Part 68: Orsini System, Epsilon Sector, Mission 2 (Story)

Orsini System, Epsilon Sector
Flight Deck, TCS Victory

Hobbes has a few words for us after we land:



: Congratulations, old friend.
: Yeah, just like old times, eh?
: I must say, it certainly felt good to be back out there again. My gratitude for your trust in me is endless.
: Forget it, Hobbes. You're back where you belong now.

Living Quarters

As always after a mission, Blair's natural instinct is to hit the bar. But who's the guitarist? (Answer, since the cutscene doesn't actually tell you: Lieutenant Mitchell Lopez, callsign "Vaquero", or, if you translated it into English, "Cowboy"). Let's have a chat.

(hadn't noticed Blair's arrival until he coughed, startled): Uh, good day. sir.
: At ease, Lieutenant. Carry on.
: Sorry, sir. Rockero, from the Celeste System. You can tell a lot about a system from its music, you know?
: Some places, it's all minor chords, makes you just wanna run out and do a suicide mission.
: But this is bright, it heats your blood, makes you want to live a long life.
: You a pilot, Lieutenant? Or a musician?
: Oh, I'm a pilot, sir. Pretty good one, too - check my kill scores. But my family, they made guitars for many generations.
: I've got one that's almost two hundred years old. The sound just keeps getting richer...
: Someday I'm going to open a cantina and bring in the best to play that guitar. A place for old fighter jocks like you and me.
: Well, you better line up some other customers. Might not be many of us left.
: Oh, yeah. It'll be open to one and all. And me, I'll just sit back, gaze at the beautiful women, and listen to the music...

Blair's response to this one is your choice for this update (it's the only conversation choice, and I'd prefer to at least show off the Arrow, Hellcat and Thunderbolt, the three basic light, medium and heavy fighters, before having you start picking ships). Does he think that Vaquero's dream sounds good to him or does he worry that Vaquero isn't focused?

While we're here we might as well check the killboard, and wonder why it's arranged in this order (there is actually a logical explanation for it, if we assume that Maverick was just added on at the bottom when he arrived on the ship - the pilots are arranged by alphabetical order of their surnames, something which would make an awful lot more sense if aforementioned names were actually put on the board):



We've not been into the Barracks yet, time to check it out.


Here we can save the game by clicking on that blue screen at the rear of the room, and then there's two conversation hotspots - firstly, it seems that Cobra's going to stay in one place long enough for Blair to talk to her (though not for anyone to bring enough lights in to get a decent picture of her. IMDB lists a guy called Virgil Harper as WC3's director of cinematography, to whom I would like to say: LIGHT. IT IS GOOD. IT ALLOWS YOU TO SEE THINGS.), so let's try that.



: Time we talk, Lieutenant.
: Ain't much to talk about, "sir." You've flown with it and you both got the job done.
(angry): If you're referring to Hobbes
: I can't fly with him, sir.
: If you stay on this ship, you'll have to sooner or later.
: Don't put me in the position of having to defend him. I won't do it.
: Why?
: Let's just say I'm hardwired that way and nothing you do's gonna change that.
: Look, I'll try and keep you two separate on offensive assignments.
: I'm not asking for special favors.
: We need every good pilot we've got. And just so you know: I'd trust Hobbes with my life.
: That's your choice.

I think whoever arranged this scene was trying a bit too hard to set Cobra up to be this game's version of Iceman, down to the maintaining a weapon during conversation (Iceman is cleaning a pistol in WC1, Cobra's sharpening a knife here, as you'll discover when the videos appear). One of the problems that WC3 created for itself when it went to (at least aboard the Victory) running the game from Christopher Blair's perspective is that we never really see Cobra interact with anyone whose best friend on the tub isn't a Kilrathi. She's an interesting character - or at least a character who had the potential to be interesting - that the story doesn't really do that much with.

The other spot that triggers a cutscene in the Barracks is our locker, in which Blair has stashed a variety of mementos, including this message:


: Hello, mon ami. I hope the fight goes well for you and all the others on the Concordia. I am about to
set out for a covert operation with Admiral Tolwyn. So I'm afraid we might be apart a little longer. But always remember: je t'aime. I love you. [But your French is still so lousy I have to include a translation of a three-word phrase. Seriously, how long have we been dating now? You knew enough Japanese to understand Spirit's last words, but learning my language is too much? Men....]

Mission Briefing
That's all the conversations for this time out, so time to head to the briefing room and see what Eisen's got for us:


: Let's get started, Colonel.
: One of our tracking stations reports Kilrathi activity in these regions. I'd like you to run a patrol through there and sweep the areas.
: The station's report is sketchy. You might encounter some sort of Kilrathi cap ship.
: Go to it, Colonel.

Choose your own Blair!
So we've got one dialogue choice this time; "It sounds good to me" or "He isn't focused" regarding Vaquero's cantina-based ambitions, and if any of you happen to have an opinion which of Vagabond, Vaquero, Maniac and Cobra I fly with on this mission, I guess you might as well share it, since I don't appear to care much. Whichever wingman I do choose is the one I'll profile in the mission update, if that's important to anyone. I'll be using this mission to introduce the Thunderbolt, then complete the trio with the Arrow in the third mission - yes, I do get to choose my own fighter in this game, though I'm not sure if all five fighters are ever available for any single mission.


I've got it (for the ton of extras which are useful when you're doing an LP) and it does more or less seem to, though as I prefer to configure my own DOSBox I'm not using it for recording. Some people on CIC have reported technical problems but not a huge number.

Oh, and the Hornet sucks. I'm a bit confused by some of the stuff Psion is saying about WC4 but we'll get there when we get there.