I can forgive most anyone of this games flaws, but the skipping over the Stadium is a pretty fucking glaring oversight. I have no idea how they could let something like that go to launch!??! Surely you would just delete the cutscene. bastards. I made sure to get in round the side and not trigger the cutscene so i could go through the stadium.
Inside the sarcophagus, the Marked One contends with the Monolith's elite defenders, who die pretty much like every other grunt he's dispatched so far. All the while, the Monolith beckons to him, telling him to ignore that other quest marker. There is also a portal, but, sadly, no cake. Oh well. Maybe next game.
My geiger starts ticking, and my radar counts off targets. Again the Monolith calls to me, Come to me. The psi-helmet keeps its influence at bay, but I can still hear it... and it still... still tries to get ahold of me.
No, I must focus. Remember what I'm here for. I'm in the heart of the enemy. Monolith soldiers are everywhere. I have to be careful.
I pick this one off with my sniper rifle, and loot his gauss rifle ammo. Finally, I get to use these things against them. Let's hope it serves me better than it has them.
You will gain what you deserve.
I will not be deterred. I know what I'm here for.
Troopers blast at me from a breach in the wall. I'm pushed away from the doorway...
...and into the sights of the two troopers behind me. I hastily take them down, and take cover as more hostiles spill into the hallway.
You're not stopping me, not here, not after all this.
Your path is ending... come to me.
The end is near... what I have sought all this time.
More troopers fire at me from behind cover. Grenades force them out, out into my sights.
I will not be deterred. I know what I'm here for.
An exosuit trooper surprises me from behind, but I'm quick to retaliate, and my aim is truer.
Only one will be rewarded.
Reward... what I have longed for since I was first found... the truth, and only the truth.
The corner leads me to stairs. I see flashlights on the walls as I climb.
They are no match for me. One of them carries more gauss rifle ammo, the other carries a new rifle, which I quickly make my own.
It will carry me beyond the last hurdles the Monolith has set up for me. I will not be deterred.
Come to me.
The hallway is clear, but there are more enemies about.
As I round the corner, a faint wisp of... something... memory? Something touches my mind. This is familiar, this is known to me.
I dispatch these obstacles. I am not here for them.
Yes... I remember this. I remember...
The entrance to the chamber.
Your wish will soon come true.
I remember climbing to the top... it is up there, waiting for me. I know what I'm here for.
Come to me.
Yes. I was here before. I remember why I came, what it was all about. What I always wanted... from the Zone, from life itself...
The way forward. It carries me to my goal, my only real goal.
It tests me further; it asks that I perform for it.
So be it. Its tricks do not faze me. I will not be deterred.
I circle the chamber, my memories clear. Picture-perfect. I know how I got close, how close I came.
All the searching, the fighting, all the stalking and adventuring, it was all for this, and here I am.
Oh... here I am, at last, I can hear it. It calls to me, begs me, implores me to come to it!
I know what I'm here for! I know what I always wanted!
I am here! I'm here! At long last I'm here!
Monolith! Hear me!
I want... to be rich!
I wanted to be more than just another no-name Stalker... I wanted it all.
I wanted fame, riches, luxury... I wanted people to remember the name of Strelok.
To remember me as the man who made it to the center...
...a man who was nothing more than a scavenger... a vulture...
...and came back as the wealthiest man who ever lived.
Ah... ha ha ha! Fang! Ghost! Doc! Can you hear me?! Can you see this?! It's all true, every word of it! The Wish Granter is real! It...
Fang... Ghost.
And Doctor.
It's all...
...a lie.
It is an illusion. Doctor was right... I was right.
No... I don't know what is really there, but it is no Wish Granter.
And I... remember what I am here for.
The door:
The Monolith calls again, but it's different this time. Hollow, feeble even. Its men surprise me near the ladder, perhaps to ensure I wouldn't come back.
I drop a grenade around the corner to thin them out...
...and dust off the survivors.
The reality of what just happened, what almost just happened, sinks in. I shudder and shake, my stomach pitches and lurches. I want to throw up, I want to cry, I want to scream. I nearly damned myself again, damned us all because Strelok - because I - wanted nothing more than a quick buck.
I snap out of it and move on. No other targets. The door is around here somewhere. I don't 'remember' anymore, like I did before, but I remember the schematics from the Pripyat stash. The door's somewhere above here; the Monolith is in a chamber above me, and the Monolith control system is in a complex next to that.
Still no hostiles. I spot a small alcove around the corner.
You will gain what you deserve. Come to me.
No. Not this time.
The alcove holds a ladder. I laboriously climb up, the weight of my gear slowing me down.
Still quiet here, save for the clicking of my geiger. I barely even noticed it, my protective gear and the crystal artifact keeping the radiation at bay.
There it is! That's the door, at the end of the hall.
A spare exoskeleton is left here. It seems to be undamaged. Now's not the best time to be changing gear, but I better take it with me anyway.
I dig out the decoder and turn it on. Fortunately, it still works.
The door has no code panel, no keycard slot, no obvious means of unlocking it. It must be sealed by remote. I stick the decoder to the door and press the button, and it goes to work. Thirty seconds and counting.
Something buzzes and crackles from down the hall. My radar springs to life. What the...
...oh, shit! Monolith soldiers somehow teleported into the hallway! Guess I pissed somebody off. I take cover and return fire, dropping one of them and keeping the rest back.
The thirty seconds don't go by nearly quick enough, but as soon the door pops open I dash through it, bullets peppering the ground around me.
Down a hallway and through another door. More targets on the radar, and the Monolith stops speaking to me. Let's have a look at the man behind that curtain.
Asides: Translations courtesy of the Zone Survival Guide.
There are virtually no side areas in the sarcophagus itself, excepting a few dead-ends with randomized crates. That exoskeleton has slightly better damage protection, but much less radiation resistance, than the military suit; given that the whole area is radioactive it's in your interest to max out rad protection and bring along at least one good artifact, otherwise you'll have to pop an antirad every minute or so to stay alive.
And now, for the 'false' endings, wherein the Marked One makes his wish:
"I want to be rich." - This is the one I got. Basically, if you have a ton of money and don't do anything to trigger the others, you're most likely to get this. And given that you're bound to acquire a ton of money and probably won't spend a whole lot, most people will probably get this one the first time.
"I want the Zone to disappear." - Help the yellow/green dots, kill the red dots. Basically, if you're not rich and not a homicidal maniac, you'll probably get this. (ZSG says your reputation has to be over a thousand).
"Humanity is corrupt. Mankind must be controlled." - You get this if you have a bad reputation. Usually you do that by whacking random Stalkers that aren't hostile to you, or if you fail to save people in certain missions (Fox, Mole, Kruglov, etc).
"I want immortality." - You get this if you somehow don't meet the criteria for anything else.
Join us next time, when the Marked One comes face-to-face with the man(?) behind it all, and finally gets to play around the gauss gun. Be there!
Apologies if this belongs in the steam thread or has already been discussed here, But how is the steam version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R? Mostly concerned about modding and patching, but neither where ever a problem for Vampires so i am hopeful.
Apologies if this belongs in the steam thread or has already been discussed here, But how is the steam version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R? Mostly concerned about modding and patching, but neither where ever a problem for Vampires so i am hopeful.
Works like a charm. I'm using it. Mods an'all. Recently I've been having some trouble with it crashing to BSOD but that's more to do with my GPU.
Anywho, I just had an insane shootout. Was in the zone warping building in Cordon, where there's usually a bunch of Loners hanging around. I approached the doorway and I was being shot at so I retreated. The loners got up and started shooting through the windows into the building. I whipped out a grenade and threw it in... I next see a bandit and a dog fly into the air and land gracefully out side the buidling. SO I figured its over, right? WRONG!
I now enter the empty building and walk into the main room. All of a sudden 4 bandits spawn out of no-fucking-where and start pumping me full of lead! I ran right back out, around the side of the building and tossed a grenade in. Score another group kill. Phew, finally over. WRONG!
I enter the building for the second time. Cautiously, don't want any surprises. I here shooting immediately as I walk towards the doorway. I see one lone merc coming out of the small room that warps you away. So I stay low and duck behind the low wall in the sorta hallway. Aim for the ceiling, throw a 'nade. Guy flys up and over the wall right in front of me. Finally! It's finished! WRONG!
I walk, again, into the main room, after having picked off bandits, dogs, mercenaries and loners who sadly started shooting me when the got hurt by the 'nades, I've finally got through. Almost out of the main room, i turn the corner and BANG! Fucking 3 mercenaries standing there pumping me full of lead. I jumped out of my seat and my heart is still racing right now. I just exited cause I was laughing so hard.
The gun's an FT 200M. Slightly better damage and accuracy over the Tunder, bundled with an integrated scope and grenade launcher; fires M209 grenades. About three or four troopers carry it inside the sarcophagus, and it can be found in a few parts during the finale as well. Far as I know there's no way to get it before getting to Chernobyl.
Heir - The endings are a bit strange, in the 'careful what you wish for' sense, until you consider what's really going on.
The Monolith, as was revealed by Doc, is an illusion. The area's also highly radioactive. Whatever you're seeing could easily be explained as a hallucination, which of course distracts you from whatever it is that actually kills you. And then you have to consider the real reason:
The Monolith is itself a trap for any Stalkers that manage to bypass the Brain Scorcher and the Monolith guards.
Iolo - Yeah, it does kinda look like him, but I wasn't quite sure. That and the hammer/sickle by the collapsed building in Garbage are the only two pieces of (specifically) Soviet iconography I remember seeing in the game.
Plus, I'm totally more senior than you and have thousands of posts more than you and you're a bitter, unlikable loner whose passing shall not be mourned. SHALL. NOT. BE. MOURNED. That's exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official.
Having rejected the empty promises of the Monolith, the Marked One has found the secret lab within Chernobyl and must now uncover its secrets. Dozens of die-hard Monolith fanatics stand in his way, but we're a little too far along to pack it up and go home. Answers await!
I take the time to hop into my shiny new exoskeleton, tossing the armored suit aside. It's far too bulky to run in, but I think I'm gonna need the added protection.
A map would be really helpful right about now. Fuck it, I'll just go where there's more guys shooting at me and wing it.
Damn! Snipers got me pinned down while exosuit troopers are pushing up towards me. What I wouldn't give for a really powerful, long-ranged weapon with which to combat this particular...
...oh, right!
You guys have gotta stop leaving this shit just lying around. In the hands of your men, who I killed to get it. Whatever. Point is, it's mine now!
Minimal recoil, record-breaking velocity and high penetration. I mean, I'd like to streamline the body a bit, but you can't argue with results.
More of them from down the hall. Time to break out of this box!
The scope makes a nice equalizer on this rifle. Pity those two couldn't seem to find it.
Rounding the corner, I spot more troopers in a big cluster, laying down some heavy fire.
Not a bad time to remember the gun has an integrated grenade launcher.
A trooper jumps me from one of the small rooms alongside the corridor, but I duck back in time to avoid the burst from his weapon. He isn't quite so lucky when I return the favor.
More shots. A few rounds strike me, but ricochet off the exoskeletal plating, with the artifacts taking some of the sting out of each bullet. I'm barely even aware that I've been hit.
I catch sight of more goons around the corner as I circle around from my starting position. Perfect opportunity to use the gauss rifle some more.
I check the side rooms carefully as I come to them, and catch this fellow before he can pull the trigger.
Oh, come on guys. I can excuse one of them left out in the open, but two? That's just plain sloppy. I mean, I know you weren't expecting company and probably thought you didn't have to clean up, but damn, show some effort here.
Here are the two snipers that had me pinned earlier. I gladly relieve them of their rifle ammo.
About a half-dozen more troopers in the area. Gotta stay sharp. I'm getting close to where the lab should be.
Oh yeah? C'mon, you and me, let's go!
The rest are holed up in here, and entrenched behind enough cover to give me trouble...
...until I roll a few pineapples in there. The blast catches one and the rest scatter.
It's dicey for a moment, and I lose track of them briefly.
But they're a bit too shell-shocked put up a fight.
The last one staggers back into the adjoining room before I take him down.
I move to get a closer look at the device inside, and the door slams shut behind me.
It's hard to make out, but the projection is definitely the Monolith. This... thing, must be generating it somehow.
I've got to shut it down, but how?
Well, the only things other than the projection itself are these glass thingies. Using a knife to break something that's conducting electricity is probably not the best idea in the world, but it gets the job done.
"Attention," says a dull, automated voice. "Power units damaged. Installation power levels falling."
As I smash the second one, a ball of fire erupts and jets forward near my face. I barely avoid it; I immediately spot the source.
A poltergeist. The orange-colored distortion dances around at the edge of the room, but it doesn't move quick enough to evade my fire.
"Attention: installation power depleted to critical levels."
Another one appears when I smash the next two. This time I'm ready for it.
Come on! Is this all you have, Monolith?!
I destroy the next device, summoning another poltergeist.
A burst of bullets turns the mutant inside out, stored energy causing it to explode before me.
I smash open the glass on the last device. The room rumbles and shakes, the voice calls over the intercom: "Not enough power to maintain operating status."
Come on... show me your face, you son of a bitch.
An image forms in the projection... a face, vaguely human, unremarkable. A scientist.
"Hello, Strelok," he says simply. "I see you have many questions for me... well, ask them and then we can decide what to do with you."
His voice is soft, but empty. A scientist's voice, but lifeless, devoid of emotion; inhuman, or perhaps more than human. "Who are you?" I ask.
"We are the result of an experiment aimed at creating a superconsciousness called "C-Consciousness". The consciousness of seven volunteers were connected during the experiment leading to the creation of the superconsciousness that is us. We immediately subordinated those who were conducting the experiment and assigned them to tasks we needed them to carry out."
'His' words are clinical, methodical. There is no person here; there is simply a will. "According to our calculations, Earth is surrounded by a special informational field, the so-called "noosphere". It includes all the inhabitants of the planet with cognitive abilities. Our main goal was to make small adjustments to the noosphere, allowing us to remove things like anger, cruelty, greed, and other negative factors from the planet. Individuals are unable to affect the noosphere, but C-Consciousness could. Unfortunately, we made a mistake and our interference spawned the Zone, which we have been trying to contain ever since."
"What is the Zone?" I have to ask, as they are clearly tied to it somehow. "How did it come about?"
"What you see is the result of ill-considered intervention in the Earth's noosphere," the projection calmly explains. "Attempts to affect the noosphere brought about a local crack. The Zone is simply the visible manifestation of this crack. The underlying problem is far greater than you can imagine."
So, they were responsible for the Zone. Good god... "Why did it happen here?"
"It was the best place. After the explosion in 1986 there were very few people left in this area and we could work without fear of being found. Further, there were many powerful antennae here, which are extremely important for our cognitive optimization experiments."
Makes sense. "Is the explosion of '86 your work too?"
"No, we had nothing to do with that. Most of us were only starting out in science back then. The Chernobyl zone was not used as a testing site for experiments until 1989."
I turn to the next burning question, the one that's been with me from the start. "What happened to me?" I ask.
"You're a bolt that fell out of the machine. Unfortunately, that did not come to our attention for a long time." Cryptic, but the projection is quick to explain further. "From the moment the Zone was formed, many people have tried to get to its center, but we cannot let that happen. Humanity is not ready for the truth. That is why we recruited Stalkers, by promising them fulfillment of their most coveted desires. Once recruited, they would be sent to protect the Zones secret."
It sounds unreal in my ears, but it fits all the adjoining pieces. "What does the tattoo "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." mean?"
""S.T.A.L.K.E.R." is a coded acronym, which we used to mark agents programmed for particular missions. Your mission, as our agent, was to kill Strelok and his group. They got too close to finding out things they shouldn't know. We created a network of psi-fields on the way to the Zones center in order to recruit agents. You know one of these fields by the name of "Brain Scorcher." When a stalker attempts to reach the Zones center in order to fulfill some wish, we acquire control over his consciousness and program him to a specific mission. A mistake was made and your mission was to kill yourself."
One hell of a mistake. Sheer luck I didn't end up like the other Marked Ones... or die with them. "What are "death trucks"?"
"The transports we used to send our marked agents into the Zone. They infiltrate the stalker community and carry out our orders without realising it. Unfortunate, more than half of stalkers die during transportation - the Zone is very unstable. You are one of our agents sent to kill Strelok and we're now trying to work out how we made that mistake."
So that's that. The questions are answered, the truth is laid bare. This is what it all comes down to, what I came here for. I open my parched throat and ask what I haven't thought about for a second since this thing started: what I was to do afterward. "What next?"
"That depends on you," the projection replies. "The Zone is growing. We are trying to restrain its expansion but humanity seems to be intent on hindering our work. Our resources are not limitless and the bodies connected to C-Consciousness eventually die. If you join us, we can restrict the Zone's growth. If you decide otherwise, we cannot make a credible prognosis of the outcome."
Join the C-Consciousness... to restrict the Zone. The very people that caused in the first place. But what else can I do? What... what can I do?
I stare long and hard at the projection, where its eyes should be. I swallow, hands trembling and lightheaded. These bastards created the Zone, built the emitters to hide their secret... I can't trust them, can I? But what the fuck else am I supposed to do?!
I don't... I don't know what to do.
Asides: Again, very few detours here, but there are a couple interesting quirks. For starters, you can head back into the main Monolith chamber, and go make a wish.
It's possible to break the generators from outside the control room. It's easier with grenades or a scoped rifle, but it's possible all the same.
Poltergeists still appear as normal, but they don't attempt to leave the control room, and generally shouldn't attack you. Once you destroy the generators, any living poltergeists are killed, and you teleport automatically to the front of the projector.
From outside, "if you decide otherwise," it is possible to return to Monolith control.
The doorway you start at takes you back inside, down a flight of stairs.
There's not much to see, frankly. This passage is collapsed...
...and this door leads back to the control room.
Naturally, it's locked. Amusingly, with those mods that mess with the physics engine (most notably Faiakes' compilation), it's possible to force the door open with a single shot from the gauss rifle; it snaps shut immediately unless you wedge your own body in or find something else to jam it quick, but it's possible to squeeze back inside in this fashion. You can then make your way back to the Monolith and make a wish, despite that it's supposed to have been deactivated. Hooray for thorough exploits!
You can read the entire conversation with C-Consciousness in your message history. The text indicates the speaker as "Mitglied des Kollectivbewusstseins", which sounds more German than Russian.
Lastly, the Noosphere (pronounced 'no sphere') is indeed the theoretical concept of a field that contains Earth's cognitive activity. The theory, proposed by one Vladimir Vernadsky, suggests a succession of development phases by the Earth that affect previous phases; the Noosphere, cognitive activity, is the third such phase, and it impacts the previous phase - the biosphere (life), which in turn changes the geosphere (matter). Or so the Wiki summary leads me to believe.
Join us for the last time, as the Marked One makes his choice: does he beat 'em, or join 'em?
OH, hey, Stolls, why are your scopes so cool?
I only had 3 kinds of scope in the game, the russian one, the "red dot with 2 lines going down" one (on the british rifle and the TRS) and the "red and black crosshairs" on the g36 and the Splinter Cell rifle.
It's probably the Axe mod. I think that throws in new scopes for the G36, FT200M and the IL86 (I think that's the one; renamed to the Lee-Enfield with the gun names mod).
And yeah, so much for keeping a lid on the choice. But really, the choice between a pithy cutscene and one last gunfight - and a chance to play with the new guns a little longer - is no choice at all
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
edited November 2007
Finished the game last nite with the "good" ending, and I gotta say the long, long ending includes one of the all-time great gaming quotes: "Marked One ! What the hell ?"
Here's the story behind The Marked One as I understand, do y'all think I'm on-target ? I'm going to try to spoiler this but if my PA-forum Fu is weak I apologize:
Strelok (The Marked One) has a team of veteran stalkers that includes Ghost, Fang, Doc, and possibly Guide. At some point in the recent past, Strelok, Ghost, and Fang penetrated to the center of the Zone. Fang died along the way and was buried in Pripyat. Strelok and Ghost made it all the way to the Sarcophagus and probably suspected that the legend of the Monolith wasn't on the money (Doc and Guide may also know this). They even reached the outer door to the Secret Lab but couldn't get it open; shortly after this Strelok succumbed to the Brain Scorcher and Ghost fled.
Strelok was sent back in his brain scorched state as The Marked One with the mission of killing Strelok and his team. Oops.
Ghost built a decoder device specifically to open the door leading to the Secret Lab and hid it in Pripyat, but before he could use it he fell in with the scientists and X16 and agreed to help them attempt to shut down the Psi-emitter, but was killed by the Corruptor in the basement of X16.
Doc and Guide stayed away from the race towards the Zone's center and thus survived.
I just read this whole thread. All the way through I really wanted to run out and buy the game and play it for myself, but the descriptions were so engrossing that I couldn't stop reading.
My utmost apologies for the delay in this posting. In no particular order I blame a sinus infection, some difficulty in timing screenshots, imageshack losing a few pictures in mid-upload, and simply the size of the last level (which easily eclipses any update thus far). However, it's all here and it's all ready.
The Marked One has refused the offer of the C-Consciousness, who (which?) is understandably concerned about some upstart Stalker running his mouth about their game plan. The remaining Monolith forces have no intention of letting him live. The feeling, of course, is mutual.
It would have been so easy.
I could have just accepted. Joined the C-Consciousness. Helped them restrict the Zone's growth, help them fix the 'crack' that they created.
To be honest, I don't know what I hoped to do when I turned away. I heard the door slam shut behind me as I followed a tunnel away from the control room, which led me to the back of the plant. They wouldn't just let me live, not so long as they did. They who took my memory in the first place, branded me and sent me to kill myself.
I think that was the key. The C-Consciousness was born from an accident, their attempts to meddle with human consciousness. Once joined, their efforts to 'correct' all of humanity caused another accident. The very mechanisms that concealed their existence caused yet another accident... in me. The whole project was born from failure, ironically situated in a place that embodied failure. Even as I considered their offer, I did not believe them capable of undoing what they had wrought.
And I had no intention of joining them in their fate.
Maybe the C-Consciousness was right, in that no one could predict what would happen once they were gone. Maybe I didn't have any real hope of stopping them on my own, even if I knew how.
But the way I see it, that's not their problem.
Their problem is...
...I still intend to.
The ground trembles and shakes; bizarre portals ring the landscape. My PDA tells me it's night, but the sky is lit up as if the sun sat just above those black clouds. Concentrated radiation rings the periphery, blocking any obvious path forward save for the portal in front of me.
This has to stop.
I step through the portal, and in a flash I'm on the building next to me, behind a stack of pipes. Gunfire pelts the obstruction; a gauss rifle round pings loudly against the top pipe, missing my head by inches.
Already I'm cursing my choice as I return fire, dropping a Monolith trooper on the upper balcony.
Cursing, but not regretting. I pick off the sniper and continue forward.
More sharpshooters. I trade shots with another trooper, forcing him back behind cover...
...giving me time to deal with the next sniper.
It takes a mighty heave and a couple misses, but a grenade takes out the other Monolith on the balcony.
Come on, come on! Is this the best you can do?!
My next taunt dies in my throat. Shit, that's a lot of ground to cover. Those devices in the distance must be how the C-Consciousness amplifies their control, but I don't have any idea how to shut them down. Except at the source; ideally with bullets.
More troopers fire up from below. The high ground gives me the advantage I need to clear the way.
I drop down onto the lower roof to finish them off, collecting ammo - and looting the dead sniper up that ladder for his gauss ammo - as I go.
A ladder on the far side of the roof heads down to a walkway.
This takes me out over the grounds, towards the next building.
Monolith troopers spring up to surprise me, but an ill-positioned exploding barrel works in my favor.
I swing left to trade sniper fire with more troopers on the roof of the next building.
As I continue, the air distorts in front of me, and a Monolith teleports into view, ready for action.
Not quite as ready as me, however.
The portal warps me through the air, and for a moment I can feel myself falling.
I regain my bearings on top of a small shack on the roof. The portal took me up to the building I was facing.
Damn, rocket launcher to my right! I'm lucky the rocket struck the wall instead of me; I got peppered with fragments and shaken up, but otherwise I'm okay. I take him down before he can reload.
More gunfire across the roof, at least another three-four hostiles.
Would've been a good ambush if they were a bit quicker on the trigger.
The last one goes down. I stop to loot the bodies. Sadly, the rocketeer doesn't have any spare rockets, but I do find a rifle grenade in the boxes near the teleporter, and more gauss ammo.
Here I go!
I find myself even higher up on the building next to where I started. Damn, that's a long way down...
I swallow past a lump in my throat, turn around and press on. Up the ladder I go.
Shit, more rocket soldiers! The roof barely offers enough cover to take them down; I can feel the gangway creaking unsteadily as a rocket slams into the roof next to it.
Fuck me.
My geiger goes off the scale. Something very radioactive is boiling right below my feet.
The holes in the roof look familiar; I think that leads down to the Monolith's chamber. Not that I care to find out, however. I scramble up the ladder to the adjoining roof.
Exosuit troopers! I gear up and fire back, taking a few good hits; my own suit, thankfully, holds together, but a shot to the gut knocks the wind out of me.
I drop a grenade at this guy's feet and send him flying.
I stop long enough near the teleporter to survey the area below. I have no way of gauging my progress beyond how many Monolith stalkers I've killed; I have no idea where to find the bodies of the C-Consciousness. I could be going in a big circle for all I know.
I choke down the first inkling of despair and shout at the top of my lungs, "What are you all waiting for?! I'm just getting warmed up!"
The portal takes me down to vent shafts that feed back into the main complex.
The way forward is blocked. No choice but to take the ladder behind me.
A single snork guards the portal. He lands a kick to the stomach, but a good burst from my rifle puts him down.
The portal takes me to another walkway. A rocketeer guards it, completely unaware. I take him down and eagerly relieve him of his spare rocket.
The next portal puts me on the roof of a neighboring building. I see the emitters to the north; I'm slowly working my way east.
More snorks attack, but I'm ready for them. Hope you fly better than you fight, asshole.
A breach in a railing leads to this midair portal. There's no other way off the roof, so what the hell?
...still, it took me a few false starts to work up the guts to jump. I'm not that far gone yet.
Another walkway, another trooper guarding the next portal. Ho-hum.
Oh shit! Rockets from the right!
Two can play this game.
Ho yeah! Who's next?! Come on, I got something for every last one of you!
Portal's clear. Gotta keep moving.
I'm pulled further east. I don't have much time to get my bearings before I come under heavy sniper fire.
It's like fuckin' Whack-a-Mole, these guys just keep coming!
Not that I can remember, but I was probably pretty good at Whack-a-Mole.
I could just drop down with my springs, take the hit and climb up the ladder across this little jumping puzzle here...
...but it's not too difficult to jump up on the side ledge and then to this hanging platform. Less radiation, too.
It's a safe hop, skip and a jump over to the next set of pipes. I can see more troopers running across the roof up there.
Takes a few practice shots, but I drop them quickly.
I've gotta be close... close to what, I don't know, but I think I have to get up by those emitters somehow. The direct way forward is cut off, so I have to take another portal.
It puts me on the roof where I just took down those two troopers.
There's another portal at the base of this tower. These things are starting to make me dizzy.
Another walkway, this one unguarded...
...and another roof, this one guarded.
They're not too firmly dug in up here, and I blindside a couple of them.
Two more around the corner, but nothing I can't handle.
The next portal drops me into a staging area right next to the emitters. Camo and supply boxes everywhere. Whether or not I'm actually getting close to my objective (whatever that might be at this point), it's clear I'm hitting them right where it hurts.
I dice up a few more troopers and help myself to some ammo and much-needed medical supplies. I stop to bandage up a couple of injuries and down a few painkillers before moving on.
A couple more Monoliths guard the portal.
This has got to be important. This is it, this has to be. I eagerly step through.
Wha... Sidorovich??
"Marked One?! What the hell?!"
He's gone before I have the chance to say anything else.
Shit... now where am I? I've completely lost my bearings.
It's... it's never going to end, is it? I'm just hopelessly being flung against their forces... taken through every last one of their defenses.
They'll wear me down eventually. I can already feel my eyelids growing heavy again, my arm numb from the recoil of my gun. My gear encumbers me, my movements grow sluggish. It's only a matter of time.
So why do I keep going? I still press on, through and to the next portal.
No... no, it's not hopeless. It's not over.
I'm not giving up!
Not now, not ever!
You bastards killed Fang, and Ghost...
...you killed Fox and Mole...
...you're killing us all! You made this Hell! You're killing us all and you thought you could ever stop it?!
Let's go! I'm not through yet!
This madness ends here!
I don't care how many of your minions you throw at me, I'm not giving up!
They come at me from every direction, from behind, from ahead, from the sides, but they're not stopping me.
My whole body feels like a lead weight, every shot is an effort...
...but I'm not giving up... I can't. Not yet.
More portal distortions. Monoliths warp in all around me.
My last rocket sends half of them right back to their maker.
I drop the launcher and heft my assault rifle, trading shots with the survivors.
One of them scores a punishing hit that cracks the armor plate on my exosuit...
...but in the end, I am victorious.
The portal takes me to a darkened tunnel. No guards, no security... I don't think they have anything left.
It's them.
Eight chambers, seven occupied. The bodies of the C-Consciousness, the 'Group'; the men behind the secret experiments so long ago.
The men who created the Zone.
Almost every step of the way, I have been plagued with doubt, fear and confusion. For once, however...
...my thoughts are clear.
Let this end.
I'm too tired to remember how I got outside, but I get there as the next day breaks.
The skies start to clear, and the sun shines warmly, happily. Birds are chirping like nothing was ever wrong with the world.
Final thoughts soon to follow. For now, however, some quick extras regarding the finale:
I'm fairly certain that this segment is, in fact, the roof of the Monolith's chamber.
If you happen to fall it, it does bear some resemblance, but you may notice it's missing a few things.
Like, for instance, a floor.
There are a few 'false' teleporters that either lead you to earlier parts of the level or take you no further than the ones indicated in the post, but one can find a few shortcuts, if you're willing to break a few bones and muscle through radiation.
This one is near the second walkway, indicated in picture #38 (with the kneeling Monolith rocketeer, just after the first snork attack). You can jump down and make a beeline for the ladder...
...which puts you on this platform (note: rocket launchers and a gauss sniper will spawn here later) and near a portal...
...that takes you to the pipes by the jumping puzzle.
A better, more death-defying shortcut can be found here, on the walkway past the aforementioned puzzle. Pack some springs, unequip your exosuit (if you're using one) and make a running jump off the edge.
C'mon man, walk off that compound fracture! Walk it off!
This path takes you to a couple ladders...
...which lead you to the second-to-last portal ("Marked Ooooone! What the heeeeeeeeeell?!") bypassing the troopers defending it.
The journey has come to fitting closure, and the Marked One gets his well-earned rest. What could possibly be left to discuss? Apparently, quite a bit. Final thoughts to follow in the extra-special bonus update that's not really extra, special or bonus in any meaningful capacity. Be there!
As I write this, I think I should point out that I have no idea what to say to you stolls. That was... uh..... yeah.
So, I just reached X16 and I gotta say, snorks are real fuckers. They know how to scare ya, leapin' out all star jumpy and shit. And couple them with the zombies...... oh boy! I've had more than a few instances where I turned around only to hear a loud groaning. Doesn't help that I use headphones, I guess.
I started reading these last week sometime, I think, and apparently timed it just right to finish up today. Good work Stolls, I enjoyed reading. Also, you played it waaay differently to me. I think I lost the Strelok trail about half-way through, and failed most escort missions. Somehow, I ended up with the "I want the Zone to disappear" ending.
I just got a new computer, and it runs like a dream. I can finally run it. I installed a few mods, mostly cosmetic, except for sans armor degradation.
But it does stall a bit while loading new areas. Which brings me to a question that might be dumb, but I'm clueless to this sort of stuff. In my current computer I have 2 GB DDR2 800 RAM. In my old computer I have one gig of DDR2 533 RAM. Can I put this in my new computer without it blowing up?
Cherrn on
All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.
Posts
The statue from your asides, is Lenin, no?
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
https://medium.com/@alascii
My geiger starts ticking, and my radar counts off targets. Again the Monolith calls to me, Come to me. The psi-helmet keeps its influence at bay, but I can still hear it... and it still... still tries to get ahold of me.
No, I must focus. Remember what I'm here for. I'm in the heart of the enemy. Monolith soldiers are everywhere. I have to be careful.
I pick this one off with my sniper rifle, and loot his gauss rifle ammo. Finally, I get to use these things against them. Let's hope it serves me better than it has them.
You will gain what you deserve.
I will not be deterred. I know what I'm here for.
Troopers blast at me from a breach in the wall. I'm pushed away from the doorway...
...and into the sights of the two troopers behind me. I hastily take them down, and take cover as more hostiles spill into the hallway.
You're not stopping me, not here, not after all this.
Your path is ending... come to me.
The end is near... what I have sought all this time.
More troopers fire at me from behind cover. Grenades force them out, out into my sights.
I will not be deterred. I know what I'm here for.
An exosuit trooper surprises me from behind, but I'm quick to retaliate, and my aim is truer.
Only one will be rewarded.
Reward... what I have longed for since I was first found... the truth, and only the truth.
The corner leads me to stairs. I see flashlights on the walls as I climb.
They are no match for me. One of them carries more gauss rifle ammo, the other carries a new rifle, which I quickly make my own.
It will carry me beyond the last hurdles the Monolith has set up for me. I will not be deterred.
Come to me.
The hallway is clear, but there are more enemies about.
As I round the corner, a faint wisp of... something... memory? Something touches my mind. This is familiar, this is known to me.
I dispatch these obstacles. I am not here for them.
Yes... I remember this. I remember...
The entrance to the chamber.
Your wish will soon come true.
I remember climbing to the top... it is up there, waiting for me. I know what I'm here for.
Come to me.
Yes. I was here before. I remember why I came, what it was all about. What I always wanted... from the Zone, from life itself...
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
The way forward. It carries me to my goal, my only real goal.
It tests me further; it asks that I perform for it.
So be it. Its tricks do not faze me. I will not be deterred.
I circle the chamber, my memories clear. Picture-perfect. I know how I got close, how close I came.
All the searching, the fighting, all the stalking and adventuring, it was all for this, and here I am.
Oh... here I am, at last, I can hear it. It calls to me, begs me, implores me to come to it!
I know what I'm here for! I know what I always wanted!
I am here! I'm here! At long last I'm here!
Monolith! Hear me!
I want... to be rich!
I wanted to be more than just another no-name Stalker... I wanted it all.
I wanted fame, riches, luxury... I wanted people to remember the name of Strelok.
To remember me as the man who made it to the center...
...a man who was nothing more than a scavenger... a vulture...
...and came back as the wealthiest man who ever lived.
Ah... ha ha ha! Fang! Ghost! Doc! Can you hear me?! Can you see this?! It's all true, every word of it! The Wish Granter is real! It...
Fang... Ghost.
And Doctor.
It's all...
...a lie.
It is an illusion. Doctor was right... I was right.
No... I don't know what is really there, but it is no Wish Granter.
And I... remember what I am here for.
The door:
The Monolith calls again, but it's different this time. Hollow, feeble even. Its men surprise me near the ladder, perhaps to ensure I wouldn't come back.
I drop a grenade around the corner to thin them out...
...and dust off the survivors.
The reality of what just happened, what almost just happened, sinks in. I shudder and shake, my stomach pitches and lurches. I want to throw up, I want to cry, I want to scream. I nearly damned myself again, damned us all because Strelok - because I - wanted nothing more than a quick buck.
I snap out of it and move on. No other targets. The door is around here somewhere. I don't 'remember' anymore, like I did before, but I remember the schematics from the Pripyat stash. The door's somewhere above here; the Monolith is in a chamber above me, and the Monolith control system is in a complex next to that.
Still no hostiles. I spot a small alcove around the corner.
You will gain what you deserve. Come to me.
No. Not this time.
The alcove holds a ladder. I laboriously climb up, the weight of my gear slowing me down.
Still quiet here, save for the clicking of my geiger. I barely even noticed it, my protective gear and the crystal artifact keeping the radiation at bay.
There it is! That's the door, at the end of the hall.
A spare exoskeleton is left here. It seems to be undamaged. Now's not the best time to be changing gear, but I better take it with me anyway.
I dig out the decoder and turn it on. Fortunately, it still works.
The door has no code panel, no keycard slot, no obvious means of unlocking it. It must be sealed by remote. I stick the decoder to the door and press the button, and it goes to work. Thirty seconds and counting.
Something buzzes and crackles from down the hall. My radar springs to life. What the...
...oh, shit! Monolith soldiers somehow teleported into the hallway! Guess I pissed somebody off. I take cover and return fire, dropping one of them and keeping the rest back.
The thirty seconds don't go by nearly quick enough, but as soon the door pops open I dash through it, bullets peppering the ground around me.
Down a hallway and through another door. More targets on the radar, and the Monolith stops speaking to me. Let's have a look at the man behind that curtain.
Asides: Translations courtesy of the Zone Survival Guide.
There are virtually no side areas in the sarcophagus itself, excepting a few dead-ends with randomized crates. That exoskeleton has slightly better damage protection, but much less radiation resistance, than the military suit; given that the whole area is radioactive it's in your interest to max out rad protection and bring along at least one good artifact, otherwise you'll have to pop an antirad every minute or so to stay alive.
And now, for the 'false' endings, wherein the Marked One makes his wish:
"I want to be rich." - This is the one I got. Basically, if you have a ton of money and don't do anything to trigger the others, you're most likely to get this. And given that you're bound to acquire a ton of money and probably won't spend a whole lot, most people will probably get this one the first time.
"I want the Zone to disappear." - Help the yellow/green dots, kill the red dots. Basically, if you're not rich and not a homicidal maniac, you'll probably get this. (ZSG says your reputation has to be over a thousand).
"I want to rule the world" - Supposedly you get this if you kill the leaders of both Duty and Freedom.
"Humanity is corrupt. Mankind must be controlled." - You get this if you have a bad reputation. Usually you do that by whacking random Stalkers that aren't hostile to you, or if you fail to save people in certain missions (Fox, Mole, Kruglov, etc).
"I want immortality." - You get this if you somehow don't meet the criteria for anything else.
Join us next time, when the Marked One comes face-to-face with the man(?) behind it all, and finally gets to play around the gauss gun. Be there!
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
PSN:Hakira__
Works like a charm. I'm using it. Mods an'all. Recently I've been having some trouble with it crashing to BSOD but that's more to do with my GPU.
Anywho, I just had an insane shootout. Was in the zone warping building in Cordon, where there's usually a bunch of Loners hanging around. I approached the doorway and I was being shot at so I retreated. The loners got up and started shooting through the windows into the building. I whipped out a grenade and threw it in... I next see a bandit and a dog fly into the air and land gracefully out side the buidling. SO I figured its over, right? WRONG!
I now enter the empty building and walk into the main room. All of a sudden 4 bandits spawn out of no-fucking-where and start pumping me full of lead! I ran right back out, around the side of the building and tossed a grenade in. Score another group kill. Phew, finally over. WRONG!
I enter the building for the second time. Cautiously, don't want any surprises. I here shooting immediately as I walk towards the doorway. I see one lone merc coming out of the small room that warps you away. So I stay low and duck behind the low wall in the sorta hallway. Aim for the ceiling, throw a 'nade. Guy flys up and over the wall right in front of me. Finally! It's finished! WRONG!
I walk, again, into the main room, after having picked off bandits, dogs, mercenaries and loners who sadly started shooting me when the got hurt by the 'nades, I've finally got through. Almost out of the main room, i turn the corner and BANG! Fucking 3 mercenaries standing there pumping me full of lead. I jumped out of my seat and my heart is still racing right now. I just exited cause I was laughing so hard.
Heir - The endings are a bit strange, in the 'careful what you wish for' sense, until you consider what's really going on.
Iolo - Yeah, it does kinda look like him, but I wasn't quite sure. That and the hammer/sickle by the collapsed building in Garbage are the only two pieces of (specifically) Soviet iconography I remember seeing in the game.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
No matter what, you get one of those ending things? Or does that only happen if you screw up? Can you explain that sequence a little more?
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
Aw, you had the same idea as me
Wait for the next update
and a suspiciously similiar avatar
thief
Plus, I'm totally more senior than you and have thousands of posts more than you and you're a bitter, unlikable loner whose passing shall not be mourned. SHALL. NOT. BE. MOURNED. That's exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official.
It also says you're adopted, so that's funny too.
I take the time to hop into my shiny new exoskeleton, tossing the armored suit aside. It's far too bulky to run in, but I think I'm gonna need the added protection.
A map would be really helpful right about now. Fuck it, I'll just go where there's more guys shooting at me and wing it.
Damn! Snipers got me pinned down while exosuit troopers are pushing up towards me. What I wouldn't give for a really powerful, long-ranged weapon with which to combat this particular...
...oh, right!
You guys have gotta stop leaving this shit just lying around. In the hands of your men, who I killed to get it. Whatever. Point is, it's mine now!
Minimal recoil, record-breaking velocity and high penetration. I mean, I'd like to streamline the body a bit, but you can't argue with results.
More of them from down the hall. Time to break out of this box!
The scope makes a nice equalizer on this rifle. Pity those two couldn't seem to find it.
Rounding the corner, I spot more troopers in a big cluster, laying down some heavy fire.
Not a bad time to remember the gun has an integrated grenade launcher.
A trooper jumps me from one of the small rooms alongside the corridor, but I duck back in time to avoid the burst from his weapon. He isn't quite so lucky when I return the favor.
More shots. A few rounds strike me, but ricochet off the exoskeletal plating, with the artifacts taking some of the sting out of each bullet. I'm barely even aware that I've been hit.
I catch sight of more goons around the corner as I circle around from my starting position. Perfect opportunity to use the gauss rifle some more.
I check the side rooms carefully as I come to them, and catch this fellow before he can pull the trigger.
Oh, come on guys. I can excuse one of them left out in the open, but two? That's just plain sloppy. I mean, I know you weren't expecting company and probably thought you didn't have to clean up, but damn, show some effort here.
Here are the two snipers that had me pinned earlier. I gladly relieve them of their rifle ammo.
About a half-dozen more troopers in the area. Gotta stay sharp. I'm getting close to where the lab should be.
Oh yeah? C'mon, you and me, let's go!
The rest are holed up in here, and entrenched behind enough cover to give me trouble...
...until I roll a few pineapples in there. The blast catches one and the rest scatter.
It's dicey for a moment, and I lose track of them briefly.
But they're a bit too shell-shocked put up a fight.
The last one staggers back into the adjoining room before I take him down.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
I move to get a closer look at the device inside, and the door slams shut behind me.
It's hard to make out, but the projection is definitely the Monolith. This... thing, must be generating it somehow.
I've got to shut it down, but how?
Well, the only things other than the projection itself are these glass thingies. Using a knife to break something that's conducting electricity is probably not the best idea in the world, but it gets the job done.
"Attention," says a dull, automated voice. "Power units damaged. Installation power levels falling."
As I smash the second one, a ball of fire erupts and jets forward near my face. I barely avoid it; I immediately spot the source.
A poltergeist. The orange-colored distortion dances around at the edge of the room, but it doesn't move quick enough to evade my fire.
"Attention: installation power depleted to critical levels."
Another one appears when I smash the next two. This time I'm ready for it.
Come on! Is this all you have, Monolith?!
I destroy the next device, summoning another poltergeist.
A burst of bullets turns the mutant inside out, stored energy causing it to explode before me.
I smash open the glass on the last device. The room rumbles and shakes, the voice calls over the intercom: "Not enough power to maintain operating status."
Come on... show me your face, you son of a bitch.
An image forms in the projection... a face, vaguely human, unremarkable. A scientist.
"Hello, Strelok," he says simply. "I see you have many questions for me... well, ask them and then we can decide what to do with you."
His voice is soft, but empty. A scientist's voice, but lifeless, devoid of emotion; inhuman, or perhaps more than human. "Who are you?" I ask.
"We are the result of an experiment aimed at creating a superconsciousness called "C-Consciousness". The consciousness of seven volunteers were connected during the experiment leading to the creation of the superconsciousness that is us. We immediately subordinated those who were conducting the experiment and assigned them to tasks we needed them to carry out."
'His' words are clinical, methodical. There is no person here; there is simply a will. "According to our calculations, Earth is surrounded by a special informational field, the so-called "noosphere". It includes all the inhabitants of the planet with cognitive abilities. Our main goal was to make small adjustments to the noosphere, allowing us to remove things like anger, cruelty, greed, and other negative factors from the planet. Individuals are unable to affect the noosphere, but C-Consciousness could. Unfortunately, we made a mistake and our interference spawned the Zone, which we have been trying to contain ever since."
"What is the Zone?" I have to ask, as they are clearly tied to it somehow. "How did it come about?"
"What you see is the result of ill-considered intervention in the Earth's noosphere," the projection calmly explains. "Attempts to affect the noosphere brought about a local crack. The Zone is simply the visible manifestation of this crack. The underlying problem is far greater than you can imagine."
So, they were responsible for the Zone. Good god... "Why did it happen here?"
"It was the best place. After the explosion in 1986 there were very few people left in this area and we could work without fear of being found. Further, there were many powerful antennae here, which are extremely important for our cognitive optimization experiments."
Makes sense. "Is the explosion of '86 your work too?"
"No, we had nothing to do with that. Most of us were only starting out in science back then. The Chernobyl zone was not used as a testing site for experiments until 1989."
I turn to the next burning question, the one that's been with me from the start. "What happened to me?" I ask.
"You're a bolt that fell out of the machine. Unfortunately, that did not come to our attention for a long time." Cryptic, but the projection is quick to explain further. "From the moment the Zone was formed, many people have tried to get to its center, but we cannot let that happen. Humanity is not ready for the truth. That is why we recruited Stalkers, by promising them fulfillment of their most coveted desires. Once recruited, they would be sent to protect the Zones secret."
It sounds unreal in my ears, but it fits all the adjoining pieces. "What does the tattoo "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." mean?"
""S.T.A.L.K.E.R." is a coded acronym, which we used to mark agents programmed for particular missions. Your mission, as our agent, was to kill Strelok and his group. They got too close to finding out things they shouldn't know. We created a network of psi-fields on the way to the Zones center in order to recruit agents. You know one of these fields by the name of "Brain Scorcher." When a stalker attempts to reach the Zones center in order to fulfill some wish, we acquire control over his consciousness and program him to a specific mission. A mistake was made and your mission was to kill yourself."
One hell of a mistake. Sheer luck I didn't end up like the other Marked Ones... or die with them. "What are "death trucks"?"
"The transports we used to send our marked agents into the Zone. They infiltrate the stalker community and carry out our orders without realising it. Unfortunate, more than half of stalkers die during transportation - the Zone is very unstable. You are one of our agents sent to kill Strelok and we're now trying to work out how we made that mistake."
So that's that. The questions are answered, the truth is laid bare. This is what it all comes down to, what I came here for. I open my parched throat and ask what I haven't thought about for a second since this thing started: what I was to do afterward. "What next?"
"That depends on you," the projection replies. "The Zone is growing. We are trying to restrain its expansion but humanity seems to be intent on hindering our work. Our resources are not limitless and the bodies connected to C-Consciousness eventually die. If you join us, we can restrict the Zone's growth. If you decide otherwise, we cannot make a credible prognosis of the outcome."
Join the C-Consciousness... to restrict the Zone. The very people that caused in the first place. But what else can I do? What... what can I do?
I stare long and hard at the projection, where its eyes should be. I swallow, hands trembling and lightheaded. These bastards created the Zone, built the emitters to hide their secret... I can't trust them, can I? But what the fuck else am I supposed to do?!
I don't... I don't know what to do.
Asides: Again, very few detours here, but there are a couple interesting quirks. For starters, you can head back into the main Monolith chamber, and go make a wish.
It's possible to break the generators from outside the control room. It's easier with grenades or a scoped rifle, but it's possible all the same.
Poltergeists still appear as normal, but they don't attempt to leave the control room, and generally shouldn't attack you. Once you destroy the generators, any living poltergeists are killed, and you teleport automatically to the front of the projector.
From outside, "if you decide otherwise," it is possible to return to Monolith control.
The doorway you start at takes you back inside, down a flight of stairs.
There's not much to see, frankly. This passage is collapsed...
...and this door leads back to the control room.
Naturally, it's locked. Amusingly, with those mods that mess with the physics engine (most notably Faiakes' compilation), it's possible to force the door open with a single shot from the gauss rifle; it snaps shut immediately unless you wedge your own body in or find something else to jam it quick, but it's possible to squeeze back inside in this fashion. You can then make your way back to the Monolith and make a wish, despite that it's supposed to have been deactivated. Hooray for thorough exploits!
You can read the entire conversation with C-Consciousness in your message history. The text indicates the speaker as "Mitglied des Kollectivbewusstseins", which sounds more German than Russian.
Lastly, the Noosphere (pronounced 'no sphere') is indeed the theoretical concept of a field that contains Earth's cognitive activity. The theory, proposed by one Vladimir Vernadsky, suggests a succession of development phases by the Earth that affect previous phases; the Noosphere, cognitive activity, is the third such phase, and it impacts the previous phase - the biosphere (life), which in turn changes the geosphere (matter). Or so the Wiki summary leads me to believe.
Join us for the last time, as the Marked One makes his choice: does he beat 'em, or join 'em?
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
It looks like you already gave it away in the last PDA image?
More importantly, I've really enjoyed this Let's Play. I may never get to play this 'cause of lack of PC ownage, but this has been cool. Thanks dude.
I'm off to find some mods now.
I only had 3 kinds of scope in the game, the russian one, the "red dot with 2 lines going down" one (on the british rifle and the TRS) and the "red and black crosshairs" on the g36 and the Splinter Cell rifle.
Is that a mod or my game was broken?
And yeah, so much for keeping a lid on the choice. But really, the choice between a pithy cutscene and one last gunfight - and a chance to play with the new guns a little longer - is no choice at all
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
Here's the story behind The Marked One as I understand, do y'all think I'm on-target ? I'm going to try to spoiler this but if my PA-forum Fu is weak I apologize:
Strelok was sent back in his brain scorched state as The Marked One with the mission of killing Strelok and his team. Oops.
Ghost built a decoder device specifically to open the door leading to the Secret Lab and hid it in Pripyat, but before he could use it he fell in with the scientists and X16 and agreed to help them attempt to shut down the Psi-emitter, but was killed by the Corruptor in the basement of X16.
Doc and Guide stayed away from the race towards the Zone's center and thus survived.
And this is where the game picks up the action...
https://medium.com/@alascii
The Marked One has refused the offer of the C-Consciousness, who (which?) is understandably concerned about some upstart Stalker running his mouth about their game plan. The remaining Monolith forces have no intention of letting him live. The feeling, of course, is mutual.
I could have just accepted. Joined the C-Consciousness. Helped them restrict the Zone's growth, help them fix the 'crack' that they created.
To be honest, I don't know what I hoped to do when I turned away. I heard the door slam shut behind me as I followed a tunnel away from the control room, which led me to the back of the plant. They wouldn't just let me live, not so long as they did. They who took my memory in the first place, branded me and sent me to kill myself.
I think that was the key. The C-Consciousness was born from an accident, their attempts to meddle with human consciousness. Once joined, their efforts to 'correct' all of humanity caused another accident. The very mechanisms that concealed their existence caused yet another accident... in me. The whole project was born from failure, ironically situated in a place that embodied failure. Even as I considered their offer, I did not believe them capable of undoing what they had wrought.
And I had no intention of joining them in their fate.
Maybe the C-Consciousness was right, in that no one could predict what would happen once they were gone. Maybe I didn't have any real hope of stopping them on my own, even if I knew how.
But the way I see it, that's not their problem.
Their problem is...
...I still intend to.
The ground trembles and shakes; bizarre portals ring the landscape. My PDA tells me it's night, but the sky is lit up as if the sun sat just above those black clouds. Concentrated radiation rings the periphery, blocking any obvious path forward save for the portal in front of me.
This has to stop.
I step through the portal, and in a flash I'm on the building next to me, behind a stack of pipes. Gunfire pelts the obstruction; a gauss rifle round pings loudly against the top pipe, missing my head by inches.
Already I'm cursing my choice as I return fire, dropping a Monolith trooper on the upper balcony.
Cursing, but not regretting. I pick off the sniper and continue forward.
More sharpshooters. I trade shots with another trooper, forcing him back behind cover...
...giving me time to deal with the next sniper.
It takes a mighty heave and a couple misses, but a grenade takes out the other Monolith on the balcony.
Come on, come on! Is this the best you can do?!
My next taunt dies in my throat. Shit, that's a lot of ground to cover. Those devices in the distance must be how the C-Consciousness amplifies their control, but I don't have any idea how to shut them down. Except at the source; ideally with bullets.
More troopers fire up from below. The high ground gives me the advantage I need to clear the way.
I drop down onto the lower roof to finish them off, collecting ammo - and looting the dead sniper up that ladder for his gauss ammo - as I go.
A ladder on the far side of the roof heads down to a walkway.
This takes me out over the grounds, towards the next building.
Monolith troopers spring up to surprise me, but an ill-positioned exploding barrel works in my favor.
I swing left to trade sniper fire with more troopers on the roof of the next building.
As I continue, the air distorts in front of me, and a Monolith teleports into view, ready for action.
Not quite as ready as me, however.
The portal warps me through the air, and for a moment I can feel myself falling.
I regain my bearings on top of a small shack on the roof. The portal took me up to the building I was facing.
Damn, rocket launcher to my right! I'm lucky the rocket struck the wall instead of me; I got peppered with fragments and shaken up, but otherwise I'm okay. I take him down before he can reload.
More gunfire across the roof, at least another three-four hostiles.
Would've been a good ambush if they were a bit quicker on the trigger.
The last one goes down. I stop to loot the bodies. Sadly, the rocketeer doesn't have any spare rockets, but I do find a rifle grenade in the boxes near the teleporter, and more gauss ammo.
Here I go!
I find myself even higher up on the building next to where I started. Damn, that's a long way down...
I swallow past a lump in my throat, turn around and press on. Up the ladder I go.
Shit, more rocket soldiers! The roof barely offers enough cover to take them down; I can feel the gangway creaking unsteadily as a rocket slams into the roof next to it.
Fuck me.
My geiger goes off the scale. Something very radioactive is boiling right below my feet.
The holes in the roof look familiar; I think that leads down to the Monolith's chamber. Not that I care to find out, however. I scramble up the ladder to the adjoining roof.
Exosuit troopers! I gear up and fire back, taking a few good hits; my own suit, thankfully, holds together, but a shot to the gut knocks the wind out of me.
I drop a grenade at this guy's feet and send him flying.
I stop long enough near the teleporter to survey the area below. I have no way of gauging my progress beyond how many Monolith stalkers I've killed; I have no idea where to find the bodies of the C-Consciousness. I could be going in a big circle for all I know.
I choke down the first inkling of despair and shout at the top of my lungs, "What are you all waiting for?! I'm just getting warmed up!"
The portal takes me down to vent shafts that feed back into the main complex.
The way forward is blocked. No choice but to take the ladder behind me.
A single snork guards the portal. He lands a kick to the stomach, but a good burst from my rifle puts him down.
The portal takes me to another walkway. A rocketeer guards it, completely unaware. I take him down and eagerly relieve him of his spare rocket.
The next portal puts me on the roof of a neighboring building. I see the emitters to the north; I'm slowly working my way east.
More snorks attack, but I'm ready for them. Hope you fly better than you fight, asshole.
A breach in a railing leads to this midair portal. There's no other way off the roof, so what the hell?
...still, it took me a few false starts to work up the guts to jump. I'm not that far gone yet.
Another walkway, another trooper guarding the next portal. Ho-hum.
Oh shit! Rockets from the right!
Two can play this game.
Ho yeah! Who's next?! Come on, I got something for every last one of you!
Portal's clear. Gotta keep moving.
I'm pulled further east. I don't have much time to get my bearings before I come under heavy sniper fire.
It's like fuckin' Whack-a-Mole, these guys just keep coming!
Not that I can remember, but I was probably pretty good at Whack-a-Mole.
I could just drop down with my springs, take the hit and climb up the ladder across this little jumping puzzle here...
...but it's not too difficult to jump up on the side ledge and then to this hanging platform. Less radiation, too.
It's a safe hop, skip and a jump over to the next set of pipes. I can see more troopers running across the roof up there.
Takes a few practice shots, but I drop them quickly.
I've gotta be close... close to what, I don't know, but I think I have to get up by those emitters somehow. The direct way forward is cut off, so I have to take another portal.
It puts me on the roof where I just took down those two troopers.
There's another portal at the base of this tower. These things are starting to make me dizzy.
Another walkway, this one unguarded...
...and another roof, this one guarded.
They're not too firmly dug in up here, and I blindside a couple of them.
Two more around the corner, but nothing I can't handle.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
The next portal drops me into a staging area right next to the emitters. Camo and supply boxes everywhere. Whether or not I'm actually getting close to my objective (whatever that might be at this point), it's clear I'm hitting them right where it hurts.
I dice up a few more troopers and help myself to some ammo and much-needed medical supplies. I stop to bandage up a couple of injuries and down a few painkillers before moving on.
A couple more Monoliths guard the portal.
This has got to be important. This is it, this has to be. I eagerly step through.
Wha... Sidorovich??
"Marked One?! What the hell?!"
He's gone before I have the chance to say anything else.
Shit... now where am I? I've completely lost my bearings.
It's... it's never going to end, is it? I'm just hopelessly being flung against their forces... taken through every last one of their defenses.
They'll wear me down eventually. I can already feel my eyelids growing heavy again, my arm numb from the recoil of my gun. My gear encumbers me, my movements grow sluggish. It's only a matter of time.
So why do I keep going? I still press on, through and to the next portal.
No... no, it's not hopeless. It's not over.
I'm not giving up!
Not now, not ever!
You bastards killed Fang, and Ghost...
...you killed Fox and Mole...
...you're killing us all! You made this Hell! You're killing us all and you thought you could ever stop it?!
Let's go! I'm not through yet!
This madness ends here!
I don't care how many of your minions you throw at me, I'm not giving up!
They come at me from every direction, from behind, from ahead, from the sides, but they're not stopping me.
My whole body feels like a lead weight, every shot is an effort...
...but I'm not giving up... I can't. Not yet.
More portal distortions. Monoliths warp in all around me.
My last rocket sends half of them right back to their maker.
I drop the launcher and heft my assault rifle, trading shots with the survivors.
One of them scores a punishing hit that cracks the armor plate on my exosuit...
...but in the end, I am victorious.
The portal takes me to a darkened tunnel. No guards, no security... I don't think they have anything left.
It's them.
Eight chambers, seven occupied. The bodies of the C-Consciousness, the 'Group'; the men behind the secret experiments so long ago.
The men who created the Zone.
Almost every step of the way, I have been plagued with doubt, fear and confusion. For once, however...
...my thoughts are clear.
Let this end.
I'm too tired to remember how I got outside, but I get there as the next day breaks.
The skies start to clear, and the sun shines warmly, happily. Birds are chirping like nothing was ever wrong with the world.
Heh... looks like it'll be a nice day.
I don't know whether I was right or wrong.
I guess I'll never know.
But I made it.
And I guess I should be thankful for that.
Asides: Full ending cutscene can be found here.
Final thoughts soon to follow. For now, however, some quick extras regarding the finale:
I'm fairly certain that this segment is, in fact, the roof of the Monolith's chamber.
If you happen to fall it, it does bear some resemblance, but you may notice it's missing a few things.
Like, for instance, a floor.
There are a few 'false' teleporters that either lead you to earlier parts of the level or take you no further than the ones indicated in the post, but one can find a few shortcuts, if you're willing to break a few bones and muscle through radiation.
This one is near the second walkway, indicated in picture #38 (with the kneeling Monolith rocketeer, just after the first snork attack). You can jump down and make a beeline for the ladder...
...which puts you on this platform (note: rocket launchers and a gauss sniper will spawn here later) and near a portal...
...that takes you to the pipes by the jumping puzzle.
A better, more death-defying shortcut can be found here, on the walkway past the aforementioned puzzle. Pack some springs, unequip your exosuit (if you're using one) and make a running jump off the edge.
C'mon man, walk off that compound fracture! Walk it off!
This path takes you to a couple ladders...
...which lead you to the second-to-last portal ("Marked Ooooone! What the heeeeeeeeeell?!") bypassing the troopers defending it.
The journey has come to fitting closure, and the Marked One gets his well-earned rest. What could possibly be left to discuss? Apparently, quite a bit. Final thoughts to follow in the extra-special bonus update that's not really extra, special or bonus in any meaningful capacity. Be there!
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
Thanks a lot Stolls! Great thread!
So, I just reached X16 and I gotta say, snorks are real fuckers. They know how to scare ya, leapin' out all star jumpy and shit. And couple them with the zombies...... oh boy! I've had more than a few instances where I turned around only to hear a loud groaning. Doesn't help that I use headphones, I guess.
All the STALKER cgi scenes are really well done.
Incredible job!
No, that'll only give you a slightly less bad ending.
For the 'good' ending just make sure to do all of the Strelok questline missions.
But it does stall a bit while loading new areas. Which brings me to a question that might be dumb, but I'm clueless to this sort of stuff. In my current computer I have 2 GB DDR2 800 RAM. In my old computer I have one gig of DDR2 533 RAM. Can I put this in my new computer without it blowing up?