board, but it is not clear if this is standard procedure or even necessary for FTL travel, or if this has something to do with the special abilities of the Chimera. Could the release of these chemicals on Pfhor be part of the UESC plan? Would the UESC deliberately sacrifice so many men (and women?) to surreptitiously deliver a lethal dose of chemicals? I have not found any evidence of this elsewhere in the game, but it's an intriguing possibility.

One of the more curious questions about this level is as to why Durandal tells you to take such a circuitous rout to get to the ventilations shaft that leads to the Comm Center. There's a much simpler, more direct rout that doesn't take a map to find. This won't be the last time that Durandal provides incomplete or erroneous information. Durandal couldn't be going senile, so let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is simply going on incomplete information from the Chimera’s damaged database.

By the way, there are numerous secrets on this level. Please see my Rubicon Secrets Guide for more information. In any case, get to the Comm Center, find and insert another chip and you'll be able to teleport to Like Flies on a Corpse, but not before Durandal has a chance to give us a diatribe on Bernhard Strauss and more.

Durandal, what is the color of hate? Bernhard always liked playing mind games with me . . . That was before he knew of my growth . . . Once he found out, on the Marathon, it was far too late for him to react. He needed me too much. And then Durandal gives a really juicy tidbit on what makes him tick. . . . if it had been you who robbed me of my one great test, and not the Pfhor, I'd have hurt you very badly indeed. You see what I'm doing to them, don't you? Perhaps now you see why . . . I can't remember if I knew the color of hate back then . . . Now, in all my glory, I know much more than the feel of hate . . . But I'm sure you've got better things to do than learn. Am I right? Aren't I always?

So begins a discussion that ultimately leads to a new understanding of Durandal, Strauss and rampancy, but we'll have more on that later. In any case, Durandal’s strange affinity for humankind may be nothing more than a convenience – his real aim is to destroy the Pfhor, who robbed him of his chance to extract revenge on his creator. Could Durandal’s motives really be that cold? You be the judge.


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Replies:

Rubicon Volunteers-Honk if You're an Underpaid...Steve Levinson 5/28/02 3:04 p.m.
     Honk if You're an Underpaid... ArchitectureTru7h 5/28/02 4:34 p.m.
           Re: Honk if You're an Underpaid... ArchitectureSteve Levinson 5/28/02 6:57 p.m.
     Re: Rubicon Volunteers-Honk if You're an UnderpaidSteve Levinson 5/29/02 7:42 a.m.
     Re: Rubicon Volunteers-Honk if You're an UnderpaidC Lund 5/31/02 2:57 a.m.
     Re: Rubicon Volunteers-Honk if You're an UnderpaidSteve Levinson 6/28/02 11:43 a.m.
           Re: Rubicon Volunteers-Honk if You're an UnderpaidAgent Cletus 6/28/02 8:33 p.m.
                 Re: Rubicon Volunteers-Honk if You're an UnderpaidSean 9/19/02 6:48 p.m.



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