FreeSpace Releases > Mission & Campaign Releases
[RELEASE] Reunion Act 2
CT27:
Before I post my thoughts on the story I have a question about some things which might clear some things up:
Spoiler: Maybe I misunderstood, but what were Admiral Togo's actual orders regarding Olympus? Was it directly to destroy it or merely to 'secure' it? That would make a difference between outright disobeying orders or merely misinterpreting them...or interpreting them very liberally.
Plus, if you get the "SOC ending" I mentioned, the SOC craft that rescue you don't seem bothered by what Togo tried to do and they supported your efforts. They seem more upset by the Vasudan admiral. If Togo was committing treason/disobeying orders then I would think even some Terrans would be against what he tried to do but it seemed in the "Olympus" or "SOC" endings all Terrans present supported him. Whereas if he was truly going rogue like the Vasudan admiral said more Terrans would be against him.
However, if this stuff is discussed in Act 3 and you don't want to spoil it right now, you can tell me that and that's fine. I'll try to post my story thoughts sometime next week.
Voelkel:
--- Quote from: CT27 on May 18, 2022, 06:56:03 pm ---Before I post my thoughts on the story I have a question about some things which might clear some things up:
Spoiler: Maybe I misunderstood, but what were Admiral Togo's actual orders regarding Olympus? Was it directly to destroy it or merely to 'secure' it? That would make a difference between outright disobeying orders or merely misinterpreting them...or interpreting them very liberally.
Plus, if you get the "SOC ending" I mentioned, the SOC craft that rescue you don't seem bothered by what Togo tried to do and they supported your efforts. They seem more upset by the Vasudan admiral. If Togo was committing treason/disobeying orders then I would think even some Terrans would be against what he tried to do but it seemed in the "Olympus" or "SOC" endings all Terrans present supported him. Whereas if he was truly going rogue like the Vasudan admiral said more Terrans would be against him.
However, if this stuff is discussed in Act 3 and you don't want to spoil it right now, you can tell me that and that's fine. I'll try to post my story thoughts sometime next week.
--- End quote ---
Well,
Spoiler:in the SOC ending, it is detailed that Togo wasn't actually acting alone, he had supporters within the Security Council and Terran representatives of the General Assembly. The same is detailed in a more propagandistic manner in the Vasudan ending.
I planned to explain this split in a more transparent manner in Act 3, but it is unlikely that it will ever be made, so this is the deal:
Many influential Vasudan politicians fear that the reunion of the human species would cause friction between the Vasudan and Terran species, eventually leading to a split between the alliance. This is the reason why they try to actively sabotage efforts to return to Sol.
Influential Terran politicians in the meantime secretly order Togo's task force to explore the other side of the DS gate. They do this secretly to avoid a PR disaster if the mission goes wrong. Togo was just following orders, he did this despite the risks it involved because of his belief in the reunion of the Terran species.
This general distrust and the active acts of sabotage on both sides eventually leads to the collapse of the GTVA anyway, the outcome both sides with to avoid. This would be (would have been?) the theme of Act 3.
Iain Baker:
I planned to explain this split in a more transparent manner in Act 3, but it is unlikely that it will ever be made, so this is the deal:
That's a shame. How come? Do you still want to work on improving the writing, and fixing the typos and grammar mistakes. If so, let me know?
CT27:
That's disappointing to hear. I was really looking forward to Act 3.
Do you think we could get a plot dump at least to show what would have happened in the story of Act 3?
Will we ever find out
Spoiler:1-What really happened to Sol? It looked like in the "Olympus" ending that Sol was destroyed. But I remember some speculation that the coordinates for the Olympus Knossos were off and it was actually some other region of space.
2-What were those macguffins the SOC was hauling around for a while? We never really found out how they were vital for the future of civilization. What did they do?
On the note of what you posted in the spoilers, I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the Vasudans in the ending (I share the sentiments that were mentioned earlier in the thread):
Spoiler: The Vasudan ending comes off as paranoid at best and villainous at worst IMO. They seem to slaughter civilians for no reason at all and randomly shout 'anti-Alliance cabal' at lots of turns. At first the Vasudans seemed better and there were shades of grey in that it could be bad to open another Shivan invasion point and that it should be closed...but after that they came off as the bad guys.
Did the Vasudans not think the Knossos technology would ever be used? It seemed that way after a while. Funding isolationist rebels and sabotaging/killing Terrans...I can see why Terrans would be very upset at this situation. I think Inferno handled this a little better: the Vasudans thought it was a waste of money to return to Earth and didn't fund the Terran effort but they at least stayed out of the way and didn't try to stop things.
In general I think the Terran desire to return to Earth was a reasonable one and I don't think it was bad on Togo's part to want to recon the other side before they destroyed Olympus.
That was some of my thoughts on the story (the end part at least) of Reunion Act 2. I said earlier I would say my general thoughts so here are some thoughts I had on the earlier parts:
Spoiler:This isn't meant to be a major critique, but I just had a slightly different opinion than some of the other posters. I wasn't crazy about the smaller scale pirate stuff at the beginning for the first few missions. I was thinking that a major invasion just happened so we should have some big stuff happening right away.
I also wasn't crazy about Zach the character nor did I miss him when you had to kill him. It seemed like there was going to be some character drama...Zach the blue collar guy vs. that rich kid. The rich guy never seemed like a major problem though...Zach was the annoying and rude one.
Voelkel:
--- Quote from: Iain Baker on June 27, 2022, 11:19:20 am ---That's a shame. How come?
--- End quote ---
Life. Can't complain, it's mostly good things, but I won't have time to work on FRED-ding for a while.
--- Quote from: Iain Baker on June 27, 2022, 11:19:20 am ---Do you still want to work on improving the writing, and fixing the typos and grammar mistakes. If so, let me know?
--- End quote ---
Your help has been extremely valuable to me, Iain during the development of this mod. I'll make sure to reach out to you if I continue my work.
For now, I'll probably churn out a final update for Act 2, which will contain some of the balance fixes the community recommended, then I'll disappear for a while. Maybe I'll come back in a few years, Freespace 2 has been one of my all-time favourite games and I tend to pick it up again every 3-4 years.
--- Quote from: CT27 on June 27, 2022, 07:07:25 pm ---Do you think we could get a plot dump at least to show what would have happened in the story of Act 3?
--- End quote ---
Maybe, I'll try to find time to do a writeup.
--- Quote from: CT27 on June 27, 2022, 07:07:25 pm ---Will we ever find out
Spoiler:1-What really happened to Sol? It looked like in the "Olympus" ending that Sol was destroyed. But I remember some speculation that the coordinates for the Olympus Knossos were off and it was actually some other region of space.
--- End quote ---
Spoiler:Sol got destroyed by the Shivans while trying to develop experimental subspace technology to reunite with the GTA. Humanity however, survived, one of the possible endings of Act 3 would have been actually reuniting with them.
--- Quote from: CT27 on June 27, 2022, 07:07:25 pm ---2-What were those macguffins the SOC was hauling around for a while? We never really found out how they were vital for the future of civilization. What did they do?[/spoiler]
--- End quote ---
Spoiler:They were ancient artefacts used for developing the Delta Serpentis gate (Olympus) and possibly other jump gates in the future.
--- Quote from: CT27 on June 27, 2022, 07:07:25 pm ---On the note of what you posted in the spoilers, I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the Vasudans in the ending (I share the sentiments that were mentioned earlier in the thread):
Spoiler: The Vasudan ending comes off as paranoid at best and villainous at worst IMO. They seem to slaughter civilians for no reason at all and randomly shout 'anti-Alliance cabal' at lots of turns. At first the Vasudans seemed better and there were shades of grey in that it could be bad to open another Shivan invasion point and that it should be closed...but after that they came off as the bad guys.
Did the Vasudans not think the Knossos technology would ever be used? It seemed that way after a while. Funding isolationist rebels and sabotaging/killing Terrans...I can see why Terrans would be very upset at this situation. I think Inferno handled this a little better: the Vasudans thought it was a waste of money to return to Earth and didn't fund the Terran effort but they at least stayed out of the way and didn't try to stop things.
In general I think the Terran desire to return to Earth was a reasonable one and I don't think it was bad on Togo's part to want to recon the other side before they destroyed Olympus.
That was some of my thoughts on the story (the end part at least) of Reunion Act 2. I said earlier I would say my general thoughts so here are some thoughts I had on the earlier parts:
Spoiler:This isn't meant to be a major critique, but I just had a slightly different opinion than some of the other posters. I wasn't crazy about the smaller scale pirate stuff at the beginning for the first few missions. I was thinking that a major invasion just happened so we should have some big stuff happening right away.
I also wasn't crazy about Zach the character nor did I miss him when you had to kill him. It seemed like there was going to be some character drama...Zach the blue collar guy vs. that rich kid. The rich guy never seemed like a major problem though...Zach was the annoying and rude one.
--- End quote ---
Thank you for the feedback regarding the story! :)
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