S5E04: Meatheads

'''After much turmoil and confusion, at last the Rebellion completes its temporary merger with The General. Units and Squadrons are shifted around, and given new commanders and comrades. The Sayan Squad is hardly exempt from this, and is merged with The General's best and brightest, becoming the new Sayan Termination Unit. But having all that power on your side comes at a siginifcant price, as the former members of the Sayan Squad will learn as they embark on their first, but most vital mission...'''

Plot Summary
Both the Rebellion's and The General's forces met in Universe Zero as the final arrangements for the Alliance were organized. The ships were packed so thick that the void of stars around them could not be seen, nor the black void. Agents on both sides were waiting upon the signal to take up their new assignments and posts. Soon after, transports departed from the Head and to all the Rebel ships to announce just that. Amadeus arrived on board Eagle One, informed everyone aboard to see their superiors for their postings, and then he turned to the Sayan Squad. He ordered them to follow him, and they did, as the transport returned them to The General's Head.

Leading them through the newly-repaired halls, Amadeus led them to another hangar, where Captain Hood, Cyem, and an entire company of green-clad soldiers awaited them. There, much to their dismay, they were informed by Captain Hood that their new assignment puts them directly under his command. Amadeus then hurried off, as he had his own new post to attend. After the initial shock, Hood told them that they wouldn't alone in serving under him, and he introduced them to Samuel Sirus, captain of The General's 447th Ground Assault/Recon Company. Together, the Sayan Squad and the 447th GARC would be known as the Sayan Termination Unit, or STU for short.

Sirus then took the opportunity to introduce several of his senior officers. First was his first lieutenant and second-in-command, Nathaniel Davis; his second Lietunenant and chief engineer Daniel Gordon, and Warrant Officer Joeseph Williams.

Upon Sirus' mentioning of Williams' name, he broke into a small smile as G Squadron recoiled in fear. When Kanako and Arachnos asked what the deal was, Vate and Ketsueki told them that Williams was known as "the Butcher." He was infamously one of The General's best agents, and was known to be extremely ruthless and skilled. Ketsueki even added that he was said to go into a Rebel outpost, alone, and kill every single Rebel inside to the point where their blood leaked out the windows.

Contrary to their stories of him, Williams mostly seemed distant, and asked Hood when they would be leaving, to which he was replied with "immediately." Captain Hood informed the rest of the STU that their primary objective in this war would be to locate the Sayan homeworld. Their intel suggested that the Sayan Queen is immobile, and thus if she would be anywhere, it would naturally be at the homeworld. He also reported that the Sayan Queen is known to be far smarter and more ambitious than previous Queens, as evidenced by the very invasion itself, and how the Sayans managed to carry out their plan beneath their noses. If the Alliance could terminate the Queen, it was very likely that the Sayan forces would falter hard without her guidance. Their mission today was to investigate one of the several worlds identified as possible candidates for the homeworld, and to confirm its status. Their mission understood, Hood returned to the bridge. The General's Head was going to be taking Delta and Upsilon Fleet, along with RAG's Sector 17 and 18 fleets.

When the STU arrived, they found the planet in question to be completely red with the Sayans' terraformer. The Sayans also had some light orbital defenses, in the form of their organic-like ships the Squad encountered previously. Hood ordered the Alliance fleet to engage, with Sirus directing the STU from the Head. Gordon and Davis of the 447th assisted the rest of the space-capable Squad via specialized MEP Units.

The Sayan defenses proved no match for Rebel and Gentech. Not helping their cause were their very simple tactics, which mostly involved throwing themselves at the enemy with little to no regard for self-preservation. This changed when Hood detected a Sayan armada approaching from the planet. Instantly, the Sayans began using more advanced tactics, including flanking, hit-and-run, and actual evasive manuevers. Sirus reported that they detected communications coming from the surface. Whoever was commanding the Sayan forces here was most likely located there. He asked Hood for permission to go planetside, and it was granted. Sirus orders the STU return to the Head temporarily to protect the dropships they'd be taking. Delta Fleet and Sector 17 followed them down, as did a few Sayan ships.

While battling one in particular, Aurion stabbed it multiple times and heard it groan in pain. Eventually the ship was forced to pull back after taking further blasts from Terminos and Kanako. The lack of pursuants granted the STU a brief moment of repireve to observe the planet, which they saw was covered in the red terraformer, with massive red blemishes across the otherwise barren landscape. These appeared to be factories, as freshly-made ships could be seen launching out of them. As a production world for the Sayans, Sirus ordered the STU to infiltrate the biggest facility out there. Additionally, the communications to the above fleet were traced to that exact "building." Arachnos asked why they couldn't just bomb it from above, to which Sirus replied that they were on an intel-gathering mission. With that, the Squad portions of the STU went to the surface to try and find a way inside.

There were no visible doors or other openings. Arachnos was forced to rely on his scanners, which led him to an unassuming part of the organic wall. Beliving the wall to be a special door for Sayans, Arachnos began to attack it, soon joined by Kanako and the Anathemites. However, despite their best efforts, the wall would always "heal" its "wound." The rest of the 447th touched ground, and began assembling a large device of some sort. Sirus ordered the Squad to keep attacking the wall to keep it weakened, and then told them to move out of the way when the device was commplete. The device turned out to be some kind of cannon, which when combined with the damage to the door, blew it wide open. The 447th immediately moved in and engaged the Sayans, including Sirus himself, who went full-auto on them with his heavy repeating blaster cannon. The Squad were amazed at the display of power from the 447th, as not even being disarmed proved much of a hinderance to them. Unarmed soldiers would just beat their enemies to death with their bare hands.

Eventually the Squad assisted the 447th with taking out all the mutant Sayans that had swarmed them, along with even a few purebreds. With the room clear, Sirus led them through the halls, trying to reach the Sayan commander. Along the way, the two groups had a chance to interact. Aurion proclaimed that he had a lot of fun in exterminating the Sayans, which prompted Sirus to ask if he'd like to sing up with The General after the Sayan War was taken care of. Most of everyone on the Squad took this to offense, but they dared not speak it, outside of a few mublings or encouragements for denial.

Sirus led them to a massive room off to the side, which on first glance appeared to be for the purpose of building starships. How they were built, however, horrified the STU. An unknown race of aliens had been captured by the Sayans, and were being forced through the machinery by them. The aliens would be mutated as they went along, however the mutations always failed, resulting in the aliens becoming things similar to what the Squad witnessed on Baur. Worst of all, this seemed intentional, as the then-warped bodies of the aliens would then be attached to starship frames. With horror, the STU realized why the ships moaned in pain when struck.

Without hesitation, Sirus ordered the STU to shut down the production facility, to which the Squad eagerly agreed. Many of them were enraged at the sight and were all to happy to exterminate the Sayans responsible. Aurion even went into Ratatosk mode. Most of the Sayans in the room put up no fight; they were a new breed of Sayans yet unwitnessed. They were slimmer and smaller, and seemed to have no itnerest in battle. In fact, none of them even reacted to the STU's intrustion. Olyn even held one at bay, and just watched as it continued to reach for the machine it was stationed at, seemingly completely unaware that Olyn was holding them.

These drone-like Sayans fell with ease, which prompted the pure Sayans watching from the sidelines to intervene. Mutants also poured in to try and mutate the STU. One of the purebreds was knocked towards the caged aliens, which gave it an idea. It opened the cage, and let the mutants in. Seeing this, Sirus, again with no hesitation, ordered the STU to execute the prisoners to prevent them from becoming mutants. This command was met with shock and horror from members of the Squad, though the 447th had no problem following through. Oneiros and Terminos defended the decision.

Sirus ordered the bulk of the 447th to remain behind, while he, his senior officers, and the Squad pressed onward. The walk towards the command sanctum was a quiet one. Eventually they reached a shaft right above them that led to the command sanctum. There were no stairs or ramps, just some notches in the sides of the shaft for Sayans to fling themselves upwards with. Sirus requested for the "flyboys" to do something, to which Ratatosk immediately flew up the shaft. This was not what Sirus wanted, so instead he turned to Gordon. Gordon pulled out a special pad and placed it beneath the shaft. Ratatosk came back down and landed on the pad, and painfully discovered it was a jump pad as he was sent flying, and landed hard on the floor above. Sirus and his men used the jump pad, while most of the Squad flew up. Those who couldn't also took the pad.

Up the shaft, the STU found a control room occupied by three drones, two pures, and one massive, hulking Sayan. Sirus quietly ordered Gordon and Williams to take out the drones, while Kanako, Arachnos, Aurion, and Oneiros dealt with the pures. That just left the large one, which Sirus and the rest of the STU kept an eye on. Once its guards were defeated, the meaty sayan went on the attack. The STU quickly discovered it was impervious to attacks, as its entire exterior was covered in mangled bodies; the same variety they used to buld their starships.

The meaty sayan gave a tremendous roar, and just then, Davis reported that another batch of Sayans was on the way, trying to break into the command sanctum. Sirus left the Squad to "figure [it] out," while he helped his men hold off the Sayan horde. Meanwhile, Saiyo entered a trance-like state and touched the monster, opnly to be thrown against the wall. While getting up, she told everyone to aim for the center. To burn it, and then to kill it. Fire, which had until now been somewhat effective, was used full force to burn off the Sayan's hide. There, they were able to see a black ball floating in a large membrane.

With this armor burned away, the Sayan revealed its true form that looked like an amorphous tree. It had tentacles for branches, and spider-like leg roots which carried it around the room. Additionally, the Sayan could plant itself into the room, and morph tentacles out of the walls floor and ceiling to attack. The STU had to contend with those while also damaging the membrane far enough to start causing the liquid inside to spill out. Eventually, the Sayan began to "deflate" as it lost more and more fluid, and Hado delivered the final blow, decimating the orb. A shield provided by Daisuke and Olyn protected him from its caustic effects.

The battle over, Sirus and his men returned from dealing with the horde. Sirus applauded the Squad for their work, and was about to leave when Williams spoke up. He claimed to hear a noise, and once everyone was quiet, they could hear it too: a low hum, emanating from a console near the Meaty Sayan's formery location. The console, alien in design and usage, nevertheless had a part that the STU could understand: monitors. The one on the right was static, presumably towards the quickly-dwindling ships in orbit as Hood destroyed their fleet. The one on the left, hwoever, showed an apparently empty wheelchair. It was revealed that it was not in fact empty, as its occupant poked its head up from below, as if it had been hiding. Before the STU could get a solid look at the figure, the transmission cut to static.

The STU was left to wonder who that was. Williams suggested that the Sayan "commander" they had just taken out was not a commander at all, but just a relay for the real commander, though he was unable to guess who that could be. Arachnos mentioned Dr. Greenspan, thinking he might know a thing or two about who that was. Jack asked why the Sayans would even work with someone like his father, but Arachnos retorted that clearly someone had been. Why not Dr. Greenspan?

Nevertheless, Sirus ordered the STU to return to the dropships, and gave Hood the green light to obliterate the facility.

Soundtrack

 * 1) Opening Theme - Gold Rush (Ancient Aliens)
 * 2) Rendezvous Tension - Main Theme (Star Wars: Rogue Squadron)
 * 3) Organization Scramble - Main Theme (Battlefield 2, London Philharmonic Orchestra)
 * 4) Aboard the Head - Evil Incarnate (DOOM II)
 * 5) Captain Hood: DarkBlade (The Enigma TNG)
 * 6) The 447th - Nobody Told Me About Id (DOOM)
 * 7) The Mission - Main Theme ~ Reprise (Star Wars: Rogue Squadron)
 * 8) First Flight - Naggi Sucks! (AVGN Adventures)
 * 9) Incoming Assault - Stage 13 Intro (Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine)
 * 10) Surface Dive - Power Bom (Remastered Tracks Rockman Zero -Idea-)
 * 11) Merciless - Nobody Told Me About Id (Andrew Hulshult version)
 * 12) Meat Factory - Deathshead's Theme (Wolfenstein: The New Order)
 * 13) Murder - Babel Tower (Rockman ZX Tunes)
 * 14) Blood on the Walls, Blood on Your Hands - Scream TV pt. 2 (Gex: Enter the Gecko)
 * 15) Wall of Meat - Prototype (Wolfenstein: The New Order)
 * 16) Vs. Meaty Sayan - Vs. Deathshead (Wolfenstein: The New Order)
 * 17) Unknown Transmission - Brave (Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine)
 * 18) Ending Theme - Gold Rush (Ending Mix)

Trivia

 * This episode originally had a longer ending, but it was cut short due to time constraints. Instead, the cut parts of the episode will be used at the start of the next one.
 * A similar event happened with She Who Walks Among Us and Wicked Hands back in Season 4.
 * This episode marks the debut of the 447th GARC, a group of characters SDM had developed for the purpose of illustrating that even chipped, The General's soldiers are still human.
 * Each member of the 447th additionally references certain FPS protagonists:
 * Samuel Sirus references Sam "Serious" Stone from the Serious Sam franchise, with his red combat boots being a nod to Sam's trademark red sneakers.
 * Nathaniel Davis's short blonde hair and optical visor call on Duke Nukem's hair and sunglasses, respectively.
 * Daniel Gordon's status as team engineer is reminiscent of Half-Life's Gordon Freeman, who was a theoretical physicist. He is also never heard talking (only seen whispering to his teammates), as a reference to Gordon Freeman's famous status as a silent protagonist.
 * Joseph Williams takes his name from William Joseph "B.J." Blazkowicz of Wolfenstein fame.
 * Williams' history as "The Butcher" harkens back to the "One-Man Army" nature of old FPSes, but turned around so that the one-man army belongs to the enemy instead.
 * The standard grunts, with their vicious brutality, are an homage to the "Doomguy" from the eponymous franchise, though more specifically they reference his portrayal in the 2016 reboot.