Part 23: Epilogue: Welcome to the International Space Station

Epilogue: Welcome to the International Space Station

"I didn't think defeat would come so quickly after my victory over Cao Pi. But if I am to die, I would have preferred it to be by Liu Bei's own hand, not one of his henchmen's. At least the land is finally united."

"Sima Yi has died."



And just like that, Sima Yi takes it like a true Taoist and doesn't scream, bitch, moan, lament or complain about his death, just simply dies. I do like however that his goals were kept relatively intact of Chinese unification, and not twisted into some evil corrupt despotism for video game plot purposes that gives the player motivation to kill the antagonist.



Which abruptly goes into the army's pockets, even in a time of peace, as this is before communism was introduced in China.



This piece plays everywhere now, which would have been a cool addition, if the music didn't restart after every door one went into. So in reality, unless you stop and smell the peach trees, you'll only realistically hear the beginning of this piece, over and over again.

It also is in league for the 'most Chinese sounding' piece in the game, treading behind 'Management', which is hilariously Chinese, and 'Introduction'.

"This is Luoyang, Han's capital."



Speaking of peach trees: Luoyang is littered with them, which may or may not symbolize something, but it's the only thing that makes Luoyang different from any other city, apart from its music, which is now played everywhere.

"Lui Bei should see the new rebuilt castle."

(hint hint on progressing the game)

"We have enough food."

For those who do not know Chinese history, this of course is the central issue in both contemporary and ancient Chinese culture. So of course having enough food basically equals to pure bliss.

"We don't need to be soldiers anymore."

"Can peace really last?"

Nothing lasts forever, Chinese dynasties in particular.



Unfortunately, one cannot raid Wang Yun's house for gem swords in a time of peace.

"Oh. Peace."

Well, someone's happy about losing their career and having to go back to being a simple farmer!



Not to mention the non-Luoyang citizens are all behind in the times. In their defence, news travels slow in this period of Earth history.



With that, let's bring a long journey to an end, and sit back and enjoy the ending.

"Zhang Bao
Zhao Yun
Ma Chao
Guan Xing
Jian Wei
Zhuge Liang
Cao Chun*
My People.
Finally peace reigns again. I thank you all for your devoted effort. Through this great trial, I have gained much wisdom. I will rule fairly but with an iron hand so no uprising can threaten peace again."

*I recruited him in a commander fight. Hooray for random dudes who did nothing getting official recognition!



We've gone from a Chinese sounding soundtrack, to a bagpipe drone with a marching band beat. Sure, why not? It's the ending after all, nothing has to make sense!



Nor can a video game ending be a video game ending without retracing the steps of the entire game while the credits roll.



The game designers are also incredibly handsome, if only my manager let me wear a golden headband to work.



Get out of this scene Liu Bei, you weren't even involved with ousting Dong Zhuo according to this game! Technically, none of them were, as he was killed by his own officials and Lu Bu.



I will miss your moustache and beard designs the most, 'Ernie'.



Lu Bu!



Now that I look at Sima Yi's portrait again, his background looks like swirls, making him seem like one crazy guy.



And Bohei has some sort of scary green aura coming out of it. Maybe it was made from the metal we used to make those swords?



Did it really take all these people to make all these facial hair styles?



Next time, I bring a mallet instead of waiting.



Write more stuff!



Because this part was definitely a crucial part of the story that the game felt that they had to include it in the credits.



I like how they used the portraits for the smartest men in China for the technical stuff. Could have done without Ce/Ji Mian, An Sha and Wan Fu, but otherwise, good programming.



This was the hardest labyrinth ever. It's a bit of a shame that the actual site has been since devoured by the Three Gorges Dam project, much like many other things, but that's life, sadly.



Yeah, yeah, go away, Liu Bei.



You too Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, you guys sat on thrones at this point.



They should have had the generic soldier face on the top of the screen or something.



FIN

But I'm not done yet, I still have to ruin the glory of Liu Bei, as I have set out to do from the beginning! So as we all know, the assault on Wu was a catastrophic failure, ending with the death of the three oath brothers. Not wishing to screw around and let the failure be the end of the Han Dynasty, Zhuge Liang concentrates his efforts on trying to oust Cao Pi from his throne that he recently usurped from the Han line. Unfortunately, the raids did not go as smooth, as Wei was guarded by some pretty good generals with their shit together, whereas Shu was bombarded with corrupt officials who did not support Zhuge Liang's expeditions at all, making it very tough for him to succeed. In particular, Liu Bei's heir, Liu Shan was a complete fool who wished to rule, yet did not want the responsibility of doing so, and instead let all his choices be made by a thoroughly corrupt eunuch named Huang Hao, who supported Wei ideals.
During the raids however, Kongming comes across a young boy named Jiang Wei who was once an officer of Wei, but was cast out due to suspicions of defection. Although he was inexperienced, he showed great knowledge, so much so that as Zhuge Liang became ill later on, he succeeded him as the official adviser of Shu. Under Jiang Wei, although the war carried on, it was for naught, as corruption was so detrimental to Shu, that Wei was able to overcome Shu eventually.
Jumping all the way back to the initial expedition, Sima Yi was the one in charge of defending Wei, and him and Zhuge Liang were almost at the same level of military excellence, Kongming was obviously the brighter one, but sadly he was old and soon to die. While Sima Yi was old as well, we was quite healthy, and had two brilliant sons (Sima Shi and Sima Zhao) who would help in defending Wei.
Meanwhile, while Sima Yi defends Wei, Cao Pi dies of old age, NOT by a badass revolt, which he is then replaced by his heir, Cao Rui. Cao Rui does not last long on the throne either, in which he is quickly replaced by Cao Shuang. Unlike the previous rulers who trusted Sima Yi, Cao Shuang did not trust him at all, and tried very hard to undermine his authority. This is where Sima Yi stages his coup d'etat, which he becomes the Emperor of Wei. In time, he dies of old age, Sima Shi gets the throne, eyeball pops out, Sima Zhao takes over, yadda yadda, but this is where the game doesn't go: Sima Zhao and later his son were able to defeat Jiang Wei and subsequently devour Shu. Once Sima Zhao dies, his son, the ever so long haired Sima Yan takes over and proceeds to invade Wu, not by military force, but by diplomacy, as Wu was so weakened by corruption and tyranny, that Sima Yan was able to take it over 'without the expense of a single bullet'.

This is how things actually went. While China was unified under the Sima's, which subsequently became to be called the Jin Dynasty, it was at the expense of the old Han Dynasty. With that, I leave you to research the Jin Dynasty yourself, as I have taken you through the fall of the Han Dynasty. I will end however by saying that Sima Yan was a very peaceful man, not a despot. He tried his very best to unite China without bloodshed, as seen with the takeover of Shu, where he integrated the ignorant Liu Shan into his government by making him into a mere prince.

So ends my history blurb, as well as my actual first LP, thank you so much for reading it! While I feel as though I must have made mistakes in some areas whether it be grammatical, historical or gameplay, I hope they weren't so much so distracting that they took away from the experience. As I have said on various occasions in this thread, I will LP the sequel, but not right away. In the meantime, look for other works by me, which I will start some time soon, however they will not be historical works. Finally, I will leave this thread open for awhile to answer any questions, for anyone to leave any comments, or what have you. Again, thanks for reading, and I hope you stick around for future LPs by me, in which I will be sure to learn and get better with each work!