Part 41: The End of ATOM

The End of ATOM

Welcome back! Last time on ATOM we voted to join the Death Gang and... look, I'm sorry. I tried. We'll see how that goes.



: I want to be one of you. A killer, and a barbarian of the modern age.

: [The Red Death smirks]



So you might think we're picking like a gang name that people refer to us as.

: Count Vlad Burnacula.

: Now go towards Peregon, Vlad Burnacula and find there my sister, Galina Bathory. She will tell you what needs to be done, to truly become part of our Gang.

That's our secret party member! Guess what she does. Go on, guess.



No, the mistake was paying money for this game.




Yeah, uh, the game changes your name to Vlad Burnacula.

Anyway, go on and guess at who Galina Bathory is. A fearless Wasteland raider? A witch? Some kind of cyborg? A mushroom powered psionic? The last real communist?



Ok, but she could still be cool, righ -



Yeah, the secret party member is a teenage Vampire the Masquerade LARPer.

: [When some humble dweller of Peregon comes into her line of sight, she quickly flips him off, or shows him her tongue. Even you get flipped off, before the girl spits on the ground and starts talking to you]



Kid, you're sixteen.

: [The girl looks around and gets out a tiny knife, held on a keychain]

: But if I won't like ya, your pretty face is going to be all cut up.





I no longer have patience for this game's dialog.

: Let me guess, Galina Bathory of the Death Gang?

: [Rage is seen in the girl's eyes. She nearly slaps you]

Contempt is seen in the LPer's eyes. He mocks the game's narration.



: Sorry, kid. They told me to use this name.



: Right. Now tell me. What do I need to do, to get into the gang?

: [The girl calms down a bit, and spits someplace near your feet]



: Let it be so. Wait for me here.




I cut the trek from Peregon to Krasnoz and we cutscene kill this old man in a way that doesn't provoke aggro from the city. I want to point out that Fidel does not ONCE object to this, despite being the "moral" party member.



Whatever. Begin the Death March back to Peregon.





: Let's talk about business.



: The deed is done. [Show Roma Death's ear]

: Wow! An ear of our former leader!

: [The girl grabs the piece of flesh out of your hands and hides it seemingly in her bra...]

: I will go bring it to one of the leaders... And you can already go to any goodie-goodie city on the map. We'll be there, wrecking it! What a party that's gonna be!

: [The girl puts her hands to her mouth and yells for everyone to hear]

: Let everyone know! Your order has come to an end! And you have to thank this guy for it!

: [She giggles as she points at you]

: As for me... I'll go with you! And you can do nothing about it! Haha! Let's go...

Unfortunately we have a full party! Is ATOM going to code some kind of party swap met-

: I have tried to understand this plan of yours, amigo... But seems to me, you have no plan. You just want to attack peaceful settlements along with these immature killers and thugs. Amigo... Our ways... They become too different for me to stay with you...

Oh, NOW you object. It's perfectly fine to help the Secret Cartel get rid of their competition or kidnap your own adopted daughter for the sewer mutant I guess.

: Ph... Pff... Even though I, an old man, have a young soul... Younger than most, by the way... ! Attacking peaceful people is not... Like they say... Not my style... I will tell you two words I learned from hippies, those romantics, ugly on the outside, but beautiful on the inside... The words are, "Bye, dude"...

: That's all.


Good fucking riddance. Alright, I have stripped them of any useful equipment. Now, they are still trained and experienced fighters who are literally confronted with an evil man bent on massacring the city that Fidel loves. Fidel will even attack you if you attack Krasnoznamenny. If we talk to Fidel again, what do we think will happen?



He starts begging for his life like a coward. Keep this in mind for later.



Hexogen has moderately more balls.

Whatever!



Galina is probably the closest companion to being actually competent, as she shows up with a whopping 9 dex in a game where all the enemies have 10. Baby steps.



Both she and the player character get this trait. The Wasteland is full of terrible awful people so no one cares.



Our quest log is mangled. Whatever! Let's go into Krasnoznamenny and confront the Mushroom Cult with the aid of our new allies!



Galina is also smart enough to recognize the crafting system sucks shit.



The trading caravans are still willing to trade with us despite us being mass murderers.



So here's how the Death Gang works. You go to a city, a bunch of allied NPCs spawn, and you have to participate in glorious ATOM RPG combat against every single fucking member of the city.



I mean EVERYONE! Igor, the guy who recruited us to the Mushroom Cult by having us spy on Varna Banana is killed at our hands.



Now, the raiders are fucking dumb and will wander off chasing farm animals and shit, while people spout off their normal annoying catchphrases. You might be thinking, "TheGreatEvilKing, you handsome devil, you said ATOM combat fucking sucks and takes too long, doesn't that mean you're trapped in this hell for hours?" Yes and no.



See those sniper towers? The ATOM devs, in their infinite wisdom, decided that you cannot climb ladders in combat. So we have no way to actually get up there and fight the snipers.

We also have a swiftly dwindling supply of drugs, which just cannot keep up with the militia's assault rifles. This is the part of the game where being a Cossack Swordsman kind of falls off hard - we can still one-shot almost everything we get into melee with, but we can't actually soak hits or any of that nonsense because the game is extremely reluctant to give you any tools to interact with combat at all.



This happens. It happens a lot.



We also kill Zombie Lenin, who is part of a quest I didn't do.



After a lot of reloads and murder we make it to the second half of the city.



Having ordered my party members to avoid combat I beeline toward the Cult headquarters. RIP Zhanna, I'll never forget that time you banged Bear in a bathroom because you liked books.



It turns out lockpicking is a combat action which costs 2 AP. It almost justifies the RNG, but then I remember that the ATOM crew does have code to detect combat and you never need to lockpick in combat anyway. This also triggers a massive fuck you from the ATOM devs which we'll see in a second.



Who's ready for the final dungeon?



Yeah! If you force the locks, this sets off a magical bullshit alarm that puts you in a crossfire by 4 mushroom cultists where they all fire on you first. FUCK you for engaging with the game! As far as I can tell, this is due to various speedrunners just forcing the door open with lockpicking to skip all the bunker shit, even though the writing makes it very clear the cultists just want to get rid of you.



So it seems our options are either to deal with this or slaughter everyone in the dock area of Krasnoznamenny.



We go about doing that but I begin to run low on drugs because uh there are a lot of NPCs with guns.



We do terrify this stripper who runs off screaming. Of course the devs made a pole dance animation and relied on narration for everything else lmao.



At this point I just give up. I'm sorry. I tried the Death Gang. The people of ATOM deserve it, but I'm not save-scumming my way through this five hour long hell fight when we have 2 more save-scum filled fights to go



Oh, FUCK you.



Alright, let's reload. No Death Gang and no Vampire LARPers. It's just us and the usual gang of fuckups and it's time to go confront the Mushroom Cult once and for all.



So the reason we went through all that dumb bullshit with Ariadna was so we could get the door codes - randomly generated at the start of each game - to the two doors in a location we could access as soon as we reached Otradnoye.



The Mushroom Cult has left us explosives because holy shit are we going to need them in just a few minutes. These next two fights are absolute hell on a swordsman like Bear.



But first, it's time for glorious



I just want to point out that I'm pretty sure this changes based on if you're a guy or girl - remember, ladies worth with Artyom - but they lazily left the text as "Mushroom Member" even though we know her name is Ariadna.

: Dios mio! This gathering is making me feel very conflicted.

: Oh... if only I could avoid becoming a bone stuck in the collective throat of this possessed crowd of fanatics. This new cult of eunuchs, instead of chopping off their useless, wrinkled genitals, somehow severed their wills and identities! Find the words to calm them down, my child!

I swear it's like reading a play written by a high school who realizes there are three characters also in a room but cannot figure out how to have them talk organically, so he just puts "you three improv here" in the stage directions.



This bit has never been funny.



: Is it just me, or are you really unhappy to see me?



: Think about it. I got them from the people you sent to explore the Wasteland.



Are you ready for the Mushroom Cult's evil plan?

: What "Sacrament" are you talking about?

: The Sacrament of Unity. The moment when humanity must become a single, whole Organism in order to maximize its chances of survival. The moment in which we start moving toward enlightenment and growth together, in a world where there is no more death, no more hatred, none of the bitterness of saying goodbye, no more fear and no more war...



: Right... and how are you going to execute your immoral plan?



: Why don't you let outsiders in?



: Why is this operation so important? I don't understand.



: How can I get to the last floor?



: What do you know about Morozov's expedition?



It is just so painfully obvious the authors do not know how to communicate this stuff without this clunky garbage.



: Well, now I am facing a conundrum of sorts...

: [The Mycelium members look at you in silence. At the beginning of the meeting, they seemed lively and talkative. Now all color has drained from their tense faces, and their greenish eyes follow your every move]

I realize they were too lazy to photoshop green eyes onto Ariadna too! This is the final dungeon! You can cut the incest rape quests! Really, we don't mind!

: Sorry, there's just no nice way to put it, we have to kill you. Please, don't fight. I promise it will be fast and absolutely painless, as if you had laid down for a nap. Your eyes are tired... Your travels have left you exhausted, which is no surprise. Anyone would be tired after all you've been through. You deserve a long, deep rest...

If it ends this game I'm down. Take me now, Lord!



Why are you like this? How do you make a psionic attack - that this character previously described as "sorcery" - so fucking cliched and dull?



Look, the other party members are in this game too! Did I ever mention that Fidel's hat is green in his portrait, but the actual inventory hat is white?

: My oh my, I am so sleepy. I'm too old for this. Feels like I haven't had a good night's sleep in, like, twenty years. Maybe I'll finally get some rest when I'm dead?



My original theory was that we could no-sell the psionic attacks because we had a skin worm, but who knows. It really doesn't matter, because every time this game has gotten so close to being interesting it has veered off into lame references instead of committing to anything.

: Hey! What is this land of sleep? What's going on here? This is a matter of life and death!



You need 9 Personality here, which I don't have and stupidly decide "oh the pacifist run can show that off". This is a mistake.

: [Personality] Listen up brothers and sisters, I am ordering you to stop! You don't want blood on your hands!

They, uh, just tried to kill us.



: You leave me no choice. [Attack]




So, this fight. This fight fucking sucks! Because this is ATOM RPG, it's the same generic human enemies we've been fighting all game - but they have crazy good guns you can't usually get, like the Dragunov sniper rifle. There's also a guy with two machine guns, and once again, our tools are:

-We have one player character who can actually go before the enemies.
-We have 4 useless sadsack idiots who steal XP and go after the enemies, and have garbage stats so they die real easily. Also they're under AI control and don't do what you want.

Great! As you can see, this is why I've been stockpiling explosives.



I'm honestly not sure what the intended way to get through this fight is. What you want to do is stun people with explosives because every single one of these mushroom cultists has stupid amounts of firepower and will waste your ass. The terrain is terrible for melee fighters as well.



We have the best armor in the game and I think I buffed to max endurance, and these fuckers can still one-shot us with machine guns.



Let's try this again. We need all the party members to stay out of the area, because they are dumb idiots who will wander into the bombs. I cannot stress enough that most guides for higher difficulties tell you to ditch all these fuckers.



You can skip Ariadna's awkward attempts at flirting by just telling her you're from ATOM and she decides to kill you immediately. This is great, because if we had to sit through all that crap again I don't know what I'd do.



Unfortunately I realize I'd given the wrong command to the moron squad and they all rush into the bomb area. I hate this party so much.



The general plan as a melee guy here is to run in and set up these timed explosives. They don't need skill to go off, and it only takes 4 AP to lay as many explosives as you can, so our plan is to run up to where we think the cultists will be when the timer expires and blow up as many as we can.



This takes a LOT of trial and error.



This looks great, but you have to remember these guys all have one-shot guns, so Bear gets killed wandering into the next room, and we don't have the AP to shut the door.



I finally get a good explosion off only for them to one-shot our incredibly worthless dog. It's kind of hilarious they gate him behind an RNG event only for him to be so useless.



Fucking finally. I only made it this far by save scumming like a bitch. I'm sure the sniper build could maybe handle this fight, but I honestly don't care enough about this game to do any more experimentation with it.



I'm not kidding when I say they have insanely advanced weapons.



Seriously, I've never seen this crap drop. Supposedly the slaver random encounters can drop them, but like hell I'm doing those.



This is the point of no return. We use the rope.



We can't go back up because someone cut the rope with a knife. Who did this when we killed every Mushroom Cultist at the door? Hell if I know!



The final dungeon is literally just a hallway to...another magic mushroom tank.



Who could this suited man be?

Well, guess. We were looking for someone, weren't we?



: [Despite doing your best to stay silent, every man turns toward you in unison. You startle at their bright, glowing green eyes, and the pulsing, veinous protuberances covering their skin. But the weirdest part of it all is the man who seemingly leads them. You know this man]

: General Morozov, I presume.



That's right! Despite the goal of the entire game being to find Morozov, this is nearly the first time we learn anything about the man! It's just such an unsatisfying reveal, because the developers have been playing coy about it. We know he's an ATOM general and we had an inkling he was with the Mushroom Cult (although no one bothered to confirm Morozov wasn't killed in Bunker 317) and the only thing we really learned about our assignment was that it was a ruse to get us brainwashed?


It's bizarre and makes no sense the more you think about it. Okay, we're supposed to wander the Wasteland alone with no way of contacting the base, until the Mushroom Cultists could pick us up. But wait! If we were supposed to be isolated, why were we told to make contact with Fidel?


Fidel is an experienced agent with a low opinion of the Mushroom Cult. If you were trying to send the Cadet off to be brainwashed, he is the LAST person you'd want the Cadet anywhere near - in a competently written game, anyway. But wait! There's more!


Why in God's name would you send any potential recruits there? Remember, the speculation is that this assignment was actually set up by the Mushroom Cult - if Fidel, a long time ATOM member, is to be believed - but Bunker 317 was the site of a purge of ATOM members by the Mushroom Cult, who didn't bother cleaning up their evidence.


Fidel recognizes the evidence on sight, but he's also the guy our supposed Mycelium infiltrator ordered us to link up with! It's not like the Mushroom Cult had no means of communicating with their infiltrators, if Alf is to be believed they were brazen.


Now, the narrator - who as far as I can tell is omniscient third-person - described Alf and company as a "noble gathering".



So we have this bizarre situation where the conspiracy - which has been portrayed as fairly competent until their radio signals were intercepted by accident - arranged for us to be sent on the most inept recruitment mission ever where we learned that the Mushroom Cult is our real enemy because they purged our fellow ATOM agents. Were we just expected to die in the Wasteland, or what?



Of course, this is the game where Hexogen rants for a paragraph that the guy with fucking glowing green eyes might not be on the level, so what did you expect?



: Yes, that's me.

Is there some reason Morozov couldn't have radioed in false reports, or the bosses at ATOM couldn't have covered for him?

: At last we meet. You were always so close, but we could never get near you. As if proverbial Fate itself drove you away... Bear Bearovitch. Have I guessed your name correctly?

Oh, did he want to recruit us? How were you unable to get near us when we were literally eating out of Ariadna's hand? Why does none of this make sense?



I don't know, Fidel. None of this shit makes sense.



: Am I truly talking to General Morozov?

: Partially, yes, I am still this... Morozov. But I am now more than a single being. I am a part of the Whole! Part of the Mushroom Web linking me with all other living beings on the planet. With a kind of Mycelium, you might say. Yes, I am Morozov. But I am also the thing you see in the pod behind Morozov's back. And these people around Morozov, they are Me as well!



This is no shit more characterization of Morozov than we get in the entire game.



This raises a question - is the Mycelium hive mind a metaphor for Soviet Communism? I'm serious. I really don't know! That was my first theory when I played through the game, but we'll have more to say in the postmortem.

: Morozov, speak! What does it all mean?



: Hold up. Part of a Whole? Mycelium? What about ATOM?

: [The General's calm expression does not change, but a newfound disgust enters his voice]

: What is... ATOM? A dried up husk of old glory. A miserable little group of soldiers and paper pushers, destroyed by its own secrecy. It served us well as a stepping stone.



: Right. So how did you end up becoming this... part of the Whole?



If only there was some kind of.. words, from the character, that could describe what he was thinking.

: In the first years after the Last War, when Krasnoznamenny was still in ruins, We called upon a reconnaissance party that was by chance passing through the devastation above. This party was led by General Morozov. From below ground did We call upon him. From the depths of this very bunker, where We were created by the greatest minds of the old Soviet science.

: I... He... General Morozov head the call. He and his men forced their way inside this facility with explosives. They talked to Us, and joined Us for the greater good.

I assume Morozov wasn't running around the ATOM base with glowing green eyes but who the hell knows.

: Wow, Morozov! What a waste of time you turned out to be! You know how much sand filled my socks as I passed through the Wastes, looking for your sorry ass? And my buddy, Bear Bearovitch? He even got sand in his underpants, because he lacks proper hygiene. And THIS is the result of all our rashes and blisters? A half-mushroom, half-traitor babbling nonsense near some kind of giant chamber pot?!

You know, the game calling this out as a complete waste of time is not helping.



ATOM just tried to pull an armed takeover of Krasnoznamenny. Fidel has no ground to stand on.



: And what exactly are "You"? Care to tell me?

: Do you speak of mushroom before you? This is a fungal mass, created by scientists during the project they called Stakhanovite. They wanted to create a soldier that would fight without food, water, medicine and moral support, whose actions would be completely under his handler's control.

: The fungus was an unwanted byproduct of one of the early experiments. Later on, discovering its telepathic abilities, the scientists tried to use this accident to advance their project. They wanted the super soldiers to link telepathically one to another, by means of a psychic mycelium. Then they could act as a single organism on the battlefield.



: How long was this going on without ATOM's knowledge? The conspiracy, I mean?

: Conspiracy? So be it. The Conspiracy started soon after the War, when General Morozov stumbled upon this very room in a scared and wild little town called Krasnoznamenny, so insignificant even the railroad ignored it. This forgettable place was an ideal location for experiments on an entity such as Myself. It was my birthplace. My birthing chamber.



: Filtered? Meaning you killed those who opposed your plot?

: Oh, no. No! We are against violence. It can be useful, but if there is any possibility of avoiding bloodshed, We choose it. Those who were deemed untrustworthy were simply never contacted again. We were very careful.



Considering that the mushrooms have been trying to kill us with psionic attacks we can safely call bullshit on this one.

: Why are you doing this? What's the endgame of this Unification thing?

Are you ready... for the TROLLEY?

: [Morozov sighs]

: After the fall of society, We collected an unfathomable amount of information from the Soviet government's high-tech databases. We wanted to learn. About people, about this planet, about outer space. We fed on that information, just as our cells fed on nutritious solutions. And this feeding gave results. Oh yes. We saw! We saw everything. We became enlightened. We knew the inner workings of the Universe, the laws of physics, the endless possibilities the future holds.

: We then "saw" one of the endless possibilities. That grew more and more probable with each year. With each day, each hour, it became more and more real. Maybe it was always there. Maybe it was caused by the fires of the Last War. It does not matter.

: I'm talking way too much. The jist[sic] of it is this: An asteroid named 1997-TB146 is getting closer and closer to Earth. Today, it's close enough to be seen with the naked eye. Some have even given it a folk name - The Hesperus Star. This asteroid has a radius of approximately 20 kilometers. If it strikes, it will wipe out 95% of life on Earth.

It's a SPACE trolley! Toot toot! TOOOOOOT! TOOOOOOT!



: The only way to resolve this situation is the Unification of humanity into a single hive mind. Our mind. Only then will civilization develop quickly enough to consider this threat that will otherwise destroy the planet. Only when we have achieved Unity.

Over the course of our travels, we have found:
-a working nuclear missile launcher
-dimensional travelers (in the pacifist run)
-an actual god who blessed us with magic lightning
-a magic book that may or may not have summoned a Shoggoth.

This is bullshit.

: Pardon me. Something wriggled in my brain box for a moment, and no wonder, after hearing all this? Don't you find it scary too, you chav? Before today, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to spend my twilight years with the woman I love. Now, I doubt I'll even have time to find the woman I will love. Because the world will turn to shit in the next few years!





: Ohh. We were all waiting for the green window of the poisonous Wormwood star, of which the Hebrew prophet spoke ages ago. But in reality our doom shall come from the blood red light of Hesperus!



STOP WITH THE FUCKING NARRATION ALREADY!!!!

: I sensed that something was terribly wrong with our guest in the sky. I had hoped it was a pre-war satellite or something like that. How wrong I was, Bear Bearovitch.

: ["General Morozov" looks at you with no apparent emotion. He seems indifferent to the world around him]

: Listen! We know that you already met other parts of the Mushroom Mind. In the Mountain Pass of Woes. In the Dead City. Both meetings went badly. Maybe it is hard for you to grasp. But We always speak the truth. We would never deceive about something like this.



That's right, goons! Your choices don't matter in this game!

: We have waited long enough, and We will not delay the Plan any longer. Soon, our special spores will be introduced to the city's water supply. Then the mushroom will start it's[sic] work.

: [The former General points at the vessel housing the center of the Mushroom Mind]

Huh we haven't had one shitty reference this entire conversation.

: After the unification of Krasnoznamenny, we will develop a plan of action to save the planet. It must be done! The Mushroom Mind must not perish! Do you understand?

: Heehee. Good luck with this, guys. For a personal reason, my brain won't be affected by your shit, best of luck to ya. You're really smart. Like, wow. So smart.

: [Alexander turns to you, nods slightly at the huge mushroom and, making an "L" with the fingers of one hand, displays it against his own forehead]

: [Hexogen makes an "impatiently looking at wristwatch" gesture, despite not wearing a wristwatch]

Ha ha see even the game realizes there are too many fucking words!

: I'm sorry, but aren't you going to say that not all people will be absorbed into this single mind of yours? When will you say that some people, famous writers for example, will be spared? And given new flats, perhaps? And summer houses. And a nice pension for a comfortable life outside this grotesque, single-minded atrocity. What? You don't even offer that pittance?! Oh.

: Oh, how right was comrade Stalin when he proclaimed all mushrooms enemies of the state! Enemies of the elderly! Hateful, terrible creatures, neither plant nor animal! All mushrooms are a MISTAKE!

Please stop talking.

: [Fidel's face is twisted with disgust]



: What if you're wrong? What if there is no danger?



: Hold up. Let's reach a consensus of some sort.



This speechcraft check is a little different.

: [Speechcraft] There must be another way! I'm sure of it!



Take the middle option for the pacifist option.

: What will you be able to do? You told me there's 30-130 years until impact? Your plan is terrible.



: I can't deal with you, but I can try killing you.

I'll be honest, the sequel to this game is all about finding an old Soviet railgun to shoot down the asteroid. This choice, once again, doesn't matter.



: I'm doing this because I'm a conflicted person.

: I see...

: You made a hard but righteous decision, amigo. We will find a way, a human way to save our planet from this terrible fate. Now, we fight! No pasaran!

: The last battle is always the hardest. But why do I feel so happy as I plunge myself into it? Maybe because I will be fighting without hatred? Yes, I will be fighting for literacy! For literature! For the cultural diversity of future generations. They will probably die, because we will never find a way to stop the asteroid, but they will die while reading my amazing books, and praising them for their ingenuity!



Jesus god, shut the fuck up! SHUT UP!




This fight comes down to, once again, RNG variance.



Oh, and the machine gunners can 1-shot Bear. Fuck this.



: Well it should. Different people will have different reactions to your Unification. You won't fool every single human! And then... there will be blood!



: Even I managed to find out your plot. You think no one else will?



: That's right. That's why you should look for a more... human solution to this whole asteroid problem. That includes you, comrade huge mushroom thing!



The companions say the same fucking thing but with references to fighting removed.

: We... None of Us wishes to spread violence on this planet. It has suffered enough. There is no simple solution to the problem at hand. Ah, fuck it. Consider the Mycelium project officially closed!

: [Suddenly, General Morozov gives you a kind, human smile, and waves one hand]



That's it! They didn't even change his portrait! Whee!





That's it! Gameplay is over!

Next time: The ending cinematic!