Earth Soldier

**Earth Soldiers** are friendly human soldiers who can be found in the second half of Home at Last in SIC Remade. They are the strongest humans in the game, with 150HP versus the Commando’s 130HP, the Sergeant’s 35HP, and the Trooper’s 20HP.

## Appearance

Earth Soliders are the only human type creatures that are not zombified or possessed. They wear the same green combat armor worn by the player but do not wear helmets. They appear as burly light-skinned men with short, medium brown hair, black eyebrows, and amber eyes.

## Behavior

Earth Soldiers are marked as friendly, and as such they will *never* attack the player, even when provoked. When they are alerted to an enemy, they will briskly walk around (a bit faster than an Imp) in search of the enemy. They do not make any noise when alerted. When the Soldier has a clear shot to the enemy, he will fire a three-round burst from his SIC50 Machine Gun, which can deal between 12–96 damage assuming all three bullets hit. All three shots from the burst are not fully accurate; instead, the first shot will be the most accurate, while the second shot will be slightly less accurate, and the final shot being the least accurate of the three. After firing their burst, they will briefly roam again until he is able to fire another burst. While they are roaming around, they will not make any sounds.

It should be noted that the Soldier will NOT stop firing if the player runs into his line of sight while he is firing, and that by doing so the player will take damage, which can be particularly severe if the player is low on health or armor.

Earth Soldiers have a relatively low pain chance but when they are hit, their pain state is ever so slightly longer than a Trooper’s. They will let out a low-pitched grunt of pain.

Soldiers have a very gory death sequence when they are killed. They will let out a lower-pitched version of Doomguy’s death scream from Doom 64 and will be pushed back slightly as blood begins to pour over their head. It will then quickly explode, and their now-headless corpse will fall to the ground. When they are gibbed (a difficult task to do due to their health), the have the same animation as the player being gibbed, although edited to remove the helmet. After they die, they will drop their Machine Gun for the player to pick up.

Earth Soldiers first appear at the very end of E4M5: Visus Labs, where a duo of them can be seen fighting off a squadron of Imps and zombies. Because they are outnumbered, most of the time they will be killed, although in some cases (usually on lower difficulties) they will win and then just roam around.

They appear again in E4M6: Interstate, where they can be found scattered around the main road and in some of the alleyways. Because there are stronger monsters here, once again they stand less of a chance. On Medium difficulty and above, there will be 4 Soldiers in the map, whereas on Easy difficulty, there will be 10. On Hard difficulty, they will most likely be killed by the Baron that appears in the parking garage.

Their final appearance is in E4M7: The City, and only if the player is on an Easy or Medium difficulty setting. There are 3 on Medium and 6 on Easy, and most of them will appear in the park near the center of the map. Unlike the previous map, there are weaker monsters, but because many of those monsters are found in hard to reach places, the Soldiers will likely have trouble neutralizing them and will be slowly picked off. After that, they do not appear again.

Compared to the friendly marines that appeared only in E4M6 in the original SIC, the Earth Soldiers are much smarter and can better defend themselves. They are armed with one of the stronger cartridge-firing weapons and are very accurate with them. As such, the player should use them to their advantage, especially if they are low on supplies and health or are pistol starting a map they are in. Earth Soldiers are able to deal with enemies up to the Pinky Demon with little trouble, although against tougher monsters they will begin to have difficulty. Beyond the Cacodemon, they stand virtually no chance against the tougher monsters and will likely be killed quickly.

## In Game Lore

Earth Soldiers are remnants of the Stocean Marine Corps and Stocean Army who survived the initial demonic invasion while the player was in Hell during Episode 3. While a few lucky soldiers who survived were able to escape to relative safety, the vast majority were at the heart of the invasion in Episode 4’s city, and as such were unable to leave and became trapped inside the city with the demons. With no leadership due to the government being forced into exile, the few remaining survivors have banded together and tried to neutralize as many enemy forces as possible. They have raided various stockpiles and warehouses for supplies. Their de facto base of operations is a small military outpost located in a building close to the city park.

When the player arrives at the beginning of Episode 4, there are a decent number of living soldiers, though they are never met. When the player first encounters them after escaping the SIC Earth Base, their numbers have dramatically dwindled from several hundreds to just a few dozen. By the time the player reaches the inner city, most of the soldiers have succumbed, thus leaving the player alone to fight the Hellish armies. Once the player defeats the Unholy Sheath, the survivors of the invasion return to the city and help rebuild it now that Earth is safe.

## Gallery

A group of Soldiers in E1M1 (added via console)A Soldier firing.Ditto.A Soldier walking.A Soldier having been mortally wounded. First blood covers his head…..then it starts to explode……and then the headless remains drop to the ground.