XENOGEARS: A ROPE OF ROBOTS
(part thirty-two)

The party has located Solaris, using nothing but simple geometry, a ten thousand year old laser cannon, and a perfectly ordinary country doctor! It is way the hell up in the sky. ...Solaris, not the perfectly ordinary country doctor. Yet!

We have to get into that floating city!

With the three surface gates down, Solaris is now visible, but as long as the gate within Solaris is operational we still can't get inside.

That is all right, we will use technobabble. Maria, now that the Gate is weakened, we can use Seibzehn's heavy particle cannon to distort space and neutralize the Gate for a brief moment.

Sure! That will do something.

Once we're inside, we'll have to move in small groups, because the party screen won't let us add more than three members.

I'll lead the way! No one will look twice at a military deserter!

I'll come too! Surely we've run out of people who inexplicably know me on sight!

Then it's settled. Elly, Fei, and I will go to Solaris, and Maria will loiter outside with a massive giant robot. There is no way this plan can end in unspeakable disaster.

The party breaks up, and Citan runs off to speak with his wife, who has curiously little presence in this game and next to no presence in this recap. It is hard to hold the attention of a lady who comes from a UFO.

So I hear you're going back to Solaris, where you will probably get everyone and yourself killed.

Yes. It is the path I have chosen.

It's a stupid path.

I will try not to be overcome by the DARK SIDE.

Oh, good, you're a Jedi now. I guess you'll be needing this!

My sword! It has been years! Where was it?

In the attic with the golf clubs!

Where I put it.

Thank you! Take care of Midori! Bye!

She is never going to see him again. And we will never see her again! This game is not big on its minor characters, or even its major characters after a point. Sorry, Yui! Perhaps in the next life you will have a giant robot, and Xenogears will care. On his way back inside, Citan runs into Jesiah!

I'm coming, too! And if you TURN ON US us, I will SHOOT YOU in the back of your HEAD.

I look forward to you trying!

I mean

I will try not to do that.

Could you telegraph a little more loudly? I don't think the folks in the back can hear.

Having foreshadowed itself to its satisfaction, the game returns to Fei, who is very enthused about this totally well thought out plan of attack. Like planning ever did him any favors! Everyone gets on board Seibzehn, which is apparently pretty roomy, and they take off!

I'm coming, Solaris! Seibzehn and I shall be the dark wings which will carry you all to your deaths!

Somebody's been hitting up the Vertigo back issues again.

Maria presumably uses Seibzehn's heavy particle cannon to distort space and neutralize the Gate for a brief moment, and they're in!

Something seems different. I can't quite put a finger on it.

Solaris's gravity is opposite of that of the surface.

...why?

There's no time to explain.

This is the first time Xenogears has ever said that.

Okay, so where are we?

It looks like a shipping facility to distribute resources gathered from the surface to the rest of Solaris.

So this is a totally good place to go crawling into weird looking tubes, right?

The weird looking tube sucks Fei in! He is the hide and seek champion! It spits him out in a huge warehouse full of slaves and honeycomb apartments. So, the Lower East Side, basically. The camera takes this opportunity to right itself, denying the audience the probably unique chance to play several hours of a video game upside down. It... probably would detract from the drama somewhat.

For there is much drama to see in Solaris! Fei hears a guy yelling about how living here sucks, and he looks up just in time to see the guy get grabbed by a drone and dropped into a massive trash chute. Yes, living in Solaris is probably awesome. Time to start walking into random houses!

Hello there! My name is not Timothy!

 

 

This fellow says his name is Samson, and that he and Fei have met before! He was at that tournament in Aveh, supposedly, but he was knocked out in the first round and woke up here in Solaris. People here get "rearranged," he says, which is a cross between brain-washing and amnesia, but they screwed up on him and he can still remember stuff. Fei has no idea what to make of this, and neither does this narration. There's no reason to reuse Timothy's sprite and hang a lampshade on it unless it's Timothy, but, you know, Xenogears.

I have an escape plan, and a guy who walked into my house uninvited twenty seconds ago would make a perfect accomplice! But we have to move quickly, because there's a lady from Gebler wandering around.

A lady from Gebler?

Was she wearing pants.

No.

It's Elly!

Fei exercises his power of walking into random houses some more, and he finds Elly, who knew enough to start checking random houses herself if she wanted to find Fei. She tells him that they're in Solaris 3rd Class F Block, which is a residential center for kidnapped slaves. She was here on a field trip once, because Solaris has terrible, terrible schools.

So where's Doc?

He thought we'd have a better chance of finding you if he vanished mysteriously for a while.

And he was right! Good ol' Doc.

Having partially reassembled the party, Fei goes back to Samson, who now has no problem whatsoever with telling the Gebler lady all about his escape plan. He gives Fei a modified work pass and says they are going to sneak out through a naval port in the 2nd class area.

A naval port?

Aren't we... you know... in the sky?

That is so racist, Fei.

Fei, Elly, and Samson head for the 2nd class area checkpoint, which is helpfully designated with an annoying dungeon maze. Guard dogs would probably be cheaper. They reach the scanner.

Samson walks through it, and it promptly fries him.

Well! He was confusing and pointless!

RIP, that guy who inexplicably looked like Timothy. Was he actually Timothy, nursed back from having been shot in the head by a giant robot and taken as a slave for the sole purpose of wigging out Fei and then dying for real? For these answers and more, you should probably just go play a different game.

Oo, oo, me next!

Elly, the deserter Gebler has been trying to kidnap and/or kill for most of the story, walks through it and is fine! Gebler's computers are just as incompetent as they are! Elly gets the bright idea that Fei should just walk through it at the same time that she does, a trick that would not work on any subway turnstile in the world, but works here. They finally reach the 2nd class area, which is basically a giant shopping mall, and Elly fakes their way in saying that she is escorting this here surface dweller slave to HQ.

I am both disturbed and intrigued.

Something is afoot in this area! Emperor Cain is holding some kind of ceremony and giving a speech. Fei and Elly go through a ridiculous shopping mall-based fetchquest to get tickets to this event because oh my god, they are such huge fans!

My beloved children, you can be at ease. The Gazel Ministry and I planned the destruction of the gates long ago. That is how you wake up God! The time for our immortality has come. We have opened the door to Mahanon. Death to the surface dwellers!

His first album was better.