Part 14: The Prokhanov Zone
The Prokhanov ZoneLast time on ATOM RPG, we helped a psychopathic sexual predator mutant kidnap a woman over the advice of our only friend Fidel and were only saved by the fact she was totally into that shit.
Today we're going to go grab a new party member based on a Russian author who has had scholastic papers published about just how anti-Semitic he is. Don't look at me like that! I didn't write this game!
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This individual has a long tale and, more importantly, a sidequest with some pretty sweet rewards.
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This man's sidequest also leads to the evil route. We will not be doing it because it sucks.
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Nietzsche is weird. I've only read Beyond Good and Evil in translation, but my understanding of Nietzsche is that there is no God, and this is bad, because instead of having the Almighty to tell us universal morality and so we need to figure out what we stand for.
This gets interpreted as might makes right by a lot of assholes (like literal Nazis) and it's not exactly helped by Nietzsche mocking Christians for pretending to be altruistic out of fear of their neighbor rather than actually caring. Then again, one of his maxims is that what is done out of love is beyond good and evil, so who the hell knows? I struggled with that book.
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Paaa-dding!
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I've been bringing up conspiracy fiction like Illuminatus! and Philip K Dick up a lot in conjunction with this game, and it's because of crap like this. There's really no indication that this guy is anything other than a generic old man NPC (the old lady who lives in the house yells at you to get out and not steal shit) until he opens his mouth and starts spouting off about an evil "Death Gang" no one has ever heard of, no one has reported a massacre by, no one has run off to join Lena because they're dumb horny young people, etc.
Of course, like almost every other batshit conspiracy we've heard of - the book haters, ATOM, the Mushroom Cult, the Pizzagate guys it's gonna turn out to be 100% correct. The only one that's not correct is Klinov the Nazi guy. Even the tinfoil hat murder guys - who are described as a doomsday cult - kind of have a point.
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He kind of is, but we'll discuss that later.
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It's kind of amazing how the game whiffles between << and quotation marks for dialog.
quote:
: Fuck I can't get this jar open because I'm old!
: I gotchu brah!
: Now that I have your attention, may I introduce you to my long and convoluted backstory? There's a sidequest on the line!
: Why the hell not.
: When I was a young man, I read too many of those Ayn Rand books and thought I was a captain of industry and that everyone else sucked! Except I also got high on peyote and read Nietzsche too, so I decided to do violence and start the Death Gang! Then, I realized that murdering and robbing was very bad, so I left - but the Death Gang are still here, and they're going to attack and kill everyone! No one listens to me because they think I'm a conspiracy nutter! You! Can you go find and kill Lena, Igor, and Dima Death? I got money!
: Why the hell not.
That was long winded as hell. A new problem presents itself - are we going to be able to take on this entire gang with just Bear and Fidel? Well, we could, but it's like 10 gunmen in an open field, we'd get slaughtered! We're gonna need help.
Unprofessional help.
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This lady needs us to bring her 10 giant spider lymph nodes. It's boring in both gameplay and dialogue, so here you go. It's on the way to do what we really want to do, which is...
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Annoy this guy in the hospital!
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This guy actually starts the quest to inadvertently find the last actual party member we'll see in this LP.
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Remember when Fidel took us to the back of the bar to discuss this stuff? Zhanna is right there and the door's open.
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There's a ton of useful stuff you can do at base. Well, some useful stuff.
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Asshole.
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TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
: Sup, my man?
: Yo wassup? Here to visit me?
: Uh, no, this has nothing to do with the ATOM conspiracy we're all part of.
: Oh knock it off. Who's this?
: Bear, meet Gozhin. Bear's the ATOM agent looking for Morozov.
: Well, want to do a dangerous sidequest going into gang controlled territory and killing a much of mutants so we can move into the houses?
: Do I get a house?
: Fuck yeah you do.
: I'm in!
: Alright, let me burn your map with my cig to show you where it is.
: Asshole!
We're off to Red Fighter!
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Kill bandits, get XP.
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Now we can go to Red Fighter.
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The mutants turn out to be giant spiders, which we can kill without qualms.
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We then trigger an in-engine cutscene of a spider scuttling up to the house, getting shot by the inhabitant, and dying.
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The unknown shooter is very proud of themself.
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Unfortunately for my sanity, we can't get in until we've run all across the map and sworded every last spider. Let me fast forward through some dull combat for you.
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This old man is our next party member. We briefly met Alexander, and the dog appeared in the pacifist run (I do plan to get him eventually but he kinda sucks) and there are a few other special cases I'll talk about when we get to them.
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So you might be thinking our mystery party member is just a crazy old man who talks to rabbits.
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...wha?
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There we go. Now that we have the name of our mysterious old man, I'd like you all to remember the crazy Russian writer I mentioned earlier.
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This guy is a stand in for Alexander Prokhanov, who's an anti-Semitic far right nationalist who wrote the manifesto for the coup against Gorbachev.
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"Hexogen" is a reference to Prokhanov's famous story, "Mr. Hexogen", which is - say it with me - a conspiracy story about Russian politics.
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The novel starts with the protagonist receiving a phone call to go and help a shadow government founded by real Russian patriots save Russia from "the traitors".
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This shadow government, the "Secret Union", is to restore Russia to her former glory.
Earlier in the game posted:
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Their methodology is to use their vast conspiratorial power to drum up false conflicts to defeat the evil Jewish megacorporations (this IS an anti-Semitic right winger, after all) and promote the leadership of the "Chosen One", Vladimir Putin.
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The ultimate reveal of the novel comes when the businessmen are disposed of and, rather than restore Russia to greatness.. I'll quote Oushakine again.
Oushakine posted:
The combination of disgust with power, a feeling of impotence, and a sense of betrayal is especially poignant in the most dramatic scene of the novel, where Beloseltsev tries to prevent the explosion of high-rise apartment buildings in a Moscow suburb. Through his investigative work, Beloseltsev discovers that the Chechen boeviks who prepared hexogen for the explosion, and their alleged enemies, the secret patriots and intelligence officers working to restore Russias glory, are, in fact, mem-bers of the same cabal: They are all connected ... They will detonate the fuse together ( 2002 : 417). They do push the button (together), and Beloseltsev, unable to prevent the explosion, has to witness an apartment block imploding in the middle of the night, burying unsuspecting people under its rubble.
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Keep that theme in mind as we continue the game, because it is very important to understanding the writing.
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Ms. Kosmodemyanskaya was a Soviet partisan who fought the Nazis. She didn't give any fucks and threatened them while they hung her.
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Uh...
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Uh, what? Why is letting this old guy who knows how to use a gun follow us giving us "a heavy heart"? Sure, he's nuts, but we banged Devi Christu and she was just as insane.
I should also confess that I've never actually taken Hexogen along, because this game is much easier on a solo run and you don't have to corral team AI.
TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
: Hey is anyone in there?
: I can't let you in! I am hiding from the mutants!
: Ok, now that they've tasted the dreaded Cossack Steel, can you let me in?
: Hooray! The bold proletarian hero who saved us from the mutants! Come in! What do you think, hares?
: Uh, who are you?
: I'm a walking Alexander Prokhanov reference! Call me Hexogen, the last of our Motherland's true intellectuals...
: Whoa snap out of it!
:
: Why are you here?
: All roads lead to Communism! That's why I'm here, surrounded by rabbits. I needed a break from humans, and it turns out rabbits are delicious! Others joined my personal army, but now that you're here, I'm joining your party instead.
: Do you know about any hidden treasure or anything useful?
: I see it in your eyes! You will torture me like I am Mel Gibson! Well, I will yield my cache - my heart, which is full of love for the Motherland!
: Dude, we're just looking for cash or guns or something.
: I do not care about these things, I'm an intellectual.
: How about rumors?
: I do not care for rumors! I am not your mother, a Siberian ho! Ok, now that we've fooled the hares, let me tell you: they're fucking!
: God fucking dammit we just wanted some sidequests.
: Be silent, uncultured swine! Oh, are you leaving? Let me join your party.
: Why not?
: Fuck.
: This is gonna bite you in the dick later lol.
Like Fidel, Hexogen has various skill checks you can't make him do.
Speechcraft: I'm interested to know how much of your father's charisma was passed on to you. Thus, I shall stay quiet.
Barter: ugh. Let me live the philosophy of Socialism in my dying days, child. Take care of the shameful capitalistic haggling yourself.
Gambling: I can cope with my child squandering my retirement fund in a casino, but wagering my descendant's hard earned cash? Never!
Pickpocket: Heed my warning, child. If you ever attempt something so dastardly, you must depend only on your own skill
Tinkering: a man with a full belly is no friend to the hungry! Just like an arthritic, palsied old man is no friend to crafting.
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He comes with an SKS rifle and a duffel bag. We give him the AK we stole from the guard who smoked to death.
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We give the spider parts to Dr Petrovna and she tells us to come back later for her medicine. It's a purple antidote that's more effective than the red one. You really only need the red one. But hey, XP!
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Gozhin is of course fucking around while we do all the work.
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You lazy fucker.
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Guess we'll check it out.
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TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
: Did you defeat all the mutants?
: They're all dead.
: Hooray! I've been faking being sick all this time to avoid helping you do that! Now I'm going to round up some volunteers to repair the village while I... I dunno, masturbate or something. You'll get your own house, really! I'm off!
: Guess I'll check it out when I get there.
That's the quest to get Hexogen. It's not super exciting, but it does show what kind of people run ATOM a bit more. This is going to be surprisingly important when we get to the plot proper.
Next time: Lamb barbeque!