Junior Adventurer's Guild - December: Deus Ex: Invisible War

[MC_Sea]

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"Praise Baphomet!" "May the Fallen One watch over us." <-- Illuminati NPC dialogue

I thought it was the Templars shouting that during fighting. If it's actually the Illuminati, then that's really gay of them.

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I was open to JC's ending until he made that soy-filled speech in Antarctica. It was most likely planned to be something more reasonable by the previous writers but unfortunately this is what we ended up with. I see very little difference between this and the Omar faction besides the "democratic" choices you can make.

Same here.

I sincerely apologize for my late response. I ended up getting carried away with Christmas and all the other holidays overlapping all at once. I hope you understand given the circumstances.

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Saman's main priority seems focused on getting rid of biomods as well as the Illuminati's hold on society. After all, why would he go out of his way to destroy his enemies only to uphold the legal system that gave them power in the first place? His means of rule are mostly based on the Templar's beliefs unless he feels the need to take action himself like killing the scientists responsible for biomod creation/experimentation. He doesn't seem to want to kill people unnecessarily either because he went out of his way to design the counter-nanite to be non-lethal when curing people. He was never really described as a "democratic" leader. Most NPCs described him as fascist or commandeering.

Saman + Templar Kiosk Quotes

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M05SamanHolo2_003000 I will be waiting for you here at Liberty Island. JC Denton seems to be constructing some sort of Statue -- a tribute to Machinery, it appears. We choose Liberty, Alex, which is the preservation of humanity not just from legal machinery but from all forms of machinery. D_983

M05SamanHolo2_005000 Verify that our counter-nanite, which we intend to deploy worldwide, can disable the Denton biomod system without destroying the host. I will have the results by the time you arrive. Your pilot will have to meet you in Flight Bay 23. My people have important work to do. D_983 StandardPlayer

M02HubKioskIlluminati1Pitch_003000 We present our message where it will do the most good -- in the enclaves of scientists, businessmen, engineers -- the blind minions of Thanatos. D_652 StandardPlayer

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It took me a long time to find some Illuminati quotes that directly referenced Baphomet but here they are. They are formatted that way because it was pulled straight from the game's code. "Barks" refers to the random quotes NPCs say while fighting or wandering around. The only reason they have some traditional values in their ruling system is because it allows them to control the populace easier. I vaguely remember the Illuminati in the first Deus Ex worshiping the Anti-Christ as well. This would makes sense since it lines up with the real life conspiracies it's based of.

Illuminati Member Quotes

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M06IIluminati1Barks_001000 Praise Baphomet! May his guidance lead you to prosperity. D_1852 StandardPlayer

M06UNATCOIlluminati2Barks_001000 This area has been secured. We must protect the Fallen One's ideals at all costs.D_2878 StandardPlayer

[gerey]

Finally finished this piece of ****. Dear God, what a ******* awful game.

Also, Merry Christmas to one and all. I suffered a power outage for a couple of days due to a freak snowstorm that left me with no access to electricity or the internet.

I picked the Templar Ending because the writing and voice acting had made me hate everyone but the Templar - also, all the other factions were being led by *******, women or ******.

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[Valter]

Dear God, what a ******* awful game.

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Yet another honorable Templar enjoyer.
Dunno why but your honest ******* one sentence reaction made me laugh what a god awful game we collectively put ourselves through. If that ain't Christmas Spirit, I dunno what is

[DagothGeas5]

Finally finished this piece of ****. Dear God, what a ******* awful game.

Also, Merry Christmas to one and all. I suffered a power outage for a couple of days due to a freak snowstorm that left me with no access to electricity or the internet.

I picked the Templar Ending because the writing and voice acting had made me hate everyone but the Templar - also, all the other factions were being led by *******, women or ******.

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Welcome back and Merry Christmas to you as well gerey!

[Furin]

Finished! First one of these I've done. Sided with the templars because Transhumanism is Woke.

[rusty_shackleford]

As we get close to wrapping the month up, anyone missing their badge(s)?

[logincrash]

As we get close to wrapping the month up, anyone missing their badge(s)?

Yeah, I'm missing these:

rpghq ag.jpg

[Silver]

Got the every-human-got-software-upgrade ending. Even though I was murderhobo'ing everyone during missions, it kinda felt bad to try and go for the Omar ending. Also they speak funnily.

► Just some ramblings

Loading screens were taking forever and I should've read this thread sooner about there existing some third party tool that fixes those screens, cause I was getting so tired from being flashbanged with white as soon as loading starts. Eyes were hurting a lot by the end of the first day of me playing it.

I thought that I remembered Deus Ex better, but I only remember it from watching my uncle play it when I was little. I overestimated how much I remembered and I should probably go play through 1st game.

I didn't expect the depth of just how much you can mess with nano-augments and I feel like I missed out on exploring it more, since I really mostly completed game by gunning everyone down. I saw just a glimpse of a video where you dart everyone and turn off bots at the distance and it was so badass.

Also, I missed on quests while transitioning through zones for sure. For example, I remember destroying coffee beans in the Lower Seattle shop, but never reported about it to the other guy. And I surely missed on a lot of talking. Now I want to get through 1st Deus Ex and give this one another go (with hopefully fixed loading screens if only so my eyes don't get burned out).

I enjoyed my time playing it. I understand why most people think it's a ****, weak game, but it got charm to it nonetheless.

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► Misc Screenshots

Taking screens was taking sooooo much time that I had to stop messing with it.

Really enjoyed aesthetic of the intro.

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Randomly pulled out binocular and thought this shot looked cool.

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Uhhh... mildly off putting design, but okay.

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Nightmare fuel "cats".

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► Billie shower scene NSFW

► Perv

I was reading wiki about alternative endings and more about characters. Found that Billie can be killed in the very intro of the game in her apartment (apparently she takes EMP damage while it's happening). You push her to the shower and then she literally dies to water. I reloaded early save and honestly? I do not regret whole 7 minutes of me trying to fidget my way into killing her. The fact you can STILL do it is absolutely amazing and made me giggle once I threw her lifeless body in the shower.

[J1M]

Cat screenshot reminds me that that the Deus Ex 1 cat model had more polygons.

[rusty_shackleford]

[gerey]

I didn't expect the depth of just how much you can mess with nano-augments and I feel like I missed out on exploring it more, since I really mostly completed game by gunning everyone down. I saw just a glimpse of a video where you dart everyone and turn off bots at the distance and it was so badass.

You really didn't miss out all that much, the game showers you with aug canisters, both legal and illegal ones, and since you only need three to max out a given augmentation, you can easily swap them mid-game.

Problem for was that there was really no point in using most of them. The aug that renders you invisible to cameras and bots trivializes them, and if you get the eye augmentation that lets you see through the walls, and use it with the mag rail (that can shoot through walls), you've basically won the game.

Tweed will screech like a woman, but I liked that hacking was made into an aug, and wish they had done so in the original too (since hacking is a no-brainer skill to pick), and I liked how gruesome the bot that breaks down bodies to restore health was, even though it becomes increasingly less useful towards the end game due to Illuminati and Templar elite units not leaving a body behind you can use.

Not that any of it matters since the game showers you with stuff, to the point I rarely didn't have max health kits or EMP grenades to deal with most threats. Spider-bots were a cool idea, but they're too slow and vulnerable to serve as anything but a quick distraction. Never bothered using the noisemaker, flash or gas grenades since there's no real point in using them, and only really made use of two scrambler grenades.

I did like how the game allows you to **** everyone one, even during side quests. With one of the early side-quests, about the two competing coffee shops, you can destroy the coffee, then go to the guy and take a quest to hack the WTO terminal to grant his approval.

I mentioned in chat that one of the biggest reasons the game falls so flat is the voice acting, especially of the (male) Alex. JC also didn't have much range, mind you, but his VA made him sound like a professional, with a few instances of emotion coming through. Alex on the other hand just sounds bored and apathetic about everything going on around him.

Doesn't help that the writing lacks any of the highs of the previous game - I distinctly remember the scene in Germany where you first meet Tracer Tong and he praises Alex for his "acumen" at guessing the sole ***** in the backroom meeting in a German bar was Tong. The blonde bimbo trainee was a godawful character and I could never take her seriously, nor why anyone would bother hiring her, and I think the WTO killed her when I decided to side with the Templars, can't quite remember.

[WhiteShark]

Done. Crystals of Arborea filtered me, so I decided to bust out my Invisible War save from 2017 and finally finish this stupid game and get a badge. I kept exploration to a minimum and only did sidequests that happened to be on the critical path with one exception: I went out of my way to rescue Klara.

► Proofs

► Plot Thoughts

I agonized over my decision to the very end. Even as I uploaded the Aquinas Node(?) to JC, I still contemplated killing him when I got there.

• The game doesn't offer any substantial reason to support the Illuminati. At best, one could argue that keeping the current regime in power would lead to the most stability and therefore the least suffering, but they are also duplicitous, bloodthirsty, and the masterminds of a false religion.
• The Templar would have the best argument... in real life, where this sort of biomodding is guaranteed to go wrong. In the Deus Ex universe, however, it seems to work pretty well, so the ideal of human genetic purity falls flat, especially as the genome has already decayed significantly since Creation.
• ApostleCorps offers the idea of a genetically uplifted, "equal" humanity. Interpreted literally, this necessarily mean genetically altering lesser races out of existence. In a word, ethnoglobe. I haven't seen anyone else point that out.
• Leo's offer to kill them all and let humanity sort itself out was tempting. It's a similar philosophy to the Tracer Tong ending of the original Deus Ex, though without the accompanying technological setback. Partly because there was no technological setback involved, it made me wonder if this wasn't just pushing the problem back a few years. Surely others have the data that could lead to Helios and JC once more.

In the end, as shown in my proofs, I went with the ApostleCorps ending, mainly for the reasons given above, partly because I just wanted to see what would happen, and in very small part because everyone else seems to be doing Templar and I felt like being contrarian.

I didn't get a recording of it, but I really loved Saman's delivery when he said, "Why so hostile? I'm not eeevil." I'm getting deja vu, so someone else probably talked about it in this thread, but it just sounded so delightfully villainous. Speaking of Saman, I killed him before I even realized who he was on Liberty Island, thinking he was some new, oddly tanky human enemy type. Then, after I emerged from the UNATCO ruins, he was alive again, so I had to kill him once more. It's a bit silly that the toughest individual combatant in the game is a totally unmodified, unarmored human.

► Other Screenshots

I ended up beating her into unconsciousness with the baton.

Much like the first, this game was ahead of its time.

I wish modern art were a conspiracy theory and not real.

@Oyster Sauce, I'll let you handle badging me, assuming that helps you keep track of it.

[rusty_shackleford]

assuming that helps you keep track of it.

I'll just post the totals in the feedback thread when the month ends

[gerey]

► Show Spoiler

ApostleCorps offers the idea of a genetically uplifted, "equal" humanity. Interpreted literally, this necessarily mean genetically altering lesser races out of existence. In a word, ethnoglobe. I haven't seen anyone else point that out.

My problem with the Helios ending is that there's a note of malice towards the end.

Multiple characters have said that JC is merely a puppet for Helios by that point, and the game never really puts forward a good-enough argument to disprove this. You have Tracer Tong, who is wracked by guilt for causing the collapse and seeking salvation, and Paul, who is biased regardless, everyone else is utterly clueless about what has been going on with JC and Helios for the past 20 years.

As you said, the Illuminati can't be trusted regardless because they're up to their old shenanigans, keeping everyone at each other's throats just so they can stay in power, and have shown themselves utterly incapable of keeping a lid on the Templars or Omar, so what guarantee is there they'll be able to prop up the current state of affairs for long enough?

Omar are just insane, they're augmentation taken to the logical extreme, erasing all identity from the individual, race, sex et al, until only Omar is left.

Ultimately, only the Templar offer a solution that isn't either enslaving the whole of humanity to the AI hivemind, or altering them to something posthuman, and have the power to keep society stable.

[WhiteShark]

► Show Spoiler

My problem with the Helios ending is that there's a note of malice towards the end.

Yeah, this actually annoyed me greatly because it felt forced. Saman said that the Illuminati (or was it MJ-12? I forget) had wanted to use Helios to make people pliable servants of the system, but I see no reason for Helios itself, especially once merged with JC, to be malicious in any way. Helios shouldn't be devious, he should be single-minded in pursuit of ordering the world, and JC was never evil.

You guys have mentioned the writers' doing things to make the Templars not the obviously correct choice, but I think this was thrown in just to make Helios not obviously right. If Helios ends up being a tool for another Illuminati-esque group, that should be shown, not randomly making him malevolent.

[Valter]

I didn't expect the depth of just how much you can mess with nano-augments and I feel like I missed out on exploring it more, since I really mostly completed game by gunning everyone down. I saw just a glimpse of a video where you dart everyone and turn off bots at the distance and it was so badass.

I mentioned in chat that one of the biggest reasons the game falls so flat is the voice acting, especially of the (male) Alex. JC also didn't have much range, mind you, but his VA made him sound like a professional, with a few instances of emotion coming through. Alex on the other hand just sounds bored and apathetic about everything going on around him.

Something something Deus Ex IW is a sociopath simulator

[gerey]

► Show Spoiler

You guys have mentioned the writers' doing things to make the Templars not the obviously correct choice, but I think this was thrown in just to make Helios not obviously right. If Helios ends up being a tool for another Illuminati-esque group, that should be shown, not randomly making him malevolent.

It's a fair take, but I sided with the Illuminati during my DX1 playthrough because there is simply no way of knowing what the AI's intentions actually are. It could be benign, but there's a lot of ways to interpret "ordering the world", especially when a machine with limited ability to understand humans is in charge. Obviously, the writers having a transhumanist bent, they'd portray the AI as a fair and merciful god, but even in DX1 the only hints of this we get are Paul mentioning that the AI was lifting martial law in China.

The biggest problem with IW is that it never present a compelling argument for why you should side with any of the factions, they're all terrible and the only reason you'd default to ApostleCorp is because the devs expected the players to have played and know the people involved were the "good" guys.

[WhiteShark]

► More plot discussion with Gerey

It's a fair take, but I sided with the Illuminati during my DX1 playthrough because there is simply no way of knowing what the AI's intentions actually are. It could be benign, but there's a lot of ways to interpret "ordering the world", especially when a machine with limited ability to understand humans is in charge. Obviously, the writers having a transhumanist bent, they'd portray the AI as a fair and merciful god, but even in DX1 the only hints of this we get are Paul mentioning that the AI was lifting martial law in China.

Again, I'm not saying it would have the best outcome, but an AI can't be evil. It's a machine. It can have neither good nor evil intentions; in fact, it cannot have intentions at all, just instructions that it carries out. The moral agency in the Helios-JC fusion comes entirely from JC―if he's still really there, and not just a braintape―and... well, I guess my impression of JC as a good guy comes from having played him as a good guy, so I suppose we don't really have any objective evidence one way or the other, but I still find the way the hints were dropped in the ending concerning Helios' downsides to be silly.

If Helios is a bad option, it's because it's dangerous and prone to being taken advantage of by a third party (as was apparently the intent of its design). It's bad writing to depict it as a devious, cackling AI who is going to mind control everybody to attain its "evil" ends. It can't have those. They could have portrayed the same negatives while having Helios maintain an entirely neutral tone, or even a positive one based on JC's personality. It shouldn't see progress towards human instrumentality as a nefarious plot but as a fulfillment of its directive (Helios) or as a glorious triumph for mankind (JC).

The biggest problem with IW is that it never present a compelling argument for why you should side with any of the factions, they're all terrible and the only reason you'd default to ApostleCorp is because the devs expected the players to have played and know the people involved were the "good" guys.

That's also true. They really made the Templars over the top. I used a multitool to get one out of a jail cell in Antarctica after he assured me he wasn't as radical as the rest of them, but then he immediately tried to kill me for being augmented. I won't say it's unrealistic because I know there are certain types of people who would do similar, but it's still definitely intended to make you hate them.

[Furin]

► More plot discussion with Gerey

It's a fair take, but I sided with the Illuminati during my DX1 playthrough because there is simply no way of knowing what the AI's intentions actually are. It could be benign, but there's a lot of ways to interpret "ordering the world", especially when a machine with limited ability to understand humans is in charge. Obviously, the writers having a transhumanist bent, they'd portray the AI as a fair and merciful god, but even in DX1 the only hints of this we get are Paul mentioning that the AI was lifting martial law in China.

Again, I'm not saying it would have the best outcome, but an AI can't be evil. It's a machine. It can have neither good nor evil intentions; in fact, it cannot have intentions at all, just instructions that it carries out. The moral agency in the Helios-JC fusion comes entirely from JC―if he's still really there, and not just a braintape―and... well, I guess my impression of JC as a good guy comes from having played him as a good guy, so I suppose we don't really have any objective evidence one way or the other, but I still find the way the hints were dropped in the ending concerning Helios' downsides to be silly.

If Helios is a bad option, it's because it's dangerous and prone to being taken advantage of by a third party (as was apparently the intent of its design). It's bad writing to depict it as a devious, cackling AI who is going to mind control everybody to attain its "evil" ends. It can't have those. They could have portrayed the same negatives while having Helios maintain an entirely neutral tone, or even a positive one based on JC's personality. It shouldn't see progress towards human instrumentality as a nefarious plot but as a fulfillment of its directive (Helios) or as a glorious triumph for mankind (JC).

The biggest problem with IW is that it never present a compelling argument for why you should side with any of the factions, they're all terrible and the only reason you'd default to ApostleCorp is because the devs expected the players to have played and know the people involved were the "good" guys.

That's also true. They really made the Templars over the top. I used a multitool to get one out of a jail cell in Antarctica after he assured me he wasn't as radical as the rest of them, but then he immediately tried to kill me for being augmented. I won't say it's unrealistic because I know there are certain types of people who would do similar, but it's still definitely intended to make you hate them.

[logincrash]

► More plot discussion with Gerey

The moral agency in the Helios-JC fusion comes entirely from JC―if he's still really there, and not just a braintape―and... well, I guess my impression of JC as a good guy comes from having played him as a good guy, so I suppose we don't really have any objective evidence one way or the other, but I still find the way the hints were dropped in the ending concerning Helios' downsides to be silly.

That's also true. They really made the Templars over the top. I used a multitool to get one out of a jail cell in Antarctica after he assured me he wasn't as radical as the rest of them, but then he immediately tried to kill me for being augmented. I won't say it's unrealistic because I know there are certain types of people who would do similar, but it's still definitely intended to make you hate them.

► Show Spoiler

JC's ****** transhuman communist speech is what set me against him. Reminded me of this picture:

deus soy.jpg

The caged Templar part is truly ******** intended to make you side against them.

[Bertram_Tung]

just installed this along with "Visible upgrade" mod

MFW i am stupid looking even in the "fixed" version

[Element]

I find Alex unintentionally funny.
"Who's attacking us? What's going on? I have a right to know if I'm in danger!"

[Bertram_Tung]

Long way down...

[Valter]

Long way down...

Where the hell is this? Did you go out of bounds or something?

[Bertram_Tung]

Long way down...

Where the hell is this? Did you go out of bounds or something?

► Show Spoiler

It's just the WTO Air Terminal where you first rescue Ava.

Just standing on the edge of where her chopper is.

[Bertram_Tung]

► Show Spoiler

► Show Spoiler

Completed. It was not bad.

@Oyster Sauce is a very handsome and intelligent man.

[CornCake]

Well, that was an experience. 3 and a half hours spent not really caring what was happening around me, as I got too bored after a half hour and resorted to mass slaughter of the entire population. Turns out, you literally can kill nearly everyone in the game, sides those in pubs as apparently the future gives the most powerful security to alcoholics. I approve!

The game is actually very disturbing if you play the way I did. I was shooting random people in Cairo, when all of the sudden I see one of my victims was a wee bit smaller than the rest. Turns out, twas a little lass. Dinnae stop me, but I thought it was interesting how you could actually point and shoot a firearm at a babe, and this game never got a controversy large enough to hear about (neither did the first game, I just never went of a rampage in that one). I know you could do shite like this in Fallout, but that was isometric, not first person. Perspective matters.

Nevertheless, I kept it moving until I reached the tarsus academy. Turns out, this entire place was a primary school, filled to the brim with lads and lasses, none immune to damage. I'm not sure how demented the heeb in charge was to put the scenario in place, but you can quite literally commit a mass tragedy event and this game NEVER GOT BANNED. Not debating whether or not it should, but how in the bloody hell did this get past censors at Eidos and Microsoft?

► Show Spoiler

*****-GENICS

Regardless, I was all in at this point, so I kept the train a moving. Had to be rid of Tracer Ting Tong Bing Bong...

► Show Spoiler

After all, he supported *****

The annoying baboon acting as a frog, the two Dentons...

► Show Spoiler

More like DEADTON! HA GET IT

And for all of my hard work...



I got a bloody discount. This game really was made by a ******* jew.

2/10. @Oyster Sauce if you wouldn't mind, I'd like the badge of shame please. I deserve it.

[pol_345polex]

The problem with the legendary is that the achievements didn't unlock after the first for ME2. Renegade was the most enjoyable.

[J1M]

Funny looking Invisible War screenshot you got there.

[pol_345polex]

Funny looking Invisible War screenshot you got there.

Uh i was sure to have opened the Mass effect page, i'm sorry for the mistake.