(Authors' Note: This update was sent to us by the reader jolou! I've edited it for consistency, and I've added commercial/critical reception data as well.)
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Mirroring the scene from the opening of Selene 1, we follow a shuttle leaving an unknown Planet only to find the Selene in Orbit.
YOUR ADVENTURE CONTINUES
A group of prisoners walk under the sun in a single file. The scene zooms in to show that Mathew is amongst them.
WILL YOUR SAVE YOUR PEOPLE?
A scene of battle occurs under a ruined settlement. The aliens are killing what seem to be prisoners without any distinction. Two aliens of the race that attacked the Selene, a male and a female, are shown to be leaving a shuttle.
OR WILL YOU RUN?
Mathew alongside Joe are fleeing their opponents and jump in a river below. Five alien soldiers look at them from above.
CREATE YOUR ADVENTURE
The Selene is seen fighting a lot of spaceship, and is seemingly destroyed in combat. Then, it emerges from the wreckage still intact, and returns fire, claiming victory. Numerous scenes are shown of both positive and negative outcomes, showing the interactivity and complexity of the game.
SELENE 2
In Search Of A Safe Harbor
-from the North American television advertisement for Selene 2, which aired throughout the fall of 2011
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Selene 2
The Game begins in 2109, just after the ending of the original and it ends 8 years later in 2117.
Arkane has addressed some of the complaints about the first game's voice acting, spending more money to hire more talented actors, replacing most of the original cast. These changes include casting Michael Antonakos as Areus Turianid, among others. However, Rana Stora retains her original voice actor. Jesper Kyd has been brought on to compose the game's soundtrack. In terms of gameplay, the mechanics from the first game return. However, in a similar way to OTL Mass Effect 2, the “RPG” part of the game is reduced, becoming more like an Action-RPG, but unlike OTL Mass Effect 2, the game still features lots of roleplaying choices which have major consequences. There is also a small sequence near the endgame where you can actually control the Nautilus (A ship you use to explore the surrounding systems) during the endgame battle. It doesn’t last long but it's a minor preview of what might appear in the next game.
The main characters include...
Mathew Fullington : You continue to play Mathew Fullington, a white man in his 30s now hardened by the knowledge of the Invasion of Earth, the Battle for the Selene and the whole civil war inside it. Depending on your choices, he can have a family during the game.
Elis Norell (SAF First Game): Elis became more and more conflicted about his actions during the first game but kept it secret to the public. He is becoming paranoid because he feels that he is the only one that can lead humanity. Also, he's begun to suspect that Mathew wants to take his place. He doesn’t appear as much as he did in the first game because he's keeping himself isolated from his crew.
Rana Stora (Resistance First Game) : Rana Stora is still the same person, a bit conflicted between now her more public role, where she has to appear friendly, hopeful for mankind's future and her more private personality as a cynical woman. The fact that she is now the Cincinnatus of the Selene doesn’t really help her mental state either. She has more appearances than her equivalent Elis Norell due to her popularity with the fans and the public.
Cass “Strongarm”: Cass was only three at the beginning of the invasion. He is 41 at the beginning of the game. He was shipped off of the Earth at age seven and never saw the planet again. He began a short life as a slave until he was 14, when he was taken by the Taygetan due to his natural strength and an affinity for leadership. He managed to escape the brainwashing the other soldiers had during their youths and survived the nuclear explosion during the battle of the Selene by being in the officer's quarter and unlike others, expecting defeat. He is one of the character's whose fate can change depending on your actions. He can continue with the Selene, begin a mercenary life, return to the Taygetan or he can be killed by Mathew.
Areus Turianid : One of the game's two main “antagonists”, and yet he isn’t really one. Areus came from a long line of Taygetan nobility, traditionally more diplomat, administrator rather than soldier. Areus has been tasked by the two kings to investigate any activity that could prevent the development of the Empire in this sector. Due to his uncle being one of the actual kings, he still holds a lot of powers over the other Taygetan and he use the authority given to him to permit the development of economic activity by the slaves and refugees. He hopes to convince them to know their place by being compassionate and is noted to have made more “honorary Taygetan” than many other nobles way older than him. In term of personality, we could say that he is the closest to Garrus Vakarian from OTL Mass Effect.
Hera Turianid: Areus' sister and the main antagonist of the game. Like Areus, she came from a long line of Taygetan nobility. She goes against the family tradition of serving in diplomacy to join the military. She has been tasked by the two kings to transform the new conquest of the Empire into profitable land. She doesn’t understand her brother obsession with making “honorary Taygetan” as she believes the other race to have been made to serve the Empire.
Joe Clinton: Joe was severely hurt during the battle, losing several fingers and an ear. As a result, he has mechanical fingers. He has also now become more cynical, with more “dark jokes”, and launches himself into battle without too much thinking. Yet, he’s still your friend and considers you the main reason of the Selene's survival. He doesn’t even question your choice now. He's a bit fanatical about Mathew.
The game begins with a reunion of the leading members of the Selene being called, and getting into a heated exchange until the leader, either Elis or Nora, intervenes. They call to change course for another system in hope that the aliens won’t be there and to explore the stranded alien ship in order to take what could be necessary for the Selene. Mathew is given the task. The next stop is inside a shuttle going to the alien ship, we can see a hole inside it due to the nuke and several corpses (and robots) in space around it. During the whole exploration of the ship, you have the threat of alien survivors, which prevent you from truly relaxing. After a time, you decide see what's inside the armor and you order a trooper to open one. At the same, Selene control calls you telling that they did the same and found (at the same time, we can see the helmet of the Alien trooper being taken off) a Human inside it. You do the same and every dead body inside the ship is human. There is a part of the ship you can’t access. Ultimately, you manage to find a survivor, whose name is Cass. Cass reveals to you several things, that this part of the ship was forbidden to them and that was where their leader was. Many of the troopers were conditioned from birth to serve them, Cass was lucky enough to be too good to be killed young. Second that they are another species called Taygetan. You enter the forbidden area to here find alien corpses in more extravagant armor and clothes. There you can see that their computers have been auto-destroyed but Cass helps you take the part you need, and leads you to two of their back up engines, which a team will put inside the Selene to serve as a propulsion system. After your return, you have to deal with the fallout of the battle and the various discoveries inside the Alien Ship. So far, this part of th game has been fairly similar to the original Selene.
The Selene has several districts severely damaged, the most important being the Farming sector. It did count for only 20% of the production but alongside this sector some hydroponic farms have also been destroyed. The leader of the Selene selects what should be the priority (If you do it then you obtain several bonuses for the rest of the game but you aren’t obligated). Elis want the military hangar to be restored quickly, Rana wants the farm. Elis says that if the ship isn’t protected then having to ration the survivors doesn’t matter, Rana say that the farm helped the morale to be high and that you can’t underestimate the morale. Outside this obligation, you have to hear the various grievances of the various sectors. There's a lot of complicated choices, and some are only about taking the least bad one. To put the new engine on, it takes one year, and then 3 years to reach an abandoned Taygetan base according to Cass. During that time, you can actually be engaged with your love interest from the first game or a new one. And at the end of your trip, you will actually have become a father to a daughter called Audrey. By the time you arrive to the base, the Selene has been patched together but is still severely damaged from the fight. The base has indeed been abandoned. As you explore it, Cass explains to you that it has probably been used to prepare the invasion of Earth as it is close to the solar system. Of course he didn’t say Solar System, but Arteus, the name given by the Taygetan which does show there is difference between them. On that base, they found a small and old Taygetan scout ship. After you return to the Selene, the leader tasks you with exploring the surroundings with the scout ship. During that time, the Selene will continue to prepare itself. You decide to name the scout ship Nautilus and you head for a system called Gergos which was an important system inside the Neutral zone and of which Cass confirms wasn’t conquered. Here, you hope that you can obtain more information. Then you leave, your child just born for a mission whose duration you don’t know. You take a small crew, some gold you hope can be used as currency, and you leave behind the Selene.
You can skip the trip directly or you can choose to pass some time with the crew. You learn that Cass has seen many planets and has even been to the homeworld of the Taygetan, Eurotas. He also explains to you that Earth was part of a region called “The Neutral Zone”, a place of the Galaxy between two Empires, the Taygetan (the one who invaded Earth) and the Attican. They are in a state of Cold War but recently (in terms of their history), the Taygetan slowly take more and more part of the Neutral Zone profiting from the Attican internal troubles. As of Joe, he seems quite broken emotionally due to his near-death experience during the assault of the Ship in the previous game and he now follows every order you give as if he is trying to do everything so you can’t send him away. The Gorgos system has a massive Space Station named Elysium for merchant and mercenary kinda similar to Omega from OTL Mass Effect (but this time around a Gas planet Yavin IV style) and a planet named Gorg which has become an industrial type planet with many species inside it, but you won’t step foot on it. You directly go to Elysium and as you arrive peoples from different species are everywhere. Everyone except Cass acts very shocked and amazed by such a thing. It won’t be until you explore all the station that the next part begins. The gold you brought with you isn't worth much here, so you have to take odd mercenary jobs until you meet an old Human named Hugo Ros. He recognizes the uniform from the Selene and its logo. He was 20 when the Selene was launched. Hugo reveals to you that the Selene has become kind of a myth, hope for the younger generation and the old. A Myth that some humans still live like before the invasion and hope that they are free and one day will make them free too. You do a small task for him and he introduces you to an human pirate group which hope to gain enough to leave the Neutral Zone for the land of the Attican, a rival empire of the Taygetan . The Neutral zone is actually to separate them. They ask you to move the Selene to their base, which is more developed than the old Taygetan one. You accept and prepare to move. Before you can, a Taygetan Fleet arrives, taking you by surprise. You weren’t at the Nautilus, but were instead far away from the base. You order Cass and Joe to leave without you and to return to the Selene. The station is invaded by the Taygetan and after a long fight you arrive at the pirate headquarters, they have fled and some of them are dead. You realize that it is too late and you are captured alongside many others. You are taken across the station (which is devasted) and you get a first look to Areus and Hera who are putting the survivors in a shuttle.
A montage shows that time has passed, roughly six months. Mathew has been send to a slave camp, building infrastructure for the Taygetan on one of their newest colonies. He is now well connected with the others humans and Aliens (Mainly one looking similar to the Batarian from Mass Effect named Tozhon, and the Vern, a race of insectoids) and has started to found a resistance cell. During this part of the game, you will have to grow the resistance by different ways (kill Taygetan officer, steal equipment, recruiting people). Yet at the beginning of that part, you are confronted by a Taygetan named Areus Turianid. He reveals to you that he knows from where you came (the Selene). You will meet him three others times before your revolt, during which he will say that he doesn’t like this way of developing the Empire and that in his part things are better. As he leaves, he lends you a communication device. You are free to keep it or destroy it. After your last mission to assemble the resistance, it is revealed that the Selene has found you and has sent the Nautilus to extract you. You decide you can’t leave the other slaves here. You launch the rebellion, and the Selene, with the pirates lead by Hugo from earlier, launch an attack from above taking the Taygetan by surprise. Their leader Hera Turianid is forced to flee and you decide the fate of the Taygetan survivors. You can kill them, take them as prisoners, or leave them here. You take all the freed slaves with you on the Selene. As you return to the Selene, you realize that more than one year has passed since your capture. And now every slave speaks of the rival of the Taygetan, the Attican, which are apparently some kind of democracy. After a vote (or the Board decision if it Elis is the leader) the small fleet around the Selene decide to travel there, after a dangerous escape. Elis or Rana decide that they are not enough strong to pass the Taygetan blockade. The next 30 % of the game (after this, it only leaves 10% of the game), you have to successfully unite several refugee/pirate/independent fleet to force your way in Attican territory. If you try to force your way in too early, it ends with a game over, a cutscene of the Selene being destroyed and Mathew's daughter being enslaved. There are four fleets, two human, two alien. You only need one to beat the “final boss”, and if you take only human fleets it can have serious consequence way later. To get one of the fleets on your side, you need you to do for them two quests, and even afterward, you can still fail according to your reaction/dialogue choices. Also, you will fight with Hera several times.
The first fleet is under the command of a woman named Victoria who also served in the Taygetan army until she managed to turn her crew against them and flee with their ship making her one of the only ones with a brand new Taygetan ship. She has used it to clear out a bit of the neutral sector for herself. Yet, now with the Taygetan arriving in her sector, she feel that it would be quite a good time to flee as they are likely looking for her. As a condition for joining your fleet, she asks that you help her to liberate a slave camp where her brother is. The plan was a success until Hera arrived, you escape with Victoria but her brother is killed. Nevertheless, she decides to help you and join your fleet. The second fleet is actually three small mercenary groups which were on their way to unification until their leader was killed. It is up to you to end the process and to be acclaimed their leader. For that, there isn’t actually any fighting. That series of quests use what was considered the best part of the previous game, Humans relationship and the civil war between Humans. You must prevent them from fighting each other with a series of investigations, dialogues and negotiations. If you succeed, you are acclaimed as their leader and they join your fleet. The third fleet (and the first alien one) is from a planet named Kepalli. At first, you arrive at this planet because they were one of the only still unoccupied by the Taygetan, and so you tried to make an alliance. But they quickly say that they have an agreement with the Taygetan and that they won’t attack them. But they agree to provide you some upgrade for your fleet (you obtain an overall bonus), you leave and then you learn that they indeed got invaded by the Taygetan. But if you didn’t accept that offer, you are contacted by an Admiral and the heir to the Kepallian Kingdom. They believe that the Taygetan will invade and ask for your help. In this scenario, you aren’t ready when Hera's fleet arrives and you can only help the fleet to retreat with heavy loses and letting their homeworld get invaded. The last fleet is one composed of several aliens races and leaded by a former “Honorary Taygetan” and former Ally of Areus. It serves as an expansion of Areus' background and insight from someone who actually manage to raise in status in the Taygetan Society. The thing is that you actually don’t know if they are still loyal to Areus or truly wish to free themselves, they will stay loyal to you at the end but during that part, they are foreshadowing that they are still in contact with Areus.
And then we arrive at the final battle. If you had killed all the Taygetan after your revolt and if you did the same each time you had Taygetan prisoners, Areus won’t help you (and the communicator he gave to you will be used against you), and Cass, due to some kind of Stockholm syndrome will betray you. If you have showed mercy on the Taygetan every time you had an opportunity to do so, you can request Areus' help. He will take some ships to his territory. However, Cass will also leave you because you were too soft on his former oppressor. The battle is around a Wormhole which are quite rare in the area. The Taygetan have begun the construction of a space station to prevent people from leaving through it. As you attack the station and its fleet, Hera's forces arrive (it is stronger if you didn’t do any side missions). If you didn’t go right away, you begin to fight back against the Taygetan, yet it can’t be said if you can win it until… the wormhole is activated and a fleet that Cass (if he didn’t betray or leave you) will identify as an Attican fleet. Faced against them, the Taygetan flee. Apparently, they decided that they could take over the wormhole without losing too much thanks to you. They invade your leadership to come over the other side but only the leadership. You take the Nautilus with Elis or Rana and you arrive at a beautiful station similar to the Citadel from Mass Effect. There, discussion happens with Rana/Elis and then you alone with the diplomat. In Ranaverse, they are quite upset about her and you feel the tension in the air. When you are alone with the diplomat, you realize that they actually doesn’t want your fleet, it apparently won’t help their current government. They say that they are willing to lend you some ships, weapons and cash to fight against the Taygetan. You can say that you agree with them or not. In Elisverse, there is an assassination attempt against him and he survives regardless of your choice. In Ranaverse, it doesn’t matter either, but there is a more serious consequence. The assassination attempt succeeds, and Rana dies in your arms saying “don’t trust them”. The Attican quickly say that this is the fault of the Taygetan and before you can say anything else, your refugee fleet has been made aware too. You return to see them asking for blood. The game ends with all the captains of the various ship composing the fleet saying “Fullington! Fullington”, you are either looking shocked if you said that you didn’t want the Attican help or looking confident otherwise. You will lead a war against the Taygetan in the next game. The Elis endgame is the same but with Elis at your place. You are either one shouting Elis' name or looking terrified of the war that’s going to happen.
There is one major expansion to the game, released in April 2012, called “ The Pale Blue Dot”. The leader of the Selene sends you with the Nautilus to see what happens to Earth. You sneak into orbit with help from Cass and you try to reach old United Nations frequencies until you obtain an answer from a place in the French Alps. There you enter a secret base of the old United Nations Tasks Forces to meet with the resistance. And you recognize that it isn’t glorious. The personnel of the base is running low and mainly tied together by the older elements from the previous era and their leader Andrei Pavlov. Andrei can’t realize that the Selene Initiative worked and uses your arrival to motivate the troops. Yet in private, he confesses they lost many rebels to the Taygetan and that they are the only base of the UNTF still existing as many have been destroyed since the invasion. He asks you to help him save some of his men’s family who has been taken by the Taygetan. For that, you need to go to the Taygetan main colony built on the ruins of Paris (some parts of it are still visible). You enter by the catacombs and find the files. Here you see that they were taken off world. But you also find a file which says that Cass is Andrei long lost son taken during a Taygetan raid. As father and son reunite, you must help the resistance flee for another base unoccupied in Siberia before the Taygetan arrive. There, you and Cass promise to Andrei that you will return one day.
Selene 2 is released exclusively for the Nintendo Sapphire on October 25, 2011. The game is a massive critical success with a stronger critical reception than the first game. Critics praise the game's epic scale, its presentation improvements, and its improved gameplay mechanics, while the game's choice mechanics are also praised for having real and significant consequences (though some critics are a bit upset that your choices can't impact some parts of the story, most critics praise the game's strong narrative that is flexible enough to cover most player choices). The critical reviews and word of mouth lead to strong early sales in both North America and Europe, with the game topping charts in France for several weeks, even after the release of Rockstar's Valdoza. Sales fade a bit more quickly in North America, but it's still one of the best selling Sapphire exclusives of the year. It cements the series' reputation as one of the stronger Nintendo exclusive IPs and perhaps the strongest sci-fi based IP in gaming. A third game immediately enters production, likely headed to the next-generation Nintendo console.
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Selene Expended Universe 2010-2011 :
Selene Invasion (2010) :
Selene Invasion is the sequel of Selene Conspiracy. You follow Captain Andrei Pavlov of the United Nations Task Forces. In the previous novel, Andrei found out the reason of the existence of the Selene Initiative and why the United Nations had grown quite powerful for the past 15 years. His survival was left in suspense at the end of the novel when we saw that the aliens who attacked the Selene during the first game are invading the Earth. The novel takes place 4 years after the Selene’s departure and approximately one year after the end of the previous novel. Andrei has survived the first strike from the unknown Alien due to the secrecy of the base he was in and managed to enter in contact with the UNTF. For the past year, the UNTF has tried to deal with the destruction of the world's infrastructure, the vicious tactics by the invaders and dealing with a way more technologically advanced enemy. As the novel begins, Andrei team has fallen back to a UNTF Base which was in construction before the invasion. As he tries to cheer up the troops, the news of the fall of the UNTF's main base in Amazonia means that the aliens could have obtained access to all the UNTF bases across the world. Yet, the Secretary General of the United Nations has managed to escape with a data cache, but he has crashed. As the nearest team, Andrei and his team decide to go. On their journey, we can feel the collapse of Human Modern Civilization, and part of the surviving army forces just stop resisting the Aliens and mainly try to take control of the local lands. Andrei manages to reach the Secretary General, who has just been captured by the aliens. They manage to liberate him, but he dies soon after. Yet they did manage to take back the data cache which talks about highly secret technology, and is equipped with some of that technology itself. Worldwide, the United Nations has failed to stop the invaders, but Andrei will build the resistance by using those bases which is the basis of the next book and the last one of the “Pavlov Trilogy”.
Selene Resistance (2011) :
Selene Resistance is the sequel of Selene Invasion and the last book of the trilogy initiated by Selene Conspiracy which will be called the “Pavlov Trilogy”. The main character is still Captain Andrei Pavlov, now the leader of a group of the resistance following the invasion by the mysterious alien forces. It’s been three years since the aliens invaded the planet and across the planet, the last group of resistance from the United Nations falls down. An increasing amount of governments have either been destroyed or surrendered, but Pavlov's group of resistance continues the fight. They have a top-notch base and a list of other bases. The only thing they need is a victory to ensure that recruits come to them. And they have an idea. Cayenne, once the place where pieces of the Selene were being shipped into space, is now the center of a massive launch site for the aliens. Pavlov doesn’t know what happens here, but he believes that a lot of humans are being sent to space. He successfully enters in contact with a resistance team hiding in Amazonia and with his team, they both launch a massive raid on the base using alien weapons and prototypes from their base and it is a limited success. They manage to save thousands who were being sent outside Earth, but they didn’t manage to destroy the base. Yet it is considered a much needed propaganda boost for the resistance But Pavlov's identity as the leader of the resistance is now known from the aliens, who take his family and send his son he hasn’t seen since the invasion, young Cass, to serve as a slave outside the planet. The epilogue shows that the aliens purposely lower the security of the base in order to show the Humans that it as their fate if they weren’t obedient and to provoke the willful humans to join the resistance in order to kill them and take them away from the slaves. Selene Resistance's bittersweet ending was logical considering the state of Earth in Selene 2 and would be accepted by the fans as a good ending. Andrei Pavlov has been a popular protagonist and the trilogy is considered a good one. Commercially it has been a success, since Resistance was released the month before Selene 2 and would top the chart for Science-Fiction books in France, Belgium and Switzerland with strong sales in Germany, Canada and the United Kingdom. The Pavlov Trilogy will be adapted in Manga (exclusively in Francophone countries) two years later.
Selene (Franco-Belgian Comics) :
A collaboration between Antoine Aubin (who worked in OTL on Blake and Mortimer) and Luiz Eduardo de Oliveira (better known as Leo the Scenarist and Artist of the series Aldébaran), this BD is released in Europe (But not in North America) a month before Selene 2 is itself released in a way to build up the hype for the sequel and to get fans of the First game to build the BD. In 64 pages, the story take place right after the launch of the Selene and answer a question some fans asked. Why did Elis Norell learned of the invasion by a message and not by a database? Across the comics, there are several references to the game, with an apparition of Alexander Fullington, still the leader scientist of the Selene and others cameo and Leo’s drawings are considered one of the most beautiful he ever did, especially the massive agricultural district where he transformed part of it into a small forest (something that isn’t shown anywhere in the games) full of life. The hero is actually the first Secretary General of the Selene, a Frenchmen named Hugo Darville and his small team of advisors coming from all social backgrounds including of course Alexander Fullington.
Basically, we follow Hugo as he rules over the first years of the Selene expedition amongst the stars and the establishment of the community inside the ship with the opening of the first cinema, the first football/soccer match etc etc and of course the first murder and other events like that. And at the end of his two terms, before leaving his office he decides to erase the files talking about Earth Invasion and the real purpose of the selene initiative. The aliens have obviously never come back to finish them and so he believes it would be too dangerous for it to be leaked among the survivors and doesn’t want to make them believe that they are the last surviving humans. Selene was an extremely good success thanks to Leo Aura, the quality of his art, and the coming Selene 2. But it was a one-time deal for Leo and he won’t return for another issue, leading Arkane to search for a new artist as they want to release a Selene BD at least one per years and export it to North America.
) in English ! Quite happy with what I did at the end because I had some weird idea at the start (like having Mathew being frozen for 300 years and meeting his descendant) 
