Let's Play: Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters

moved to 'On Hiatus'

Welp. I honestly intended the last statement of my prior update as a joke, little knowing that I'd then go nearly a year without another update. Oops? But on the bright side, the time between my last update and this was one year, and the time between the update before and the last update was four years, so maybe expect the next update in three months?

When last I worked on this a year ago, I had played the next segment of the game, but somewhat botched my screenshots. I'm fairly certain that this made me despondant at the prospect of having to replay what was most likely half an hour to an hour of the game, leading me to postpone this update indefinitely. Now I've gone back and realized that I can fix the screenshots, though it may result in slightly lower quality than you all are accustomed to. In any case, enough chat. Onward!



I'm doing that thing in an improv show where I ask for people to shout out suggestions and then I pick the one I actually want, even if noone really said it. I DO recall some people voting for investigating the mysterious hole in hyperspace, and that's exactly what I decided to do. Eagle-eyed readers may note something slightly amiss about this star chart.



Doot doot doo, flying through space...



And here I am at the place I thought I should be, which I learned, after waiting around for a few days of game time, is not the place I actually wanted to be. Where I AM is between Telescopi and Tauri, where I WANT to be is betwen Circini, Chandrasekhar, and Columbae, which is the next set of constellations up. Whoopsy-daisy!



Still, this gives me an opportunity to show what the Hole in Space looks like on the star chart. The deal with the Hole in Space is that it always shows up at the same coordinates, 043.8:637.2, in between the Circini, Chandrasekhar, and Columbae constellations. It appears on the 17th of every month and closes on the 21st. Why is it tuned to Earth's calendar, including our variable-day months? It is a mystery.

If you happen to consult the star chart during the right time it'll show up as UNKNOWN, as seen here. Indeed, it'll show up like this even at the start of the game, before you're clued in to its location, but the star chart is large enough and the window of opportunity small enough that you probably wouldn't notice it without help or prior knowledge.



For reference, here's the star chart during the wrong time of the month. Now it just shows an empty patch of space where the UNKNOWN location once was.



Here I am in the right part of space, wrong time of the month. And there's someone here! I wonder if it'll be friends with me?



Little blue flying saucers! Who could these be?



Why, it's our friends the Ariloulaleelay (Arilou for short) whom you may know from the extensive backstory in the manual or from conversations with the base commander. The deal with these guys is that they're the actual basis for a lot of the UFO/Mystical Alien myths you see around. They built the pyramids, made crop circles (or maybe mind controlled all those drunk farmers into making them?), probed anuses, the whole schmear. They also have a slightly creepy relationship to mankind, as will become obvious during this conversation.



Already we're getting really overfamiliar for a first encounter with an unknown alien. Let's probe a little more deeply, shall we?





So the Arilou turned tail and ran as soon as they decided we were safe enough following our conquest. For various reasons this is kinda bullshit, but let's roll with it for now. The Arilou have bugged out to... their own reality. That's pretty interesting.

You know, in this general spacey sort of region of thing...ness.



The Arilou are somewhat difficult to get a handle on, but not Orz difficult. Incidentally, thanks to our prior encounter with the Orz we know that the word "Time" between asterisks up there indicates that the ship translator can't really figure out the word and is giving us a best approximation. If we hadn't met the Orz first, we wouldn't have gotten that explanation. The upshot is that, like the Orz, the Arilou are beings that transcend space and time and the human ability to comprehend dimensions, but for mysterious (perhaps sinister?) reasons the Arilou are human-like enough, or have made humans Arilou-enough, that we can mostly comprehend each other. Let's follow this conversation down the rabbit hole...



Again with the extra-dimensional frippery.



It takes the Arilou captain to actually steer us back to a real conversation. I have to say, you've really drunk the Kool-Aid when it takes an Arilou to tell you "This is not a productive area of discusion."

"Never doubt our motives" seems like one of those self-negating statements, like "I'm not a stalker," or "I'm not crazy!" In this case, "You can totes trust us because we have had a secret, creepy obsession with Humans for so long. SO. LONG."

Anyhow, since they're so interested in our well-being, maybe some help, perhaps?



Boooooo! Ships are helpful, vague information is not. In this case, we learn that the jerk-ass probes who are being jerk-asses to us come from a planet with no surface (probably full of jerk-asses). What we DON'T know is where they ACTUALLY came from.



Peace out, hombre.



So now we get the Arilou sphere of influence, which encompases, like, one star. But it's centered on the mysterious hole that still won't appear for half a month. Looks like we'll have to kill some time.



I opted to explore Gamma Circini. Seems like a pretty groovy system. Of note:



Gamma Circini II is an Auric world with light weather, a reasonable temperature, and little in the way of earthquakes. It's also loaded with bio signs...



Unfortunately, they're bees (which aren't so bad) and purple jelly-squids, which are fast and annoying. It's been a year since I played this, but I'm fairly certain I gave up collecting these beasties after they killed half the crew.



Gamma Circini V also has bio signs, specifically these little sea slug dudes...



And immobile red lava pits, which are apparently life forms.



Gamma Circini VI is another Auric world, basically no heat, tectonics or weather...



But a bunch of these asshole green monkeys. These guys come at you pretty relentlessly and will pound your lander up pretty badly, but they're slightly slower than you are...



So you can lead them in a merry chase around the planet, occasionaly stopping to fire into the monkey horde. They take a lot of hits, though.



After clearing out Gamma Circini, my cargo bays are laden with golden treasure and green monkey slaves.



I went to Delta Circini next, and found absolutely nothing of interest.



Now to hang out in the middle of Arilou space and wait for the hole to appear.

Some more Arilou ships stop by to say hello while I wait.



Once again, I realize the Arilou are supposed to be wonderous and child-like and playful, but they just come across as really creepy and over-familiar. Time to get some clarity on that...





So.... Medical probes against the subjects' wills, without their consent... And they can't tell us what they did or why because we wouldn't understand that it was all in our best interest... This just seems more and more like an abusive relationship. Let's drop the subject.



This is one of those double-acrostic clues that only makes sense once you already know what the answer is. I could tell you what he means, but it would be Spoilers. In short, the information we've gotten from the Arilou has been essentially worthless so far.



Ta-ta!



Hey, look! A green hole! Let's fall into it!



We fall through a rip in the space-time continuum (that is, a different kind of rip in the space-time continuum than the one that takes us to Hyperspace) and wind up in a sea of green that I'm going to call, oh, I don't know, Quasispace. We also get some spooky new music!



I maneuver the ship a tad so that we're not in danger of falling back through the hole...



Then take a look at our new map. It's been colored green, to match Quasispace's desktop theme.



Quasispace is a lot smaller than Hyperspace, with a lot fewer holes. Just fifteen small ones, plus that one big one way off to the side.



I lay in a course for the big one; it's the nail that sticks up that gets hammered. Note, incidentally, that travel within Quasispace costs no fuel.



Barely avoid a hole here...



And BAM! Some kinda planet, surrounded by red stars!



Surprise, surprise! We found the Arilou homeworld!

The Arilou leader speaks a tad more plainly than the captains, and now we have more of an idea what the Arilou's deal is, at least, dimensionally speaking. I don't think we've heard anything specific about the Umgah, other than them being tricksy bastards.

Yeah! That's what I'd like to know!





We begin with a typical Smug Alien, "Oh, I forgot that those trifling things are the sort of things You People care about! Hold on a moment whilst I deign to recall such inconsequential details." We then learn pretty much what we already knew; Yehat and Shofixti left for Delta Gorno, Syreen on their own, Arilou bug out to, it turns out, Quasispace.



Okay, Syreen in Betelgeuse, this is actual, useful information. And that last bit is the reason I have a tough time with the whole "Humans are safe! We out this bitch!" explanation we got earlier, because that Doctrinal Conflict has some serious, genocidal ramifications for mankind and the rest of the quadrant. Though not, of course, the Arilou, since they're off in Quasispace.



Emperor Pants is Taking It Personally.



Oh. Well, that's actually not the worst thing ever. Except, of course, that nobody bothered to modify any of the numerous other species around and they haven't been turned into Orz. In fact, if somebody could draw those extra-dimensional beings' attention to the evil death caterpillars that are presently tearing our quadrant apart, would that be the worst thing?

Pants and me, we're on the same wavelength here.



Which would be great, if we hadn't already met and allied with the Orz. There's not really much to this plot-line; you can piss off the Orz if you ask them the wrong questions and they'll stop being your friends and start attacking you on sight. But the Arilou-Orz beef never really boils over. I think in the third game the Orz turn evil. Well, evil-er.







And now the Arilou are my favorite species ever. A device to instantly warp to Quasispace, which lets you, in turn, travel all across the quadrant? Better than any alliance. Too bad you need to do a fetch quest to get it, but in contrast to most Arilou hints, this one is extremely precise: Alpha Pavonis VII, get the warp pod from the wrecked dreadnought.







The Talking Pet is the little grey-brown guy that shows up in the corner when we talk to the Ur-Quan. Also, between the Ur-Quan military hegemony and their considering it demeaning to stoop to learn foreign languages, I wonder if they're supposed to be a sort of allegory for America? I dunno, I'd have to think about it some more.

Regardless, the Umgah have a talking pet, and the Arilou want us to check up on it. That's as good a quest hook as any, I suppose.

Great. Alpha Pavonis VII. Warp Pod. Back here. Right.



So long, and thanks for all the fish!



Alright, so here's a fun little game for the next update. Back when the world was young and this game was new, you had to figure out the Quasispace portals on your own. Granted, you could always save scum and find out where the portals go, but where's the fun in that? Later versions of the game came with a "Deluxe" hyperspace map that included an inset map of Quasispace that told you where all the portals actually went. But we're going to do this the old fashioned, non-cheating way! So here are the portals, numbered 1 to 15. Everyone votes on which portal to explore, I go through the portal with the most votes. No backing down, no chickening out; I wind up where I wind up and have to survive wherever I land. I can tell you from experience that at least one of these portals plops me smack in the middle of Ur-Quan space, which is not at all fun. Experienced players, please try to avoid allowing your knowledge of where the portals lead to color your votes.

See you next time (which will hopefully actually be soon!)

You've got to stop toying with us like this!

I absolutely definitely intend to try to not abandon it again. I hope.

Portal 2!

Portal 8.

oh shit, do my eyes deceive me??

Best. Day.

go portal 11.

Hey, guys! I am super excited and in the zone and ready to do another update. But: I need more votes, because right now it's a three-way tie at one vote each for 2, 8, and 11.

I change my vote to 8

I vote for 8 why not.

Contrary vote for portal 3. Who the heck wants to fly all the way over to portal 8. I mean yeesh, if Pants wanted to work out he'd go to the gym.

And we're back! You all voted, after some shifting around, for Portal #8. I did absolutely no research on where this takes me, so I'll be flying mostly blind on this one. Still, I got a lot more done here than I expected, so all's for the best.



I plot a course for the portal....



And away we go!



We fall through the hole in QuasiSpace and wind up... In HyperSpace, in the middle of nowhere.



Consulting the Star Map confirms that we are in the middle of nowhere. Or, at least, the edge of nowhere. That purple cross in the bottom-right corner is us. From here it's obvious that our only real option is to head home, since the grey sphere representing our maximum travel distance only just barely encompases Sol...



As seen here. We've got 79 fuel and it'll take just shy of 70 fuel to get home. That leaves us a little to spare. Maybe we can make this trip a bit more interesting...



We got a clue about the last surviving male Shofixti hanging out at Delta Gorno, so maybe we could head through there on the trip...



There are also the Serpentis...



And Scuti constellations. Might as well stop in on the way...



And that route will take us by the three stars of the Trianguli constellation. It'd be a shame to pass up the only stars in this region of space. We set a course for Gamma Trianguli.



Here we see lovely Gamma Trianguli, noted for...



Gamma Trianguli IV, a Ruby World loaded with Exotics...



It's moon, Gamma Trianguli IV-A, base metals, noble gasses...



And its native inhabitants, these friendly green balls (NOTE: FRIENDLY GREEN BALLS MAY NOW BE EXTINCT).



Finally, when visiting Gamma Trianguli, be sure to stop by Gamma Trianguli V to check out its danger-free Exotics.



Beta Trianguli is next on the agenda...

It does NOT look promising.



But turns out to be home to some docile life forms in a low risk environment.



These Space Barnacles just sit there. One hit turns them to Electric Hamburgers. As life forms go, they don't get much easier than this. We ransack the planet and move on...



To Alpha Trianguli.



Now, this looks promising!



But looks are deceiving. There's basically nothing of note here except for Alpha Trianguli VIII.



VIII-A is a Quasi-Degenerate World, notable only for the fact that there's literally nothing on it.



VIII-B, though, is rich in Rare Earth elements and native life forms.



The natives turn out to be these devil umbrellas. They move quickly and take two hits to kill, but their movements are pretty random. They neither avoid nor hunt you, so while they're a pain to catch they're not especially dangerous.



VIII-D is another Quasi-Degenerate World, this one loaded with Exotics.



By the time I'm finished, I've got 121 tons of Exotics, which all on its own would be an excellent haul.



I decide to check out Organon, since it's on the way.



Another fairly promising system.



Organon II is a Plutonic World, meaning a few Rare Earth elements...



And Organon IV is a Radioactive World. By this point my cargo hold is nearly full.

So I dump a load of Corrosives to give me the 50 tons of storage I need for one last run to the planet. At this point, I'm full up and ready to head home...



Only to discover that, in my folly, I forgot that all those planetfalls cost fuel. I no longer have gas to get home! Looks like my options are either to wrap up this LP or restore to before this update and just make a bee-line for Sol.



Might as well scope out Scuti for future trips...



Back at Gamma Trianguli I picked up a tail. I'm a little faster than it, so I gain ground on the straight-aways, but it makes up distance when I visit systems.



Gamma Scuti is a system that I went to. Nothing really of note...



I set course for Beta Scuti. Maybe something will leap out at me.



Still nothing.



At last the tail catches up to me. As expected, it's one of those obnoxious probes.



I've heard this song before.

[QUOTE=Emperor Pants I]I am having a lot of trouble dealing with this. What's your problem?





As expected, combat commences.



I send out a Spathi Eluder, as these things are made for fighting Slylandro Probes.



I nearly got away clean in this fight. I got cocky and took this screenshot, though, and half a second later was punished for it with an ass full of lightning.



Soon I rack up another 550 RU and collect another Slylandro scalp.

Alright, there are clearly some bogies in this area that are moving slower than Probes, so I'm just gonna sit here and wait for them.



A hostile encounter! Readers of the manual will recognize this as a Yehat Terminator. But the Yehat are our friends! What gives?



Yep, the Yehat. A warlike race of birds divided into clans. I think they're supposed to be... Scottish? They say "Ye" instead of "You," but thankfully the game doesn't go overboard with the dialect. They also have theme music!



The Yehat makes a big deal out of externalizing his inner torment in the form of tortured monologues. You will quickly note a theme in our conversations...





We have a few dialogue options, none of which really go anywhere.



So there's some sort of schism between the pilots and the Yehat homeworld.



Maybe some grandiloquence?



Maybe some guilt, perhaps?













...And we're dumped back to HyperSpace. I kind of expected that to end in combat, so I press my luck and wait for another encounter with the Yehat.

The Yehat are quick to oblige.




Let's get some more backstory, shall we?




Well, that struck a nerve! Seems the Yehat surrendered before they had a chance to die in a blaze of glory. And, in case it isn't painfully obvious from the conversation, it's not a decision that most of the Yehat captains agreed with.



Yeow, the Yehat do NOT like new-age space hippies. I was actually expecting this to lead to combat, but no. There doesn't seem to be much I can do to piss them off.




Ah, information! That's handy. So, the Mycon are guarding something at 639.5 : 231.2. I'll make a note of it.

I rub it in once more as I leave...





Well, that didn't accomplish much, but it did get us the Yehat sphere on the Star Map. Speaking of which...



For no raisin, I decide to plot a course for Zeta Sextantis, on the edge of VUX space.



Not much to see here, except...



Zeta Sextantis I, a Rainbow World. These are great; they're rich in valuable resources, generally not very dangerous, and every one you find is worth 500 credits when you talk to the Melnorme.



I ditch some corrosives and base metals to make room for radioactives.



Here's a close-up of the planet. There's a vague plot going on with these planets, but it's pretty vague. My understanding is that the intent was to build into the next game, but the creators, Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III had Star Control III taken away from them, so where it would have gone is a mystery.

I'm pretty pleased with my haul. Time to head home! Oh, wait...



I don't even have the fuel to get to Delta Gorno. Guess I'll just just head out into HyperSpace and drift through the ether, lost forever in the sea of stars...



This is what it looks like when you run out of fuel. Note the flashing "OUT OF FUEL" header at the top of the screen. You can spin around, but you can't move forward.



What's this? A kind Space Truck coming to give me an intergalactic tow?



Damnit.



You know the drill here.





An annoyingly long fight later...



I can fight these guys for a while, but eventually my crew is going to get worn down and the fleet will get zapped down into space dust. IS THIS THE END OF THE GREAT AND GLORIOUS EMPIRE OF PANTS?!



Help?



Double damnit.





Still no useful information from these guys. I make short work of the probe, but soon enough another comes along.

Salvation!



The Melnorme! So, if you run out of fuel in HyperSpace, there's a chance each day that a Melnorme Trader will be generated. In my case, it literally took weeks for one to show up. This is your chance to trade credits for fuel. If you have no credits, and nothing you can trade for credits, I believe they'll give you some free fuel. It's my understanding that this is one of the only ways to make it through the game if you're doing some of the more spectacularly painful challenge runs.





I sell my slaves and give them data on the Rainbow World and wind up with 1,534 credits.




I don't want to waste a bunch of credits, since they're more valuable than physical resources, but I also don't want to wind up stranded again. I buy 40 units of fuel, which I realize too late gives me 1,494 credits, six credits shy of being able to make an even ten information purchases.

I decide to go all-out buying technology. I don't really need info at the moment, since we're swimming in exploration leads.




Double speed landers is kind of a mixed blessing. It makes it easier to get away from things, but it makes you a lot more likely to run into things that you might otherwise avoid, like earthquakes.



Point defense lasers are... kinda useful... I don't really use the flagship for battle much, but point defense lasers can be useful depending on who you're fighting.



Now THIS is a technology upgrade! This is the first of the lander shields, and it provides good protection against hostile life forms. Not COMPLETE protection, mind; each time you're hit there's a 95% chance the shield will block the damage. That sounds nice, but bear in mind that a given creature can hit you multiple times in rapid succession, depending on how dangerous and aggressive it is. Moreover, the fact that you have shields tends to make you less cautious about avoiding creatures, which will tend to increase the number of hits the shields are defending you from. In short: shields are a great upgrade, but don't get cocky.



Double cargo space in the lander is nice, it means fewer trips back and forth from planets and thus less fuel spent planet-side.



As the Melnorme implies, the only real advantage of high-capacity fuel tanks is that you waste fewer slots on fuel tanks; they cost exactly twice as much as a regular fuel tank and hold exactly twice as much fuel, so there's no resource savings. The only other use would be if you would otherwise have used literally every module slot on your ship for a regular fuel tank, in which case you can now use more than half the slots for high-cap tanks and get more total fuel. Interestingly enough, we may actually do this at some point later.



Double-speed landing shooter is, as you'd expect, nice for catching creatures. It'll come in extra special handy for one particular creature later on.



These are just like the creature shields, but they work on earthquakes, the least deadly of the natural disasters.



Tracking modules are kind of handy. They shift your aim a bit to make it more likely that you'll hit your target in melee. Again, though, I don't tend to use my flagship for battle.

These shields protect against lightning, which is a real help. Again, they won't protect against every bolt so Weather Level 8 planets are still dangerous, but the shield makes them "challenging, but doable" rather than "suicide."




Toodles!



Alright, got some emergency fuel and now we have more than enough to get home...



Or explore Delta Gorno...



All's quiet here.



Until we reach Delta Gorno VI. Who could that fella be?



Why, it's the last (or second-to-last) surviving male Shofixti! Enjoy his theme music!




Unfortunately for us, he's not too friendly.



Unfortunately for him, I'm not too friendly, either, after getting stranded in space on the way to meet him. I get testy.





(I reserve the right to make this my avatar).



And we're thrown into battle.



I select the flag ship and immediately turn tail and run. Melee in this game has an escape mechanic. You hit the Escape key and your ship warps out, after taking a few seconds to pulsate red and charge up the warp drives. If you're in any ship but the flagship, this takes you back to the ship selector screen. If you're in the flag ship, it warps you out of combat entirely and back to the navigation screen, but it costs you 5 fuel. This is why I wanted to make sure I had a bit of extra fuel before coming here.

I decide to poke the bear (Cat? Squirrel?) and engage Tanaka again. Maybe I can make him see reason this time?



...But then he goes and says this and I get all riled up again.









Ooops. We're back to battle again.



And I warp out again. Note that Tanaka's ship is damaged; he's the only one on it, and his secondary weapon, the Glory Device, doesn't work. That's good, because the Glory Device self-destructs the ship in a huge explosion, causing damage to its opponent if it's at close range. I think Tanaka also moves a lot more slowly than Shofixti Scouts typically move.



After escaping, I turn around and face Tanaka one last time.

[QUOTE=Emperor Pants I]Look donkey breath - one more insult and it's vapor city for you!









Can't help getting one last lick in...



Well, this is awkward...



Yeesh, these guys and their suicide. In case it's not obvious, the Shofixti are supposed to be a kind-of sort-of Japanese analogue, provided that literally the only thing you know about Japanese culture is a surface-level understanding of Seppuku and Kamikaze pilots.

Alright, time to take control of this situation.









...That's actually what I told him to do, but whatever. This encounter wasn't strictly speaking necessary at this point; there's not much to accomplish here until we have the Shofixti females. Still, we've gotten the introductory segment out of the way. Tanaka will attack you on sight whenever you meet him. If you try to be polite, you'll get caught in an infinite loop. The only way to escape it is to insult him. Even doing so, you have to escape combat twice and insult him three times to knock some sense into him. As should be obvious, it doesn't take much to kill him, so it's important not to actually fight back when you encounter him. If you do kill him, he'll be replaced by his brother Katana. I'm pretty sure if you kill Katana the Shofixti are dead forever.



So, while we've been dithering around, the Pkunk sphere of influence has slowly been creeping rightward. As you can see, they're now entirely out of the Ilwrath sphere of influence. What gives?



Let's find out, shall we?



I reach Gamma Ptolemae and soon find a pkunk captain to talk to.





Given what we know of the Yehat, this will probably not end well.



These are our options to disuade the Pkunk. I try scaring them.







No dice. These guys are too disinterested in the material plane to be concerned that they'll soon be leaving it.



While looking for another Pkunk ship I found a Slylandro Probe. Yay.

Oh, hey, coordinates! Somebody write that down!



Soon they're reduced to slag and I'm just a little bit richer.




I find another Pkunk. This time, I try something a bit more tuned to its wavelength:









Phew! That was close. The Pkunk will periodically decide they want to reunite with the Yehat. If their sphere reaches the Yehat sphere, it's all over for the Pkunk. You can turn them back, I believe, twice, but the third time they make the trip there's no stopping them.



Already the Pkunk sphere is nudging back to the left. I set course for home. Back at the starbase...






Big infodump here. So: The Spathi have disappeared. Maybe we should check up on their homeworld and see if anything's wrong? On the plus side, we still have the Eluders we already bought. The Captain then tells us about something we already know and resolved (the Pkunk migration), and about something we know and haven't resolved (those Slylandro probes are a problem).

I unload my resources and wind up with 21,726 Resource Units...



Earning me a verbal pat on the back from the commander.

I forgot I had the Taalo Shield. I give it to the commander to research:




I'm honestly a little disappointed that I did this; there's actually a fun little sequence later on if you don't have the shield. Still, one less thing to worry about.

So, Talking Time! What's next? I've got lots of resources...



A few empty ship slots...



And a ship waiting to be reconfigured!



Where to next? Should I head back to the Unzervalt colony? Help out the Zoq-Fot-Pik? Investigate the Spathi disappearance? See what the Umgah or the Thraddash are up to? Travel to the Mycon coordinates that the Yehat gave us? Check out the war that the Ur-Quan are fighting? Go after the Mean Guys in the corner? Look for the Shofixti Maidens in the Snake Eating the Elephant constellation? Investigate those coordinates the Slylandro gave me? Have another QuasiSpace Adventure? Note, if you vote QuasiSpace, also give me a portal vote, anything but 8.

Something about this sequence of images is just... terrifying. Also, I vote for dealing with the Slylandro first. Feels like encounters with them are going to wear out their welcome fast.

Since getting a sweet portal spawner isn't an option I guess I'll also vote for probe exploration times. However, I give you my assurances that the Alpha Pavonis being on the way there has nothing to do with my selection.

None whatsoever.

We should go get the portal thing we need to enter Quasi space! If we can't do that we should deal with the Sylandro and then the Mycons