Mission 17: The Human Race




Note!

If you install the Strangers First Aid Pack, you'll get mission timer updates every 15 seconds for these missions, which helps pace them out a lot.

Part 1

While everyone else is off-world, a team of up to four characters have to stay and guard the teleportation equipment within the base so that everyone can be brought home safely.
Sondra Strange has taken telepathic control of the inhabitants of Paradise City, and they're marching on the Stranger's base in their numbers. Policemen, civilians, the three fans from Stranger Than You, prisoners from Cell Block X and of course the US Military under the commands of their hypnotised general.

The main objective for the first part is to guard the door. Humans will spawn off-camera as you defeat them, keeping an even number of around 15 active civilains and 15 active miltia at all times. In addition to the standard 'cannon fodder' there are also four Patrol Men, and the three other Connection memebers wearing stolen bodies.
Simon and Jo are wearing the bodies of a male and female Atlantean (the ones executed off-camera in the base cutscene) and Gabriel is wearing the King of Clubs body. Defeating any of these will cause the inhabiting Connection member to pop out and attack. Fortunately, the rest of your team have been busy, and the deaths of two Connection members from previous missions will occur in this one to slow them down.

The overall timeline runs like this: After 20 soldiers have fallen, the M.A.S.S. squad are called in, with powers similar to the Fly - they use a genetic damage attack to find weaknesses in their targets.

The ideal team for these missions in my opinion are Jack, Ace, Tart and Hunk. Jack of Diamonds takes the Patrollers on like no-one else can. The others all have a good variety of area attacks, Ace can repel patrollers, and the Tarts and Hunks are MINDLESS - very useful in Part 2.

Part 2

The humans have managed to swarm into the base now, leading to a tactical withdrawal by your team inside. Humans and Patrollers are entering the base from both ends, meaning you have to reach the teleporter equipment quickly and keep it safe. When it first takes damage the H.I.V.E. will notify you, take this warning seriously!
The best tactic is to head one character (Ace is fastest) to the Teleporter pad in the first chamber, and use it. This takes you into the third chamber, which will be seeing the first wave of intruders from the far end by now.
Rather than fight them, the H.I.V.E. unit in the corner can be activated, creating a maze in this chamber and activating a series of NPC Hunks and Tarts to defend it, similar to the Pac-Man style game played in the Training Missions. Cool, huh?
After a minute, things get harder. Sondra will activate a telepathic link between your squad and the people they fight, meaning that any damage, stun or mental states you inflict get radiated to your squad members nearby, making melee combat quite painful.
This empathic damage can be resisted to some degree, completely so by MINDLESS characters like Tart and Hunk, hence their usefulness.
To make matters worse, the portal from New Aeden created in Mission 14A will open, causing New Aedenites to join the fight. The first wave are non-powered, but if you manageed to activate the crystals to turn some of the population into superhumans in mission 14B, then you'll have to face a few mind-controlled superhuman refugees here!
The overall timeline runs as follows: A cool little trick is available to any custom scientists you've created for this mission. The M.A.S.S. guys use their advanced vision systems to scan you for weaknesses, right? Any scientist on this mission can instruct the H.I.V.E. computer to produce a disorientating UV strobe effect invisible to the naked eye - any M.A.S.S. unit trying to use their enhanced vision will then get stunned and blinded instead!