Do you kill Arco Vaughn's mother?

[newtonianfreak666]

Why am I surprised by the fact that name of the Commander of the CSC Antarctica is "Helios", and that the same name appears in the data ROM from Arco's Container Habitat???

[JohnBWatson]

I think that's just a coincidence brought about by the fact that George likes the word Helios. I heard another theory that his mother lives inside the container habitat, but I think the general consensus was that she would have to be very old by the start of the game, and thus probably dead.

[Song]

There are certain things that George really, really likes. Reinventing the wheel because existing wheels didn't quite do what he wanted*, salmon, certain words (Luminous, Helios, etc), really complicated formulae hidden behind what looks like a simple mechanic**, salmon, Star Wars references, salmon, hiding bits of his code in 6 different XML files to keep modders on their toes***, Nethack references, and salmon.


These things tend to turn up a lot in his games and other programs. Especially salmon****.


So I'm also on the co-incidence angle, although it's nice headcanon all the same. One thing that in all serious George *does* go for is implying things rather than stating them so that peeps can make their own stuff up (Well, not quite. More like filling in gaps/drawing their own conclusions). On the one hand, it creates some cool subtlety. On the other hand it creates the arguments we have on the forums every time someone mentions backstory that hasn't been written/put in the game yet, and also the Shrike Alternative Canon.






*This isn't a bad thing, BTW. It takes forever but George has the skill to pull it off, although it does lead to the odd humorous bug
**Also not a bad thing, although I maintain the levelling system in Transcendence causes a lot of problems in its current form.
***Dammit George. <_<
**** This ties into my headcanon that Robert Morgental is secretly a Grizzly Bear in a walking robot suit and is preparing the Corporate Hierarchy for its inevitable conquest by the ursine hordes that he leads******.

****** Can you tell it's late at night and I really need some sleep?

[Xephyr]

The ROM file says "helios_receiver.f5astarton_eridani.com", so I would take that to mean it was transmitted through a communications receiver near the sun, as "helios" can commonly refer to the sun (ie. heliocentric).