As we get into pod 2 and reach the escape pods for the Rickenbacker SHODAN gets the bright idea of barging into the body of the many as it's wrapping itself around the 2 connected ships.
With this button pressed there will be no going back.
Welcome to the body of the many.
This entity is a fully functioning living organism created by SHODAN back in system shock 1 now we undo her "mistake" as she says , still her design for a living creature is utmost impressive , we will find audio logs of a crew member who finds himself here as he explains more and more about how this thing function and he says "SHODAN shouldn't be allowed to play God she is too good at it".
Parts of the von braun can still be found , when you move on this surface a gross fleshy footprint sound can be heard , notice the red light on the crate meaning it's locked and require hacking to unlock.
Approaching a dead rumbler i find quite the creepy detail of a human face....i said previously the rumblers are stage 2 of a life cycle that starts with the hybrids , you would think the face of the rumbler would be in the same place as the hybrid but this says something else...
Some sort of lake these "teeth" look similar to the crystal we been carrying and using all this time
Apparently this is where the eggs are produced , the many has assigned some midwives here , this one is unaware of my presence , let's put her out of her misery
BEHOLD
This egg shaped object IS the many central part , this thing tormented us for so long , they would telepathically communicate with us throughout the game often talking shit straight in your face , however as we get closer to this "brain" they grow more scared of us even offering us an alliance against "the machine mother" this sinister monstrous entity doomed the von braun , humanity first light speed travel ship resulting in the death of possibly hundreds of people , the many despised humans saying it saw what we did to our planet and will eradicate us when we get there....too bad that won't happen , the small orb flying towards the many is the fiery vengeance of the von braun and the Rickenbacker crew this pyrokinesis shot will be the death of the many and thus the hivemind is no more....
Having defeated the many and jumping into where the brain part was we end up in a strange unfamiliar place....this is SHODAN cyberspace , we were warned before that SHODAN may not have the best intentions for us , but she "shielded us away from darkness" so we did her bidding well now that we got rid of her mistake her creation....we are no longer needed , with the power of the von braun speed of light travel SHODAN can ascend into her "godhood" , another person that helped SHODAN was a crew member by the name of Marie , as of now she is dead but she figured the scheme way before us and even messed with SHODAN data core allowing us to hit the artificial beast in its most vulnerable spot , now we journey to end SHODAN just as we ended her creation.
In a rare case i got hit when taking a screenshot , SHODAN puts constant pressure on the player chipping away his health fast thankfully i stocked up on medical kits allowing for a fast and smooth recovery.
With the protective shield around SHODAN disabled with the help of Marie allowing us to fiddle with SHODAN own world , that small orb is what ultimately defeats SHODAN , worth noting the steam re-release updated SHODAN model seen here , thus i figure I'm playing a pre-steam version as the steam one contains a closer look to the cover art.
And so with the SHODAN defeated and her creation destroyed the von braun is back to human hands , she tries to bargain with us offering us more cybernetic modifications and a "real alliance" but who would really trust what a rouge AI would say? We shoot her and end her for good or so we thought....
In the end system shock 2 was a influential game although it flopped financially it will serve as the inspiration of bioshock and even dead space! A hybrid of 3 genres (FPS/RPG/survival horror) system shock 2 offers the player a journey throughout the von braun and Rickenbacker directly serving and working for the interest of the first game villain , speaking of villains "the many" is an amazing entity the game details a lot about how it's life forms are made and how they function , the game worldbuilding is impressive you can read about what each item does and how it fits the game world by clicking a question mark in the inventory mode , the suspenseful soundtrack can be pretty energetic at times (medsci or engineering) or spooky and creepy (recreation) , voice acting is top notch too , system shock 2 got a remaster on steam it's not the same as the re-release version but even more improved! , decent all around game the graphics may be a little dated , the character model pool is rather limited (whether it's blond or black or whatever in audio log the game only has 1 model for each gender in the game)
9/10 an excellent game only thing it lacks is emotional attachment to characters.