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Panboy
May 20, 2010

Le'me tell ya'll about them Apples.
I think brink was kinda an rear end from the get go, he wanted to be the alpha male and had no respect for the military chain of command.

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Olesh
Aug 4, 2008

Why did the circus close?

A long, chilling list of animal rights violations.

Sovy Kurosei posted:

The alien creator didn't really degrade like Brink either, though. Also Brink tried to start a mutiny within minutes of landing on the planet.

The game does not, in my opinion, do a very good job at selling the idea that the life crystals are bad. The alien creator and Maggie's objections to it feel like they stem more from moral/spiritual grounds rather than any ethical or rational ones. What's the difference between being brought back to life by the life crystals and by being "found" in Spacetime Six?

Brink reveals himself to be an rear end in a top hat pretty much right away. When he gets resurrected by the life crystal, and talks about feeling better than ever, it's pretty clear that he's become instantly addicted. Throughout the course of the game, he displays some stereotypical depictions of addicted druggie behavior up to and including getting desperately violent in an attempt to get his fix. Maybe he's not thinking in his right mind or acting like his usual self, but that's as easily explainable due to him being a junkie with nobody in a position to restrain him and keep him clean. He's suffering an incredibly rapid downward spiral in a hopeless situation where he has no access to apparent food or drinkable water, just drugs. It's not a big stretch.

The inventor, on the other hand? Tremendous rear end in a top hat. He doesn't really go into why he thinks the life crystals are bad in any real specifics beyond an explanation that essentially amounts to a moral/spiritual excuse against resurrection. Ever wonder why the inventor was still around when literally every other member of their species is trapped in Spacetime Six?

It seems kind of odd, that - the inventor designs a machine in order to access Spacetime Six and provide an ascension for his species, and without any testing or experimentation the entire species sans the creator decide to all jump in at once without testing it, with only the inventor himself staying behind? It doesn't hold up, especially since the inventor describes Spacetime Six in detail, which shouldn't be possible unless he's been there. But if he was there, how did he get out without help? The simplest explanations are either that he's a giant coward who never went and is making poo poo up or that he was the only one to escape and he's an arrogant fatalist prick who assumes that nobody else could ever get out, even with help from him or other species. He's proven incredibly wrong in a big way, too - literally seconds after Low walks in, the trapped aliens are like "yo, thanks for finally opening the door and showing where it is, now we can jet" meaning that the inventor has never tried to bring them back.

And that's not even covering the return of Maggie or Brink at the end - here we have two resurrections, both performed without the physical bodies on hand. Again, what makes this okay when the life crystals were apparently unacceptable? We use addictive substances for medical purposes all the time (uh, painkillers?) because we can mitigate the risks and manage the drawbacks.

What happened to the original bodies? Would it be possible to find Maggie and Brink's corpses down the cliff somewhere, and then resurrect them with life crystals? which ones are the "real" Maggie and Brink, in that case?

The game doesn't really give a satisfying explanation for any of this. It doesn't even try. Leaving it up to the viewer's imagination works so long as the things you've already shown aren't internally inconsistent.

Internet Janitor
May 17, 2008

"That isn't the appropriate trash receptacle."
I'm glad to have had a chance to experience this game, but honestly the writing seems pretty weak. I can see why this game doesn't get very much recognition.

Sindai
Jan 24, 2007
i want to achieve immortality through not dying
I have to agree that Maggie's reaction to the life crystal doesn't really gel with Brink's. It would have been way creepier and more consistent if she'd gone "changed my mind, life crystals are great, you should have some!" But that probably would have required more assets/writing/speech recording to have her walking around with you at the end unless they could come up with another way to get rid of her.

Tiggum posted:

Also, Boston is trapped in Spacetime 6, right? The creature says that they can communicate because they're in Spacetime 6, but then back in "normal" spacetime they can still communicate fine. So Boston never got out, this is all some kind of illusion. The reason the aliens never got out is because they don't even know they're still trapped.
And yeah, this fits perfectly. The moment he steps into SS6 everything is easy and great. :tinfoil:

Dr. Buttass
Aug 12, 2013

AWFUL SOMETHING

Sovy Kurosei posted:

The alien creator didn't really degrade like Brink either, though. Also Brink tried to start a mutiny within minutes of landing on the planet.

Drugs affect different people differently. The real problem with the whole plot point of the crystals is basically what Olesh said, but more scientifically literate: Our sample size here was two. We have one guy who started out as an rear end in a top hat and turned into a threat to himself and everyone else after being exposed to the crystals, and we have one guy who does nothing but make cryptic statements that approximately back up our observations of our single other subject. Basically he's being a cryptic rear end in a top hat because he thinks the best way to keep his creations out of the hands of people who might use them and doom their species the way he did his, so he's afraid if he tells us too much we might succeed just enough to gently caress ourselves over. Storywise they woulda been better off just having Maggie find his journal and experiment logs, which can't be asked questions and can't clarify what they mean.

Kangra
May 7, 2012

Sindai posted:

I have to agree that Maggie's reaction to the life crystal doesn't really gel with Brink's. It would have been way creepier and more consistent if she'd gone "changed my mind, life crystals are great, you should have some!" But that probably would have required more assets/writing/speech recording to have her walking around with you at the end unless they could come up with another way to get rid of her.

The other way I expected them to go with that was Maggie waking up and Brink lying to her about the crystal, just saying that she'd been thrown clear. It's not even clear why she's so certain she died; Brink was kind of fuzzy on the details of what happened to him, unless you want to argue that was because he was dead longer.

Quaternion Cat
Feb 19, 2011

Affeline Space
I guess, thinking about it, if they sucked in Maggie and Brink using space time six's bizzaro time system, and Brink has his hand back, does that mean they're like, time duplicates with new bodies? And if so, is Maggie's old body still in the eye activation chamber?

Best not to know, probably.

I think ultimately 'and then the story ends and everyone lives happily ever after because humans are great' is a fairly standard takeaway message from the majority of popular sci fi, it's not exactly unique in that. Also I guess Alan Dean Foster wrote a novel about the story of game? Apparently it solves some plot mystery stuff, but whomever wrote that note on the wiki page helpfully didn't mention the plot points it solved... kinda tempted to pick up a copy just to own it though.

Robodog
Oct 22, 2004

...how does that work?
The answer here to all your questions and plot holes is 'aliens did it'.

Mikl
Nov 8, 2009

Vote shit sandwich or the shit sandwich gets it!
A bit late since I was away for work with no Youtube access for two weeks, but thanks for the LP! It was great (and a bit nostalgic) seeing this game again.

fullTimeLurker
Nov 10, 2010

Great LP. Was great to listen to while working because of the the dialogue.

I think it ended rather abruptly though. It felt like a whole lot of blind stumbling around and then suddenly happy ending!

Some of the Sheep
May 25, 2005
POSSIBLY IT WOULD BE SIMPLER IF I ASKED FOR A LIST OF THE HARMLESS CREATURES OF THE AFORESAID CONTINENT?
I've been watching Black Sails and it made me wonder whether they named Boston Low after Ned Low, of Boston.

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Non-EuclideanCat
Nov 9, 2009
Thanks again, everyone. I'm glad you all enjoyed it.

Keep your eyes open and your ears to the ground. The next one's already in the oven.

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