Transcript
Speaker: Whoa, you did you spill something there?
Speaker: Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Speaker: We're good.
Speaker: We're good.
Speaker: All the delicious meat is in place.
Speaker: The beverage is safe?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You know what else is safe?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: Do you know what is really weird?
Speaker: I actually expected the theme song to just kick in.
Speaker: I was like, where's the theme song?
Speaker: It's very quiet.
Speaker: What are you talking about?
Speaker: It's playing right now.
Speaker: It's playing.
Speaker: Oh, there it is.
Speaker: I was not listening.
Speaker: This damn cheap set of headphones.
Speaker: So, hey there, everybody.
Speaker: My name is Kevin alongside Phil, as always.
Speaker: And today we are diving into a brand new Halo book.
Speaker: By William C. Dietz called The Flood.
Speaker: The Flood.
Speaker: Look at that.
Speaker: I don't know if that's going to record backwards.
Speaker: You get like the trade.
Speaker: I get like the shitty beat up trade.
Speaker: I like a good looking book.
Speaker: I like to keep it.
Speaker: It's like, ooh, this is
Speaker: Sexy.
Speaker: It looks good.
Speaker: It looks good.
Speaker: It looks good as, as master chief is, is being consumed by tentacles, by tentacles.
Speaker: This is our first book that this is our first, uh,
Speaker: in a series.
Speaker: How do you even put this?
Speaker: This is our first book that we've read the second.
Speaker: Yeah, it's our it's our yeah, it's our first double dip in a franchise.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it makes sense because you people loved people.
Speaker: Let's let's be honest.
Speaker: People love the extended world of Halo.
Speaker: I think
Speaker: Or they love to hate it.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I mean, we haven't really heard one way or the other.
Speaker: I think people I think people like it.
Speaker: People seem to like it.
Speaker: People seem to like it.
Speaker: Yeah, it was it was our most popular episode.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: The first episode of our Halo series is our most popular episode of last year.
Speaker: So and now and happy new year, everybody.
Speaker: Oh, happy new year.
Speaker: It's officially 2022.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: Actually, yes, it is officially 2022.
Speaker: It will have been 2022 for a couple of weeks, I believe, when this episode goes out.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Good point.
Speaker: Because we just we just came off of World of Power Mega Man 2 with Scott Dyswander.
Speaker: I hope I hope you all enjoy that.
Speaker: That's special treat.
Speaker: That's a that's a guest we've we've wanted.
Speaker: We've wanted to hang out.
Speaker: Yeah, we've been wanting we've been wanting Scott on the show for a while, and I think we found a nice way to have him on.
Speaker: But absolutely.
Speaker: Mega Man is Mega Man's basically a Spartan, right?
Speaker: I mean, yeah, I mean, it's that's he's he's just more modular, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, you can take him apart and you can put him in.
Speaker: You can put him in a box.
Speaker: He doesn't need cryo storage.
Speaker: No, exactly.
Speaker: He's just he just I mean, he blinks into a little ball or beam of light when he enters and leaves.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Theoretically, he could probably fit into any little storage space you need.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's what those little E canisters are.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's failed Mega Man.
Speaker: That's his energy.
Speaker: It drains their life force.
Speaker: Drinking the essence of his failed brethren.
Speaker: His failed brethren.
Speaker: Oh, where's that fan fiction?
Speaker: Holy shit.
Speaker: As he approaches the E container, you could hear it whispering, kill me.
Speaker: Mega Man stared at the E blinking off and on, off and on.
Speaker: I will, he said.
Speaker: Crack.
Speaker: Just like a can of Coke.
Speaker: Just...
Speaker: I was hoping I had an unopened can of water, but I don't.
Speaker: Not this time.
Speaker: Not this time.
Speaker: What's your tasty beverage today?
Speaker: It is a Good & Gather, which is the Target brand, I believe, bubbly water.
Speaker: And it's cranberry citrus.
Speaker: Oh, that sounds good.
Speaker: Yeah, it doesn't taste like cranberry or citrus.
Speaker: It just tastes like bubbly water.
Speaker: Okay, well, there's that at least.
Speaker: It's fun to imagine that this is like the flavor on a lot of these flavored bubbly waters is is it's just it's like a it's like a it's like a writing prompt.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like when you're just trying to imagine what it should taste like.
Speaker: Like, well, as a suggestion, we say cranberry citrus.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And if you don't like that, try tobacco plum.
Speaker: Get in there.
Speaker: Get your creative juices flowing.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: So, Halo.
Speaker: Halo.
Speaker: The Flood of Reach.
Speaker: The Flood of Reach, yeah.
Speaker: And this is the first one that actually, this is based on the first Halo game.
Speaker: This is based on the first Halo game.
Speaker: Combat Evolved.
Speaker: And with the exception of some scenes of dialogue with the Covenant, which we'll get into,
Speaker: it it's pretty beat for beat the game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, cause the prologue starts with, uh, uh, with an officer third class, Sam Marcus, don't get attached to him.
Speaker: Please don't.
Speaker: And I don't wait.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And based on how things went last time, we might need to make sure that he doesn't come back from the dead and is like a longstanding, well respected and appreciated character.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: We, you know, our foot was in our mouths, collective mouths last time.
Speaker: But fair to say.
Speaker: Well, let's just talk about it.
Speaker: Basically, Sam Marcus, we're getting all this backstory about Sam Marcus, who is.
Speaker: He's a tech officer.
Speaker: He's got a wife who he hasn't seen in years.
Speaker: And he misses her.
Speaker: He's working on board the Pillar of Autumn.
Speaker: He's on the Pillar of Autumn.
Speaker: He misses her dearly.
Speaker: Which is never a good sign, by the way.
Speaker: It's never a good sign.
Speaker: Don't miss your family.
Speaker: Don't miss your family.
Speaker: Don't be that close to retirement either.
Speaker: It's not going to end well for you.
Speaker: No, it's not.
Speaker: And he gets a call.
Speaker: to go down to the cryo stations and unthaw somebody.
Speaker: And he basically says, is it who I think it is?
Speaker: Now, we don't get confirmation on who he thinks it is quite yet because we have a jump in scenery.
Speaker: Over to a covenant character.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this is the first time.
Speaker: Now, now it bears pointing out that this book is not written by the same author as the fall of reach.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: This particular person written by William C. Dietz, who I tried briefly to look up information on that author and I didn't I didn't find anything.
Speaker: But that might partially be because the book is filled to the brim at the end with like where normally there would be an about the author section section.
Speaker: It's just filled with halo ads, just like for toys and the next book and the games.
Speaker: And here's here's like collectible frameable art.
Speaker: and action figures mega constructs halo yeah and and it doesn't have there is no about the author there's no about the author not in my copy like i feel really bad for mr deets here like yeah i'm i'm checking there's uh there's some appendices yeah um there's nothing even on the back
Speaker: He's just all right.
Speaker: So deets.
Speaker: Poor William.
Speaker: We got it.
Speaker: It's a, so this is the first time this is our, so this is our, a new author on this franchise.
Speaker: And this is the first time because in the fall of reach, we never heard from the covenant directly.
Speaker: They were kind of this,
Speaker: Aha.
Speaker: You have something?
Speaker: I have an about the author section.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Let me read this to you.
Speaker: William C. Deitz is a New York Times bestselling author of more than 50 novels.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: This guy writes, including Halo, the Flood, Starcraft, Heaven's Devils, and Legion of the Damned series.
Speaker: He grew up in the Seattle area, served as a medic with the Navy and the Marines and graduated from the University of Washington.
Speaker: Dietz worked as a surgical technician, a news writer, a college instructor, a television producer and a director of public relations for an international telephone company prior to embarking on a full time writing career.
Speaker: Good Lord.
Speaker: Well, there's your there's your.
Speaker: Fucking theme, ladies and gentlemen, the moral of the story is never give up.
Speaker: Never give up.
Speaker: There's always it's never too late.
Speaker: There's always time to be a New York Times bestselling.
Speaker: William C. Dietz is like 10 careers deep in his life at this point.
Speaker: He's like the Homer Simpson of the real world.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: And he's he was a he was a former military man.
Speaker: Now, that's an interesting detail just based on, you know, based on what we're looking at here.
Speaker: Halo.
Speaker: Very military.
Speaker: Very military.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So that's good.
Speaker: That's good to know.
Speaker: Good to know.
Speaker: Good to know.
Speaker: And he wrote a Starcraft book, which, hey, we might have to circle back around.
Speaker: We might see him again.
Speaker: Yeah, we might see him again.
Speaker: But enough about William C. Aditz.
Speaker: We're going to be talking about him plenty as we discuss his writing.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: Let's talk about Orna Fulsome.
Speaker: Fulsome.
Speaker: Fulsome.
Speaker: I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce the covenant names.
Speaker: I'm just going to assume that they are pronounced the way they are spelled.
Speaker: Yeah, we're going full phonetics.
Speaker: We're going full phonetics, people.
Speaker: And if you have an issue with that, you can email us at that's not how it's pronounced at proton.gmail.com.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's, that's the only place.
Speaker: Bringing out, bringing out the old fake email bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Did you, it's a new year.
Speaker: It's time for the old jokes.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So Folsomie is the, he's called a shipmaster.
Speaker: It's basically the captain of the ship that is pursuing the Pillar of Autumn.
Speaker: And this, is this the, does it say that this is the truth and consequence?
Speaker: I assume it is, but...
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: I mean, that's so far, as far as I've read, they haven't they haven't used that term.
Speaker: But yeah, yeah, that's that's that's the ship that that Keyes ends up on.
Speaker: But I'm not sure if this specific one is is the truth or consequence.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But we get it.
Speaker: Basically, we get a little look into how the Covenant.
Speaker: hierarchy works uh yeah because he's the ship captain um but he is outranked by a prophet who is on deck yeah um and he's getting clergy class yeah basically this these religious types uh and he gets an order countermandate basically he's just like yeah just kill the pillar of autumn just blow it up
Speaker: yeah and the and the prophet says no because they're within uh reach of halo yeah if a missile if one of their missiles misses uh the pillar of autumn then they could destroy halo right and and he sees it actually it's interesting because the prophet isn't really all that concerned he actually even sees the ship's arrival as like an accident uh that's he doesn't see anything sinister about it and uh for those of you first off if uh if you guys
Speaker: if you haven't listened to Halo Fall of Reach, you might you might it might be easier to understand where we're going to go with this book if you listen to that first.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But all the same.
Speaker: Yeah, this is they've just come out of it's not what is it?
Speaker: Slipstream.
Speaker: It's Slip Space, I think.
Speaker: Slip Space.
Speaker: Something like that.
Speaker: Slippery Space.
Speaker: Slippery Space.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so, yeah, he gets he gets countermanded by
Speaker: you know, essentially a Bishop, I guess like an archbishop or something.
Speaker: It would be frustrating if you were like, if you were like an admiral and you know, an archbishop was able to just like, so belay that order.
Speaker: It's like, no, it's my boat.
Speaker: I know what I'm doing.
Speaker: I know what I'm doing with my guy.
Speaker: Um, so he can't, he can't fire on the pillar of autumn, which is, uh,
Speaker: God, that is man.
Speaker: The covenant would have just they would have had an easy victory.
Speaker: You would have just yeah, this would have been a pamphlet.
Speaker: It's interesting and it's interesting because we the covenant, I think the covenant point of view that we're getting here.
Speaker: it, it, it's worth focusing on a little because everything we know about the covenant from the first book is based on the assumptions and the research of humanity.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And they're kind of assuming that the covenant is like this religious sect that is, uh, has been collecting races as they go, as they, you know, based on their abilities and strengths.
Speaker: And, uh, and I think the interesting thing, cause I didn't even know this, um,
Speaker: They point out the the prophet points out that the the halo itself wasn't made by the covenant.
Speaker: It was it's made by ancients.
Speaker: It's a race that they're not even aware of.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Fully.
Speaker: So it's been in in that area of space for God only knows how long.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it's very mysterious.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and also, I think one of the things that's interesting is that there is a perception when we see the covenant from the characters, the human side is that the covenant is like this monolithic thing.
Speaker: entity that is just there they're coming to even though it's made by made up of all these different races there it's like this the all these true rabid religious fanatics um and even in this first scene you kind of get the sense that like that's not really true i mean like the the the ship
Speaker: master is like, yeah, he's a believer, clearly in the stuff, but he's still kind of annoyed.
Speaker: Like, it's not like he's going to be not like the prophets, the word of God or whatever.
Speaker: He's right.
Speaker: Yeah, he's annoyed.
Speaker: Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, there's there's more infighting and we'll see more of that as the book goes on.
Speaker: Then we've been like led to believe.
Speaker: And I think that's kind of common when you have
Speaker: an enemy.
Speaker: It's real easy for you to treat it like they're all united against us.
Speaker: It's like, no, they're, they're, they're fighting amongst themselves too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They have their own issues.
Speaker: They're just pretty good at this part.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, so basically they, the, the, they are going to board the ship.
Speaker: Uh, that is, that is their new goal is to board the pillar of autumn.
Speaker: And that takes us to chapter one.
Speaker: Section one, chapter one.
Speaker: Basically, it starts right in the thick of it.
Speaker: The Pillar of Autumn is under attack.
Speaker: It's getting immediately.
Speaker: It's getting slapped upside the head with some missiles so that
Speaker: uh the covenant can begin to board and um we have uh seen it starts right out with with keys um keys and his crew on the deck basically dealing with the um the basically the fighters the the right the the fighters swarming the ship and all that little skirmish that's it planes yeah yeah
Speaker: And, and, uh, and keys sees halo for the first time.
Speaker: It's glorious.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And immediately asks Cortana, what the hell is that?
Speaker: Cortana has no idea, which is an unusual situation.
Speaker: Cortana rarely knows what things are.
Speaker: Uh, rarely doesn't know what things are.
Speaker: Uh, I was about to say she's terrible at her job.
Speaker: She's terrible at her job.
Speaker: She is the worst AI in the world.
Speaker: Terrible AI.
Speaker: But I know that AI that like wrote, you know, it consumed a thousand romance novels and then it spat out another one.
Speaker: That's that that that is more that is far superior to Portana's abilities.
Speaker: She wishes she was writing romance novels.
Speaker: I'm sure she does.
Speaker: I mean, actually, yeah, in moments like these, I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker: So, yeah, we get the measurements of Halo, and it's gigantic.
Speaker: It is just a massive thing.
Speaker: They can see a hurricane over one of the oceans on Halo.
Speaker: There's an actual hurricane, which is just remarkable to consider the size of this structure.
Speaker: It was a really good detail.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was a really neat detail.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Made me think of like the giant red spot on Jupiter.
Speaker: So, yeah, they basically keys his decision is, yeah, we're going in.
Speaker: We're going to we're going to try to we're going to try to crash land on this bad boy.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's not he's not really count because pillar of autumn is being held together by like silly string in a prayer.
Speaker: At this point, yeah, there's not.
Speaker: Yeah, they are.
Speaker: They are just.
Speaker: So he's not.
Speaker: He's like, look, probably not going to make it out with this ship intact.
Speaker: So let's just pillar for pillar of autumn is like it wasn't even battle ready.
Speaker: The last battle.
Speaker: It wasn't even battle ready at reach.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And they got hit and hit again.
Speaker: And yeah, they're just hanging on by a thread.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Mr. Marcus, Sam Marcus, our new favorite character who is going to be a main character, main character, reoccurring character, looking forward to seeing what they do with him in Halo Infinite.
Speaker: He there's a lot of techno babble here, but basically they're they're unsealing unsealing the hushed casket, which is the code for unsealing Master Chief's cryo stasis.
Speaker: And we get some we get some if you haven't read anything, if you haven't played Halo or read
Speaker: the fall of reach.
Speaker: There's like a exposition dump here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just like the get, get you up to speed.
Speaker: The requisite gets you up to speed on what a Spartan is.
Speaker: Exposition.
Speaker: The Spartans are what the world is, why it's a big deal.
Speaker: He's the last Spartan and why that's shocking and all that good stuff.
Speaker: This is, yeah, this is, this is just for those of you who haven't read the last book or played the game, here's the deal.
Speaker: Here's what a Spartan is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then speaking of Spartans speaking of Spartans Johnny boy is having a dream.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not of war for once.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He can change.
Speaker: So, yeah, he's dreaming of a woman, a woman that we kind of assume is his mother at first.
Speaker: And then she transforms into Dr. Halsey, who is the woman who is in charge of the Spartan project, who made him who he is.
Speaker: And it's kind of more of a mother to him than his actual mom.
Speaker: Uh, for the, for those of you playing the home game, they literally stole these children away from their family and replaced them with cloned versions of themselves.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, the ultimate like Irish legend, Faye changeling bullshit.
Speaker: And the clone version of themselves was designed to die.
Speaker: It was.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's just.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's it's it's to which point you're just like, at least if the kid dies, they've got some level of closure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, oh, my boy.
Speaker: Instead of the kid just disappearing and them never knowing what happened.
Speaker: So she's a real, real peach of a woman is I guess what we're saying that Dr. Halsey.
Speaker: And here's another there's another small exposition dump here on what we just talked about, the super soldier program.
Speaker: And Halsey then becomes Cortana.
Speaker: uh, standing and she's standing before what is basically described as like an enormous threat.
Speaker: There's this, just this, this cloud of evil coming his way.
Speaker: Uh, but he himself in his dream is a powerless child who just can't do it.
Speaker: And Kevin, do you have these dreams?
Speaker: Do you have the dream where,
Speaker: you're in a fight, but when you go to hit them, it's like you're punching through water and you can only like kind of gently tap them on the face.
Speaker: No, most of my dreams involve my teeth falling out.
Speaker: Oh, that's a good one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I got that.
Speaker: I got those two.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then my, and then I don't take care of my teeth and they actually start falling out.
Speaker: So, well, yeah, that's, that's the, the doubt.
Speaker: The downside is the dream story slowly becomes reality.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: It's a real bummer.
Speaker: So when he oh, and then and then he wakes up and I like this because when we were reading through Fall of Reach, I actually played through the first Halo game.
Speaker: And what happens is he wakes up, he gets thought out and you essentially get walked through in the book, the tutorial section.
Speaker: of the game.
Speaker: I got to check the diagnostics.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Could you look left, please?
Speaker: Now, could you look right?
Speaker: And you're like, turn your thumbstick to the left to look left, you know, and just it's it's it's basically that whole thing.
Speaker: And then and this is for those of us who are supplementing our reading with the audio book.
Speaker: And Kevin, I think you know exactly what I'm about to bring up here.
Speaker: Majolnir.
Speaker: Majolnir.
Speaker: So I had read, I had read like the first 60 or so pages just on myself, uh, by myself with it, with the book.
Speaker: And then I, um, I was doing some cleaning yesterday and I threw on the audio book to, to, uh, catch up a little bit.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: It just got up.
Speaker: It was like, and, and the Spartan was standing in his Majolneer battle armor.
Speaker: Like, Oh, never change.
Speaker: Never change.
Speaker: Halo audio.
Speaker: I was wondering after the first, I was like, you know, it's a different author.
Speaker: I don't, I didn't check to see who the narrator is.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, there you go.
Speaker: It's the same guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I recognize right away.
Speaker: We got Majolneer armor.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: And then just like in the game, as soon as your tutorial is basically over, Covenant incoming, the shit hits the fan and they've gotta go fight him.
Speaker: The shit hits the fan, there's fire and blasts everywhere.
Speaker: Explosions.
Speaker: And then, oh, poor Sam.
Speaker: Oh, poor Sam.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, so we've got the final moment.
Speaker: Sam's trying to protect master chief because master chief doesn't have any weapons, even though a weaponless Spartan has got to be worth like 50 regular humans.
Speaker: So I don't know, but Sam is blasted by a covenant elite.
Speaker: Um, and he's like, he loses this picture of his wife and
Speaker: And he's like reaching out, trying in his final moments, trying to get the picture of his wife.
Speaker: It's it's the most tropey.
Speaker: He's just trying to get the picture and die holding the picture of his wife.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He doesn't even get that, though.
Speaker: No, no, he doesn't even get that before the elite like sees what he's doing and just blows him away.
Speaker: And it is really sad.
Speaker: I will say there are more than a few moments in this book, and I don't know what it is, but there are more than a few moments that kind of a nameless grunt or a character who are only we only know for like five pages dies.
Speaker: And the way Dietz writes is effective enough that I just go, oh, wow.
Speaker: It's a real shame.
Speaker: It's just it's a bummer.
Speaker: It's written not graphically necessarily, but I don't know.
Speaker: There's something about it that it does.
Speaker: It does hit you in the feels just a little bit.
Speaker: He gets it.
Speaker: Even though this moment you might it was you could have you could have had him say I was only three days away from retirement and it would be more subtle.
Speaker: than this trophy moment.
Speaker: Then, yeah, he grabs the photo and Jesus Lee is blowing up messenger.
Speaker: Of course he is.
Speaker: This is why I put mine to the side.
Speaker: Put it to the side.
Speaker: We're popular people, Kevin.
Speaker: We're popular.
Speaker: Get used to that shit.
Speaker: People want to get in touch with us.
Speaker: People want to get in touch with us all the time.
Speaker: Because we can give them things.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Because we're powerful people.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So Sam.
Speaker: R.A.P.
Speaker: Sam lost his head via plasma rifle to the head.
Speaker: It's gone.
Speaker: It's definitely gone.
Speaker: There would just be like a neck.
Speaker: there yeah oh yeah there would be yeah just sizzling sizzling and then sizzling and then the photo still just out of reach right the elites would have put it back down just like he steps on it and steps on photograph stick sticks to his foot like toilet paper on the way out the bathroom is further marring it and then it cuts to sam's wife that she's fucking the mailman
Speaker: And that elite, he has, he has the, he, the, the photo remains on his boot.
Speaker: Um, he goes down to, he's on halo now and he's like just walking around and it's just, it's just on his boot.
Speaker: And then the whole time, the whole time, the whole encounter down on halo, he's,
Speaker: You know, he's in he's in battle.
Speaker: He's just he's living.
Speaker: He's fighting with Marines and the ODST.
Speaker: And he's got this.
Speaker: And then somebody's like a grunt is like, hey, what's that?
Speaker: Is that toilet paper on your on your boot?
Speaker: And he kills the grunt.
Speaker: And then he's brought up a court martial all because he stepped on this guy's wife's photo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then and then he finally, you know, finally actually sees the picture stuck to his foot after he's court-martialed.
Speaker: And he goes, oh, I owe that guy an apology.
Speaker: Too late now.
Speaker: And freeze frame and the credits roll.
Speaker: And then credits roll and you're, I'm all right.
Speaker: Tune in tomorrow for the new episode of Full Covenant.
Speaker: Master Chief has got to get to the bridge.
Speaker: That is his only, that's the really the only thing he can think of to do at this point.
Speaker: It's chaos.
Speaker: He can't just like charge in.
Speaker: It's chaos.
Speaker: He's got no guns.
Speaker: So we get lots of it's lots of explosions and shooting time.
Speaker: He is running on the ceiling at this point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So eventually after several fights, we get we're going to do this a lot.
Speaker: And those of you who remember the first Halo book, this one's a little more action.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we're just going to go fast forward right through play by play.
Speaker: Unless some sort of emotional beat happens in the middle of the fight.
Speaker: Unless somebody loses a photograph of their wife or mother.
Speaker: We're not going to wear and we spend 10 minutes speculating on the future of that photograph.
Speaker: So, but Master Chief eventually finds keys and he gets, he gets the dish.
Speaker: They're going to abandon the pillar of autumn while keys that everyone's just going to,
Speaker: you know, fuck off and getting the, the, uh, uh, escape pods and lifeboats and everything straight down.
Speaker: And keys is going to attempt to land this monstrosity on the halo.
Speaker: which is insane it's a terrible idea and i'm loving it we missed you keys you won't miss you you you lunatic you yeah you beautiful stupid son of a bitch he doesn't end up smoke that pipe yeah he doesn't end up uh he actually doesn't do that do it somebody else does but he evacuates because he's too important he's an important guy um
Speaker: So Master Chief's main goal is he's got to protect Cortana because Cortana's got all the information.
Speaker: She's got the location of Earth.
Speaker: Yeah, that's very pointed.
Speaker: So he's got to protect her at all costs.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: He gets he has to get out.
Speaker: Basically, his order is get off the ship, get down to the this ring world that they are.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So he gets armed and kills his way towards the lifeboat.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Meanwhile, we got a new we got a new character, a new covenant character.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: No, so Lee.
Speaker: I'm sure we'll be here for a long, very long time.
Speaker: Long time.
Speaker: um they are um okay he he's he's he and he is invisible he has an yes he has an invisibility cloak on and he is just hanging out just watching the battle um because the goal for isna is to to
Speaker: to spy not fight yes um they decided uh basically to the covenant has just had decided at some point to just insert these invisible soldiers um into battle who are not engaging just to just to get data on on what's going on um and isna is that's the role is osuna um
Speaker: Osuna and he doesn't like the job because he would rather be killing humans but he's doing his job anyway
Speaker: Yeah, the way he sees it is the sooner I get this shit done, the sooner I'll be able to get back in the infantry and kill humans.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Master Chief continues killing his way through the boats.
Speaker: There's some cattiness between him and Cortana.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Classic.
Speaker: Classic.
Speaker: And yeah, basically it's.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: Cortana started to reply.
Speaker: But they get more marine action, get more marine action.
Speaker: We see we see Fohammer.
Speaker: Uh, oh yeah, we, we meet our pilot foe hammer pilot foe hammer.
Speaker: Um, who just, just a, just a bad-ass nickname.
Speaker: She gets, she gets introduced.
Speaker: The first time you see her is her, uh, her waiting for a grunt to round the corner and shooting it in the back of the head.
Speaker: Pretty good introduction.
Speaker: It goes to show you, like, we're gonna, we are gonna get, you know, so much of the last book was about, uh,
Speaker: not just Master Chief, but the whole process of becoming a Spartan.
Speaker: And so anytime we saw humans and like mortal men, if you will, yeah, it was mostly just to kind of exhibit how weak they are compared to God.
Speaker: I'm just knocking everything over.
Speaker: how weak they are compared to the Spartans, unless it's someone like keys or Halsey or something.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That starts to kind of shift in this book.
Speaker: We're going to, we're going to get a lot closer to the pilots, to the ODSTs, all kinds of fun shit.
Speaker: So this is our, this is one of our first moments.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When you really need, because at this point, master chief is the only Spartan left.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, you need some other human characters.
Speaker: the Spartans at this point exactly we get a grunt we get introduced to a new grunt character the name is yeah yap will will die for yeah yap confirmed do not pass go do not collect $200 becomes my favorite character in the book mine too I love yeah yeah
Speaker: Every scene he's in and, you know, spoiler, we'll get to it.
Speaker: But every scene he's in going forward is basically just him being like, oh, do I have to?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's brilliant because, yeah, for those of you who have played Halo, Yaya's a grunt.
Speaker: One of those little tiny things that they'll throw a grenade at you.
Speaker: But if you get too close, they just run away screaming.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so this is our, our opportunity to get in the head of one of these things and God, he does a great job with it.
Speaker: He does a really, really good job with it.
Speaker: It is so funny.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Is I, I don't want anything to happen to you.
Speaker: I don't either.
Speaker: So basically, uh,
Speaker: They realize basically somebody dies in their little squad massacre.
Speaker: There's a massacre of grunts.
Speaker: And yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And and his his cohort are like, oh, wait a minute.
Speaker: We could just pretend we're taking the bodies off the ship and that's and we can leave.
Speaker: Yeah, well, they find they find an elite like in the in this pile of dead grunts.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and like we learned that the grunts are no big surprise near the bottom of the cast system.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: They see the wounded elite guy and they're like, hey, hey, this is our job now.
Speaker: Let's let's take this wounded guy elite back onto the ship.
Speaker: And then they won't send us back to fight because we're heroes now.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which, you know what?
Speaker: Not a terrible idea.
Speaker: Not a terrible idea.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Not a terrible idea.
Speaker: We're protecting an officer.
Speaker: We can't fight.
Speaker: His entire goal is to just get out of fighting.
Speaker: I respect it.
Speaker: I understand it.
Speaker: And then we get the ODSTs.
Speaker: Yeah, we get I wanted a closer look at these these wonderful people.
Speaker: Yeah, because they are they are lunatics for the most part.
Speaker: Yeah, they're just they're they're space marines.
Speaker: They're they're they're space marines from
Speaker: from the aliens universe for all intents and purposes, full of bravado.
Speaker: They're basically insane.
Speaker: Um, uh, yeah, we get, and so they're getting, they're getting like the, the grand like, uh, drill sergeant speech of like, we're going to go down there and fuck some people up, you know?
Speaker: And, and we get their, uh, their, their battle cry.
Speaker: Uh, the, uh, the, he says, uh, how will you leave?
Speaker: And they say, we go feet first, sir.
Speaker: Which I love.
Speaker: I love.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So basically they they have these.
Speaker: The reason why they become known as hell jumpers is because they have these.
Speaker: They're called HEVs, human entry vehicles.
Speaker: It's basically a glorified.
Speaker: It's like a missile.
Speaker: They just.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They just go into a missile and they just get dropped onto the surface of the planet.
Speaker: The problem with the HEV is that the skin of the HEV peels away as it's entering the atmosphere.
Speaker: And apparently it can get so hot in the HEV.
Speaker: Like that's how they lose a lot of their ODSTs is just from being cooked alive.
Speaker: in these capsules as they, as they land.
Speaker: Thus hell jumpers.
Speaker: Hell jumpers.
Speaker: And it's an entirely volunteer, like group of group of Marines.
Speaker: Like they will, which you would have to be.
Speaker: And the fact that they keep so well stocked,
Speaker: Is both amazing.
Speaker: And when you think about it all, not all that amazing at the same time, you're like, no, I mean, it's not, I've known some grunts.
Speaker: It's not unlike the, um, it makes me think of like the paratroopers from world war two.
Speaker: If you think, if you, if you've ever seen like band of brothers, right.
Speaker: Basically their entire job was, um,
Speaker: they parachuted into Normandy, right?
Speaker: And that's how they got in initially.
Speaker: But their entire gig was they did it over and over again.
Speaker: They were constantly being dropped from planes into new areas to take them.
Speaker: And there was always a chance they were going to lose a couple people just on the drop.
Speaker: And that's basically what the ODSTs are.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My, my dad was a paratrooper.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he, and, uh, yeah, he would tell me stories about it, especially world war II.
Speaker: You would get hung up, uh, in a tree or something like if, if, if a unexpected breeze hit, you're you're in the forest and you had to cut your way out of there.
Speaker: Cause it'd be real easy for a Nazi.
Speaker: Just come by and shoot you while you're hanging up in the, in the tree.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, and a lot of, I've, I've started noticing, uh, it, it getting popular, uh, in certain, uh, communities I found, but there was a, there's a song that they sing that paratroopers sing.
Speaker: It's to the battle hymn of the Republic and, uh, to the tune of the battle hymn of Republic.
Speaker: And it's called blood upon the risers.
Speaker: And it's about a guy who's a paratrooper who jumps out of the plane on a regular standard drop and, uh, his, uh,
Speaker: his shoot will not open.
Speaker: The reserve will not open.
Speaker: And as the lyrics go, they poured him from his helmet and they poured him from his boots.
Speaker: And, uh, and it's a really funny, morbid song.
Speaker: And this is a song that paratrooper, the 82nd airborne sings this song.
Speaker: Uh, it just tells you the attitude that just the absolute gallows humor, uh, that goes with this kind of thing.
Speaker: I have to believe that that's a lot of what the ODSTs are based on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: It's being an army brat is is is it is it just it's fascinating for so many different reasons.
Speaker: A lot of you meet a lot of interesting people.
Speaker: Oh, yes, you do.
Speaker: You absolutely do.
Speaker: So... Basically, we get another segment with Master Chief, and he's fighting.
Speaker: Killing his way to the lifeboat.
Speaker: He continues to kill his way to the lifeboat.
Speaker: And he...
Speaker: basically um yeah he gets he gets to the lifeboat and they're able to take off and and uh there's he like there's one marine he grabs the marine and throws him in the lifeboat just like right as the door is closing and the section ends with one of the marines saying this duty station really sucks yeah
Speaker: You know what I thought of?
Speaker: Again, I bring it up again.
Speaker: I maybe think of Hudson in Aliens like, yeah, how can I get out of this chicken shit outfit?
Speaker: Like, just what a great like that dude's going to be seeing game over, man.
Speaker: Game over any day now.
Speaker: And yeah, basically they're going down foe hammers flying down in a pelican and it cuts to keys.
Speaker: Who's taking the pillar of autumn into the atmosphere of halo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is crazy again.
Speaker: That's just, it's just, it's bananas.
Speaker: It's bananas.
Speaker: It's just the sheer size of this thing.
Speaker: It's like, it's not, it's not designed for this.
Speaker: Like it's, it's no,
Speaker: Basically, these ships are being constructed.
Speaker: These ships are constructed out in space like they don't they don't build them for like this this atmospheric.
Speaker: They don't go into the atmosphere of Earth unless shit has gone completely sideways.
Speaker: And shit has gone completely sideways.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And we find out that not only is keys aboard the Pillar of Autumn, but we get we get another look at our friend Isna Nosoli.
Speaker: in camo on board and he and it's kind of funny.
Speaker: And this plays into things later.
Speaker: He says that he never calls him keys specifically, but he says this guy just one of the soldiers, one of the or one of the one of the people on board just looked at him.
Speaker: And then looked away as if he wasn't there.
Speaker: And it's basically him saying, okay, good.
Speaker: The camouflage is working.
Speaker: He looked right where I was.
Speaker: But then he looked away.
Speaker: So I'm probably fine.
Speaker: So Nosoli picks out, he goes, based on the manner in which the other humans interacted with him, Nosoli felt certain that the man named Keys, with a lot of Z's, held a position of shipmaster.
Speaker: A valuable prize indeed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he's plotting on a kidnap.
Speaker: So he's, he's basically just going to follow keys around, see what happens.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And then basically everybody starts leaving the bridge and Nosuli starts following and Keyes is like, yeah, all right.
Speaker: Everybody's left basically the command crew of the ship.
Speaker: Keyes plus Hikawa and some of our other favorites from Fall of Reach are still along with him and they double time it onto the boat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So basically they're on they're on the they're on the drop ship.
Speaker: They're on the the lifeboat and and keys finally notices the shimmer of the the cloaking device.
Speaker: So he grabs the gun, a gun from a Marine and shoots.
Speaker: No, so he's very casually like goes, can I borrow your gun?
Speaker: And the guy's like, yeah, sure.
Speaker: Is it loaded?
Speaker: Yeah, it's loaded.
Speaker: Sure, sure.
Speaker: And he just blows this thing away and just and then literally what does he say?
Speaker: He hands it back to the guy and goes, it's a good gun.
Speaker: It does pack a bunch.
Speaker: Meanwhile, everybody on the lifeboat is just presumably just silent with horror.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They never did.
Speaker: Did they say that he notices the shimmer?
Speaker: Because I didn't notice any reason for him to notice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I presumed that's what it was.
Speaker: He frowned as if looking for something, then waited for the boat to clear.
Speaker: He leaned forward.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it doesn't say specifically that he notices anything.
Speaker: But basically, yeah.
Speaker: And then then no, so he's the third slug from the top of the clip passed through the slit and no, so he's helmet and blew his brains out the back of his skull and freed him from the tyranny of physical reality.
Speaker: What a good what a good description that was, by the way.
Speaker: That's terrific.
Speaker: Well done, Deets.
Speaker: Like, it is terrific.
Speaker: Now, I'll tell you what, it's a good thing because Keyes was going to have to get him, was going to get him one time or another.
Speaker: And it's basically because the first thing I thought of when No Soli followed them is everyone's strapping in.
Speaker: They're like strapping in because they're going to be
Speaker: going through an atmosphere in the lifeboat.
Speaker: So I was like, well, at some point, presumably this alien is going to be like the tooth in a rattle can.
Speaker: just they're going to figure it out.
Speaker: So kind of he kind of did him a favor.
Speaker: Like it was either get shot in the head or get like turned into mush by centrifugal forces.
Speaker: Like, yeah, I don't know what his plan was, but he's not a very good spy.
Speaker: So they I think Covenant, they got a little stronger that day.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not not very.
Speaker: He didn't want to do the job and then he did the job poorly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Which, you know what?
Speaker: That's a great way to get out of doing the job, but maybe not in the way you'd like.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the ODSTs are dropping.
Speaker: Um, and we get introduced to, uh, Wellesley who Wellesley, what an interesting character of this one.
Speaker: If you can even call Wellesley that character.
Speaker: He believes he is actually, um, the D he believes he's the Duke of Wellington.
Speaker: Yeah, this is this is the A.I.
Speaker: I literally believes he is the Duke of Wellington.
Speaker: So every now and then they'll like they'll be they'll be running into something and I'll go, oh, it makes me think of the time that I was fighting against Napoleon and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And the and the sergeant has to go.
Speaker: That didn't happen to you.
Speaker: Stop it.
Speaker: Stop.
Speaker: Just stop.
Speaker: uh it's it's pretty great we do get treated in this scene to a moment of uh what happens when the shoot fails yes uh so to speak one of the one of the odst troopers gets just melted essentially on the way down and they all get to listen to her scream yes that is uh it's a bummer uh
Speaker: It's another it's a that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker: Like Dietz will like write these moments with a character that you are are not acquainted with in any way.
Speaker: And you'll go, oh, God, that's just like the first shoot failed.
Speaker: And they make him.
Speaker: He makes a mention that the backup shoot actually worked, but it was too late because the like, I guess the acceleration was way too high.
Speaker: And yeah, yeah.
Speaker: They use the phrase dug her own grave.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Just right in.
Speaker: Right into the ground.
Speaker: No burial necessary.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Just already in the coffin.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: It's it's it's it's very convenient when you think of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Master Chief is following close behind them and a real real coming in for another bumpy land.
Speaker: Yeah, they have a bumpy landing and whoops, everybody's dead.
Speaker: Everybody's dead.
Speaker: It's like, oh, man, he doesn't think about it, but he's like, well, maybe if I'd let that that marine get into a different lifeboat, the one that he threw in.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I really didn't need to grab that guy and force him to join me.
Speaker: I seem to be cursed from the get-go.
Speaker: So the ship lands in basically the way that you land in the game Halo.
Speaker: The opening moment, you're exiting the lifeboat and everybody else is dead in it.
Speaker: Yeah, they're dead.
Speaker: This opening, these opening moments, it's literally the first Halo bound mission with right down to Cortana being like, let's get head for the hills.
Speaker: There's a drop ship inbound, yada, yada, yada.
Speaker: I yeah, it's and there is an interesting moment near that.
Speaker: I will say he gets attacked by covenant basically immediately.
Speaker: Some elite and a crowd of grunts takes them all out, but they kind of get the drop on him and he's surprised and he realizes that the reason that they were able to flank him is because he's still thinking in terms of fighting as part of a team.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And and all it's a sad moment because, you know, he kind of is reminded that all of his Spartan brethren are gone.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So he has to recalibrate his combat style.
Speaker: Basically.
Speaker: Yeah, he is.
Speaker: He is a army of one now instead of an army.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: It was like a four man unit that the Spartans used to work in.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But they're all dead.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Anyway, he kills a bunch of them and it is pages upon pages of
Speaker: Yeah, it is a lot of.
Speaker: It's just a lot of he shoots the shooty thing.
Speaker: It's good stuff.
Speaker: It's good stuff, guys.
Speaker: And if you're missing that, then I found my copy on eBay for four bucks.
Speaker: Get yourself a copy.
Speaker: So far, so good.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: Other than the the teammate thing, there's no there's no real.
Speaker: You're not missing anything.
Speaker: Listen to this podcast while you're playing the game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How meta is that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Pretty good.
Speaker: We like the meta.
Speaker: Pretty good.
Speaker: Not Facebook meta.
Speaker: What are you doing now?
Speaker: Are you killing grunts right now?
Speaker: Are you shooting a little tube and it's going and they're going.
Speaker: Your uncles are proud of you.
Speaker: We're super proud of you being a murderer.
Speaker: We're super proud.
Speaker: Super proud.
Speaker: Super proud of you, grunt murderer.
Speaker: You crazy.
Speaker: We love you, too.
Speaker: We love you, too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, Keyes, his lifeboat goes down with kind of no issues, relatively speaking, compared to everybody else.
Speaker: I'm sure the inside, I'm sure it got awkward.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now there's just like a dead body going.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hovering and like, like probably like think about the last time you were on a Gravitron at the fucking carnival, just up against the roof and then down on the floor.
Speaker: Just imagine it's like it just being liquefied and like just getting everywhere.
Speaker: Just everyone's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The, the lifeboat opens up.
Speaker: Everyone walks out.
Speaker: They are covered in like blue.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: alien blood just no one's speaking they're all staring into the middle distance oh god keys wants to know who's hungry so it's it's ensign level who piloted it down and level was the guy from the fall of reach who he was on that space station and he's like i'm i'm fine doing it just hanging out here and then keys is like i want you
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He kind of, he was just bored in his, in his section.
Speaker: He accidentally found basically the, the evidence of the covenant coming for them.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And keys went, I want that layabout on my team.
Speaker: And he got them and he's, he's doing good.
Speaker: He's doing good.
Speaker: We're proud of him.
Speaker: So, and that cuts back to the, the hell jumpers.
Speaker: Most of them make it out alive.
Speaker: They're all relatively close to the homing beacon, which is about all you can expect.
Speaker: All you can hope for.
Speaker: uh we're given uh an introduction to a few of the elites elites not that's the wrong word for it but a few characters with names yeah melissa mckay who is the lieutenant um basically uh silva's right hand woman um right and uh silva who major silva who is the uh commander of the
Speaker: He's well, he's the commander of the hell jumpers, but I get the feeling he's kind of like over all of the the the Marine.
Speaker: He would he would oversee all of the Marines.
Speaker: He's upper level brass on some level.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But he is also an ODST.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and they they determine that basically what they got to do is there's a base nearby on a butte.
Speaker: They got to take that hill.
Speaker: They got to take the hill.
Speaker: And if they can take the hill, then they can they can set up a base and they can hold off incoming covenant forces.
Speaker: But for the time, they're kind of sitting ducks.
Speaker: You know what I think of like I'm reading this and I think of like the Battle of Gettysburg, you know, which was which was centered around basically the Confederacy trying desperately to
Speaker: at one point to take a hill.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Little Round Top like they they they needed to get that hill and they never could.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: But yeah, that's that's the kind of stuff that like war legends are based around the fact that it's always better to be on the defense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just always better.
Speaker: And if you're on a hill, even better if you're able to have a good defensible position, you're in good shape.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, it's like where the story of like the story here from the Pacific theater of World War Two all the time is how the Japanese were these amazing jungle fighters.
Speaker: You know, they just knew the jungle of these islands, all these tiny little islands, you know, and and they just knew them backwards of course.
Speaker: That wasn't true.
Speaker: It's just they were on the defense.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And because most of the most of the conscripted Japanese soldiers were from like urban areas.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, so they just put the Americans, you know, were on the offensive and they were just kind of marveling at how well the Japanese.
Speaker: And that's mostly what it was.
Speaker: Basically what it was.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we're back with my favorite character, Kevin.
Speaker: We are back with your favorite character.
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yap.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yap.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yap.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yap.
Speaker: Lives.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Boomer lives.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: We got to make.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Lives t-shirts.
Speaker: He is now being pulled in to be this elite's assistant.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, it's amazing.
Speaker: It's like a comedy of errors for Yaya.
Speaker: He's like, they couldn't have set him up to be disappointed better because like they, they reward him.
Speaker: Like they, they succeed.
Speaker: They get the elite in there.
Speaker: He's, he's, he's doing okay.
Speaker: And they reward Yaya and his friend with like this comfy sleeping quarters.
Speaker: You know, so he's just curled up into a little ball, just comfy, cozy.
Speaker: It just just just doing real good.
Speaker: And all of a sudden his buddy like wakes him up and the elite that they saved, whose name is.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Tell me if I got this right.
Speaker: Zuka Zamami.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Check the covenant dictionary.
Speaker: He's woken up here.
Speaker: I actually saved this part because it made me happy.
Speaker: And he wants to show his appreciation with a couple of gigantic quotation marks around that to show my appreciation.
Speaker: I've had you transferred.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Liked the nominally sleepy unit to which he was attached and had no desire to leave it transferred commander to what unit?
Speaker: Why to my unit?
Speaker: The elite replied as if nothing could be more natural.
Speaker: My assistant was killed as we boarded the human ship.
Speaker: You will take his place.
Speaker: So yeah, basically fucks himself over because nobody likes a clever bastard.
Speaker: And what does the elite inform him?
Speaker: Oh, their mission?
Speaker: They gotta take out the Master Chief.
Speaker: So, Yaya, not only is, it would be bad enough if he was just hanging out with this combat-ready elite, but he's also going after the most dangerous person in the human army.
Speaker: This is basically, Yaya is trying to fail downward, and he somehow failed upward.
Speaker: He is a dig up stupid.
Speaker: Like it is just, he is succeeding at digging up somehow.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: I love.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yup.
Speaker: He's just his plot line.
Speaker: I tell you what I would write a, a, like, this is the inspirational.
Speaker: This is the kind of thing you want to read in like an anthology of a franchise or something.
Speaker: Like if you're reading like D and D anthology and you get a story of like just some lowly goblin or something like that, who's trying to avoid the adventures, the main party at all costs, because he knows he's only worth a quarter of a challenge rating and he's fucked.
Speaker: And somehow he keeps running into them.
Speaker: Like this is, I, this is basically that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: It's so good.
Speaker: So we, uh, uh, we jump over to McKay and, uh, and her group and, uh,
Speaker: They're basically still just kind of figuring out how they're going to take the Butte.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're coming up with plans.
Speaker: They're coming up with plans and backup plans.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we forgot to mention before, when they landed, they actually got spotted by a couple of elites.
Speaker: on, uh, are they called ghosts?
Speaker: The little, the little shippies, the bikes that they, yeah, I think so.
Speaker: I think they're ghosts, but they, they spot them and they run off and basically we're finding out what they ran off for.
Speaker: Uh, they're about to get charged essentially by covenant cavalry.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it gets really into the, uh, the, the war games here.
Speaker: We were, we're, we're talking like company companies, B and C are going to have to hold here and A and D and, and, and, and Wellesley.
Speaker: And we get some ancient Roman, uh, uh, battle tactics here.
Speaker: We get the, uh, the Spartan kind of like, uh,
Speaker: is legionary infantry square.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause they're getting charged.
Speaker: So they build up this, they, they form this square.
Speaker: That's historically really effective against horses and cavalry.
Speaker: They, they use alternating fire, um, basically to, because the, it's something like the, the rockets that they're using only have two shots.
Speaker: So it's, so it's like they're, they're alternating the fire of the rocket launchers.
Speaker: So it's a continuous stream, uh, of rockets.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah, it's a nice little battle.
Speaker: And the Marines, the Helljumpers, are ultimately victorious.
Speaker: I think there's a brief moment from the point of view of one of the elites, or that might be in the next chapter.
Speaker: I think that might be in the next chapter.
Speaker: Yeah, they take some casualties, they take some hits,
Speaker: Uh, but they are successful in holding them off and, uh, they're, they're trying, Silva's trying to, uh, has appeared to have come up with a plan, uh, for taking the butte.
Speaker: And as the chapter ends is speculating, uh, mentally on whether or not this plan is going to work.
Speaker: Yeah, okay, so I'm... I was trying to confirm what a butte is, and...
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's okay.
Speaker: It's the, it's below your lower back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That, there it is.
Speaker: You poop from it, silly.
Speaker: It's, it's for the pooping.
Speaker: It's for the pooping.
Speaker: No, the beauts are these, they're, they're, it's less of a hill.
Speaker: I mean, it is on a hill a lot of times, but it's also then like has a sheer rock face.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: And then like a flat top.
Speaker: Okay, it does have, okay, I had, yeah, because I had like a plateau in my head.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, it has a plateau on top of it.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: It's it is it is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's that's basically what I what is the difference between a plateau a mesa and a butte.
Speaker: Sorry, I'm getting into are you getting are you getting education getting educational right now?
Speaker: I'm not I'm not going to talk.
Speaker: I'm not going to get into it.
Speaker: It seems like mesas are bigger.
Speaker: That's that's basically it.
Speaker: Is that the only difference?
Speaker: That's the main.
Speaker: Why don't they just call it a big butte?
Speaker: I like big buttes and I cannot lie.
Speaker: Well,
Speaker: I kind of opened myself up for that one.
Speaker: I don't really see how that could have gone any differently, now that I think of it.
Speaker: Alright, when Master Chief walks in, I get sprung.
Speaker: We're just slamming out the fucking t-shirt ideas.
Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, you've been listening.
Speaker: Tell us what t-shirts you desire.
Speaker: What t-shirts do you desire?
Speaker: So what do you think so far of this book?
Speaker: I, um, I'm enjoying it.
Speaker: It is, it is a pretty, um, it's a quick ride.
Speaker: Uh, and it's fun.
Speaker: It's got a lot of good action and that kind of thing.
Speaker: It's not as well written, I think, as, uh, the fall of reach so far, but the fall of reach had a lot of,
Speaker: more, uh, whereas the fall of reach had a lot more intellectual stuff to go through and, and kind of heavier sciencey stuff to go through.
Speaker: Whereas this seems to be just straight up fighting and killing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There, there's a lot of, there's a lot of fighting and killing it's, um, it, it's your basic, you know, war book, war novel.
Speaker: Uh, you know, this could have been written by, uh, this, this could have been written by Tom Clancy and, uh, right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, we had the fall of reach.
Speaker: It was like Heinlein.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this is this is more kind of, yeah, Clancy, you know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Modern, you know, airport kind of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Again, I don't I don't want to I want to poo poo.
Speaker: And it's great.
Speaker: But it so far through the first the prologue and the first couple chapters here, it doesn't.
Speaker: It doesn't have a lot of those moments of emotional depth that I would say that you get in Fall of Reach.
Speaker: But as an action, straight up action novel, it's it's a lot of fun.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: I think the thing for me that is surprising is that whereas and I think it's good.
Speaker: I think it's good that we're expanding the POV a little bit in this book.
Speaker: But we spent so much time with the last book, seeing the world from John's point of view.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And he's not.
Speaker: really in it all that much there's not a lot of depth for what he's he's just killing he's just killing he just shows up in random places he's just kind of fighting his way through at this point in the book all he's doing is trying to um get back to like some other um to some other unit you know he's he's on his own at the moment
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's interesting.
Speaker: It's it's and that might change as we go.
Speaker: But I think part of that comes from the fact that this already has this has source material.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: This has a this has a video game to follow.
Speaker: So you're just kind of and if you only told it from the point of view of the main character, you know, from the from Master Chief's point of view, like the video game, it would be like 100 pages long tops.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you have to flesh it out.
Speaker: And I really appreciate it.
Speaker: I appreciate the flushing, the flushing out.
Speaker: I would like, I do hope though that in future chapters and as we go, that we're going to get a little more introspective stuff from, uh, master chief, because I found that really, really interesting.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And I'd like to see more.
Speaker: Yeah, that was that was that was some good stuff in in Fall of Reach when we started getting some cracks in the all American boy.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Captain Captain America, you know, underneath behind the shield behind the shield.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So, yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker: I fingers crossed fingers, but honestly still a solid book.
Speaker: Just just fun.
Speaker: You know, this is this is this is a, you know, this is beach reading.
Speaker: This is toilet reading.
Speaker: This is, you know, it's a good time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right, well, that'll do it for today's episode.
Speaker: Join us next week in which we dive further and into the flood.
Speaker: We get lost in the flood.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: Ooh, the flood.
Speaker: Yeah.
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Speaker: Good night, everybody.
Speaker: Good night.
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