Homeworld - Far from Home

By Reiko

I didn't show this last time, but we are now officially in the final quarter of the game!

Previously, we rode a Heechee escape pod and arrived at the Heechee homeworld, hidden for millennia inside a black hole along with its entire solar system and many other solar systems too. Very cool, but very impractical. The Heechee are alive and well, having been hiding from the Assassins all this time. But our presence is a major problem. We're a prisoner in all but name, assigned a "job" of giving lectures to the Heechee public about humans but not allowed to return to the outside universe and risk revealing where the Heechee are.

Functional but alien architecture.

We get some sleep in the quarters assigned to us, and now, after what was a very long cutscene, we finally get to move around again. From a gameplay perspective, this is exciting - we get to explore an alien planet! From a character perspective, this is depressing - we are stuck on another alien planet, not allowed to return home while terrorists are trying to destroy our entire race. At least we're being reasonably well-treated here, so we'd better make the best of it while we try to find a way out.
In the meantime, there's a communication device with a blinky light. Examining it displays a politely worded non-interactive message:

"Welcome to Heechee City. You have been scheduled to present an indefinite number of lectures at the Place of Learning. The first two lectures have been scheduled for 9:00 AM and 8:00 PM today. You can schedule any further lectures simply by showing up at the Place of Learning. The lecture will occur one hour after your arrival.

"In order to reach the Place of Learning, use the trams just west of your quarters. Officials there have been instructed to convey you directly to the Campus station. When you arrive, an escort will handle all of the other details and get you to your lecture.

"We appreciate the enormous opportunity your presence affords us. Many million inhabitants of the Core are anticipating your talks with much interest."

There are so many things I could discuss in reaction to this message, but I'll just start with the timeframe. Not only do we have less than an hour to get to our lecture (obviously the plot wants us to go do at least one lecture before we start pushing the boundaries of where we can explore), but times are described exactly the same as they would be on Earth. There's really no effort put forth to make the Heechee society truly seem alien.

Now, I've read a lot of science fiction, so I'm perhaps a bit jaded on this score. I really appreciate good worldbuilding and linguistics for alien cultures. This just feels lazy. It wouldn't be that hard in programming terms to change the timekeeping in the status bar to some other unit to represent the alien method of keeping time, or remove it from the status bar and give the player an item for timekeeping instead.

Yes, the main character has technomagically been given the language, so he will automatically understand the units, but that doesn't mean that they should be so transparent as to be indistinguishable from Earth units. It just means that anything linguistically alien should immediately be explainable (to the player) without having to resort to asking another character to translate.

At any rate, we have our orders, so to speak. I find nothing else of interest in the room except for the pod we collected from the crashed Heechee, which I take with me; it's a container, if nothing else. I have my coverall, but absolutely everything else I had been carrying has been taken away.

The crowd of aliens on the street.

Outside, we get a little bit of flavor, as the city is described as being completely underground and also quite crowded. The people bump into each other constantly as they move by. I look around a little and soon find a city hangar containing the ship I used to arrive here. It's been refurbished a bit and the navigation panel contains two travel codes: Administration Planet and City Hangar. The hangar is surely the one I'm already in, so this might let me go talk to the Council again, perhaps. At this point, there's no point in going to the Administrative Planet except to explore and reconnoiter, so while I did check it out, I'll cover what's there when we have a reason to go there later.

A building a few streets away from our quarters is labeled "Place of Seeing," but it's not open. The sign right outside our quarters points us west to the "Place of Moving" that the message described. When I go that direction, a cutscene automatically begins:

The street wanders around and then widens into a bustling terminal. An official-looking Heechee immediately grabs your upper arm and guides you towards one of the many trams sitting at the loading platform. He grimaces and places you inside.

This might get old as a commute, but I'm sure it'd be fun the first few times.

The car he's chosen for you makes the escape ship you spent so much time in seem roomy. It feels like you are strapped in for an amusement park ride.

When the car takes off, you're thankful for the support. Its acceleration is incredible. It speeds over one of the many corkscrew avenues, sometimes even looping end-over-end. Before you know it, however, the car comes to an abrupt halt, the door opens, and another attendant helps you exit.

The tram takes us swiftly to the Place of Learning, and we're deposited in what looks like the quad area of a university. I see a lecture hall to the southwest, a theater in the opposite direction, and some mysterious building to the west, locked with a panel. You know we'll have to get in there at some point.

We're not yet free to look around the campus.

The escort appears to take us into the lecture hall. We're led into a lounge area with a large window and a Heechee-style seat and basically told to wait until it's time. Now the description explicitly describes the escort as a guard. If I try to go anywhere else on campus, the guard stops me. So while I can wander freely around the main city streets, I cannot wander freely around this area.

The guard seems tired and bored, so there might be an opportunity to slip the leash later, but for now I play along, waiting in the lounge until the lecture time. While I wait, the guard looks out the window or takes a drink from a container he carries. It seems to be something like coffee, a stimulant, as he will complain if I try to take it and look at it. The game won't let me try drinking from it, sadly. While eventually I do want to mess with the guard, I was actually curious about what his drink might taste like.

The waiting room is oddly pretty, although rather bare.

A few minutes before the time, the light by the door to the hall turns green. The guard takes me inside, where many Heechee have gathered, including quite a few holographic projections of ancestor minds. A cutscene begins where we give a speech about how we're indebted to Heechee technology for our recent scientific advancement:

I find those floating holographic heads creepy.

"Thank you for attending. As you already know, I am a human from the planet Earth. Although you have just discovered our existence, humans have known about the Heechee for many years. We have used artifacts that you have left scattered throughout the galaxy to enhance our own technology. By all rights, we owe much to you. You've played a large role in the scientific evolution of our species.

"Our first exposure to the Heechee was the discovery of the space station which we call Gateway. There, we found a storehouse of spacecraft preprogrammed to travel to thousands of unknown destinations. Curiosity first drove us to get in those tiny ships, and the benefits we discovered in Heechee technology kept us coming back.

"My own adventures led me to the shield generators that you left behind. Your plan was clear, but difficult to implement. I activated all four generators and integrated them with the Vertex. Then I used the Virus program to destroy the Assassin inside the WatchTower. The galaxy is now shielded from the Assassin watchers and we are safe - for now.

"Things have changed, however. Some humans are not known for their good sense. The events that led me to come here..." You are interrupted by an official-looking Heechee.

He raises his hands and booms in a deep, resounding voice, "I'm afraid that we have run out of time. I'm sure the human will tell us more at his next lecture, but until then, we are finished." The Heechee turns to you and whispers, "You were warned not to discuss that which brought you here. We will be monitoring you, and if you even touch upon the subject again, we will suspend these lectures indefinitely."

Whoops! Well, so much for that. Oddly enough, we're brought back to the lounge at 9:30, so somehow those few paragraphs above are supposed to have taken nearly half an hour. It doesn't seem like more than a five-minute speech to me, though.

Listening to prophecies of Sterigma.

After that, we can travel back by tram to the main city area (a brief cutscene takes us back along the amusement park rails), and now we have a lot more time to explore the rest of the city. The available area is not very large, but I make a map anyway because there are several locations called "City Streets" with various exits and buildings. On one street, I encounter a speaker talking about an ancient prophet called Sterigma who supposedly foretold the Assassin threat. Sterigma also recommended that the Heechee retain their "burrowing ways" of living underground.

That's an interesting bit of cultural lore, but doesn't seem immediately useful. On the other hand, why would someone randomly be talking about the Assassin threat when the Heechee have been living in peace inside their black hole for millennia? Does he know that the Assassins are still a threat, even though we're under a gag order not to talk about it?

Another street leads to an alleyway with a dark set of stairs leading down to a sewer. Good realistic detail. But why? There's even an exit across the sewer passage over to a maintenance tunnel. We're going to have to get over there too, aren't we? Yuck.

Traveling to the surface to use the telescope.

I also discover that the Place of Seeing is now open, although it wasn't when I wandered that direction earlier. It seems to be a small public observatory with a large telescope. How far underground are we? Is the telescope connecting to something on the surface in order to see outside the planet? My questions are answered after a few turns of examining the telescope when the room itself begins to rise and a robot announces that we are rising to the surface to get a view of the sky. While nobody is visible in the location's image, someone asks whether the ceiling will open up, so there are clearly other Heechee in the room with us. This seems to be like a guided tour at a museum.

Someone else asks about the safety of the lift tube for the room. The robot makes a point of mentioning that there's a gravity lens at the bottom of the shaft to catch the room even if all other safety mechanisms failed. While I remember very little of the Heechee homeworld section of the game, this tickles my mind as being important for later, so I make a note of it and then wait to see what will happen next.

The starry skies are visible beyond the transparent shield.

When the room finishes rising, the ceiling opens (but the robot mentioned that there's still a transparent shield in place) to reveal the starry sky. The robot describes how the Heechee long ago moved thousands of stars and planets into the black hole and arranged the constellations deliberately.

Identifying the Trillyn constellation.

There are five constellations, called Trillyn, Mannoc, Oers, Aesthemis, and Viath. No explanation is given for these names, but the telescope can overlay their names and shapes on the star display. Now, what's entirely unrealistic is that all five are visible at once in a single screen. Well, perhaps it's deliberately unrealistic because architecting one's own starry sky is already unrealistic, but what this implies is that this planet is set off to one side of the collection of star systems and most of the rest of the night sky in other directions is just black and empty.

Also, it's not even 10:00 in the morning yet, so how are we seeing any stars at all? I think that, combined with the underground city and shield, suggests that the surface of the planet is entirely inhospitable and perhaps has no atmosphere, so that stars could be seen at any time regardless of the time being observed in the city. I'm surely overthinking this, but how do the Heechee even grow food? Do they have any animals, any nature, or are they just a big-brain excessively technological archetype?

Well, that was a fun excursion. What else is there to do in the city? I look around and find the only exit I haven't yet taken. Off to the south of the city streets I find a garden area. I suppose that somewhat answers my earlier question. Maybe the lamps are heat lamps to help the plants grow, as there isn't sunlight underground here.

The gardens: the most beautiful place in the city

The exotic plants are labeled with plaques. I don't get the option to read any of them except the one that sits beside a bare pile of dirt, which labels it as an "Ironweed plant" from the "Ancestral Homeworld." Apparently it grew well there but does not grow anywhere else. That also tells us that this planet is not actually the original homeworld of the Heechee, just their main planet now. I also notice at this point that having received the language enables me to read it as well as speak it.

I poke around and discover that I can dig in the pile of dirt, uncovering some seeds [5] which I can then take [5]. It seems really weird to take random seeds like this, but somehow these ironwood seeds must be going to help us later. I'm also surprised to realize that these are the first points we've earned since escaping the ice planet. There's been a lot of plot but not much puzzle-solving for the past hour of gameplay.

I'm at a bit of a loss about what to do next, so I take the opportunity to visit the Administration Planet and document it. The hangar is straight north from the gardens, and it's simple to find my ship, choose the right course code, and head out. Course code digits are still being displayed in Heechee even though the PC would be able to transparently read them at this point.

The image doesn't really match the description very well here.

When I arrive in the docking area, a technician automatically comes over to talk to me, initiating a conversational cutscene with some useful information:

"Ah. You're the human that was through here before. I saw you then, but I didn't really get a chance to speak to you. I'm glad you returned. Let me tell you a little about this place before I get back to work."

"As you already know, this is the administrative center of the Core. The High Council is located here, and they make all laws and directives for all the Heechee. That's why you were brought here when you arrived from the outside."

"What you probably didn't know is that this is also the Core's information center. We gather data from everywhere, both inside and outside the Black Hole. You might have thought that we were cut off from the galaxy, and admittedly, to some degree we are. But we have many ways to get information from the outside."

We're going to need to use one of those probes somehow...

"For example, you see the probes lined up against the wall there? We send those out into the galaxy occasionally. They're much better than sending living Heechee. They're small, fully equipped with the latest sensory instruments, and capable of automatically piercing the Black Hole's Event Horizon. They're slow, because they don't have the power of the bigger ships, but they're reliable. We send 'em out, and a few years later they come back bursting with data."

"The information is routed through the command room, up there." He points one of his four fingers towards the window in the hangar wall. "It's analyzed and catalogued by scientists, real researcher types. I think the job is rather boring, but it doesn't matter anyway - I couldn't get into the command center if I wanted to. Only authorized science personnel are allowed inside. I guess us techs aren't smart enough to be trusted with the equipment."

"I don't know why, though. Targeting the probes is really easy. I've seen the system, and no special training is needed. It's set up just like navigation computers on board most spacecraft. Just punch in the coordinates, press the button, and boom - it's away."

"It's been nice talking with you, but I have to get back to work. The Council chamber is off to the east, if that's why you're here. I wouldn't expect to get in and see them without a summons, though. They're always busy. Feel free to look around as much as you want."

That's very specific information about the probes. I suspect we're going to have to get our hands on one of those probes at some point, or at least get into the data center. I can talk to the technician again, but he only repeats the same speech except with the first paragraph replaced with these pleasantries: "Greetings again, human. I'm glad you have an interest in my work. Let me explain again about this area. It's my honor to work here; this is the brain center of Heechee civilization."

This is a very unhelpful receptionist.

If I try to go north toward the lab, a sensor in the wall by the door examines me and finds me wanting. East leads toward a very blue reception area in front of the High Council Room. The receptionist has nothing to say and the doors to the High Council are firmly closed. Another exit to the southeast is labeled "Do not enter" so of course I go that way to see what's there. The receptionist doesn't stop me.

This hallway looks innocuous enough, but is actually full of laser beams.

This is also disappointing, though. It's a deceptively empty hallway with many tiny lenses lining the wall. If I try to proceed east, I receive a tiny stabbing wound. It's not entirely obvious at this point, but I remember that this hallway is filled with a lattice of laser beams as a defense, although I don't remember yet what the Heechee are protecting so carefully. At any rate, I certainly don't have what I need yet to deal with the lasers.

I return to the city and head back to my room to rest and consider what to do next. Fortunately, we have a lead: the communication device is blinking again. One message says: "I appreciated your talk, and was interested to learn that you were instrumental in the operation of the shield generators. If you could discuss the specifics in your next lecture, I would be most grateful. ---Raphide"

Then, another message, unsigned, says, "Human, meet me at the Campus Theatre at 3:00 PM - alone. I have something to say that might interest you." Hmm, intriguing or suspicious? Both?

I do wonder how "Raphide" got my contact information. I mean, if this situation were reversed, and contact information was publicly available here for an alien visitor, of course people would send thousands of messages with questions and comments. I get...two? Are the Heechee that incurious? Or is my contact information kept private and these two are just in a position to have it anyway? The first one sounds like an ordinary, albeit very polite, fan message, though. The second sounds more like a stalker. Meet someone on an alien planet, alone? Any sensible person would ignore this, but of course I'm going to go, because when you can restore from a save, why not?

The main problem is going to be getting rid of the guard at the Place of Learning. I don't have much to work with, so I'm hoping the seeds I found might help, although I can't see how. Also, if I show up a quarter before 3:00, am I putting myself on the hook for another lecture at 3:45? That will certainly limit how long I have to talk with this unidentified contact.

I missed this the first time around.

While I can indeed put the seeds in the guard's thermos, it doesn't do anything; he just spits them out (and I can collect them again, apparently unaffected, which is rather amusing). I think for a bit and realized that I never searched my quarters very thoroughly. I look around and find a cabinet containing a silver pouch, which I take [5]. Conveniently, the pouch contains sleeping powder. That should do the trick.

Surely this is quite the overdose. I hope it isn't fatal...

I wait until about 2:30 in the afternoon and then head over to the Place of Learning. My escort collects me and then lounges by the window, as before. I wait until he's put his thermos on the table and then quickly pour the sleeping powder into his drink [10]. I thought I might be able to use a bit of it and have multiple opportunities to try it if necessary, but no, I automatically dump the entire contents of the pouch in. This guy is going to sleep all afternoon at this rate. It doesn't take long before he's out cold, so I can wander off to the theatre without a problem.

Secret meeting in the middle of a crowded theatre.

I walk in right at 3:00. Many of the seats quickly fill with other Heechee, and then a holographic show begins in the center of the room. As the rest of the room darkens, a mysterious shadowy figure appears in the seat next to me, and a scene begins:

His shadowed eyes play over you, and then stare straight ahead. "My name is Macropterous. I am a student here, but I am also a member of an underground religious sect, the 'White Hand'. We sympathize with your situation, and we wish to help. I personally can do nothing, but other members might. Here is the Hand's location." He hands you a black card. "Put this into your ship's computer, and it will take you there."

"We are quartered under an ancient temple on the ancestral homeworld. Long ago, the temple priests were very selective about who entered. They wished to protect their secrets from prying eyes, therefore they made the inner sanctum extremely difficult to penetrate. Only those who were familiar with the elements could do so."

I can see his face pretty well here, actually.

"We have kept the locks they left, for added security. Interestingly enough, they seem to be derived from Sterigma's Prophecies - the second verse, specifically. A rather morbid section to base an entry system on, though." He looks at your puzzled expression. "Sorry. It's my field of study, and I tend to go on about it. Here's exactly what you must do to enter..."

Of course, the lights come on just now, revealing my informant's face briefly before he runs out the door. Other Heechee greet me but then also leave, until I'm alone in the theatre. I'm going to have to review Sterigma's Prophecies from the street speaker in order to get through the security system instead of having Macropterous tell me what to do.

I go back to the lounge to check on the guard. Still sound asleep. Amusingly, I can wait through an entire day worth of time and he's still sitting there asleep. Then if I leave and come back, I find a red tag securely attached to his clothes, saying, "You were discovered sleeping on the job. When you awake, please report to your supervisor." That's very amusing, because it suggests that he's so deeply asleep that whoever found him couldn't wake him up. Also the tag appears immediately once the day changes past midnight, even if I only step away for a minute.

Showing up between the first two scheduled lectures doesn't trigger another lecture, but if I wait all afternoon, the light by the door turns green just before 8PM, as scheduled, even though the guard is asleep, and I can give the second lecture:

"I'd like to speak a little about life on Earth. Our planet is immensely overcrowded. Earth is home to over twenty billion people, most of whom live in poverty and discomfort. We have longed to colonize space, much as you have done. What we have lacked, though, is the ability to transport a large number of people off-planet. The ships we discovered on Gateway could carry one, three, or five people at a time - hardly an efficient way to offload a significant portion of Earth's population.

"Therefore, our one planet is our only home. Because of that, you would think that we would value it, care for it. Hardly. Earth's resources are all but exhausted. We have destroyed all of Earth's natural ecosystems. We've lost hundreds, if not thousands, of native species and almost destroyed ourselves in the process. Only a sweeping simplification of the biosphere saved us. Now we survive, but without many of our natural neighbors.

"Nor do we save our violence exclusively for our habitat. We hate each other almost as much. Unlike you, humans tend to group together in tribes, which sometimes grow to the size of nations. When a human identifies with others in his own society, he emphasizes the differences with those outside. Ethnic tensions and unreasoning hatred have brought about conflicts, even wars.

"We've destroyed hundreds of square miles of land in our wars. Atomic weapons have rendered them completely uninhabitable. Some conflicts are hundreds of years old. People have forgotten why they started, but they continue, nonetheless.

"Although I've painted a grim picture of humanity, we do have some redeeming qualities. I'll speak more about those next time. Thank you."

You clear your throat and add, "I received a question pertaining to the Shield Generators. I'll try and discuss it in my next lecture."

The lecture ends without incident and I am at liberty to return. As long as the guard is sleeping, I can freely wander around the university area, at least the few locations around the quad that I can access, anyway. I can investigate the locked door as well, but it requires some kind of code that's input on a 5x5 grid of identical buttons. No way to just guess what that might be about, although I suspect it has something to do with the constellations.

Apocalyptic prophecies of doom.

The next time I return to the ship, I automatically insert Macropterous' course card into the control panel, which adds the new code to the list. Before I leave, I also go listen to the prophecies again and make a note of the second verse, which seems to be predicting various calamities that will befall the planet when the "Dark Ones" come: knives of fire, boiling seas, and cracked stones.

I'm not sure what to make of this as a key to entering a secret location, but we'll head over there and see what we find next time.

Score: 1045
Deaths: 21

Inventory: pouch (wearing: blue coverall, Heechee pod)

Session Time: 1.5 hours
Total Time: 15.5 hours

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!