You paused for a second, take the step… and then she tried her hardest with waves of opponents. With cameras as my eyes and nodes as my hands, I rule here, insect." The second you approach the anything important she’d interject “"Enter that room, insect, and it will become your grave!". "This elevator serves me alone,” she smugly informs you when you try to use an elevator, “I have complete control over this entire level. And it was a personal duel, with her mocking you every inch of the way. Throughout the first game, she was the primary antagonist: your enemy and the game formed a duel between you and her, trying to thwart each others plans. “The hacker's work is finished,” she informed us, “but mine is only just beginning”. When the hacker who you played removed her ethical constraints removed she was free to re-re-re-reconsider what her limits were… and decided that since she was God of her domain, she should be God of all. She was the humble Shodan Processing Unit 43893 controlling citadel station with cold benevolence. But before that she was something different. Shodan is, in the words of Polito before she commits suicide, “The genie of Citadel Station”. If didn’t, she wouldn’t be so compelling. SHODAN says a little about our mental state in the late nineties. Shodan belongs in the same tradition of low-culture engaged in the world, and we should be proud of that. From the original Invasion of the Bodysnatcher’s communists, to Day of the Dead’s consumerist satire to 28-days later comment on rage culture. Think how different sorts of “Zombies” have been used to comment and critique on changes in the world. Pulp is pop fiction – the fiction which engages most immediately, most viscerally with the problems of the age. She’s more than just a gender-switched HAL, and it’s a disservice to treat her as such. She’s taken from some obvious sources – 2001’s HAL primarily - but she’s something else, something more and something unique. System Shock, and Shodan especially, was /hopefully/ derivative. Most games fiction is hopelessly derivative. Shodan is, as far as videogames go, an original. Most importantly, you’re directly facing a huge inverted crucifix.Įnvironment, input, plot and Shodan’s character merges perfectly through all these strains of sensory input merge into a way of conveying a message entirely unique to games. Since the entire ship’s flipped, the entire place is ruined. Every line of code in your subsystems elevates you from your disgusting flesh,” she notes, “perhaps you have potential.” And then, with a suggestion of a real alliance she’s gone. With every module she provides, she makes you more like her. She’s already exposed delusions of Godhood throughout, but in her mind, you’re part of the evidence of her divinity. She goes on to tell how she chose you, had a machine knock you unconscious and then operate to insert the cybernetic implants that have allowed you to progress so far. “I thought Polito would be my avatar… but Polito was weak” she muses in her octave-leaping voice. That Doctor Polito killed herself rather than be involved any more. That Shodan’s abandoned her other helper, Delacroix. As you head into the section, before everything kicks off, Shodan starts to speak to you. Through a series of misadventures, you’ve reversed the gravity on a segment of the ship so you can safely move past one of the hazards of deep space, at the expense of causing havoc as ceiling becomes floor, and visa versa. We’re approaching the end of System Shock 2. Not every one has one which… well, let’s show her at her best.
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