Alright, explain this to me. Why is there always that one marine who just vanishes mid-op? No DC, no SSD, no KIA report, just gone. You check the squad manifest, still listed. You ask on comms, no response. You think, oh, maybe he got lost. Nope. 20 minutes later, the guy turns up alone, half dead, covered in acid burns, and missing both arms.
Then comes the best part. When medics ask what happened, they give the most vague, cryptic response imaginable:
“Got jumped.”
By what?
Where?
How?
Why were you alone?
No further explanation.
Just “got jumped.”
At this point, I’m convinced there’s an entire secret society of marines who just go on personal side quests during the OP. Maybe they’re looking for hidden loot, maybe they’re trying to 1v1 a Rav with a knife, or maybe they’re just mentally roleplaying as some kind of lone survivor horror protagonist.
Who are these people?
Where do they go?
What is their purpose?
I know some of these guys, they don’t say a word, their lifespan is roughly 10 mins after deployment, and if they live longer than that they most certainly have killed some xenos,
In the rare case that they return to a medic, they most likely ran out of splints.
i swear half of these guys are just lurk hunters. as always find the randos in bum fuck no where with m41a and shotty on there back, i also die half the time to them… really good on the Point blanks these lot are.
They’re basically all backliners or involved in intel.
Generally, some competent players like to take their chances away from the chaotic shitshow of the frontline (where you are more likely to die to FF than xenos), and take their chances 1v1/2ing T1/T2s.
I do this from time to time, either its intel mode or its dragging back people who are doing weird shit. Dragged one guy back after he ODed himself on alcohol he had found after trying and failing to find his buddy who went to the front. Or another time I found a marine trying to become the pizza guy.
Another good example of one of those marines would be who I like to call “wise guy” . Wise guy goes off the first five minutes into OP insulting MPs, assaults one, gets arrested, comes in a later drop, goes off on there own. Somehow returns with a solo rav kill, then promptly keels over from his wounds because they have no meds whatsoever, and mid revival via the FOB doc just decides to go DNR.
They’re CIA operatives and just really good at covering up. You never realize they completed their mission because you never know what the mission was in the first place. Truly the best of the best.
I will never understand how people solo lurkers and runners. 99% of the time if they pounce on me I’m critted before I can even stand up, or they immediately stunlock me.
I’m not afraid to admit I’m not particularly robust as a marine, but how do I always get skill issued so hard.
And before some smartass says ‘just don’t get pounced on bro’ I’m not so sweaty I turn gamma to max so I can always see a lurker even while invisible. I have to rely on a motion detector at best, and even then that doesn’t always stop me from getting gangstalked by backliners.
As a sidequester myself— sometimes you just feel the Pull. there’s a difference between a Wise Guy and a Sidequester in that sometimes you come under the delusion that you’re safe, and follow the scintillating guiding light of a random objective. Sometimes it’s power, sometimes sensors, sometimes it’s just repairing one more set of floodlights…
Sometimes I enjoy taking a partner and shooting the shit, roleplaying over map ruins and loot, and sometimes I go alone and then wander and somehow live through it.
Tangentially related, I recall when I used to get high and play TGMC’s Vali melee style a lot, and since I was high, my situational awareness was nil. I’d end up hunting a T2 or T3 on their last legs five miles into the backlines, far from the ungaball, and sink my blade into their carapace one last time— and then breathe out, and realize I was far, far away from the ungaball. On TGMC this spells death far, far more than CM. I’m also surprised I made it back to them once on Slumbridge that one time I’m specifically remembering- legitimately from the northwest fire area down to the Medbay in the southeast. Shit was crazy.
