Part 49: Sacrifice, Sol System, Sol Sector (Story)
The models look good when moving and terrible in stills, to me. I have no actual appreciation of what might cause this and a lot of the time when people in the Sandcastle call one or another picture "terrible" due to people using the wrong compression format, I have to strain to tell the difference - and despite four years of being a microscopist and having to look for image artifacts it still takes me a while to find them in most pictures, so probably the wrong person to talk about this.Anyway, on with the updates, and something that really is terrible.
1st January 2669, Sol System, Sol Sector
Episode 5, Mission 4 - Sacrifice
(so, yeah, Standoff's writers make a mistake with the dates - they jump from 2668.365 to 2669.001, which neglects the fact that 2668 would be a leap year and thus contain 366 days. I guess you could argue that space years always have 365 days in them, but that seems kind of silly, if you're going to use as silly a number as 365 for the number of days in a year because it's the length of a year on Terra, you might as well use the actual length of a year on Terra).
Then they proceed to make a second, larger mistake. We're going after a Snakeir carrier, but the Kilrathi don't have any of their normal-size carriers left. They started with four ("the fleet" in the following passage being the Kilrathi Fifth fleet, with the five Hakagas; nowhere is it suggested the Fifth contains any Snakeirs and indeed the Kilrathi Emperor accounts for 20 of the 19 carriers that are known to Fleet Intelligence):
Fleet Action posted:
The fleet will head towards the frontier at flank speed. Refueling tankers will accompany them so that we may move swiftly without need of deploying fuel scoops. The Second Fleet of the Claw, with four of our older carriers, will join us before we reach the frontier and make the first penetration, thus shielding our main fleet as long as possible. The Fourth Fleet of the Claw, with three carriers, will sortie towards the Landreich to pin down any forces they might have there, preventing them from shifting against our flank. The First Fleet of the Claw, with three carriers, will make up the reserve. The other carriers have been stripped of their crews and pilots for the Fifth Fleet and will be held in reserve."
"That is ten carriers," the Emperor said quietly.
"You know the shortage of trained pilots has become serious. Either our best pilots went with our new carriers or else the new fleet would be
manned by pilots with no combat experience. It will be a year before we have enough fully trained pilots and fighters to bring the older reserve
carriers back to operational strength."
Of those four, we killed one in Warsaw, two in Sirius while they were escorting a Hakaga, and one two missions ago - and now here's another one. What's gone wrong is that the game doesn't check to see what happens to the two Snakeirs in the first Hakaga mission - they're assumed to either retreat with the Hakaga if it's damaged, or continue on if it is destroyed.
Pre-mission cutscenes:
You know what this game needed? More monologues about Sparrow. I seriously have no idea why anybody thought somebody would want to hear more about this topic. I can see why it's in the game, sort of, but I don't understand why it has to dominate as much as it does. It's like they felt some need to do a tribute to End Run by including a terrible romantic subplot. Portraying your protagonist as completely pathetic is probably not the smartest move ever.
Cutscene Video (Youtube) (but seriously don't watch it, there is THE KISS again and the entire thing is fucking terrible. Don't say I didn't warn you.)
[monologuing]: She's the same old Sparrow. She really is. The one I missed so much. So what else could possibly go wrong? I was hoping she was still the same. And, I was hoping she'd changed. I don't even know...one thing's for sure - even when I covered for her, I still never expected things to wind up like this. Dammit, I just can't stop thinking about her, and at a time like this! Half the crew is convinced they're gonna die. The other half is openly suicidal! And me? Cougar's right, I have to talk to her.
Apparently nobody takes time out from a frantic battle to save humanity's homeworld to write e-mails. Funny that. It's just the flight deck update before this mission.
IES Message - Received at 0003 hours GST on 2669.001 posted:
From: Chief Petty Officer Jean Henderson (TCN, TCS Firekka)
To: Capt. William Bradshaw (TCSF, TCS Firekka)
Subject: Latest flight deck status
Hey, Captain B.
Here's the latest data about the ships you've got available. Oh, and Happy New Year, for whatever that's worth right now.
...Hey, guess it's gotta be better than the last one, eh?
Rapiers: 21
Sabres: 13
Crossbows: 3
Stilettos: 1
Gladii: 11
Jean
After that video even I feel the need for some Fleet Action...unfortunately, that's a bit difficult right now, for reasons that will become apparent next mission, since Standoff doesn't want you to know something that the book tells you straight off (which is fair enough inasmuch as Standoff's protagonist is a Captain whereas Fleet Action's, for this section at least, is an Admiral. This is about the only section I could find that doesn't give that away, as Tolwyn briefs the Concordia's flight wing:
Fleet Action posted:
"Attention!"
Geoff came into the ready room, his features set, and reached the lectern. He looked out at his pilots. Nearly half the faces were new, many of them cadets pulled straight out of the Academy to replace the losses from Sirius.
God, we're sending children out now.
"At ease. Be seated."
"I'll keep this short, we don't have much time. You'll be pleased to know that Lexington has just cleared dry dock, carrying fifty-seven fighters. That'll give us five fleet carriers for this action."
Actually he knew it was almost meaningless. Lexington was coming up with just a little more than half her complement and running on
secondary reactor power only. It was nothing more than bait, moving ahead of Concordia, Saratoga, Ark Royal and Leyte Gulf. With three hundred additional fighters sortied up from Mars and Earth orbital bases, there'd be just over six hundred fighters, half of them with green crews
who'd never seen action beyond a flight simulator.
"You know your missions. Blue Three, you're flying Combat Air Patrol over the carriers. Blue Two, you're escorting in the Broadswords."
He could see Blue Three was less than amused, getting stuck in a purely defensive role. Blue Two knew what was going to happen to her but didn't display a flicker of emotion. The Kilrathi would turn their full fury on the Broadswords and Sabres, and with less than eighty making up the strike
and eighty escorts, the chances of any of them coming back was nil. He hesitated for a second.
"Blue One, you have the second strike escort slot. It's going to be grim. You have to remember what the final objective is, and remember that
they're all volunteers out there."
His nephew looked up at him and forced a smile. Geoff paused and looked over at the tactical display flickering in the briefing room's holo. The Kilrathi Fleet was still staying together, coming straight in at a range of twenty million clicks and closing. Thanks to simple orbital mechanics, Mars was the closest planet to the jump point, with Earth seventy million clicks behind it. The huge colonies on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter were on the far side of the system. The only settlement areas now being overrun were in the asteroid belt and had already been abandoned.
"Pilots, man your planes," Geoff said quietly and he saluted first as they came back ro their feet.
The pilots and crews stormed out of the room. The usual banter and bravado was gone today. They were silent, some obviously frightened, all
of them filled with a grim determination. He felt he could have made a bit more of an emotional appeal, but knew that was nothing but crap. Every one of them knew that this was no ordinary battle. If this one was lost the Kilrathi would be above Earth within hours.
Mission update coming, um, well. Dunno, coming down with a bit of a cold. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to record commentary without sounding awful. I have the mission video already at least.