Transcript
Speaker: So stupid.
Speaker: It's so fucking stupid.
Speaker: So fucking stupid.
Speaker: You know what's not stupid?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome to Pixel It.
Speaker: I never know if you're going to take... Sometimes I think it's like, oh, that would be a good opening for Kevin to do it.
Speaker: And you give it sometimes a long enough pause that I'm like, oh.
Speaker: You're thinking of moving on.
Speaker: And then I hit you with it.
Speaker: Not this time, motherfucker.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me as always is Phil.
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: And today on the show, we're starting a brand new book.
Speaker: Yes!
Speaker: Halo, the Rubicon Protocol, which is a prequel to Halo Infinite.
Speaker: Look at that.
Speaker: Look at that book.
Speaker: And we're just going to...
Speaker: We're going to say right up front that this episode and the following few episodes on this book, this is courtesy of the publisher of the book.
Speaker: Absolutely, yes.
Speaker: We received these copies of the book gratis, so we want to be upfront about that.
Speaker: And that would not color our...
Speaker: views of the book one way or the other, but we want to make sure you, the audience, knows that we didn't pay a goddamn thing for this book.
Speaker: As we've said in the past, we can be bought.
Speaker: We can be bought.
Speaker: No, there's been other books that we've read for free during this series, and hey, we've been pretty mean to those books, so whether we get it for free or not is not really...
Speaker: Something that colors our commentary.
Speaker: We can be bought, but not for, you know, two trade publications.
Speaker: Yeah, not for two trade paperbacks.
Speaker: Not really worth it to us.
Speaker: But this is a tie-in to Halo Infinite.
Speaker: Halo Infinite was released...
Speaker: I want to say around this time last year.
Speaker: Almost, yeah.
Speaker: It was actually towards the end of the year.
Speaker: And Halo Infinite is just, it's the most recent game in the Halo series.
Speaker: You could call it Halo 6.
Speaker: even though it's like Halo 30 in terms of the number of Halo games that have come out over the years.
Speaker: And it is a unlike the other Halo games.
Speaker: It's an open world Halo experience.
Speaker: I have not played it.
Speaker: I'm actually considering picking it up.
Speaker: I have to I still have to kind of fight.
Speaker: I've done.
Speaker: I've played one and reach.
Speaker: So I have a lot of Halo to catch up on, even though we've read this will be our third Halo book.
Speaker: But yeah, it was pretty well received.
Speaker: It was it's it's the latest in the 343 Industries verse of of Halo, who 343 Industries took over the franchise after Bungie absconded away.
Speaker: to make Destiny and the like.
Speaker: Become Destiny machines, basically.
Speaker: To be the Destiny machines and now to be owned by Sony, which is just a weird, I still don't, it's still weird.
Speaker: It's still weird.
Speaker: Because we're old enough to remember like the grand opening of Halo, you know, of like Bungie, this new upstart, you know, group of people.
Speaker: Company that was acquired by Microsoft.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Out from under the noses of Apple, like that whole thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was a big deal.
Speaker: Apple was out.
Speaker: Apple was going to get into the gaming industry with with with Halo and Halo Combat Evolved was going to be their killer, you know, killer game that was going to be, you know, an Apple exclusive.
Speaker: And Microsoft said, hey, that's a nice game you got there.
Speaker: Would be a shame if somebody stole it.
Speaker: And it totally worked.
Speaker: Like that's, that's, that's totally worked.
Speaker: And Steve Jobs said never again.
Speaker: And basically gave up on gaming on Apple forever.
Speaker: You know, he just didn't, he just did not care anymore after, after that.
Speaker: And it's, and it's, and it was a, and it was a legendary enough.
Speaker: I mean, this, it carried the Xbox for a very, very long time.
Speaker: Like you have to wonder it.
Speaker: Would we be in like,
Speaker: As far as the PlayStation versus Microsoft argument is concerned, Nintendo is not really in that war.
Speaker: Nintendo is their own thing.
Speaker: They've got their own universe there.
Speaker: But you've got to wonder, would we be in an Apple versus Sony versus Microsoft world in consoles if they had released Halo?
Speaker: Or would Halo be...
Speaker: Yeah, because I mean, we're at the time in the late 90s, early 2000s.
Speaker: We're in a time where Apple is they're kind of starting a little bit of a comeback.
Speaker: They had just Steve Jobs had just returned to the company after Apple had acquired
Speaker: his old, his, the company that he started after he left Apple, which was a high end workstation.
Speaker: So Apple at the time was kind of becoming known for being a professional's workstation type of computer.
Speaker: It had the power.
Speaker: And if they had made a really dedicated push to being, yeah, it's a powerful machine, it can run, it could be your gaming machine too.
Speaker: I mean, I think maybe we start to see a little bit of a different, I think the early 2000s play out in a slightly different way.
Speaker: I don't know if Apple continues down that path, but it's an interesting thought experiment.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: You know, there's a part of me that wonders if,
Speaker: Halo wouldn't have ended up being, like think of a game that nowadays we look at as incredibly positive and like a groundbreaking game, but one that wasn't appreciated in its time, you know?
Speaker: Would Halo be like one of those games, you know?
Speaker: That didn't get its fair due, but we live in the timeline where it's this titanic FPS thing.
Speaker: Yeah, it really shaped the way first person shooters were made for a fairly long time.
Speaker: I mean, it's it's you know, it's it's your your halos and in the early 90s.
Speaker: And we can talk about the history of first person shooters all day.
Speaker: But, you know, in the early 90s, you have id software, you know, you have you have id and the children of id and all the games that are
Speaker: inspired by id.
Speaker: You have Doom and then you have your Duke Nukem's and you have your Raven software making things like Hexen and Heretic and you have all that stuff.
Speaker: And hey, that sounds like a good idea for a podcast to talk about mid-tier shooters.
Speaker: Listen to Bullet Time, folks, sometime next year.
Speaker: But anyway...
Speaker: Halo Infinite is the latest release.
Speaker: It's gotten mostly positive reviews.
Speaker: And the basic plot is Master Chief was on the Infinite when the Infinite gets blown to smithereens and he's just floating out in space for six months.
Speaker: And they pick him up and they resuscitate him because he's goddamn Master Chief and he can live in the vacuum of space for six months.
Speaker: Sure, why not?
Speaker: Doesn't mean squat to him.
Speaker: Doesn't mean squat to him.
Speaker: But yeah, they were, the UNSC Infinite was on its way to Halo Zeta to take on Cortana and her guardians when they drop out of slipspace and oops, all banished.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's also, wouldn't you know it, where this book picks up.
Speaker: It's the exact same scene.
Speaker: And it's kind of fascinating because, you know, you think about it.
Speaker: We're jumping ahead here.
Speaker: We were doing the Halo books chronology.
Speaker: We're jumping so far ahead in the Halo-verse.
Speaker: I mean, we were on the Flood and now we're on the latest book.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: But it works in a way because, and we're going to get into all of it, but it is kind of a self-contained book.
Speaker: story slash universe kind of thing that we're about to get into here.
Speaker: So it shouldn't befuddle too many people.
Speaker: Although, what is befuddlement, really?
Speaker: What is befuddlement anyway?
Speaker: Just confusion persevering.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: I didn't say anything.
Speaker: Never mind.
Speaker: Where are we?
Speaker: I smell toast.
Speaker: Where are we?
Speaker: So, Phil, can you tell me a little bit about Kelly Gay?
Speaker: Kelly Gay.
Speaker: She is the author of Halo, the Rubicon Protocol.
Speaker: And this is actually her third Halo book.
Speaker: She's been writing Halo books since 2017.
Speaker: One every two years.
Speaker: Halo, Smoke and Shadow.
Speaker: Halo, Renegades.
Speaker: And now Halo.
Speaker: Oh, sorry.
Speaker: And Halo, Point of Light last year.
Speaker: This is her fourth one, Rubicon.
Speaker: Uh, and she is, it's kind of fascinating to be completely honest, cause she is primarily an urban fantasy author, which is this very popular genre these days, especially among, uh, the YA crowd.
Speaker: And she does do a little YA, but she does a lot of adult stuff too.
Speaker: And I've always admired urban fantasy, even though it's not exactly my genre.
Speaker: I see it as kind of like the other side of the coin from horror.
Speaker: It's weird.
Speaker: It's out there.
Speaker: It's trying to create a strange universe in your current world.
Speaker: Is it like magic in present day type stuff?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That kind of thing.
Speaker: Like, you know, you've got a city with trolls in it.
Speaker: Kind of almost like Shadowrun, but less cyberpunk-y.
Speaker: Okay, okay.
Speaker: Shadowrun minus cyberpunk is urban fantasy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We'll get a lot of people who will be like, no, no.
Speaker: But like, you know what, for our purposes?
Speaker: Yeah, kind of.
Speaker: Let's not get too precious about these people.
Speaker: It's not wrong.
Speaker: And that's her thing.
Speaker: And she's really well known for a series called the Charlie Madigan series.
Speaker: which is this alternate reality sort of thing.
Speaker: It takes place in Atlanta.
Speaker: Humanities discovered like different paranormal dimensions.
Speaker: And so you've got all kinds of supernatural beings interacting with people on our planet.
Speaker: And it follows a woman who is both a policewoman and a single mom.
Speaker: And that's another thing you see a lot with the urban fantasy.
Speaker: There is a very, you do get magic and action and dragons and trolls and all that kind of shit, you know, set against, you know, an urban background.
Speaker: But it also very heavily...
Speaker: draws into people's everyday lives and that sort of thing.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: So it tends to be, you can get a lot of light fluff out of it, but you get a lot of people who take it very, very seriously.
Speaker: And Kelly Gay seems to be one of them.
Speaker: It's surprising when you look at this book, and again, we're going to get into this here soon, but knowing that that's her genre of choice kind of fascinates me with covering a sci-fi military
Speaker: universe like Halo.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It requires a level of versatility that I think would be daunting for most people.
Speaker: But this is her fourth Halo book.
Speaker: So she knows what she's doing.
Speaker: She's very comfortable, it seems, in playing in this universe, which is which is neat.
Speaker: You know what I just thought of?
Speaker: I just realized the thing that just popped in my mind for urban fantasy, which is a terrible example, is that dumb movie Bright
Speaker: written by that shitty human being.
Speaker: Max, what's his last name?
Speaker: My dad killed some people.
Speaker: Max, my dad killed some people.
Speaker: My dad is an unforgivable monster and a piece of shit who was responsible for the death of a child.
Speaker: Two children and a veteran actor.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fuck John Landis.
Speaker: By the name of... Wrinkled asshole.
Speaker: Two Vietnamese children, I believe, and Vic Morrow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So just Google that.
Speaker: You know, if you want to... We're not lying here.
Speaker: John Landis is...
Speaker: He did a thing and it killed Vic Morrow and two kids.
Speaker: And apparently Max Landis isn't much of a huge piece of shit.
Speaker: So the shit doesn't fall far from the shit tree.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: As far as we know, he hasn't killed anyone at least.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I wonder how litigious they are.
Speaker: Anyway, we'll find out.
Speaker: Join us next week and find out.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: To answer your question, yes, actually.
Speaker: Bright is a piss poor urban fantasy.
Speaker: It's a piss poor urban fantasy.
Speaker: It's a good example of a neutral genre.
Speaker: A bad urban fantasy.
Speaker: But a bad movie, yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You know what I was just watching that might actually slide into that is I was catching up on a show called Lock and Key.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I've read the comics for that.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: On Netflix.
Speaker: And my wife was really into it.
Speaker: So I've been and season three just came out.
Speaker: So I've been catching up on.
Speaker: On season two.
Speaker: And, you know, it's set in a small Massachusetts town and magic.
Speaker: It's basically only the kids know that magic exists.
Speaker: And there's something there's like a barrier at adulthood that forces you to forget that it exists, that they really haven't gotten into the why that.
Speaker: Needs to be the case, but I've seen some hints.
Speaker: But yeah, I could see that falling into that genre.
Speaker: It's definitely that YA feeling as well.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I don't know how they did with the show, but yeah, Joe Hill, Stephen King's kid wrote that.
Speaker: Oh, that makes a lot of sense now.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: He's a great writer.
Speaker: Right down to a New England setting.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: He exercised some level of restraint and kept it out of Maine.
Speaker: He's like, you know what?
Speaker: They're all going to think it's going to be in Maine.
Speaker: I'm going to move it two states over to Massachusetts.
Speaker: They're going to blow their minds.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: I did not know that that's Stephen King's kid.
Speaker: Yeah, he's all over the place.
Speaker: And he doesn't go by his dad's name.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: I don't know if it's specifically because he was trying to distance himself from his dad, but it's kind of like...
Speaker: It's kind of just, it's not a secret that it's pretty well known that he's his.
Speaker: Oh, I just looked up a picture of him and God damn it, yeah.
Speaker: He's got a lot of his dad in that face.
Speaker: He's got a lot.
Speaker: He is his father in a very intense way.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: his dad.
Speaker: Yeah, very much so.
Speaker: And, and seems to have his work ethic as well.
Speaker: Uh, because, uh, the man is also graphomaniac.
Speaker: He, he writes comics, he writes TV shows and film and, and a lot of short stories, a lot of books.
Speaker: He's, he's all over the place and very talented, but you know, and I will say as a, as a, you know, a big horror fan who has, you know,
Speaker: read a lot of Stephen King and a fair amount of Joe Hill.
Speaker: I don't see a lot of his dad in his writing.
Speaker: And that's not a bad thing for the record.
Speaker: He's got his own voice going and it's pretty great all on its own.
Speaker: Yeah, apparently they've collaborated a couple of times.
Speaker: But interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, Hill is his middle name.
Speaker: Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker: It's Joseph Hillstrom King or something like that.
Speaker: Oh, good call.
Speaker: Good change.
Speaker: Good change, Joe.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: But yeah, interesting.
Speaker: So a lot of stuff to talk about.
Speaker: We haven't even gotten into the book yet.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: This is a big one.
Speaker: This is a big one.
Speaker: So, all right.
Speaker: We're just going to get right into it.
Speaker: This book came out at the beginning of August.
Speaker: We are reading this.
Speaker: We're recording this a couple of weeks after it came out.
Speaker: Y'all aren't hearing this until like...
Speaker: I don't know, late September or something like that.
Speaker: Should be, should be October.
Speaker: Should be October.
Speaker: So there's going to be a little bit of a gap, but don't you worry.
Speaker: It should not affect the review one way or the other.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: So here we go.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So we start with chapter one and I actually wanted to make sure this time because a lot of Halo stuff is very precise on dates and days.
Speaker: So I broke it up, broke them up mostly into the days rather than the chapters for my notes.
Speaker: Oh, that's a good idea.
Speaker: Just because it felt like, let's kind of chunk it together in timeline.
Speaker: So day one, chapters one and two happen in day one.
Speaker: And we are with the UNSC flagship.
Speaker: Infinity has been ambushed by the Banished when they exited slip space above Zeta Halo.
Speaker: And we the first character we meet is Spartan Stone.
Speaker: And we meet her.
Speaker: She is holding up like a bulkhead that has has collapsed.
Speaker: And is just waiting for people to get through this area so that they can get to the lifeboats.
Speaker: And she's about to go when she sees a medic, like a dazed medic, kind of like walk through the hallway.
Speaker: He probably has some smoke inhalation issues, whatever.
Speaker: And she's like, get up.
Speaker: You know, you got to go.
Speaker: If you can hold this bulkhead, you can walk.
Speaker: So she gets him to go.
Speaker: And she...
Speaker: She escorts him to the lifeboats.
Speaker: She throws him into one of the lifeboats.
Speaker: It's very similar to the opening of Halo, the first game where you have a Spartan like Master Chief basically throwing somebody into a lifeboat and then getting into his own.
Speaker: I never you're absolutely right.
Speaker: I never thought about that.
Speaker: So there's some parallels here.
Speaker: Those of them kind of start with the destruction of a big UNSC ship.
Speaker: Both start with focused on a single Spartan escorting somebody to a lifeboat and getting off the ship.
Speaker: So, yeah, she she gets she throws him into one of them.
Speaker: She gets into the other lifeboat and they take off.
Speaker: And it is chaos out there.
Speaker: You know, it is, there's just, there's fighters everywhere.
Speaker: There's some Spartans that are flying, you know, doing some of the dog fighting out there.
Speaker: There's some Spartans that are still on the ship fighting off boarding parties.
Speaker: It's just straight up bananas.
Speaker: And so Stone is on one lifeboat.
Speaker: There's on the other lifeboat is Lieutenant Murphy, who I had to look up and Lieutenant Murphy was like, oh, when he was introduced in the back of my head, it was treated as if he needed some sort of like, like the audience, like give a round of applause when they saw Lieutenant Murphy.
Speaker: That was the same thing.
Speaker: When they introduced him, it was in a way that I was just like,
Speaker: It's like the applause sign is flashing and I looked it up and his first appearance is in Halo four.
Speaker: He's been around.
Speaker: He's been around for a little while.
Speaker: So they, um, they're, uh, piloting to the, uh, so they're piloting their respective ships to the surface.
Speaker: Murphy's ship is hit though.
Speaker: And they lose contact.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And the only other notes that I have for chapter one is that the only evacue the only two Spartans from that specific team, Stone's team, is her and another Spartan named Kovan.
Speaker: They're the only two evacuating.
Speaker: The rest were staying on the ship.
Speaker: And the purpose of the mission was to stop Cortana.
Speaker: And that's that's pretty much the entirety of chapter one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's just it's a launch into it.
Speaker: It launches you right into it.
Speaker: It's yeah.
Speaker: It's in media res like just sirens blaring fires or are firing.
Speaker: Chapter two, we flip perspectives and we now are from Kovan, the other Spartans point of view.
Speaker: And this is a pretty fucking awesome scene.
Speaker: She gets into one of the drop pods.
Speaker: Everybody else is getting on lifeboats.
Speaker: She gets into one of the drop pods and the drop pods are basically, I remember from, I believe it was the flood, the drop pod is basically like a bullet.
Speaker: A single person bullet being shot to this.
Speaker: You could melt yourself alive in one of them if everything doesn't go completely right.
Speaker: So she gets in one of these drop pods and and shoots off and she sees a banished phantom chasing down one of the lifeboats.
Speaker: And she aims her drop pod to hit the phantom and pin it into the ground.
Speaker: And then she gets out of the drop pod, boards the phantom and kills everybody inside.
Speaker: It's pretty badass.
Speaker: It's pretty badass moment.
Speaker: So this is like the introduction to these two Spartans that we're getting.
Speaker: Um, and then she, uh, she hops out of it and she, uh, meets up with the lifeboat that she had just, she basically just saved.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: There's a marine fire team and a couple of people in lifeboat.
Speaker: And there's one guy in the lifeboat who his name's Bender.
Speaker: Yeah, I couldn't stop thinking about that.
Speaker: His name is Bender, and here's the thing.
Speaker: If you're naming your character Bender, you're doing it intentionally as a callback to several characters.
Speaker: in film and animation history who are named Bender.
Speaker: It's too distinct a name.
Speaker: You can't just name Bender.
Speaker: It's too distinct a name to be like, he's just like this straight-laced dude and he's not going to, there's not going to be anything interesting.
Speaker: Nothing unusual about him.
Speaker: Mm-mm.
Speaker: Bender.
Speaker: Smoke up Johnny.
Speaker: It's a rebellious name.
Speaker: If you don't know what I mean.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you don't know what I mean, there's two...
Speaker: Two Benders.
Speaker: There's Bender from The Breakfast Club and there's Bender from Futurama.
Speaker: And they're both pretty memorable characters.
Speaker: This Bender, described like he's like this well-built marine, is actually a barber.
Speaker: He's a barber.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right, look, we're going to get into a lot of stuff here.
Speaker: We're going to get a lot.
Speaker: I think it's very cool that we meet characters who are barbers and we'll meet retail people and the unsung heroes of humanity in Halo that you don't normally get to see.
Speaker: But Bender the Barber.
Speaker: That's a choice that was made, and I can't get it out of my head.
Speaker: It literally drove me crazy.
Speaker: It's such a strong choice.
Speaker: It is a very bold choice, Cotton.
Speaker: Let's see how it pays off.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: So chapter three, we're now into the following day.
Speaker: We meet, we actually get a name for the medic that Stone saved in chapter one.
Speaker: His name is Lucas Browning.
Speaker: And the ship that he was on crashed into a ravine.
Speaker: Basically, they can't get out there.
Speaker: The ship is wedged into a very confined area and they're in pretty rough shape.
Speaker: The several of the Marines that were on the ship are dead.
Speaker: One is dying and another another person died.
Speaker: Actually, the remaining people outside of Lieutenant Murphy, I don't think any of them are soldiers.
Speaker: Lucas is a medic.
Speaker: What's her name?
Speaker: Dim begins with a D. Yeah.
Speaker: She's a firefighter, basically.
Speaker: Dimock.
Speaker: Dimock is a firefighter.
Speaker: Cam is...
Speaker: Is he the mortuary assistant?
Speaker: No, that guy actually was on the boat with Bender.
Speaker: I got so hooked on Bender.
Speaker: I forgot to mention there was a mortician on the boat as well named Gavin Joe.
Speaker: That's it, Joe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a lot of fun characters in this book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cam is communications, I think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You'll notice that these characters all have very distinct professions and just all kinds of ways.
Speaker: Distinct professions and names.
Speaker: Yeah, just all kinds of ways to make them stand out and develop, interestingly enough, even though not all of them are going to be with us throughout the entire book.
Speaker: We still take a little time to get to know them and watch them develop, even if it's only a little bit.
Speaker: Even a little bit.
Speaker: I don't know why I felt the need to point that out.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's just.
Speaker: We're not looking at you, Scott Cawthon.
Speaker: because you retired quitter.
Speaker: Rich quitter.
Speaker: Rich quitter, that's true.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So they're in rough shape and they're sending out the Mayday calls and the Mayday calls are answered by another Spartan named Thomas Horvath.
Speaker: And so Horvath is making his way to the ship.
Speaker: And one of the things that I love about Horvath, and I forget if it's mentioned specifically here, but he has, his AI is tallying how often he swears.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: They're literally, they've got a bet going to see who, like, basically, to see if the Sarge- Who could swear the least.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's a swear jar.
Speaker: On his team.
Speaker: They've got like a built-in swear jar for their helmets and their HUD.
Speaker: And he's like, he can see the leaderboard.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I mean, that's a nice detail.
Speaker: It's a great, yeah.
Speaker: And every now and you'll forget about it.
Speaker: You'll forget about it.
Speaker: And like pages later, he'll see something, you go, shit.
Speaker: And you'll hear tick.
Speaker: Like a ding goes towards his swear towel.
Speaker: It's terrific.
Speaker: It's such a fun detail.
Speaker: So they're talking, but and Swervath is on their way.
Speaker: But then there's there's an interruption.
Speaker: Horvath is basically realizes that Lucas Lucas and him are from the same planet, Luvion.
Speaker: And Luvion was one of the first planets to get glassed by the Covenant.
Speaker: years ago.
Speaker: So but they're they're talking, they're reminiscing about like, oh, what town are you from?
Speaker: What city are you from?
Speaker: Oh, blah, blah.
Speaker: Like, oh, yeah, I heard that accent.
Speaker: And like, oh, did you go to this school?
Speaker: Like, no, they'd shut that down.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: You know, all the all the bullshit that you go through when you when you like randomly meet somebody who's from the same area that it said, I was like, that's kind of a cool detail because that's kind of shit that people do.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Like they're just making that small talk about high school.
Speaker: Especially in the military, like in the military, like, you know, you're going to look for any kind of connection.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Even I was just an army brat.
Speaker: And and we still with, you know, you met a kid your own age and you'd say, where were you last?
Speaker: It's like I was in Benning.
Speaker: Oh, I was in Benning with my dad five years ago.
Speaker: Did you go to this?
Speaker: It goes exactly like this.
Speaker: It was it's a pretty terrific detail.
Speaker: Yeah, but they're interrupted when there's a gigantic shock wave that ripples through the entire area.
Speaker: Basically, it starts to create fractures and stuff like that.
Speaker: And a whole chunk of the ring basically breaks off
Speaker: And it's just gone.
Speaker: And parts along the edges are now just floating as islands.
Speaker: And you can actually see it on the cover of the book.
Speaker: In the background, you can see... Yep, there it is.
Speaker: You can see that's the literal...
Speaker: in your head, it's this chunk of just the chunk of the ring is missing.
Speaker: And now there's these little floating islands of halo that are just being kept in place by the gravity of of the ring.
Speaker: So that that interrupts their their their conversation.
Speaker: And that was chapters three and four.
Speaker: Moving on to chapter five, stuff is now very bad inside the lifeboat.
Speaker: The marine that was dying is now dead.
Speaker: He's downgraded his status.
Speaker: We have downgraded the status of that Marine to dead.
Speaker: And so, and Cam now has a glass shard lodged underneath his kneecap.
Speaker: Ugh.
Speaker: Choo.
Speaker: Just probably one of the worst places.
Speaker: Just like, God, this book does not let up.
Speaker: I'm sure you guys at home, you can tell, like, we didn't start with a, we were floating through space and everything's great.
Speaker: And I'm a barber and sure, I'll give you a haircut and let's go get hoagies first though.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: Oh no, what's that?
Speaker: No, it starts in shit town and now we're in shit town with glass under our kneecap.
Speaker: Like it doesn't let up.
Speaker: And every time you get a little moment of like, well, maybe things aren't so shit.
Speaker: Boom, they're shit again.
Speaker: There's shit again, and they are a looser stool than before.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And it's slippery, and... The snakes get hotter and hotter.
Speaker: I think I just grossed myself out with that one.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: I don't know if I had to say that.
Speaker: Kevin, I don't think I had to say that.
Speaker: You didn't have to say it.
Speaker: We were already there.
Speaker: We were already in a pretty gross spot, and we really just...
Speaker: Made it.
Speaker: Toasty.
Speaker: Toasty.
Speaker: What was I saying?
Speaker: Yeah, that kind of reference has a way of throwing shit off, doesn't it?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, shit, speaking of shit.
Speaker: Anyway, Spartan Stone finds them.
Speaker: She finds them, and as we've seen before, Spartan Stone is very known for her feats of strength.
Speaker: She rescues them by reaching down and ripping the whole front end of the lifeboat off so that they can climb through
Speaker: Yeah, she's a badass.
Speaker: She's described as like, I think six foot 10.
Speaker: She's nearly seven feet tall.
Speaker: She's like opening up like metal pieces, like a tuna can lid and oops, my nipples are erect.
Speaker: How did that happen?
Speaker: I think you have a type, Phil.
Speaker: No joke, me and Emily went on a date the other night and she put on some really way higher heels than normal for her.
Speaker: And she was like maybe half an inch taller than me.
Speaker: And I was like, you might maybe need to put on those heels more frequently.
Speaker: They're pretty good.
Speaker: She's like, oh, right.
Speaker: You like tall women.
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We played Resident Evil Village on one of our first dates.
Speaker: You remember how I reacted to that?
Speaker: To Lady Dimitrescu?
Speaker: It's you now.
Speaker: Lucky.
Speaker: And she's depending on when this episode comes out, she will be or is your wife.
Speaker: I have to check.
Speaker: We will be according to the schedule.
Speaker: This will be coming out three days before our wedding.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Yeah, this is this is the time.
Speaker: It's the time is now.
Speaker: Your wife.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: So, Dimmick and Cam, they receive some medical treatment.
Speaker: And Lucas pulls the shard out of Cam's knee.
Speaker: I love that moment.
Speaker: And he's like, oh, they're just probably going to pull the shard out.
Speaker: And Lucas is like, yeah, I'm going to do the same thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: The Marine's like, oh, I was just going to pull the shirt out.
Speaker: The guy's like, are you were are you kidding?
Speaker: And the medic's like, oh, that's totally what that's that's totally what I was going to do.
Speaker: I just have the bio foam to put in the wound that it leaves.
Speaker: So with that, they're they're off to find higher ground.
Speaker: And that's that's the end of the first two days on Halo Zeta.
Speaker: And we pick up five days later.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Horvath has basically been on his own since then.
Speaker: He's just been trying to piece together what happens.
Speaker: He's been following a group of Banished, seeing what they're up to.
Speaker: He is not too pleased with how the Banished treat the wildlife.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: Yeah, it's an interesting detail.
Speaker: It's an interesting detail.
Speaker: He's one of these types of... It basically lays out that Horvath is one of these hunters that is like respect the animal.
Speaker: You don't like... You don't treat animals poorly.
Speaker: You kill them with honor and dignity.
Speaker: You thank them for their sacrifice.
Speaker: You thank them for their sacrifice.
Speaker: Horvath is wearing a cowboy hat in my head now.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: It's built into the Spartan helmet.
Speaker: The Spartan helmet is in the shape of a cowboy.
Speaker: A 10-gallon Mjolnir hat.
Speaker: Well, I reckon they don't treat those deer too well.
Speaker: The Dalai Lama says, I must respect all living things.
Speaker: So Horvath's tally and while he's like, so basically what happens is these deer kind of get trapped in a ravine and they can't get out and the Banished are just like being really gross with how they kill them and pick them apart and eat them.
Speaker: And Horvath is like, God damn.
Speaker: Nothing at all like the way humans do it.
Speaker: Nothing at all like the way humans do it.
Speaker: Nothing at all like the way we do it.
Speaker: Horvath is clearly born too late for, for like the, the chicken and cow farming of the 21st century.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He he his curse tally goes up a few times during this scene as he talks about how much he's not a fan of how the banished treat are treating their animals.
Speaker: And he keeps following them until there's a phantom that lands.
Speaker: And there's a bunch of like banished higher ups that meet up with this group of of banished that had been separated.
Speaker: And he starts like listening in with his he's got like little
Speaker: you know, spy microphone that he's pointing at them and they're like, well, we're we'll we're going to stop here.
Speaker: This will be a good choke point.
Speaker: One of the other banners is like choke point for fucking what?
Speaker: They're scattered.
Speaker: What do we need to choke?
Speaker: Like I love this detail where.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, he totally talks back.
Speaker: Like, we've just decimated these people.
Speaker: It's like, we've already won.
Speaker: Choke point.
Speaker: This is in the battle of Thermopylae.
Speaker: You Zack Snyder loving piece of shit.
Speaker: And then...
Speaker: And then the other grunt, the other, no, brute, like backhands the other and it's not a grunt.
Speaker: No, unfortunately.
Speaker: More is the pity.
Speaker: Unfortunately, there is no Ya-Yap.
Speaker: No Ya-Yap yet.
Speaker: He's going to be here, though.
Speaker: I have to believe it.
Speaker: He's going to be here.
Speaker: He didn't die.
Speaker: He did not die.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Ya-Yap lives.
Speaker: Yeah, he uplives.
Speaker: So they catch wind of Horvath, though.
Speaker: They're like, listen, I smell something.
Speaker: Which, by the way, if you're a Spartan super, I feel like you know, it's like, oh, wait, these guys are super good at smelling people.
Speaker: I should maybe shit.
Speaker: And just, they found him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they a couple of them hop into the Phantom and they they go up to take a a reconnoiter around and Horvath is he's running.
Speaker: He's doing his marathon man.
Speaker: Oh, impression.
Speaker: Running up that hill is playing in the back.
Speaker: He's running up that hill.
Speaker: Pete Bush is is is
Speaker: She's asking to make a deal with God to trade places.
Speaker: And but God ain't having it.
Speaker: And Horvath is going to have to run up that hill by himself, by himself.
Speaker: One has to imagine that Horvath is happy pushing that boulder up the hill.
Speaker: Oh, that's deep mythological.
Speaker: Esoteric.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sisyphus reference.
Speaker: Anyway, so Horvath runs up the hill and he jumps off a cliff and basically he's like jumping off towards like another platform that's kind of like broken and he gets on it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And he's on it and he miscalculates his jump, which is unlike a Spartan.
Speaker: But, you know, Horvath.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Horvath seems to be a bit of a wild card.
Speaker: His cowboy hat threw his aerodynamics off.
Speaker: And he starts hanging on the ledge and then the phantom comes up and then a sentinel comes out of that open segment of the the halo ring, because remember, it's a it's a it's a halo.
Speaker: So it was built by the forerunners and therefore it has the those sentinel robots.
Speaker: So the sentinel comes out and it's like it goes right to town on the phantom.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thinking that the phantom did some sort of damage.
Speaker: In the ensuing chaos, the entire section breaks off that Orvath had jumped onto and just like starts floating away as an island and twisting through space.
Speaker: And we're in chapter, we're in chapter six now.
Speaker: This is kind of why I organized it by day instead of chapter, because the action is very continuous through these days.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So the section breaks off and it's flipping around.
Speaker: And at the end of it, by the time it's settled, it's just kind of floating out in space under a massive pile of dirt and debris.
Speaker: And his AI, Elfie, is like, by the way, you only have 90 minutes to dig yourself out.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So he does.
Speaker: He digs himself out.
Speaker: He gets up to the top, he takes his helmet off, puts it at his side, lights a Marlboro, and he asks Elfie.
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: He asks Elfie, like, all right, so what's the status?
Speaker: And she's like, well, there's an atmospheric leak in the shielding, environmental shielding around this section.
Speaker: is gonna fail and you got seven days to figure out a way to get off of it.
Speaker: And he's like- The timer starts.
Speaker: The timer starts and he takes a long drag of his cigarette and he says, well, partner, better get to work.
Speaker: I thought you were going with, I'm too old for this shit.
Speaker: I'm impressed.
Speaker: I'm too old for this shit.
Speaker: He throws the cigarette down.
Speaker: He stamps it out with his boot, and we get a smash cut.
Speaker: I mean, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, that's how I'm directing it.
Speaker: The adaptation is this.
Speaker: This is just a book full of smash cuts like that.
Speaker: Yeah, that's just by the way, this is all smash cuts.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just one smash cut after another.
Speaker: One smash cut from a shitty from shitty situations into shittier situations.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Murphy and his crew are traversing through.
Speaker: And so earlier, when Stone had rescued them, she had found an entire like troop of Marines.
Speaker: And we get caught up that in the intervening days, all of those Marines have died.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, remember those people we got?
Speaker: They're gone.
Speaker: Don't worry about that.
Speaker: They're gone.
Speaker: They did end up getting replaced, though, because they meet up.
Speaker: So Stone and the lifeboat people meet up with Kovan and the ODSTs and Marines that she had with her, as well as Bender, the barber, and Gavin Joe, the mortician,
Speaker: And Bender and Gavin Joe kind of like shuffle over to be with Murphy's lifeboat people because thematically they all kind of vibe more together.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just, they, they picked their, they picked their cafeteria table.
Speaker: They picked their group of kids to hang out with.
Speaker: Well, like we're like the non soldiers with their one soldier friends who is Murphy.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's cool, guys.
Speaker: He's cool.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: He's cool.
Speaker: He's the football player who hangs out with the marching band kids for some reason.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: He gets it.
Speaker: He gets it.
Speaker: He's cool people.
Speaker: Don't tell anybody, but he plays a barbarian in our D&D game after school.
Speaker: So, yeah, the ODSTs are assholes like normal.
Speaker: fucking ODSTs basically in every piece of Halo media are just pieces of shit.
Speaker: That's just that's just the way it is.
Speaker: One of them just like nearly kills Murphy.
Speaker: for like Murphy stopped to look at something on the trail and the ODST just like hits him with his shoulder and not like knocks him off a ledge.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Bender saves him.
Speaker: But yeah, they, they, Ben Murphy and the boat crew have bonded and they have a campfire chat basically during one of their breaks on a March.
Speaker: And you know, they're, they're having fun.
Speaker: They're getting to know each other.
Speaker: Bender spins a yarn about, uh,
Speaker: how he like was a Marine at some point and, and got busted down so many times.
Speaker: That's why he's a barber now.
Speaker: And, um, you know, they don't necessarily know to believe it because he seems like the kind of guy that just makes shit up.
Speaker: Uh, uh, Cam, ironically, the one who got the glass into the knee was like the fastest person on the infinity.
Speaker: Um, um,
Speaker: And and Bender, meanwhile, they mentioned has fallen in love with Kovan because Kovan gave her gave him her knife.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's he's really he's really smitten with that.
Speaker: The talk gets interrupted.
Speaker: Remember that fresh batch of Marines we got after all the other ones were killed?
Speaker: Sure, yeah.
Speaker: Well, Mosley, this one got a name.
Speaker: Mosley is just kind of sitting there against the tree.
Speaker: I like to imagine that he had a guitar out and he was starting to play Wonderwall.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It only makes sense when you find out what happens next, folks.
Speaker: Trust me on this one.
Speaker: Well, anyway, here's Wonderwall.
Speaker: And then an axe comes out of the darkness.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: The axe speaks for all of us.
Speaker: And just impales the guy against the tree.
Speaker: And there's a group of banished that just attacks this group.
Speaker: And I forget which one.
Speaker: One of the Spartans is not there.
Speaker: I think it's stone.
Speaker: Because they were...
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's stone, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, because she was trying to get a better signal because the comms on her suit are... They don't have much in the way of communications equipment at the moment.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So she was trying to get better information, better signals.
Speaker: So she was higher up on a mountain when this attack happens.
Speaker: And it is a pretty brutal scene.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Marines get ripped in half.
Speaker: Yeah, it's rough.
Speaker: We've seen some, you know, the Halo books have never shied away from moments of, you know, extreme violence and that kind of thing.
Speaker: They, you know, they,
Speaker: they've done a pretty good job of just agreeing that at least for the books here, they're going to go full ship, full starship troopers on our asses.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this moment to me kind of separated the beginning of the book where it could, where it's like, okay, we've got action.
Speaker: You got, we got, you know, thrills and chills and it's a, it's a high tension halo book.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: This is where it gets fucked where it gets, this is, this to me is where,
Speaker: We're not just dealing with, this is kind of the introduction to everything is awful.
Speaker: War is hell.
Speaker: None of this is heroic or good or safe.
Speaker: This is just, it's brutal.
Speaker: It's a really, really rough scene.
Speaker: Yeah, all of the Marines and all of the ODSTs die in horrible ways.
Speaker: Murphy gets a jackal claw into the back of his neck and starts getting dragged away when he is able to, he shoots the jackal in the eye, I want to say.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And like the back of its head explodes all over him.
Speaker: And there it's like there's like this silence.
Speaker: And then Stonehead came back and she did some really fucking wild like luchador shit to kill a brute.
Speaker: Like she like she did like a spinning hurricanrana off of the top rope of a tree.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Snap his neck or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was it was pretty cool.
Speaker: But like then, you know, it's like this moment of oh shit that Spartans are really cool to like, you know, it's it's then suddenly super quiet and everybody's dead and you just see you just there's like Gavin Joe is standing there like.
Speaker: And he just keeps saying, I'm not a killer.
Speaker: I'm not a killer.
Speaker: I'm not a killer.
Speaker: And he's like, he is covered in blood.
Speaker: And, and, you know, Bender is like curled up in the fetal position.
Speaker: And it is just this gross scene of like, oh, this shit is terrible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is a real like war is not heroic or fun or like this is not like an adventure.
Speaker: This is some seriously fucked up shit going on.
Speaker: And you've got people who were not trained for this who are in the middle of it.
Speaker: Basically, it's like this is the part where if this were a game, we're not playing a first person shooter anymore.
Speaker: This is a survival game now.
Speaker: Like it's, it's absolutely bonkers.
Speaker: It just has a completely different vibe in many ways to the other couple of Halo books we've read in this moment.
Speaker: This is where it starts.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So we move on.
Speaker: It's the, oh, I forgot to say Stone did get a lead on a place to go.
Speaker: And there was a frigate that crash landed on Halo Zeta called the Mortal Reverie that is pretty much intact.
Speaker: And and that's kind of where the UNSC is is calling base for now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the next day they arrive, the two Spartans and the boat crew make their way towards the mortal reverie.
Speaker: And when Stone and Kovan get there, they like receive the orders and they just leave without saying anything to the boat crew.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like Spartans are kind of dicks.
Speaker: They're just like, I mean, it's it makes me think of, you know, how they wrote John in the first two books.
Speaker: It's just like you're here for your duty, man.
Speaker: Like here's here.
Speaker: You're now here.
Speaker: Your new marching orders.
Speaker: Get on out.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And he, they go off and to wherever, uh, there, there, there's like one of their, one of the Spartan commanders is, is on the ship and they're like, go meet with them.
Speaker: And they're like, yep.
Speaker: And they leave.
Speaker: Um, and there's some sobering moments, you know, they, they deposit the dog tags that they have and the, the dog tags are just go into this gigantic bucket filled with dog tags.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that was good writing.
Speaker: Because when they collect, it wasn't Murphy.
Speaker: It was Lucas.
Speaker: Getting all the names mixed up.
Speaker: That's the trouble.
Speaker: Murphy was the one who had the dog tags on him.
Speaker: Oh, it was him?
Speaker: Okay, okay.
Speaker: Lucas was there, but... Yeah, but okay.
Speaker: Yeah, it was him then.
Speaker: And he...
Speaker: like when he takes them from the fallen Marines, there's a sense of reverence and like, you know, just like doing the right thing.
Speaker: This is, this is, you know, evidence of you were here.
Speaker: This is, you know, you shall not have died in vain and everything.
Speaker: And they've got a God damn, like, it's like a fucking legal box filled with, with dog tags of all the other dudes and women who died.
Speaker: Like it's, it's,
Speaker: Oh, it's crushing.
Speaker: It's a really effective performance.
Speaker: Just drop them with the rest.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, they're given their like the breakdown and like if you're using the showers or the bathrooms, you got to use these main bathrooms.
Speaker: Don't use the bathrooms in the quarters.
Speaker: They've been they've been turned off to conserve water and all that.
Speaker: So just use the
Speaker: these main areas, here's your passes to go get food and and and all that stuff.
Speaker: And and Murphy basically he has like a panic attack when he gets to the cafeteria.
Speaker: He just has like this breakdown and the boat crew.
Speaker: It's like this really touching scene of like.
Speaker: Murphy is is like he's he you know, he's
Speaker: he's overcome with this grief and and survivors guilt, I think is the phrase that's used.
Speaker: And the boat crew basically all comes around.
Speaker: They all put their hands on him and they're like, you got us here.
Speaker: Like this is this is you.
Speaker: You were responsible.
Speaker: You saved us.
Speaker: And it's a really touching moment.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then they get to eat pizza.
Speaker: Yes they do!
Speaker: Because pizza heals all wounds!
Speaker: Yay!
Speaker: being facetious pizza will fix just about everything they go and then the mess hall is serving pizza and they are so happy about it yeah and it's plain there's no toppings it's just cheese pizza and they cry they're so happy to have that pizza i get it i've been there i've literally been in the exact same position as these people yeah
Speaker: Just being crying over piece of pizza, not surviving on a hostile alien planet for a week.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: Let's not talk about it.
Speaker: You know, let's not talk about it.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: We're just having fun.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: You know, alien planet, Savannah, whatever.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If Savannah isn't an alien planet, I defy you to explain to me what it is.
Speaker: I truly... So, day nine, we get a little mini arc.
Speaker: Now that they're safe, now that the boat crew is safe for now, we get a little mini arc kind of catching Horvath up with everyone else.
Speaker: And he has a rough go of it in this section.
Speaker: This is it turns into enemy mind.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: He hasn't he has an enemy mind sequence.
Speaker: So basically, Horvath is walking around this island that he's on and he's he's like walking like around it as in like he's on the top side.
Speaker: He's on the bottom side.
Speaker: He's he's just walking in circles trying to find something.
Speaker: He finds the phantom that was killed by the sentinel.
Speaker: It's like, and it's in a bog.
Speaker: It's basically like the X-Wing in Dagobah.
Speaker: When Luke lands his X-Wing in Dagobah and it sinks in the marsh.
Speaker: The X-Wing ends up in the marsh.
Speaker: In the marsh.
Speaker: He put the phantom in the marsh.
Speaker: In the marsh.
Speaker: I tell you to put the phantom in the marsh.
Speaker: You put the phantom in the marsh.
Speaker: Jesus God.
Speaker: We have to have a departed supercut.
Speaker: The time has come.
Speaker: Now where somebody from John Hancock goes to get a blowjob.
Speaker: That's where Yeah Yap is.
Speaker: That's where Yeah Yap is.
Speaker: It finally makes sense.
Speaker: So he's like, he sees the phantom.
Speaker: He knows there's a life sign in it.
Speaker: There's like somebody alive in it still.
Speaker: And he's like,
Speaker: Not going to go to that first.
Speaker: He goes for a few hours looking around.
Speaker: There's no better option.
Speaker: He has to go into the Phantom.
Speaker: He goes into the Phantom and he finds... He looks around and he finds one of the... He's basically looking for like just a jump pack and there's none there.
Speaker: And he finds one of the Brutes pinned to a... One of the chairs basically like...
Speaker: fell backwards and pinned him against the wall and he can't his arms are pinned and he can't move.
Speaker: And he's very, very angry.
Speaker: Yes, he is.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He's very frustrated.
Speaker: He's a deeply frustrated boy.
Speaker: And he's like, Horvath is like, I tell you what, I need to dig out that Sentinel out there.
Speaker: What say I free you and we have a little bit of a truce?
Speaker: And Horvath is like, I'm going to have to make him.
Speaker: Give me a truce.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's like, I'm pretty much.
Speaker: This guy is going to fight me as soon as I, and he's like, oh, yes, human.
Speaker: Oh, truce.
Speaker: So Horvath frees him.
Speaker: First thing that the brute does.
Speaker: Gorion is his name.
Speaker: Gorion, yeah.
Speaker: Fucking punches Horvath.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And they're just, they fall right out of the phantom and they're just rolling around in the mud, fighting each other.
Speaker: And Horvath just keeps punching him in the ribs over and over again.
Speaker: Which because Gorian has fractured ribs.
Speaker: So Horvath keeps punching him in the ribs until Gorian's like, all right, fine, fine.
Speaker: For real this time.
Speaker: It's so hilarious where he's like, no, but I mean it this time.
Speaker: This time I actually think we should have a truce.
Speaker: I'm sorry, I guess.
Speaker: It's a great moment.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: So it's four days later.
Speaker: We fast forward.
Speaker: It's day 13 now.
Speaker: Four days later.
Speaker: If you're keeping track at home, he has three days to get off this island now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Three days, is it?
Speaker: Well, it would be if they had a week.
Speaker: So, yeah, they'd have three days left.
Speaker: Yep, three days left.
Speaker: So Horvath and Gorion are trading barbs over the campfire.
Speaker: I'm getting a lot of Drax vibes, by the way, from Gorion.
Speaker: He's very, very Drax, the destroyer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nothing could go over my head.
Speaker: My reflexes are too fast.
Speaker: It's exactly it.
Speaker: It's just everything's such a...
Speaker: It's not the misunderstanding metaphor part so much as just everything is such a big goddamn deal to him.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: My honor demands it's human.
Speaker: It's Christmas Eve, by the way.
Speaker: At one point, this is a Christmas book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: first our first and at one point uh uh gorion like uh throws him some chicken and it's like raw on the inside it's like hasn't been cooked all the way through and horvath like well he throws him some bird like he throws him some bird it's a bird that he killed it's a bird that he killed and he just like lightly like toasted the outsides and
Speaker: Toasty on the outside, chewy on the inside.
Speaker: The way you want your burger.
Speaker: Yeah, keep it nice and creamy on the inside.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Horvath like throws it back at him and basically says, Merry Christmas, you filthy animal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Gorian says, I don't, what is this merry mint you speak of?
Speaker: And Horvath is like,
Speaker: Of course you wouldn't know that.
Speaker: And it was like, yeah, he, Gory wouldn't know that.
Speaker: It's a fucking alien dude.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Of course you, we have, I really thought we could have, we could have a halo hallmark moment.
Speaker: We could.
Speaker: It was like, it was like, it was then that Horvath realized that the Goryan didn't understand the true meaning of Christmas.
Speaker: And he like reads to him from, from Matthew or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Does the line of speech.
Speaker: And the Whoville who's come.
Speaker: He's like, and Gorian's heart grew three times that day.
Speaker: Through the power of Christ.
Speaker: The miracle child warmed his soul.
Speaker: He becomes this weird converted missionary.
Speaker: It's just a super cut of Horvath, like badly misremembering the story of the nativity.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker: And there are three bikers going through and one of them had Frankie says relax on CD and the other one has gold.
Speaker: And you know what is Horvath's character Horvath is now played by, oh fuck, what's his name?
Speaker: From the Righteous Gemstones.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: uh danny mcbride horvath is now danny mcbride's character he is now danny mcbride's character from the righteous gemstones in my head i'm into it it's the only thing i've ever liked danny mcbride in so sure let's go for it and then the sweet baby jesus yeah
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: And it all makes sense.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It all makes sense.
Speaker: So they go and they dig.
Speaker: They work together.
Speaker: They dig out the Sentinel.
Speaker: They figure out Elfie's like, well, you know, I can control it for like 10 minutes if you let me in there.
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, do what you need to do.
Speaker: So they start walking.
Speaker: They pick it up.
Speaker: They start walking.
Speaker: And the next day, they basically have finished their trek to the edge of the island.
Speaker: And on the other side of the void of space is the rest of the ring.
Speaker: And they're like, they're basically going to turn on the Sentinel, each grab onto it, and it's just going to rocket off.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like Wile E. Coyote strapped to a rocket, basically.
Speaker: They're going to boogie board their way out of this fucking situation.
Speaker: So we're OK.
Speaker: Yeah, fine.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: Let's get out of here.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: It's it is the worst option of options.
Speaker: But it's a terrible idea.
Speaker: It's a terrible idea.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: So they turn it on, they shoot off into space.
Speaker: And wouldn't you know what the first thing Gorian fucking does is he tries to punch Horvath off.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He gets right into it.
Speaker: Gets right into it.
Speaker: He punches Horvath and Horvath lets go.
Speaker: He flies off.
Speaker: He springboards back off of some debris and he grabs onto Gorian's heel.
Speaker: But now the weight distribution is off, so it fucks up the trajectory.
Speaker: And the Sentinel's coming in way too hot, way too low, and basically they make a crash landing on the other side of the void of space.
Speaker: It's a mess.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Horvath has like a steel beam sticking into his side, and Gorion is mostly untouched.
Speaker: You hear him saying something like, sorry, dude, I'm a scorpion.
Speaker: gorion what the fuck so gorion basically is like gives laughs at horvath and he's like um and but doesn't doesn't take this opportunity to finish him off um he's kind of bummed out that horvath is not at full strength anymore um for their their great epic showdown like gorion you just tried to kick him off of a rocket yeah you
Speaker: You just tried to sucker punch him off of the goddamn rocket sled.
Speaker: Way to move your goalposts, Gorian.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So Gorian walks off into the distance and he meets up with a crew of Banished that are gathering over yonder.
Speaker: And Horvath is watching this all play out and Gorian gets on one of the ships and Horvath is like, this is it.
Speaker: They're going to come and they're going to get me.
Speaker: And Gorian doesn't
Speaker: Tell them that Horvath is over there.
Speaker: He just gets on the ship and they go.
Speaker: And this is why I was getting so excited earlier because it all makes sense.
Speaker: Because he spared him because Horvath taught him about the miracle of the Christ child.
Speaker: And it changed Gorian's life.
Speaker: And Gorian is like, no, I'm going to.
Speaker: And Gorian turns into the Robert Redford gif and just kind of like nods at him in the distance and says, praise Jesus.
Speaker: And they fly away.
Speaker: It makes so much sense now.
Speaker: God, I'm a good writer.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: You know, it took me years to realize that that was Robert Redford in that gif.
Speaker: Oh, I get it.
Speaker: I absolutely get it.
Speaker: Like, oh, Robert Redford could grow a full beard, couldn't he?
Speaker: A real son of a bitch of a beard.
Speaker: That is a, yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, that's 12 chapters, 14 days of Halo, the Rubicon Protocol.
Speaker: We're 14 days into the six months of basically, it's like filling in the six months before Halo Infinite starts.
Speaker: What are your thoughts so far?
Speaker: This is Halo PTSD is what this is.
Speaker: This is like, let's take all of the, all of the heroics and the grand space opera, military war fun stuff and remind you that war is a real son of a bitch and, and a nightmare.
Speaker: And it's, which is amazing for so many reasons.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: surprisingly tough to read at times just because the subject matter is bleak and it does not let up.
Speaker: We get our brief moment at the mess hall.
Speaker: They've got a little bit of respite at the base, but they are immediately told, they're like, you're getting orders here tomorrow, so eat up all your delicious pizza because you're going to need the calories for tomorrow you dine in hell.
Speaker: It does not let up.
Speaker: It's terrific.
Speaker: It's like we cut from pizza fun times to Horvath in the middle of literal enemy mine.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's pretty constant.
Speaker: Except it's like enemy mind, but the enemy doesn't learn anything and still tries to kill him at the end.
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: I swear to God.
Speaker: It's like, just like God, my honor demands that you be fully arrested when I kill you.
Speaker: And then he's like, oh, oh, I'm tripping you up.
Speaker: Trip, Chip.
Speaker: I win.
Speaker: Trip, Joe.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: Yeah, Goring, that piece of shit.
Speaker: I wonder if he's going to return later.
Speaker: I think we've set up the big bad for the book, for Horvath, at least.
Speaker: At least.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so I am.
Speaker: I'm loving it so far.
Speaker: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker: It is pretty fucking bleak.
Speaker: But I think it's I think it's a it's a pretty fresh take on the I think some of the best parts of.
Speaker: Halo stories have been when it's instead of like, Master Chief, fuck yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: When we're not being treated to that, but we are treated more to the grim realities of the universe around him.
Speaker: Because I think a lot of the times it's easy to forget with how much of a badass like Master Chief is that
Speaker: for a for long stretches of these wars, the UNSC is losing.
Speaker: Like it's your you are on the side of the side.
Speaker: You're on the side that's not winning.
Speaker: And even at the end of games, it's not like it's more of a pure victory than anything else.
Speaker: Like at the end of Halo, like, oh, great.
Speaker: You destroyed one of the Halos and lost everybody doing it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You just feel like you're delaying the inevitable.
Speaker: And this, and this really clenches its teeth into that.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, it's wild.
Speaker: These goddamn halos.
Speaker: Fucking halos.
Speaker: They just keep showing up.
Speaker: You know, it's,
Speaker: Keep showing up.
Speaker: You'd hope Zeta is the last of them.
Speaker: Yeah, well, I mean, it's got a Z there, so.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's got a Z. Yeah.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: So I'm really looking forward to continuing through this one.
Speaker: We're going to be doing three parts.
Speaker: This is going to be a three-parter.
Speaker: So it should be good times.
Speaker: Now, Phil, you have a brand new computer.
Speaker: So I have to ask you, what are you playing?
Speaker: Well, as you pointed out, I do have a brand new shiny rig.
Speaker: Very quiet.
Speaker: Very lovely.
Speaker: I'm playing Vampire Survivors.
Speaker: I...
Speaker: I got to catch up on my Achivos.
Speaker: I got two of them left for this current run.
Speaker: No, but I did start playing, at your recommendation, I did start playing Cult of the Lamb.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And how are you liking that?
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I want to thank the designers for creating this game for me because that's certainly how it feels.
Speaker: The sense of humor, the gameplay.
Speaker: It's terrific because I was starting to feel nervous because I didn't realize it.
Speaker: how similar the gameplay or at least part of the gameplay was going to be to, um, uh, binding of Isaac.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Uh, which was not a game that I wanted to like binding of Isaac, but the, the gameplay, the controls, that sort of thing, just it, it,
Speaker: I didn't care for it.
Speaker: So when I saw that the aesthetic, the overworld, the action parts of the games were very clearly influenced by that, I got nervous.
Speaker: But the fact that it's using the slash roll kind of Zelda style action instead puts it right in my wheelhouse.
Speaker: And I am...
Speaker: Just in love with the cult building simulator aspect of it and that kind of thing.
Speaker: It's just right.
Speaker: It's not as deep and obtuse as some survival games can get with it.
Speaker: It's very accessible.
Speaker: It's very friendly.
Speaker: I love the style.
Speaker: Involves a lot more poop than I expected.
Speaker: So much poop.
Speaker: So much poop.
Speaker: No one warned me about the poop.
Speaker: I rushed to learn how to build an outhouse.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I got really tired of the shit.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm going to have to get in on that, especially because I'm working heavily on making sure I'm an agricultural man.
Speaker: So I'm trying to make sure that we've got a really kick-ass farm set up going.
Speaker: And we're going to need a lot of shit for that.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Get yourself a couple outhouses.
Speaker: Get yourself a couple outhouses.
Speaker: Get yourself a janitor station.
Speaker: Janitor station is great for the vomit.
Speaker: Oh, I haven't run into the vomit just yet.
Speaker: So no.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You'll get the vomit.
Speaker: I'm sure.
Speaker: It doesn't feel like I'd shy away from that.
Speaker: But yeah, I'm nearly to the first big bad, I believe at this point.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker: It's the kind of thing I can while away some serious time with.
Speaker: So I'm
Speaker: I'm happy to be back with something like this.
Speaker: So what about you, Kevin?
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: So I actually just finished Cult of the Lamb.
Speaker: Oh, nice.
Speaker: I just rolled credits on it this week.
Speaker: So I was playing that up until a few days ago.
Speaker: I wrapped up on Cult of the Lamb and...
Speaker: I really I have to say I really like it.
Speaker: It's one of those games where it does a lot of things and it does them good.
Speaker: And it does.
Speaker: It's not like it's not like Don't Starve, which is one of the aesthetics that it seems to kind of borrow from.
Speaker: it's it's got tighter combat than I felt than than Binding of Isaac.
Speaker: It's it's it would be it's one of those it's a game that had Binding of Isaac not existed it would have been like oh this is very edgy but Binding of Isaac makes it seem like super like simple and lighthearted in comparison.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, it does a lot of things very well.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: It has a lot of nice little side quests.
Speaker: I think I completed almost all the side quests in the game.
Speaker: I didn't get all the achievements.
Speaker: I was missing like six by the time I wrapped up on it.
Speaker: But yeah, it's totally worth the time and money that I put into it.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I thought I paid full price.
Speaker: There's 25 bucks.
Speaker: I think that's a good sweet spot for this game.
Speaker: yeah i agree i agree it's not like other because it does have a that a bit of a roguelike element to it yeah but it's not a so it took me 13 and a half hours in total to to roll credits on it it's not like other roguelikes where i come back to it time and time again and just keep playing um because it is very story-based so yeah if
Speaker: 14 hours was a good amount.
Speaker: I also got back into Vampire Survivors to try to catch up on my achievements there.
Speaker: And so what I need to get back into now, now that I've done that, is...
Speaker: Working on a little bit more of last call BBS still have a few puzzles to solve in 20th century food court.
Speaker: And what else?
Speaker: Weird West.
Speaker: I still need to still want to roll credits.
Speaker: So weird West.
Speaker: That's that's what I'm going to have to pick up next.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, that's that's what I'm playing.
Speaker: Hell yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: I really appreciate you all coming in and listening to us.
Speaker: We're coming off some pretty good months for the podcast.
Speaker: And I'm happy that all of you are listening and laughing and loving.
Speaker: Listen, laugh, love, you know?
Speaker: Every week at some point lately, Kevin will share the numbers with me on the downloads.
Speaker: And fuck, you people are out there.
Speaker: Yeah, there's people out there.
Speaker: And they like their media.
Speaker: They like their novelizations and their tie-ins.
Speaker: I'll say that.
Speaker: Man, and we're thrilled to have you.
Speaker: We've said this before, but this is not exactly...
Speaker: mainstream the subject matter of what we're doing here.
Speaker: So it's thrilling to have you there.
Speaker: It is not mainstream.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: So thanks for listening.
Speaker: You're pretty niche.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So thanks for listening, everybody.
Speaker: If you are so inclined, please follow us on Twitter at PixelitPod and on Instagram at the same handle at PixelitPod.
Speaker: Rate us five stars on all of the platforms that you perchance listen to us on.
Speaker: That would be Apple Podcasts, Spotify, GoodPods or anything else.
Speaker: Five star reviews really help us out.
Speaker: If you want, you can go to our website, PixletPod.com, where we have the automated transcript.
Speaker: of each episode as well as links to all of our guest appearances in other podcasts and YouTube videos and links to our Discord and Steam Curator pages.
Speaker: So that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening and have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Bye.
