THE HORRORS of Aliens: Dark Descent

Channel:

SCULL CONTROL

Subscribers:

1,760

Published on August 10, 2023 3:30:03 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vw1y3iKJNg

Game:

Aliens: Dark Descent (2023)

Duration: 12:00

1,275 views

9

In the year 2198, on the moon of Lethe, the USS Otago prepares for a shakedown. Meanwhile, at Pioneer Station, a shuttle, the Bentonville, drops off cargo. A mysterious infiltrator releases its contents: deadly Xenomorph aliens, which begin to massacre the crew. Noticing Bentonville's cargo weight discrepancy, Deputy Administrator Maeko Hayes recommends the ship be detained but her supervisor McDonald refuses. Hayes encounters the aliens in the docking bay, trying to weld the doors shut. As the shuttle leaves, McDonald and the control staff are attacked and impregnated by facehuggers. Narrowly escaping, Hayes realizes more Xenomorphs are in Bentonville's remaining cargo and reluctantly activates the Cerberus Protocol, a Weyland-Yutani planetary quarantine procedure using armed satellites. Bentonville and a freighter, Baldrin, are destroyed with all hands while the Otago is crippled. Hayes is extracted by Sgt. Jonas Harper and his squad of Colonial Marines to the crash-landed Otago, where he takes command and deputizes Hayes as his Intelligence officer. The Marines enter the Dead Hills settlement, killing a Xenomorph Queen under the colony. After scouting the Berkley's Docks spaceport for parts to repair the Otago, the Marines encounter Darwin Era, an anti-Weyland-Yutani cult who revere the Xenomorphs as a higher stage of evolution. Upon returning, Hayes admits to Harper that she activated Cerberus; despite this, they continue to work together. Hayes also works with chief medical officer Bookard, Weyland-Yutani xenobiologist Becker, chief engineer Corrigan, ship psychologist Kabiri, and armory head Sgt. Martinez to find materials and personnel in the field to bring to Otago.

Harper traces the origin of the Xenomorph containers to Olduvai, Lethe's main Trimonite refinery. In its mines, they encounter Guardians: modified cultists who are ignored by the Xenomorphs along with discovering the cult is taking people to the Cassandra Project. Harper briefly reminces on this "Cassandra", before Joseph Marlow, Darwin Era's leader and a former Weyland-Yutani scientist, addresses the Marines directly, inferring that Cassandra is working with him. Hayes, originally planning to use the Otago's last escape pod as a beacon to send out a distress call, instead uses it as an improvised missile to rescue the Marines just before they are overrun. Returning to the Otago, Harper discloses to Hayes that Cassandra is his daughter from his time on Lethe, as he was born on the planet. The Otago is directly attacked by Xenomorphs, but the Marines fight them off; Harper, who gets painful flashes and visions when Xenomorphs are nearby, begins to fall ill. Director Barbara Price, Weyland-Yutani's head of operations on Lethe, contacts the Marines and informs them that Cerberus is entering Phase 2: full nuclear sterilization of Lethe. The Marines storm Pioneer to try to stop Cerberus and kill another Queen, but it is too late to stop Cerberus. With little time, the Marines rush to repair Otago's hull, hypersleep chambers, and boost power to its energy shield to break the blockade. Price offers an atmospheric processor's power core, as well as looking for Cassandra and rescuing her from Marlow, in exchange for being allowed access to Otago.

The Marines raid the processor, stealing its core, killing another Queen, and recovering an APC, but Harper steadily weakens. The Marines then salvage a hypersleep gas-mixer chip from the USCSS Monterro, an old M-class vessel used during a prior rebellion against Weyland-Yutani for which Harper was present. A Guardian sneaks onboard Otago to persuade Harper to join Darwin Era, revealing that Marlow is using Cassandra for a project allowing communication with the Xenomorphs using her innate telepathic connection to the alien's hivemind, a trait that Harper shares with her and is the cause of his visions and failing health, before the Chestburster erupts from him and kills him. Harper confronts Price, who has dispatched men to find Cassandra, led by former Marine Theo Stern, in the Tantalus underground laboratory but Price had lost contact with them. The Marines infiltrate the lab and recover Stern, who joins the Marines, but they find from old footage that Cassandra has already been moved elsewhere to a new location and they narrowly escape the lab's self-destruct. During the escape, they capture Marlow who divulges that Price is playing them; she destroyed Tantalus and left Stern to die to tie up loose ends. Unable to get Cassandra's location from Marlow, Harper kills him after discovering that it to be a Synth recreation of the real Marlow, before falling unconscious.

Other Statistics