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	Rubicon Volunteers - Core Wars
	Posted By: Steve Levinson	Date: 8/8/02 4:18 p.m.
	First there is the drum roll, Then the horns, Then the strings. And then “A long time a go in a galaxy far, far away . . .” OK, maybe I’m getting a little carried away here. You’d think that the Rubicon team could have been a little more original with the name of this level, but it certainly is descriptive. As you may recall from way, way back in the last regular level, iwannavacuum, we retrieved the data chip that contains the formula for the Achilles virus, taking it away from the Pfhor and saving humanity from a horrible end. Or did we? In Revenge of the Lysol Lady, the Jjaro gave us the opportunity to choose between equal fates. If we chose to go back, we ended up in the Pfhor Plank and the formula for the virus ended up in Durandal’s hands, so to speak. If we continued forward, Durandal got the chip as well. In Rozinante XI, I speculated that the knowledge of Achilles could not be uninvented and that Durandal would never give up the power associated with having that knowledge. Now that we’re trying to destroy the evil AI, Lysander, he attempts to distract us by playing on these doubts: Fixated, are we? Your determination to save a race of retarded monkeys sickens me. Day in and day out I am surrounded by the filthy "elite" of humanity. . . Not one of them understands what is truly going on . . .Only the chosen few . . . and even they . . . haven't an inkling of my plans for the virus. It doesn’t sound like he particularly cares for humanity, does it? And it doesn’t sound like he believes that the Dangi Board of Directors should be spared, either. There is a reason why finding a cure for this virus has been so difficult. Allow me to let you in on a little secret: I designed the RNA structure for Achilles letter by letter, and my work was flawless. There is no cure. There never will be. Once humanity discovers Achilles C15, it'll be too late. Why are all AIs so arrogant? We know already that there is an effective cure for Achilles – it’s just not practical as it can’t be applied widely in an epidemic. In the end, we know from our experience in the Pfhor Plank that while a wide-spread cure isn’t found, a vaccine is ultimately developed. Don't think you've won just because Dangi is beaten. . . Whether I live or die makes no difference. Achilles will be released with or without my supervision. The galaxy will be cleansed of the rot of humanity. Sounds like self-preservation to me. Hey, you don’t need to kill me - you’re as good as dead anyway. Lysander may hate humanity, but he’s not an android. He needs humans, at least for now, to do his bidding for him just as Durandal needs you – you are his hands. Of course, if anything this makes us even more determined to finish him off, so he needs to make us doubt Durandal: You certainly are tenacious . . . I know you have retrieved the data . . . I know you gave it to your puppetmaster, Durandal. But what do you think he is going to do with it? . . . Possessing information . . . is the same as being able to destroy mankind. Is Durandal going to give up that kind of power? . . . What would you do if someone put a weapon with enough firepower to wipe out entire stellar clusters in your hands? Would you lock it safely away in a closet? Or would you give it a spin when nobody was looking? And how many times have some of us used the following argument: Information does not go away. The knowledge of Achilles must be burning in Durandal's mind . . . What will Durandal do with Achilles? Nothing? Makes no difference what he does. "Information wants to be free." Kind of scary, isn’t it? No matter what we do, Achilles is a fact. Maybe we should rethink what we’re doing. Let Durandal and Lysander duke it out on their own. Maybe both will be destroyed in the process and with them, the Achilles virus. But the knowledge is still there, in the minds of the Dangi scientists. Someday, someone will put it back together. And as much as we may doubt Durandal, would he really use Achilles against humanity? Durandal may be a bit unstable and he certainly didn’t rush to humanity’s side when he was chasing after Tycho, but would her really go to the trouble of trying to wipe out humanity? Well, that to me is the key, here. Durandal did not lift a finger to help humanity in the Pfhor Plank, and he’s not likely to lift a finger to wipe humanity out of the galaxy either. He simply has more important persuits than using Achilles on humankind. I don’t doubt that he would use it for blackmail if he ever had a need to, and I don’t doubt that he would actively use it to extract revenge if humanity ever came after him, but otherwise he is most likely to just keep it in his “back pocket” as his ace in the hole for the future. I may not have complete confidence in Durandal, but I know I can’t trust Lysander. And his next statement proves the point: "oh help me I am broken you must do something to fix me blah blah blah..." Sound familiar? Charlie was doing just fine until you inserted those core dump override chips I gave you. . . Do you feel remorse for his destruction, my little marionette? His little marionette? Doesn’t that remark remind you of an AI who used to refer to you has his little monkey or his little flea? So we learn the truth – we really helped Lysander to kill Charlie, allowing him to take complete control of the Salinger. But wait – there’s a potential plot flaw here. Remember, there are multiple ways the player can reach this level, only one of which involves Blasted Vent Cores. Did the Rubicon Team miss this one, or are we to presume that we may have switched time lines along the way, but that in the Salinger Plank, the marine always passes through Blasted and Gators? This is an interesting level to play. Everyone is against you, and there are a ton of enemies to fight. Maser Bob's are all over the place and they can strip your shields faster than you can say, “Frog Blast . . ." There are also maser turrets that are just as deadly and impossible to take out. This is another one of Chris’ wonderful spiral staircase creations, but there are a lot of side areas to explore as well. There are many secrets, here, with goodies to pick up as outlined in my Rubicon Secrets Guide. The entire point of the level is to get acces to a control room where you can open access to the circuits comprising Lysander’s core. For this (and to make use of that pattern buffer and 2X shield regenerator), you will need to find a chip . . . There’s a rather cryptic terminal in that control room, overlooking his core: Lysander Memory Status Bank Core logic routine test: OK External block logic test: OK Internal block logic test: OK Calix Temporum reverse allocation: OK Internal Recombination: OK System AI Composition- 10 100 1000 10000 100000 10000000 100000000 10 100 1000 10000 100000 10000000 100000000 10 100 1000 10000 100000 10000000 100000000 10 100 1000 10000 100000 10000000 100000000 10 100 1000 10000 100000 10000000 100000000 100000000 10000000 100000 10000 1000 100 10 100000000 10000000 100000 10000 1000 100 10 100000000 10000000 100000 10000 1000 100 10 100000000 10000000 100000 10000 1000 100 10 100000000 10000000 100000 10000 1000 100 10 100000000 10000000 100000 10000 1000 100 10 10 100 1000 10000 10 100 1000 10000 100000 10000000 100000000 100000 10000 1000 100 10 100000000 10000000 100000 10000 1000 100 10 10 100 1000 10000 100000 10000000 100000000 10 100 1 000 10000 100000 10000000 100000000 100000000 10000000 100000 10000 1000 100 10 10 100 1000 10000 100000 10000000 100000000 10 100 1000 10000 100000 10000000 100000000 100000000 10000000 100000 10000 1000 100 10 10 1 00000 10 100 1000 10000 100000 10000000 100000000 10 100 1000 10000 100000 1000 Gees, what’s all that supposed to mean? What are all those numbers. This is far too small to be a core dump. Well, these are sequences of pure binary numbers. This is even cruder than hexidecimal. Notice that it starts with an ascending sequence of the powers of 2: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 128, 256. This is repeated 5 times. Interestingly, the number 64 is left out of the sequence. The sequence then repeats in descending order, five times. Then there is a sort ofjumble of ascending and descending sequences. Do any of the math geniouses out there have any idea if there is a pattern here. I spent days off and on looking at this, which is one of the reasons this post was so delayed. Is there anything I’m missing? Chris, Scott. Can I safely move on and forget about this, or is there something more to look for? Anyway, once you have exposed Lysander’s circuits, you need only fight your way back to his core and destroy the circuits. While avoiding maser turret fire. Fortunately, those turrets will stop shooting at you once you disable Lysander. Then it’s just a matter of getting to almost any terminal. If you go to the one in the control room, you’ll just get verification that Lysander is no longer functioning: Lysander Memory Status Bank Core logic routine test: FAILED External block logic test: FAILED Internal block logic test: FAILED Calix Temporum reverse allocation: FAILED Internal Recombination: FAILED Otherwise, Durandal will tell you: Lysander is no more, but the Salinger is still swarming with Pfhor and human troops loyal to the Dangi Board of Directors. . . Of course, there's still a bit of cleanup to be done... You want to see the traitors come to justice, don't you? . . . So do I. Yeah, sure you do, Durandal. Well, at least you’re helping the good guys. It’s off to The Tar and Feather Club.

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Replies:

	Rubicon Volunteers - Core Wars	Steve Levinson	8/8/02 4:18 p.m.
	Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Core Wars	Scifiteki	8/8/02 4:52 p.m.
	Can't finish level	Agent Shem	8/8/02 5:05 p.m.
	Re: Can't finish level	Steve Levinson	8/8/02 7:23 p.m.
	Re: Can't finish level	goran	8/9/02 3:37 a.m.
	Re: Can't finish level	Agent Shem	8/9/02 6:12 a.m.
	Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Core Wars	Steve Levinson	8/9/02 1:39 p.m.
	Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Core Wars	Scifiteki	8/9/02 10:31 p.m.
	Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Core Wars	Steve Levinson	8/10/02 11:31 a.m.
	Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Core Wars	Steve Levinson	8/10/02 11:57 a.m.
	Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Core Wars	Steve Levinson	1/15/03 8:27 a.m.
	Re: Rubicon Volunteers - Core Wars	Ernie	1/15/03 9:28 a.m.

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