This event was released around the time of Echoes of Reality cataclysm when The Oncoming Storm update was went live.
This also serves as a prequel event to the mission The Hunt and helps explain what Doctor Harken was doing in Bastion.
Objectives
- Bring Crystals to Fort Tarsis
- Destroy Crystals to Collect them
- Defeat Dominion
Script and Walkthrough
Briefing
- Faye: "I’ve Intercepted a Dominion distress call."
- Dominion Soldier: "We can't stop it. Everything just seems to make it worse. We're preparing to abandon this position."
- Faye: "Sending you the location. Be careful. It's either a trap, or a disaster in the making. That's either a trap or an opportunity waiting for us."
In Mission
If the Freelancer decides to check the distress call, the Dominion are frozen solid, while some devices are attached to the argentine Shaper Crystals in the vicinity.
- Faye: "There! Those formations are covering some sort of device. See if you can shut them down. Our Dominion woes seem to be caused by those crystal formations. They're alive but, uh, frozen."
Destroy the Crystals to Collect them
- Faye: " The crystals are stirring up the wildlife. Brutes headed your way."
The Freelancer can fight the frozen Dominion while Brutes attack them. They can also destroy the crystals. When the smaller crystals are destroyed, some that are hooked to the Dominion Devices will start to grow.
- Faye: "Woah! More crystals!"
At this point, because the devices have been destroyed, the Dominion start thawing down.
- Faye: "Get ready for trouble. The soldiers around you are waking up."
Defeat Dominion
The Freelancer fights the Dominion soldiers. At this point, the Dominion open a gate to send in more soldiers.
- Faye: "They’ve torn open a gate. Watch out."
The Freelancer fights additional enemies, while the Dominion Argent Troopers try to quickly collect the crystals and exit through the gate.
Note: This doesn’t matter during The Oncoming Storm. However, during Echoes of Reality, if the Argent Troopers are not stopped, then the crystal rewards received at the end will be way fewer.
When the Freelancer defeats all the Dominion soldiers
- Faye: "No more Dominion in your immediate area. Collect some samples of their work and let’s go."
Post Mission
Open the chest and collect the loot and ember rewards. There will also be Crystal rewards that show up as a pink resupply unit during Echoes of Reality.
Trivia (May Contain Spoilers)
- Additional Dominion Soldier dialogues indicate what the Dominion were planning to do and who actually was giving them command:
- Dominion Soldier: Can anyone hear me? Device appears to be going critical. Please advise.
- Dominion Soldier: Containment is failing. I repeat: Containment is failing. Please send assistance.
- Dominion Soldier: It wasn't supposed to do this! We can no longer reach the device to shut it down. Help us!
- Dominion Soldier: It's spreading! Command, if you're hearing this, please hurry!
- The reason why Dominion was collecting the crystals was because Harken commanded them to so that he could build a device to stop Vara from starting a Cataclysm. This is later revealed after having conversations with the Dominion Arcanist in the Prison once the mission The Hunt is completed.
- Before the Oncoming Storm/ Echoes of Reality patch was released, random structures called Crystal Stand-in Assets were starting to pop up on the ground because of a bug. These were crystal assets that hadn’t been textured until the patch was released. Once the Patch was released, the crystals looked like they were supposed to.
- If the Critical Objectives, especially Return to the Heart of Rage, aren’t completed, the Cypher for this expedition will be Owen and not Faye.