A TERROR AND A TRAITOR--DEMO RELEASE
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The first mission of a FreeSpace 2 canpaign by Woolie Wool

FOREWORD
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God knows how long I've been working on this mission. It's the first decent mission I've ever made (and the only one I've deemed worthy of release so far), and a lot better than the vast majority of the "hello I am an FS2 newb; here's my first mission" missions out there.

BACK STORY
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When the Shivans drained the Capella star, they were taking Bosch and his entourage to a secluded system deep in Shivan space and far away from the GTVA. They interrogated Bosch and the other NTF officers that they abducted. They were impressed by their culture and technology, and gave them a small (by Shivan standards) fleet of converted Shivan warships (and a large number of Shivan personnel) and sent this autonomous force (known as the Terran-Shivan Alliance) to Barnard's Star to invade GTVA space, and open a jump gate to Earth by using the second Knossos to enter the 61 Cygni system and use the node there to get to Proxima Centauri (closer to Earth than Alpha Centauri). There, a battle group would build a Knossos-style jumpgate to Sol while the rest of the fleet would return to the Knossos to keep GTVA forces from entering the system and finding the node to Proxima Centauri. But the GTVA had a chance encounter with a third Knossos portal in the Barnard's Star system that led to 61 Cygni and attacked the TSA fleet stationed there (a gigantic fleet of 300 destroyers and cruisers jammed into a small area of space would give off a huge EM signature that would be detectable by sensors anywhere in the system). The GTVA expedition party was forced to retreat as TSA forces drove them back and flooded the Barnard's Star system, but their cover was blown and the GTVA declared war. The TSA has been fighting a desperate war with the GTVA for two years now, and the GTVA is preparing to launch a massive raid into TSA space. But the portal to Sol is almost complete, and who knows what awaits on the other side. And what about the rest of the Shivan armada? The question is not if they will return, but when.

You play as a TSA pilot. The game starts as a large number of GTVA warships amass on the other side of the Barnard's Star node. But soon the jumpgate to Sol is finished, and the situation turns from bad to hellish...

STORY OF THIS MISSION
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As a pilot serving with the 43rd Scorpions, you have been assigned to halt a Vasudan expeditionary force trying to break through the Barnard's Start system in the hopes of keeping the Vasudans from ever entering the system again. You stand watch around a disabled Moloch-class corvette (yeah, it's a ripoff of Eve of Destruction in some respects, right down to the Anubis fighters that make up the first wing of enemy ships). But then a Vasudan convoy and its escorts enter the system, and it's no  longer a blue milk run...

INSTRUCTIONS
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You MUST have FSPort 2.0 or higher installed to play. A copy of ancients.ani from 2.0 is included for FSPort 2.1 users because I like it better and it fits my mission better.

I recommend that you extract the contents of this VP to the ROOT data directory, not the subdirectories. Extract the files (except the mission file) to, say, C:/games/freespace2/data. That way, the changes to the cbanims and thruster glows will take effect. It is also recommended that you copy the music files from FS1 and fs_debrief from the FS1 demo to your FS2 music directory. This will make the music take effect.

STATISTICS
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Build Time: 20 days
Enemy ships: 38 (composed of various fighters and an Anuket)
Available ships: GTF Apollo, GTF Valkyrie, GVF Seth
Available primaries: PLS-10 Eclipse plasma cannon, Subach HL-7, Vasudan light laser (for the Seth), Mekhu HL-7 (for the Seth), Disruptor, Akheton SDG, Flail, Morningstar, Prometheus R
Avaiable secondaries: MX-50, Rockeye, Fury, Fang, Tempest, Harpoon, Interceptor, Phoenix V
Reinforcements: None

Q&A
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Q: In the weapons selector screen, it says PLS-10 Eclipse, but in-game it says ML-16 Laser! What gives?
A: I'm too lazy to edit the in-game name and then go through the whole ships.tbl and replace every instance of "ML-16 Laser" with "Eclipse"
Q: Why is the sun so small?
A: Barnard's Star is a tiny red dwarf, and you're quite a difference away from it.
Q: Why does the screen go completely white when I look directly at the sun?
A: Realism. You didn't seriously think you could look directly into even a tiny star from only 60 million miles away and be able to see without your eyes being dazzled, did you? In real life, looking directly into a sun like that would cause permanent eye damage and extreme pain.
Q: What are all those Saths doing next to that planet?
A: They're not enemies, they're your allies, and are standing guard in the system. Later in the campaign, a shielded Colossus will jump in and kill them all. Yep, that's right, one of the missions in the full campaign will be a mission in which you must kill a Colossus in SUBSPACE.

CREDITS
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Thrusterglow01, thrusterglow01a, thrusterglow02a, thrusterglow03, thrusterglow03a, nrplasma, and minbari_bg* bitmaps: The Babylon Project team
Thruster02.ani, thrusterglow02.pcx: The Inferno team
New cbanims (except ancients.ani): Zarathud
ancients.ani: The FSPort team
Volition, Inc. for making FS2