Masterpost
Day Twenty Three: I Hate To Turn Up Out Of The Blue Uninvited
So, dem monsters.
Take a look at this:
Okay, the point of showing you them is to point out that for a bunch of creatures who all live in an identical barren environment, they're surpringly diverse.
... Too diverse.
Well, maybe, maybe not. It's difficult to say for certain without knowing the history of the moon in question, but it does appear to be a barren enough wasteland for all of these monsters to want to leave.
Interestingly enough, some (and I must stress that it's not a huge amount) of all this stuff is reminiscent to my massive dork self as being kind of similar to Johannes Kepler's Somnium.
Somnium is an example of some very, very early hard science fiction.
(If someone tells you that Frankenstein is the first science fiction story, be sure to ask them if 1608 came before or after 1818. Credit where credit is due, people.)
One example of the similarities is the way that the people being brought to the moon are sedated. While I've already pointed that it wouldn't actually prevent Zog and Co. dying from the force that the Esthar space gun would put them under, for Kepler it wasn't a particularly bad idea. He knew that the force of the journey would do a body harm so he used what he could to try and counteract that.
From Kepler, it's impressive, from Square it's kind of sad.
Anyway, I've got distracted talking about science fiction again.
Monsters.
In Somnium (... damn) there are two kinds of being living on the Moon (AKA, Levania),those who live on the side facing away from the Earth (Privolva) and those living on the side that can see the Earth (Subvolva).
This could lead to some differences, but I'm still sceptical that an environment like the Moon could support much life, let alone such diverse life. Especially if they're as light averse as the creatures in Levania.
Since the Sun is so strong, the daemons (say it doesn't count as sci-fi because of this and I will stab you) have to live in shadows on the Moon and can only rush to the Earth (which they call Volva) during a solar eclipse.
Gosh.
Replace 'solar eclipse' with 'magical gravity bullshit' and it does sound awfully familiar, doesn't it?
There really is nothing new under the sun, is there?
So, what's with the magical gravity bullshit?
Well, it seems to be a cyclical thing, but it can be exacerbated if certain conditions are met.
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| Still hate this camera angle. |
And it's the Lunatic Pandora because it's a massive box that fills the world with monsters from the moon.
Gosh, that's actually pretty clever. I do like that.
Zog chases Nina into a locker room, just to see her already in a space suit and heading out of the air lock.
Hmmm... I know that if they have a habit of casually sending people into space and going on space walks then they'll have easy to put on spacesuits, but it still doesn't sit right with me. I'm pretty sure that in real life, this is a two man job, much like a robe a la Francais.
Zog goes into a changing room to put one on before following her out.
On the way he runs into a couple of people making the return trip instead of trying to stop the crazed teenage girl from unleashing an unspeakable evil onto the world.
Okay, to be fair, it'd probably be hard to stop her, but I'd still attempt it. Millions are at risk.
Not to mention that I'd rather die floating in space than live on my knees under the control of an evil sorceress.
Get it out of the way and she can't use it as an excuse to kill my family and friends.
These astronauts are very confused and scared by the whole affair, which makes sense. They also mention that Adel's prison is probably going to fall near Esthar. Which...
Look, of course it is. If the Esthar space gun can fire people to this space station repeatedly (although we've been through this before, it probably can't), and Adel's tomb is close enough that someone can just float there with little difficulty, then of course she's going to land somewhere near Esthar. You spcifically built it this way.
(Oh, side note, I think I may have been incorrect about this space station not being intended to be at a Lagrange point. I mean, it can't be for the aforementioned reasons, but I think it may be intended to be at one. Terribly sorry. As stated before, I'm not a hobbying physicist, I'm a hobbying biologist.)
The game loves to waste my time, so getting Zog all the way to the door doesn't actually manage to get him outside. The doors shut and he's trapped in the space station and totally unable to stop Nina.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
This game, it's worse than that bloody owl in Ocarina of Time.
So going all the way back to the the corridor past the locker room nets us a conversation with the President who they still seem to want to be a surprise for some reason.
He tries to be all self sacrificing, but his aides prevent him by physically dragging him off.
Good aides, very responsible.
Have a cookie.
I'm only half joking, it's a pretty sensible thing to do. Go them, most sensible thing anyone in this game has done so far.
He manages to escape for a couple of seconds in order to tell the besuited Zog to look after Ellone before his aides stop him from leaving Esthar leaderless in a time of crisis.
As no one is out there to stop her, Nina manages to make her way to the prison and unlocks the second seal on Adel.
I'm not going to lie, I'm surprised that they only have two. Three is more traditional in situations like this. Possibly because it's a more magically significant number, and possibly because if gives you more opportunity to stop people trying to unseal the dangerous thing. Gosh.
Not to mention that it slows them down so you can try and lock the first bit again.
Here this leads to an FMV cutscene and we get to see the Sorceress Adel in all her glory for the first time.
...
Wow, she's buff.
Look at those arms! She must have been hitting the gym pretty damn hard before they stuck her in stasis.
And the stasis must have been amazingly effective, otherwise her muscles would have wasted away by now.
In both instances, I'm pretty impressed.
(Also a little jealous of those guns, I mean, wow. New fitspo right there.)
As if this wasn't bad enough, the swell of monsters from the moon is heading straight towards her.
The space station desperately needs evacuating, which we'll cover next time, in part Sixty Three.
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