[An4ximandros]

 Something about Universal Truth has stuck with me ever since playing it. Something I could not describe. Until now.

 I've come to realize something: Universal Truth felt like a grasp at knowledge that I could never have. If I were to interpret the mission, then the Great Darkness would be the impossibility of learning everything. This is referenced by the Marathon ending:

Personal Log, Noemi Laporte

 Seven hundred and sixty one armless and legless corpses float inconspicuously around the inside of hangar ninety six.  I say that they are inconspicuous because it is their arms and legs which demand my attention.  I did this, or I could have stopped it.  Which is it?  It doesn't matter now.  I did this and could have stopped it, but nothing in nature ever follows a gaussian curve.  Sure, they'll tell you that it does.  They say that every five minutes someone dies in a car accident, but how often are there seven hundred and sixty one armless and legless in one hangar?

 Recommendation: You should cut your arms and legs off in order to pass this mission.

The lack of sense or logic in this ending makes it chilling.

 The void of detail and the fact Ken does not want you to think about it reinforces my wish to think about it, thus making it stay in my mind. In fact, my greatest fear while playing post-void section was the chance that the Darkness would chase me again. When the Vishnans chased me, all I cared about was the Darkness. When Ken revealed to me what became of Capella, all I cared about was the Darkness. When I reached the end choice I immediately accepted Ken's offer. Not once did I think about staying for fear it would lead to the Darkness finding me. I seek constantly to rationalize it, yet every time I make a theory, I find a flaw, the walls shatter and the beast gets in my mind again. For a long time I lacked the capacity to understand the concept, then I realized that was the point; it was to force me to think about it, to give into a basic human desire for information. The Darkness is a worm, it borrows into your mind the moment you learn of it and stays there forever.

 Additionally, there's the Shivan Nodes. Once I try to learn their raison d'être, they close me out; denying a fill to a gap I've had since the first time I played FreeSpace, again.

 In conclusion, the Darkness & Universal Truth is a great example of how to do a horror story without gorn. Also, whoever decided to use eye4.png there, **** you. I Don't mean it, by the way.

[rubixcube]

Yes, gorn are very overused, there not even that scary 

[Darius]

Goooorrnnn

[-Sara-]

Should totally have that RAAAAWR scream of the Darkness happen inside Noemi's imagination on a regular combat mission, when she has to make haste to get somewhere in a straight line, in act 4. That'd psyche a lot of people to not look back and GO. Add some cruiser with "oh god, engines failing, Laporte turn around and protect us" to that and the player is put to the test.

[Crybertrance]

Should totally have that RAAAAWR scream of the Darkness happen inside Noemi's imagination on a regular combat mission, when she has to make haste to get somewhere in a straight line, in act 4. That'd psyche a lot of people to not look back and GO. Add some cruiser with "oh god, engines failing, Laporte turn around and protect us" to that and the player is put to the test.

You monster! That is so bad... 

[Doko]

hahaha that would be awesome!

[Kolgena]

I agree that the psychological horror of the darkness (and especially the madness segment) were well done. However, the first time through, I thought that looking back was harmless because glancing to rear didn't kill me. On replay, I wanted to explore that ship/hulk/thing a bit more, and I was in for quite the surprise when I physically turned the fighter around.

[perihelion]

Yeah, I've kind of wondered about that.  Is the fact that we are allowed to "look" behind us and suffer no consequences deliberate, a limitation of the engine, or an "oops?"

[General Battuta]

How exactly are you looking?

[BritishShivans]

i know man

how the hell are you doing this

[General Battuta]

Well any method that moves the player's look vector from the ship's forward vector should work, as the mission isn't checking that. But with your view locked internally I'm curious how that's done aside from TrackIR.

[Shivan Hunter]

Isn't there a command to do that (not TrackIR- this is from FS1 IIRC)? brb I'll test

[EDIT] Couldn't find it in FS1 or FS2 - but I know there were directional commands where you could look, say, left of the forward vector. A red dot would be placed where the center of the screen would be if you were looking forward, and if the key was let go, the camera would rotate back to the forward vector (not snap back instantly). Anyone else remember what I mean?

[-Norbert-]

Sure thing, that's mapped to the joysticks coolie hat by default, but that's also deactivated in that place.

[Kolgena]

Look left, right, up, rear are four mappable commands in Misc, I think, and they worked fine last time I played in that mission. If it matters at all, I have middle click mapped to view rear, since it's probably the most valuable look command, ever, in my experience.

 In fact, it was almost comical how I could watch it slowly emerge from subspace and watch the edge of that small tube thing collide with my fighter. Are you supposed to fit nicely down the tube and see tendrils approach from the edges of your vision, or are you actually supposed to get hit?

[redsniper]

... For a long time I lacked the capacity to understand the concept, then I realized that was the point...

Yeah man, that's what "acatalepsy" is all about. Metastatic ontovoric acatalepsy event. Something that's spreading and eating literally everything by being incomprehensible.

[-Norbert-]

Yep, that sentence is a good example of incomprehensibility

[perihelion]

How exactly are you looking?

I have look up, left, right, and behind mapped to the hat on my joystick.  They still work in that mission, all the time.  I take it they weren't supposed to?

[qwadtep]

Yeah, my hat always worked fine.

[An4ximandros]

 redsniper's comment isn't wrong, it is unbound beneath eternity.

 As an aside, why didn't Samuel Bei have to go through anything like what Laporte does in the Nagari Network? Did the Vishnans protect/guide/blind/etc. him?

[General Battuta]

There is no way for FRED to detect or forbid these joystick inputs, as far as I know. I actually had no idea they existed, not playing with a stick myself. Maybe a scripting based solution can prevent them.