During the training mission at the start of the game, once you walk outside the Ramsey Recruitment Center on Earth, there is a grey ramp to the right of where you exit that can be climbed on. Sitting at the top of the ramp is a basketball that you can pick up and keep in your inventory. This basketball is unique among other items in the game in that it bounces and rolls realistically when dropped, except on moving platforms where it instantly sticks to the ground. However, there is a specific use for it later in the game when you are on-board the Recreation Deck, the fifth deck of the Von Braun starship. When you enter the Athletic Sector of the ship, you can find a basketball court with a broken hoop and one intact hanging hoop, as well as the first Rumbler in the game. Dropping the basketball through the working hoop from the second floor of the court will cause an email transmission to be sent to Soldier, accompanied by a series of monkey sound effects and mechanical noises. This email was written by A. Bananas, a squirrel monkey wearing a deerstalker cap and a monocle, and comes with a picture of a banana as an attachment. The content of the email is an offer to form an alliance with the other squirrel monkeys on the ship:


Opening the email to hear the voice recording of it will reveal A. Banana's speech is normal monkey chatter, but the software of Soldier's cyber rig can apparently translate it into the English language through unknown means.

System Shock 2, according to its pitch document, was originally titled "Junction Point". It was intended to expand upon the role-playing element of the original System Shock, which itself was intended to bring the gameplay of another of their games, Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, into a science fiction setting.

The first System Shock was generally perceived to be a Doom clone, and the developers blamed this for its limited commercial success. With Junction Point, their goal was to add significant role-playing elements and a persistent storyline so as to distance the game from Doom.

Before you pick your third year posting, look through the window to your left - you'll find a robot dancing the Macarena.