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Tour of Duty: Carroll Street Station
Posted By: MartinDate: 4/13/14 11:48 p.m.

Last time on Tour of Duty, we had a dream, that some day the whole world would be lava, or darkness, that invisible opponents would awaken, and that those otherwise devoid of colour would rise up in ambush, at the most inconvenient of moments. We didn’t really like that dream, and went to great lengths, climbed to great heights, and leapt with great faith, to escape. To escape.

But what escape is this? We already knew we had failed. And what better way to rub it in our faces than to bring us back here ... oh yes we recognise this place, it was from an old dream. Another time, another time. What better way? (You had to ask.) Oh! Now there’s no air! It’s the end of the world, and someone forgot to bring the air. Time to write an angrily-worded letter ... except there is no time....

The men in black suits have changed into Hunters in green at this station. Everything is as we remember it, but this time the SPNKR and Assault Rifle and all that ammo can’t be put to use, and we have much less time to go around grabbing it. The lack of air really does add to the end of the world atmosphere – one certainly does not feel fine.

It is odd that we had to go to so much trouble to get to this failed ending – wouldn’t have said no to something more reward-like! But hey, we’re not in it for the glory or rewards! We’re trying to save the world here, so every clue about what went wrong is valuable. Unfortunately the only clue here stands behind a room full of Hunters and a Juggernaught. Not sure if he respawns – not sure I can hold my breath long enough to find out. Okay well just now he hadn’t respawned by the time I ran out of O2. I guess they could only spare one seeing as we destroyed so many on that armour platform this time around.

We might as well check the map, seeing as PS went to the trouble :)

but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Seeing as these levels were reduced from the full product, one has to wonder why they left so much in especially on this occasion; there’s barely time to clear the first room and check out.

I do my usual, sneaking off into the corridor with shotgun ammo and towards the 2x recharge canister. At least this time we don’t have to repeat the gauntlet run if we die at the start! I check for that lonely S’pht’Kr but he seems to be missing; what’s his deal anyway? Is he just a dream?

The shotguns do nicely for the Hunters and the Jugg, and it really is nice that that door closes so quick.... aarghhhh. Okay *ahem* apparently I can still manage to die to Jugg bombs even so. Well at least there’s no worry of suicide as there was with the SPNKR in the same situation. The door is also useful protection from the Juggsplosion ... just in case. If only there had been a door in the end room on Sol!

And with that, we’re free to recharge our health and read up.

Ooh green text, Samurai login text, and that symbol we saw on Ne Cede Malis, the one that seems to suggest a merging of Durandal and Thoth, but clearly once again it wasn’t enough. D was on the case quite early in the piece, and must have figured out a way to do the merge, but not in time? Or just they still couldn’t stop the Pfhor with their trih xeem? Or just it was never their job to begin with! And there’s that image of two daleks shooting each other across a matrix code void ... which I take to be Thoth and Durandal reaching out to each other ... reaching much like those hands from the prologue screen.

The Volunteers had this terminal as being from another S’pht elder/ancient, but I’ve just decided I quite like the idea of this being Thoth’s take on things just after the merger with Durandal, his reaction to being active once more but suddenly having to take it all in, the utter chaos at world’s end. K’lia, which became the home of the Eleventh Clan and was lost, returned only to be once again lost, and so are the engineers. The Thoth of this timeline sees what is coming, and that there can be no more balance – or perhaps that he need no longer be concerned with it, and feels free.

The Thoth that operates outside of time calls us back to task – what is our task? Ahh yes we’re supposed to save the world. But nothing much seems to change regardless of our role: we explore S’pht ruins at length, Durandal dies and comes back, we activate Thoth but he and Durandal don’t merge, Thoth calls the S’pht’Kr with our help, and all seems well, but apparently the trih xeem is launched; we work with Tycho, Durandal’s humans fail to activate Thoth but Durandal manages to have K’lia come back anyway, while Tycho threatens to launch the trih xeem; we wake up earlier, wipe out Juggernaughts, while Durandal gets a fast start on working with Thoth, and I think they merge, but too late. So it seems we have a bit of freedom ... again if I turn to Mark Levin, the common line so far has been Durandal’s victory as a trigger, even when we thought he was dead. So how about standing in the way of his victory?

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Replies:

Tour of Duty: Carroll Street StationMartin 4/13/14 11:48 p.m.
     Re: Tour of Duty: Carroll Street StationHokuto 4/14/14 3:27 a.m.
     Re: Tour of Duty: Carroll Street StationPerseusSpartacus 4/14/14 6:08 a.m.
           Re: Tour of Duty: Carroll Street StationMartin 4/14/14 10:42 a.m.

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