Phew! Been a while. Summing up time!
Sorry, it’s been ages, and I was not following the other Path anyway. What went on in that story?
Fair enough.
The Combat path- having been rejected from the Matrix by the signal isolator (created by three of Lo Qi’s monks who are in fact programmers) was stuck facing thousands of sentinels; their entire mission was spent fleeing from the sentinels (which they could not EMP as it would kill the Philo team) in what appeared to be a hopeless suicide mission deeper into enemy territory. Dallas in fact steered the conflict towards the power plant (where the pod-humans are kept) and then deliberately blew his ship’s engines to create an electrical storm that took care of the sentinels. The storm originated behind the ships instead of inside them so the systems on the ships stayed on-line, although everyone on board was still hurt. Despite the success of the plan, there was a price; the Persepolis crashed and will never take off again, and Ariadne died about the Scheherazade. Cloud and San were also very badly injured and are only proceeding in the game now through an elaborate hoax of Marduk’s which used a training programme to convince them they were fine; they entered the Matrix from that training programme but must fight the next story at a disadvantage.
Dallas wanted to return to the Matrix to save the others but the system was on too high an alert to steal, reasonably, another aircraft. Dallas then received a call from the Oracle telling him the exact place to steal a military Osprey, which the Combat path then proceeded to do, before flying to the Fortress to rendezvous with the Philo path.
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The Philo Path had been left behind in the Matrix where they were escorted by the Monks and the Hunter back to the Monastery. The Hunter took them past the Agents there, across the lake to the Door, where the Agents had started firing at them all across the bank and the players had gone inside and discovered the presence of the Stranger within. Their story kicked off immediately after this point.
The Stranger immediately left the general vicinity and destroyed the Agents with little trouble. The players took the Hunter back across the lake- where he again appeared to burn to death- before being met by Lo Qi at the far bank. The following conversation revealed the true nature of the Hunter- he is the last copy of Jericho, ex-Captain of the Bounty and major antagonist from the first story. His creation process was incomplete when the agents destroyed the AI birthing facility he was created at, yet he was still an AI presence inside the Matrix at this time. He does not interact with the Matrix properly and whenever it tries to delete him, the deletion programme crashes and Jericho is returned to the Matrix as he was. The effective result of this is invulnerability, hit Jericho does not seem happy about his state, stating it is not really life at all.
The second revelation is that the Doctor is the System’s solution severe programme issues like Jericho. Although programmed with similar capacities as an Agent, it has no personality as it does not have to interact with Humans. It is also not that bright. Instead it is programmed with specific routines that isolate dangerous programmes form the Matrix- in the case of the SWAT team members seen at the Museum, this rejects them from the Matrix entirely. In the case of more complicated programmes, it exiles them to a quarantine zone within the Matrix- that quarantine zone is the Door, protected by a mist that destroys any programme that tries to enter. Humans are not affected, and Jericho can ignore the death problem, but the Key was still needed to get in. Lo Qi wanted in but by the time he had found someone who could get past the mist- Jericho- he had lost the Key. He did not manipulate you guys into doing the job for him, however. It was your decision to do so.
Which leads to revelation number 3, the identity of the quarantined programme that the players had let free. The programme is a Virus, but this term is ironic. He is a literal computer virus- not a malignant programme that duplicates in patterns similar to the behaviour of biological viruses, but in fact a biological virus in digital form. Its purpose is to infect Humans, which it does by simple proximity. It affects the Human’s biological form in the real world by exploiting the same mysterious process that causes Matrix injuries to be inflicted upon the real world.
All the Philo payers are infected; they had not noticed because it was their real world bodies that were affected, not them. But slowly the symptoms began to grow on them as their minds realised they were dying. The Virus has absolutely no effect on Machines that have no biology to infect, nor any real world form for the virus to pass along.
The ultimate purpose of the Virus is to destroy the Human race.
After this the players are locked up and the true Philosophy section started. This I will not go through in detail as a. that requires a section of its own to go through and b. it is for the players who went through it to understand whilst the story still runs.
To summarise:
- On the plot side of things, this Path explained the true nature of Lo Qi and the Monks, what their motivations were in wanting the Virus released, why such a Virus was created in the first place, and what had been going on from the point you guys intercepted the meeting at the Museum onwards.
- On the philosophical side of things, this Path went over many areas- the nature of change, evolution and extinction (the central theme of the story as reflected by the dinosaurs at the Museum, and also backed by some of the work of Lewis Carroll (a quote of whose was in the Monastery), as ever central to the Matrix), asking how accountable you are for the consequences of actions you took when you did not know the consequences, analysing the nature of how the Matrix enslaves, brushing against the ultimate purpose of existence, and most importantly of all exploring the fact that the Machines have been known to act with moral cause in their thinking, as Lo-Qi wanted you all to learn from your visits to Sennacherib.
The final dilemma was a theoretical one- asking if it was a. worthwhile and b. morally right to destroy the majority of the Human race in the Matrix in order to, in turn, destroy the Matrix and so be able to destroy the Machines. The decision would be in view of the fact that all the Philo players are dying anyway. The two most important perspectives on this were first of all, the lesson of Sennacherib- the Machines were left with the decision to destroy most of the Machines in order to kill the Humans. They refused on moral grounds (not to do with the Humans, but with the mass slaughter of their own kind). The second was the question the Oracle left you at the start of Assignment 2- whether it was best to do the right thing for the wrong reasons or the wrong thing for the right reasons.
THE ORACLE HERSELF contends the following- you would have very good reason to destroy the Matrix… but it is, morally, the wrong thing to do, and if you prove the Machines morally superior to you, then what are you fighting for? She helps the Humans for a reason. If they prove to be the bad guys, she’d stop.
Ironically, the Oracle agrees with nearly all of Lo Qi’s justification for his action, except she believes in a solution of symbiosis, whereas Lo Qi believes in evolution via eternal competition and balance. Details of that are buried inside the Path and cannot be quickly summarised here. It is very important to note that Lo Qi is NOT a ‘Survival of the Fittest’ exponent, and so his solution is completely different to that of, say, the Shadows in Babylon 5.
But in any case the thinking is irrelevant because if the Virus succeeds, it is Zion that will fall, not the Machines. The Oracle knows this, Lo Qi does not. So in a practical sense, to allow the Virus to continue is wrong as well. A clue for this possibility was given in Assignment III; the final diorama showing the Battle of the Marne. Sennacherib clearly states that the German general had good reasons to do what he did, but it lost him the campaign. Sadly no-one picked up on this direct reference to the Oracle’s words.
With the help of the Oracle the players escape and the theoretical dilemma becomes real. Having correctly surmised that Sennacherib created the Virus, back when all of Humanity was in the Matrix and so the Virus could cause a 100% extinction, they can go to see him and hope he knows of a way to stop it. This they decide to do, but the biggest dissenter is Azrael, not only on philosophical grounds, but also because some very unpleasant personal stuff went down during the Path which has alienated him from all of you. He also seems to be suffering worst of all from the Virus, and his Oracle Prediction seems to be coming true, in the form that it appears to have been his destiny to destroy Humanity. The Oracle has offered him some specific extra advice, which he will need to ponder.
The Philo path get to the Fortress, and convince Sennacherib to help them on the grounds that it is too late for him now, that the Machines will never accept his help now even if he was right about the Humans (because the basic flaw in his design, as was made clear during the Path, still exists), and so he will die along with everyone else. He reveals that he has a vaccine that prevents infection… but not a cure. Those infected are doomed. There is little to be done about this, and his Sentinels attack the players- and indeed their King- because the Sentinels would rather die than let the Humans survive. The Philo players escape to the rooftop of the Fortress in time to be picked up by the Combat Path, but with Sennacherib’s last words to them still in their thoughts- the Vaccine must be delivered to the Weather Control programme… Melitus.
What the bloody hell was the Combat Path meant to do about THAT lot??!
True, up against thousands of sentinels was never going to be a happy situation, so it was all about doing the best you could before Dallas’ plan to destroy them all paid off.
That being the case, there were three penalties that could be invoked for each ship- the loss of your operator, the loss of your ship, and the loss of your Captain. If you add in ‘nothing at all’, that leaves four different outcomes for each ship at the end of the mission. Nothing happening was the best outcome, with the losses of operator, ship and Captain being the increasing severity in that order.
It could have gone worse. There were a few issues of tactical positioning, but the biggest problem was the over-enthusiastic firing early on which led to guns overheating later.
Persepolis had no gunners!
True. But I cannot adjust all scenarios to suit those within else it makes character creation meaningless. The whole point is that characters will be good at some things and bad at others, whether as individuals or in groups. This is one of those situations where the group did not have the required skills and paid for it. That’s life!
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It seems there was a definitive ‘right’ answer to the Philosophy Path
Kinda. The practical question, of whether allowing the Virus to go on would succeed tin destroying the Machines, is DEFINITELY one that has a right answer- no it will not. As to why not, that’s not going to be spelled out, but lots of clues are around.
But in absence of that information the Philo path was looking at your moral and philosophical justification for what your decision would be, and whether you bore everything in mind before the, with important clues in each preceding Assignment. I reckon everyone did well enough to pass, though maybe a little alarmed to see how quickly some wanted to a. definitively make themselves out to be more pitiless than the Machines and b. do so when I am dangling Jericho in front of you, the logical extension of that thought, as much as Sennacherib represented that line of thought for a Machine.
You are fighting for a cause. But you must question a cause. The survival of Humanity- but why should Humanity survive? Why should the Machines- who we just established have a moral sense- die in Humanity’s place? Why is Smith’s justification for their annihilation incorrect? On the Philo path, if you cannot manage a better justification than “because I am Human”, with all the inherent flaws to that, then you are in trouble.
This being the case, was there really any choice at all?
Certainly. And if you decided to let the Virus go on, you would have gone to Melitus’ for different reasons.
Melitus is a flipping weather control machine??!
Yes- and if you played before, think about it.
Azrael’s prediction has turned out to be pretty harsh, huh?
Azrael’s plot IS harsh, yes. And I cannot make this clear enough- Melitus warned him.
The whole game plot is harsh, of course, as several of you have noted. Well, that’s drama for you.
And now here's me with my eternal optimism (yeah right) saying "wow, that went bad but it could have gone much much worse".
And considering everything that happened...we're really lucky it DIDN'T go much worse than it did.
Yay for breaking my record of having never been knocked out in a fight in probably the most spectacular way ever, though...ermm