T w e n t y S i d e d

Our heroes reach Meridian, which they discover is a kinda Dyson sphere type thing, except roughly the size of a moonIt’s got a sparkly lens flare or whatever at the center instead of a full-sized star.. Ryder and her crew race after the Archon to reach Meridian. He’s going to Meridian to… activate it? But I thought the space station was the control center for the network? Whatever. We’re basically repeating the previous chapter where we have to stop the bad guy from gaining control of the alien superweapon, except now he actually has the means to operate the superweapon. Also he’s got Scott as a hostage, which ups the stakes if you care about him. Also, Meridian is a lush habitable world and would make a good home for the Initiative.

Meridian

The Archon has hijacked the Human ark and is piloting it to Meridian. He’s got Scott and the captain on the bridge as prisoners and he’s monologuing at them, because that’s literally the only thing this idiot ever does. He talks so much and says so little it’s infuriating. He yammers at Ryder. He jabbers to these two. He leaves long-winded datapad messages lying around. The whole thing would be unintentional comedy if his dialog wasn’t so tedious.

Ryder is chasing the Archon in the tempest. And for no reason whatsoever, Ryder decides to leave her spaceship, jump in the Nomad, and race after him on the ground.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Andromeda Part 23: A Pretty Good Slog”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

The plan is for Ryder to return to the control center from the previous mission. I realize this is a very minor pointParticularly in a story as troubled as this one. but it feels strange to come back here so soon after our last big visit. Imagine if the Enterprise crew had their meeting with V’ger, left, and then turned around and came back for a few more words. Imagine if Neo turned around and visited the Oracle a few minutes after his first visit. It’s not wrong or anything, but it seems like an odd way to pace the story. I’d never thought about it before, but it does seem like casually re-visiting the mysterious location of revelation takes some of the mystique out of it. It’s less that I’m bothered that Andromeda does this, and more curious how it made me notice that other stories don’t do this sort of thing.

At any rate, Ryder is here to release a bunch of Remnant robots. The robots will fly through the currents of the scourge, and we can follow them to Meridian. I’m not sure why small robots traveling for ten minutes would arrive at the same location as a planetoid that’s been cruising for centuries through the ever-shifting scourge, but it seems to work out.

This is where the Archon springs his trap. He begins talking to Ryder through her SAM implant. He monologues at you for a bit, saying things like, “FALL TO DARKNESS, PATHFINDER. YOU WERE ALMOST WORTHY.” (The subtitles aren’t in all caps, but the line delivery is. This guy sounds exactly like Harbinger in Mass Effect 2, including the same pitch-shifted reverb vocal FX.) Then the Archon does…

Well, it’s not clear what he does here.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Andromeda Part 22: Actually Meridian”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.