Part 211: Secrets

Secrets (40:25)





Initially I pegged Ana as the crown dufus. Was I wrong?




At least we're getting a bit more mileage out of the way the last mission ended.










Prediction; the rest of the Story - as of this writing I have not progressed past this mission - will not contain one single solitary episode without the mention of Abraxis or some derivative of that word.
















I protest! What kind of neanderthal names their son 'Dagr' anything!! At least they gave this no-longer-surprising reveal a proper buildup, instead of casually dropping galaxy-shattering conspiracy reveals in the middle of innocuous conversations.




Not buying it, unless Skarsgard/Platius is doing the whole redneck/inbred 'you are your own grandpa' routine. If what Chairman/CEO Dagr Ticon/Abraxis is doing out here is so all-fired important, there's no way it gets entrusted to someone projecting a finite existence. Wouldn't just give it to his grandson, he'd want to oversee it personally.




That's more like it - another random legend just thrown in there like everyone knows about it ... except that we've talked about the fall of Abraxis Corp before with nary a mention.













Knowing what we know about GalCorp, are we really certain that wouldn't have been a better course of action?




I've never been a fan of 'I had to lie to you for your sake' as a plot device. Or as a real-life excuse, for that matter.










'I'm speechless' says Amicus ... who then goes on to speak more. I don't think that word means what you think it means ...







We've got a variety of choices, but clearly we need to bash through that fortified area of struc in the middle at some point.




I made a number of dumb mistakes on this mission. Here's the first one, though it's not super-obvious. I try to start in the upper-left corner, away from danger ... but the lathe doesn't have enough room to actually activate this energy source. That other nearby island is actually better, and I eventually move there but the particulate is already swarming. Fortunately the HQ can take some punishment.




I use the existing amp gems to boost our initial energy, which so far seems to be a good general strategy. There are already a number of hostile emergent out there and pushing 2k enemy particles less than three minutes in, so we'll need all the help we can get.




Once it was sufficiently de-mired, we discover the Marauder blueprint, our new ship for this mission.







I push forward a bit after building the Marauder, the tri-prong shaped ship on the upper-right of this formation. It's got cannons, missile launchers, serves well in a plasma repair or attack mode ... it's good-but-not-best at any significant combat role. There's still a lot of emergent out there, we're a bit underwater yet in the Mire comparison, and that emitter straight ahead will soon be targeted. Nearly 1900 particulate are about, making clear there will be a lot of fighting ahead.




I decided to make a downward push my next objective, via a tanker relay approach.




Another amp gem along with this are the eventual reapings from that effort. I'm impressed that another opportunity to be absurdly over-verbose is not capitalized on.




Some more intense fighting is ahead as press in towards the particulate's more fortified positions, aiming for that island just below and left of the structure.




It's Hammer Time. I spend quite a while rather pointlessly plugging away down here while letting resources elsewhere on the map go untapped. Not exactly my finest hour. You can see a truly stupid amount of particulate here, and we have flipped the mire comparison nearly two-to-one in our favor.

On the other hand, that cannon just fires through the struc at us, because of course it does.




I decide it's time to try this out. It wasn't immediately obvious to me why this is even a thing; it essentially is grabber functionality without the grabber but consuming an amp gem for the tech instead.




After more futile pounding away at the center, I at least make some progress on this front. In the lower-right of the map, the benign particulate liberates another island. This is when it occurs to me I'm going to want at least that amp gem, so I really should win the outside of the map first. Looping around to the top, I make my way through those excursions.




A massed Omni-suicide landing clears the way to activate this cannon, and they begin establishing a safe zone and eating into more struc.




A shocker there. Progress has accelerated, as we've now got enough momentum that only the primary stronghold can hope to resist us.




At the end, almost everything including that benign emitter joins in the attack. With no external reinforcements, the stronghold crumbles before us.




I don't think it was as distressing to you as it was to me.










Casually dropped in with all the subtlety of an anvil. I don't know how much of this I can take.




Yes, Doppelgangers. Because the whole nothing-is-what-it-seems hasn't been played out to death enough yet.