MOD:WCU:PrivRFstory
== Privateer == Yeah, let's take it apart... Note: If you're not familiar with the story, play Privateer Remake before reading any further.
Q1: Allright, you meet Sandoval, but who is he, really?
- Later, Tayla says she 'used to do business with him'... (Hmmm, sounds like some rich guy, after all, Tayla is a pirate boss of sorts, not a drug-runner herself
- Tayla also says the police have postered your mug all over town, in connection to his murder... (Sandoval must be someone important...)
- Much later Monkhouse mentions Sandoval, saying that 'he seemed to hold that artifact dearer than his life', paraphrasing... (How does Monkhouse know about Sandoval? Did Sandoval reside in Palan?)
- Someone wealthy and important, who may have resided in Palan, what business do we know of, based in Palan?
A1: Sandoval was probably Rondell's owner or shareholder.
Q2: Sandoval has a valuable artifact; does it really belong to him?
- Tayla mentions he 'stole it from his previous owner'... (Did she know his previous owner?)
Q3: Who was the previous owner?
- Assume Tayla knew the previous owner, whom do you know she knows?
Q4: Now Tayla is sitting there..., but who sent her? Not Sandoval... Perhaps the artifact's previous owner?
- When, later, you're doing missions for Lynch, he suggests he needs to 'borrow' the artifact to look at it... Burrows refuses, of course; but the next time you see Lynch, he says his people have looked at a hologram of it... (Hmmm... How did Lynch get a hologram of the artifact?)
A2: Sandoval indeed stole the artifact. A3: Lynch was the artifact's previous owner. A4: Lynch sent Tayla to meet you.
Q5: Why doesn't Lynch, then, appear to be too concerned to get his artifact back, like, IMMEDIATELY? A5: He doesn't need it; --he has a holo already. His only concern is that it doesn't end in the wrong hands... (Rondell)
So, Tayla gives you dangerous missions, probably as instructed by Lynch, to try and help Death happen to meet you, without implicating her or Lynch, but the plan doesn't seem to work. Lynch figures he can do a better job than Tayla, so she sends you over to him. He fails to have you get killed also, and finally has his own personal bodyguard try and get the artifact away from you in a more direct way... Doh! And I'm sure he deeply regrets having mentioned Oxford... The Mother of all Freudian slips...
Q6: Masterson pays you 10,000 credits to protect Hunter Toth: Is that out of Oxford University funds?
- He says the University is cash strapped, and wouldn't the university expect Hunter Toth to pay for his own protection? I mean, protecting book shipments, getting rid of data-stealing pirates, that's okay... but paying to protect a speaking visitor? Hmmm...
A6: Masterson is probably dishing out those 10,000 credits out of his own pocket. (But why?...)
Q7: Lynn Murphy says that Bronte has layed siege to Palan to cut off Rondell's food exports. True?
- Paying for the services of hundreds of mercenaries hardly seems justified by the dismal profits in the food business...
- Not only that, if Bronte is in the food biz, it probably doesn't have that kind of money in the first place!
- Someone has the money to do that, and a better reason than 'food exports' to lay siege to Palan and Rondell...
- And this someone doesn't want to get him/herself implicated, and so uses Bronte to lay siege on a food exports excuse, but pays for the cost of hiring the merceneries...
- Who would be so rich, so powerful, and so angry at Rondell? Why? And besides anger, what do Rondell have that could be so valuable?
- Sandoval was possibly the owner or a major shareholder of Rondell, and he stole the artifact from Lynch. That gives Lynch a reason to be angry, perhaps...
- But Monkhause had published the fact that his piece of Steltek glyphs represented part of a map, and the fact that Sandoval stole this piece from Lynch proves to Lynch that Sandoval, therefore Rondell, ought to have the other piece, or a holo of it (othewise why the keenness, right?).
- So Lynch, who apparently controls Bronte, paid for that siege of Palan out of his deep pockets in order to get the other piece of the map, or its holo, from Rondell; but had Bronte act as a front for the operation.
A7: False --but Murphy probably believes the official story, anyways (we'll get to her..)
Q8: Monkhouse says he was kidnapped and taken to Palan by some corporation. Which? Q9: And he says the compound was bombed from space... By who?
- According to the records at the library, Rondell is financing Monkhouse's excavations in Palan.
- The fact that Monkhouse doesn't want to name the corporation means he perceives some risk doing so.
- Palan is controlled by Rondell, so it's obvious which corporation he feels threatened by.
- He was working on no excavation in Palan, probably; rather hiding from his former captors, and so the library record was false, and probably resulted from a misleading statement by...
A8: Monkhouse was kidnapped by Rondell and taken to Palan, most likely (yes, CC, you were right)
- Neither a Talon, nor a Demon can 'bomb a planet from space'; you need some heavy guns for that...
- What kind of ship has heavy guns? Some capship?
- Who has capships? The Confeds and the Kilrathi.
- Which of the two seem to have an interest in Monkhouse? The Kilrathis, who intercept you to try and get Monkhouse.
A9: The Kilrathi seem to want to grab Monkhouse alive, so they brought a fleet to bomb the compound and free him from his captors.
Q10:
