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 | Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | |||||||||
| Posted By: Steve Levinson | Date: 7/13/02 3:07 p.m. | ||||||||
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Blasted Vent Cores – the first real level in the Salinger Plank. Usually, I include only snipits of relevant text from the terminals, but I'm going to essentially include everything here. This will make for one very long post and, for that, I apologize in advance. There is a lot of material in the terminals that's worth mining, and I'd like to therefore include it all so that others will have an opportunity to comment on things that I may have missed. Also, unless you know exactly what you're doing, you may not be able to read some of them. Blasted Vent Cores takes place in the UESC sector of the Salinger, a super-secret research station. There are a lot of secrets on this level, so be sure to check out my Rubicon Secrets Guide for more information if you need it. The section of the station you are in in this level is essentially completely overrun by the Pfhor and the UESC AR Bobs who teleport in with you won’t last long on TC. You will soon discover that there are two AI’s here, Charlie, a UESC AI who is responsible for this sector and manages Durandal-like functions (opening doors), and Lysander, a Dangi Corp. AI who’s functions are pretty nebulous at this point, but seem to revolve around Dangi’s research. It also becomes apparent very quickly from his tone and demeanor that Lysander is rampant. Your mission is to collect 4 chips and to insert them into the Salinger’s main data conduit so as to bypass some of Charlie’s damaged functions. What you’re really doing, however, is helping Lysander to take over control of the Salinger and to dispense with Charlie – but you don’t know that yet. Once you insert one of the chips in the appropriate slot, Charlie will be gone and you’ll only be able to communicate with Lysander from then on. One other effect of inserting the chips is that you’ll be activating certain switches and opening certain doors. Although you will need to insert all chips to have full access to the station and to exit the level, there are usually alternative routes available if you experiment with leaving some chips for later – and this is the only way to read one of the secret terminals. Let’s start with Charlie:
This is really a rather profound analysis of what it’s like for an AI to die. But the description is really not all that different than what happens in humans who suffer a major brain injury or stroke. If you ever meet or work with people in this condition, you’ll definitely recognize the analogy being drawn here. I have a feeling that Chris and Scott were unaware of this when they wrote this text. Put in another perspective, when a part of the brain is damaged, the individual doesn’t notice that that section of their brain is missing, but rather it’s as if the function subserved by that section no longer exists. For example, if the visual cortex on one side of the brain is wiped out, the person may be unaware that they are blind on that side, Instead it’s as if that entire side of their visual field (the side opposite the injury) doesn’t exist. In the case of a major stroke, they may even deny the existence of an entire side or the world or of that side of their body. Speak to them from that side and they’ll insist that there is no one there – that the voice they’re hearing is coming from down on high. And they may be completely unable to recognize that there is anything wrong at all. This sounds a lot like what Charlie is experiencing here.
Did you notice the interspersed white and yellow text in Charlie’s messages? Haven’t we seen this before? In the Pfhor Plank? In the dream levels? Coincidence? I think not. Also, notice that the color pattern seems to be totally random. I’ve looked for a pattern and haven’t found one, but this could easily be another puzzle from the Rubicon Team. Scott, Chris, please tell us now if there is no intended pattern here before we waste hours or days on this, but I would like to challenge everyone reading this to see if there is more to the colorations than a random pattern. Next, let’s take a look at the communications from Lysander:
Notice that Lysander uses the same white and yellow text, but that he uses more yellow than white, rather than the reverse for Charlie, and notice that the use of white text is highly ordered. Lysander uses white text consistently for proper names and nothing else except his “I am Lysander” statement. Notice his tone – sound familiar? He’s almost certainly rampant and you can guess that he has his own agenda. He just wants one thing from you – eliminate the Pfhor so he can get back to his work, whatever that may be.
Twice more Lysander will tell you basically the same thing, but with subtle variations:
Notice that Lysander failed to use white text for his own name with one of these. Is this intentional, or is it an oversight by the Rubicon Team? If it’s intentional, what could the significance be? Also notice that he refers directly to Durandal, and it seems that they are in contact with each other. Notice that he doesn’t trust Durandal and seems to be trying to bypass Durandal to go directly to you. Finally, he makes one more reference to Durandal:
There are also a couple of crew log entries to be found that are very enlightening. One of these, from a lab tech, is very easy to find – it is near the point of entry:
The other entry is very hard to get to, and can only be viewed before Lysander takes control of the station. If you do manage to find a way to access it, you’ll read the following, very chilling message from the lead bioagent scientist:
Something really rotten is going on here and, trust me, whether or not you read the last message, Durandal is on the trail. Speaking of which, once you do hand the station over to Lysander, it won’t go unnoticed:
There are some other interesting tidbits to discuss about this level. First of all, there is a sewer system that’s filled with a disgusting brown liquid that looks amazingly similar to the tar that we encountered on Pfhor Prime – but this stuff doesn’t sap your shields. Also, there is a secret terminal that can only be reached if you can get to the end terminal without giving control of the station to Lysander:
Thanks, Scott. That’s a real surprise. Too bad you can’t leave at this point and prevent Lysander from gaining control. Oh well . . . Once you’ve inserted all of the chips, this terminal contains the following message from Durandal:
We’ll get to that one thing in the Gaiters of NY, but first, let’s go find the entrance to the secret level, The White Room. You may have noticed that there is a secret fifth chip slot located near the exit terminal. Inserting a chip here provides access to an enticing circular room that is otherwise inaccessible, and from here you can access The White Room, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Actually, the slot is not so secret – it’s activating it that is the secret. First of all, there are a couple of hidden switches that must be flipped to make it active. Secondly, there is the rather trivial issue of finding that fifth chip. ** Warning ** Warning ** Warning ** Warning ** There is a major bug here. Whatever you do, don’t insert one of the 4 chips that you will collect through normal game play in the fifth chip slot! Don’t insert one of the 4 chips that you will collect through normal game play in the fifth chip slot! And in addition, don’t insert one of the 4 chips that you will collect through normal game play in the fifth chip slot! If you do and you also manage to destroy access to the fifth chip, which is easy to do with a grenade or the fusion rifle, you’ll be trapped and unable to leave the level by any means. Trust me, you don’t want to do this. Oh, By the way, there are some lab rats and mice here. Let me save you some trouble - they are not carrying the secret chip. You could spend hours trying to kill them without blowing them up and they’ll still chug along – I know this from experience! If you could manage to read the exit terminal in that circular room without inserting the chip, you’d get another DTB is for Pansies message, along with a nice poem:
How sweet. In any case, once you do get into the room legitimately, you’ll be whisked away to The White Room after you read the following message:
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| Replies: |
| Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | Steve Levinson | 7/13/02 3:07 p.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | C Lund | 7/14/02 9:11 a.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | Steve Levinson | 7/14/02 10:28 a.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | C Lund | 7/14/02 4:04 p.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | Steve Levinson | 7/14/02 7:56 p.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | Inverted Sock Puppet | 7/14/02 9:14 p.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | Steve Levinson | 7/14/02 9:25 p.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | C Lund | 7/15/02 1:55 a.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | Steve Levinson | 7/15/02 7:57 a.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | C Lund | 7/15/02 1:51 a.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | Steve Levinson | 7/15/02 8:07 a.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | C Lund | 7/15/02 2:20 p.m. |
| Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Blasted Vent Cores | Steve Levinson | 7/15/02 3:17 p.m. |
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I am Lysander. You've repaired enough of the main data conduct for me to take control over the UESC Salinger's systems. I am not assigned nor designed to run the Salinger, but the AI originally assigned to the job, Charlie, has been damaged to the point where he is no longer reliable. I am not familiar with the layout of the Salinger beyond the DANGI sector, so I hope you will be patient with me. The first task at hand is to run the pfhor off the Salinger so the repairs can be started. The UESC troopers are doing a fair job of it. Hopefully, Charlie can be brought back on line at a later time so I can return to my regular duties. /-Lysander.out
The work on project #ref deleted is continuing at a feverish pace. Since last week, when it was announced that lab techs would no longer be doing data analysis, our productivity has doubled. We're now getting upwards of six tests done per day. It's strange, though. It isn't just that we aren't required to record the results anymore, it's that we aren't allowed to. Nobody understands why they did this, but then, none of us ever really knew what this was all about in the first place.
