Ghosts (ST:R)

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SILENT THREAT: REBORN MISSION 3

Fighter squadron: 91st Phantoms

Description: Protect the Einstein's escape pods until they can be recovered.

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Background

Command has tracked the Einstein's escape pods to somewhere deep in the Deneb system. As the pods only have a one-time subspace drive, the crew of the Einstein made rushed calculations and did not get to where they needed to go, requiring a retrieval operation.

Alpha and Beta wings will help escort the pods until a retrieval ship comes in and rescues the crew. Despite Shivan activity estimated to be minimal, the presence of fighter craft may attract their attention...

Walkthrough

The first two minutes is pure dialogue, but then Shivans will show up. Anytime the Shivans will show up, immediately call all wingmen to "engage the enemy."

You are very likely to be tearing out your hair when the Basilisks arrive (the third wave coming in around 4:30), if you and your team do not drive all four of them back, they can and they will outright destroy the escape pods with Hornet Missiles (in fact, if you see them launching at the pods, you should just hit escape and R).

When the Repulse (with its massive complement of stealthed fighters, Iota and Kappa wings of Lokis) and the Krios arrive, more Shivan fighters and bombers will come in. Hold off all enemies as long as the escape pods do not get touched. Delta (of Ulysses) and Epsilon (of Apollos) will be under your control after the Krios deploys them. After the Escape Pods are no longer in your escort list, let your wings defend the Krios. Iota and Kappa can defend the Repulse on their own.

The pods will split up, one to the Repulse, one to the Krios. Listen to the dialogue, then after both Orions leave, take off.

Tips

• You are highly recommended to have a team mate or two that can hold the Flail Rifle, because their kinetic ability can drive back a Shivan and put the pressure off the escape pods. (Of the four ships available, the recommended ship is a GTF Apollo. The Valkyrie can't mount it, the Ulysses doesn't have enough missiles to follow up if its pilot did not resupply earlier, and the Hercules is too slow.)

Notes

If any one of the escape pods die, the other is rigged to self-destruct, failing the mission.

This is a Red Alert mission, which means your fighter's condition and loadout are carried over from the previous one.

This mission is a remake of the original Silent Threat mission third mission "Ghosts". However, the Reborn version makes much more sense and there is some brilliant drama and suspense.

I think the recommendations can be ignored.

Developer Commentary

This mission is the best contrast of Silent Threat with ST:R. The original mission had an unnamed Orion and Lokis fire on you after picking up the pod with zero explanation or follow-up; as part of our restructuring we moved the GTI rebellion to Act III (Missions 11-15) and instead used this opportunity to establish that GTI operations are in disarray. Later events suggest this is encouraged by the rogue elements of GTI.

According to the FreeSpace Reference Bible, the Repulse was the original name for the GTD Galatea and later used as an NTF flagship in FreeSpace 2. Using the same ship here strengthens the GTI-NTF link established by Bosch. There's also potential for adventure with Admiral Koth as a young pilot flying for GTI R&D during the Hades Rebellion, if anyone's interested in writing a few missions.

Silent Threat also had the GTD Myrmidon as the friendly Orion. It was replaced with the GTD Krios as the Krios is monitoring you, the Einstein fiasco is a very sensitive situation, and the Myrmidon only shows up in this one mission and then is never heard from again. The standoff between Admirals Scott and Glaive is also essential to establishing tension within the GTI. Admiral Glaive's name refers to a medieval weapon used by peasant infantry to pull knights off their horses, a subtle allusion to his role later on in the campaign.

We wanted to illustrate in the debriefing that what the player is told isn't always the whole story. As established in the previous mission the Vasudan science convoy would have to be targeted by an incredibly coordinated force to be destroyed, and that the Shivans aren't capable of such an attack. Note that the wings returning to the Repulse from an undisclosed mission report 'the operation was a complete success,' and the Repulse orders them to 'secure the area' once the pods are retrieved. Remembering the context of that order given the campaign so far, the clues are all there for the perceptive player that reads between the lines.

Galemp 19:10, 27 January 2016 (UTC)