The ending of Jenny Adair's arc

[Greycat]

So we have mirrored arcs (or pairs of them, I suppose) redside and blueside. Redside we have the cloning facility/Dean Macarthur/"army of me" arc. Redside we have Keith Nance/Jenny Adair, dealing with you supposedly breaking the law, finding there's a clone and a you from another dimension trying to track down Protean..

 

Redside, in the last mission, you have a choice to save your clone or abandon it to die - and if you save it, a later dialog option for "You will serve me!" or "Go live your life and find out who you are." It's one of the times I *like* redside's writing - my characters do react differently, or at least get a chance to.

 

Then we have Blueside. In the last mission, when you face Protean, your otherdimensional self dies facing off against an army of you. But they last long enough to give you a little speech. The portal explodes, they die, you talk to Jenny Adair with a little exchange of "What about their mediporter?" "They didn't have one." "OK."

 

... excuse me what? "OK?" You are railroaded into reacting to this bit of news with as much (if not less) emotional reaction than the average person would have to the post office introducing a new stamp design, or form AM-10965.4-c being updated to form AM-10965.4-c Rev A to fix a typo in the word "the" on page 6, section 4. Not to mention that, *by design,* your character gets there with enough time to take some action other than "sit there and listen."

 

At the *very* least, I'd like to suggest having your choices updated in the final briefing with Jenny Adair. Something like "Take a moment to mourn their passing," "'At least they died for a noble cause," and "Well, better them than me, I guess" to give some range of options on how to react rather than "Surplus unit offline."

 

*Ideally,* to me at least, having options at that last moment - ("Save yourself" - you get out, double dies, or "Protect your double" (which is vague enough to leave things up in the air as to how) - perhaps you now spawn in the hospital to go talk to adair, and the double of you shows up via the same phasing tech as matthew habashy's wife does) would be better, though it's a bit more dialog rewriting at the end.

 

Alternatively, having the mission in Ouro mean you're *prepared* and give your double a spare mediport beacon so they live would work, as well.

 

Still, I think *some* choice of reaction to seeing (sort of) your own death that has more impact than "I finished vacuuming the living room" would be nice.

[Rudra]

I agree that the character's reaction at the end of the arc is... disappointing. Your other worldly double scarifices himself/herself/itself (if a non-gendered construct), and the character just accepts it rather matter of factly. That's a rather cold, even cruel, hero. At the least, the player should be given a range of choices for how to react. The dialogue for Jenni Adair doesn't even need to change for that.

 

And yeah, while it makes for an 'interesting' cut scene of your double's sacrifice, the fact the plyaer does reach the room with the double in it, and game cuts to death monologue for portal room and base to explode is rather restrictive. Using @Greycat's example of different options, the mission could be updated to "Find Mission Exit (or Rescue Your Double)". Now the player has the choice of doing as the double said and running for the exit, which completes the mission and ejects the character if (s)he/it reaches the mission exit, or pressing on to try and save the double.

 

Now to add further complexity to the coding nightmare, if running the arc a 2nd time, the character may take another trip to Mender Valen to see about an Ourobors teleporter or may take the initiative to visit another character to get a spare mediporter. After all, if we can get spare mediporters for other NPCs we have to rescue in other missions, why can't we get one for our double? The player would have to take the extra steps to get the mediporter, but (s)he/it is already tinkering with the time stream going through Ouroboros anyway. Then, if the devs still wish to remove the double as opposed to red side where the double decides to go off and find his/her/its own fate rather than be tied to you, forever vanishing from your character's story, then the double can choose to return to his/her/its original dimension or embark on a separate career elsewhere away from your character. (Of course, I still find it to be a kludge of the story that after the missions the double ran with your character to get to that point, that somehow (s)he/it still doesn't have a mediporter despite all that time and work.)

[srmalloy]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

The portal explodes, they die, you talk to Jenny Adair with a little exchange of "What about their mediporter?" "They didn't have one." "OK."

See what happens if you don't have a properly-filled-out 27B/6?