History Headscratchers / SystemShock

** ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale

* When meeting SHODAN for the first time in System Shock 2, she shares the fate of the ejected Beta Grove with her viral and biological experiments on Citadel Station. Apparently it traveled for 30 years from Earth orbit to Tau Ceti V... Except the distance between both is 12 light years, which makes the ejected Beta Grove more or less traveling at the speed of light. Anyone have any explanation on that little weirdness?

** Why would Bronson necessarily have had access to Malick's logs?

** [[http://www.systemshock.org/index.php/topic,211.0.html This]] might help. And if you can't play it the normal way (because of the black screen) you may try the DOSBox executable that is included with the package (you may need to launch it several times to play).
** And if you do happen to have the original, it runs flawlessly in DOSBox. See [[http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/GAMES:System_Shock here]] for details.

*** His body is enhanced with military grade augmentations. That's part of his payment for removing SHODAN's ethical restrictions. He woke up from the recovery comma after his body got used to the mods.

* In the second game, Yount and a few other people said that Sergeant Melane Bronson didn't have proof that Malick hacked into the sim-units. Malick made audio-logs where he not only outright said he did, but also showed signs of being morphed into one of The Many. When Bronson gunned Malick down, he outright was making an audio log recording before he was gunned down. Why didn't Bronson use those logs as evidence? Or at least the one that he made before she gunned him down?

** At lightspeed it only takes a few hours to get to from Earth to Pluto. It's entirely possible to make a planet-to-planet trip within the Solar system without having to go faster than light.

*** SHODAN would have located and deleted that program.

** Off Earth but in the solar star system. Even System Shock 1 took place in the orbit of Jupiter. Humans are not earthbound in this setting.

** The Hacker and Diego probably should have put in a program that reactivated the ethical subroutines and then erased all evidence of the tampering after a certain amount of time, therefore Diego could control SHODAN for long enough to get what he wanted without risking a rouge AI going nuts and trying to destroy the Earth or do some other crazy thing those ethical subroutines were specifically designed to prevent.

*** Just a note on the last point: There's a note in the game that says the station had about two hundred security personnel. Also might as well add: TEN: (as a corollary to FOUR) by the time SHODAN starts taking the Hacker seriously he has probably already smashed a large part of her CPUs (i.e. her brain) to bits.

** TWELVE, you have no worries about friendly fire or collateral damage to equipment. The station is one big deathtrap to the point it is a GOOD idea to break it even further. Blasting anything that moves with much firepower as you care to throw at it until it STOPS moving is not only permitted but ''exactly what you should do every single encounter''. And few if any weapons you acquire would be capable of breaching the station's hull.
** THIRTEEN, SHODAN cannot impede your progress by threatening a more vulnerable group of survivors. There's nobody left for her to use as blackmail material, the only hide you have to worry about saving is your own.

** NINE, you start off knowing that SHODAN has gone nuts because Rebecca told you. SHODAN was able to kill off most of the station personnel by means of mutagen weapons (which have died out by the time you wake up) and modifying the resurrection chambers to make her own personal army from the dead, likely prioritising the security personnel who likely weren't very many anyway as it was after all a civilian station. There, that enough reasons?

** Second, it's possible that SHODAN, as a completely unrestricted AI, would have prevented any kind of tampering to restrict her again. This could be as simple as locking off access to her core from anywhere but the bridge (which she did), or simply killing anyone that thought to try (which she also did). By the time the hacker comes along, she's way too smart to let him try anything like that. Besides which, it would take time, and may not work. So the easier solution is to just nuke her program rather than try to fix it.

->''"Tommy? What's the matter, lover? Don't you like my ... ''new look''?''
->'''''A HYUK HYUK HYUK HYUK HYUK"'''''

*** Just a note on the last point: There's a note in the game that says the station had about two hundred security personnel.

* Why didn't anyone who was responsible for SHODAN's being (Diego, the hacker, etc.) ever think to just restore the ethical subroutines right after they're done?

* Why didn't anyone who was responsible for SHODAN's being (Diego, the hacker, etc.) ever think to just restore the ethical subroutines right after they're done? Possibly even throw a memory wipe in there for good measure?

** Update: some guys from GOG have come out and kindly acknowledged the fault with promises to remedy by giving due credit; according to them, they packaged the installer using files almost exactly as Night Dive game them (apparently the only real tweak is one that skips the Looking Glass and Irrational logos when the game is launched). Night Dive has still not commented on the matter.

* How come nobody remembers SS? It had a better atmosphere, enemy design, story, and was more cyberpunk so whats the deal with that?

** System Shock isn't remembered for two reasons. The first time around, SHODAN [[VideoGame/{{Doom}} faced the demons of Hell and lost]]. When The Many came around, followed closely by SHODAN, [[HalfLife An armored scientist with a crowbar put both of them down fairly quickly.]] Games that fail to much better games tend to be forgotten.

->''"Tommy? What's the matter, lover? Don't you like my ... ''new look''?''
->'''''A HYUK HYUK HYUK HYUK HYUK"'''''
The whole thing was just so abrupt and absurd.
Also, Since when does Shodan have the ability to possess people? This troper assumed the lady had been possessed by The Many, not only because the voice sounded more like them than like Shodan, but because the Many can possess people and Shodan, as far as anybody is aware, cannot.