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Post by osumatthew on Aug 15, 2018 16:34:38 GMT -8
This is something that has been bothering me a little bit ever since I finished Liberation Day. After the substantial role that she played throughout Mask of Arcadius and the prominent place that Cosette took during the opening of Liberation Day (being the 3rd character to be given credit listings), I was rather excited at the prospect of having her join the crew because she is a rather morally dark grey character. She's committed a ton of atrocities and been a recurring antagonist, but her motivations felt the most sincere of any of the villains in the first game. In essence, she's a darker version of Kayto who just wants independence for her world.
However, her treatment in Liberation Day felt like a major letdown after the hype. She's either killed or captured after the first mission (depending on your prior choices), but even if she survives she's just tossed into the brig and forgotten until the last mission of the game. I would have loved to see the option for Kayto to interact with her throughout the game like he does with the various crew members, and had the choice to try to persuade Cosette to work together with the group. After all, she doesn't have anything to gain if the prototypes with the war. In my opinion, this should have culminated in a possibility of promising her independence for Ongess in exchange for her cooperation and assistance (enforced by a killswitch either on her person or on the Havoc), as well as a final decision during the last mission of either sticking around and helping the Sunrider crew out (if you've been cooperative and empathetic towards her) or bailing out and running off like she does in the main game (if you didn't earn her trust). As it is, having her help you out only in the last level felt a bit random and like a missed opportunity. The potential character development and storyline is there, and could yield a really interesting story. I don't like the idea of a romance path for her, because it would feel out of place, but she's such a complex character that not giving her proper treatment was a bit disappointing.
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Post by magicdragon on Aug 16, 2018 17:12:24 GMT -8
Unless Samu-kun has some way to resurrect her from burning in a sun (not everyone made the right choices or used the wishall to save her) then I don't see her having a story in future installments. I did not see her as a darker version of Kayto, just a killer. She was a pirate, she stole and murdered and had a reputation for being ruthless. After slipping away from Sunrider as they destroyed her pirate base, she turned to Pact which to me looked like a move to find someone that could help her get revenge against Sunrider and Kayto. We don't see what life was like while Pact held Ongress, was Pact trying to help with food and medical like the Alliance? or were they taking the Ongressite and offering empty platitudes for how great the future will be? Since I didn't see Pact as making any attempt to really improve living conditions on Ongress, Cosette's claims of being a liberator of those being oppressed by the Alliance felt empty to me. Her real motivation for helping Pact to me always felt like a way to get revenge against Kayto.
There was a conversation between Kayto and Ava after the Alliance joined the fight about some Ceran military that was captured by the Alliance and executed for being pirates. Kayto admits that had Sunrider been the one to catch them they would have shown them the airlock. Personally I think the path where Kayto stops Asaga and has Cosette brought aboard, he was to lenient by not either shoving her out an airlock or taking her to Tyderia and turning her over to the authorities there and let them execute her.
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Post by osumatthew on Aug 16, 2018 17:33:24 GMT -8
Unless Samu-kun has some way to resurrect her from burning in a sun (not everyone made the right choices or used the wishall to save her) then I don't see her having a story in future installments. I did not see her as a darker version of Kayto, just a killer. She was a pirate, she stole and murdered and had a reputation for being ruthless. After slipping away from Sunrider as they destroyed her pirate base, she turned to Pact which to me looked like a move to find someone that could help her get revenge against Sunrider and Kayto. We don't see what life was like while Pact held Ongress, was Pact trying to help with food and medical like the Alliance? or were they taking the Ongressite and offering empty platitudes for how great the future will be? Since I didn't see Pact as making any attempt to really improve living conditions on Ongress, Cosette's claims of being a liberator of those being oppressed by the Alliance felt empty to me. Her real motivation for helping Pact to me always felt like a way to get revenge against Kayto. There was a conversation between Kayto and Ava after the Alliance joined the fight about some Ceran military that was captured by the Alliance and executed for being pirates. Kayto admits that had Sunrider been the one to catch them they would have shown them the airlock. Personally I think the path where Kayto stops Asaga and has Cosette brought aboard, he was to lenient by not either shoving her out an airlock or taking her to Tyderia and turning her over to the authorities there and let them execute her. I mean, I know that LiS doesn't have the resources of something like BioWare, but I can't imagine it would be overly difficult to include a story for Cosette moving forward, and she's apparently a pretty popular character so I'm sure many would appreciate it. I disagree with your assessment of Cosette's motivation. She had every opportunity to kill Kayto when she managed to capture him and Kryska on Ongess, and in fact expressed the desire to kill him. However, what was apparently more important to her than revenge was expelling the Alliance from her Homeworld, which she clearly made her only demand. Therefore, it seems like her desire for Ongessian independence is completely genuine. You're right that we don't see PACT's treatment of Ongess, but given that it was Fontana who handled the situation and he's pretty devoted to the original PACT ideology, along with Cosette's willingness to work with him, it seems like she at least was happier with PACT in the area than with the Alliance. Also, I don't recall the conversation concerning Ceran forces turned pirate, but I do recall that you're given an option upon encountering some former Ceran forces who turned to piracy. I personally allowed them to return to duty, because (depending on what exactly they did) it's somewhat understandable that they'd turn rogue given the complete loss of connections, resources, and purpose after the fall of Cera.
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Post by magicdragon on Aug 17, 2018 13:20:06 GMT -8
Also, I don't recall the conversation concerning Ceran forces turned pirate, but I do recall that you're given an option upon encountering some former Ceran forces who turned to piracy. I personally allowed them to return to duty, because (depending on what exactly they did) it's somewhat understandable that they'd turn rogue given the complete loss of connections, resources, and purpose after the fall of Cera. Its in the Sunrider Novelization that the conversation I mentioned takes place not the game, so my mistake there.
As I recall having to make the choice to add them to my crew or not I'm thinking I treated them as pirates. They may not have been as successful at bounty hunting as Sunrider, but instead of being the protectors they were trained to be they chose to use their skills to be thieves and murderers, the kind of scum they were supposed to oppose.
I'm not sure what LiS's budget has to do with Cosette being in future installments or not. The way I see it, it is a matter of story telling. Maybe I was a bit to definitive saying NO story because, sure she could have some minor part for those that saved her and yet her absence would have no major impact on the story for those that didn't save her. Perhaps I just lack the imagination of how Cosette could, with Asaga tearing Havok apart and all of its systems going offline, survive falling into a star. Preferably with a little credibility, not something like 'Black Jack's final hit altered Havok's trajectory just enough so instead of falling into the star Cosette was set in an orbit that would slingshot her out of the star's gravity well, (when the odds of this happening were only 22079460347:1 against, which just happens to be the phone number to the flat where you met a really nice girl and totally blew it with) and after weeks (with no food or water) she managed to repair havok's engines and guidance system with nothing but a toothpick and roll of duct tape tube of nano bonding gel from her emergency repair kit, eventually making her way back to an old pirate hide out'.
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Post by magicdragon on Aug 29, 2018 16:47:26 GMT -8
I've given some more thought to your original post and realize I went off on a tangent more to do with Cosette's morals or rather lack of morals, than really addressing Cosette joining the crew. Her joining the crew seems unlikely to me, yes more conversations between Kayto and Cosette could have been put in giving him a chance to change her opinion of him and added some more story content and choices to the game....for those that saved Cosette. And there in lays, in my opinion, why she wasn't given an opportunity to join. In the next chapter (we all hope will come soon) it would make the story telling more challenging adding a crew member for those who saved Cosette and were able to convince her to join but leaving her out for everyone else. Game balance may also have played a roll as some players would have an extra ryder.
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