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If you're looking for the race which succeeded the Tosc, you might want to check Kai (U2).
The Tosc are boss enemies from Unreal II: The Awakening.
Overview[]
The Tosc were a violent and dangerous race of ancient warriors whose DNA was within the genes of the Kai, waiting to be returned to their true form by the unification of the Artifact pieces. They are green and gray-brown in color, standing on multiple legs. They do not appear to have eyes in the way humans do, but either have them or are aware of their surroundings another way. When a limb is severed, the Tosc appear to "bleed" a bright green fluid. Tosc are about 15 feet/4.2 meters tall, and have dull greenish slimy skin. They have a single emerald green eye shaped like a hurricane, and spindly legs with two long, claw-like toes. Their right arm is spindly and has three long claws, but their right arm has a heavy, six-fingered hand with glowing green lights on the back of it. This "hand" can be shot off and used as the Tosc Cannon.
The Tosc do not pick up and carry weapons the way humans do. Instead, their devastating weapon, the Singularity Cannon, is naturally part of their body, an extension of their right arm. Firing the Cannon does not inflict damage in the way bullets, grenades or rockets do. Instead, the Singularity Cannon generates a miniature black hole, somehow projecting it towards a target. It pulls items and persons near enough to the path of the round towards and even into it, before terminating.
The Singularity Cannon does not actually *kill* its target the way a Rocket Launcher does, where remains are in some way left behind. Instead, it transports its target somewhere else. The Singularity Cannon is even able the hull of a military space vessel, as Marines aboard the Dorian Gray at one point are heard shouting, "Don't let it fire at the hull!" "If it busts a hole in the ship, we're dead!" This fear is proven true at a point when a Singularity Cannon shot hits the ship's hull and the shipboard VI announces a hull breach, and closes bulkheads leading to that area.
In addition to the Singularity Cannon, which fires a mini black hole, sucking in everything alive and killing it instantly, Tosc also have a beam that they fire out of their eye and can also use their right hand.
Long ago, in a time so ancient it is barely remembered, the Tosc had masters that they served with "weapons of awesome power," in the words of Sector Commander Hawkins. When there were no more masters to serve, their scientists hid their DNA within the Kai, and "forged [the] Artifacts against the day they might once again be needed." The Kai lived on into the times when humans traveled amongst the stars, where they were found and given menial tasks to do, like cooking, all the while containing the potential to become Tosc.
Appearances[]
The Tosc are an ancient amphibian race. They appear in the last mission, The Dorian Gray.
When Sector Commander Hawkins, captain of the Dorian Gray, recovered all of the artifacts from the wreckage of the TCA Atlantis, he and his crew were able to decipher the glyphs on them. They told the story of the Tosc, and Hawkins decided he would wield the Tosc as a new weapon on behalf of Earth in mankind's war with the Skaarj. Hawkins believed that a test could be done, with one Kai in a containment chamber surrounded by John Dalton and a team of Marines in case something went wrong. The Kai transformed into a Tosc and immediately became hostile before being damaged and then killed by Dalton. The transformation was not isolated, however; all of the Kai on the Dorian Gray became rampaging Tosc, tearing up the ship from the inside. This prompted Hawkins to set a course for Star FG-708, knowing that destroying the ship was the only way to put the Tosc down. When John Dalton escaped aboard a one-man escape pod, he watched as the ship headed toward the star, eventually exploding. The Tosc onboard were all killed, and the Artifacts needed to create them destroyed.
Tips and tricks[]
- The Tosc are massive and powerful beings, naturally armored against immense amounts of damage. The entire range of small arms featured in Unreal II is barely able to do anything against them; only the Hydra Grenade Launcher and Rocket Launcher seem to have much effect.
- Tosc are nearly immune to almost all hand-held weapons. The best way of taking down a Tosc is to ignite them with an incendiary grenade, or hit them with a few toxic grenades. This will cause their left hand to fall off. Grab it, and you can use the Singularity Cannon, killing the Tosc in one shot. There is no other way of thoroughly killing a Tosc, as they appear to be invulnerable after losing it's hand or having an incredible amount of hitpoints.
- Like the first Tosc, all other Tosc you encounter can be disarmed. The fastest way is using incendiary grenades, as they will dish out serious damage. However, this is rather ill-advised and, considering by then you'll have the Singularity Cannon, quite unnecessary.
Trivia[]
- Using cheats, it is possible to kill a Tosc without using the Singularity Cannon. This can be done using the DamageNPCs # command, or giving yourself Deployable Turrets and deploying them onto a Tosc, which will crush it. Upon death, the Tosc will play a rare animation and freeze, as they noticeably lack a death animation.
- The story documents reveal that only the Kai within range of the combined Artifact are transformed into Tosc, hence the sacrifice of the ship.
Development[]
- The Tosc changed appearance multiple times. They had temporary Titan models in early pre-alpha versions before their actual models got imported/rigged properly. Image of the original Unreal Engine 1 Toscs is present in the big "most skeletal models" image of early Unreal II developement. They were presented as crustaceans originally, with design that obviously evolved from the Unreal Titans a little. In the E3 2001 version, the Tosc had a radically different design again.
- An exclusive quote from the very first Unreal II document tells the full story of the Tosc, told to the player via Friday, an important Kai character that got cut:
- From the same document but earlier:
Gallery[]
External links and references[]
See also[]
| Unreal II: The Awakening creatures |
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| Mercenaries: Light Ghost Warrior - Medium Ghost Warrior - Heavy Ghost Warrior - Light Angel - Medium Angel - Heavy Angel |
| Aliens: Izarian - Light Skaarj - Medium Skaarj - Heavy Skaarj - Light Araknid - Medium Araknid - Heavy Araknid - Light Drakk - Medium Drakk - Drakk Boss - Drakk Droid - Tosc |
| Passive creatures: Mukhogg - Seagoat - Rammer - Snipe - Kai |