After learning of your assignment in Zero Parades: For Grand Spies, through completing a couple of early game quests, your controller will direct you to assemble a squad capable of helping you assassinate the Grand Lich.

One of your potential recruits is Holocene, a member of the Whole Sick Crew and a former associate of Cascade. Holocene can fulfil the role of Astronomist in Zero Out The Grand Lich, due to his alternative way of seeing the world.

Prerequisites For Recruiting Holocene

First, you'll need to pass a Technoflex check to fix the fax machine in Foto 24. This will allow Holocene to contact you after finishing Contact The Secret Prisoner and The Unassigned Assignment.

After doing both, you'll receive a fax directing you to a new area, the Pitol Tract, where you are instructed to travel to the bottom of the old rocket silo to meet M.I.H.O.

It might be worth progressing in the quest, 'Make A Deal With Transnational Capital', to the point where the Heartless Man tasks you with going to the rocket silo to find an old disc. Both quests can be resolved in the same location, saving you a return trip.

Travel via one of Portofire's aerotram stations to reach the Pitol Tract. These can be found in the Quisach Roundabout and on the west side of Party Alley.

The Pitol Tract

The Pitol Tract is devoid of life except for an eccentric metal stripper who will give you Sol in exchange for copper springs you can find dotted around the area.

Wrap around the entire area to find the entrance to the silo, and climb down the stairs until you reach the platform just past the Cardio Grandpa. The door behind you is where you can find the lost disc for the Heartless Man.

Proceed down the stairs, and you'll be attacked in the dark by the metal stripper, who is looking for the Red Disc. We recommend letting her take the disc because stopping her closes off some options later in the game.

After this, you can descend to the bottom of the silo to meet M.I.H.O, which is actually the name of a one-man espionage agency run by Holocene.

How To Solve The Cipher

Holocene will encourage you to clean the room, at which point your attention will be drawn to a piece of paper on the floor near the entrance. The page is a cipher, but Holocene won't acknowledge its existence, and you'll be automatically walked out of the room.

To solve the cipher, you'll need a copy of the novel, Blood Type: Hetacomb. This is found on the couch in Reno's Apartment, which can be accessed by a door beside the Housing Campaign.

If you already have the book, you can immediately begin cracking the cipher by interacting with it in your inventory. You'll make the relevant checks easier by exhausting every dialogue option; you'll either have to crack it legitimately or brute force it through a Nerve check.

Alternatively, you can ask Melita to get the Opera to crack it for you, but she refuses to help you if you're truthful and tell her you're trying to recruit Holocene.

Once you crack the cipher, you'll be prompted to return to the silo. The hatch in the room is now accessible, and climbing down the ladder will reveal Holocene strapped to a chair.

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First, you'll have to peer into his mind by passing a Poetics check, or if you learned the Duchess' technique earlier in the game, you can pass an easier Cold Read check. Following this, Holocene will knock himself out, and you'll be prompted to perform surgery on him to remove the Small Controller.

You'll have to pass a Coordination check to successfully perform the brain surgery on Holocene. Failing this check will kill Holocene, rendering him unrecruitable.

If he survives, he will meet you at the Fogged Mirror and will be selectable as an Astronomist during Zero Out The Grand Lich.

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Posts By  Jack Coleman