Part 89: Ariel System, Vega Sector, Mission 1 (Story)

Ariel System, Vega Sector (first mission)
TCS Victory

The Victory and her escorts jump into Kilrathi-controlled space to launch a reconnaissance-in-force against enemy units and supply lines in the Ariel system.



Flight Deck

The increased tempo of operations that goes with being behind enemy lines means that the Victory's support staff is working overtime keeping enough fighters flying and ready on the Victory's deck to respond to any aggressive moves from the garrison forces. This doesn't leave much time for a social calendar:



: Not now, partner. All you jocks wanted recon work so bad - now you got it, which means us grunts gotta bust our asses for you.

Flight Control

Cobra might be considered to be slightly too enthusiastic about our going over to the offensive for this series of missions.



: About time...
: I don't recall ever seeing that before.
[after a puzzled silence]: That smile on your face, it looks good.
: Oh, I can smell 'em, sir. Now that we're in their territory. All those Kilrathi waiting to die at my hands.
: Well, being on the offensive seems to have brought you out of that shell of yours.
: I didn't become a pilot just to baby-sit bases.

This one's a dialogue choice; I debated not giving you it and just picking the answer I like the conversation for, but in the end I decided that there wasn't any harm in giving you four choices rather than three at the end of an update for once. If this results in Armageddon, well, oops. So, does Blair encourage Cobra or remind her that every mission is important?

Rec Room

Blair points out to Vagabond that he wasn't born yesterday. For his part, our resident card shark (like everybody else on the ship) knows more about what we're doing than Blair does, though he's not entirely sure he believes his information.



: C'mon. Try your luck, sir.
: Err, don't I get to cut the deck, at least?
: You'd be surprised how many rookies just ante up and look shocked when they lose the first pot.
: Well, they get what they deserve, then.
: I hear we're going after a garrison.
: I haven't been briefed.
: It may not seem like it... but my wheels are always turning. I fly better when I know what the real objectives are. HQ's got a bad habit of labelling every target a military installation - even when they ain't. I like to be really sure.

Blair's response to that is a dialogue choice, too, and it's on the game's central theme, so not asking you would be a little silly. Does he, after the Kilrathi biocide attacks on Locanda, Sirius and Warsaw, embrace the doctrine of total war and think that everything is military, or does he believe that the Confederation doesn't target civilians? (You don't have the option to agree with Vagabond, so tough.

As for the killboard, I've decided to try to get the numbers back in line, so I re-did the previous mission trying to get as few kills as possible (which is an entertaining tactical exercise for a while, though not killing Sorthak gets dull eventually). I got 5 (you pretty much have to kill the Strakha and Vaktoths going for the transports). This got me down from 10 kills ahead of where I actually was to 4; hopefully I can get back in line next time around.



Bridge

Because of all the care-Blairing going on, we get the high group morale conversation with Rollins, rather than the one which I tend to prefer (especially since it would have given me a much better lead in to the TNC segment I'm going to post).

: For once, sir, we're actually taking it to the cats.
: Well, what do you think, Lieutenant? Maybe we have a chance in this war after all?
: Could be. But I wouldn't make plans for a victory party just yet.

Rollins would have been much more entertaining if the ship had been at low morale:
: Ah, they said "join the Navy and see the universe" - but I'd just as soon not buy the farm in Kilrathi territory.
: Only you could read trouble into an offensive recon assignment.
: Yeah, well, my decodes from the comm traffic tell me we're just flailing away here. This ain't some great strategic stroke - this is desperation city.

And TNC is clearly getting its war news from low-morale Rollins:



: Confed sources will neither confirm nor deny reports of new thrusts into Kilrathi territory. However, eyewitness accounts throughout the galaxy suggest that after months of waging a purely defensive campaign, the Confederation is throwing the dice and hoping to roll a 7. This is Barbara Miles for the Terran News Channel.

This sentence always confused me. "Throwing the dice" being a plural, isn't a 7 an entirely reasonable result? I guess what I'm supposed to take out of it is they're aiming for a roll of 7 on a single six-sided die, but I'm not really sure why that should be appparent to me. Also, this video doesn't appear to exist in the collection of deleted scenes I have, though it's supposed to have been in the Playstation and 3DO versions of the game. Still, I suspect nobody's life will be forever incomplete because they didn't see this, so I'm not going to devote hours to searching for it (devoting minutes to searching for it didn't show up anything - CIC claims to have it, but if you download the file you discover it's of a different Infoburst).

Gunnery Control

No conversation here, but it's worth pointing out that now we're in enemy territory the Victory's gunnery stations are apparently manned at all times (those crewmen aren't there usually):



Mission Briefing
Briefing Room

In commemoration of the fact that this is the first time they actually show it, let's see a different corner of the briefing room today:



: Colonel, part of the reason we're in Kilrathi space is because of your flying. You've done the Victory proud.
: Now, as you may have heard on the grapevine, we're here to destroy this system's military garrison. We're gonna have to fight through several waypoints: the enemy's spread out with patrols everywhere. Any ship that can escape to the jump point will be able to alert the rest of the Kilrathi to our presence here. And that would mean we'd have to scrap this entire offensive. Now, you need to nail every last one of 'em, Colonel.
: Consider them nailed, sir.
: God, I love that boy's spunk

Choose your own Blair!

Two conversation choices - encourage Cobra on or remind her that every mission's important, and embrace total war or argue that Confed doesn't target civilians to Vagabond. Then we've got the ship and wingman to consider for the mission. There's the usual three fighters available plus the Longbow bomber. As for wingmen, everyone except Hobbes, who we flew with last time, is available.