As Below, So Above

As Below, So Above
Location(s)	Gaea
Character(s)	Unnamed literal arbiter (independent Grunt)
Enemies	Jeanue-led rogue IMC forces, Mercenary Syndicate enemies and some neutral entities Grunts and its variants BRD-02 Spectres and its variants Stalkers Reapers Pilots Titans Dropships Alien wildlife Prowlers
Chronology
Previous Level	Into the Spider's Nest (IMC campaign) Saboteurs and Traitors (Frontier Militia campaign)
Next Level	Within the Crossfire (IMC campaign) Switching Sides (intermission) The Outer Space Confrontation (Frontier Militia campaign)

"Guide both opposing military factions intervene against corrupt forces within the city."

―Mission briefing

As Below, So Above is an intermission mission in Titanfall 3 single-player campaign. It is a playable Grunt mission where you guide the military of both opposing factions intervening and optionally helping civilians in the war-torn city of Suotamo in the planet Gaea.

Overview

The main objective is to guide both "opposing" military factions into the right path of military intervention and even give much needed help the entire city. However gameplay-wise, it is a Grunt mission where you can't wallrun nor double jump as well as not being able to use tactical abilities, instead you have to adopt a playstyle similar to Apex Legends but without Legend-specific abilities and have health regen (but slower than on Pilots) and also coordinate the squads of both opposing factions. As the playable adaptive Grunt can't use Titans, there are drivable vehicles like armored personnel carriers, tanks, and even dropships on this mission to make up for this restriction.

Depending on the choices the player made during the mission, the playable Grunt either joins the reformed Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation and/or pragmatist subfaction of Frontier Militia in the Outlands, or remain unaffiliated with either factions throughout the entire campaign. Though this arbiter Grunt appear later on the later campaign missions of either factions but depending on the affiliation they made post-mission, their appearances on subsequent missions can vary in order.

Enemies and neutral entities

The primary enemies in this Grunt mission are Mercenary Syndicate and Jeanue-led corrupt IMC forces. However, there are other entities that the player have to watch out for these when navigating the city to guide squads of both reformed IMC and FMITO pragmatists in, during military intervention of Suotamo city.

Gaea Global Task Force

These are local police forces infamous for being ruthless and so, they're aggressively attack anyone (including NPCs) who committed crimes. These are neutral unless either threatened or witnessed people killing civilians or causing severe property damage, so the player have to be cautious when engaging enemies when the police are present and avoid unnecessary civilian harm.

When they becomes hostile, there is a simplified wanted system for GGTF forces determine the intensity of their engagement against perceived perpetrators depending on the severity and how often these crimes are committed by anyone as they follow:

• Level 1: The GGTF forces employed less-lethal ammunition and weaponry almost exclusively against minor offenders
• Level 2: They uses a mix of lethal and less-lethal weaponry against moderate offenders
• Level 3: The police exclusively use lethal force against these severe or profound aggressors

However, the ruthless GGTF police becomes slightly more lenient towards the player when sided with reformed IMC forces.

Other subfactions of FMITO terrorist organization

In-addition to pragmatist FMITO subfactions, there are also other subfactions of FMITO terrorist organization that the player have to consider when engaging or navigating through.

The purist subfactions, while they can assist with dealing with the common enemy of Syndicate and Jeanue-led IMC forces (as it shares a hatred towards corrupt forces across all subfactions), are hostile to reformed IMC forces so the player must rely on FMITO pragmatists when engaging enemies within purist occupied areas as they're neutral to other subfactions of the aforementioned terrorist group.

The opportunist subfactions on the other hand, are neutral to both reformed IMC and FMITO pragmatists unless they interfere with their scavenging process or staying within opportunist occupied areas for excessively long time, though they remains hostile to the aforementioned common enemy so the player can either lure these common enemies into opportunist outposts, use these as a temporary "shield" against common enemies, or even as a hotspot for looting weapons and equipment and most workbenches are located at these opportunist occupied places, though engagement within these areas have to be careful as these can be provoked into hostility more easily than FMITO purists.

Civilians

These are usually unarmed and innocent and so, the player and their squad must avoid hitting any civilians in combat zones. As such, engaging enemies in civilian-populated areas are more difficult as not only the player have to not hit anything innocent, but also the friendly NPCs gives less help in terms of fighting the enemies as they're trying to limit civilian casualties they inadvertently cause.

Killing or harming civilians and even destroying critical non-military infrastructures will net you the exact same penalty as friendly fire on allies; doing so makes friendly NPCs hostile to the player if it either becomes severe or being repeated.

In-addition to avoiding civilian casualties, there are optional objectives for civilians like but not limited to hostage rescues, responding to emergencies and even delivering aids to civilians.

High-value targets and high-value individuals

HVTs are the ones to eliminate and HVIs are the ones to save/rescue in this mission.

Tae Joon Park

A hacker who already exposed the process of rigging Apex Games through match prediction algorithms. Recruiting and rescuing Crypto as a high-value individual will give the intel on Mercenary Syndicate being the primary enemy (as well as Mila Alexander's whereabouts) to both IMC and FMITO factions in-addition to highlighting potential Mercenary Syndicate corruption zones to purge and helping you properly guide the military.

Anita Williams

Another high-value individual to extract and since Bangalore is a former IMC Grunt, extracting or recruiting her will give you additional military support to call against Syndicate forces in-addition to granting a reputational boost towards the reformed IMC for the neutral Grunt.

Forgotten Families members

A group of ex-IMC HVI gangs whose targets IMC deserters, including corrupt IMC forces led by Jeanue and even corrupt Mercenary Syndicate. Recruiting these will join the reformed IMC ranks and thus, helping the player through various ways and it has effects on subsequent missions.

Vyacheslav Goncharov

A high-value target that is a Mercenary Syndicate Pilot. He sees the playable Grunt as a traitor and he is mostly responsible for commanding the corrupt Syndicate presence in the planet Gaea.

Since this mission is a Grunt mission, encountering him is more of a skippable Pilot boss fight despite low health of this enemy. However, capturing him instead will make the subsequent encounters with him on subsequent missions friendly (occasionally helping them in the future) whereas successfully killing him instead will make him not appear on future missions.

Pop-culture references

• Unnamed playable literal arbiter adaptive Grunt:
  • The MULE/backpack thief from Death Stranding 2: On the Beach: The specific hooded clothing attire used by this playable unaffiliated Grunt, though they wear military tactical gears similar to its real-life counterparts on top of this attire.
  • Mercs (especially the sniper classes) from Call of Duty: Black Ops II: The futuristic/advanced tech this Grunt wear on top of the aforementioned attire and tactical gear.
  • The answer ("They have so many hobbies it is hard to find the time to get to them all! Astronomy, board games, Collage, Drawing, embroidery, fishing, gaming, house plants, ice skating, journaling, karaoke, lego building, mindfulness, nail art, origami, paintball, quad biking, robotics, sunbathing, trivia tournaments, ultimate frisbee, volunteering, word search puzzles, xylophone, yoga, Zumba") on particular Ninja Kiwi blog: The backstory for this playable Grunt as an obscure Apex Games participant who later betrayed Mercenary Syndicate during Frontier Militia incursion of Mercenary Syndicate and before being participated in Frontier War II in the Outlands as a neutral unit.
  • Private Terrence Sweetwater from Battlefield Bad Company 2: The voice actor (Richard Lynson) behind this playable neutral Grunt in Gaea.
• Vyacheslav Goncharov (name derived from nonexistent movie Goncharov) high-value target Pilot affiliated with Mercenary Syndicate:
  • DeFalco from Call of Duty: Black Ops II: The choices you made regarding the particular high-value target and when you don't assassinate him (either letting him escape or gets captured), the aforementioned HVT appears on subsequent missions albeit in a slightly different form.
  • Backpack thief reformation sidequest from Death Stranding 2: On the Beach: The option to capture this HVT instead of assassinating him and when captured successfully, the aforementioned HVT appears as a friendly unit instead of an enemy on his subsequent appearances on later missions.
  • Stories from the Outlands "Gridiron" in Apex Legends: When Titanfall fans went mad about Bangalore killing a Pilot (including Scryer) in Apex Legends, the Vyacheslav Goncharov encounter in this Grunt mission were added in response to this controversial Titanfall fanservice in Apex Legends.

Trivia

• Since the playable Grunt can command both opposing factions at the same time, this mission foreshadows the formation IMC-FMITO coalition as both reformed IMC and FMITO pragmatists in this mission don't fight eachother and instead fighting the common enemy in this mission.
• Due to the fact the playable Grunt's affiliation with either factions or both or not is player-determined, p0358 in Saboteurs and Traitors mission prior to this Grunt mission are skeptical about the aforementioned unaffiliated combatant in Gaea as whether or not they actually help the Outlands purging the Syndicate or they just become another Torres Silva-level of tyranny between IMC and FMITO factions.
• This mission alongside Standoff are open-combat missions in Titanfall 3 campaign, albeit executed well compared to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and even the entire Battlefield 6 campaign as it actually utilities destructible environments for the actual gameplay.
  • In-addition, this mission alongside others like Trial-and-Error & Rinse-and-Repeat also serve as a testbed for an extraction mode for Apex Legends since it have multiple optional objectives on this large map.

v・d・e Titanfall 3 campaign missions
Prologue	The Battle of Gridiron • A New Beginning
Frontier Militia in the Outlands missions	A War on Syndicate • Standoff • Saboteurs and Traitors • The Outer Space Confrontation • The Strategy Way • Broken Moon • The Runaway Train
Intermission missions	As Below, So Above • Switching Sides • Down the Rabbit Hole
Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation missions	The Whistleblower • Into the Spider's Nest • Within the Crossfire • Attack on Air Traffic • Trial-and-Error & Rinse-and-Repeat • Sealed Off • Operation Red Tape
Epilogue	An Outworldly Dimension • The Final Blow
Acts	Act I: Link to Pilot	A War on Syndicate • The Whistleblower • Standoff • Into the Spider's Nest • Saboteurs and Traitors • As Below, So Above
	Act II: Uphold the Mission	Within the Crossfire • Switching Sides • The Outer Space Confrontation • Attack on Air Traffic • The Strategy Way • Trial-and-Error & Rinse-and-Repeat
	Act III: Protect the Pilot	Down the Rabbit Hole • Broken Moon • Sealed Off • Operation Red Tape • The Runaway Train