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RELEASE - Fall of Epsilon Pegasi

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Renegade Paladin:
Yeah, and Burke should have gotten cashiered on the spot for Spoiler:calling the admiral, of all people, a moron on open comms during a mission.  Even though it was true.  :P

ShivanSlayer:

--- Quote from: Renegade Paladin on June 14, 2022, 09:53:25 pm ---Yeah, and Burke should have gotten cashiered on the spot for Spoiler:calling the admiral, of all people, a moron on open comms during a mission.  Even though it was true.  :P

--- End quote ---

In the third mission of the vanilla Freespace 2 campaign, Alpha 2 ranted about Command intentionally setting them up to fail (which he wasn't wrong about) on an open com and no word of anything happening to him. I think that outside of plot reasons, only the one designated Alpha 1 gets punished

Vidmaster:

--- Quote from: ShivanSlayer on June 14, 2022, 11:14:01 pm ---In the third mission of the vanilla Freespace 2 campaign, Alpha 2 ranted about Command intentionally setting them up to fail (which he wasn't wrong about) on an open com and no word of anything happening to him.

--- End quote ---

That is actually part of the point I was trying to make. FS2's writing used the few instances of defiance of communication protocol to great effect, like this mission 3 scene after Bosh escaped or the foreshadowing that something is in the nebula and we "need to get the fleet out of here". Since you brought it up, let's analyse mission 3 in greater detail.

We begin by shattering the player's expectations. We are supposed to attack the big ship but it not only seems to be a bit too big for our small wing, it also seems too far away.
Then, we learn that the node should have been blocked, but the line of defense had "to be reprioritized". Finally, Bosh sends a message that we "should question the wisdom" of our leaders.
At this point, our wingman basically bursts out in frustration, voicing out what the player is supposed to experience. We do not understand what is happening and our wingman is pissed.
However, it is absolutely important to stress that both the writers and the voice actor sell the scene, because (A) it never crosses into insulting or childish behavior and (b) it happens after the action, during a moment where nothing happens except that dialog. We reflect on the mission's first minute, aka on the events  of the story thus far and also re-iterate the feeling of Freespace.
The key line here is that "I can live with being a pawn if the game makes sense". Implying that the events we have just witnessed do not make sense (yet).
This mission (one of my favorites from FS2 actually) creates a bit of doubt and uneasyness about the GTVA's leadership, something essential to make the rest of the plot work.
FS2's story has so much hybris and overreach in it, as well as an inevitable catastrophe, but I strongly believe it is this mission that saws the first seed to make it work.

Did I ever mention that I adore FS2's writing? I think FS1 is really generic and weak when it comes to writing but the sequel is just tight and brilliant throughout.

Now, when it comes to consequences for the pilot, we never learn of any. But since FS2 has this whole cog-in-a-machine-feeling, that pilot could have been reprimanded and punished without us learning.
The fact that our wingpeople are mostly name-less characters who may die and be reborn without issue actually helps selling this. In contrast, the issue with Burke in this campaign, aside from choice of words and all the other problems mentioned there, is that he is a named character and we know this is the same moronic pilot over and over who just verbally ****s over his colleagues and superiors during live-of-death situations.

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