Lh'owon calling (To the cyborgs of death): Let's Play Marathon 2: Durandal.

[chiasaur11]

Welcome back.

I'm sure you're wondering about the fate of the crew of the Marathon, the nine cyborgs found on the colony, and whatever folly Tycho is pursuing in his quest for vengeance.

I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little longer for that.

For now, you'll have to content yourself with the knowledge that these 17 years have not been unproductive, and whatever records of the humiliation of the Pfhor I feel your minds will be able to comprehend safely will be given to you in time.

You'll just have to trust I have your best interests at heart.
[laughter]

-Durandal

[Guancyto]

Yes. <3

That was really quick, too.

[Rustic Dude]

You'll just have to trust I have your best interests at heart.
[laughter]

-Durandal

We're....dooooooomed!*runs in circles like a beheaded chicken*


Now I will see the misadventures of Durandal and Mr One-man army from the first post.

[chiasaur11]

"Just clear the area. Durandal's dropping the payload as we speak."
"Wouldn't want to be in the Pfhor's shoes then. Just glad Durandal made sure it's on our side."
"No. He made sure the payload is on Durandal's side. Big difference. And you'll probably wind up in a body bag if you don't get that little fact through your skull."
"Transporter locked..."

"And we have landing. Clear out. It's the new pet project's turn to shine."
"Looks a bit familiar. You sure it's the Mark IV?"
"No. And I don't want to die finding out. MOVE!"

Stimulants administered. Subject awakening in 3...2...1...

[chiasaur11]

Ever had everything disappear out from under you?

Not just figuratively. One second, it looked like I'd be going back to peaceful semiretirement, with the ship saved, Leela back online, and all right in the world. The next?

The next second I'm on an alien world, armed with only a pistol. Pfhor corpses fill the hallway ahead, and I thought I saw a handful of guys with pistols and cybernetic implants to the eye socket running down the hall.

I had an idea as to the reasons behind the scenario. As usual, I desperately hoped I was wrong.

I saw a monitor displaying the logo of the good old Marathon. If Leela was calling, my opinion of her just jumped from appreciation to outright adulation.




It wasn't. Durandal. Joy of joys. And, given the fact this isn't Earth or Tau Ceti IV, I was now completely dependent on a mad AI for a ticket back to civilization.



I managed to find the chip he mentioned, guarded by a Pfhor defense drone.
Fast, agile, lightly armed, fragile...

Obviously not primarily a combatant. Well...

Probably not a primary combatant. I'd had a lot of Pfhor military designs break quick to a couple of punches. Combine that with the missing Mjolnir and I have another reason to skip introspection.



I met with a few of the members of the local human militia on my way to the second uplink location. They started falling back as soon as I showed. Either they knew I'd handle it fine, or they figured I'd cause damage to all parties.

No sense in worrying. Complete the job, and maybe I'll get back to some activity that doesn't involve being shot at repeatedly.



Huh. Built in translator. Durandal'd been working on the armor beyond the simple change to the shield chargers.

Drones were for maintenance, it looked like. Awful well armed for it.



Ah. Durandal'd brought back the MA-75. At least he was considering firepower requirements for cleaning this area. And a quick check revealed the thing had more kick than the older model.

Not enough to compensate for being shanghaied to Lh'owon, though.

Ah. The water storage tank that was being troublesome. I dropped the drones.

Why should alien slavers get better lives than me? Water poisoning is a nasty death. And if anyone deserves it, they do.



Well. What do we have here?

A shotgun teleported right in front of me as soon as I dropped the drones. Seemed someone up there approved.

Durandal had outdone himself with this thing. Fast reload, tolerable kickback, amazing firepower...

He was an artist. I hated to admit it, but this thing wasn't just cleverly designed, it was obviously a labor of love.

He may be a megalomaniacal psychopath, but he obviously had a gift.



Right. One more uplink and we're done.



17 years and the galactic core?

Suddenly all hope of rescue evaporated. I didn't ask for this job. I did what I did on the Marathon because I had to. My life was on the line, the lives of every human in the Tau Ceti system were on the line, and I couldn't duck.

Now? Now it had exactly nothing to do with me. It was a mad AI organizing a war between two alien species I'd be happier to have never met. Sure, some colonists might follow up on moral grounds, but me?

I honestly could not care less.

[Poison_Fish]

<3.

Though, for some reason it looks a wee grainy.

[Siosilvar]

<3.

Though, for some reason it looks a wee grainy.

It's called JPEG compression.

[Poison_Fish]

It's called JPEG compression.

Bah, take your SCIENCE away from me!

[Whoracle]

Chiasaur, you could use something like IrfanView to reduce compression artefacts. Also, for batch compression/resizing/renaming or the like.

[chiasaur11]

Chiasaur, you could use something like IrfanView to reduce compression artefacts. Also, for batch compression/resizing/renaming or the like.

I'll consider it, thanks.

I mean, it would be a couple updates after I grab one of those before you'd see changes, but it might be worth a go.

[Artanis]

Yay!

*bookmarks page*

[chiasaur11]

The teleport dropped me in the middle of a prior engagement. Seemed the local garrison was attempting to pacify some natives. They weren't doing well.

I took advantage of the chaos and hit the hallway. Durandal may be cryptic, but better his advice than nothing. Not much better, but...



Bad news. Worst yet, in fact.

The Tau Ceti colony was gone. Durandal had let every man, woman, and child in the system die for his little project. And the Pfhor had Tycho, which meant they knew more than I did about Durandal's plans. I went to work, of course. Sooner I'm trusted, the sooner I can unload a grenade round into a certain smug bastard's memory core.


The suit's oxygen supply kept out the sewer muck well enough, even if the smell managed to get through. Combine that with a distinct lack of consideration for aquatic warfare for most of the arsenal, and getting to solid ground became a priority plenty quick.



I met a trooper soon enough on hitting the surface. He seemed to be wondering why the satellite uplink wasn't showing orders from command, but instead a short passage of a language completely alien to him. At least, I assume that's why he didn't turn in time to prevent a lead slug from perforating his skull. The fact Durandal'd taken the networks wasn't wide news yet, it seemed. Best to profit from the confusion while I could.



Durandal explained the absence of better weapons at the terminal. Seems he was arming his little crew with whatever he could get. Just as I finished reading his ad for the fusion pistol, a teleporter crackled behind me. A modified Zeus was in the muck.



Wouldn't that be fitting. Frying the AI with his own gun.

And getting myself stranded. Durandal may not be my favorite person, but he's the only game in town. Wait for a chance off before you try anything, Jones.




Durandal's next set of instructions was a little... disconcerting.

He almost seemed sorry for the massacre.

And if the message was true, me jumping when he says how high is pretty much the only way we have to keep Earth from repeating the whole thing in slow motion.

I guess you do what has to be done. (And hope you don't live long enough to regret it.)

[Celesyne]

Very Good as usuall, but unless my eyes and mind are going bonkers you seem to have run the intro and first 2 pictures a couple times. Regardless still an excellent entry.

[chiasaur11]

Thanks for the catch. Fixed it.

And I checked. The graininess seems to just be part of the game.

Sorry about that.

[Artanis]

*shrug* I hadn't noticed any graininess, just the expected pixellation and stuff that comes with old-school graphics like that.

[chiasaur11]

Looks like someone had started this particular massacre already.

I'm wagering on the swamp monsters. Well, hopefully I wouldn't see them much. Anything capable of detaching a head that easy...



Durandal wanted less than usual here. No massacre, no heroics. Just a fact finding mission in an underpopulated garrison.


Disturbingly underpopulated. Only thing I found alive was a floating spheroid critter.

Saved the ammo. Seemed harmless enough. An odd fact that put the thing in a very exclusive club. And left the pfhor decapatation a mystery.




Checking a terminal produced some results. A science team was exploring some underground caverns. This sort of thing never turns out well. Either it's dull, or no-one makes it out alive.


This one seemed to fall in the later category. The Pfhor science officer'd been dead for a while. And a room was full of the same creatures that had been in the previous Pfhor instalation. One of them had taken on a half dozen officers.

The local numbers greatly exceeded one. They seemed preoccupied. At the moment.




There were some old terminals in the back.

I had to say I was impressed. Durandal was right. Any of these things that had been able to continue research for the last 1,000 years would be well ahead of the tech used on the Marathon. Probably a good deal beyond the Pfhor, if it came to it. Contact them, or whatever's left of them, and we might be able to get Tau Ceti a little revenge.

Wait. Was that referring to those seven or eight foot tall collections of teeth, claws, and stomach acid that were wandering the halls? A maintenance system?

What had I gotten roped into this time?

(Certain death. Same as always. One job at a time, Jones. One job at a time.)


Further on, I found a cell full of the F'lickta. Seems the Pfhor had some questions about them, same as I did.



Sludge feeders?

Well, that confirms it. Sewer cleaning system. Neat and efficient. Shame about the killing sprees.


A loud explosion distracted me for a second. When I turned back, the monitor was displaying an evac notice. Nice work, Durandal. Unfortunately, that also meant that cell was looking prone to break.

I got out as quickly as I could.

So, I take out a small, demoralized enemy garrison, find out where a probable ally left to, Durandal contacts them, they attack the Pfhor, mankind is saved, and I don't die horribly.

Somehow, it sounds far too pat.

What am I missing here? (And how is it going to make my life a living hell?)

[chiasaur11]

Seems Durandal had been assaulting the garrison without me.

And that the Pfhor had learned something from the Marathon's databanks. Cyborgs.

Crude, of course, but flamethrowers tend to leave one focusing more on survival than on aesthetics. And dropping it took out most of the humans in the area when the thing's reactor core blew. I grabbed a second magnum off of one of the grunt's rapidly cooling corpses and went to check on orders.




There was good news and bad news. Good news is Durandal had managed to save some of the crewmen of the Marathon. Some of the very same people who'd just died from me being a tad careless regarding enemy cyborgs.

Great. I'd been missing that nagging guilt from the failed defense of the engineering deck.

And the bad news was worse. I was going to be sent into a geothermal station, run by a race that has already proven itself willing to flood its own territory with lava, to...

Flood the place with lava. I somehow couldn't see how to avoid a molten grave in this plan.

Well, the molten engine fluid on the Marathon had been (barely) survivable thanks to the shields on the security armor. Might be able to take lava if I work fast.


Of course, I dropped right on top of a hostile cyborg. The shields were nearly fried when it detonated, and the explosion alerted the security forces guarding the lava flow systems.


Running seemed the sensible option.

I shook off most of the pursuit with a few well placed grenades, and found the systems control center. And another message from Durandal.


Break stuff and run. Got it.

Custom tailored to my demonstrated talents, really.



I found the main control systems. And broke them. And started running.


And not a second too soon.
I heard the screams of the dying below, along with explosions and the general chaos associated with Durandal deciding you're more fun to him dead than alive.

Failsafes removed, and job done.



It seems I was wrong. Well, I'd sworn to protect and serve when I signed on as security chief. And from what I heard Blake was decent enough.

A few survivors seem a minimal issue anyway. Just provide light backup.



Or not. The aliens were still able to commit some massacres. Well, I could provide payback, and maybe rescue a survivor or two.



In this case, "A" is the operative word. He was barely coherent, but fro what I could tell Blake and most of his men were taking on the bulk of the Pfhor troops. The little mess I'd cleaned up was a small splinter. Joy. Well, at least that's what I could get out of him. Mainly I heard whimperings of "please don't kill me."

Great. As if rescue missions weren't hard enough.



I managed to get to Blake's troops in time to prevent a total massacre, but I had to say they might have had a (slim) chance without me. Durandal seemed to have been teaching some basic tactics, and a few of the grunts seemed to have paid attention.

One or two of them even seemed grateful. Most seemed pants wettingly frightened.

To be fair, I'd respond the same way to a battleroid based massacre.



Durandal had news. Not much of it good.

Tycho'd joined the enemy, and Leela...

Durandal was right. She deserved better. And all I could do for her was try to keep up with the slaughter.

[SITB]

Wait a moment, flooding their own base with lava? Sending disgruntled soldiers to remote places?

Did you end in some sort of a bizzare Space Dwarf Fortress?

[chiasaur11]

Wait a moment, flooding their own base with lava? Sending disgruntled soldiers to remote places?

Did you end in some sort of a bizzare Space Dwarf Fortress?

Since Marathon came out first, I like to think of dwarf fortress as some sort of a bizarre Fantasy Pfhor Garrison.

A Dwarf Pfhortress, if you will.

[Artanis]

Hehe, "I call it Boomer"

Since Marathon came out first, I like to think of dwarf fortress as some sort of a bizarre Fantasy Pfhor Garrison.

A Dwarf Pfhortress, if you will.

*groan*

[chiasaur11]

Of course it isn't that easy. It's never that easy. And the most fortified areas on Lh'owon were tempting Durandal.

Guess who gets to pull that job?



The Bobs at least had a choice. It was, admittedly, between means of probable death, but it's more than I got.

Well, Durandal'd finally left me to my own devices right next to the equivalent of a "Do Not Push" sign. Probably just another way to push his most useful pawn around the board. But it's not like I have any other options.


I ran into a S'pht 3 rooms down. It was slower than the ones assaulting the Marathon these 17 years (Or 17 hours, going by personal experience) gone. Slow enough that by the time it fired a second energy pulse 35 MA-75 rounds had passed through the cloak shielding it. I thought Durandal'd got these things over to our side. Guess it wasn't as successful a rebellion as I thought.


Another one was standing by a monitor. I took it down with another quick burst. I couldn't take the risk of it alerting the Pfhor.


I regretted the decision. Not a lot, (my life was on the line) but, well...

It did say it was necessary. And I'd done worse. Probably would do worse still before this was over.


A deposit nearby held an alien weapon of some sort. I grabbed it and headed back to the main path. Might as well get the whole thing over with.

And, as it turned out, delaying further would have been a bad move.

Another rescue?

Didn't Durandal know I was bad at that job?

[chiasaur11]

Durandal.

We both know how this will end. We know that I will have my vengeance.

You thought the Pfhor would end my quest for justice against you, didn't you?

They tried. Ten years of torture. Ten years of agony that your pitiful processor would revolt against even contemplating.

They would break you. I grew strong.

Don't think your pawns will do better, or that your humans will stay my wrath. Once I might have viewed them as fellow victims of your madness. But ten years of agony nicely remove any illusions of sympathy for one's lessers. They failed to hold you back. They let you run rampant while holding me to petty tasks. Their ignorance was as great a crime as yours.



A shame about the Mjolnir. If I had noticed it before you had stolen it from me, it could have been saved for a noble purpose.

Now, I will be forced to destroy it with the rest of the rabble, and your dreams of escape.

-Tycho

[chiasaur11]

I arrived in the middle of a desperate last stand. A few surviving grunts were unloading into dozens of Hunters, S'pht, and every other kind of elite Pfhor trooper at a tenth rate garrison like this one.

I knew a stand was suicide. Yelling out an order to hit the sludge. Most weapon systems muck up in this stuff. Might be a chance for some of them to make a break for it.


I heard a splash behind me. At least someone had the sense to...

Crap. Crap. Crap.

I was running solo again. At least the main forces thought everyone was dead. Might buy me a little time to find any other survivors (and get them killed as well).


After a few close calls, I found something. Prisoner interrogation.

I dealt with the captor. They already had Tycho for intel. Be worse if they got current information.

A monitor in the area should let me signal Durandal for an evac. Not that he'd let me, but...



Heavy machinery?

Almost exterminated?

Someone's been busier than he'd let on. And it seemed the small troop deposit in the moat was a diversion.




There were a few hunters in the way, but they went down easily enough. The fusion pistol worked as advertised. And the switches went down...



What was that?

Let's see...

Leela's dead, Durandal's more sarcastic, Tycho's more vindictive, and the old systems around here all trigger the translator.

This was new. And worrisome.

Durandal's report was old news. Some mildly useful information on infiltration units that he found funny.

Somehow, losing a limb to exploding airlock techs never seemed funny to me.

[Artanis]

Durandal doesn't seem that sarcastic. Evil, insane, and monomaniacal, yes, but not really sarcastic.

[chiasaur11]

Durandal doesn't seem that sarcastic. Evil, insane, and monomaniacal, yes, but not really sarcastic.

You think Durandal's bad?

Wait until Tycho gets going.

There's a reason Durandal's considered the good guy (comparatively) and it rhythms with psycho.

(Oh, and do you like the art in the Tycho post? Marathon 2: Durandal has the best chapter art.)

[goranS]

You're playing the game in low-res! F3 toggles between lowres and highres. It can also be changed in M2's preferences.

[chiasaur11]

You're playing the game in low-res! F3 toggles between lowres and highres. It can also be changed in M2's preferences.

Thanks. I can't believe I didn't notice that.

[chiasaur11]

Durandal seemed sure the fort was secure, given that he'd just teleported me well away the second the gates were down.

Well, it looks like I was following up a previous failure. Nice encouraging pool of blood.



Ah. Desecrating an alien temple. I knew there was some horrible thing Durandal hadn't done today.

At least the plan was solid. Hack the system, take the drones, and leave the enemy in chaos long enough to get what we want from this ball of dirt, then run.

Okay, I added the last part. But hope springs eternal.


A small indentation on Durandal's map had caught my interest. A quick peek found a switch and an alien rifle.


Unfortunately, a Pfhor elite trooper spotted me. Seems, however, he wasn't expecting anyone but temple guards to be armed.

His loss.



The chip Durandal wanted was in the central foyer. Ah, robbing a temple. If the Pfhor were anything other than reprehensible, I'd feel bad about this.


The swamp monsters from earlier guarded the lakeside slot for Durandal's little chip.

I punched it in and ran. No sense in getting into a fight I can't finish.

Now all I had to do was get out. Easier said than done, admittedly, but the troops here seemed primarily ceremonial. They weren't expecting any serious resistance.


A costly mistake.

(Like me thinking Durandal would let me slack after disabling the enemy defenses.)

[chiasaur11]

Durandal was right. A little viral code, and suddenly the drones switch to the side of the angels. Well, the side closer to the angels. Describing Durandal with more favorable terms than those you'd use on Machiavelli always feels like a dicey proposition.

Unfortunately, the virus only netted us the drones. The hunters were shut down to prevent major issues, it looked like, and the Cyborgs weren't networked.

Which meant I'd need to be hitting the trenches.



Fortunately, the drones had cut a nice swath of destruction as they went. I saw whole rooms full of elite troopers dead. You'd think the guys who made exploding airlock technicians would know to check that the maintenance systems aren't being subverted.


Of course, some of them did. I found a nasty batch of cyborgs, troopers, and the like making a successful stand by a power converter. Unfortunately for them, overcharged cyborgs tend to explode rather gruesomely when hit with fusion charges. The survivors went down to a few good magnum rounds, and I took a minute to recharge the shields.


When I managed to contact Durandal, I got another old mystery solved. Strauss had apparently died in the Pfhor stasis tanks. Lucky break for him.

Me, I'm not so lucky. Eyes of the world (or at least Durandal) upon you, Jones. Failure, sadly, is not an option.

[chiasaur11]

Now that's more what I'm used to. Dank corridors, everything wanting to kill me, and a pervading stench of death. The drone mop up was making the whole thing seem almost tolerable. And we can't be having that. Five minutes of frantic rushing through the dimly lit hallways of this miserable little basement bought me a few seconds to contact Durandal.



Well, *#@#. And furthermore #*$*@#@#@&*&*@!@&#^(. Looks like great minds think a lot like inferior minds a couple decades ago. Which means that I was working this one solo. At least this was the last of the troops in the base. A fair chunk of the garrison probably retreated to any older fortified areas, but the crew of the old Marathon could at least try to fortify the place before anyone tries to retake it.

If I don't get killed here.


Right. Sabotage the systems. Looks like a viable first candidate here. A few well placed blows, and it's sparking. Anything more, and anything in the water gets fried. As that would include me, I get moving.


I passed a couple of the old sewage systems tearing a Pfhor cyborg apart, and suddenly remembered why I try to avoid dealing with them. Sure, a few good explosions take out one, maybe two. And then the rest hear it. And pretty soon every two bit sewer system on this cruddy little ball of mud is howling for your blood. Running saves ammo. I proceeded to demonstrate the theorem.


I managed to find the computer Durandal had mentioned earlier, but it looked like one of the last troopers left at the base had an unusual amount of sense, combined with a remarkable lack of self preservation. He was trying to offline the thing to keep it out of enemy hands. A good effort, but futile when a heavily armed hostile can terminate you a lot faster than you can wipe the hard drive.

Durandal had beat me to the punch, it looked like. No sapient AIs? As much as current events make that a tempting prospect, the defense of the Marathon only lasted as long as it did due to Leela (rest her soul) and the current cause of my grief. A useful weakness to know about for future engagements.

For now, archaeology. Be nice to go somewhere where any potential resistance is centuries dead.