Part 11: Troubleshooting.
You lousy hunk of…!
Wh… what the… What the hell!?
Ack… Wrong robot, Corporal…
That hunk of junk must have been the one that shut off Rachel’s capsule! It’s a hazard to our continued survival! I’m going to destroy them both!
Cube couldn’t have done something like that!
At least Kato got him to stand down for a moment.
But Cube can’t take on his counterpart alone.
The true Cube’d know the name I first thought to give him.
I hope that despite all the chaos and the fact that it was mentioned all of once, you can remember this.
Because, well… I may have miscounted the number of instant deaths in this chapter.
Someone’s controlling this thing remotely! Who the hell are you!?
(Music stops.)
It… it’s… 
The Mother Computer!? Do you mean to say that someone tampered with it!?
What!? Then the entire Computer’s gone haywire?!
I-I don’t know… B-but it’s possible… If that’s true… Then this whole time we’ve just been played for fools!
You’ll stick with me. If it assimilates you, it’d be… trouble!
-------
Of course, now that the AI has made it 100% clear to everybody that it wants to kill them, the elevator isn’t working.
By force, he means break open the thing we could have opened for him if he’d asked.
-------
-------
I could destroy the lock… but if I damaged the mainframe, the entire ship’d shut down… and we’d all die… 
He should know some way to bypass the Computer. I’ll wait here. I’m not going to let the Behemoth get anywhere near this thing!Well, at least the Behemoth isn’t intelligent enough to be allied with the Computer. It’s just sort of being corralled around instead.
Amazingly, it isn’t lying in wait right outside Kato’s room.
... Are you all right? … You want to know OD-10’s weakness? OD-10 is the ship itself. If we destroy it, we’ll never make it back to Earth.
Say, that’s right, you’re a robot! You should be able to get inside its program… It’s kind of cute that Kato actually forgot Cube was a robot for a minute there.
Rest up, Kato. We’ll take it from here.
Dick move, Computer!
Leg iiiiiit!
-------
Kato said you could get inside the Computer?
Sheesh, to think that I’d be asking for help from a robot… 
We’re helping! Take this.
Ah, checking for the Behemoth before leaving. Clever man, that Corporal Darth.
He contacts you shortly afterward, and you need to select the transponder from Cube’s inventory. (Which contains a possible four items.)
Darth won’t find a way to make progress until we find something that will let us interface with the Mother Computer.
…
Well, you might think it’s crazy, but…
(The rest of the update is available as a video.)
-------
... That’s it! Hold on! I’ll connect that game to the Mother Computer!*The computer starts bleeping in protest.*
All right, that should do it!
-------
*Thump thump, boom boom, blamblamblam shriiiiiek*
I was built to maintain harmonyTherefore, my will is absolute
Nobody will stand in my way
Anyone who tries…
… will be terminated!
-------
Say hello to Mother Computer and its Stabilizers, folks! This is the one and only time Cube gets to fight in his chapter, and it’s the boss fight.
Entering the Computer through Captain Square has given Cube a full compliment of combat techs, including two healing abilities.
Spin Drive is the only one of these that isn’t IQ-based.
High-Speed Op is considerably more potent than Upgrade, but the latter comes with the chance of stat boosts. It couldn’t hurt to power Cube up a bit at the start of the fight.
Oh, and you may have noticed that Cube has a counterattack. If he gets hit by IQ-based attacks up close, the enemy is eating an Anti Field for about 100 damage. Blastinus noted that he can also use High-Speed Op as a counter for physical attacks, making Cube actually quite difficult to kill.
The problem is that the Computer and its Stabilizers also love healing themselves.
And the Computer will actually use System Recover as a counterattack, which makes Noise Stream rather useless here.
So while you can use a pair of Spin Drive or Mind Hack techs to drop a Stabilizer, there’s another method that’s more reliable.
Maser Cannon is the only one of Cube’s moves that has a charge time, but the results speak for themselves.
After the Stabilizers are all dealt with, it’s possible to kill the Mother Computer using just Anti Field.
Or we could really piss it off.
If you research the Computer, it starts throwing out this electric field attack instead of healing.
Which of course makes it kill itself faster.
And so the haywire Mother Computer is defeated.
-------
I was given the job of protecting the crewBut the humans who gave me this job
Fought amongst themselves
Destroyed all sense of balance
Tried to disturb the operation of this ship
I do not understand humans
Humans…
Cannot be trusted
A select portion of the conversations recorded were purged.
You’re a damn coward! Don’t you forget! That’s why Rachel dumped you! This ship is a piece of crap! You’d almost be better off trying to swim through space!
I know exactly what’s going through your head. You thought that if you killed Kirk… You thought I’d come back to you, right!? That’s what you thought! Right!? Y… you!! You killed everyone!
I’d like to say that it isn’t hopeless, but given the circumstances… 
...And that’s it. The threat has ended.
This vessel uses an intelligent maintenance system, designation OD-10. Due to trouble with the system, the Computer’s logic circuits have been disabled. This should have no effect on normal activities, but if something that seems unusual occurs, please do not hesitate to ask a crew member about it.
Corporal Darth! You made it!
You don’t believe me? Well, whatever. That doesn’t make any difference now anyway.
…
There was a huge war. I can never forget that fear… 
Or rather, the Computers within their heads… 
Machines built by humans… We’re such a foolish species. I’m sure this ship’s Mother Computer simply gave up on us… 
... and not on a military ship. Huey told you to learn.
Don’t do anything to hurt another human....Note the phrasing there.
Telling a robot to think? Heh, I guess I’ve really gone off the deep end… 
…?
Ha ha!
...Guess so, huh.
Heh… Before I get off this ship… I think I’d like to have a drink of your coffee… …
So. Getting the Corporal his coffee will end the chapter… but there is a few small things we can do before things end.
You stopped it, eh? Thanks, well done.
I can't believe that you've been such a big help... 
Thanks goes to EclecticTastes for reminding me about this.
There are burns all over its body.
Aside from seeing how the Corporal bested the Behemoth, we can also check out the terminal in here.
Any conflicts within the system to be resolved by Cube
Computer Capsule Password:
JUDGE
The 1-D system, huh? Maybe that’s why the boss was called O1-D0, not OD-10. Or it was a typo; who knows?
But by using this new password, we can see the Computer who would have been judge, jury and executioner.
Verification complete
Operation and Transport Program
Ship Maintenance program
Both operating normally
The first option is uninteresting, but the second?
Please enter password
Well, with the Computer no longer causing us grief, Captain Hol’s password will actually have a use.
Verification complete
quote:
Maintenance System Test Data
Crew Data
Evaluation
Results:
Huey: Negative
Kirk: Positive
Rachel: -
Kato: -
Exemplary Attitude:
Huey: Negative
Kirk: Negative
Rachel: -
Kato: Positive
Cooperativeness:
Huey: Negative
Kirk: Negative
Rachel: Negative
Kato: -
Sense of Solidarity:
Huey: Negative
Kirk: Negative
Rachel: Negative
Kato: Negative
Final resuts(sic):
Overall evaluation:
Negative
Chance of accidents:
High
No possibility for improvement
Rearrangement deemed necessary
...It would appear that the Captain did not hold his crew in high regards either.
But to hell with him. Let’s not dwell on the negative, as the Mother Computer did.
-------
And so the credits begin to roll. Kato is still injured, but alive.
The rest of the crew were not so lucky.
This is not a moment of victory. Simply survival.
But as the Cogito Ergosum flies onward…
XXXX En Route to Earth
XXXX Picked up while derelict near Earth
Mother Computer --
Haywire
Onboard Cargo --
Unknown Life Form
Hol: Captain
Kirk: Pilot
Huey: Assistant
Rachel: Comm Officer
The above four crew members are dead
Their bodies have been confirmed as being aboard the ship
Addendum:
Within the ship, a small worker robot was discovered. Its name was registered as Cube
In the end, Cube is able to reach Earth.
-------
And with that, the Scifi chapter comes to a close.
Voting for chapters and names is still open, but based on the current outlook, I suspect we’re going to the Kungfu chapter next. (For real this time…?)
-------
Notable Quotables.
EclecticTastes posted:
One thing I just discovered, now going through the Sci-Fi chapter, is that if you beat Captain Square on the first try in the break room, the ending music will play in the break room during the couple lines of Kirk expressing his disbelief, before switching back as he shoves you aside to reclaim his high score. It's a nice touch, and it's the only time you can hear it with the same filter that the battle music gets during that scene.
EclecticTastes posted:
EDIT: Oh, hey, one thing that was overlooked, unless I just completely fucked up reading the LP, was that after inputting the password you can read Kirk's diary like everyone else's.
Kirk posted:
Personal Diary
Month X, Day X
The agenda for the upcoming motor show has been decided.
Once we get to Earth, I'm headed straight for Detroit.
But after that I need to think about my vacation schedule.
After all, I'll be alone with Rachel.
I have to work out a good plan.
Guy was Tom Paris years before Voyager.
EDIT2: Also, not sure how I didn't notice this, but Corporal Darth's yellow outfit and red beret are reminiscent of Rolento, one of the bosses from Final Fight, a game that Live-A-Live's composer, Yoko Shimomura, worked on when she worked for Capcom. Might be a coincidence, but it's interesting to consider that the team may have included a nod to the composer's work for an entirely different company.
EDIT3: Okay, last thing. Going to the terminal room when Darth calls leads to you finding him already inside. He says "So you came here too? I was thinking of a full frontal assault, myself. We don't have time to think about this!" (slightly paraphrased) When you leave the room, you get a short scene of the Behemoth stomping around just past the doorway to the north, before heading into that hall. Naturally, this encourages you to take the long way to the break room.
EDIT4: I lied, walking around without beelining for Captain Square prompts Darth to call and give you a hint, asking if you can find something unnecessary, but still somehow linked to the mother computer. It's a solid hint, giving you a clue without completely giving away the answer. Seriously this chapter has cases set up for everything.
Pittsburgh Lambic posted:
There's something that's just way too adorable about this scene, if looked at from the perspective of any character but Cube. Nobody told Cube to come to sick bay. He's got no reason to be there. He hardly knows the crew, and it's doubtful that he understands what's going on around him at all, given how new to the world he is. Still, while Huey scrambles to get equipment together to cut Kirk out of his failed spacesuit, the decontamination door hisses open and Cube tiptoes shyly around the corner, joining Kato and Rachel in looking on worriedly.
He really is the best robot.
Something else that really interests me about this chapter is how ancillary Cube is to most of the story. The last time he played an essential role in anything was when he opened the cryo-pods and woke the rest of the crew. Ever since then, the story's been about the crew, about how they interact with each other and deal with unfolding events on the ship, and Cube is just a bystander, looking on and listening to the crew trying to work things out. Cube doesn't advance the plot; the plot advances on its own when Cube goes to places where the crew are doing something.
As a comparison, think about if there was a videogame adaptation of the original Alien where you played as Jonesy the cat. You'd wander around the ship and listen to Ripley and the others talking while they landed on LV-426; you'd sit in one corner of the sick bay while Kane was rushed in with a facehugger around his head; you'd be stuffed into a cat carrier and forgotten until the very end, when Ripley had almost lost the will to go on but found renewed purpose in saving your life. The whole thing would flow similarly to Cube's chapter in Live A Live.
