Downtown Sydney (mission)

Downtown Sydney is the penultimate mission of act IV Nod's campaign in Tiberium Wars, which saw a desperate holdout by a Nod-reinforced GDI against the alien threat.
== Background ==
With the aliens' abrupt appearance in the middle of a Nod operation to steal GDI's nuclear warheads, both factions' priorities were thrown into chaos as city after city was overwhelmed and mercilessly levelled. The Brotherhood's current stand-in leader, Killian Qatar, was many things, but a fool was not one of them: she was aware that GDI put up the most resistance against the invaders on the Australian continent, and the collapse and total withdraw of their forces meant that the landmass would fall to the invaders. Nod simply did not have the resources or firepower to engage in such massively scaled battles as GDI did. 
To the surprise and disgust of many within the Brotherhood, Qatar ordered a ceasefire with the Brotherhood's long-hated enemy. Despite her explanation that the Brotherhood could not hold the entirety of Australia by themselves and a reassurance that they would still use the situation to get one up over GDI (via stealing the nuclear launch codes to the aforementioned warheads), many remained disgruntled with this decision. The Legendary Insurgent's intelligence advisor, Ajay, even openly expressed such, but as Qatar held the higher rank, he begrudgingly complied.
The commander himself was ordered to coordinate efforts with a GDI commander stationed in Sydney to protect the city from the alien invaders and, if GDI's Ion Cannon ground uplink had been previously destroyed, to assist in the defense of the civilian evacuation transports. The joint Nod-GDI force seemed to be enough to hold the aliens at bay, if only barely, though the alliance would shatter with a shocking revelation midway into the battle...
==Plot==
Uniquely, the objectives of this mission differ depending on the fate of Sydney's Ion Cannon control uplink in the previous operation.
=== Ion Cannon Intact ===
If the Ion Cannon remains intact, the GDI commander will unleash it upon the Scrin base once its charging is complete. The commander is tasked with assisting GDI repelling the Scrin invaders and protecting the Ion Cannon control until it is ready to fire. 
=== Ion Cannon Destroyed ===
If the Ion Cannon was sabotaged by the commander during their previous coordinated defensive efforts, GDI appeared to be oblivious to the real culprit behind its destruction. At any rate, with GDI's ace-in-the-hole out of the picture, the armor stationed within Sydney is deemed to be inadequate to uproot and destroy the invaders. With defense impossible, GDI began organizing transports to evacuate the civilian population, and the commander will be tasked with aiding the defense of these transports against the malignant Scrin.
Whatever the case, Qatar also tasked the commander to build a war chest by harvesting a large sum of Tiberium - a staggering 25,000 crystals of the substance.
During the battle, however, Kane revealed himself to be alive, having once again eluded death by mysterious means. Enraged by Qatar's decision to ally with GDI and their combined goal of defeating the Scrin, whom he had gone to great lengths to "invite" to Earth in the first place, he ordered the wayward leader's capture so he could confront her himself. First, however, he commanded the destruction of GDI's facilities in the area, and even authorized the commander to draw upon Nod's stockpile of nuclear missiles to follow through with these directives.
GDI soldiers were quite astonished and confused when they suddenly found themselves being hemmed in by hostile forces on both sides. This astonishment and confusion quickly turned to rage at having been betrayed, but even their anger could not save them from the technology of the two factions. Their mechanized forces had barely held the relentless waves of Scrin attacks at bay, and with Nod's trickery also against them (not to mention the newly acquired WMDs), their forces collapsed under the combined attack.
After the battle, Kane explained to the commander that the Ion Cannon strike on Temple Prime was part of his elaborate grand plan. However, he was unable to hold in his anger, and with Qatar's list of offenses long and grave (having also seemingly betrayed the Brotherhood during their desperate defense of their headquarters prior to the strike), Kane ordered the immediate capture of Qatar such that she could be brought to justice before him.
==New Units==
*Temple of Nod (nuclear strike cannot be used until Kane appears)
==Walkthrough==
(This walkthrough assumes Hard difficulty)
There are two versions of this mission, depending on whether or not you destroyed the ion cannon control center in Sydney City Wall. If you did, GDI will be evacuating the city using V-35 Ox transports, and you will be asked to escort the transports. If you did not, you will be asked to protect the ion cannon control until it can destroy the alien base. In both versions, you will be asked to harvest 25,000 units of Tiberium. The objectives given at the beginning, including the collection of 25,000 Tiberium crystals, are merely faux objectives to disguise the true intent of the mission, and do not need to be completed to earn the corresponding award for total objective completion.
Your starting base is fully teched up, but does not have a Refinery. Build one, then build an Air Tower. Airlift a Saboteur to the GDI base and capture the Tiberium Spike there. There are three cash crates on the elevated platform in the middle of the map, so airlift one of your starting units there to pick them up. Build another Refinery to boost your economy, then begin queuing up as many Avatars as you can with both of your War Factories. Occasionally, the aliens may attack your base, but they should not possess a major threat - your base starts with a few Laser Turrets and more can be built if needed. Most of the Scrin's efforts will be centered on GDI anyway.
Around the three minute mark of the ten-minute countdown, you will be contacted by Kane, who commands you to destroy the remaining GDI forces. At this point, your Temple of Nod nuclear missile will become available for immediate use. Launch it at the GDI base, then destroy whatever remains using your Avatars.
Alternatively, if you wish to complete the mission in a less-than-legitimate but much less risky fashion, force-fire upon GDI's production structures (the War Factories, Barracks, Construction Yard, and the two Airfields) while the alliance is still active. Once Kane declares it void, the new primary objective will immediately be fulfilled and the mission will end.
== Aftermath ==
What with the betrayal and complete destruction of all assets defending Sydney from alien attack, GDI would never again accept an alliance with Nod. However, Nod itself was unbothered by this, as it had greater matters to attend to.
With Kane's pronouncement that Qatar was nothing more than a traitor, he tasked the Legendary Insurgent to hunt down the rogue leader and bring her to justice - dead or alive. Qatar was tracked to Nod's main Australian headquarters in Ayers Rock, and the commander was given command of a small infiltration team already on-site to do the deed.
==Trivia==
*If the ion cannon control center was not destroyed by the player in the previous mission, GDI has access to the superweapon in this mission. However, the mission briefing still states that the ion cannon control center was destroyed.
**An alternate version of the mission briefing can be found in the game files, stating the ion cannon control center is intact. For unknown reasons, it is not used.
*Curiously, attacking GDI assets prior to Kane's transmission will not have any effect on the alliance, though capturing a GDI structure will initiate the state of temporary one-sided, then shortly thereafter all-out combat that occurs upon the ceasefire's violation.
**In the event that all of GDI's production structures are destroyed prior to the ceasefire's violation, the mission will instantly be won after Kane's transmission concludes.
*The GDI defenses in this mission will not lose power even after all GDI power plants are destroyed.
*GDI has a small group of Pitbulls, Missile Squads, and Juggernauts on the east coast of the map who will provide supporting fire against opponents within their range while the alliance is active.
*There is an Orca strike craft hovering over the GDI base in this mission.
*Though GDI would theoretically be able to manufacture Mammoth Tanks, the Tech Center that is needed to build them is targeted by an Annihilator Tripod almost immediately, and if the player does not intervene it will be demolished in short order.
*GDI will automatically turn hostile after Kane's transmission, regardless of whether the player respects the ceasefire.
*The Temple of Nod's nuclear strike recharges significantly faster than usual in this mission (3:00 instead of 7:00).
*The wing of four Stormriders that periodically attack the GDI base are not actually produced from either of the two Gravity Stabilizers within the Scrin base. Instead, they are spawned using scripts off the coast and appear to follow a predetermined path that takes them to the Ion Cannon Control Center (if it is still present).
**Since they technically do not need to land, they will idle around the control center's location until shot down.
*In the event that the Scrin base is actually destroyed after Kane reveals himself, GDI will (unsurprisingly) attack the player's forces. Otherwise, most of their efforts will go into the destruction of the Scrin base, even after the ceasefire's violation.
*As they are not relevant to any objective, even the total annihilation of all Scrin forces on the map will not affect the mission's completion, regardless of when this was done. 
*The three crates at the plateau in the center of the map each function like a money crate, but do not share the standard "Money Crate" name if selected.
==Videos==