Helldivers 2 players save democracy by turning a planet into an ominous black hole that makes whale noises: Which is fine and normal and not a wormhole to the Illuminate, stop asking

The latest Helldivers 2 major order has had some issues—but fair play to Arrowhead, the climax of said order is very dang cool, and far better than the lack of rewards offered for the Menkent Line.

In case you've not been keeping up with your Super Earth-mandated news broadcasts, last week divers were deployed to Meridia, the site of a super colony of Terminids. They were instructed to inject dark fluid, an experimental substance that spaghettified some scientists and was «liberated from the Illuminate following the First Galactic War», into the planet's crust.

The Illuminate are a missing faction from Helldivers 1 that has yet to teleport their Protoss-adjacent butts into the sequel. But it's fine. We treated the dark fluid with three separate democracy baths and homoeopathic liberty injections, then let it stew while listening to the Super Earth national anthem. It's all good.

Upon completing the major order, however, Helldivers 2 players were immediately ejected out of the planet's orbit and delivered the following cutscene on the galactic map—captured courtesy of red-blooded patriot Interjessing-Salary on the game's subreddit.

The dark fluid worked, yay! The dark fluid worked, oh no.

Arrowhead, instead of just cutting off Meridia from the Galactic Map, has graciously allowed brave divers to return to the site of their victory, where they may stare (democratically) into the yawning, dark abyss. While it is, essentially, a pretty series of particle effects and some gorgeous sound design, it's still a super cool and concrete cause-to-effect for a major order. It also makes whale noises, which is uh… that's probably normal, right?

Still, the victory dialogue for the major order seeks to reassure divers: «The Supercolony has been destroyed. In its place, a beautiful black hole remains, drawing in every Terminid spore within several billion kilometres. Interstellar spore levels have already sharply decreased in every system. The destruction of Meridia came not a