electromagnetic pulse

Description

The Quake 4 single player mode continues the story of Quake II by pitting the player against a cyborg alien race known as the Strogg. The game follows the story of a Marine named Matthew Kane who is a member of the fabled Rhino Squad. Following the success of the protagonist of Quake II in destroying the Strogg's leader, the Makron, the Rhinos are tasked with spearheading the mission to finally secure the aliens' home planet Stroggos. In the course of the invasion, the squad ship is shot down and crashes in the middle of a battle zone, separating Kane from his companions. Kane eventually rejoins his scattered team members and partakes in the assault against the Strogg. After performing a number of tasks, such as destroying and capturing Strogg aircraft hangars and defense systems, Kane and his remaining squad members make it to the USS Hannibal. There they are given their next mission: infiltrating one of the Strogg's central communication hubs, the Tetranode, with an electromagnetic pulse bomb in the hope that it will put the main Strogg Nexus in disarray. Kane is tasked with defending the mission convoy, which takes heavy casualties. After many setbacks, including the destruction of the EMP device by a Strogg ambush, Kane is left to complete the mission, assisted only by Private Johann Strauss and Lance Corporal Nikolai "Sledge" Slidjonovitch. Strauss figures out a way to destroy the core by shutting down its coolant systems. As Kane reaches the entrance to the Tetranode, however, he is greeted by two rocket-equipped network guardians - as well as the newly constructed Makron. The Makron easily defeats Kane and knocks him unconscious. When Kane finally awakens, he finds himself strapped to a conveyor belt in the "Strogg Medical Facilities", a structure used for turning those captured and killed by the aliens either into protein food or additional Strogg units. In a long and gruesome first-person cutscene, Kane is taken through this stroggification process which violently replaces much of his anatomy with bio-mechanical parts. Before the final controlling neurochip implanted in his brain can be activated, though, Rhino Squad bursts into the facility and rescues Kane. After escaping through the Strogg medical facility and Waste Disposal plant, fighting off zombie-like half-stroggified humans along the way.