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Rubicon Volunteers-Honk if You're an Underpaid... | ||
Posted By: Steve Levinson | Date: 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:
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:
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.
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... Architecture | Tru7h | 5/28/02 4:34 p.m. | |
Re: Honk if You're an Underpaid... Architecture | Steve Levinson | 5/28/02 6:57 p.m. | |
Re: Rubicon Volunteers-Honk if You're an Underpaid | Steve Levinson | 5/29/02 7:42 a.m. | |
Re: Rubicon Volunteers-Honk if You're an Underpaid | C Lund | 5/31/02 2:57 a.m. | |
Re: Rubicon Volunteers-Honk if You're an Underpaid | Steve Levinson | 6/28/02 11:43 a.m. | |
Re: Rubicon Volunteers-Honk if You're an Underpaid | Agent Cletus | 6/28/02 8:33 p.m. | |
Re: Rubicon Volunteers-Honk if You're an Underpaid | Sean | 9/19/02 6:48 p.m. |
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