Patrol/Dialogue

“

Boons I grant you, oh bearer mine, but debts must be paid in time.

”

This section is currently under construction and needs to be improved. Please refer to the talk page for more info. You can help by editing the page.

"And my vanquisher will read that book, seeking the weapon, and they will come to understand me, where I have been and where I was going."The following is a verbatim transcription of an official document for archival reasons. As the original content is transcribed word-for-word, any possible discrepancies and/or errors are included.

A list of all Patrol dialogue can be found here, sorted by location and type.

Neomuna

The City is My Weapon

Introduction

• Quinn Laghari: Oh, you're that Earth-person, yeah? I'm Archivist Quinn Laghari, and I know this city. I also know how to make the city work against these goons. But with all this jamming, I need someone near the physical systems I can piggyback off. All you gotta do is not die.

• Quinn Laghari: This — this horrible distortion in the network repeating a word. I searched my whole library, but can't figure out what a "Nezarec" is. Anyway…

• Quinn Laghari: Little distracted. I can't figure out if this weird CloudArk feedback is creaking, or screams, or what. I just know it makes my teeth hurt. Anyway…

• Quinn Laghari: Don't give up on me. You need a sec? No? OK…

• Quinn Laghari: All right, let's push through this.

• Quinn Laghari: Ugh. Just reviewed some industrial incident reports and I got horrible inspiration.

• Quinn Laghari: Ha! Can't resist me, huh?

• Quinn Laghari: Insurgency's a numbers game. Find little things that hurt them without costing you, then repeat. I'll show ya!

• Quinn Laghari: I just need a friendly little signal repeater to hang out at these coordinates.

• Quinn Laghari: I hate doing this, but I hate my city being a war zone even more.

• Quinn Laghari: Ha! I told Sid you weren't dead!

• Quinn Laghari: Get your butt over there and get me some system access!

• Quinn Laghari: Just head here and open a comm channel.

• Quinn Laghari: Ready to make this occupation just a little bit harder?

• Quinn Laghari: Get to this position and make a network link for me.

• Quinn Laghari: Been crunching the new troops rotations, and I've got a new target for us.

Typhon Imperator

• Quinn Laghari: That ugly ship's a black hole of intel. Couldn't even tell you what it's made of or how it flies. It's why I keep downloading and scouring every sensor log you can bring me. I hate not knowing.

• Quinn Laghari: I'm accessing local chemo-sensors. Whatever that Cabal ship is dumping, we'll need to clean up some day. Would be nice to know what it is first.

• Quinn Laghari: Updating system map. That flying nightmare barge hijacked a ton of utilities, but that means some of our system backdoors can access it. Doubt I can override security, but worth looking. Maybe get you a layout.

• Quinn Laghari: This district is mostly reclaimed land — y'know, pylons and landfill. That spacefaring ego trip is straining every system.

• Quinn Laghari: Whole district's dotted with sensors to track and count wildlife. They'll track soldiers just as easily with this update. Won't bring back the blue tiger, but makes me feel a little better.

• Quinn Laghari: Co-opting some of the park drone network to deliver, uh… other payloads. They're small. Silent. Probably for the best they don't see it coming. I know I wouldn't want to.

Typhon Imperative (Side View)

• Quinn Laghari: [sighs] I've had the airlock control codes for that ship for a while, but… you ever see pics from a depressurization event? 'Cause I have. I ain't gonna do that to anyone.

• Quinn Laghari: Used to come out here to chill. There's a data conduit right here I tripped over all the time. It's how I know it's there to hack. You think I'm gonna get my park back?

• Quinn Laghari: There's a data trunk buried here that ties to the wildlife tracking sensors. With the clear access you're giving me, I can track a new kind of wildlife.

• Quinn Laghari: Modifying the maintenance systems to pump the hollow in this with pressurized sodium hydroxide. Shouldn't register to explosive scanners.

• Quinn Laghari: When I start to lose it, I let myself visualize that park under the monorail, when I was little. The thrum of the train and the ozone smell of the maglev. Upload's done, by the way.

• Quinn Laghari: You know your scanner uses an oscillating Sundaresh field? It'll ionize the palladium in this statue to make sensor shadows.

Ahimsa Park Central

• Quinn Laghari: No sabotaging this time. We're downloading genomes from the De-extinction Project. This war's probably already wiped out a dozen species.

• Quinn Laghari: Thank the Founders you're helping. Between the Cabal jamming and the Vex ECM, I'd never be able to access systems as far out as these parks. Nothing more anxiety-inducing than feeling helpless. With you, at least I can do something. Anyway, we're good here.

• Quinn Laghari: The Shadow Legion used our parkland system to grow food. We can stop it… or I can introduce nightshade DNA to the assembler system.

• Quinn Laghari: Found a Cabal parasite genome. Gonna try introducing that to the bio-assemblers. Sick's better than dead. Logistically. And morally, I hope.

• Quinn Laghari: Accessing the botanical assemblage protocols. Tweaking 'em to produce Cabal-tailored allergens. Next rain, mass anaphylaxis.

• Quinn Laghari: Splicing in a little poison, and — I mean, is this right? I mean, I know it's right. It's right to protect my city, but all this death… That's a lot to carry. I gotta talk to someone. You got someone to talk to?

Turbine Station

• Quinn Laghari: Getting into this system's easy. My dad actually helped rebuild this whole turbine station after the Twenty-Year Siege. I copied a bunch of access codes. Y'know, just in case. This'll overload some relays.

• Quinn Laghari: With this root access, I can divert a small charge to the cryo-bunkers. Let us recharge! And it's all thanks to my favorite two-legged signal repeater.

• Quinn Laghari: Could take out this turbine with a shaped charge, but with you giving me access, I can upload a carrier signal and track whoever recharges off of it.

• Quinn Laghari: Saw one of these blow once. [grunts] Those blades are smart carbon fiber, meaning they don't break. They turn into 20-meter flying swords! Cut a technician in half.

• Quinn Laghari: Just gimme a sec before I upload. Some stuff you can't unsee, y'know? And sometimes, normal things remind you of it. [exhales] Important to take a second to breathe when you need to. [breathes deeply] Aaaand sending.

• Quinn Laghari: Updating BIOS to cause erratic start-ups. Kinda feel bad for the Cabal maintenance crew that'll get electrocuted trying to fix this.

Zephyr Bar

• Quinn Laghari: Inventory system says the Cabal are hitting ethanol stores pretty hard. Think they're using it as fuel? Or maybe they need to forget, too. Gonna… gonna maybe leave that be.

• Quinn Laghari: Got access. All these systems rebuild nutrient sludge into real food. Even comfort food, ha! Had to come outta cryo for a week last year for some system repair, and ate the goo straight. Ugh, not good stuff. Not all all comforting. [gags] And done.

• Quinn Laghari: Everyone's gotta eat, yeah. So, we mess with the food printer's audio controls and get an eavesdropping chef. Easy! Plus, nobody dies.

• Quinn Laghari: I can use this terminal to hack the local food assemblers — reverse the protein chirality in any food the Cabal produce. Uploading a tummy ache!

• Quinn Laghari: Chirality's a funny thing. A molecule twists one way, it's a tasty protein. It twists the other way, and it's still tasty, but boom! Indigestible. Violently so.

• Quinn Laghari: I can backflush the food systems with recycler bacteria. There was a really gruesome accident with this stuff, about ten years before I was born. It's, um… made to break down flesh. It's not gonna be pretty.

Landing Pad

• Quinn Laghari: While pad's held in place by chemical stem bolts. But mix the right household ingredients, it turns that bolt sealant into shaped charges. For a rainy day.

• Quinn Laghari: Lemme just access the landing pad's crash response systems. I can realign it to dump visitors about 20 stories straight down. All done.

• Quinn Laghari: Command says the pad stays intact, so I'm modifying the pressure sensors to count troop arrivals. Love this clear signal your gear gives me.

• Quinn Laghari: I can just disable to decontamination safeties and wipe out guys I'll never meet. Seems like survival turns you into the kind of person you hate.

• Quinn Laghari: Adding a program that'll modify the fuel systems to plant detonators. [snorts] The Vex took out my grandma with the same hack. Not sure she'd like who I grew into. I'm done!

• Quinn Laghari: Not gonna lie: I feel real bad about, say, hyper-oxygenating the fueling platform like this. [sighs] Guilt's normal. It's healthy to second-guess, to have empathy. Means you're still human. Anyway, you should move on.

Cargo Bay

• Quinn Laghari: Those docks should be bustling with skimmers — these big boats that suck water and microdiamonds from the storms.

• Quinn Laghari: This system will let me update orders to automated ships. We still got some skimmers out on harvest; best to keep 'em away.

• Quinn Laghari: Logs show the Vex are draining microdiamond stores from these skimmers. Hey, fun fact: diamonds are flammable! Inject some pressurized oxygen, and they'll be pumping napalm into their foundries, ha!

• Quinn Laghari: Stay cool while I make these changes. Just… feel your feet on the ground. Feel your knees under you. Your hips. Your chest. Your shoulders. And breath… [breathes deeply] And we're done.

• Quinn Laghari: I'm depolarizing the weather sensors, heh. Next storm that blows through the area will call down a whole lot of lightning for our mechanical buddies.

• Quinn Laghari: Realigning skimmer profiles profiles. You got here quick for a space zombie. Even with my prosthetic leg, the pain limits me to sorta… an angry trudge. You, uh… you like cyborgs, space zombie? Oh, hey! Alignment's done.

Navigation Beacon

• Quinn Laghari: These nav beacons are life. Neptune's magnetic field is erratic, which is great for hiding a city inside, but it sucks if you need to find that city.

• Quinn Laghari: Just gotta upload these new specs. You enjoying the view? That storm's the Cerulean Front. Been out there for 80 years now. From a distance, it don't look so bad, but in the middle of it, it'll rip you apart. Oh, that's a metaphor! Upload's done.

• Quinn Laghari: Scrambling nav systems. I like to encode a binary virus into the broadcasts too, just to mess with 'em.

• Quinn Laghari: Accessing Harbor systems to scramble nav signals using an irregular rotation. Keeps anyone nav signals using automated flights or drones.

• Quinn Laghari: All right, accessing and — whoa, hey. You okay? I know, it's easy to lose hope. You gotta find little joys to focus on to get you through. For me, it's reading. Can't die today. Starting Chapter 8! [chuckles] Anyway, I'm done here.

• Quinn Laghari: Accessing systems… and done. Y'know, it's usually quiet up here, so it's cool if you need to have a cry. Just, you know, give me a heads up so I'm ready.

LINS

• Quinn Laghari: The hologram-looking bits are LINS: Light Investment Nanoscale Structures. Electric dust. And dust does fun things to computer drives.

• Quinn Laghari: We use LINS as botanical framework, but I'm tweaking the assembly protocols to give it a charge. Makes it cling to machines and degrade Vex circuitry… like digital poison.

• Quinn Laghari: You getting me past all this Vex ECM lets me ionize the LINS this planter produces. It'll cling to their chassis, and I can use my systems back at the archive to track their movements.

• Quinn Laghari: Modifying the LINS system to produce a monofilament edge. And… wow. Turning a public garden into a barded wire just feels like the worst metaphor for what war does to you. Stupid lit degree! It's done.

• Quinn Laghari: You know, my doctoral thesis was actually on using LINS for exposure therapy. Building paper doll scenarios to activate patients. Not loving that I gotta use that to inflict trauma. Anyway, file's uploaded.

• Quinn Laghari: Repurposing this stuff for violence is getting too easy… Like there's part of my brain trained to figure out how to hurt people now. I hope I can turn that off later. …We been done a while. I'm just ranting.