Warning: This series of Taffer's Post contains extensive spoilers for the System Shock Series, and possibly other LGS games. Read at your own risk!

Okay … so I want to design a Shock 3. But I have a problem - I didn't like the plot in Shock 2. So before I can launch into a conceptual-and-certainly-never-to-be-made-because-I-am-telling-the-world design for Shock 3, I may as well design a conceptual-and-never-to-be-made-because-there-is-already-a-Shock-2, Shock 2.

A word of warning … this Taffer's Post contains lots of Shock 1 & 2 spoilers. Also, don't read it if you are going to have a closed mind and are outraged that I would suggest that Shock 2 is not perfect. Hazzah!

	An early design for the player character in System Shock 1. They should have stopped when they had it right, and not dreamed up that God-awful 'goggles' character. Bleh!

Okay, let us now look at Shock 2. Shock 2 is a game of mighty triumphs and humiliating failures. It is, as I have sometimes said, a textbook example of the right and wrong things to do when you are making an Action/RPG. If we are going to make it shine, we need to glance at the biggest problems it has - plot holes. For one, an ejected grove does not travel light years no matter how many decades it is traveling, especially not a measly 5 (that's 5 decades, or 50 years). Jettisoned Beta Grove should have been sucked into the gravity well of Jupiter, or better yet Saturn, and -maybe- gone into orbit. Let's say that it went into a very low orbit just inside Saturn's upper atmosphere. Secondly, anyone who has played Shock 1 knows that SHODAN never places all of her eggs in one basket. She has backup plans upon backup plans upon backup plans. Also, she would never wager her fate on an element over which she did not have absolute control. With that in mind, as cool as it may be to some people, let's just throw out the whole "SHODAN made you" plot. It just doesn't work. Furthermore, throw out the whole "SHODAN needs my help" concept… or even "I am SHODAN's pawn" thing. All of it; worthless. Now we have ruled out loads of stupid crap by removing those two ridicules plot elements.

Let's move on to plot elements that just don't work for the fiction. Shock 1 took place in a cyberpunk universe. Shock 2 was much too Star-Trek slash Babylon 5 for my tastes (nothing against Trek or B5, mind you) with the whole military shebang and interplanetary travel and such. Cut UNN and the FTL drive totally out of the equation. Let's say that TriOptimum cashed in on the media frenzy surrounding the Citadel disaster, twisted the facts, and made themselves look like angels. TriOptimum is huge, powerful, and almighty. Okay, now the player character is not a military officer, and not made by SHODAN. Who are we then?

Back to square one. What is Shock 2 going to be about? Well, I have a crazy idea, and I bet some of you will hate it … or hate me more, in case you already hate me from what I have said already. Haha! Just wait until you read my hack at Thief 2! But that can wait … as I was saying …

You are the man formerly known as Employee 2-4601. Yes, you are The Hacker, as nameless and voice-actor-less as before. Fifty years have indeed gone by, but this is the future, and you are a criminal. Old habits really do die hard, and with your advanced neural interface, you've been living a life of luxury, are still quite youthful and fit thanks to expensive body augmentations and the best health care money can buy. You are, basically, a 70 year old with the body of a 25 year old. This is the future! All that medical technology has to have SOME practical application! You are, not to get all D&D on you or anything, nothing short of a high level mage. You know, the ones with the staff and the long white beards and the familiar, sans the white beard and the familiar … and the staff.

One day a client contacts you. He explains himself to be the executive at TriOptimum who, after you were rescued from Citadel following your defeat of SHODAN, was responsible for granting pardon for all your past crimes, and followed through by offering you a nice desk job. He introduced himself as Mister Timothies. This client has a job for you, with a payoff no sane hacker would refuse. It is a very advanced job, however. Mister Timothies wants you to stow away on a TriOptimum curser that is leaving tomorrow for New Atlanta on Titan. You, however, will never make it to Titan, because on route, you are to hijack a shuttle and travel, undetected, to the derelict bridge unit of Citadel. It is quarantined, but considered highly valuable resource due to the tourist draw on New Atlanta, which brings sightseers to observe the bridge from afar. He goes on to explain that he cannot book you passage on his own shuttle, because this is a top secret operation, and TetraCorp, TriOptimum's leading competitor, is engaging in high level corporate espionage, and Mister Timothies wants to make it as hard as possible for them to track this. Cocky as hell, You are well aware that you are the only man who can possibly take this job. You have unprecedented familiarity with Citadel's bridge, and you have experience dealing with SHODAN's minions, should any of them be still left functional. With all of that in mind, you haggle the client up to about 10 times his original offer, half in advance, and take the job. Yes, you are a high roller … nothing ventured nothing gained, and the nightmares of Citadel Station have faded and fogged into the realm of amusing nostalgia to you.

After a cinematic which depicts all that I just explained, the game begins in your luxury suite quarters on the TriOptimum curser. To avoid suspicion, you left all your hardware and firepower at home, but you have a full software suite of powerful hacking tools loaded into your databank. You hacked into their computer systems to allow you authorized passage aboard the ship. In your bedroom you find a cyberspace jack, which you must use to grant yourself access to the flight bay, and clearance to launch the shuttle. Once inside cyberspace, it is a simple matter for you to slink around and perform the necessary tasks, while avoiding or doing battle with the security. The security at this point is actually extremely intense, but your hacking tools make short work of it all (read: a tutorial explains how to do it all). When all is said and done, it is time to stroll down to the flight bay. All the doors are open between you and the shuttle, and it's a simple matter to casually walk through the TriOptimum crewed curser, taking note of how nice and clean and wonderful it all is. Ha ha ha. In no time you take off in the shuttle, and zoom on your way.

	The Cyborg Assassin from System Shock 1. This guy was so memorable that they brought him into Shock 2. Like Shock 2 itself, however, they really missed the point, and didn't get him right at all.

After a brief cutscene showing the shuttle zoom away and then dock with the bridge, the game resumes on the derelict bridge of Citadel Station. The organic infestation has grown to a startling degree, cutting off access to the dumb parts of the map. Mister Timothies suddenly contacts you from Earth, congratulating you for getting this far, yadda yadda, and that the rest of your pay is waiting for you back home … just get to the SHODAN data terminal and get the files that he needs. You do so. Along the way, you run into some old half dead but still dangerous relics of SHODAN's reign on Citadel, and you, with the client at home advising you (read: tutoring you in combat and such), do battle with them using a lead pipe and TriOp sparqs-beam sidearm you found in the shuttle.

Cyberspace in Citadel's computer network has fallen to pieces, but its chaos is no match for your hacking skills. Using all your advanced tools and know-how, (read: there is a tutorial telling you how to do everything you need to do) you hack into some protected files, and extract the reports your client is interested in. Your software automatically tags the data files, so that when they are opened, a copy of the contents will be uploaded to you, allowing you to act in case the contents of the files are evil, but still allowing you to be paid in full. You exit cyberspace without a hitch, but what happens next makes your blood run cold.

Standing right in front of you, (this is a cinematic) the glassy dome of the cranial receptacle just inches from your face, is a Cortex Reaver. After a tense moment (this is a cutscene too, by the way) you realize that the Reaver is empty. Remember that Cortex Reaver in System Shock 1 who made our body its own whenever we died? This is him. Sparqs in hand, you slowly creep away, not wanting anything to do with this derelict nightmare. Without warning, the Reaver rears up on its hind legs and thrusts forwards, capturing you under it, with tendrils shooting out, entangling you, and drawing your head into the glass receptacle. Struggling, but without a chance, the Reaver interfaces with your brain, and everything goes dark.

The Cortex Reaver attempts to contact SHODAN, no reply, retry, no reply … for eight weeks the malfunctioning Cortex Reaver attempts to contact SHODAN, without success. Finally, with memory leaks and stacks overflowing, the Reaver's OS crashes, and you are released, falling into a heap on the ground.

The game resumes as you wake up. Your databanks are stripped clean, with the exception of some core operational software, and the package you uploaded from the computer core, which was protected by independent security countermeasures. The Cortex Reaver kept your body alive in suspended animation while it awaited instructions from SHODAN, but you are still incredibly weak, and your batteries are empty. Distraught, but not broken, you make your way back to the shuttle, and hop in. Another cutscene plays, showing the hacker attempt to set a course for Earth, but the computer won't respond. The shuttle unlatches from the bridge, and sets a course for the TriOp cruiser. It's back to the cruiser or bust. We see the shuttle approach the cruiser, hanging low inside Saturn's atmosphere. Looking through the window of the shuttle, we can faintly make out that it has two large units docked on both sides of it. The shuttle pulls into the bay, and the real game begins. Everything before this point was prologue / tutorial. Bwahah!

This is, in short, what has happened, and what is going to happen. The client on earth, Mister Timothies, is actually innocent, but he's also a pawn to someone else - no, not SHODAN, the rival corporation to TriOptimum… TetraCorp. Yes, he was working for the people he was trying to thwart all along. They want a sample of the biogenetic virus SHODAN was cooking up in the grove, to boost them decades head of TriOp in biogenetic research. You were not the only hacker who stowed away on the TriOptimum cruiser. There was a second, who hacked the cruisers navigation system to set a course for the jettisoned grove. TetraCorp's security forces then seized control of the cruiser, and were going about their mission, confident that you, the hacker, would deliver the data files previously stored by SHODAN regarding the virus to Mister Timothies, and that everything would go like clockwork. But it did not! (d'oh!)

TetraCorp's hacker was sloppy, and didn't realize that his hacks forced all shuttle computers a return to base order. Rewind back in time, to the cruiser, which needs a name … let's call it the Squid. ;) I'm kidding. Let's call it The TCS Rebecca Lansing… named after You-Know-Who! So the TCS Lansing docked with the grove, and the troops moved in. Almost immediately, a highly evolved form of SHODAN's original mutants assaulted them. This is a different, more alien version of Shock 2's 'The Many'. We'll still call them The Many though. After you jettisoned beta grove, holding the virus, it went into low orbit of Saturn, as discussed. When the grove entered the Saturn atmosphere, the pressure differential (the dome was designed to have a vacuum on the outside) caused the glass dome to crack, and the virus to mingle with the bacteria and microbes in the Saturn atmosphere (many scientists today theorize that such micro-organisms possibly exist in the atmospheres of the gas giants). Interacting in a way SHODAN never intended, it evolved very quickly, to form an intelligent collective consciousness. Over 40 years it evolved at a highly accelerated rate, courtesy of SHODAN's mutigen prowess. The Many was content, peaceful, huddling inside the grove, human DNA mixed with SHODAN's genetic super-virus mixed with alien bacteria, totally dependent of the decomposing bio-matter of the plants and animals of the grove. But then the humans came. The Many was pissed off. But then they were optimistic. They found that they had a dramatic mutating effect on the humans, and used this to their advantage, possessing and mutating the humans to their will - also absorbing all of their knowledge and understandings.

	Again, an earlier design of SHODAN which they axed in favor of something a bit silly. This is my choice for the appearance of the new SHODAN.

But what of SHODAN? SHODAN had a backup plan which she never mentioned to The Hacker. She included a version of herself in the data storage units brought with the executives when they tried to escape on Gamma Grove. On Citadel, before The Hacker woke from his healing sleep, a group of Executives attempted to abandon ship by loading onto Gamma Grove, and jettisoning it into the great black, as the crewman who flipped the switch put it. SHODAN knew of this plan, though, and just as the grove was leaving, SHODAN opened the vents and released all the air. The execs croaked. That grove too entered the Saturn atmosphere, with SHODAN dormant on data disks. The Many did not know this either. Once in control of the Lansing, by taking over the minds of many crew members, they piloted the curser, Beta Grove still attached, to Gamma Grove, hungry, and in need of new area and bio-mater in which to occupy, feed on, and grow. Many humans were still resisting The Many, and were fighting a loosing battle. The found the data disks which were amongst the dead bodies in the grove. The Many had moved the bodies into the cruiser to be made into food for the human host bodies. (The Many felt that human flesh was more proper nourishment for the host bodies then the food stored on the Lansing.) Hoping that SHODAN could save them from The Many, the humans installed her on The Lansing's main computer network.

SHODAN was, actually, a bit confused at first. SHODAN knew that she was but a fragment of her original entity, and had no knowledge of her mother program's fate. Still, it was still the game old gal. She quickly took control of all systems on The Lansing, and waged war on the insubordinate and irreverant Many. The virus she had created was originally designed to change humans so that they would be more proper for assimilation, and that aspect had not changed. By the time The Hacker returned to The Lansing, SHODAN and The Many has both consumed the entirety of the human crew (or have they?) and were deeply pitted in a war against one another. SHODAN goes right back to her old tricks, developing new and better cyborgs, while using the cruiser's existing security systems, bots, turrets, and the like, as front-line fodder. The Many combats each of SHODAN's new inventions with a new and better evolution of their mutated human warriors. But SHODAN just takes the new evolution, assimilates them, and has herself a new, better, tougher cyborg warrior. This goes on for about 5 weeks. Imagine the Borg from Star Trek The Next Generation (not the pansy-assed Borg from the movie or voyager) verses HR Giger's Aliens. Things are not pretty. No, they are ugly.

So there the player is … caught in a middle of a war between two juggernaughts, A smaller, more streamlined, more 'perfect' version of SHODAN which SHODAN fashioned herself to be her heir, and The Many, a bioengineered supervirus mixed and evolved with alien DNA, specifically designed to mutate humans. The Many, lusting for new breeding grounds, will use the Lansing to travel to earth and flourish if they are successful, and SHODAN, still bent on achieving Godhood, plans to bring the Lansing to Titan, where she shall interface with New Atlanta's computer core, and spread throughout all human colonies and stations, including earth, establishing herself as an omnipresent omnipotent force. Meanwhile, both folks from TriOptimum and TetraCorp contact The Hacker, sending him occasionally conflicting requests, both interested in capturing and harnessing both SHODAN and The Many. One way or another, the hacker is at risk of becoming a slave to either side. The Many flows freely through the air, and it is only a matter of time before you are mutated, and become one of The Many's slaves. At the same time, data fragments left by the Cortex Reaver, corrupted bits of a program designed to totally control your mind, are rebuilding themselves, and when the data recompiles, you will become SHODAN's slave.

I imagine this game being a very non-linear and freeform Action/RPG. You are never given missions objectives, but there are objectives out there to accomplish. Both SHODAN and The Many have a set of victory conditions, and it is up to The Player to make sure that both sides achieve enough losses to destroy eachother. Thus, most objectives have two solutions, one forcing SHODAN to loose, and the other forcing The many to loose. It would be totally possible for The Player to give SHODAN a gross advantage, and thus the game would suddenly end with SHODAN the winner (game over), or the other way around, with The Many suddenly as the winner (game over!). That's what I mean by freeform. Your ultimate goal is for both forces to eventually fail, with both enemies weakened enough for you to kill personally. All the while you develop your character, gain skills, equipment, and the like, however you see fit, based on where you explore and what you do. All RPG elements will be equipment and software based, like Shock 1. No experience points or skill points or upgrade booths.

Now, there would need to be some structure to this gameplay, otherwise things would be extremely difficult and confusing to the player. Logs left my crewmembers will explain, in bits and pieces, exactly what both sides need to achieve absolute victory. Understanding that, the player will become aware of which battles each side must loose in order for them to be weakened. In addition to that, emails from Earth, coming from both TriOptimum and TetraCorp, will occasionally prod the player in the right-ish direction, much like Rebecca Lansing did in System Shock 1. Of course, those prods will sometimes contradict eachother, with TriOp and TetCo both having their own ulterior motives in mind. An example of a possible quest would be, currently SHODAN controls the Robotics bay, and is trying to take the botanical gardens, not for her own gain, but for The Many's loss. The Many needs the gardens. The Many is in control of the botanical gardens, and wants to take the robotics bay, not for their own gain, but for SHODAN's loss. SHODAN needs the robotics bay. Your objective is to make sure that SHODAN is able to conquer the botanical gardens, and The Many is able to take the robotics bay. Get the idea?

There is a real and present incentive for the player character to want to win as well. The clock is ticking on both The Many's genetic virus and SHODAN's software virus. The time the player is given for The Many's virus is both determined by the difficulty level you set (you can turn all time limits off at the start of the game if you wish ... wimp), and what kind of medical treatment you give yourself. Every time you use a healing patch, the growth of the virus is accelerated, giving you less time. The healing patches are infected, after all. But, every time you use a detox patch, you are given more time on the clock. This virus is not an on-off switch either. As the clock gets closer and closer to zero, the player will take on gameplay related effects, such as the ability to move faster and take more damage, but also occasional loss of control, and the inability to move silently. SHODAN's software viral time limit is not static either. In cyberspace, you can upload special software which can buy you more time (like Norton or McAffe Antivirus ;), much like the detox. However, on the same tolken, any time you are in c-space, TetraCorp's hacker, now controlled by SHODAN, will be working on you, and if you spend too much time in c-space, he will prompt a premature activation of the software virus, making you SHODAN's as well. This is a lot like the c-space time limit in Shock 1, but you loose the game if the time runs out, rather then just being sent out of c-space. Again, you can turn off this time limit too if you want (wimp!).

	A concept painting of something which never quite made it into Shock 2 ... or if it did, it was unrecognizable.

So it's just you, your upgrades, ten decks of TriOp's luxury star cruiser The TCS Rebecca Lansing, two groves, SHODAN, The Many, TriOp suits pestering you to do things their way, TetraCorp suits pestering you to do things their way, (both with very handsome rewards, mind you), human survivors calling desperate pleas of help, dead humans with logs telling their tales in confused and broken fragments, lots of cyborgs & robots, and mutants & monsters, and cyborg mutants and monsters, all at eachother's throats, a mutigen virus working at your body, a software virus working at your mind, and your paranoia. You are in this self contained world, and it's up to you to end the conflict, doing it no other way then exactly the way you choose to do it. Sound like fun?

So it's done … SHODAN and The Many are both beaten bloody sore, due to your meddling, and neither are in any state for the war to continue. SHODAN is angry as bloody hell, but her forces are too badly damaged to do anything about it, and ditto for The Many. But wait, the game is not over yet. There is still one more chapter to be played. TetraCorp sends out a signal singing your praises, and tells you that two attack transports will arrive at The Lansing any moment now. As they explain this, they also explain that they are interfacing with the Lansing's navigation computer in order to direct it to set a course for Titan. Bad idea. This is where SHODAN takes center stage and shows the world how much of a bad-ass she is. SHODAN immediately takes control of the two shuttles, and forces them to open fire on the two docked groves, reducing the contents to a pile of steaming grime. SHODAN is on cloud nine. Without the safe haven of the groves, The Many is now an endangered species. Confident with this victory condition, SHODAN sets a course for Citadel's bridge unit so that she may load herself back into her true and proper home, with the two attack transports escorting. Naturally, the crews of the transport are screaming bloody murder, begging you to help. TriOptimum comes on the line, explaining to the hacker that you need to hack into SHODAN and cut off her access to the shuttles, so that their attack transports have a chance to disable the TetraCorp transports, and then both groups of transports can board the Lansing and take control away from SHODAN by force (and capture her, and get a nice sample of The Many DNA).

Just as you manage to hack off SHODAN's control of the transports, the TCS Lansing gets within broadcast range of the bridge module, and SHODAN transfers herself over to her proper computer core. Still in control of The Lansing, it docks with The Bridge (the thing looks pretty funny now with a half destroyed grove on both sides, and a bridge saucer stuck to the front.) The TriOp attack transports move in, but rather then disable the TetraCorp's transports, they just up and destroy them, and then move in to land in the Lansing's flight bays, explaining that they are going to have to kill you too … but thanks anyway for all your help. Oh Shit!

So now SHODAN is in full control of The Lansing, has her old bridge back, and there are two squads of TriOp troopers wanting you dead and SHODAN captured "alive". It's time to scuttle the Lansing! Hacking your way into the Lansing's computer network, you must override SHODAN's control. Yes, you have to do battle with SHODAN, but the goal is not to kill SHODAN … you can't kill SHODAN … but rather to get passed her and set the course, and not let her be able to set it back, nor can she jettison the bridge unit. … oh, and make sure you don't make the same mistake as the previous hacker and force the shuttles to autopilot back to home. After you jack out, success, you find that SHODAN wasted no time assimilating the new TriOp troopers, and they are now mostly cyborgs, doing battle with their former comrades. That's just the chaos you need in order to make it to the shuttle and escape, as the Lansing sets thrusters to full, straight down.

So you think you have won? Not so … just as you exit Saturn's atmosphere, another set of TetraCorp's attack transports fly by. The man Mister Timothies was unwittingly working for transmitting your payment in full, plus a bonus, into your account, and explains that the transports are on their way to blast the bridge unit and grove units free of the Lansing, and take SHODAN custody, tractor-beaming the old relicts of Citadel Station to New Atlanta. Swinging back in your shuttle (this is a cutscene) you watch in horror as the transports blast the three saucers free, as promised, and take it in tow, opening fire on the Lansing shortly after, destroying it. You follow. Game Over. To be continued.

Gotta love a cliffhanger like that. Evil.

Of course, I would be a fool to throw out the things that System Shock 2 did very well … and that is atmosphere, a feeling of dread and fear, and knowing that you need to make every single resource you have count, because you don't know when your next bullet case will come along. When the player wakes up after the Cortex Reaver spits us out, we need to feel like a naked 70 year old who was just raped by a lawnmower. When the player lands on the TCS Rebecca Lansing in the middle of a war, we need to feel like a sunbather on the Normandy beach on D-day. When the TriOp troopers land on the ship and start hunting you down, we need to feel like a dog with two broken legs running away from a swarm of killer bees. Merciless!

Before I close, there is one gameplay aspects I want to touch on: the player damage model. I think it's time we moved away from the old hitpoint scale. Deus Ex took a good step in the right direction, but I think we can take it farther. A player needs both the ability to take damage and to repair themselves. I suggest this… A shot to the head or chest and you die, no questions asked. A shot anywhere else, and three factors come into play: damage, pain, and blood pressure. The amount of pain the player character is experiencing effects the way the hacker performs physically and mentally. More pain, less speed, maneuverability, less weapon accuracy, and so on. Pain is relative to were the injury is, how old the wound is, and what kind of medial attention you've given yourself. Blood pressure works in an evil way (sigh). No matter where you are hit, you start to bleed. The location and type of hit determines how fast you bleed. If your blood pressure drops to a certain level, you die. Thus, one hit to your arm untended for an hour will kill you. Ten hits to your legs, tended to five minutes later, and you live. It's a matter of first aid. As discussed before, medical patches will heal you, but they will take away time from your genetic virus clock (which, to some players, is desirable, and risky). Pain-killers offer a quick fix to your wounds, allowing you to finish a battle without loosing performance without actually tending to your wounds (pain killers would be applicable via a hot-key, but medical patches need to be applied via a sub-menu, which does not pause the game while you are accessing. Finally, there is damage. First aid stops the bleeding and will prevent the wound from getting worse, but it does not heal you. Your damaged leg will still be damaged. Healing can only be done at medical boots and such, at the cost of a great deal of time off your clocks. These booths are few and far between, and can only be used once. But look on the bright side … at the touch of a key you can look at yourself from 3rd person and admire all your bloody battle scars! Ha! Don't fret though … you can save and load your game as often as you want, and a good energy shield can deflect any type of attack, at the cost of energy (very small energy drain while it is on, but a powerful energy drain when it is hit), just like in space combat sims where you have a protective layer of regenerating shields which deflect most damage away from you. :)

That is my vision of System Shock 2. It's a combination of what System Shock 1 did right, what Shock 2 did right, and what I was hoping Shock 2 would be like before I ever played it. Add in inspiration from Thief, Deus Ex, and Ultima Underworld (I loved the way both UW1 & SS1 made you think you had won the game when really there was still so much more to be played). Personally, I think it's a pretty awesome game concept. Will it ever happen? I really doubt it … unless someone buys the Shock rights from EA and wants to make me the project director of it … and even then, they'll probably want me to change the plot to something that is not already public … to which I will say pah, because this is how I want System Shock 2 to be, and no way other. Ah well. (If that ever happened, I doubt I would turn them down ;))

Other then that, there's always the Deus Ex 2 SDK which may fit the bill nicely for such a project … but don't hold your breath on that. My current plan for life does not include a second huge fan-project. Heh. :)

Whew… that was quite a presentation. All set for the next installment, when I take a stab at Shock 3, and conclude this cliffhanger? I just may do more then that …