Topic: Descent plotholes thread

[NUMBERZero]

What if the MD blew up the tower to instigate this whole conflict in order to destroy the morons at Red Acropolis and to kill Dravis later?

[Kaiaatzl]

And Dravis tried to have him killed because he knew the MD was a murderous lunatic!

[TechPro]

As for Level 6 (Mars "Labyrynth" canyon and old colonist's caverns), and Level 7 (planetoid where two virus samples are stored) things move along well and I don't see any blaring plot holes with them.  MD is dropped off at a reasonable location and since they don't know the precise location of the downed ship other than it's behind a couple force fields, it makes sense that MD would have to work out a way and and to get the force fields turned off.  At the planetoid, MD is dropped at a very reasonable locations and again must search around to find what they are looking for.  Reasonable.

Level 8 (a refinery that needs 'disrupted' in order to gain some time) is ... perhaps a stretch.  When you consider just how many mines, refineries, processing facilities, etc. that the PTMC controls or that the CED is involved with, disrupting a single facility would do nothing to gain more time for the Red Acroplolis refugees ... unless PTMC's organizations was really, really baldly managed.  Well, they've got S. Dravis, so I guess it's possible.

Still a bit of a stretch IMHO.

[Matthew]

What if the MD blew up the tower to instigate this whole conflict in order to destroy the morons at Red Acropolis and to kill Dravis later?

This is not a half-bad alternate plot, tbh.

[Scyphi]

What if the MD blew up the tower to instigate this whole conflict in order to destroy the morons at Red Acropolis and to kill Dravis later?

Mind=blown. 

That would actually explain SO much, it's not even funny.

Well, okay, it kinda IS funny.

You're flying a SPACE FIGHTER. Why do you have to fly through little canyons in outdoor levels that are conveniently just barely taller than what you can fly over?

Can't give you an in-game explanation for this, but the real world explanation is obviously because the game's engine couldn't handle, nor was it designed to, allow your Pyro to fly higher than that. To say nothing of the fact that, frequently, the level ceased to exist over that next hill. In the end, this is one of those details I just overlook simply because that's how the game works.

He'd just uploaded his data, could not yet know Suzuki was one their side, and certainly had not been paid yet.  Wouldn't he need to return back to the tower in order to get paid?

Can only speculate about this one, but I suspect it's either one of two possible scenarios.

• We're supposed to interpret it to mean that MD really actually did meet Suzuki while at the tower, but this couldn't be portrayed in-game so the actual meeting is left to our imagination.
• Suzuki met with MD via a (presumably private) transmission to discuss the matter, perhaps most likely after he'd left the tower.

I find the latter to be more likely, and not unreasonable at all. Because the mercenary was only just arriving as MD left, that leaves a fair window of time before Suzuki is assassinated, enough of a window for Suzuki to process the information (or at least the basics), radio MD and tell him he's on his side, etc. etc. Any money paying could easily been done electronically.

I'm going to assume that MD doesn't get any news video/radio/updates while traveling in the Pyro.  He traveled all the way from Earth to Mars, yet was unaware of them being accused of being terrorists.  If there was an upgrade the Pyro needs, it's a news transmission receiver or "news data link", because his communications receiver with PTMC, CED, and Red Acropolis sure doesn't seem to get anything else.

Most people have news uplinks for their cell phones or computers, but that doesn't mean they have to read them. I could easily see MD just ignoring it, and why would he suspect anything wrong anyway? As far as he knew, the plan was just pulled off without much of a hitch, Dravis rightfully pinned for the blame, and MD having completed the overall mission. He even got his money. Things seemed to be going his way finally. He was probably concentrating more on going back to Red Acropolis to tell all the good news. Why waste time checking the news reports, especially when he didn't have any real cause to suspect things had just gone terribly awry?

That's why you had to be dropped off at a secret location.

Which I buy...but why in the middle of the subways? Especially when the subway trains can kill you? Did Red Acropolis have a death wish for the MD? Or was MD just looking for a challenge to keep him entertained for what was likely to be a rather boring mission (and it kind of was, honestly)?

...Maybe PTMC was never guilty of anything. Maybe Red Acropolis is really behind the whole virus deal. 

But I guess then it wouldn't make sense for them to make an anti-virus for it then, now would they? And Dravis pretty much DID come clean of his involvement at the end of the game anyway, so...

Still...I have to admit I'm finding myself intrigued by this idea...I'll have to see if I can turn it into a viable explanation for the whole franchise, if only just for kicks.

OH! OH! OH! I know! They did it all so to get the PTMC out of the market, and give them the chance to seize PTMC's spot in the business! Near as I can figure out, that freakishly works out very well on every point I can think of, although it does seem like they bent over backwards to do it. Except for the mercenary. And Dravis, who is still a baddie no matter how you cut it. Hmm...maybe Dravis really was the bad guy, just not as problematic as made out to be, Red Acropolis just used him as a chance to get PTMC out of the picture. In that case, the presumed plan was probably use the whole mess to have the blame pinned on the PTMC, and get them shut down (probably by the CED who'd no doubt would want to investigate once word got out), with Red Acropolis later helping speed the process however necessary. But they didn't plan on Dravis making the move of assassinating Suzuki and pinning THAT on THEM. So Red Acropolis improvised. At any rate, they won.

Man, I really like this idea. Could serve as a premise for a D4, assuming the odds of it weren't so venomously against us. 

When you consider just how many mines, refineries, processing facilities, etc. that the PTMC controls or that the CED is involved with, disrupting a single facility would do nothing to gain more time for the Red Acroplolis refugees ... unless PTMC's organizations was really, really baldly managed.

But then think about all of the mines you blew up in D1 and D2, pretty much all of which is PTMC property (or is implied as such) and some ARE named as facilities. With that in mind, I would imagine that by D3, the PTMC was starting to run short on a few facilities.

Besides, that one facility could have been a major and/or key facility for PTMC operations, and disabling it struck a blow to the PTMC business-wise, as it forced their users and/or customers to divert somewhere else. Maybe that facility was in a key location in terms of marketability, and taking it out cut the PTMC out of that market. There  are actually a few ways to explain this away, but they all run along similar lines.

And yes, they do have S. Dravis, who we have already proven to have trouble coming up with solid, practical plans, and he WAS in charge of the PTMC by then.

[-<WillyP>-]

Every game has to have limits... it's a little difficult to imagine how you would have better implemented the limits with the hardware we had at the time D3 was released.The fact that you could go outside and inside at all was quite something back then. That's not really a plothole.

[TechPro]

I was going to say that around Level 8 and on, the plot carries on with pretty good reasoning and there isn't much to poke holes in ... and then I remembered the Secret Levels.

Secret Level 1 (Unknown facility with weird green glowing blob and a laser pentagram at the end) is ... pretty odd.  If you look at if from from a game perspective, it's in an odd place, too easy, doesn't accomplish anything, and doesn't challenge the player much at all.  From a plot perspective, it's a really big plot hole.The facility itself makes no sense in it's layout, unless it's sole purpose was to test weapons and measure their performance.  Otherwise it appears to be simply three weird passages and an exploratory dig hole.  The fact that MD loses communications with his support crew at the end suggests danger, and then his ship is grabbed and suspended by the lasers as the whole thing builds with light and energy... then the level is finished.  No end solution, no explanation, no reasoning.  The next level is taken on as if nothing had happened to MD.   Plot hole?  The entire Secret Level 1 is one single plot hole.

Obviously, we need to toss out Secret Level 1 from Plot hole consideration.  It's clear that level was only there as filler.  It doesn't appear to be complete.  It doesn't challenge the player much at all.  Doesn't logically fit ANYWHERE in the Descent 3 storyline.  Therefore, it's clear that Secret Level 1 was left over level material that was used as filler.  IMHO and I'm sticking to it.

... Unless Secret Level 1 happens to be the place where the alien transmode virus was first encountered, in which case (for MD) visiting that place is a little like visiting a roadside monument while traveling on vacation.  We came, we saw, we moved on.  It had no significant impact on the rest of the plot.

[-<WillyP>-]

I think your right. Just a few days ago I told my son I had never found or played that secret level, but now that you mention it I do remember it. At least the pentagram anyway. Other than that the level was not all that memorable. Or at least I don't remember it as being all that memorable...

[TechPro]

Secret Level 1 goes like this:

You start in a small room with a door immediately in front of you.  Upon exiting the starting room, you're in a curved hall at one end of a looped hall that intersects with 3 straight halls parallel to each other.  The loop contains three total 'tail bots' and a couple 'orb bots' and a number of weapon inventory items.  If you were good in previous levels, there is very little that you don't already have a full load. There is one other room attached to the 'loop' and in it is two tail bots and a full map.  Also in the room by a kind of dias is the numbers 1, 2, and 3 each with a screen.  Screen next to 3 says Ready.  As you explore each of the three tunnels, the screens of 2 and 1 will switch to 'Ready' (a kind of progress indicator).

Explore first down tunnel 3 (1 and 2 won't let you access them, level will 'enable' access to each tunnel in order starting with 3, ending with 1).  Each tunnel has a short accelerator section.  At the end of 3, you'll encounter of few plasma gunning bots and a few small tail scratching bots.  There are several plasma rockets and plasma upgrades, a couple smart missiles and a couple mega missiles.  Exit through a passage below which will return you to the tunnel 3.

Next travel tunnel 2 which will end in a large room with a variety of bots (nothing really hard) and a few weapon upgrades.  Nothing special.  Return back through the same tunnel.

Lastly, travel tunnel 3 and deal with an omega firing soldier bot, a couple tail bots, and orb bot or two, a couple sharks, and yet another omega firing soldier bot.  After that, there are no more bots and you've entered a large room with an opening below to another large room.  Around the sides are several upgrades including Omega (first time for that in the level set) and Energy-Shield Converter (but you lose the converter at the end of every level).  In the room below is a large yellow-green glowing blob with light sticks at five points.  Light beams intersect all five light sticks forming a pentagram with straight sides.  As you enter the room, communication from your support people indicate they are losing your signal followed by loss of signal.  Nothing else happens as you look around for a little bit until suddenly the view switches to outside your craft and your craft is just above the middle of the blob where your craft appears to be suspended by light beams and steam (?) rises from the blob where your craft is held.  The yellow-green light builds ... Level ends 'Successful'.

Level summary at the start of the next level states simple that you completed the secret level.  Nothing more.

That is all that happens.

[Scyphi]

I've always wondered if that first secret level was just a mish-mash of scrapped ideas that the developers just threw together into a plotless level just for the fun of it. Granted, no real way to be sure, but given the level's disjointed feel, it'd make a degree of sense.

Plotwise, however, yeah the level doesn't fit in anywhere at the moment, but at the same time, it leaves things open enough that the temptation to explore with it can be hard to resist. One could even reasonably devise some kind of "lost chapter" of D3 with that secret level if they so wanted. If I were ever involved in the development in a theoretical D4 (which sadly is not likely), I would want to revisit that secret level in the course of the game, if only just to tie up loose ends.

Sticking to the confines of the preexisting plot, though, the only things that can be safely deduced is that the mine was in PTMC control, likely kept secret by Dravis's order, had something of interest for Dravis enough to go to such lengths to KEEP it secret, and the end portion with the whole pentagram bit is likely alien in origin. The other portions could possibly experimental technology the PTMC was working on. I've always thought the pentagram thing was some kind of teleporter...maybe it just zapped MD back out of the mine, and that's why the plot's left open...there wasn't much else to tell.

[NUMBERZero]

The pentagram thingy could have warped him to a different reality and when he got back home to tell everyone about his mission, they'd all wouldn't know and would be like "lul, u crazy. We never sent you on a mission like that. What chu tawkin bout?" And then you never get any explanation because you don't know and they never knew.

I always thought the level was kind of organic themed. Area 3 was like a heart. It was red and had the red fluctuation wall texture. Area 2 might have been like eye sockets or lungs. I'm thinking lungs more because you hear steam hissing sounds. Area 1 was the brain because of the dome shaped upper room which is like the cranium and the green blob is shaped like a brain too.

Maybe the PTMC was working on growing a Reaper from Mass Effect or something, IDK. Some super bioweapon.