Transcript
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know if I have.
Speaker: Have I got time for that?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: I'm not sure if like if the time is worth it, but you know what time is always worth it.
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin, alongside as always is Phil.
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: I think I see a kitty in the background.
Speaker: Yeah, there's Ripley.
Speaker: Oh, Ripley.
Speaker: And today we're doing episode two on Halo the Flood by New York Times bestselling author, William C. Dietz.
Speaker: William Dietz.
Speaker: He's got the Dietz.
Speaker: You looking to understand this?
Speaker: He's got the Dietz.
Speaker: And when we last left off, we were on chapter three, which is kind of like the midpoint of part one of the book.
Speaker: And this is a book that is, as we talked about last time, it's a lot of action sequences, but it's also a book of long chapters.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: long, very long chapters.
Speaker: I think, I think you just, you pointed out earlier that chapter four and five between the two of them were like a hundred pages.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this is a, uh, what, let me, let me check real quick.
Speaker: This is a, this is not even a 400 page book.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Jesus, right there.
Speaker: And it's a lot of it's a lot of action.
Speaker: There's even less.
Speaker: That's that's the thing about the upcoming chapters is that I think there's even less character moments up through chapter five, which is where we're going to we're going to go today than there were in the first couple of chapters.
Speaker: It's it's a lot of heavy running and gunning.
Speaker: Even more so than that was something we talked about with the fall of reach where there were, it had lots of moments packed into it that were just action sequences and stuff.
Speaker: This is even more interesting.
Speaker: than fall of reach this is this is a very this is a very clearly based on a video game kind of thing right and not just in the sense that for those of you who listened to our uh megaman 2 novelization episode from a couple of weeks ago um
Speaker: You'll remember that we talked a lot about how in that book it felt like the author was just sitting there watching someone play through the game.
Speaker: This is not that bad.
Speaker: I want to get up right up front.
Speaker: Get right in front of this.
Speaker: This is not Mega Man 2.
Speaker: This is not Mega Man 2 tier.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: If we're doing a tier list, it's not that bad.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: there's definitely an element of that and and but the difference is i will say i think the difference is is that deets uh unlike uh uh our our author for megaman 2 i forget her name already is elaine i forget uh something like that yeah yeah something like that fx9 uh outlines fx9's megaman 2 if you will yeah uh
Speaker: Instead of just leaving it as it is and just doing beat to beat moment to moment, William Dietz recognizes a lot of things like, for example, maybe we don't want the entire book to be from Master Chief's point of view.
Speaker: And we're already we've already started to see things like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: where we're getting stuff from the position of the hell jumpers.
Speaker: We're getting stuff from the position of the covenant and it fleshes it out a little bit and it makes it more than just a retelling of the first halo combat of all.
Speaker: Um, so, and we're going to get into all that, but yeah, right up front, uh, we're dealing with a, a lot of, uh, of, uh, just action sequences here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, right up front.
Speaker: So the beginning of chapter three is basically Master Chief has has teamed up.
Speaker: He runs into a couple of other Marines and they're they're kind of fighting their way through.
Speaker: And I believe they have they're on.
Speaker: He's on a warthog for part of this.
Speaker: Yeah, they deploy a warthog for it.
Speaker: It starts to feel like we need to get the toys out there.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: We get a war dog in there.
Speaker: We just like like it's we get a lot a little more.
Speaker: You know, we get information.
Speaker: We get the weapons porn.
Speaker: You know, we got the whole and the all terrain vehicles mounted with a standard M41.
Speaker: light anti-aircraft gun or LAG or lag, I guess.
Speaker: The weapon fired 500 rounds of 12.7 by 99 millimeter armor piercing rounds per minute.
Speaker: And it was effective on both ground and airborne targets.
Speaker: Oh, do you need a minute to clean off all the ejaculate from your hands?
Speaker: After that level of weapon pornography, I don't blame you.
Speaker: Like it's, we get a lot of that, which is a nice little throwback.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Foe Hammer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Foe Hammer drops off the warthog and it's like one warthog deployed saddle up and give him hell.
Speaker: And some of the lines of dialogue feel like the, the barks that you get in a game like Halo.
Speaker: And it's not a criticism.
Speaker: It's more of like a neutral observation.
Speaker: It's where it's just like, oh, yeah, so and so said, hey, Master Chief, so and so said you could use a gunner.
Speaker: And like, you know, little little things like that where it feels like, oh, I feel like I heard that line.
Speaker: There are definitely some lines in this that are taken directly from the game and we'll get to one in particular that always stuck out in my head.
Speaker: But we do have I think this is not the kind of franchise that you expect to have a lot of winks to the audience.
Speaker: Because it takes itself very seriously.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But we do have one at a certain point in this chapter where they get on the warthog and Cortana says, I put a nav indicator on your HUD.
Speaker: Just follow the arrow.
Speaker: figures the spartan said a hint of amusement in his level voice you're always a backseat driver it's it's it's the actual hud from the game like you you have a map and an arrow point like it's it's breadcrumbs like it's it's an actual game and they also may mention that his his his hud his helmet readout uh identifies the marines as they're approaching so that he sees like a little name tag above
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which is like basically how you can see whenever you see see the other Marines in the game.
Speaker: It's they're identified with a little with a little name tag.
Speaker: So, right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that's the only the only real example of something like that we see.
Speaker: But it's fun.
Speaker: This actually this actually might be one of my favorite moments in the book so far coming up next.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, this is a good moment.
Speaker: This is a very cool moment.
Speaker: So Keys and his command crew are basically trudging through the desert or it's not a desert, but, you know, metaphorically, they're trudging through the death metaphorically.
Speaker: 40 days, 40 days, 40 nights to trying to get get away from the covenant.
Speaker: And basically one of the, one of his ensigns starts giving him a little attitude.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Give him some lip.
Speaker: And I believe it was at Ensign.
Speaker: Dowski.
Speaker: Ensign Dowski.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I believe at Ensign Dowski is a she.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, she's basically like arguing that... They know where we are, and Keyes is like, they know where we are, sir.
Speaker: And he's like demanding the protocol.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Which is great.
Speaker: And she's basically saying like, we're all going to die.
Speaker: Let's just allow ourselves to be taken first.
Speaker: Game over, man.
Speaker: Game over.
Speaker: Oh, that's exactly where she's at.
Speaker: She is just like, you stow that shit, Hudson.
Speaker: Like, she is just...
Speaker: Not interested.
Speaker: She wants to give up.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And they point out to her, motherfucker, the covenant doesn't take prisoners.
Speaker: They never have.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, what do you and she's really insistent and says, you know, no, this is going to be different.
Speaker: You know, I don't know if they I don't remember if they give her like a reason for thinking that they'll be special.
Speaker: Like.
Speaker: I think she might just not believe, like, she just thinks that the idea that the covenant doesn't take prisoners is just a rumor or something.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, she just thinks that she's, that, like, if they'll be nice to us if we give up easily.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: What they end up doing is they...
Speaker: They basically tie her up.
Speaker: They take her gun, they tie her up, and they put some battle dressing in her mouth and just leave her there and continue on.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like, if you want to be captured so bad, and it's kind of hilarious because she's horrified.
Speaker: She's like, you're just going to leave me alone?
Speaker: It's like, well, hey, you're the one who wanted to give up, so we're going to let you do that, but you're not going to give away our position for a little while at the very least.
Speaker: Um, so yeah, they, they move on and, uh, and, and, and, you know, and you are led to believe that this is a wrap on Dowski, but, uh, no, it's, it is not.
Speaker: Um, we're back briefly with the covenant.
Speaker: Yes, where basically one of the elites, one of the elites finds the the life raft and finds no soul.
Speaker: He's body and is is basically why would why would the Asuna risk his life and starts putting together that?
Speaker: Oh, this is the only reason that the Asuna would have would have risked his life is because there was somebody really important.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then they they find Dowski, who had just managed to wrestle free of her bindings.
Speaker: And then the covenant shows up.
Speaker: Just surrounds her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then so and then they pause for we're going to pause on them for a little bit because we're back with some with some action sequences with the hell jumpers again.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: They're moving their way up to take the position on the Butte still.
Speaker: I think one of the standout moments that I really enjoy here is we get more Wellesley commentary.
Speaker: It says, please return to waypoint 25 for another load of troopers.
Speaker: And if you're going to insist on poetry because the pilot says we are green, clean, and extremely mean, if you insist on poetry, try some Kipling.
Speaker: You might find some of it rather instructive over and out.
Speaker: And we get Peterson Grind directing a one-fingered salute in the general direction of Battalion HQ, which, yeah, I've absolutely heard that expression useful.
Speaker: before you're raised around enlisted guys yeah you you've heard of the one-fingered salute exactly and
Speaker: And then and then meanwhile, there's where we get a point of view from Lieutenant Melissa McKay, who is really shaping up to be one of the main characters of the book, it seems.
Speaker: Very much so.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Surprised me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: More fighting.
Speaker: But yeah, more fighting.
Speaker: Yeah, we make we're making our way up.
Speaker: And let me see.
Speaker: This is when they find the, the, the, they find something underneath the grounds.
Speaker: It's like a lift basically.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: A grav lift.
Speaker: A grav lift.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and it's like, and it's, and they're pointing out that this is just, that this isn't, the, the, everything that's,
Speaker: Yeah, all the stuff that's set up is not Covenant.
Speaker: It's too old.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's that kind of, and I'm going to, and for those of you who are keeping score at home, it's a little like Warhammer 40,000.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: It's been a few books.
Speaker: It's been a little bit.
Speaker: It's been a couple.
Speaker: Yeah, it's been a couple.
Speaker: Bioshock really did not lend itself to Warhammer 40K.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: It could have.
Speaker: It could have.
Speaker: If I could, if I, oh, it absolutely could have, if I could have seen through the red curtain of rage that Ayn Rand tends to put me in.
Speaker: I get way less clever when it, you know, it's like other times I can be pithy and clever and that kind of thing.
Speaker: With that, I was like, fuck that shit.
Speaker: You know, it's just,
Speaker: So, yeah, with with with gate with, you know, for 40K, the idea is that some of the greatest technology is actually ancient technology.
Speaker: It isn't like modern day where the best stuff is present day and you're constantly thinking of future tech and all that stuff.
Speaker: The idea is that we have gone through some sort of dark age at some point and.
Speaker: there's like an Atlantean style technology somewhere behind us.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Ancient astronaut theory, all that type of stuff.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: But but but way less racist than racist.
Speaker: Well, it's far more 40K.
Speaker: I mean, I'm sure it could work that in there.
Speaker: 40K, we don't have time for a race.
Speaker: We don't have time to hate races in 40K.
Speaker: We hate everybody.
Speaker: You got more than two legs.
Speaker: You're a dead man, my friend.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So they make their way into what they call Alpha Base.
Speaker: They take it and they set up shop.
Speaker: So they've got they have established the butte.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It is now Alpha Base with and Major Silva congratulates McKay and Major Silva is he's a he's going to be an interesting character coming up because he seems very.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Bristly.
Speaker: He's, he's a, the, the hell jumper, the hell jumper sections are steadily becoming my favorite.
Speaker: Uh, and not necessarily because I like these people.
Speaker: A lot of them seem like, seem, seem like dicks, but they're, they're total, they're very interesting, but they're in exactly, they are total dicks, but they are interesting.
Speaker: Uh, so yeah, so, uh, we've got a gigantic tunnel, uh,
Speaker: uh that master chief is making his way through in the warthog he's finding his way straight out of the game yep um you were constantly going in and out of tunnels and and that kind of thing he's he's encountering covenant forces um and he finds um as they go through they find a light bridge he activates a light bridge and cortana's like how did you do that and he's like i don't know
Speaker: I love the light bridge.
Speaker: I love that because because I remember because, you know, if you've got I got a bad thing with heights.
Speaker: I'm not great with heights.
Speaker: But when and even in a game like a last last generation game like Halo, I get nervous.
Speaker: in levels where you can roll off a cliff or off the edge of something.
Speaker: I have an every week, at least one nightmare of falling off a cliff or driving my car off a bridge.
Speaker: Like I, I, Oh, it messes me up.
Speaker: And they actually address that in this section of the book.
Speaker: So they, they find this light bridge and,
Speaker: It takes them a minute to realize this is something that's going to hold us up.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And he leads these Marines across the light bridge.
Speaker: And basically you get a lot of great commentary from these people going, fuck this, fuck this, fuck this, like making their way across and basically just look straight ahead, look straight ahead.
Speaker: Don't look down.
Speaker: It's freaking hilarious.
Speaker: And it's really, really good.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: So they get across.
Speaker: And now they're back outside.
Speaker: They're back in the world.
Speaker: And they are basically being picked up.
Speaker: Basically, they're being picked up by a foe hammer.
Speaker: And she's going to take them to Alpha Base.
Speaker: The newly established Alpha base.
Speaker: Newly established.
Speaker: Meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile, Mr. Keys, Captain Keys is is is this such a shame.
Speaker: And you know what's funny is I actually was like, oh, when we lost a bunch of his command crew because they were such well developed characters.
Speaker: in fall of reach.
Speaker: And then you get to, you get to this part of chapter three and they get summarily executed in like the blink of an eye.
Speaker: I actually, I found that very frustrating.
Speaker: Uh, I thought that was like, yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, keys basically, uh, they are, they're trying to make their way up the Canyon.
Speaker: It's box Canyon, uh, which means without some serious equipment, you ain't,
Speaker: You ain't climbing that cliff face.
Speaker: So they're kind of stuck.
Speaker: And and Dowski shows up with the covenant into looking very smug.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And basically saying, see, I told you so.
Speaker: I told you so.
Speaker: They kept kept me prisoner.
Speaker: So and then basically the covenant through a translator, they clearly have been talking to her.
Speaker: And she has said that I'm working for this important captain.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they say, which one?
Speaker: She kisses him on the cheek.
Speaker: No, that doesn't happen.
Speaker: But, you know, she she she points out keys.
Speaker: And the moment she points out keys, Covenant goes, great.
Speaker: Thanks, babe.
Speaker: And shoots everybody else.
Speaker: Everybody else goes down in a matter of like paragraphs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In the matter of paragraphs, Hikawa attempts to attack Dowski and immediately get shot in the head.
Speaker: Give her a posthumous Purple Heart, like goes down trying to kill Dowski like a badass.
Speaker: Good for.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that's great.
Speaker: Uh, and then Dowski has the final moment of like, wait, what?
Speaker: And then just get shot in the head.
Speaker: You told me where they would just take them prisoner.
Speaker: And then Dowski is her head.
Speaker: Uh, her head explodes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Funny that.
Speaker: they just they just killed our escape and uh that's it and the elite kills her um using uh like it's like keys is pistol or something like that right the elite like picks up the gun shoots dowski in the head and it's like it's like admiring the pistol afterwards
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Points out how primitive it is compared to his gun.
Speaker: And it's so tiny.
Speaker: They don't use slug throwers.
Speaker: They use they use they use beam weapons and that sort of thing.
Speaker: So the fact that it's a projectile kind of gun is primitive to them.
Speaker: Very primitive.
Speaker: And very primitive.
Speaker: And now Keys is officially captured, which is something is is something that happens off the
Speaker: off screen in yes in the game yes this is all added and this is a perfect example of like moments where yeah uh it isn't something you know we could have just gone through it like the game and you find out later but that's not enough for deets as it as as it shouldn't yeah exactly and uh and deets gave it some flavor gave us a little drama i think yeah
Speaker: Even if it only is contained in the one chapter.
Speaker: I think it's anytime you can add stuff besides Master Chief, it's a win.
Speaker: Because I was listening to the Super Beard Bros and they were playing through the first Halo game.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Brett Bayonne was talking about how...
Speaker: Master Chief really isn't a character.
Speaker: He's he's like he's an avatar for the player.
Speaker: He's not right.
Speaker: He doesn't really have, you know, he doesn't have enough behind him to be a real character.
Speaker: He doesn't necessarily he's not necessarily growing and changing now in later games.
Speaker: He might be.
Speaker: I don't I'm I'm not the biggest in Halo lore, but especially in this first game, he is he's just Master Chief.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: Yeah, Master Chief develops a little bit over time from what I've seen, but it isn't much more than what we have gotten in these books so far.
Speaker: We are not going to, at least so far, the point of view when it is Master Chief, and I think I pointed this out last time, is
Speaker: it isn't too deep.
Speaker: Master Chief isn't doing a ton of introspection.
Speaker: Uh, and Master Chief very kind of handily settles into that like badass avatar kind of character.
Speaker: Uh, and, and, uh, we do get moments here and there, and we're actually going to get a little bit coming up here, but, uh,
Speaker: But for the most part, Master Chief isn't.
Speaker: We've backed off a little bit from Master Chief.
Speaker: Like with the last book, there was a lot of Captain America-esque, like, you know, Jean Valjean, who am I kind of shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: One more day.
Speaker: One day.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And we're not going into that all that much here.
Speaker: And I'm not sure yet if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I'm sure we're probably going to continue reading Halo books over the life of this podcast.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I'm sure we'll find out more.
Speaker: And honestly, I'm sure there's I wouldn't be surprised if there's Halo books that are not
Speaker: that just don't have master chief in them at all.
Speaker: And I would, I mean, there's a halo game that doesn't have, that's true.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Um, and I think, I think that's going to vary from author to author, frankly.
Speaker: Um, so that's, yeah, cause I, I think Dietz is, is on a few of these and then, uh, what's his name?
Speaker: The guy we liked, um, from the first one, Eric Nyland is, uh, is in, uh,
Speaker: Actually, it only looks like it only looks like Dietz from this copy.
Speaker: It only looks like Dietz wrote this one.
Speaker: Oh, OK.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: So where was it?
Speaker: Did I?
Speaker: Where's the page?
Speaker: Oh, here we go.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Master Chief is at Alpha Base.
Speaker: He's out of his he's out of his armor at the moment because they like taking him out of his armor for some reason.
Speaker: I think they wanted to make him feel vulnerable.
Speaker: Yeah, especially in this scene.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's called by Major Silva to come and see him.
Speaker: And they make a point of saying, leave your armor off.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and because he was just getting cleaned up, basically.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: He's taking a shower.
Speaker: He's, you know, he's getting cleaned up.
Speaker: And as things progress with Silva, I think we kind of start to see why they wanted him to have his armor off because Silva just dresses him the fuck.
Speaker: He thinks Master Chief is just a freak and just a remnant from a failed project.
Speaker: And he's like, he's basically and it's true so far in the book.
Speaker: He's like, you see everything that's happened here so far.
Speaker: This was done by the Marines.
Speaker: This was done by Marines.
Speaker: This was not done.
Speaker: You didn't do any of this.
Speaker: We established Alpha Base.
Speaker: We fought off the covenant.
Speaker: And like, he's literally right.
Speaker: And in this moment is like Master Chief hasn't really done a whole lot yet.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And he says, when whoever wins this arm, whatever wins, when we win this war, it'll be won by the Marines and not by some pet project.
Speaker: And that's a pretty good message.
Speaker: It's a shame it doesn't turn out to be true.
Speaker: at least based on the games.
Speaker: But, but like by itself, I think it's, I think it's a good message in terms of like all of these people are coming out here to risk their lives and, and, and fight and die, you know, that those people are the, you know, this, this whole bullshit one man army kind of thing is such a romantic notion that all the wrong people fall in love with.
Speaker: And and so it's kind of hilarious that a, you know, Marine is the one dressing him down.
Speaker: Tell him, well, it's not hilarious.
Speaker: It makes sense because Marines know about working in teams.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: They know about being running off and being a hero is going to get you shot.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: it's going to get you killed uh it's just like when we were in savannah um and uh and i was i was i was at the bar most nights and and you may recall uh there was a nearby uh base where they trained rangers yep
Speaker: And we got rangers in my bar all the time.
Speaker: And there were two different kinds of rangers.
Speaker: There were the rangers that hadn't been overseas yet.
Speaker: And they were pricks.
Speaker: And they were like real in love with the idea of I'm a fucking ranger.
Speaker: And they started fights and they harassed our waitresses.
Speaker: And they were dickweeds.
Speaker: And then there were the Rangers who had been overseas and they were the nicest guys in the fucking world.
Speaker: They'd help you clean.
Speaker: They always tipped well.
Speaker: Like I remember like we were putting this bar I worked at.
Speaker: I was putting up chairs and tables and stuff.
Speaker: And this young man is like just like picking, helping me out, helping stack chairs and stuff.
Speaker: And I went,
Speaker: who are you?
Speaker: It turns out he was just a ranger.
Speaker: And it was just, he just saw someone who needed a hand.
Speaker: I was like, dude, you're really sweet.
Speaker: We're closing.
Speaker: You have to get.
Speaker: And that's, and that's the difference, you know, it's like, so, so it, you know, I started to say it was funny, but it actually makes perfect sense.
Speaker: Um, you know, and it's a good messaging and, and to, uh,
Speaker: to Master Chief's credit, outside of the whole you're a freak thing, he takes it pretty well.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And he doesn't, like, let Silva see him bristle too much.
Speaker: And he just says, yes, sir.
Speaker: You know, he respects the chain of command.
Speaker: He respects all that stuff, which is all he's ever been trained to do.
Speaker: And at the end of the scene, it's confirmed that Captain Keyes has been taken prisoner.
Speaker: um the the end we we get a nice uh we get a scene change um uh zamami zam yes zamami is zamami yeah zuka zamami um and uh with his uh good buddy um yeah yeah yeah
Speaker: His new assistant.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker: And at this point, the council is like, no, thank you.
Speaker: Like you're better.
Speaker: They shut them down.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's, it's longer than that.
Speaker: It's a lot of like back and forth, but basically the long story short, they're like, you're, uh, they shut them down.
Speaker: And one of Zamami's, um,
Speaker: was it Rollamy, who I think outranks Zammamy, comes out and is like, oh, see, sorry.
Speaker: They said you're far too valuable.
Speaker: And Zammamy is like, it's like thinking, Rollamy added the far too valuable thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's kind of hilarious because you realize that like this covenant army is just as couched in bureaucracy and bullshit and glad handing and all that shit.
Speaker: They are not above any of that.
Speaker: They just, they just happen to have an upper hand for the time.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: So, yeah, they're not interested and they don't they don't they just don't see this.
Speaker: He tells them there's this guy.
Speaker: And and here's where I think he went wrong.
Speaker: He says the guy's wearing armor that's superior to our own.
Speaker: And the the upper echelon council bullshit bullshit.
Speaker: That doesn't exist.
Speaker: That's no one has armor.
Speaker: That's better than ours.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's not a thing.
Speaker: You're dismissed.
Speaker: And so they leave.
Speaker: And Yaya is so relieved.
Speaker: Yaya is like, oh, thank God.
Speaker: Because he was sitting there worried that he was going to have to follow this guy on his bullshit vengeance quest against this unkillable God.
Speaker: And Yaya is just like, he is literally the opposite of that.
Speaker: He is just...
Speaker: has no interest in that.
Speaker: And while they're leaving, they run into keys.
Speaker: Yeah, they see keys being dragged away into the interrogation chambers.
Speaker: And so Zamami decides to take part briefly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's basically just shouting at Keyes, where can I find the human who wears the special armor?
Speaker: And then Keyes responds, I don't have the foggiest idea, but the next time you run into him, you might want to consider ducking.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he pulls a gun on Keyes, and Keyes just cold-blooded stares him in the face.
Speaker: Yeah, do it.
Speaker: Do it.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: I want you to do it.
Speaker: I want you to do it.
Speaker: Just yeah.
Speaker: He says, you want to get nuts?
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's get nuts.
Speaker: He gets his Michael Keaton on and and just yeah, that's just so that and that and that ends chapter three.
Speaker: Yeah, that ends chapter three.
Speaker: That was a that was a solid 40 pages of a chunk of stuff.
Speaker: It was it was it's a it's a lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So chapter four, we end up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we were talking about, by the way, so they're talking about a covenant vessel, a prominent covenant vessel that's in the atmosphere and it's called the truth and reconciliation, which sounds super Warhammer 40K, right?
Speaker: it does, but it also like based on who the covenant is, it's like reconciliation is not the word that I expected, you know, like, like they're the witch hammer, like this is, this is, you know, they're a bunch of religious fanatics.
Speaker: Uh, and so reconciliation, there's, there's a certain level of irony, uh, with that name.
Speaker: It, it, it'll, every time they bring it up, it always cracks me up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Master Chief is taking a moment and he is thinking about what Silva said in this chapter.
Speaker: And he's like, well, maybe Silva's right.
Speaker: Maybe the Spartan program was a mistake and it should end with him.
Speaker: That's...
Speaker: Uh, that's, uh, I think that, that could be the, that might not be a bad thing.
Speaker: Um, but meanwhile, he's thinking about this while they are, uh, in motion on a plan to get into the truth and reconciliation via the gravity lift, uh, that is directly below it.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, master chief and a bunch of Marines and snipers, uh, they, they engage.
Speaker: It's,
Speaker: It's time for a sniper mission.
Speaker: It's time for snake.
Speaker: This is a sneaking mission, right?
Speaker: It's, it's actually, it actually is more of a XCOM.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, you start out in, in a stealth mode kind of thing.
Speaker: And the moment you, uh, the moment, uh, you set off, you know, the, the alarm bells, you, you, you kill someone in front of someone else.
Speaker: Everyone goes out of stealth and all the shit hits the thing.
Speaker: It's all, you've activated all the pods, you know, they're.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They all get to move and get into cover before you can even react.
Speaker: You know, bullshit like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We get a little more weapons.
Speaker: A little more weapons porn.
Speaker: And just a lot of a lot of fighting, just constant fighting.
Speaker: There's there's.
Speaker: It's several pages, pages upon pages of engagement here.
Speaker: And if you play the game, you know this mission.
Speaker: It's you're literally just fighting through the covenant at the base of the gravity lifts.
Speaker: And there's the shades.
Speaker: And at one point, it's kind of neat.
Speaker: Master Chief takes one of the shades, which are their
Speaker: Those are like their, those are like their guns, right?
Speaker: The placed guns.
Speaker: Yeah, the guns.
Speaker: They're like, they're like circled around and Master Chief basically hops in one of them and starts like shooting all of the other gun emplacements.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Which, which, which if you've played the first Halo game is really the only way to do it.
Speaker: It is so satisfying.
Speaker: It's a, it's a good feeling.
Speaker: And then he runs into his first, I think this is his first hunter.
Speaker: Is this the first?
Speaker: Which one are the hunters?
Speaker: They're big nasties.
Speaker: They're the big nasties?
Speaker: Big nasties, I believe.
Speaker: I'm looking up the pictures just so I can... No, I think he had already fought one in the Fall of Reach.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, I think in the game, though, this is this represents the first time you fight.
Speaker: This is the first time you fight one in the game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you fight one and those guys are just fucking bullet sponges.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there's always two of them.
Speaker: Yeah, it's always, you know, there's always two.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Bullshit.
Speaker: Yeah, it's bullshit.
Speaker: So we get several pages long, you know, battle scene with a lot of details like that.
Speaker: And we call for reinforcements.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Uh, let's see.
Speaker: And they're doing well, by the way, they are, they are an important note to take from this, this fight is they are rocking these people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're, they're winning, um, much to, to major Silva's point, the Marines and master chief are, are winning.
Speaker: And, um, and, um,
Speaker: Eventually, they are able to secure the gravity lift.
Speaker: And they're going to head up on in it.
Speaker: Gotta go find keys.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: There's a there's another chapter with there's a brief section, though, with McKay before we get into the.
Speaker: Yeah, that's what I was looking at here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We get we get some really interesting.
Speaker: We get a lot of interesting.
Speaker: This is so we cut to McKay and they are now planning to retake the Pillar of Autumn.
Speaker: Yes, because it hasn't been completely demolished.
Speaker: It has it has all the gear that they want to that they want to that they want to use to really fortify Alpha Base.
Speaker: And I'll take a moment to pause right here.
Speaker: And we were talking about this pre show is that a lot of these scenes start to blend together.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And it's I get.
Speaker: I don't know how much is to blame for the author, but it's it's just a lot of samey.
Speaker: They're on Halo and there's fighting going on.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Somehow they some of the scenes just end up being like, did this happen in this scene or did this happen in this scene?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you're a Halo expert and we mistakenly say that they're on Halo when you know that they're still on the Butte or something like that, just please forgive us.
Speaker: It all it really does start to blend a little bit short of certain details.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then we're back with the Marines and Master Chief, and they are in the belly of of the in the belly of the truth and reconciliation.
Speaker: And they it seems like it's empty.
Speaker: And then somebody accidentally triggers an alarm and in comes.
Speaker: the shit ton of them and uh billy deets used my favorite phrase of all time chaos reigned yeah yeah it was a good choice choice all i think of is the fox um in uh oh yeah
Speaker: Slash faith.
Speaker: Slash faith.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which I mean, it's.
Speaker: Shout out to friend of the pod.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the they are now fighting their way through.
Speaker: And this is if you listen to the book, the audio book, you get you get treated to a few more Majolners.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I bet you missed those.
Speaker: um and master chief just like fights his way through that's there's there's no other way to say he just fights his way through and you find keys and a bunch of other marines um which i don't understand why there is other marines in the jail cells if the cabinet doesn't take prisoners and the the very specifically keys was out of or the ordinary um
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I wasn't sure about that either.
Speaker: You know, it's like, I don't know.
Speaker: And you can't even call it a translation problem because they can speak English like they do it.
Speaker: They do it on.
Speaker: They do it more than once.
Speaker: So I'm not sure.
Speaker: But in the game and in this book, and they don't go into too much detail with it, but there are kind of encampments of Marines who,
Speaker: all over the place um that uh you're running into from time to time just they've got thrown off course when they landed or something like that uh so yeah maybe just fight or they don't they just they have experiments yeah maybe they're they're gonna like vivisect them or something like that which is gross but you know it seems like something the covenant would do because they're give a shot yeah
Speaker: Uh, so they, uh, they, they find captain keys and I actually, this is, this is tough guy, bullshit language, but I liked it.
Speaker: They, they, uh, they're, they, they're, they find them there.
Speaker: They're going to, you know, make their way out.
Speaker: And keys is like, do you know how to find your way out?
Speaker: This place is like a maze and, uh, it shouldn't be too difficult.
Speaker: The master chief replied, all we have to do is follow the bodies.
Speaker: It's a very, it's a very, then we will fight in the shade kind of line.
Speaker: And let it, let it never be said that I don't have a soft spot in my heart for that kind of bullshit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, tough guy talk.
Speaker: You just imagine Arnold at his peak would have, should have said something like that in one of his movies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Totally, totally.
Speaker: We get a little basically they we get a little interlude, which I'm not sure I agree with some of this.
Speaker: And I get it's it's it's written in a way to make things seem like a lot of things are happening at once.
Speaker: But we cut away from Keys and Master Chief to... We get McKay, right?
Speaker: We get a brief scene with Lieutenant Cookie Peterson...
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Oh, Cookie.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: Which, you know, he's just... He was looking at the... Put the Echo 136 down, a full click from the Pillar of Autumn, and...
Speaker: Was basically just waiting.
Speaker: Yeah, he's a pilot.
Speaker: And then we get to McKay.
Speaker: Basically, it was like an attack that they were doing, the Marines are doing, to get the Covenant paying less attention to what's happening on the truth and reconciliation.
Speaker: And then...
Speaker: And basically.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And then they're going to they're going to they're basically going to do their attack on the Pillar of Autumn.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: McKay is basically leading the Pillar of Autumn attack.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's determined to get back on the Pillar of Autumn.
Speaker: So we have that brief little interlude.
Speaker: And so my point was, I know it's done to make make it seem like a lot of things are happening at the same time, but it felt like.
Speaker: weird to cut away at that point from the action in the truth and reconciliation to these extra scenes and then we're back in the truth and reconciliation as uh as covenant troops ran hither and yon we got a hither and yon sighting in the
Speaker: And that's kind of, I guess it's kind of my, my overall critique of the book so far is part of it is the sameness, but, and I think it's not helped by these little vignettes being cut into, especially when it's like these Marines that, okay, they're, they're side characters, secondary characters, some are main characters, but you don't, you're not necessarily connected to them in the same way that you're connected to Master Chief.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: This cookie character, for example, as you point is literally it's a two paragraph segment where basically it's just cookie saying cookie will be waiting with a pelican to transport Marines back the moment they get off the truth and reconciliation.
Speaker: That's basically it.
Speaker: It's basically the author saying, OK, we've got people who are waiting, which we don't need.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: It feels like kind of a.
Speaker: It's just a weakness of a worthy cause in the sense that she's she William Dietz is trying to break up the Master Chief standard video game stuff with more marine stuff.
Speaker: And I like and I like the marine stuff.
Speaker: But in this instance, it feels a little wonky to kind of jam it in there.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: It does get a little clunky sometimes.
Speaker: I think you're right.
Speaker: Because, yeah, and especially with what we're about to get into, because we just go right back to the truth and reconciliation.
Speaker: No time has passed there.
Speaker: And Cortana and Keys basically confirm that the Halo is a super weapon of some kind.
Speaker: Keyes has overheard them talking.
Speaker: It's a weapon.
Speaker: Cortana has hacked into their system and they're like, and the Covenant is pretty sure that Halo is something that needs to be activated and it's a weapon.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And Keyes actually says, I've got a new mission for you.
Speaker: You got to find out how to get this weapon.
Speaker: And Master Chief rightfully, I believe, says, well, sir, why don't we finish this mission first?
Speaker: Let's finish this one now.
Speaker: Let's do this one first and then we'll talk.
Speaker: which i thought was a nice so they they managed to um they managed to get out and basically uh foe hammer um foe hammer they're talking to foe hammer like that she's ready to go um and there's another firefight because basically the uh where they had just killed a bunch of covenant there are still a bunch of covenant
Speaker: like they're back you know they filled in yeah we get and and foe hammer can't make it in uh right then in that moment uh because of yeah yeah she's like it's the lz's too hot basically yeah so they uh they basically carjack a covenant ship they sure do they sure do which is which is which is a really fun moment in the game
Speaker: uh yeah they they they steal a a covenant ship and clear out they get the hell out of there yeah uh and and master chief's actions on the truth and reconciliation in this next scene uh with with uh with zamimi zamay mate whatever is zuka zamami yeah zuko and yeah yeah zuko yeah
Speaker: and connect uh nicky and danny zuko um that's why you know what guys from here on out when we talk about them just just imagine it's greece greece is the word yeah anyway they're they're basically um the the covenant and uh and danny are examining the damage done everything's been reinforced
Speaker: Now that Master Chief has organized a jailbreak and basically Zuka's friend Rollamy is like, hey, BT dubs, the thing you asked us about that you want to do and we told you no.
Speaker: And then he went and he did all this.
Speaker: We're saying yes now.
Speaker: Yeah, they got a good look at what Master Chief is capable of.
Speaker: The numbers of dead for the covenant versus the numbers for the human forces.
Speaker: Yeah, they go through all the numbers and it's like, that's impossible.
Speaker: That's like, there was like 12 humans dead and like scores of covenant soldiers killed.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: It was just a bloodbath and it's deeply embarrassing for them.
Speaker: And so, yeah, this council says, yeah, that thing you asked for, we changed our mind.
Speaker: And you're actually it's kind of satisfying.
Speaker: You feel satisfied for.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's it's like, yeah, good for you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Good for you, man.
Speaker: You you got it.
Speaker: We do.
Speaker: They wouldn't listen.
Speaker: It's like you were the scientist in a 90s disaster movie.
Speaker: They weren't listening to you.
Speaker: Good for you.
Speaker: You know, what's funny, though, is.
Speaker: You would think that the Covenant would be a little bit more aware of Master Chief and the Spartans in general, given the way that they're talked about in the previous book, in the Fall of Reach, where there are battles where on the ground, maybe they just didn't care so much because the planets would end up getting glassed anyway.
Speaker: You know, yeah, the and I yeah, not just the Covenant, but the human forces.
Speaker: And I guess I didn't think about it, but, you know, most of the fights in Fall of Reach were naval battles.
Speaker: We didn't say, you know, they didn't have a lot of one on one fights with the Covenant.
Speaker: And so there is a point that you're kind of like, for example, there's there's a moment where we see a needler for the first time, which for those of you who haven't played the game or the book is a covenant weapon that fires these like purple crystals and they're devastating blow up or something like that once they embed into.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's it's it's quick man's power.
Speaker: It's a yeah, it's a drill bomb.
Speaker: And and everyone's surprised by this weapon.
Speaker: And and I found that a little I was like, this is the first time you guys have.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: So, yeah, there are things like that that feel like they should be kind of more obvious.
Speaker: I guess it kind of based on the last game.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: Or last game, the last book, I guess most of their experience with them is, is naval.
Speaker: So I, that's, that's at least that's my take on it.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I'll, I'll go with that.
Speaker: And that starts the, that ends chapter four and starts the next section with chapter five called eradication.
Speaker: And this,
Speaker: So even though I've said a lot of the battle sequences feel a little samey, I really loved this one with McKay and her troops in the Pillar of Autumn because it is it is such a fun little sniper.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's good writing.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's good action writing.
Speaker: Sniper rifle.
Speaker: It's not it's not as you know, it's more nuanced than the usual like grunt versus grunt, you know, smash mouth kind of fights that we have been having.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so it's it's it's very it's fun.
Speaker: So so McKay and her her team are up on a ridge basically overlooking the Pillar of Autumn and all the Covenant forces that are just kind of like are just walking around outside.
Speaker: And she's having this moment where she's wondering about and gets into the.
Speaker: like the the tradition of stand two in the morning at a base and she's wondering whether if the covenant has something similar whether these covenant troops are fatigued or whether they are up and ready to go and i thought that was a nice touch a nice little moment of like are they are how similar to to us are they in their battle tactics and all that
Speaker: Yeah, they're actually thinking about stuff like that, and it's good writing.
Speaker: It isn't just, well, they've got different ways from us.
Speaker: Different ways.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: They actually go into the way that a well-trained soldier would think about things like this.
Speaker: You know, it's like a
Speaker: Have they been up all night?
Speaker: And if they haven't, and if they have been up all night, does it matter?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, do they, what kind of physiology do they have?
Speaker: It's, it's interesting stuff.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's well written.
Speaker: And then she's like, well, either way, uh, let's snipe their heads off.
Speaker: And they proceed to do so.
Speaker: A lot of time to think about that.
Speaker: I want death.
Speaker: So they start off, basically they start off shooting rocket launchers at the Banshees to blow up the Banshees.
Speaker: And while the Banshees are flaming, flaming Rex, and everybody is distracted by the fact that their Banshees just blew up in the sky.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: It's I love this line.
Speaker: If the alien screamed on the way down, McKay wasn't able to hear it, especially with the steady crack, crack, crack of multiple S2 sniper rifles going off around her.
Speaker: So just imagine this scene.
Speaker: It's like there's just this ridge of of of the Marine snipers and they're just going and
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Do you know what it made me think of?
Speaker: And this is it's it's good writing.
Speaker: You're you're right to point this out.
Speaker: It made me think of when you're playing.
Speaker: Well, bring it up again.
Speaker: If you're playing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you've got everyone all in the right positions.
Speaker: You have your snipers on Overwatch.
Speaker: You've got your snipers.
Speaker: You got all the Overwatch is set up.
Speaker: And then you get that one shot off and everyone starts running in different directions.
Speaker: And it's just the setting off of one shot after another, after another.
Speaker: And you're just getting all of these great kills in just from careful planning.
Speaker: And that's exactly what this is.
Speaker: It's it's fantastic.
Speaker: It's very it is.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: This is totally an XCOM moment.
Speaker: This is an XCOM XCOM 2.
Speaker: I think there's a little bit more with stuff like this, with the planning of the whole big of the like and positioning and all that.
Speaker: And then Chimera Squad even more so with the breaches.
Speaker: Yeah, the breaches were, I think that was the most interesting thing.
Speaker: Kamara Squad, like, I was like, eh, it's all right.
Speaker: But that aspect of that game really was new and cool.
Speaker: Like, I loved that.
Speaker: That was really cool shit.
Speaker: um so they uh they basically they they they snipe snipe snipe and then they they start rushing down towards the pillar of autumn and then a drop ship flanks them and they lose a few persons there's such a it's a really gory death um
Speaker: One Marine gets hit in the legs with a plasma beam from the drop ship and the legs are just gone.
Speaker: And the top is the top half the Marine flies forward and lands on his own intestines.
Speaker: Yeah, it was.
Speaker: It's funny because there have been so many little moments like that.
Speaker: It's like most of this book, most of this book is that like PG 13 colorful first person shooter, sci fi action thing.
Speaker: And every now and then Deitch just wants to go war is hell.
Speaker: And here's why you get some some full on, you know, the opening of the opening of Saving Private Ryan.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You get like or even it's like it almost reminds me of what is it?
Speaker: The end of Day of the Dead.
Speaker: when the guy is getting pulled apart and it's, oh my God, that scene is still in my head.
Speaker: He's getting pulled apart and he's screaming.
Speaker: And as they're pulling his head off,
Speaker: like the stuff is all still attached.
Speaker: So he's screaming and they're pulling his head off and the pitch of his scream goes, goes up because they're stretching out his vocal cord as, and it's like, Oh, Oh,
Speaker: Anyway, the detail, the detail that goes into it.
Speaker: That's what it reminds me of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there are a lot of little moments like that where it's just viciously gross.
Speaker: And then they go right back to the lasers and...
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: It's like imagine a G.I.
Speaker: Joe cartoon and like G.I.
Speaker: Joe and Cobra is fighting and they're just shooting lasers at each other.
Speaker: And like a couple Cobra robots blow up.
Speaker: It's no real people are getting hit.
Speaker: And then like suddenly you're they're firing, they're firing, they're firing.
Speaker: And suddenly like Shipwreck is like, come on, guys, let's get them.
Speaker: And then like a Cobra laser hits him at the waist and just like bisects him.
Speaker: And he like falls apart.
Speaker: Imagine that.
Speaker: Imagine that.
Speaker: And that's basically what you're getting.
Speaker: The sudden whiplash.
Speaker: It's gruesome, man.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: Yeah, and you're like, wait, what the fuck?
Speaker: I don't know why I picked shipwreck as the one that had to die, but.
Speaker: Well, I mean, no one likes shipwreck.
Speaker: So it's understandable.
Speaker: It's understandable.
Speaker: So there's this dropship and it's almost like Deus Ex Machina out of the dropship because the snipers turn around fire on the dropship.
Speaker: And it's like the author, William Deeds, writes...
Speaker: like well fuck i guess they hit a grenade or something because the grenade blows up inside the drop ship and it hits a line like a fuel line and the whole ship blows up and i i know i'm being like uh pithy about it but that's pretty much what fucking happens yeah it's like like oh okay um anyway they continue on
Speaker: Well, moving on.
Speaker: Moving on.
Speaker: So, and then there's this, there's a, there's,
Speaker: it's close to a double beat, but not really is this next scene between keys and Silva, but it's almost like from the opposite direction.
Speaker: And we actually hear a little bit more about Silva's point of view as to why he doesn't, he specifically doesn't like the master chief.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And first, well, and first things first, basically keys let Silva know, uh, we're sending master chief and Cortana, uh,
Speaker: to go and find this control.
Speaker: They're gonna go secure Halo, basically.
Speaker: They are gonna secure Halo and make sure we can take advantage of that super weapon or at very least stop Covenant from being able to use it.
Speaker: So he's telling them that and Silva basically makes the argument of like, is he really the best person for this job?
Speaker: Shouldn't it be a human?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Or, you know, some Marine.
Speaker: Basically, it's just like you said, it's an extension of what he, you know, had said to, at least to be fair, to Master Chief's face.
Speaker: It's an extension of the idea that Chief isn't going to be the one to win all this shit.
Speaker: You know what's funny is, and also, and this is just a side note in case anybody else has the confusion that I did, most likely people...
Speaker: maybe people knew, but I was confused as to why.
Speaker: So Major Silva and Captain Keyes, I was like, well, there's no isn't a major a higher rank than a captain.
Speaker: And then it was like in military in in in ground forces in the army.
Speaker: Major out ranks captain, but in the Navy, captain is a higher rank than major is it's a higher equivalent rank.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a kernel.
Speaker: It's the equivalent of a kernel in the it'd be like a full bird.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So just in case anyone else was confused for a moment and had to look it up.
Speaker: I know that you probably knew what was going on there, Phil, but I was just like.
Speaker: Keyes is a captain and Silva's a major.
Speaker: What's going on here?
Speaker: I mean, like, oh, yeah, it's good.
Speaker: He's Navy and he's Marines and it's it's one of these.
Speaker: But, you know, but the thing is, is that it also when you're dealing with two different forces in the same situation, that shit depends, too.
Speaker: uh you know uh but whatever the case clearly keys is he's the he's the yeah and but then keys quickly says you know like i'm gonna need you to do like a lot of this figuring this shit out because you're the grounds guy like i right right keys isn't gonna come in and tell uh silva how to handle the marines exactly
Speaker: you know, but, uh, but, but master chief is clearly under keys is just exactly.
Speaker: Um, and Silva basically says, so we got a bunch of Marines here.
Speaker: We'd be happy to do this for you.
Speaker: And, uh, and, and, and, and keys is like, no, I think, I think
Speaker: Johnny boy over there can handle it.
Speaker: I like the fact, though, that so Silva basically repeats what he said to Master Chief earlier.
Speaker: He says that to keys and then he goes into additional detail.
Speaker: And that bit of detail is he tells the story from the book Fall of Reach, where a few yes, T's that he knew were baited into a fight.
Speaker: with, with John.
Speaker: And he says is, it was like 24 years ago or something like that.
Speaker: Um, and he's like, and, uh, John killed two of them.
Speaker: And he's like, it doesn't make that to me, that doesn't make him a hero.
Speaker: It makes him a murderer.
Speaker: Um, and I was like, okay, so now I understand like Silva was like a second Lieutenant at the time.
Speaker: Um, right.
Speaker: Probably knew these guys.
Speaker: Those are probably a couple, probably a couple of his buddies.
Speaker: Um, and so he's,
Speaker: And he was very aware of the incident, even though there was like the, was it ODI or whatever, the intelligence service tried to keep a lid on it.
Speaker: There's no way that they could have kept a super tight lid on it.
Speaker: Well, there were I mean, even then it was like the idea is that there were rumors.
Speaker: I remember that.
Speaker: So suddenly a lot of things start to fall into place as to why Silva is like, yeah, I don't fucking trust this guy.
Speaker: It was a very cruel use of of a scene that I had almost forgotten about from the first book.
Speaker: It was just another example of Master Chief like, well, to be fair, it was an interesting section because it had met.
Speaker: It was the first scene.
Speaker: It was Master Chief going, are these enemies or not?
Speaker: Because they're on my side, but they're harassing me and they're trying to kill me.
Speaker: So it was it was an interesting scene for that.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: just another scene in the grand scheme of that book.
Speaker: And I think Dietz uses it beautifully, expands on it really, really well.
Speaker: Very good stuff.
Speaker: It's a, it's a nice payoff between two books of something really in the grand scheme of things, minor, as you said.
Speaker: So, um, I was a fan of that.
Speaker: Um, and definitely, and basically, um,
Speaker: This entire section, there's like a little point of view change or like a time jump.
Speaker: It just ends with Silva just saying, here's all my grievances.
Speaker: And it says, thanks for hearing me out.
Speaker: Like, this is all.
Speaker: I think this is all bullshit.
Speaker: And thanks.
Speaker: And he's like, he also knew.
Speaker: And then it changes to Keyes' point of view.
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, Silva's wrong.
Speaker: But like, I understand where he's coming from.
Speaker: And he even says, he's like, look, if all we had was the Marines, I know you guys could get it done.
Speaker: It's not I'm not saying that you people can't get it done.
Speaker: I'm sure of that.
Speaker: But Chief's got a bunch of advantages.
Speaker: And basically, he's you know, he's kind of I don't know how much of this is a cop out or or I don't know how much of this to believe.
Speaker: But his his excuse is basically like, look, this is going to free up the hell jumpers to do some other shit for us.
Speaker: You know, and I'd rather have all of your guys over here doing this thing and my one guy doing this.
Speaker: And I mean, it seems sincere enough and smart, you know, strategically smart.
Speaker: But it's it's interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Keys basically reaffirms to Silva like, you know, yeah, you can handle other things.
Speaker: My decision stands.
Speaker: And Silva's like, OK, sir.
Speaker: Yes, sir.
Speaker: You know, we'll support the chief and Cortana.
Speaker: Yeah, and he makes a point of saying, well, look, just because I'm not in the best of moods over this guy doesn't mean that we won't support him.
Speaker: He makes it clear that he's not going to be like Keyes' fucking Ensign and turn on him at the wrong moment.
Speaker: Like, that's, you know, at least that's what he says now.
Speaker: We got a brief scene after that with Danny Zuko and Kenneki hiding out in a control room.
Speaker: inside of basically within halo uh basically they're setting a trap for for chief um and and uh zuka is basically doing his little finger tappy thing just kind of like waiting for chief to come it's his mr burns moment um and then we jump back over to mckay and her squad um this is kind of like a moment where like
Speaker: Okay, well, they took the ship, they took the Pillar of Autumn, and they got a lot of good stuff, but it actually might not necessarily be enough because there's Oros, Lieutenant Oros, is basically saying, yeah, honestly, a lot of stuff didn't survive the crash, so...
Speaker: Yeah, they got a lot of loot, but it might just be, you know, the stuff that they scavenged might, you know, it's still probably not going to be, they're not flush with gear at this point.
Speaker: So Foehammer is dropping off Mr. Chief and some Marines to get it done.
Speaker: And here's the line.
Speaker: Now, here's the thing.
Speaker: We are now on our way to the Silent Cartographer, which is the site that the Covenant basically pinpoints the location of the control room for Halo.
Speaker: And this is where I hear
Speaker: the music in my head and I see it because when I first got an Xbox, I think it was a freshman in college and I got my first Xbox and there was I would always buy official Xbox magazine because it came always came with a disc full of demos.
Speaker: And the first one I ever got because I could afford to get an Xbox, but not a game to share with it.
Speaker: But I could afford the eight or nine bucks to buy an Xbox magazine, which had like seven amazing demos on it.
Speaker: And one of them was Halo and TimeSplitters 2.
Speaker: And it was exactly what you wanted, especially for me, who was learning to use two thumbsticks and one of them's your head and the other one's your legs.
Speaker: Oh God, I remember learning that and being like, oh, I might not be able to do this.
Speaker: I had a genuine moment of panic of like, what did I just sink all this money into?
Speaker: And the controller is this big.
Speaker: It's the size of your head.
Speaker: I loved that thing.
Speaker: I loved that thing.
Speaker: Everyone hated that thing.
Speaker: I loved it.
Speaker: It was a big, heavy boy.
Speaker: And maybe that's why I loved it.
Speaker: I looked at the Xbox controller and I saw myself in it.
Speaker: And I saw myself in it.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: Parallel.
Speaker: You, me, Seth.
Speaker: And so this is what... And the demo for Halo was the silent cartographer mission.
Speaker: And so I hear, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, and all of a sudden, in comes Fohammer.
Speaker: Marine said, I didn't know you made house calls, Fohammer.
Speaker: The pilot chuckled, you know our motto, we deliver.
Speaker: And that is straight out of the game.
Speaker: Word for word, beat for beat.
Speaker: I can hear it in my head.
Speaker: I've heard it a thousand times because I probably played that level.
Speaker: Yeah, because you just had the Xbox and the demo.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: And eventually I found a used copy of Morrowind and failed a couple of classes.
Speaker: And then time passed.
Speaker: And then time passed.
Speaker: I have no recollection of what really went down.
Speaker: It reminds me of what was it?
Speaker: Danny from the game grumps talking about how there, he, he lost like a couple of years tomorrow.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's how it felt.
Speaker: You're just like, you're just get high and play Morrowind.
Speaker: Man, because that game was cruel in like you had to walk, uh,
Speaker: all over the place.
Speaker: And if you wanted to beat that game, there was like this section, all these, I don't remember all the details, but there were like these villages and you had to go from one village to the other.
Speaker: And there was no fast travel.
Speaker: You didn't have a horse.
Speaker: You didn't have shit.
Speaker: You just had to walk through these villages
Speaker: dark desert areas until you found the next village you had to be in and it took forever uh so yeah that one was a god that game was so fucking good yeah i honestly it's been so long since i played uh morrowind um
Speaker: I don't think we can go back to Morrowind after Skyrim.
Speaker: No, I don't.
Speaker: Especially after a, you know what, and I need to, I booted up Skyrim the other day, and that opening, God, it takes forever.
Speaker: I need to install a fast start mod or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, you can skip past it.
Speaker: Because, good Lord, it is just a drag.
Speaker: Well, I mean, I remember playing it for the first time and it was so exciting and you're like, holy fucking shit.
Speaker: But then, yeah, a year later.
Speaker: But I don't think we could go back to Morrowind for the same reason that we can't go back to like old games like System Shock.
Speaker: Yeah, can't go back to System Shock.
Speaker: Can't go back to Daggerfall.
Speaker: No, can't go back to Daggerfall.
Speaker: Can't go back to TIE Fighter.
Speaker: Like we are not equipped for that.
Speaker: You mean to tell me that even if I use a joy pad to play this game, I'm still going to need the entire keyboard on top of everything else.
Speaker: Are you shitting me?
Speaker: We are very spoiled with how streamlined video games are these days.
Speaker: Back in those days, like you needed to know that the end parentheses button was your.
Speaker: Well, you have your, you
Speaker: period which match which was match speed um uh for for targeted uh targeted ship and then uh i'm trying to remember all the shortcuts because there was all the the shields and power and like the energy uh meters and you had to swap you had to swap back and forth take
Speaker: Take take the get get off of the shield for a second so you can speed up.
Speaker: And and are you kids don't fucking remember this?
Speaker: They were they they were cardboard cutouts that would like go over your keyboard.
Speaker: All keyboards basically.
Speaker: Yes, you put it over your keyboard and it had the shortcuts on it.
Speaker: Yeah, it had them written out for you so you could look down and it would say, yeah, here's your bomb, you know, or whatever.
Speaker: And like, oh my God, it was so in-depth.
Speaker: It was insane.
Speaker: It was insane.
Speaker: Well, but, you know, to be honest, though, people were asking what games have you spent more than 500 hours in?
Speaker: And I have to say, X-Wing versus TIE Fighter, TIE Fighter and X-Wing Alliance, I spent all over
Speaker: than 500 hours in.
Speaker: Did you play Star Wars Squadron?
Speaker: I haven't yet, no.
Speaker: I think I have it.
Speaker: That one looks good.
Speaker: I keep meaning to try that one out.
Speaker: Anyhow, the silent cartographer...
Speaker: So I like our photographer.
Speaker: We get a warthog brought in and, and you know, the level guys, a master chief hops in leads a bunch of Marines and we get another big, big fight sequence.
Speaker: Big old fight sequence.
Speaker: Um, they, they basically, they go up one direction, um, and they, on the warthog and they, they mow down all the covenant shit, all the covenant, uh, soldiers, but then the covenant locks the front door.
Speaker: So master chief's like, all right, we're going to have to go around the back door.
Speaker: And there's a back door.
Speaker: so he uh basically him the warthog drives around uh and the warthog stays and is just like providing covering fire and master chief goes in alone through like this back area and this is where uh danny zuko has laid a trap for for master chief yes
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And there's a couple of there's a couple of hunters.
Speaker: There's and grunts down there.
Speaker: The perfect combination.
Speaker: It's hilarious, though, because the the it resolves a lot faster than it does in the game, because in the game you have to fight the two hunters.
Speaker: But in this, one of the hunters is accidentally killed by a grunt.
Speaker: Oh, I love this.
Speaker: This is so dumb and good.
Speaker: It is so stupid.
Speaker: Yeah, hold on.
Speaker: I'm going to find this because this is so dumb and I love it.
Speaker: Basically, the idea is that all the grunts are waiting and somebody because the grunts, they're so stupid and they're so numerous that they're trained by the covenant that when in doubt, shoot.
Speaker: Like that is literally their order.
Speaker: And what is it that makes him shoot?
Speaker: It's just like the hunters start fighting Master Chief and they're like, we don't know what to do.
Speaker: So they just start shooting at Master Chief.
Speaker: But the hunters are in the way.
Speaker: And one of them just gets a lucky fucking shot.
Speaker: Right between the armor.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just fucking King John's this guy takes him the fuck out and literally yaps over there going, oh, God, no.
Speaker: Oh, geez.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: oh no so yeah one of the hunters is uh uh let's see um the hunter was in the line of fire um uh so basically uh zuka is is knocked out because one of the hunters basically hits like is runs past zuka and knocks him down to the floor so he's out of the fight
Speaker: And they even say, and I love this, like, then, as if the melee weren't confusing enough, the second hunter charged in.
Speaker: It sounds like the author, this is all the author.
Speaker: And it sounds like the author is, like, telling you, like, so you're not going to believe this shit.
Speaker: Listen.
Speaker: The second hunter charged in bumped into the elite and sent him spinning to the cold metal floor.
Speaker: Listen up, guys.
Speaker: You got these grunts.
Speaker: You got these fucking grunts.
Speaker: They're all up against.
Speaker: They're all in the back and they don't know what to do because there's a bunch of hunters.
Speaker: And this this this hunter who named Linglin is just like.
Speaker: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker: They gave this guy name Linglin just just fires.
Speaker: He just fires and he he
Speaker: He aces one of the hunters.
Speaker: Just lucky shot right through the armor.
Speaker: It's hilarious.
Speaker: And here's the thing.
Speaker: This is great because Kevin and I have spent
Speaker: This entire episode talking about how so much of these fight fight scenes, you know, they start to blend together outside of the occasional moment of just graphic gore.
Speaker: And this is a great example of like actually a scene and twisting it into something fun, entertaining and interesting rather than just a straight up combat encounter.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like, who cares if that's not how it went in the game?
Speaker: What do you want to do?
Speaker: What do you like?
Speaker: He shot him.
Speaker: He shot him some more.
Speaker: He kept shooting him.
Speaker: And then then the hunter fell down.
Speaker: So so like so much better.
Speaker: And then it basically, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It says, oh, Master Chief, like fights off the other hunter.
Speaker: And then it cuts back to yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Point of view.
Speaker: No doubt stunned by the enormity of his error and terrified regarding the potential consequences.
Speaker: Linglin was still back backing away when the bulky armor human raised his weapon and fired.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's blood spray the side of his face as he tripped a wrap on the England Linglin.
Speaker: It's just like that scene from, um, from, um, I, uh, Oh, um, Sin City where the girl and the blood just sprays in her face and she doesn't.
Speaker: It just stands there and her hair kind of like drips in the background.
Speaker: So it's just like the blood spray just goes over Yayep's face.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yayep's falling over his feet and then like, and then Zamami, Danny Zuko grabs him basically, I like to imagine grabs him by the scruff of his neck and like drags him away and says, the battle's over.
Speaker: We must live to fight another.
Speaker: And Yayep is like,
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: That sounds awesome.
Speaker: What's amazing is is Zuka and and yeah, yeah, have kind of like they've they've basically been turned into it's like Dr. Claw and his cat.
Speaker: That's exactly what they've become.
Speaker: I'll get you next time.
Speaker: I'll get you next time.
Speaker: Master Chief.
Speaker: I can't do that voice.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Can't do the voice.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's what we get for trying to be accurate here.
Speaker: Yeah, but that's exactly what it is.
Speaker: Like, they just get their asses handed to them and they just has this, like, all he needs is, like, to, like, twist a knob and all of a sudden, like, a Zuko mobile just pops out of nowhere and they scream off into the night.
Speaker: Yeah, he's either a claw or he's a Cobra Commander.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which I'm not going to try to do the Cobra Commander voice right now.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Because I think that would kill me.
Speaker: Well, it's just the other side of it, isn't it?
Speaker: It's the higher pitch to the screechy.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: So, and we're wrapping this thing up.
Speaker: The fight's over.
Speaker: Cortana and Master Chief are talking about the next step.
Speaker: They're going to shut down the security systems in the area.
Speaker: And so basically they've still got to find the silent cartographer and get the map to the control room.
Speaker: And Cortana asks him if he has a plan.
Speaker: And he says, yes, when we get there, I'm going to kill every single Covenant soldier I can find.
Speaker: So, which is not quite as good as the... Not quite as good as the just follow the trail bodies line, but...
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Not as good.
Speaker: I mean, you know, try.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If Halo happened in the 80s, if there was a Halo movie in the 80s, it would have been directed by Paul Verhoeven and Master Chief would have been played by Arnold.
Speaker: Right, right, exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I miss, I, for one, miss Paul Verhoeven doing action movies.
Speaker: Gory action movies.
Speaker: I mean, God, you know, you got to,
Speaker: I mean, every time I'm reading this, at least once every 15 minutes, I think it's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Starship Troopers, RoboCop.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, that's because, you know, unfortunately, Master Chief is a cop.
Speaker: That's we're going to.
Speaker: He's a cop.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He's he's he wants to be a good cop, but he's a cop.
Speaker: He's a cop.
Speaker: He's a cop.
Speaker: yeah so um you know we're we're gonna keep going on on uh on the flood we have yet to uh i mean we've got to run into the flood i assume that's going to be the climax of the book is is the is the flood it can't be far away i i imagine that the next section what is the flood the level with the flood happen
Speaker: It's about halfway through, like the flood is a major obstacle in the game.
Speaker: So I feel like I feel like if this section, this section, section three was called a section three.
Speaker: Yeah, section three is called the silent cartographer.
Speaker: I think I think section four is going to be the beginning of our flood moments.
Speaker: And I don't mean the epic.
Speaker: They might be giants album.
Speaker: Hey, now they might be giants.
Speaker: seen them live five times nice five times i don't mess around with my love for the they are so what do you what do you think it's so far it's um obviously good book um not i i don't i don't like it nearly as much as the fall of reach um kind of hard to compare the two their their fall of reach is was very much um
Speaker: new material Nyland got to play around a lot with with stuff.
Speaker: Whereas D test to stick
Speaker: within a relatively rigid structure with just adding some stuff.
Speaker: But I wish Dietz did more like the battle we just talked about.
Speaker: Just spice them up a little bit.
Speaker: Make them a little bit more interesting.
Speaker: Don't be afraid to, like, that's the thing about Halo is when I, the first time, or when I played it recently and I'm playing Halo and I see the grunts, right?
Speaker: And they're just like going, ah!
Speaker: Like it's fucking hilarious.
Speaker: Like there is a humor to Halo that is that I feel like could be represented more than
Speaker: And he's and he definitely remembers this scene.
Speaker: Yeah, there is definitely like some some humor.
Speaker: And I know it's like you have to walk a fine line to make sure that you don't make it too funny because in it, you don't want it to be a farce because it's easy to move past it in the game.
Speaker: But I think if the book was 100 percent farcical as farcical in some of these scenes as the game is,
Speaker: then it would have a stronger impact in the book.
Speaker: And I think that's why Yayap is actually a really good character.
Speaker: Yayap really gives us that grunt bullshit.
Speaker: He's funny, but he's not cracking jokes.
Speaker: Cracking wise.
Speaker: No, but he's just a silly...
Speaker: cowardly kind of character that is fun to keep track of.
Speaker: And I laugh at a lot.
Speaker: So yeah, it's, it's an, it's very interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Lives.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Fucking.
Speaker: Well, that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: If you can go ahead and give us a five star rating on Apple iTunes.
Speaker: Also, go ahead and give us a five star.
Speaker: I know the plurality of you listen to us on Spotify.
Speaker: Spotify now allows for star ratings on podcasts.
Speaker: Please.
Speaker: So go ahead, give us five stars on Spotify.
Speaker: We would really appreciate it.
Speaker: Share us on your social media, Twitter, Facebook.
Speaker: Heck, you know, go ahead and post this on LinkedIn if you're feeling bold and want to scare off, you know, job recruiters from your profile.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Tell the world that you don't need their fucking jobs.
Speaker: Tell the world you don't need their job.
Speaker: You listen to two aging geeks talk about books online.
Speaker: Video game books.
Speaker: Precisely.
Speaker: We read them so you don't have to.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: Anyway, that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: And take care, everyone.
Speaker: Bye.
