Transcript
Speaker: Hey everybody, welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: It's Kevin here and with me as always is Phil and we're still talking about Halo the Fall of Reach.
Speaker: Is it like air horn sounds?
Speaker: Is that what we're...
Speaker: Yeah, the kids like that.
Speaker: That's what they're into.
Speaker: So we left off... Video game playing kids.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: The children's.
Speaker: We left off... Our audience.
Speaker: Our audience.
Speaker: Children.
Speaker: We're off to a great start here.
Speaker: Episode nine is just rocking and rolling, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentle them.
Speaker: It's it's really just kicking off right into section three, which is called Sigma Octanus.
Speaker: Did you like that transition right into the.
Speaker: Oh, shit.
Speaker: Smooth.
Speaker: And in the book, at least in the Kindle version, there's like two titles to this section.
Speaker: I don't know why.
Speaker: It's section three, Sigma Octanus.
Speaker: And then the next thing is a poster.
Speaker: I guess it's like a motivational poster on the next page.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: I don't have that in my paperback.
Speaker: So it probably came from a newer edition of the book because it's on the Kindle version.
Speaker: So it goes that section title, section three, Sigma Octanus.
Speaker: And then the next page is like a motivational poster of Master Chief kind of like running and it just says momentum.
Speaker: Well, that's that.
Speaker: I mean, how could you not be inspired by something?
Speaker: How could you not be inspired?
Speaker: Ensign William Lovell, new character being introduced.
Speaker: Chapter 15.
Speaker: He's a dude over on someplace.
Speaker: He's on Archimedes.
Speaker: And, you know, that famous character from that Disney movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Was it the sword in the stone?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sword in the stone.
Speaker: That was the owl.
Speaker: Archimedes, the owl.
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: Archimedes, I believe, was a Roman philosopher.
Speaker: No, he was an owl, Phil.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I forgot.
Speaker: I forgot.
Speaker: I missed that part.
Speaker: Damn it.
Speaker: Anson William Lovell on the Archimedes.
Speaker: On the Archimedes.
Speaker: It is midnight on the outpost of Archimedes, and William Lovell is hitting on his computer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right off the bat, the computer says good morning to him, and I guess it's got a lady voice.
Speaker: And so he says, morning, sexy.
Speaker: And right off the bat, I'm like, okay, I feel way too comfortable with this guy.
Speaker: I know who he is.
Speaker: I feel like I'm playing him in the film adaptation.
Speaker: He's the things we'll find out about him is he's lazy.
Speaker: He doesn't really want to be there.
Speaker: He has literally found the job that requires the least amount of effort on his part.
Speaker: And he's seen some shit.
Speaker: I'm like, well, I've just got too much in common with this guy.
Speaker: I am not comfortable with that.
Speaker: Not comfortable.
Speaker: He hits on inanimate objects.
Speaker: It's all weird.
Speaker: It's all weird.
Speaker: And his password is there once was a girl.
Speaker: There once was a girl.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which I don't know what that if that is that a reference or is that.
Speaker: You know, I look that up.
Speaker: I don't think it is.
Speaker: I took way too much time looking at that because it says he typed there once was a girl.
Speaker: Listeners, it's all one word.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: There once and a are all capitalized and was and girl is not capitalized.
Speaker: And I spent way too much time.
Speaker: This tells you the kind of reader I am.
Speaker: I would have read twice as many pages in this section if I could get over that and stop going, well, what does that signify?
Speaker: Why is girl uncapitalized?
Speaker: And was, isn't there once?
Speaker: T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-N-T-O-A-W-G-I-T-O-A-W-G-I-T-O-A-W
Speaker: Yeah, there's, I don't know if there's like, there's like a song in the back of my mind that is, and I don't know.
Speaker: I immediately, maybe you're thinking of this, I immediately thought of Nature Boy, not King Cole, but there was a boy.
Speaker: Ah, right.
Speaker: But that's the only, yeah, I thought of that too, but I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, there's like a mid-90s rock song that I feel like.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: Anyway, there once was a girl, it's his password.
Speaker: It may mean something, but it probably doesn't.
Speaker: Hey everybody, your friend Future Kevin here.
Speaker: Just to clarify, I figured out what I was thinking about.
Speaker: It was the song by the Crash Test Dummies, which includes the lyric, which is not the same line.
Speaker: Anyway, on with the show.
Speaker: But we find out a little bit about Ensign Lovell, or Lovell, if you want, and he was, he was, he started out as the golden boy, didn't he?
Speaker: He was the kind of, you know, naval, young naval officer that was just shooting up through the ranks, and then he, he, he,
Speaker: Just as quickly as he gained a bunch of ranks, he lost a bunch of them because of that point.
Speaker: He's up and down the ladder.
Speaker: He's just a wild card.
Speaker: He's a loose cannon.
Speaker: I'm going to go that his name is pronounced Lovell because I think he's a reference to Jim Lovell, the astronaut.
Speaker: Oh, maybe.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Or maybe it was from a name generator.
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: But I think one of the big things that we learned from this chapter, other than Ensign Lovell, who becomes a character later, and he also discovers something, is we learn about the Cole Protocol, which is basically the protocol.
Speaker: This was really cool.
Speaker: It's pretty neat.
Speaker: It's basically the fail safe that is given to all UN space command ships to basically get rid of all of their data, all of their their navigation data in case they encounter covenant ships.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's the it's a it's a what do you call it?
Speaker: Scorched Earth policy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's really, it's fascinating because he has to, it literally, they have this document that has the protocol on it.
Speaker: And before work every day, before his shift, he has to read it every day.
Speaker: And they have retinal tracking to make sure that he actually reads the damn thing.
Speaker: And it points out that he's got it all memorized at this point.
Speaker: But they do not take chances.
Speaker: He says later he doesn't blame them for not taking chances because it's absolutely shithouse out there.
Speaker: But I thought there was something vaguely, like, I don't know, vaguely fascist and uncomfortable.
Speaker: But it was a nice touch.
Speaker: I thought it was a really neat touch.
Speaker: It's a very nice touch.
Speaker: But what we're finding out, I mean, and we've had these qualms, so to speak, about...
Speaker: about the way the UN is kind of run in this universe.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: You know, with the rebels and stuff like that, or the way the rebels are painted.
Speaker: It feels a little fashy.
Speaker: A little, a little.
Speaker: And as I pointed out before, I'm a Warhammer 40K fan where the literal good guys are fascists in space.
Speaker: You know, and so this is nothing compared to that.
Speaker: But you still pick up on stuff like that.
Speaker: The good guys are bad guys and the bad guys are worse guys.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And the only thing worse than a worse guy is a bad worse guy, which you learn with the heretics.
Speaker: Which you learn repeatedly with the 40,000, no pun intended, Warhammer 40k novels.
Speaker: I'm going there are so many.
Speaker: I'm going to trick you into reading one.
Speaker: I'm going to I'm going to make us I'm going to I'm going to force us to do a few episodes where we read a 40k novel and then we review a 40k game.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: And I don't know if that counts based on our parameters, but I'm going to make it happen.
Speaker: You know, books are we'll broaden easy.
Speaker: We'll broaden the scope just for you.
Speaker: Yay.
Speaker: I mean, I'm 50 percent of the hosts here.
Speaker: I feel like I've got a little bit of weight to throw around.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Not a ton, but a little.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Enough.
Speaker: So Lovell finds something in space.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you're never finding anything good in space.
Speaker: Let's be honest, folks.
Speaker: And he never expects to find anything because the whole point of him taking the...
Speaker: job that he took that that post is that nothing's ever out there so it's just a really intensely boring job where nothing ever happens and that's why he took it because he's clearly got some ptsd and and clearly he's he's really not happy with the way things are going he's probably lost some friends and it's he just clear that he's seen some shit he just wants to hang out on the archimedes uh watch his program which is an owl
Speaker: Which is an L. Which is an L. Watch his programs, read a few books, and that's it.
Speaker: That's all he wants.
Speaker: Again, me in space.
Speaker: I would have done the exact same thing.
Speaker: Just a stack of paperbacks and a shitty, boring job.
Speaker: But today is not a boring day.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because he sees something.
Speaker: He sees something.
Speaker: And he still doesn't even believe that it is anything.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Initially.
Speaker: He just, like, he just, like, sent it off because he believes that
Speaker: as he probably should, that it's nothing because it's never been anything before.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's just some blip.
Speaker: It's just a blip.
Speaker: Chapter ends.
Speaker: Ensign Lovell kicked up his boots and reclined, once again feeling perfectly safe in his little corner of the universe.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that was a mistake.
Speaker: Feeling perfectly safe.
Speaker: As we find out in chapter 16...
Speaker: 16, where you find out why safety is just never a good standard demeanor in this world.
Speaker: The good happens.
Speaker: Phil, as you apologized last episode, here he is.
Speaker: He's actually the first three words of this chapter.
Speaker: Commander Jacob Keys.
Speaker: Commander Jacob Keys.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But as I also rescinded my apology.
Speaker: You did rescind that apology.
Speaker: I rescinded it because I'm never wrong and only the weak admit their mistakes.
Speaker: I have to assume that this is a different character from the Jacob Keys we met in the very, very beginning of this book.
Speaker: And it's just an oversight on the author's part and a flaw of Eric Nylans and not of mine.
Speaker: because I am perfect in every way.
Speaker: In any case, this brand new character, Commander Jacob Keyes, he is...
Speaker: on the bridge of the UNSC destroyer Iroquois, which I thought was awesome.
Speaker: I was like, that's a great name for a, for a destroyer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: No, if you don't know anything about the Iroquois change that, like learn about the Iroquois.
Speaker: They were fucking bad asses.
Speaker: So cool.
Speaker: So I'm, I'm, I'm all about it right off the bat.
Speaker: So what's happening on the Iroquois, Kevin?
Speaker: So Keyes is just kind of floating around and they he's he's so part of this chapter is Keyes's inner monologue on how shitty his crew is.
Speaker: Yeah, it really is.
Speaker: He's just kind of rolling his eyes at them.
Speaker: He's like, these are all terrible people.
Speaker: And we learned that he himself is just he's not all that well respected.
Speaker: He's a teacher.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's a former professor who got pulled into active duty because they were running out of they are running out of commanding officers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So not a lot of people have a ton of faith in him.
Speaker: You know, they don't, no one really takes him all that seriously.
Speaker: And so his crew is, is kind of the, the B squad.
Speaker: Let's just say it's, it's whoever's left.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: So he, he has one person that he likes, um, uh, Dominique, Lieutenant Dominique, um, who is read with a, a terrible French accent in, uh,
Speaker: In the audio version of the book, which it drifts in and out.
Speaker: We've talked about the audio book version of this.
Speaker: And I mean, I love audio books.
Speaker: I'm a huge fan.
Speaker: And but this kind of thing does often.
Speaker: It's not the author's fault.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: This is not the author's fault.
Speaker: I'm just pointing it out.
Speaker: And you kind of can't really blame the narrator because in this chapter, for example, in the following chapters,
Speaker: there are about a half a dozen characters.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, and, and so it's not enough for him just to do a lighter voice for a lady genders and a deeper voice for manly genders.
Speaker: He's got to, he's got to come up with other things.
Speaker: So he kind of throws accents into them.
Speaker: And the French one,
Speaker: was okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But later he does like a vaguely Jamaican slash Caribbean one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: which I didn't think was necessary.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then he, he starts slipping into like the Japanese one for Lieutenant Hikawa.
Speaker: And I was like, Oh boy, man, buddy, like you really just shouldn't have done accents at all.
Speaker: But I don't think we needed that.
Speaker: We don't need this.
Speaker: Now, for those of you who are just reading the book or, or otherwise not reading it, you have no idea what we're talking about, but trust me when I say it, it,
Speaker: In the audio book, it does get a little distracting.
Speaker: It gets a little bit distracting, especially since they're not even referenced as necessarily having these accents in the text.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: I mean, they, they, they, no, no.
Speaker: And only, and there's only the vaguest sense of where they might originally be from.
Speaker: Like there's this, you know, you, he mentions that she's Japanese, I believe.
Speaker: And I think another person he vaguely mentions where they're from, but it's otherwise, no, there's not really anything going there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We try.
Speaker: He tried.
Speaker: Everyone tried.
Speaker: And it was just and I got to tell you, if we're if we're nitpicking, if this is where we're nitpicking, it still says something about the quality of this book.
Speaker: It's still a really good book.
Speaker: Basically, after he's done dumping on his crew, he receives a he receives a message, a file who's remembering something from when he was teaching that
Speaker: about covenant ships in slipstream space.
Speaker: And they're looking at the Archimedes data and he sees this mass in the Archimedes data and he opens a file and this was authored.
Speaker: This is actually a nice touch.
Speaker: So the author is Lieutenant Commander Fajjad 034.
Speaker: That's one of the former Spartans.
Speaker: Oh, shit, that slipped right by me.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: Like one of the ones that didn't make it through the augmentations.
Speaker: Holy shit.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And they had said, we'll find other things for them to do.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So there it is.
Speaker: Pajad is working as, I guess, an astrophysicist for the ONI and writes this paper about...
Speaker: the way things look in slipstream space.
Speaker: And that's when is, and that is when keys makes the connection that the Archimedes report isn't just some sort of, uh, anomaly.
Speaker: It is actually the covenant.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I thought that was a nice touch in the he talks about.
Speaker: And for those of you who this is the gist of what slipstream space is for me is like if you're in Star Wars world, it's hyperspace.
Speaker: If it's, you know, if you're in 40K, it's the warp.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, yeah.
Speaker: Star Trek, it's the warp.
Speaker: And also, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So that's what we're looking at.
Speaker: And he talks about that the Covenant have techniques that they use where they can actually position their ships.
Speaker: They're so good at traveling through slipstream space that they can position their ships just so you think it's just a single ship, but then like a dozen of them come out of space.
Speaker: slipstream space and you're ambushed, which I thought was really cool.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the UNSC is not able to do that.
Speaker: They have to fly pretty much very far apart from each other through slipstream space because they risk running into each other.
Speaker: And so basically they're figuring out how many ships it is.
Speaker: They're guessing that it's four frigates.
Speaker: They're basically, they're getting ready to go because...
Speaker: They realize that the Sigma Octanus system is going to be under attack.
Speaker: They got to get more ships in.
Speaker: He warns Admiral Stansforth, who... Stansforth or Stanford?
Speaker: Am I saying that right?
Speaker: Stanford.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: Admiral Stanforth.
Speaker: He was the guy with the... He had the AI that looked like Palpatine.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: With the...
Speaker: the heavily robed AI destroy the rebel scat do it do it do it get into slipstream do it join the dark side of the UNSC would you like to see my slipstream it's underneath my robe all I have to do is slip off my robe and you'll see my stream
Speaker: I'm really upset with myself.
Speaker: You should be.
Speaker: I should be.
Speaker: Agreed.
Speaker: That we are in full agreement.
Speaker: So they have a couple of frigates that are inbound, the Allegiance and the Gettysburg.
Speaker: which I like the, I like the fact that they have, it's the Gettysburg.
Speaker: That is one of the ships because there's actually some parallels to the way this battle kind of plays out to the battle of Gettysburg.
Speaker: If I had dust off my, my history nerd,
Speaker: Basically, the way Gettysburg plays out is there are Confederate soldiers, a Confederate unit spotted approaching the city of Gettysburg.
Speaker: They're actually approaching a shoe factory because they need new shoes.
Speaker: There is a union unit that sees them and basically gets in their way.
Speaker: So in this case, the Iroquois is basically like that initial union force that kind of observes it.
Speaker: And then what ends up happening is both sides keep calling and sending out messages until it becomes one of the largest engagements of the entire civil war.
Speaker: It wasn't some grand battle that was planned weeks in advance.
Speaker: No, no, it wasn't planned.
Speaker: It was just some happenstance of these two brigades running into each other, turning into this massive conflict.
Speaker: So having one of the frigates called the Gettysburg in a conflict that almost shapes out kind of like Gettysburg...
Speaker: is kind of cool.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I hope that's why.
Speaker: But if Eric Nyland is a smart man, and I think he is, if he were to have someone ask him that, whether he meant it to be that way or not, if he's a smart man, he'd just go, oh, yeah, totally planned it.
Speaker: Totally planned it that way.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: You gotta do it, man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But unfortunately, those frigates, they're coming in at maximum speed, but it's gonna take them an hour to get there, which basically means they're toast.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's only gonna take a few minutes for them to get annihilated by...
Speaker: You know, him and his third-rate C-class crew.
Speaker: His C-class crew.
Speaker: And he's a B-class commander.
Speaker: He's a professor.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's a professor who is now.
Speaker: He's all analysis.
Speaker: You know, that's what he's not.
Speaker: He doesn't have a lot of, you know, he's watched a bunch of pornos, but he hasn't done a lot of fucking.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: That's where he is at this point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That is the best analogy I think you have ever brought up on this show.
Speaker: Thank you, sir.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I try.
Speaker: I think that's a real winner.
Speaker: That's what I'm here for, my friend.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So we're into chapter 17.
Speaker: We're still with keys and the keystone cops.
Speaker: And can I just say, by the way, that I have never, I, I, I, I have never done a lot of reading of, uh,
Speaker: Naval engagements, you know, like I just the usually when I read military or, you know, worry kind of books or stories or that sort of thing.
Speaker: It's the boots on the ground, swords and clubs and spears and guns and that kind of thing.
Speaker: I've never been terribly interested in the naval battle kind of genre.
Speaker: So this chapter changed my fucking mind.
Speaker: This is good.
Speaker: I'm just right before we even get into it.
Speaker: I'm just going to say like this, this, this battle that's about to take place.
Speaker: Nyland did such a good job that I was like, fuck, I might need to find some cool like battles on the high seas or in space kind of stuff.
Speaker: I didn't think I would be into that.
Speaker: It was so good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You ever, you ever think something isn't your shit and then you find, you find it that it is totally your shit.
Speaker: That's this chapter.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: But enough about my sex life.
Speaker: So he is there and they are basically facing down.
Speaker: Death is on its way.
Speaker: And basically, I think this is good writing.
Speaker: Basically, he says that the only thing in this point that he can do is look calm.
Speaker: So he immediately puts his pipe away.
Speaker: Because he's going to be seen to be fidgeting with it, and he wants his crew to believe sincerely he has everything in control, no matter how bad it looks.
Speaker: And if they see him fidgeting with a pipe, then he's, you know, that's just a little giveaway.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So basically, he's just trying to keep himself level at this point.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So this is this chapter and, and we're not going to go through all of the things that, that they do.
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: Do yourself a favor and just buy the book and read this chapter.
Speaker: It is got, there is a lot of cool, cool little things that happen.
Speaker: But in, in terms of the broad strokes, basically keys figures out a way to kind of maneuver around the planet to, to kind of like,
Speaker: avoid getting hit completely by the, the covenant ships.
Speaker: And meanwhile, he's dealing with a crisis on the, on the bridge because one of his lieutenants is basically starting to refuse orders.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's, he's, he's committing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, he is, he's going to get court-martialed.
Speaker: Like he is fucked.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Lieutenant Jaggers basically wants to just flee.
Speaker: He wants to, wants to get out of there and, and, you know, uh,
Speaker: Keys is like, no, we actually can't do that.
Speaker: I don't know what his, because that's the thing.
Speaker: They basically said, now here, my thinking is this.
Speaker: On one hand, just like any action movie in a moment like this, when you can tell that your protagonist has some trick up his sleeve that he's trying out, and he's not going to tell you how the magic trick works until the very end.
Speaker: And I know that's what, but
Speaker: he even says later on in the next chapter, uh, he, he even says, maybe I should have told them what I was planning.
Speaker: Uh, but they do a really good job of keeping the suspense up because it's like, we have seven seconds left.
Speaker: We have five seconds left.
Speaker: So he doesn't have time to go, listen, this is what I'm planning on doing.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: But you have to they're facing down death no matter what.
Speaker: So I would feel like I just want to slap this kid because it'd be like, what do you we're going to die.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If we were going to die either way, like, so we might as well give something a try here.
Speaker: But he freaks out and literally says we're going to die.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: At a certain point.
Speaker: And it's like, oh, he's just he's lost it.
Speaker: He's lost it.
Speaker: He's lost it.
Speaker: He lost his cool.
Speaker: So basically he he's.
Speaker: They and I feel like I've I feel like I've seen this maneuver somewhere else before, but he basically gets these torpedoes locked onto him.
Speaker: And then hits like directs them around so that the covenant destroyer hits itself with its own torpedoes.
Speaker: Isn't that kind of what happens?
Speaker: He basically, the first thing he does is he sends off a torpedo away from the, the, the covenant.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then he, and then he does this, he orders this really sharp movement.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: where he almost rams the ship, and they're so, basically, long story short, they become so distracted by the maneuvers that he's pulling off that the Covenant ships basically just walk into the nuke.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And, yeah, and it takes down their shields, and it gives them the time to...
Speaker: uh fire uh some mac at them uh and it brings them the brings most of them down right
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's, yeah, it's, it's a suicide mission.
Speaker: It's a suicide mission.
Speaker: They're, they're one on, what are they?
Speaker: One on four, one on two, um, one on four, one on four.
Speaker: And, um, you know, just as the battle is, is wrapping up, um, they realize that the aliens are putting drop ships onto, onto Sigma Octanus, uh, towards a city called Cote du Jour on Sigma Octanus.
Speaker: And basically the battle's wrapping up now.
Speaker: They've basically destroyed the ships, but the Covenant has put its drop ships onto the planet.
Speaker: And they're sending out messages to the allegiance in Gettysburg, which should be showing up shortly.
Speaker: But by this point, the Iroquois is out of the fight.
Speaker: Out.
Speaker: Like, yeah, they've got...
Speaker: Their shields are fucked.
Speaker: Their reactors fucked.
Speaker: Basically, they have no choice but to literally hide behind the planet.
Speaker: Yeah, like the bottom of the hull is just like gone.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: We find out in the next chapter when they, because he came so close to them.
Speaker: And this was hilarious.
Speaker: I thought it was a funny detail.
Speaker: They have these emergency canisters at different points in the ship that will go off and
Speaker: They literally it's literally something mixing with hydrogen peroxide.
Speaker: They say that and it sends out a bunch of gas that causes the ship to take a really dramatic turn.
Speaker: And he does that right before they run into.
Speaker: One of the covenant vessels, and you find out in the next chapter that basically a single degree in one direction or another would have caused a massive hull breach that would have killed them all.
Speaker: It's just, it's just amazing.
Speaker: It's really good writing.
Speaker: It really, it's nice and tense and it's got those little miracles in it.
Speaker: You know, like these, these characters basically get through all of this by the skin of their teeth and just a slight deviation would have wrecked it all.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And he's already hearing people at a certain point when they, they're, they're starting their, their, uh,
Speaker: He can't do anything about the drop ships that are coming onto the planet.
Speaker: The Admiral tells him, it's the Marines' problem now, so you need to take care of your ship, take care of your crew.
Speaker: And he's already hearing people whispering about this crazy, amazing thing that he pulled off, and he feels kind of some guilt.
Speaker: The educator in him kind of feels guilt because he wants to tell him, this was not...
Speaker: You know, this was not a good move.
Speaker: This was a desperate move.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, don't I did this because, yeah, I did.
Speaker: I you know, it's like it could have absolutely killed us, but we were absolutely going to die no matter what.
Speaker: So it was worth a shot.
Speaker: And it and it just happened to work.
Speaker: We rolled a 20 and it happened to work.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And so he goes to bed.
Speaker: He literally, he goes to his chambers.
Speaker: He says, leave me alone.
Speaker: He said, until the next shift, leave me the hell alone.
Speaker: And he pours himself some 75-year-old scotch that his dad gave him at some point when he was a young buck.
Speaker: And he...
Speaker: And he has a, before he can even, like, start enjoying the whiskey, he's immediately interrupted by the Admiral showing up.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And what happens then, Kevin?
Speaker: What happens to our dear Captain Keyes?
Speaker: Keyes is sitting there in the room, and he's thinking it's Dominique, who is his favorite, but he's still annoyed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he says, Lieutenant Dominique, I said I was not to be disturbed.
Speaker: And then the Vice Admiral walks in and they basically, they have a little...
Speaker: you know, back and forth.
Speaker: Um, he pours the vice admiral, some of his whiskey, his, his whiskey that his dad gave him.
Speaker: Um, and stands for Stanforth is like trying to congratulate keys and keys is like, no, don't please, please don't tell me that it was good.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Holds up a finger and says, don't interrupt me, son.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So, yeah, basically, the stand forth just gives him the lowdown.
Speaker: The aliens are assaulting Cote du Jour.
Speaker: There's really not much that they can do, only that it's weird that it's happening.
Speaker: That Keys points out that it's really weird that this is happening because the Covenant never does this.
Speaker: They never do this.
Speaker: They invade, they glass a planet, and then they leave.
Speaker: So what is different now?
Speaker: And this is where, like, he's his professor ship is like is churning and like what's going on here?
Speaker: What's different?
Speaker: Why is he's the academic in him is starting to to start kick start kicking off.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But then Stanforth leaves and hands him a brand new rank medallion to put on his uniform.
Speaker: And now Commander Keyes is now Captain Keyes.
Speaker: No, it was the other way around, I think.
Speaker: Oh, is it?
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker: Fuck.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Commander, then captain.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Commander, then captain.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he's gotten his very quick promotion, and he's overwhelmed.
Speaker: And then he... I love this moment, because it's one of the more relatable moments in the book, where the guy leaves him alone.
Speaker: He's sitting there pondering the day.
Speaker: And he's finished his whiskey.
Speaker: He pours himself another nice big glass of the whiskey.
Speaker: And he sits at his desk and he puts his head down on his desk just to rest his eyes.
Speaker: They almost literally say that old mom excuse, I'm just resting my eyes.
Speaker: I'm just resting my eyes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's woken up by one of his crew and he looks at the clock and it's six hours has gone by.
Speaker: He's falling asleep.
Speaker: He couldn't even get to the bed.
Speaker: Who could blame him?
Speaker: So who could freaking blame?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Stanforth now is making a broadcast, a fleet wide broadcast, basically giving the low down to the fleet with what they what him and keys had had already discussed.
Speaker: But then they kind of they kind of get into their own readiness.
Speaker: So they've actually made some repairs in the meantime.
Speaker: You know, the the Mac guns are ready to go.
Speaker: Some of the lower decks, lower deck repairs are started, but the engines are operational, all that good stuff.
Speaker: So the Iroquois is kind of okay.
Speaker: And then he's it's, it's, it's on, it's, it's okay, but it's okay.
Speaker: You know, a good, a good, you know, solar breeze is probably going to take them, could probably take them out.
Speaker: But, but they, but they've received a word that there are a huge amount of covenant ships that are,
Speaker: showing up at the edge of the system they think about 10 of them and so he's just like we can't fuck around we got to get over there immediately we got to get in on this um even though he probably shouldn't they they're gonna get in on this and uh he orders everybody to battle stations yep yep everyone everyone back back to the same old shit
Speaker: Chapter 19, we got some grunts.
Speaker: Not grunts as in the Covenant kind.
Speaker: We're talking, we're talking, we got some, sorry, jarheads.
Speaker: Actual jarheads on the ground.
Speaker: We got some jarheads on the ground.
Speaker: We got some marines.
Speaker: And they're doing marine shit.
Speaker: They're driving their warthog around.
Speaker: I love warthog.
Speaker: Those warthogs, that's such a great design.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Driving a warthog is so much fun.
Speaker: This is what begins a series of really kind of fast-moving, good, action-packed chapters.
Speaker: And, yeah, they are basically running for their lives because they have been overwhelmed by Covenant forces, as was suggested with the dropships, and they are just running.
Speaker: And we talk about Private Cochran,
Speaker: who they filled them up full of foam, but they put right.
Speaker: They say Cochran's insides were meat.
Speaker: Walker and Fincher had filled him up with bio foam and taped him up.
Speaker: They even managed to stop the bleeding.
Speaker: But if the man didn't get to a medic soon, he was a goner.
Speaker: And it's like it's about 10, maybe 12 pages of
Speaker: of all of this action happening.
Speaker: And every now and then something happens where you're like, okay, so Cochran's dead this time.
Speaker: No, the man is invincible.
Speaker: Somehow this poor private Cochran just like survives one thing after the other.
Speaker: Because they're basically running from one area to another, thinking that another base is still existing.
Speaker: And they get there, and it's also been overrun by the Covenant.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They find out very quick that there's nothing.
Speaker: That that base was also completely wiped out.
Speaker: Well, not completely.
Speaker: There are only a few people left, though.
Speaker: So and there they're going there.
Speaker: It's there's like a lot of it's there's a lot of saving private Ryan basically stuff in this in this chapter.
Speaker: It's absolutely saving private Cochran is basically the name of the chapter.
Speaker: So, you know, Firebase Bravo Alpha headquarters are gone.
Speaker: They're asking for help.
Speaker: And then suddenly there's a dropship inbound and it's one of ours.
Speaker: And they're like, one dropship?
Speaker: That's all they sent?
Speaker: Christ, that's not backup.
Speaker: That's a funeral detail.
Speaker: But guess what?
Speaker: Guess what?
Speaker: They didn't count on who was in that dropship.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then basically the first one that stepped off the ship strode toward him through his armor.
Speaker: Though his armor was devoid of insignia, Harlan could see the insignia of a Master Chief Petty Officer in his helmet HUD.
Speaker: And it's been a while since we've actually had a Master Chief chapter.
Speaker: Yeah, we haven't seen him in this entire section.
Speaker: And then, yeah, we haven't seen him for a few chapters now.
Speaker: And Master Chief, Master Chief's helmet cocked quizzically to one side.
Speaker: We've come to take Sigma Octanus IV back from the Covenant, Corporal, he said calmly.
Speaker: To do that, we're going to kill every last one of them.
Speaker: And it's like, oh, shit.
Speaker: And the 300 soundtrack just starts playing.
Speaker: What I love in the audio book.
Speaker: One of the things I actually do love about the audio book is in this exact only in this scene, they actually added some reverb to the voice actor's voice when he says this to corporal as if it's like being projected out of his helmet.
Speaker: I was like, that is awesome.
Speaker: And it conveys a really, what you're going to start seeing from here on out with Master Chief, with any of the Spartans, but with Master Chief in particular, is the way that people react to him.
Speaker: The way that normal people look at him.
Speaker: He's this kind of god among men.
Speaker: And this is the perfect introduction to this, because we know...
Speaker: who John is.
Speaker: We know he's just, he's Captain America.
Speaker: He's just this kind of clean cut, brainwashed, frankly, kid, um, who happens to, you know, have this incredible strength and speed and, and tactical mastery and that kind of thing.
Speaker: Uh, he, he has these incredible powers, but he's, he's, he's a, he's a lapdog, you know?
Speaker: And I, I, I mean that in both the positive and the negative sense.
Speaker: He's, he's,
Speaker: He's all about his duty.
Speaker: He's a golden retriever.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: And he's there to do his job, and that gives him purpose.
Speaker: And everyone looks at him as if he's got these – it's never stated, but it made me think – it kind of makes me think of the Watchmen a little bit when they talk about people reacting to Dr. Manhattan.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You know, they look out of these, he's got these secrets that we don't know, we don't understand.
Speaker: The difference is, is in Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan totally had those secrets.
Speaker: And in this Master Chief, it's like, oh, if you want to know the most efficient way to blow the hell up out of this building or something like that, yeah, I can help you with that.
Speaker: But
Speaker: Outside of that, he actually might have less information than your average jarhead on the ground because he doesn't really have a personality or an opinion or a point of view.
Speaker: No, he's not in intelligence.
Speaker: He doesn't do anything like that.
Speaker: He gets pointed in a direction and told to go.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's a weapon.
Speaker: He is a weapon.
Speaker: He is Doomguy for all intents and purposes.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He absolutely is Doomguy right now.
Speaker: Like Doomguy has a little bit more personality in the joie de vivre of the way he kills.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: The je ne sais quoi in the way he kills things.
Speaker: He's clearly enjoying himself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But in the same molds, in the same molds,
Speaker: Yeah, Master Chief is just rip and tear until the job is done.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And now, and Nyland has done a good job of setting it up that we know there's going to be a big drop eventually that happens where, you know, the wool is pulled out from, you know, over his eyes.
Speaker: We don't know when that's going to happen, but right now...
Speaker: Yeah, he's basically Doomguy without the enjoyment of his job on that level, anyway.
Speaker: Yeah, he enjoys doing his duty.
Speaker: He gets satisfaction for his job.
Speaker: He gets the satisfaction out of doing his duty, not the actual execution of his duty.
Speaker: And that's the clear difference between the two of them.
Speaker: Right, exactly, exactly.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Yeah, so this is a... In this chapter, basically, we get another look at the Spartan team.
Speaker: They're still hanging out.
Speaker: They're still together.
Speaker: We got the Linda sniper, and I think there's Joshua, a new guy that is now part of the team.
Speaker: Kelly's still there.
Speaker: Kelly's still there.
Speaker: All the old favorites, except Sam, because Sam... All your favorites, yeah.
Speaker: Sam died.
Speaker: Because he's floating around a...
Speaker: an asteroid belt somewhere.
Speaker: Sam is somewhere in space and that's fine.
Speaker: That's a good spot for him.
Speaker: Now, a small detail.
Speaker: This area is called a Cote d'Azur.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: which literally translates.
Speaker: And by the way, I'm not trying to throw French around like I'm some, like I understand.
Speaker: I work in the wine industry, so there are certain words you just know what they mean.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Cote refers to hills.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So Cote du Azur.
Speaker: The Blue Hills.
Speaker: I'm assuming.
Speaker: Yeah, the Blue Hills.
Speaker: That's literally what it means.
Speaker: Now, to bring up the audio book one more time.
Speaker: The way he pronounces it, he says it really fast.
Speaker: And this might be the proper way to pronounce it.
Speaker: I'm not sure.
Speaker: But he's a Cote Du Jour.
Speaker: Which sounds like hill of the day.
Speaker: Yes, could I have your Cote Du Jour?
Speaker: I would love to try your latest Cote Du Jour.
Speaker: That's good soil.
Speaker: Yeah, I like that.
Speaker: You said it's 10,000 years old?
Speaker: Lovely.
Speaker: Is this a detail I'd point out?
Speaker: He kept going Cote Du Jour.
Speaker: And I was trying to, I was doing work and stuff like that and listening to the, a lot of times I'm listening to the audiobook and reading along.
Speaker: And it just helps keep me up, keeps me reading.
Speaker: But this time I wasn't.
Speaker: And so I had to stop and grab the book and open it up and go, there's no way they named this place the Cote Du Jour.
Speaker: They couldn't have done that.
Speaker: Although, but here's the thing.
Speaker: The more I thought about it, the more I said, but if he did name it the Cote Du Jour,
Speaker: that's kind of genius.
Speaker: Because when you think about it, this is just another place for them to plant their flag.
Speaker: It's just another battle for them to win.
Speaker: Another planet to save.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: It's the hill of the day.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I mean, I think the where you took it to justify it being called Cote Du Jour is more clever than anybody would have naming something Cote Du Jour.
Speaker: I'll be accepting my PhD in literary analysis now, please.
Speaker: Anyway, I had to bring up the Cote Du Jour thing.
Speaker: It was rattling around in my brain.
Speaker: It was like a song that you can't get out of your head.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: That's what this podcast is, is bringing up these little things that pop up out of these books.
Speaker: Because we are, out of the macro that is this chapter, the repeated pronunciation in the audiobook of Cote Du Jour is...
Speaker: is the thing is it's it's funny it is funny because he does he does it's up there with majolnir and uh john 117 instead of john 117 right right well that one i have no idea i would i mean i'm fine with that i don't care i think i i it doesn't matter to me i i think the majolnir is it's probably the most egregious one
Speaker: It's pretty bad.
Speaker: So yeah, Master Chief does his thing.
Speaker: Red team is going to do this, and green team's going to do that, and blue team.
Speaker: I'll take them downtown.
Speaker: Questions.
Speaker: So yeah, they're just going to do an op on this town, and they're splitting into red, blue, and green.
Speaker: That's really, really what it comes down to.
Speaker: It's like, this chapter is its good battle description, but it really is just that.
Speaker: So we're not going to, again, we...
Speaker: We're not going to give you every detail because A, read the book.
Speaker: You'll enjoy the book.
Speaker: But B, it also bore you tears at this point to hear it from us.
Speaker: And it's actually a fun, action-packed.
Speaker: It's a fun, action-packed little thing.
Speaker: And I think, so one of the big things that comes out of this chapter is actually...
Speaker: and this is actually after a few scene breaks, is the introduction of a new alien to the Covenant, which they are, it's basically like it just kind of floats and it's approaching cars on the street and disassembling them and then reassembling them.
Speaker: With its brain.
Speaker: It's like different ways.
Speaker: It's just, it's basically playing with the car parts like Legos.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's some kind of brain bug, basically.
Speaker: It's, it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's, and this is the first time they've ever seen, seen one of these.
Speaker: And John makes it, makes sure that, uh, whatever recording devices built into his helmet is working so that they can report this back.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because they've seen grunts before they've seen jackals.
Speaker: I believe they've seen the elites at this point.
Speaker: um i think so too yeah yeah so and those are if you've played the game those are the the three most common that you run into the the grunts the the jackals and the elites um but yeah they they see this and they're like oh well what the what the heck is that thing but that's actually not even the first um that's only the first of two new aliens that they run into
Speaker: Chapter 21, we're back with Captain Keys.
Speaker: We are.
Speaker: And there's an important detail that happens in this chapter that there was a little bit of mention in a couple of chapters ago that I think bears mentioning here.
Speaker: One of the first things that Keyes has to figure out after that insane battle situation that he pulled off is what to do about the near treasonous bridge member that basically...
Speaker: was not about, was about to not accept his orders.
Speaker: And I'll, I'll, I'll go ahead and admit that I, that I, that this captain keys might, he might be the same one that's brought up in the opening chapters.
Speaker: He might be.
Speaker: And if, and, and if he was, that would be very smart because he considers that the kid made a mistake and he does, and, and he could be court-martialed for this kind of thing, but he remembers his own, uh,
Speaker: where he himself had been court-martialed.
Speaker: He had gotten in trouble, and he believes in second chances, basically.
Speaker: But he does need to replace the guy.
Speaker: Yeah, he can't have him on the bridge.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He doesn't want a firing squad on him, but he also can't have him on his ship.
Speaker: That wouldn't work either.
Speaker: So in Chapter 21, we find out that he's replaced him with Ensign Lovell.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because he looked, he looked the kid up and he also saw another person that he, he, he, uh, resonated with in the sense that he's got this up and down kind of career path.
Speaker: And he said, let's see if we can't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And let's see if we can't give this kid a second chance to, while we're at it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, so level's hilarious in this because he's just kind of like, what the hell am I doing?
Speaker: Like, what am I doing?
Speaker: And he's like, you're there.
Speaker: Sit, sit there.
Speaker: Sit there and do your job.
Speaker: And he's like, oh, okay, cool.
Speaker: And literally, Captain Keith, he goes, he's like, oh, good.
Speaker: He did his job.
Speaker: I told him to sit there and he sat there.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: I like this kid.
Speaker: He's got Moxie, this kid.
Speaker: What's funny, though, is that Lovell...
Speaker: It's weird though, just a little bit because Lovell is set up at the earlier chapter as like definitely not wanting to do any shit any ever again.
Speaker: And then he quickly jumps into, yeah, I'll do it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I think I think part of him is kind of like intrigued by the fact that he is he has been hand chosen by this commander who is now a hero.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, he I think I are captain as the case may be.
Speaker: I think he is.
Speaker: I think that might that'll catch anybody's attention at that point.
Speaker: So you're at least going to go in there long enough to go.
Speaker: Why am I here?
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's true.
Speaker: So otherwise we get some fleet maneuvers and we have a reference to the Revolutionary War.
Speaker: A web of trajectories crossed the map with tiny countdown times next to each.
Speaker: Vice Admiral Stanforth had the fleet exchanging fire with the Covenant like a line of redcoats and colonial militia in the Revolutionary War.
Speaker: tactics that could best be described as bloody or suicidal.
Speaker: So Keyes was like... Just a long line of broadsides just soaking up shots.
Speaker: Keyes is like, this is terrible.
Speaker: Yeah, this is awful.
Speaker: This is not good maneuvering.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, Keyes, despite the Iroquois' rough shape, basically gets back into the shit.
Speaker: Yeah, like, wastes no time.
Speaker: And they, we, we get another great big damn naval battle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, the cradle, which was the repair station that they were just on gets destroyed.
Speaker: They, the cradle basically like lurched into, in between, um, the Iroquois and the fleet and a bunch of like a salvo of missiles and gets taken out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Basically takes the shot for it.
Speaker: It sacrifices itself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so they're not going, they absolutely are not going to waste that sacrifice.
Speaker: And they just push their engines to the point, and if you remember correctly, when they first left, their engines were at 50%.
Speaker: So they're just pushing themselves as hard and as fast as they can and going on a collision course.
Speaker: for this Covenant ship.
Speaker: They're just going to slam into it.
Speaker: So basically what happens is they detect that there is a different Covenant ship around Sigma Octanus 4 that has broken off from the main fleet and realizing that they can't engage along with Standforth and all that with basically the larger scale where they find this other ship.
Speaker: It's basically like
Speaker: It's like a, it's a small vessel.
Speaker: It's basically, it's like a, it's like a, it's like stealth.
Speaker: It's like a stealth ship.
Speaker: It's a stealth, it's a stealth vessel.
Speaker: It's an intelligence vessel of some kind.
Speaker: So basically they're like, yeah, we're, we're going to ram it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause fuck it.
Speaker: Like, like we were going to do something.
Speaker: And indeed they do.
Speaker: They ram it and destroy it.
Speaker: And just destroy it because they needed, because fuck it, let's get another win on the board.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it ends with Lieutenant Hall saying, Jesus, I think we actually won that one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's such a great ending to the chapter where they're like, everyone's this.
Speaker: We're still following Master Chief.
Speaker: And so we see a lot of badass stuff happening.
Speaker: So it's real easy to forget that.
Speaker: At no point have they started winning this war.
Speaker: They are just, they're constantly just hanging on by a thread there.
Speaker: And so they, they win this thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is, I think we actually won that one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and, but, but, but Keys as always, it realizes that they won because they got lucky.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They got a lot of levels.
Speaker: So Stan for basically Stan for with his lineup ships had kind of outgunned
Speaker: the Covenant in this battle, and then Keyes managed to ram this other ship.
Speaker: For the most part, going into Chapter 22, the engagement out in space is done, which is super rare because the book starts with, in the prologue, if you remember, the book starts with the opposite happening.
Speaker: Master Chief and his team easily win the ground campaign.
Speaker: And meanwhile, up in space, the conflict up there is just a mess.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just them running from one planet to another.
Speaker: So if anything, this is this is about as optimistic as it gets.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So then in Chapter 22, basically, basically, they're going to do the Raccoon City maneuver.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: On Cote d'Azur, which is which is just our like place a nuke in the center of the city and blow it up.
Speaker: Yeah, they're just yeah, they're just like it's once again, we are back to, you know, scorched earth politics here where it's just like, let's we're just going to.
Speaker: We're just going to burn this thing down because everyone's dead and therefore this will kill a bunch of the Covenant and any intelligence we might have had and they're gone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they just basically, long story short, that's what they do.
Speaker: Yeah, that's the goal.
Speaker: But meanwhile, they find out that they start, you know, John starts to gather some intelligence regarding why the covenant is actually there.
Speaker: And they're in a museum of all places.
Speaker: Insert your Indiana Jones references here.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: They're in a museum.
Speaker: No fewer than six, please.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They belong in a museum.
Speaker: Well, they're in a museum.
Speaker: Belonged in a museum, clearly.
Speaker: So, yeah, they they approach the museum to to get in there.
Speaker: Basically, Kelly asks Master Chief, what are our orders?
Speaker: And he goes, we're going in.
Speaker: Use your silencers.
Speaker: Don't engage the enemy.
Speaker: Place is too hot.
Speaker: We'll just poke our noses in and see what's what's going on.
Speaker: He's just curious.
Speaker: He is just curious at this point.
Speaker: Which is not something he's known for.
Speaker: He's not known for his curiosity.
Speaker: But even there, that's the thing.
Speaker: This is so out of the ordinary for the Covenant that even somebody like Master Chief is like, maybe I should take a look at this.
Speaker: We need to know what's going on.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: The Covenant has been
Speaker: Nothing, if not reliable lately.
Speaker: Well, since the beginning.
Speaker: It's been like they've been fighting them for 10 years or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At this point.
Speaker: And you know what to expect from them at this point.
Speaker: And suddenly the narrative is getting changed.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And even a point towards enemy and get away guy like Master Chief wants to know what the hell that's all about.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They find a jackal that had been crunched underfoot, underboot by a larger creature.
Speaker: They're like, well, okay, this is also kind of weird.
Speaker: We've never seen a covenant alien like that would have done this.
Speaker: And then finally they, they see them.
Speaker: Master Chief hadn't seen them at first because they were so motionless and so massive.
Speaker: He had no doubt that one of them had crushed the Jackal that had gotten in its way.
Speaker: And we basically get this massive, this, this battle against these two gigantic aliens, um,
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: That can go toe to toe with the Spartans easily.
Speaker: Physically, they're just they're just big boys.
Speaker: And I forget what they're called, but these are pretty familiar.
Speaker: Again, familiar aliens.
Speaker: They take a lot.
Speaker: They're basically just the bullet spongiest.
Speaker: They're very bullet spongy.
Speaker: I remember last I was fighting them.
Speaker: Bullet sponge porcupines.
Speaker: Yeah, they're just covered in spikes.
Speaker: They just use all your ammo.
Speaker: Giant pain in the ass.
Speaker: And that's what Master Chief finds out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's recording all of this as well.
Speaker: So they find that basically they're protecting this pink quartz monolith that that's what the Covenant is after, seemingly.
Speaker: Yeah, and the reasoning behind that is definitely a mystery at the time.
Speaker: Yeah, Master Chief is not the one that's going to figure that out.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: But, you know, everything we know about the covenant up until this point is that they're basically a religious organization.
Speaker: So that's immediately what got into my head with this.
Speaker: You know, there's a level of idol worship there.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, yeah, that was pretty cool.
Speaker: That was a pretty cool detail.
Speaker: After this encounter, they leave.
Speaker: They beat it out of Cote d'Azur.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: They get some civilians out of there.
Speaker: Yeah, red and green team, they were charged with getting civilians out of there.
Speaker: And this was an interesting moment when they finally get back.
Speaker: One of the...
Speaker: Corporal Harland here shows up and he asks them, this is a very telling moment to me.
Speaker: He says, sir, how did you do it?
Speaker: The civilian said you got them out of the city, passed an army of covenants, sir.
Speaker: How?
Speaker: John cocked his head quizzically.
Speaker: It was our mission, corporal.
Speaker: It's just like, and he's not being a smart ass and he's not being a tough guy.
Speaker: It's literally just like, that's the, you know, that is literally how he did it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Nothing, nothing supersedes the mission.
Speaker: And the corporal has nothing, nothing he can do, but just go.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then they detonate.
Speaker: And that's all.
Speaker: And that's a little bit about what I was talking about with the way that people, um,
Speaker: regard him, you know, he's so alien to them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, it's, it's, it's really interesting.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: He is, he is, he is seemingly from another world.
Speaker: Um, and the chapter ends with, they detonate the, the nuke.
Speaker: Eric Nyland doesn't even add any, any flavor text to this.
Speaker: He just says mission accomplished.
Speaker: Mission accomplished.
Speaker: Coat de Zor is destroyed, along with whatever Covenant detachment was occupying it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's that's that.
Speaker: That is that.
Speaker: That is that.
Speaker: Brush your hands of it and we're good.
Speaker: And that brings us back to the Iroquois.
Speaker: Captain Keyes.
Speaker: And our Captain Keyes, who's steadily becoming my favorite character.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it's amazing.
Speaker: I love this guy.
Speaker: He's, he is, he's a really good character.
Speaker: And I'm glad that, um, I'm glad that they took that Eric Nyland took our advice from episode one and brought him back.
Speaker: And brought him back just in time, by the way.
Speaker: Because... Like, he was paying close attention, and I really appreciate it.
Speaker: I appreciate it as well.
Speaker: So, Captain Keys is our victory, people.
Speaker: That is our win.
Speaker: And it's a really good thing, having played the first Halo, let me just say right here that it's a really good thing that nothing bad happens to him in that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, just because that, you know, you know, after all that, that I was paying like really close attention to what happens.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's just such a good thing, uh, that throughout the first Halo game, that nothing bad happens to Kevin Keyes.
Speaker: Uh, so we come back to him and he's, he's, he's upset.
Speaker: He's, he is, uh, he is the grumpiest of Gus's, uh, because he's just basically contemplating what they just dealt with.
Speaker: Basically what we talked about.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, Admiral Standforth is excited because they got their win, but they lost just a ton of people.
Speaker: And the casualty figures are out of the score.
Speaker: What's the word for that?
Speaker: It's a Pyrrhic victory?
Speaker: A Pyrrhic victory, exactly.
Speaker: When you win, but at what cost.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's exactly what this is.
Speaker: And it's them, you know, doing a sensor sweep and basically just kind of cleaning up all the broken lives and the debris and everything like that.
Speaker: Everything was just...
Speaker: But he does get his own personal win.
Speaker: It's a good thing he gets his own little victory here because at this point, even this level of pessimism would wear on someone.
Speaker: Yes, it would.
Speaker: But he starts to notice that his crew, based on how everything was going, the morale...
Speaker: is increasing despite the fact that they lost so many.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: They've leveled up.
Speaker: They hit the experience, the right amount of experience points.
Speaker: The Final Fantasy battle music is playing in the background of all of their heads.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: This is a great example.
Speaker: It says, as he looked at this crew, he noticed that something was different.
Speaker: Lieutenant Hikawa's movements were crisp and determined, as if everything she did now would decide their next battle.
Speaker: It made a startling contrast to her normally lethargic efficiency.
Speaker: And then he describes, you know, various members of the team that no matter how tired they are, no matter what they've seen, everyone's stepping lively.
Speaker: Everyone's looking sharp,
Speaker: And determined and focused again.
Speaker: And so he has to kind of concede that, you know, maybe this win after all was pretty damn important because this is how we're going to win.
Speaker: We can't.
Speaker: If everyone's just accepting death and defeat, then that's exactly what's going to happen.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And then he gets a message from Stanforth saying to basically get back to Reach.
Speaker: He needs to get back to Reach right away because the ONI needs to have words.
Speaker: Yeah, because nothing changes, because even in a situation where it is literally our entire world fighting against a...
Speaker: alien invasion uh intelligence is still trying to fuck with us basically exactly it's just it's it's the local cops versus the fbi all over again basically it's it's that trope uh and the oni is just the worst kind of fbi agent there the oni is basically um agent johnson and johnson from diehard
Speaker: Right, right, exactly, exactly.
Speaker: So they start heading back to Reach, and we get this brief moment here at the very end of the chapter that tells us, as the Iroquois is plowing through space, anybody who cared to notice, and of course no one does, a tiny piece of debris, which is what turns out to be a tiny automated probe,
Speaker: of the Covenants.
Speaker: So it's going, which is going to be reporting back to the Covenant, telling them, the Iroquois, every move.
Speaker: So it's a very dun-dun-dun kind of moment to end the chapter on.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And then finally, we come to chapter 24.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which I think this is my favorite chapter in the section, if you can believe it.
Speaker: Is it because it's set in Camp Hathcock?
Speaker: I mean, that's only part of it.
Speaker: That's like 45% of it max.
Speaker: That's how good this stuff was.
Speaker: For all of the... This is basically what I would... This is the last chapter in the section.
Speaker: And I would call this basically a post-mortem because you find out exactly what he's talking about with the intelligence coming in.
Speaker: And it's a moment where Keyes...
Speaker: Master Chief and even Halsey, everyone kind of, you see everybody again, and everyone has to talk to intelligence and report what happened.
Speaker: And we only see it from Master Chief's point of view, but
Speaker: They are clearly agitated.
Speaker: They're frustrated with him.
Speaker: They're frustrated with the actions he took in destroying the city.
Speaker: And he doesn't get it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He truly doesn't get it.
Speaker: He did what he was ordered to do, and intelligence is angry at him.
Speaker: Right, exactly.
Speaker: And it's the beginning of what must be Master Chief's, his loyalty is brainwashing, slowly starting to peel back because it's the first time ever that he's basically, he describes the tone of voice and the way they're treating him.
Speaker: It says that he feels a little bit like he's in combat.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: which of course he is in a way they are second guessing him they're reprimanding him questioning his I forget his so you do know Master Chief that not answering truthfully or omitting any relevant details will lead to a court martial John bristled as if he could ever forget his duty right that's all he does yeah
Speaker: This is his life.
Speaker: That is him.
Speaker: Like his duty and his ego are completely intertwined at this point as a character.
Speaker: There's nothing to him but his duty since he's been six years old.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so the idea that the people that he's on, it's, it kind of harkens back to when he killed all of those, those ODSTs, the ODSTs.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And, and he was like, well, these guys were on my side, but they were an enemy at the same time.
Speaker: And it's like, system error, you know, it's the same kind of thing.
Speaker: Cause it's like, these guys are on my side, but they're questioning my motives and they're questioning my motivations.
Speaker: I, I,
Speaker: Because he has no other motives or motivations.
Speaker: There's nothing to it but what they want him to do.
Speaker: I feel like this is the beginning of
Speaker: him just starting to go, oh, fuck.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then at the end, we have a, we have a lovely reunion with him and Halsey.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Halsey is, which is, which kind of sweet in a way.
Speaker: Yeah, it is.
Speaker: It is very sweet for them.
Speaker: It's like basically his, it's basically seeing his mommy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker: It's so cute.
Speaker: Cause he like, he sees her and he, and he salutes her.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, and you can kind of see in her, the way she reacts to it.
Speaker: She's just kind of like,
Speaker: Oh, sweetie.
Speaker: Still a civilian.
Speaker: He's not still a civilian, John.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And she's not and she's not the warm and cuddly type.
Speaker: So it's not like she's going to go in for a hug or any damn thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But like, it's awkward.
Speaker: Like, he's awkward.
Speaker: She's a little awkward.
Speaker: And they're just kind of talking about, you know, she just she literally goes, how are you, Master Chief?
Speaker: Which no one's ever done.
Speaker: And that brings me back to what I've been saying this whole time.
Speaker: about how people react to him.
Speaker: before this, he had seen Commander Keyes, who had treated him, who he only recognized after a moment, and who kind of looks at him in kind of this amused way and gives him some advice on how to handle the intelligence.
Speaker: And then Dr. Halsey, who does kind of treat him like, you know, like an immensely waspy mother, but a mother, nonetheless.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, very cold, but still mommy.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: And these two people are the only people who treat him in this non-awestruck sort of way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which I think is, it's very interesting.
Speaker: Keyes' relation to him is interesting because Keyes knew, so both of them knew him as a child.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They saw exactly where he came from.
Speaker: They saw where he came from.
Speaker: They're the only two people.
Speaker: that know that saw literally his home.
Speaker: So I think that's, that's kind of an interesting dynamic to, to have with these, these characters.
Speaker: Now, John doesn't remember keys at all, but keys definitely remembers John as a kid.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's, it's a very, so it's a very, that's why I've re I've really liked this chapter because it really says something about, um,
Speaker: the characters.
Speaker: And, and, you know, it, it, it's a moment to stop.
Speaker: There's a bunch of blood and guts and killing and it's terrific.
Speaker: And then you stop and, and you get, you know, these are all heroic, you know, characters in their own way.
Speaker: And then you get a moment and go, Oh, well they're, they really are different though in their own ways.
Speaker: And it's, it's really neat.
Speaker: And then to, and then to ruin that tender moment, the very final page has this moment.
Speaker: I'm going to read.
Speaker: She asks him how he is, and he says, I'm fine, ma'am.
Speaker: We won at Sigmus Octonus.
Speaker: It was good to have a complete victory.
Speaker: Indeed it was, she paused and glanced about.
Speaker: How would you like to have another victory, she whispered, the biggest we've ever had.
Speaker: And I wrote in my book, are they going to fuck?
Speaker: So I didn't read it like that.
Speaker: This is just how immature I am.
Speaker: I read it as like, because she's like, she's like a parental figure.
Speaker: So she's like, just imagine John as a little boy.
Speaker: And she's like, how would you like to have another victory?
Speaker: Would you like that point?
Speaker: Would you like that point?
Speaker: And she's like, okay, see, see, see, you're a father.
Speaker: And I'm a recently reformed scumbag.
Speaker: So that tells you about, that makes more sense than I ever meant it to.
Speaker: That was a really good reading on, on us as that just, yeah, that just really, that was amazing.
Speaker: I'm going to cut this clip out and send it to my psychiatrist.
Speaker: Basically, like, yeah, she's like a parent saying, do you want a bigger piece of candy?
Speaker: Yeah, and now that you point that out, you're right.
Speaker: And that brings us to the end of the section.
Speaker: That's the end of section three.
Speaker: That's the end of section three.
