Deus ex 2 - TTLG Forums

Papy on 16/10/2007 at 10:24

Quote Posted by Muzman

An option to make sure no one thing can step into it doesn't need to make a huge mess unless you are given to the view that that's good for people

I can think for myself, I don't need to be given any view on what's good or not for people. I like having a problem presented to me, I don't like when someone tell me what is the "good solution" I should use.

The game offered several endings so you can choose what you imagine is the best. Sure, there could be a lot of other endings. A cute "... and they all lived happily ever after" ending could be what some people would really want to try. As I'm not much into fairy tales myself (yes, I'm cynical), I didn't miss it. But I certainly understand your desire for a more... let's say... optimistic choice.

The differences between how you, me and other people interpret the game's characters and world situation are enormous. It certainly shows that Deus Ex world was mostly blank. We see a few snapshots and we imagine everything else. What is the world situation ? How many people died because of the gray death ? For how long has this been going on ? Is there still some form of a global economy or has the gray death already destroyed it ?

We can have fun and make some educated guesses, we can try to imagine a world where the few pieces of information we have can fit... In fact, trying to understand the world is a major part of the gameplay, and why Deus Ex was such a great game. We get bits of information and we assume the rest. We then get other bits of info, and we refine our views by trying to make them fit with our global idea of the world. Sometimes, everything fit and make sense. Some other times, we realize these new info don't fit at all, we realize we were wrong and we have to change our understanding of the world and its characters. What this means to me, is that if something doesn't fit, if for example Tong is not acting the way I think he should, then it's because MY understanding of the big picture is wrong.

And by the way, it is about security vs freedom. That's the point of the different endings.

Dr. Dumb_lunatic on 16/10/2007 at 12:01

None of the endings really have any real freedom, they just have varying degrees of 'the illusion of freedom'.

DX:

Techno-god helio-denton thing - not a lot of obvious freedom here, but you are at least being governed by something powerful enough to look out for everyone and make unbiased decisions, so you're protected from the extremes of human ineptitude and arrogance and stuff. "Here is your playground. Play on these rides, be nice. Helios has spoken."

Illuminati - you might think you're free, but you're just in a larger cage: there are people out there who have their own idea of what's best for you, and they'll make damn sure that's what you get, regardless of what you want. You just won't SEE them doing this. "You have a big playground to play in, but you won't be allowed near any of the dangerous/interesting rides."

Tong - well, arguably the most 'freedom', but here you've fucked the world, so while you're now master of your own destiny, you ability to DO anything with said destiny is massively hampered. "You can use any of the rides in the playground, but the playground is very small, and contains nothing of any interest."

Then you have IW:

Helios: same as above only more "IN YOUR FACE LOL"

Illumati: ditto.

Templars: YAY RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION FTW. Freedom to become a bigot or something, I guess, but yeah: oppression.

Omar: Complete freedom to do whatever you want, as long as you're frogsuited and hiveminded, in which case "whatever you want" is what the hivemind wants anyway. Resistance is futile.

The underlying theme seems to be "Humans really can't look after themselves, and will wipe themselves out eventually, so SOMETHING or SOMEONE has to limit their freedom until they can only injure themselves 'slightly'..."

Anyway, regarding Tong's choice, I'm with Muzman: it completely blindsided me when I first heard it, and it still makes me automatically come to the conclusion that Tong's a nutjob. He blathers on at you throughout the WHOLE second half of the game about random shit, "ooh! Get me a nice bottle of wine!" "Oh, have some random facts about Adam Weishaupt I dug up on the intarweb!" and on and on. He's obsessed with technology and the further future applications of biomodification: he's supposed to be massively augmented himself (hence the jigsaw face).

He was happy to help you destroy the versalife UC because it wasn't HIS. If you could've somehow lifted the whole thing out of there and buried it under the LP compound, he would've been well up for that, I imagine.

Then all of a sudden, he drops everything and comes to the conclusion that vaping all earth-wide communication networks is a top-notch idea.

It just seemed...random. Maybe he was originally supposed to want control of aquinas himself, but they couldn't work out a way to make that fit (plus lacked originality with the Everett ending being much the same). They had Everett, Helios, and "Other"...and he got to be "Other".

Also, Zymeaddict: "It expressly stated it will happen that way. Earth will be nuked to shit! Period!"

Do you have a copy of the transcript for the Omar endgame cinematic, coz I don't recall leaving it with that general impression at all. Does it actually mention nukes? Wars needn't necessarily be all NUKES IN YOUR FACE, especially with major players in the 'world control' hierarcy suddenly eliminated.

ZylonBane on 16/10/2007 at 19:31

Quote Posted by Dr. Dumb_lunatic

It just seemed...random. Maybe he was originally supposed to want control of aquinas himself, but they couldn't work out a way to make that fit (plus lacked originality with the Everett ending being much the same). They had Everett, Helios, and "Other"...and he got to be "Other".

He originally didn't want anything. The multiple endings for DX were tacked on fairly late in development. Originally it was just going to be the Helios ending.

AxTng1 on 17/10/2007 at 01:38

Quote Posted by Dr. Dumb_lunatic

Anyway, regarding Tong's choice, I'm with Muzman: it completely blindsided me when I first heard it, and it still makes me automatically come to the conclusion that Tong's a nutjob. He blathers on at you throughout the WHOLE second half of the game about random shit, "ooh! Get me a nice bottle of wine!" "Oh, have some random facts about Adam Weishaupt I dug up on the intarweb!" and on and on. He's obsessed with technology and the further future applications of biomodification: he's supposed to be massively augmented himself (hence the jigsaw face).

At the time, as I recall, he was infected with the Grey Death - perhaps a possible symptom is acting like a nutjob. Also it may have interfered with whatever augs he had at the time. /fanwank.

One of IW's few strong points to me - despite the poor execution, the endings are valid and seemingly realistic. I can't imagine Area 51 having a "blows up lol" button wired in, but I can imagine the summit-like atmosphere of the final showdown on Liberty Island. World leaders, outcast 'borg and religious nuts all watching each other carefully over a great prize.

I think the Helios ending is the best - admittedly the Mind Control Rays Mocking Liberty do look creepy and perverse, but it would not be like that all the time. The feeling I got was that every so often, perhaps a number of years, people would gather around the Helios entity and input. Since many people don't even consciously know what it is that they want, it seems like the best way.
That's when I'm feeling idealistic. If I'm annoyed when finishing the game, fuck 'em. Omar.

I would never choose the Templars. In the world of DX:IW, I'm sure there would be opposition to nanite augmentation (let's face it, assholes everywhere) but why would they call themselves Templars?

I remember reading that in the original DX, the Cathedral would have been guarded by the templars instead of MJ-12. How would this have fitted into the story?

Papy on 17/10/2007 at 05:17

Quote Posted by Dr. Dumb_lunatic

None of the endings really have any real freedom, they just have varying degrees of 'the illusion of freedom'.

I believe the difference between freedom and 'illusion of freedom' is only academic.

Quote Posted by Dr. Dumb_lunatic

He was happy to help you destroy the versalife UC because it wasn't HIS. If you could've somehow lifted the whole thing out of there and buried it under the LP compound, he would've been well up for that, I imagine.

I must admit my memory kind of fail me, so I decided to look at the script of the game (http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/250533/20002) here. Here's a quote that you may find interesting :

Quote:

JC DENTON : I also destroyed the Universal Constructor they were using to manufacture the virus.
TONG : A Universal Constructor... I should have known.

It was Daedalus who asked you to destroy the UC, not Tong.

Ok, I seriously don't know where your interpretation of Tong came from. I read most of the script and there's very little conversation except for the usual indication about how to proceed and some backgroung knowledge information.

Here's a few dialogs that can shed some light about who Tong is :

(From our very first conversation with Tong) :

Quote:

JC DENTON : Mr. Tong. You know my brother, Paul Denton.
TONG : Yes. A reliable man. So your killswitch has been activated.
JC DENTON : I feel fine, but it's been over 16 hours.
TONG : See how easily our technologies turn on us? The more power you think you have, the more quickly it slips from your hands.

My interpretation : he is wary of technology. This warning is the first thing he tell us. He is certainly not someone who view technology as a goal in itself.

Quote:

JC DENTON : Quick and Chen declared a truce just a few minutes ago.
TONG : A good bit of diplomacy, I admit, but it won't hold. Not with the sword left to be fought over.
JC DENTON : I think they will be slow to anger with Maggie Chow out of the picture.
TONG :No. In their system, the sword is a doomsday weapon, a temptation... We must recover the ROM-encoding from VersaLife and make it available to BOTH Triads.

My interpretation : He's able to assess "political" situation and understand human behavior. He is not the average scientist who knows and cares only about his work.

Quote:

ALEX : ...Tong has connections....

My interpretation : Not only is aware of politics, but he is obviously active in the political sphere.

Quote:

TONG : Tell me about the labs. Paul and I concluded that VersaLife does the manufacturing, while the real research takes place in North America.
JC DENTON : Plenty of scientists -- biotech, physics, nanotech -- several research divisions. It would seem we still have a mutual interest.
TONG : We know they manufacture Ambrosia. If you went back -- and gained access to the Level 2 labs -- perhaps you would find something on the Gray Death. Your brother's failure in New York has left me with nothing.

Quote:

JC DENTON : ...but I did it on the advice of the hacker, Daedalus. Who is he, really? Alex says he may be an AI, part of an old government program.
TONG : An AI... The thought occurred to me, but more likely it is cover for a real human being.
JC DENTON : But who?
TONG : A powerful man, we must assume. I don't like mysteries, but at least he appears to be on our side.

My interpretation : Tong is learning about the situation as I am. He doesn't know much, he can even be completely wrong, so the fact he could change his mind or goals certainly does not surprise me at all.

Quote:

TONG : Looks like a chance to take out a team of MJ12 troopers, but use your head. We
don't want the hostages getting caught in the crossfire.

My interpretation : Tong is obviously caring for other people. On the other hand, he helped you sink the freighter, with its people, and he can make the decision to sacrifice individual for the greater cause.

Quote:

TONG : JC... hello.
JC DENTON : What's wrong?
TONG : ...an error... one of the experiments... I have the Gray Death.
JOCK : He flew into San Jose and had no way to get here.
TONG : I am not a high-order term in the equation anymore. Do not concern yourselves with me.
JC DENTON : You aren't dead yet, Tong. Savage will take care of you.
TONG : I'm here for selfish reasons, to have access to the cure.
JC DENTON : Let's just hope we're able to manufacture it. Savage's daughter failed to get the part he needs for the UC. She's being held prisoner by Majestic 12.
JOCK : We should get moving. Tony Mares in on the way to help Tong.
TONG : By all means, go. You don't have time to stand around on account of me.

My interpretation : Although Tong is not suicidal and try to save his own life, he qualify this action as selfish and he's certainly willing to sacrifice his own life for the greater cause.

Maybe the script in the web page is incomplete, but this is about all he says, apart from the usual plain facts, and the personality we give to his character is based only on those small bits of dialogs and the general situation. Everything else is only in our imagination.

So here's how I imagine him : Tong is a somewhat eccentric wise man who views technology as a great (but not indispensable) tool. His is not a nutjob, a shallow geek who has little understanding of human nature or a selfish asshole who is unable to have moral or philosophical thought. For him (again that's only my own interpretation), the value of a piece of technology depends solely on how it is, or could be used, not on the technology itself. He is not afraid to use technology, he is certainly intelligent enough to master it, but technology is not is main preoccupation. His moral values are far more important to him

So do you think that this final quote, where he explain why he wants to seize the occasion to destroy the Aquinas Hub is really out of character ?

Quote:

TONG : As long as technology has a global reach, someone will have the world in the palm of his hand. If not Bob Page, then Everett, Dowd...

DaveW on 17/10/2007 at 08:28

Quote Posted by ZymeAddict

Well it turns out he was still right though, to a certain extent. The world descended into chaos for awhile (The Collapse) and then a number of city-states (feudal principalities as you said) emerged to be allied under the WTO. Yeah, it was shitty for a while, obviously, but that's a damn site better than nuking the entire planet into oblivion. And only an idiot could think that the statement "oh, but maybe that doesn't happen for awhile" makes the ultimate outcome at all better.

Note that this is only because the Illuminati begun a monopoly on religion and, well, owning cities. Which led to globalisation, yet again. It was nothing like Tong thought it would be, because it was not govered by smaller government "comprehensible to the citizens", it was by a large multi-national organisation and a single religion.

Quote Posted by Papy

My interpretation : he is wary of technology. This warning is the first thing he tell us. He is certainly not someone who view technology as a goal in itself.

You could just reference what he says in IW, when he refers to the Templars as being haters of technology and then says he was like them (well, Billie Adams specifically) once.

Dr. Dumb_lunatic on 17/10/2007 at 12:00

If (DX) tong had said things like "I want you to blow it up because it's the only way I can think of to keep it out of the hands of the illuminati", it wouldn've been slightly less jarring, possibly....but "We'll live in villages!" is just fucking stupid.

After all, nano/mechano augmentation is not something that is easily maintained without access to a ton of resources, power supplies, research bases, global expertise, etc.

And after all:

Quote:

Unwilling to ask his clients to do anything he wouldn't do himself, Tracer is a walking pincushion. He bristles with augmentations -- everything in the catalog, even though he doesn't use the mods particularly. (In other words, even though he has vision like an eagle, is as fast as a jaguar and strong as an elephant, he doesn't tend to make use of those capabilities in his daily life.) •

(Taken from (http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/april02/dxbible/dx3/index4.shtm))

I find myself forced to either assume he was just mad, or an idiot, or trying to sound all enthusiastic about his "backed into a corner"-style solution just in case you detected any hesitancy in his voice.

Besides: without global communications, how are you going to distribute the cure (or even the blueprints for the cure) to the grey death? It's still out there, killing people. Adding a dark age to this merely ensures that anyone infected and not near a chunky source of ambrosia is almost certainly as good as dead.

Pyrian on 17/10/2007 at 23:38

Quote Posted by Dr. Dumb_lunatic

I don't see any significant difference between that and:

Quote Posted by Papy

TONG : As long as technology has a global reach, someone will have the world in the palm of his hand. If not Bob Page, then Everett, Dowd...

There's also another quote where Tong advises you to climb the trellis by the cathedral; something along the lines of never using a high-tech solution when a low-tech solution is at hand.

Tong consistently took the position that technology could backfire on you (he even went so far as to accidentally contract the grey death!). His ending was, IMO, a fairly direct continuation of his in-game stance.

Papy on 18/10/2007 at 09:10

Quote Posted by Dr. Dumb_lunatic

I find myself forced to either assume he was just mad, or an idiot

I'm against war, yet I support the idea of a strong military. I even did two years of military service. When I'm in a position of authority, I generally choose for myself the worst task. I believe in the idea of democracy, yet I refuse to vote. I like the idea of a quiet life, having some hens, a garden, maybe even a few cows, yet I chose to live in a city spending most of my times with computers...

Sometimes, desires are what decide what I choose to do, but most of the time it's either direct needs or my own moral values which dictate what I must do.

So here's the question : Why did Tong choose to have all his modifications ? Desire, need, integrity ?

Here's two interesting things from your quote :
- "Unwilling to ask his clients to do anything he wouldn't do himself" (What does this imply ?)
- "he doesn't tend to make use of those capabilities in his daily life" (Then why the modifications ?)

Sathras on 18/10/2007 at 09:10

Yet his sanctum is a hi-tech mekka. After all he is the ONLY one outside of a mega corp to reverse engineer the the virus has access to directly manipulate prototype level augmentations etc. If he isn't a hypocrite then I don't know who is. :P