Some random thoughts on Blue Planet, that most literary of FS2 campaigns. (Disclosure: I'm not on the dev team in any capacity except as a voice acting coordinator.) The intentionality I ascribe here is to the text, not to Darius -- I don't necessarily think he thought of all this, but nonetheless the text presents it.
I always thought it was interesting how the allied capital ships in Blue Planet served as a proxy family to Sam.
The Orestes is angular, authoritative, and -- for most of the campaign's narrative -- quite distant. In this way it echoes Sam's relationship with his father. The Orestes plays a very paternal role. Sam's desperate sacrifice and rush to save the Orestes and his own father are, I think, Sam's way of telling his dad that he has the ability to save something he cares about.
The Temeraire is more feminine in its hull design, and it spends a great portion of the campaign close to Sam, actively helping and advising him. It's the ship that I imagine most BP players feel is their home-away-from-home. Although the Orestes is larger and stronger, the Temeraire is more welcoming and somehow more protective. Sam, in turn, protects the Temeraire time and again, each time recalling and reliving his past failings with regard to his own mother. The dead mother and the ship are very much linked, and the player's meant to feel that.
It's an interesting note that the Temeraire comes charging to the Orestes' side when the Sathanas threatens the male ship. It's a nice twist on the usual gender roles. Throughout 'Universal Truth' the two vessels act as partners.
The Sanctuary? The most alien of the ships, yes, but also the one closest to Sam. After all, it has Eriana on board. Sam finds it in the mist, a ship full of people who should be dead. It's clear what this beautiful old relic is meant to represent -- reclamation of the love Sam lost. (And it's no surprise that the next mission requires Sam to bring the Temeraire and Sanctuary together, reuniting his dead mother and his dead wife -- followed shortly thereafter by a harrowing passage in which he must protect both of them from the very Shivans that once killed them.)
As for Sam's two wingmates, they display an easy platonic affection for their commander, much like the bond between siblings. I don't think this point needs much developing. Mina Taylor's a younger-sister type, whereas Corey's attitude is more like the bookish older brother.
The family metaphor explains a lot about Blue Planet. There's a certain warmth and informality about the Sol Expeditionary Force in Blue Planet. On the one hand, it's completely explicable by the circumstances the group is under: a small cadre of elite officers and crew cut off from their homes. Military discipline is maintained, and the command briefings are delivered with the same cool detachment we'd expect from Petrarch.
But it's also easy to see an unusual kind of affection pervading Blue Planet, something not present in most FS2 campaigns. Wingmen express a little more emotion than usual. Imminent death is met with desperate bravado; rescues are met with gratitude. Reunions are celebrated. The atmosphere is subtly more familial than that of, say, Inferno, or ST:R, or the Procyon Insurgency. And it does make a difference to the player's emotional response.
Blue Planet is, overtly, a family saga -- the tale of the Beis and their special destiny. But that saga isn't present merely in the superficial narrative. It's reflected in the tools of FS2 storytelling, the great ships and their actions. When the end comes, and the Expeditionary Force family finds itself betrayed by the GTVA, it's no surprise that most of the family decides to stay together.
Which leaves me curious -- did the Temeraire and Orestes both defect? Or have the two metaphorical parents been torn apart again? The end of Blue Planet saw Sam reunited with his love (literally, in Eriana, and metaphorically in the Sanctuary), his father (the Orestes) and his mother (the Temeraire.) Did Journey's End break that unity?
I guess we'll have to wait and find out.
