Hi Everyone. There have been topics about other parts of the game where discussion is started, however I didn't see any that was about discussing the Peralez Questline.
Only some small snippets of very specific stuff such as: Finish the Peralez Questline before calling Judy outcome or One side job more important than most "main" jobs (SPOILERS).
I don't want to go too much into speculation on what the outcome of this questline does or means for the future, I would more so like to discuss the Questline itself and what I consider to be a major absence for V. Notice up front, this post will therefore main cover the quest "Dream On" Because this is where most of the options and missing elements become apparent.
* * * FROM HERE ON OUT MAJOR SPOILERS * * *
Lets start at the beginning: I Fought the Law.
This quest starts when we get a Call from Elizabeth with the request to meet, as they have a job they want V to look into.
You meet with both Elizabeth and Jefferson and they brief you about wanting you to investigate the murder on Mayor Rhyne. You get a BD to look into, on which you find River Ward whom you'll have to contact afterwards as a lead into the investigation. In the BD you watch what looks like a potentially staged, but failed, murder attempt at the mayor by Peter Horvath. After meeting up with River you speak to his CI and/or the scrapseller who employed Peter Horvath for a short time. You then find yourself on Animals turf: the Red Queens Race where you learn that, apparently, Mayor Rhine just died of a mixture of too much booze, VR and some bad luck in whats essentially a 'dirty club'. NCPD is covering it up via an associate of River. The quest ends with you going back to the Peralez family where you can either choose to tell thm that you think it is indeed this guy Holt, the Mayors Deputy, who the Peralez's were suspecting it to be (confirming suspicions) or you can state it was NCPD shoving under the rugg type of biz.
Now, at this point, I Fought The Law quest is fairly straight forward with little to make note off.
Only small things of note to me are: The Peralez's seem too keen on wanting Holt to be mixed up in shady affairs even though it seems legitimally that he's not involved.
Closest thing I could make out of it is that (if you believe it) he used Peter Horvath to try and murder him as seen in the BD, but that failed, afterwards he was out of the picture. And the second thing that caught my attention is River never asks what happened after the meeting at the end with the Peralez's as he was very interested in the murdercase. Albeit this may not have gone anywhere in particular anyway.
Then for the by far more interesting Quest: Dream On.
I'll try to run through this one a bit quick: I believe it is Jefferson this time that calls you (or Elizabeth, I can't really remember) anywho, they want to meet at their apparment, where Jefferson discloses he believes they were robbed. At least he woke up one night and found a strange person in his home who he shot but passed out immediately after. After going through some dialogue you get to investigate the entire appartment which you 'conclude' by discovering a secret room filled with surveillance stations and the lot. You find a weird computer and follow a series of wires to the roof where you find an antenna dish, which in turn point towards a antenna in the streets with a van parked besides it. You follow/chase the van as it pulls away and find yourself in combat with some Maelstrom. Defeat them and hack into the van where you discover the truth!
The Peralez's are being conditioned by an unknown and most likely outside force. Upon discovery of this, you call Elizabeth with your findings. She suggests to meet at a Ramen Shop in Japantown where she confesses she had known/suspected something for some time. The meet concludes with her asking you to not tell Jefferson beause she believes it would ruin him. She says you can meet Jefferson right thereafter.
>> I'll conclude for now by saying: whatever you discuss has little impact on the IMMEDIATE ending of THIS quest, because either way its virtually the last you'll hear of them (not counting several messsages and the post-ending thing)
Where I wanted to go into however is only now starting, because upon discovering the truth from the van I started getting the idea that we, the merc V, could become a quite interesting character for the Peralez's. After reading all terminals, messages and talking to Elizabeth and Jerfferson I got the impression V is the ONE unaccounted for contact with the Peralez's, even after the weird short talk you have with the "Unknown Person". It is also here where I got the destinct impression one very crucial choice was not present in the dialogue with Jefferson becasue of that exact reason.
Lets go over it.
Earlier, when V asks why out of all people he requested you, he says that you are the tried and tested. But more importantly, Elizabeth even before that says that she dismissed everyone in her building in order for Jefferson to call upon you, which leads me to believe that Elizabeth may have tried to get as off the record as possible with that investigation, because V was not conditioned or in anyone's pockets. She's by all means the wild card, as by definition an unpredicabe wrench in the works.
I also believe that up until V interfaced with the van, the "Unknown Person" was unable to figure out who the merc was. The ISS agents failed to do so as they kept describing her as 'the mercenary'.
A side question I shall pose before I continue: What exactly was the method of conditioning? during the mission I got the impressions the conditioning was done by feeding the Peralez's foods and drinks and whatnot to make them susceptible to suggestion. This is hinted at when you scan the fruit basket. However as soon as Elizabeth entered the secret room she started getting a headache. I'm not sure however if I much believe that this means they are being conditioned via some form of brainwave trnasmissions. (I recall V stating that the dish on the roof was the transmitter, and the van the receiver, not the other way around)
So in short: how were they being conditioned? And would it have made a difference if you trashed the surveillance equipment and everything? Did they have some form of shard slotted anywhere? I didn't find any evidence this may have been the case. However Jefferson clearly had cyberware, so ... maybe?
--> This leads to my main point. If I assume with above question in mind that the conditioning could be counteracted by destroying the equipment, ceansing all eadibles and relocating to a 'untouched surrounding' and maybe even flush any cyberware....
Why was there no option in the concluding talk with jefferson to take up arms alongside of him?
The way I see it: If you go with Elizabeths request, you once again basically throw in the towel and give up, case closed.
However if you tell Jefferson, the only thing you can do from there is basically say "go fight the good fight" I'll be visiting your grave afterwards. <-- this because during the convo with Elizabeth before that, you get to ask a question along the lines of 'Do you think he'll pick a fight he can't win?'. To which Elizabeth basically says: most likely it'll go like that.
I would have expected that IF you tell jefferson the truth, you'd be their most valuable asset in the fight against the conditioning and unknown organization/people behind it. For one, V can give Jefferson a 'Fixer package' which he could use to contact V via a middleman (or simply as a means to stay off the record) when they find themselves in a bind with the mysterious character. V namely remains being the one assets the Peralez's have that is uncontrollable by their puppeteers. This is also reinforced by the idea that the conditioning cannot take place if there is not physical interaction anymore to whatever is found in the Peralez Appartment.
Now, I know that this story is (currently) designed to be the type where the fate of the Peralez's is grim, ending up as completely transformed people who are merely slaves/puppets to their masters (who we do not know the identity off)
And I'm not really looking for V to come in and save the day, but I would expect a very reasonable chance that V could try and fight for their individual freedom.
I would've liked to explore the idea in a third quest-mission (which would ONLY trigger in specific circumstances) where you would try and root out who's behind it. You could very much so fail in doing so and find yourself in a position where the Peralez Family receives conditioning to actively block you out, and forget about your even existence. however there is still a lot of potential here that could be explored based on just the narrative of these quests alone.
And then I'm not even diving into the entire Mr. Blue Eyes discussion that seems to stem from this, or the rogue AI one, which would open up a real big story to explore.
I hope I've been somewhat coherent becasue the last bit feels like I started to ramble on.
So: time to discuss, what is your ideas, opinions about this subject, fellow forumers.
Only some small snippets of very specific stuff such as: Finish the Peralez Questline before calling Judy outcome or One side job more important than most "main" jobs (SPOILERS).
I don't want to go too much into speculation on what the outcome of this questline does or means for the future, I would more so like to discuss the Questline itself and what I consider to be a major absence for V. Notice up front, this post will therefore main cover the quest "Dream On" Because this is where most of the options and missing elements become apparent.
* * * FROM HERE ON OUT MAJOR SPOILERS * * *
Lets start at the beginning: I Fought the Law.
This quest starts when we get a Call from Elizabeth with the request to meet, as they have a job they want V to look into.
You meet with both Elizabeth and Jefferson and they brief you about wanting you to investigate the murder on Mayor Rhyne. You get a BD to look into, on which you find River Ward whom you'll have to contact afterwards as a lead into the investigation. In the BD you watch what looks like a potentially staged, but failed, murder attempt at the mayor by Peter Horvath. After meeting up with River you speak to his CI and/or the scrapseller who employed Peter Horvath for a short time. You then find yourself on Animals turf: the Red Queens Race where you learn that, apparently, Mayor Rhine just died of a mixture of too much booze, VR and some bad luck in whats essentially a 'dirty club'. NCPD is covering it up via an associate of River. The quest ends with you going back to the Peralez family where you can either choose to tell thm that you think it is indeed this guy Holt, the Mayors Deputy, who the Peralez's were suspecting it to be (confirming suspicions) or you can state it was NCPD shoving under the rugg type of biz.
Now, at this point, I Fought The Law quest is fairly straight forward with little to make note off.
Only small things of note to me are: The Peralez's seem too keen on wanting Holt to be mixed up in shady affairs even though it seems legitimally that he's not involved.
Closest thing I could make out of it is that (if you believe it) he used Peter Horvath to try and murder him as seen in the BD, but that failed, afterwards he was out of the picture. And the second thing that caught my attention is River never asks what happened after the meeting at the end with the Peralez's as he was very interested in the murdercase. Albeit this may not have gone anywhere in particular anyway.
Then for the by far more interesting Quest: Dream On.
I'll try to run through this one a bit quick: I believe it is Jefferson this time that calls you (or Elizabeth, I can't really remember) anywho, they want to meet at their apparment, where Jefferson discloses he believes they were robbed. At least he woke up one night and found a strange person in his home who he shot but passed out immediately after. After going through some dialogue you get to investigate the entire appartment which you 'conclude' by discovering a secret room filled with surveillance stations and the lot. You find a weird computer and follow a series of wires to the roof where you find an antenna dish, which in turn point towards a antenna in the streets with a van parked besides it. You follow/chase the van as it pulls away and find yourself in combat with some Maelstrom. Defeat them and hack into the van where you discover the truth!
The Peralez's are being conditioned by an unknown and most likely outside force. Upon discovery of this, you call Elizabeth with your findings. She suggests to meet at a Ramen Shop in Japantown where she confesses she had known/suspected something for some time. The meet concludes with her asking you to not tell Jefferson beause she believes it would ruin him. She says you can meet Jefferson right thereafter.
>> I'll conclude for now by saying: whatever you discuss has little impact on the IMMEDIATE ending of THIS quest, because either way its virtually the last you'll hear of them (not counting several messsages and the post-ending thing)
Where I wanted to go into however is only now starting, because upon discovering the truth from the van I started getting the idea that we, the merc V, could become a quite interesting character for the Peralez's. After reading all terminals, messages and talking to Elizabeth and Jerfferson I got the impression V is the ONE unaccounted for contact with the Peralez's, even after the weird short talk you have with the "Unknown Person". It is also here where I got the destinct impression one very crucial choice was not present in the dialogue with Jefferson becasue of that exact reason.
Lets go over it.
Earlier, when V asks why out of all people he requested you, he says that you are the tried and tested. But more importantly, Elizabeth even before that says that she dismissed everyone in her building in order for Jefferson to call upon you, which leads me to believe that Elizabeth may have tried to get as off the record as possible with that investigation, because V was not conditioned or in anyone's pockets. She's by all means the wild card, as by definition an unpredicabe wrench in the works.
I also believe that up until V interfaced with the van, the "Unknown Person" was unable to figure out who the merc was. The ISS agents failed to do so as they kept describing her as 'the mercenary'.
A side question I shall pose before I continue: What exactly was the method of conditioning? during the mission I got the impressions the conditioning was done by feeding the Peralez's foods and drinks and whatnot to make them susceptible to suggestion. This is hinted at when you scan the fruit basket. However as soon as Elizabeth entered the secret room she started getting a headache. I'm not sure however if I much believe that this means they are being conditioned via some form of brainwave trnasmissions. (I recall V stating that the dish on the roof was the transmitter, and the van the receiver, not the other way around)
So in short: how were they being conditioned? And would it have made a difference if you trashed the surveillance equipment and everything? Did they have some form of shard slotted anywhere? I didn't find any evidence this may have been the case. However Jefferson clearly had cyberware, so ... maybe?
--> This leads to my main point. If I assume with above question in mind that the conditioning could be counteracted by destroying the equipment, ceansing all eadibles and relocating to a 'untouched surrounding' and maybe even flush any cyberware....
Why was there no option in the concluding talk with jefferson to take up arms alongside of him?
The way I see it: If you go with Elizabeths request, you once again basically throw in the towel and give up, case closed.
However if you tell Jefferson, the only thing you can do from there is basically say "go fight the good fight" I'll be visiting your grave afterwards. <-- this because during the convo with Elizabeth before that, you get to ask a question along the lines of 'Do you think he'll pick a fight he can't win?'. To which Elizabeth basically says: most likely it'll go like that.
I would have expected that IF you tell jefferson the truth, you'd be their most valuable asset in the fight against the conditioning and unknown organization/people behind it. For one, V can give Jefferson a 'Fixer package' which he could use to contact V via a middleman (or simply as a means to stay off the record) when they find themselves in a bind with the mysterious character. V namely remains being the one assets the Peralez's have that is uncontrollable by their puppeteers. This is also reinforced by the idea that the conditioning cannot take place if there is not physical interaction anymore to whatever is found in the Peralez Appartment.
Now, I know that this story is (currently) designed to be the type where the fate of the Peralez's is grim, ending up as completely transformed people who are merely slaves/puppets to their masters (who we do not know the identity off)
And I'm not really looking for V to come in and save the day, but I would expect a very reasonable chance that V could try and fight for their individual freedom.
I would've liked to explore the idea in a third quest-mission (which would ONLY trigger in specific circumstances) where you would try and root out who's behind it. You could very much so fail in doing so and find yourself in a position where the Peralez Family receives conditioning to actively block you out, and forget about your even existence. however there is still a lot of potential here that could be explored based on just the narrative of these quests alone.
And then I'm not even diving into the entire Mr. Blue Eyes discussion that seems to stem from this, or the rogue AI one, which would open up a real big story to explore.
I hope I've been somewhat coherent becasue the last bit feels like I started to ramble on.
So: time to discuss, what is your ideas, opinions about this subject, fellow forumers.