Part 121: Alcor System, Vega Sector, Mission 2 (Story)

^^^Space air, I think, given how it seems to have a nonzero coefficient of friction. Flippantly, I avoid dying by being good at the game. More usefully...it's basically what novels about fighter pilots call "situational awareness"; knowing where the enemy is without actually having to look. And this is pretty easy in WC3 because the enemy can be in one of three places - in front of you, in which case you can see and shoot at them, behind you, in which case they are likely shooting at you and you should dodge and loop around after a couple of seconds, or somewhere off to one side, in which case ignore them.

Alcor System, Vega Sector
TCS Victory

Stunned by the loss of an entire attack wing to a single two-fighter patrol, the Kilrathi Kalrahr commanding the forces pursuing the TCS Victory group pulls back to regroup his remaining forces. Falling back to cover the retreat, Kilrathi reconaissance assets miss the arrival of a single personnel shuttle running a tight sensor-stealth mode. But surely the arrival of such a small vessel couldn't have a major effect on the war, given the huge Kilrathi forces poised to go on the offensive...



Flight Deck, TCS Victory

Just as in the drunk path, Flint wants a word with us after we land...but this time she's substantially more complimentary. Though by comparison with WC2 we can see she lacks Blair's killer instinct for seducing the CAG when their defences are down because they've just been told about the death of somebody important to them...

(Also, Mark Hamill gives the camera this look. I thought it was worth sharing):


: Are you all right?
: I've had better days...
: Still, the way you've been holding up, considering... You've really been showing us what you're made of.
: Yeah, well, thanks, Flint.
: When I think about how stupidly I acted back on Locanda... Look, I'm sorry about Angel. Everyone on board is. She must have been something.
: <nods quietly>


Rec Room

Rollins confirms what Tolwyn suspected, we do indeed have a spy on the Victory. Bet you can't guess who Cobra thinks it is. (Blair can - so can Jade Star, actually):




: The ship's sensors could track movement in every compartment, right?
: Well, yeah, I guess... Yeah, supposedly I guess that's possible. I'll have to do some fancy byte-surgery...
: Then do it. Make that paranoia of yours pay off for once!
: That would be a change for the lieutenant. You wanna fill me in?
: Yeah, those crazy coded transmissions are still being sent, sir. Cobra here, she thinks Hobbes...
[somewhat irritated]: I know what Cobra thinks.
: Sir, they were waiting for the Behemoth. They know what we're going to do even before we do. And I can't believe you're still sympathetic towards a Kilrathi, not after...[gets an angry look from Blair, trails off]

Aaand that's a dialogue choice, if you can remember what those are. It's been a while, hasn't it? So do we admit that Cobra might have a point, or is the reason we keep running into large Kilrathi forces more straightforward - it's because we're losing the war.

Then there's the killboard, of course. The last mission's escapades temporarily have me over ten kills per mission for WC3:


Gunnery Control

So who was in that shuttle, anyway? We find out when the passenger drops in on Blair when he's having a quiet moment alone with his thoughts and the stars...



Suppose it had to be Paladin, really - everyone else we've met in the storyline was either already on the Victory, had been and gone (Tolwyn), or was a Kilrathi. Blair's still moody, though:

: You missed all the fun.
: I wish I'd been there. I'm tired of flying a desk. I hear you had a little run-in with, uh, Thrakhath.
: Yes I did... you son-of-a-bitch.
: It pains me that you had to find out that way.
: How long have you known?
: Oh...[long pause] since the Concordia went down.

In other words, he could have told us on Vespus, but didn't. Blair's initial reaction is to punch the son-of-a-bitch (actual text of the option in the game), but does he have enough self-control to remember that it's probably not career-enhancing to punch Generals (Paladin, in case you have forgotten, is the head of the TCN's Covert Operations division; if we use titles and names rather than callsigns he's General James Taggart), and, in any case, Paladin's on my side.

We lose a little context here from my habit of cutting these conversations off at the choice, since this one goes on much longer after the choice than usual. Since in fact both dialogue choices converge pretty rapidly (as in, one line of dialogue is different between them), I might as well give you everything except those lines. So, after Blair does or doesn't punch Paladin, and he reacts to that...

: On Vespus, you stood there and lied to me…
: I was under orders, laddie.
: All those missions we flew together, you on my wing, protecting me?
: I was protecting you - by not telling you! Did you see what you nearly did when you found out? I was protecting you from yourself!
: You know how much she meant to me.
: I do. But this is war, laddie. All of us have lost someone dear to us. That does not make you special.
: Yeah. I've heard that before.

(He has - back in Locanda:
: Everyone's lost someone, right? They don't give you medals for it.)

: Besides, Angel may yet help us win this thing. She sent one final transmission before she was taken prisoner on Kilrah. I think you may be interested to hear it. I'll wait for you in the briefing room.

Guess we'd better get down there, then...

Mission Briefing
Briefing Room

Apparently Rollins isn't important enough to learn how Paladin's arrival might change the course of the war...except that the entire ship apparently knows by next mission.



: We've got a lot to cover. The Behemoth was not the only rabbit in, uh, Confed's hat. We in Covert had our own long shot project. It became much more of a reality once Angel got to Kilrah.
: Angel carried with her an impressive scientific package. Part of it she placed in orbit around the Kilrathi homeworld, other parts were seeded at ground level. All are cloaked, and send their low-level signals to a comm-sat parked just outside the Kilrah system, which feeds the data to us. Angel may be gone, but her work continues, laddie. Now, it turns out that the Kilrah homeworld is a pretty fragile place, layered with active fault lines. Its tectonic plates keep shuffling themselves like a deck of cards. Now, it's my guess that the heavy seismic activity is what propelled the Kilrathi into becoming such an aggressive, space-faring race.
: So Kilrah has an Achilles heel...
: Now over the last decade, work has proceeded on a tectonic-frequency weapon - the Temblor Bomb. The theory goes that if we can fire this thing with absolute precision, its detonation could achieve the proper resonant frequency and trigger a tectonic reaction that would literally shake their planet apart.
: But even if we could destroy their homeworld, they've got an entire army deployed.
: Their entire culture is based on a strict, centralised hierarchy: all roads lead to Kilrah. Every Kilrathi lives and dies for the Emperor. Destroy that hierarchy, and you destroy them.
: So, what are we waiting for?
: Ah, well, we have one problem: there is no bomb. A year ago, Dr. Severin, the man in charge of this project, was captured by the Kilrathi. We've tried putting the pieces together without him, but ended up with zip.
: And now we have to go and get him.
: Well, it beats waiting for the Kilrathi to parole him.
: What? We gotta go after this guy on a prison planet?
: The only chance we've got at finishing up the T-Bomb.
: Let's get down to this mission's specifics. The prison planet is Alcor V. We'll enter the system through the back door, under normal drive. Colonel, I want you to scout ahead, clear the asteroid field, and make sure we are not detected.
: You got it, laddie?
: Yes, sir.

So, once again, we're planning to blow Kilrah up....though, apparently, we've been researching the Temblor Bomb for a long time *before* we knew it'd do that to Kilrah. What was it originally for? Maybe it just causes earthquakes on more stable worlds, that could be kind of useful if you want your bombing to be deniable I guess. The topic is never brought up, so other than undirected speculation we will never know.

Choose your own Blair!
Plenty of choices this time - there's whether or not Cobra might have a point or if she should lay off Hobbes; and then there's whether Paladin's on our side or if we should punch him for not telling us about Angel. Then there's fighter (Arrow, Thunderbolt and Longbow are available) and wingman (everyone except Hobbes, who we flew with last time).