Part 44: Episode XLIII: It Came From the Desert...

Episode XLIII: It Came From the Desert...



Let’s continue on our dark trek towards completionism. Time to take on a new quest back at the Resistance Camp.


Music: Peaceful Sleep



Or rather, a quest we neglected to pick up earlier due to the fact it partially took place in the Forest Zone. I didn’t want to just briefly poke our heads into main plot territory for the benefit of a brisk sidequest visit. Pacing and all that... Let’s go ahead and sort that out now by speaking to the patient android woman near the camp entrance.



Is something wrong?
You’re from YoRHa, right? I don’t suppose you’d... The thing is, I recently came out on the losing end of a scuffle with some machine lifeforms. The battle ended up corrupting a portion of my memory—which is a serious pain, as I’m sure you can imagine. Take these photographs, for instance. I have no idea where they were taken, or even what they are. I only know that they’re... important.



The woman proceeds to show us a trio of photographs. Apparently, physical media photos on old Polaroid cameras came back in style in the last few millennia. No idea about this first photo. I dunno... A culture devoid wasteland with palm trees? Florida?



Alright. Yeah sure. That’s just the Magic Kingdom. Lady you wanna hop on a flight unit and point yourself eastward to get yourself over to Florida. You’re on the wrong continent. The old human records show that’s where they sent their elderly to die in prison camp communes run by exiles from the least intelligent members of their clans. Beware the Floridaman. Legends claim he was an agent of chaos who possessed people driving them to incredible acts of insanity and ill-conceived machinations.



...Wait. This one is just the waterfall from the front of the Forest Zone. Oh yeah, and that last one is probably the Amusement Park. The first one might still be Florida. I dunno...



<Help her recover her memories>
Thank you so much. If you find the location shown in any of these photos, please send me the coordinates. Hopefully that will help me recover my missing memories.
We’ll let you know if we find anything.
Thank you.



And so we accept the Photographs sidequest. Unfortunately, we cannot just give the woman directions such as “Head out the camp and continue north through the mall into the woods. Can’t miss it!” or “Head north and take the first right after the crater. Go through the sewer to the end.” These last generation models have zero desire in getting with the times. So that remains the same between humans and androids.



One looks like the amusement park, one looks like the desert, and one looks like the forest... Let’s keep our eyes open next time we’re in any of those areas.



There is no guesswork involved in finding the three photographed areas. They’re all already marked on the map. We’ll just go down the line starting with the easiest one to get to from an Access Point teleporter: the Forest Zone.


Music: Forest Kingdom (Quiet)



Just a simple matter of stepping out from the teleporter and walking some twenty paces. I opted not to disturb any of the roaming Forest Kingdom machines. But if we did, they’ve updated their war cries from defending the Forest King to avenging his death. There’s no reasoning with them that it was this other silver haired, black dressed android with a huge sword.



Better record the coordinates.



And that’s all there is to it. Just wander up to the vaguely appropriate spot and 9S will do the rest. Very important to kill time with menial tasks instead of doing an escort mission for heavy equipment YoRHa business at work.



Next up is the Amusement Park. We’ll actually have to walk a couple hundred yards for that one.


Music: Amusement Park (Vocal)



Nothing at all has changed in the Amusement Park. Everyone is still having a fun time partying and tossing confetti. Indeed, we’re more or less done here other than the occasional pit stop for a barely related sidequest.



This place looks familiar... Oh, right! It’s from that woman’s photograph! I’ll be sure to get her the coordinates...



Alright. That’s two down. One to go. And the final one is the only photo that takes a little bit of doing to match-up.



The final photograph is way to the western uncharted edge of the Desert Zone. The closest Access Point is the Desert Center one. Which still gives us a bit of a hike to get that far.


Music: Memories of Dust



Additionally, there’s an issue with making it to the western edge of the Desert Zone. I did mention it briefly when we took a tour of noteworthy site in our initial visit to the region.



The entire western edge of the desert is blocked by a massive, unending sandstorm. Unfortunately, the map marker is past that storm and just running against it will get 2B nowhere. It’s almost as if there’s an invisible wall blocking her path.



The thing is that there IS an invisible wall blocking access to the western edge of the area. The way to pass it isn’t very obvious at all. There’s no machine storm generator we need to disable nor special underground pathway that will circumvent the winds. No... 2B just needs to sort of push northwestern along the edge of map.





There is a hole in the invisible wall sandstorm that the androids can squeeze through to continue towards the west. Eventually we’ll push forward and start seeing some palm trees and ruins in the distance through the churning sand clouds. And past that we find...



A desert oasis where the storm has ceased. How about that! Let’s take a closer look.





Oh... that’s right. Florida is on the dark side of the planet. And has hopefully fallen into the sea in the last few millennia of warfare. Surely someone, be it androids or machines, had to eventually have sawed it off and let it drift out into oblivion.



Everyone has memories that are precious for one reason or another. It’s not for us to judge their value. They’re important to her; that’s all we need to know.
Yeah, I guess...



We’re actually not alone out here in the oasis. It seems another YoRHa android managed to pass the storm and decided to camp out here. Let’s say hi.



A flock of birds came to rest their wings here. I wonder if they instinctively knew how to escape the storm? It seems like time moves more slowly here. If you’ve got nothing to do, why don’t you try fishing? Everyone loves settling down for a round by the pond!



You know what? That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Official YoRHa business and all... There’s nothing else to the YoRHa soldier. She’s just chilling out. Nor is there anything else to this oasis besides it being a fishing spot with a rare fish or two unique to it.



All I managed to catch new was this stupid thing and a mess of Koi Carp. Oh well. We actually need some extra funds to do a future quest. So taking the afternoon off to fish isn’t a total waste of time.





Heading back through the sandstorm and into the Desert Zone proper, there is something else of particular note while we’re in the northwesternish part of the desert wasteland. If we continue more to the north of the sandstorm we come upon...



...err. Something unusual, let’s say. This merits closer inspection.



Oh sweet Jesus. A giant ominous orb... And is that another one in the distance? Christ, don’t tell me those Seeds of Resurrection from Drakengard managed to get sucked into this dimension at some point too? The last thing we need is some dipshit bard android to try shoving his dead lover into this and causing yet another apocalypse for this planet. Let’s confirm how many of these things there—



...are? Err... OK. That’s not a Seed of Resurrection. That’s a giant Emil head. Then what’s this other massive orb?



WHAT THE...



...ACTUAL...



...FUCK?!



OK. 2B’s just going to go ahead and shove herself in the nearest vending machine, never to speak of this again. What? You have questions about the giant Emil head graveyard in the desert? You know... some things are best left unanswered. Maybe one day we’ll sit down Emil and find out what in the flying fuck that was all about. And maybe that region will become relevant later. Much later. Like towards the end of the LP later. For now, let’s uhh... let’s just get the hell out of here and finish this photograph quest, eh?


Music: Peaceful Sleep



All that’s left in this quest is to just turn in all of the photos and their coordinates back to the memory damaged Resistance Member. We kinda forgot to grab her email address before we left...



Oh! This photo... I can still feel the intense heat beating down on me... Was I... with someone?



This is from the amusement park... I remember having fun there... together.
...”Together”?



This was a waterfall in the forest... I think I stumbled onto it one day when I was lost. But how did I get there in the first place...?
......


Music: Voice of No Return (Vocal)



These aren’t just photos. They’re bits of data from my beloved. Eight years ago, we were attacked by machines and fought a pitched battle. My love was killed, and many of my memories were lost. This must have been his final message for me.
...Thank you. You have no idea what this means to me. I know it’s not much, but please take this.



Well, it’s a bit lacking after 6O’s fountain of awesome gifts. But we’ll take it. Charge Attack chip buffs up 2B’s attack when holding the light attack button which results in a powerful err... charged attack. I rarely found myself using that in battle considering how much dodging and aggression fights favor. And as such that chip ain’t much use to me.



In any case, that concludes the Photographs sidequest. Though the woman we helped does have some closing words as soon as we attempt to walk away...



This data is telling me that I need to continue on. And yet, what’s the point of a world where my love is gone? What’s the point of living...?
......



Yeah... Well, good luck with that, lady. Those sort of existential questions are above our paygrade. We’ll put in a recommendation that this Resistance Camp gets a mental health counselor in the next fiscal quarter. Uhh... hang in there...? We'll check back in with her. In theory. She's actually OK and starts writing down things so she'll remember them while still having an existential crisis about losing memories. Tune in next time as we tackle another quest and spin the wheel to see if it ends in cute happiness, melancholy, depression or nihilistic no moral as NieR: Automata continues!






Video: Episode 43 Highlight Reel (Includes desert anomaly tour!)





Desert Zone Concept Art – Really wish you could do sick skate grinds on those derelict pipelines.