Introduction & Patreon Promotion
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Speaker
That we know of, yeah.
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Speaker
You know who else died in South Africa?
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Speaker
Hi there, everybody.
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Speaker
Welcome back to Pixel.
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Speaker
With me as always is Phil.
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Speaker
On today's show, I may have killed Phil.
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Speaker
I thought you were going to say, like, you know who else said the other word?
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Speaker
I think he thought I was going to go and I was going to say something else, and then I didn't say it.
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Speaker
There was a lot of setup there.
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Speaker
That's as good of a plug for getting the Patreon entry to our pre-show shit as I can offer you.
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Speaker
Patreon.com slash PixlipPod.
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Speaker
gets you right in there to listen to it and 10 dollars gets your name shouted at the beginning of the episode to that end i'll thank jesus loves you kyle semen ruthless mutter middle of things sigma south big stomach thick and friendly friend thank you so much for being a friend right into the patreon plug because i had to we had to we were we had a we were having a conversation beforehand about
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Speaker
You know, a guy who is a white man who was born in Rhodesia and dies in South Africa and lives nearly 90 years.
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Speaker
You got questions about his life.
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Speaker
You got questions.
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Speaker
You got questions.
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Speaker
Fair and balanced.
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Speaker
About as fair and balanced as they get, actually.
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Speaker
About as fair and balanced as they get.
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Speaker
I think it's okay to make a slight assumption.
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Speaker
Just to ask a couple of questions.
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Speaker
That's an actual I'm just asking questions moment.
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Speaker
I'm just asking questions.
False Memories & Conspiracy Theories
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Speaker
What were your thoughts on Nelson Mandela?
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Speaker
Well, I thought for years he had died before he did.
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Speaker
Oh, OK, well, that's interesting.
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Speaker
But it turns out he's living in Barbara in Barbara Streisand's house.
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Speaker
Reading the Berenstain Bears books.
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Speaker
Reading the Berenstain Bears.
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Speaker
Yeah, count me in that camp.
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Speaker
I actually... I thought it was Bernstein, even as a kid.
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Speaker
I remember saying it to my parents, Bernstein Bears, and nobody ever corrected me.
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Speaker
So I am fully... If I'm going to have weird conspiracy theory thoughts, I think there has been a... There's been like a split in the timeline or something like that.
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Speaker
Where it used to be Bernstein.
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Speaker
I'm 100% sure at this point that it used to be Bernstein.
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Speaker
Man, remember when conspiracy theories were fun?
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Speaker
Those were good times.
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Speaker
Those were the days.
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Speaker
Those were the days.
Star Wars Lore and Grimdark Elements
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Speaker
Yeah, so we're still talking about the Jedi stuff with the Fatal Alliance.
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Speaker
are that alliance that is fatal the alliance that is fatal before we get started i read something on the one of star wars subreddits that uh the reason why humans and like twilex can like get it on and have a kid is because this is like this is some like warhammer level stuff yeah but like all of all of the all of the species that are human-like
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Speaker
are actual mutations off of humanity that were created by another race.
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Speaker
So like the Twi'leks and all that stuff.
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Speaker
It's not like they were...
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Speaker
they were original it was like they originally were humans and somebody played with their gene started around with their genetics a bit um and made a whole brand new yeah it's very warhammer it's kind of disappointing but it's also very 40k in the oh yeah sure sure
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Speaker
It's like it adds one layer of grimdark.
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Speaker
When you think of the ogrens and the ratlings and all that other stuff.
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Speaker
Ogrens and ratlings, yeah.
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Speaker
But that's why humans and Twi'leks can have relations, which... I didn't know that.
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Speaker
I did not know that.
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Speaker
I didn't know that either, but I endorse that.
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Speaker
So however you guys feel about that dancing girl, it's okay.
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Speaker
She's basically your cousin.
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Speaker
He's basically your cousin.
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Speaker
I don't like the fact that Jabba kills her for, you know, feeds her to the Rancor.
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Speaker
There are so few women in that universe as it is.
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Speaker
Do we really need to kill any of them off?
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Speaker
There's so few women.
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Speaker
That have proper agency.
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Speaker
It's Leia or Mon Mothma or that Twilight girl.
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Speaker
Leia, Mon Mothma or that Twilight girl.
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Speaker
Those are your choices.
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Speaker
And after Jedi, it was one less.
Battle with Hex Droids
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Speaker
Let's put the body in the marsh.
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Speaker
Let's marsh up that body.
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Speaker
When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them in the marsh.
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Speaker
We are in chapter 16.
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Laren and the Sarge, as I've affectionately begun to call him, they start shooting back at our cartoonishly weird-ass aliens, as you guys recall.
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They are very geometric.
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And we realize for the first time that they actually appear to be droids.
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They refer to them as the hexes.
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Speaker
And there's a... We're gonna see, like...
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Speaker
that they are filled with these thin hair, like filaments that seem to.
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And they have noticed them in the book at that point that they've been spreading all over the place, basically looking for materials and scrap and energy sources and that sort of thing.
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So that it's basically can create more of itself, which is weird shit and very cool.
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The droids start to go all Voltron on us.
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They join together to become something bigger.
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And sadly, right after I started calling him the Sarge, Sergeant Patanin takes a ricochet to the eye and dies.
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Speaker
Ula and Jet are off on their own, avoiding all combat for for for
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Similarly, but different cowardly reasons.
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Ula because he's a coward and Jet because he's a scoundrel.
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And that's just how they roll.
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And here's the thing.
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It's like there's.
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There's cowardice on Ula's side and Jet is like, oh, but he's doing the same thing, but he's doing it cool.
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Speaker
This is like the hello human resources meme.
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Speaker
Jet is the guy who's like, I'm hiding from fire because I'm a scoundrel.
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And she's like, oh, you're sweet.
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Speaker
And when Ula does it, it's hello human resources.
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That's exactly it.
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And yeah, it's the same deal.
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But, you know, Jet paints it as pragmatism.
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So they're speculating on the Mandalorian's need for these hexes, as they call them.
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Axe, who was recently blasted to oblivion.
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wakes up and gets blasted to oblivion again.
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But instead of passing out, she goes full Wolverine berserker on them and screams back at them, whose authority do you recognize?
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Speaker
pretty fucking cool uh it's it's just like it's metal she's just screaming like who uh whose authority do you recognize right right yeah she's just choosing different emphases uh uh to shout it back it's yeah she goes completely uh uh ape shit on them and it's it's it's fucking metal as hell uh uh
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Speaker
So they're sometimes pretty cool.
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Speaker
Chapter 17 X is using her for scream against the hexes by download and play Star Wars The Old Republic today.
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Speaker
Another kick ass power that you can have in that game.
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Speaker
The droids start using cloaking tech.
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Speaker
Basically, they are they are coming up with all they're pulling all kinds of tricks out of their hat at all.
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Seems like I can do whatever they need to.
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As the situation calls for it.
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And so Shigar, who has been fighting them this entire freaking time and has taken some blows, finally retreats.
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And the Mandalorian who has popped in there tells him to tell Laren and the others who are bringing in the rear, putting down some firepower, telling them to aim for the vault.
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So the hexes are bouncing.
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They can they create these like mirror shields and they're bouncing laser cannon fire off of their mirror shields against this spot near the vault that's weakening.
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Speaker
Um, and they're, they're basically trying to create a larger exit.
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Speaker
And Shigar seems to realize what the hell's going on is trying to get people to stop because they only have one in and out point and it's pretty narrow.
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So they're kind of stuck.
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Speaker
Uh, but if they can make, uh, if they can widen the, uh, the exit, then they can really get the hell out of there.
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Speaker
Um, so the, the Twi'lek, uh, head of the bodyguards for the huts, uh, he, he just, he just keeps on shooting and, uh, uh,
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Stryver, who realizes also what is going on, blows him and the cannon up.
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Speaker
Just we never see either again.
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But it's too late.
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At that point, the exit is too big.
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Speaker
And he orders Laren to go in and destroy everything that she can in the vault.
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Uh, Shigar saves Jet and Ula from a giant falling piece of wall, uh, related to the, uh, uh, the vault explosion.
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Speaker
Um, they run, Ula's pretty embarrassed about, uh, uh, uh, what a panty waist he is turning out to be.
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He thinks quite a lot about, you know, like, oh, I was, if I always said that if I was going to be in one of these positions, because apparently at one point,
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Speaker
He had wanted to be like, I don't remember what they call it, but it's like a hand of the emperor style, like assassin kind of character.
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And that's what he wanted to do originally.
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Speaker
And he was like, oh, I am in no way ready for that.
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He is not qualified for any of that.
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Speaker
Not even a little bit.
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Speaker
And so he's having kind of a moment with himself.
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Speaker
He says he's going to he tells he says he's going to go into the vault to stop the Republic from getting there first.
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Speaker
Oopsie realizes his mistake and tries to say, I mean, the the Imperials and Jet thinks that's pretty funny in a scoundrelly kind of way.
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Speaker
He's like, ah, cool.
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Speaker
You're a big old faker, too.
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Speaker
You have to feel like his secret is probably safe with Jet.
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Jet's first mate tried to kill him and he still, you know, forgave him and put him back.
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Put him back at work.
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Speaker
Stryver, Sith, Mandalorian, Sith and Jedi
Character Dilemmas and Decisions
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chase the hexes outside.
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Speaker
The Mandalorian nets one of them and Axe almost goes to kill it before realizing, oh, wait, I don't give a shit.
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This is not my this is not my fight.
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I don't give a shit.
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Axe is like, wait a minute.
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Speaker
I don't need to do any of this.
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Speaker
Oh, wait, I don't care.
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Speaker
I was only here because I wanted to kill this Mandalorian.
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Speaker
And that's not going to happen at this point.
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Speaker
So let me go to the vault and find the Navicomp.
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Speaker
that I was also sent here to get.
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Speaker
So she leaves Shigar and Stryver to that.
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Speaker
They bring both of the droids down, they get and they get a signal from Laren who's telling them, you need to get to the vault.
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Speaker
You need to see this.
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Speaker
Laren has found what amounts to a tiny war droid factory.
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Speaker
That's where all of these things have been coming from.
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Speaker
And it's been sending out feelers and getting scrap and energy sources and just creating more of itself, which if you've played Knights of the Old Republic is kind of it's that was actually one of the big bosses at the end.
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Speaker
You're basically dealing with a infinite.
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Speaker
I think it's called the Star Forge, which just creates.
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Speaker
more and more war droids.
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Speaker
That's the whole thing.
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Speaker
So it might be a kind of a nod to that.
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Speaker
Either way, it's a pretty dangerous thing.
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Speaker
So she tells Shigar and she's on the comm link with him.
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Speaker
And as she's doing that, her fingers get cut off by axe with her lightsaber who demands that she give her the map of comm.
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Speaker
The hand that she's holding the comm link in
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Speaker
It's like the comlink is gone and so are her fingers suddenly.
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Speaker
And so are her fingers, which, you know, it's easy to forget how much of a thing, how much of a trope losing limbs is in Star Wars.
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Speaker
For what is a, it's a kid's show essentially, but it's like they lose limbs a lot on that show.
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Speaker
Anakin in the prequel first loses his arm in episode two and then in episode three,
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Speaker
Obi-Wan cuts off his the robot arm again and both of his legs.
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Speaker
And then Luke loses a hand and Luke loses a hand.
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Speaker
It's a pretty common thing to lose.
00:14:11
Speaker
But I mean, you fuck with lightsabers.
00:14:13
Speaker
It's going to happen.
00:14:15
Speaker
No, there's it's just part of the it's like having a shop teacher with a missing pinky.
00:14:20
Speaker
You know, it's just right.
00:14:21
Speaker
It doesn't throw you.
00:14:26
Speaker
She's demanding the Navicomp.
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Speaker
Ula sees all of this and sees the Navicomp, which Larry doesn't have.
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Speaker
So he scrambles for it.
00:14:38
Speaker
Axe is still threatening her and the last guard that she has.
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Speaker
because all of the guards, the people who've been working with her have slowly been getting picked off at this point.
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Speaker
Ula struggles with whether or not he should give it to Axe because on one hand, he's like, this will solve all of my issues because she and I are technically on the same side.
00:15:02
Speaker
On the other hand, as we mentioned in the last episode, he really doesn't like the Sith.
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Speaker
He gets this whole existential meltdown in his head of like,
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Speaker
I love the empire because it brings us rule and order and all that stuff.
00:15:18
Speaker
But I don't like the Sith.
00:15:20
Speaker
It's like this really weird Republican guy who is like it's an anti-Trump Republican, anti-MAGA Republican who is still a fascist.
00:15:36
Speaker
Doesn't like that kind of fascism.
00:15:39
Speaker
And it's based entirely on the fact that they think they're better than them.
00:15:43
Speaker
And it's like, you're really not.
00:15:44
Speaker
You're exactly the same.
00:15:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly what it is.
00:15:47
Speaker
And finally, he decides that he is going to he's going to toss the Navicom to axe.
00:15:52
Speaker
But Striker comes in with the interception.
00:15:55
Speaker
The Mandalorian grabs Navicom and exchanges it very kindly, I think, with a thermal detonator.
00:16:04
Speaker
Very smooth Mandalorian moves right there.
00:16:06
Speaker
That's I mean, that's
00:16:08
Speaker
primo Mandalorian move.
00:16:11
Speaker
Shigar uses the force to throw it back and Stryver rides the falling debris deeper into the palace.
00:16:20
Speaker
So Shigar checks on Laren and Ula hates it.
00:16:25
Speaker
He is so he is so into her.
00:16:27
Speaker
She is my girlfriend.
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Speaker
And he's just like, oh, they've got a friendship and a connection that I don't have.
00:16:34
Speaker
It's like, yeah, you just met her.
00:16:35
Speaker
Like, you just met her, dude.
00:16:38
Speaker
You haven't even said anything to her before you got into it.
00:16:43
Speaker
Like, like settle the fuck, like start with hello.
00:16:48
Speaker
It can, it can happen to you.
00:16:50
Speaker
So he, so ultimately he decides that he's going to make a run for the nearest Imperial ship and, and explain who he is and, and, and, you know, drop his cover so he can get the hell out of there.
00:17:02
Speaker
And that brings us to the end of part two, the beginning of part three, the chase.
00:17:09
Speaker
This is one of my favorite things with Axe chasing Dao through the building.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, this is that's exactly what this whole section is.
00:17:20
Speaker
It's just it's it.
00:17:21
Speaker
I mean, it's what it says on the tin.
00:17:25
Speaker
Axe is chasing Stryver down into starts in some slave quarters.
00:17:29
Speaker
They jump a ranker pit.
00:17:31
Speaker
We get a little we get a little cameo from ranker.
00:17:34
Speaker
Presumably the fat guy with the headdress.
00:17:39
Speaker
One presumably he's there.
00:17:40
Speaker
Yeah, that guy that guy rules.
00:17:42
Speaker
He loves his job and his job loves him back.
00:17:45
Speaker
She chases him all the way back up through the roof of the palace and he blasts her and runs off.
00:17:55
Speaker
And it's like they are they're like
00:17:57
Speaker
breaking through floor to ceiling, floor to ceiling, floor.
00:18:01
Speaker
So Stryver is just like with his jet pack, just shooting massive holes all the way through like these.
00:18:08
Speaker
It's like he's in a casino.
00:18:10
Speaker
He's in a, you know, he's in the shower scene from 10th floor, lingerie, 11th floor.
00:18:20
Speaker
He's in housewares.
00:18:22
Speaker
He's going through the mall.
00:18:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's it's it is it is a great little tour of the palace.
00:18:32
Speaker
So she she he gets away and so she makes her way to the vault back to the vault, realizing that the Navicomp that he got away with can't be the only way to find a map to where they're trying to get to.
00:18:46
Speaker
So she steals one of the dead Hex droids, figuring I could probably find something in here.
00:18:54
Speaker
She boards an Imperial shuttle and tells the pilot to blow up the Republic shuttle on the way out, basically just out of just malice.
00:19:03
Speaker
You know, it's like, just fuck you.
00:19:06
Speaker
It's hilarious because we are in a Cold War right now, and it's the most overt thing to do.
00:19:13
Speaker
And we do later, they do say something like, if this had happened anywhere but a hut crime palace, then maybe, yeah, it would have...
00:19:23
Speaker
you know, cause the war to get out again.
00:19:25
Speaker
But, but right at this point, no one gives a shit.
00:19:28
Speaker
Uh, chapter 20, the guys on the ship, uh, when ax is getting on, they're like, Oh yeah, some guy tried to get on the ship.
00:19:39
Speaker
We had to turn him away.
00:19:42
Speaker
We'll get back around to that.
00:19:43
Speaker
But that's like, put a pin in that.
00:19:46
Speaker
And I do want to say, Sean Williams does a really, really good job of overlapping these moments and telling them from different people's perspectives.
Praise for Narrative Techniques
00:19:55
Speaker
He isn't afraid of stepping back and bringing you back up to speed if it will give you a perspective from somebody else.
00:20:04
Speaker
And I think it's really well done.
00:20:06
Speaker
It's not easy to do that kind of thing in a novel.
00:20:10
Speaker
He does it really well.
00:20:12
Speaker
Chapter 20, Shigar is sneaking through the palace.
00:20:16
Speaker
He is waiting in a spaceport for he's outside of the Mandalorian ship.
00:20:20
Speaker
He's just kind of waiting for him to come back.
00:20:22
Speaker
He's got to come back at some point.
00:20:25
Speaker
And then he stands corrected when the ship starts taking off.
00:20:29
Speaker
As far as he can tell, no one has gotten into it.
00:20:31
Speaker
So he breaks in through the security system and it shocks him and electrocutes him and sends him back down to the roof.
00:20:39
Speaker
Basically just throws him out of the jet.
Negotiations and Discrimination in Star Wars
00:20:43
Speaker
Just spits him right out.
00:20:44
Speaker
Just spits him out.
00:20:45
Speaker
When he hits the ground, security binds him and drops him at the door.
00:20:51
Speaker
Feet of the hut to Tassabarish.
00:20:56
Speaker
He's so he's finally face to face with this charming Huttese crime lord, crime lady.
00:21:03
Speaker
At first, she thinks he's a Sith.
00:21:07
Speaker
Uh, and, uh, and, and, and he's like, kind of, he's, you know what he's doing?
00:21:11
Speaker
She thinks he's a Sith and she's going to punish him.
00:21:13
Speaker
Uh, and he pulls the, like, uh, I think you use the wrong version of there, there.
00:21:21
Speaker
So she's like, I don't give a shit.
00:21:23
Speaker
I'm still going to beat the shit out of you for what you, for being involved in what you did to the palace.
00:21:29
Speaker
really the point that you think you're making here.
00:21:33
Speaker
So he makes a deal with her.
00:21:35
Speaker
He says he's going to follow.
00:21:37
Speaker
He'll follow the Mandalorian into towards this new space territory and that she's got first dibs after it's all over that she can have first dibs on anything they find.
00:21:49
Speaker
And she agrees, but says, but you've got to take you're going to have to accept my help, basically.
00:21:58
Speaker
chapter 21 laran disassociates with jet uh she's just sitting there he's chatting with her and she's having a goddamn existential meltdown um on where she is based on who she used to be uh right she was a you know a professional soldier and special forces person and now she's like getting into firefights with crime lords and stuff she's like is this
00:22:20
Speaker
Is this what I was meant to be doing with my life?
00:22:23
Speaker
Is this how far I've fallen in my life?
00:22:26
Speaker
I'm like, it sounds like you're in a better place than you were.
00:22:29
Speaker
I mean, that sounds pretty cool.
00:22:33
Speaker
So they figured that the droids were waiting for someone to win the auction to take and to take them someplace else.
00:22:41
Speaker
And and they saw an opportunity to escape when people started trying to break into the goddamn vault and and took it.
00:22:52
Speaker
They also come to the same conclusion that Axe does, realizing they could probably use one of their heads to find some core memories and get a map or something like that.
00:23:06
Speaker
A droid tells them the droid tells them that striker got away.
00:23:12
Speaker
I keep writing Stryker.
00:23:15
Speaker
They try to come up with a plan to also get the fuck out of there.
00:23:20
Speaker
The Republic shuttle is blown up.
00:23:23
Speaker
But then they get a call from Shigar who says, hey, Berisha's security details coming up.
00:23:31
Speaker
Because they're like.
00:23:32
Speaker
They're all ready to go.
00:23:33
Speaker
It's like, what's her name?
00:23:36
Speaker
And Jet and Ula are like, and Jet's droid.
00:23:41
Speaker
And like, all right, we got to fight.
00:23:43
Speaker
And there's like 100 dudes outside that door.
00:23:45
Speaker
And they're like saved by a phone call right at that moment.
00:23:50
Speaker
So it's, it's the, it's the super mega happy ending of a, a butch and Sundance really.
00:23:56
Speaker
It's like, say if only, if only we could have gotten a phone call into them first.
00:24:01
Speaker
Um, it's, it's, it's, so they're like, Oh good.
00:24:04
Speaker
We're glad that we don't have to do that.
00:24:05
Speaker
They're suspicious, but they, they go.
00:24:08
Speaker
Ula, we cut to chapter 22.
00:24:10
Speaker
Ula is now in Beriche's office.
00:24:14
Speaker
He tried to get away.
00:24:16
Speaker
He's been turned away by the Imperials because he's a near human.
00:24:20
Speaker
Another Ben Shapiro moment.
00:24:22
Speaker
Ben, if they get their way, it's just a matter of time until you're against the wall and you're going to have it coming.
00:24:26
Speaker
You pinheaded, short sighted, lace curtain piece of shit.
00:24:30
Speaker
That's all in my notes.
00:24:36
Speaker
So just, just, just, just wanted you to know.
00:24:43
Speaker
You should, you should be aware that they don't like you for specific reasons.
00:24:47
Speaker
You will be, you, you will be in the same shit show.
00:24:51
Speaker
A lot of the people you don't like are.
00:24:52
Speaker
So, so, yeah, but go ahead and make a fucking weird face at Superman.
00:25:00
Speaker
Try playing your violin now, bitch.
00:25:03
Speaker
I didn't know somebody's face could twist up in faux outrage so much.
00:25:10
Speaker
He literally looks like an actual asshole when he does that.
00:25:13
Speaker
He just is wrinkled.
00:25:15
Speaker
He looks like the Uzumaki swirl somehow on his fucking face.
00:25:22
Speaker
It's just like... It's...
00:25:29
Speaker
And he's like, it's woke.
00:25:32
Speaker
This is real easy, guys.
00:25:35
Speaker
Like, this is real easy.
00:25:38
Speaker
That's how... They're losers, man.
00:25:40
Speaker
It's so funny to think that, like, that's...
00:25:43
Speaker
There have been years where you sit there and take everything they say apart and point out the hypocrisies and point out the short sight in this and the hatred and the racism.
00:25:56
Speaker
And then after long enough, it just comes down to like, God, they're fucking losers.
00:26:03
Speaker
It just doesn't matter.
00:26:04
Speaker
What a fucking tool.
00:26:06
Speaker
You know, they don't care.
00:26:08
Speaker
No, it's just just a fucking tool.
00:26:10
Speaker
Anyway, you're going to you'll get yours one day, Ben.
00:26:16
Speaker
Anyway, I literally wrote anyway.
00:26:21
Speaker
The Republic shuttle is gone.
00:26:23
Speaker
Uh, so he is stuck.
00:26:25
Speaker
Uh, the Imperials don't want him.
00:26:26
Speaker
Uh, the Republics won't take him.
00:26:29
Speaker
They, they, they don't, they, they can't take him.
00:26:32
Speaker
Uh, so he's stuck.
00:26:33
Speaker
Uh, he ends up getting, uh, led, uh, to Shigar, uh, along with everybody else.
00:26:39
Speaker
Uh, the whole gang, uh,
00:26:41
Speaker
Always sunny style is going to go after Stryver with Barish's blessing using jets ship, the Auriga fire, which is a pretty kick ass name for a ship.
00:26:51
Speaker
That is a good name.
00:26:52
Speaker
That's a good name.
00:26:58
Speaker
The whole plan, however, is centered around Shigar using his psycho telemetry powers on the piece of droid to get a sense of where to go.
00:27:10
Speaker
And he is not confident about all of that.
00:27:14
Speaker
Laren is she's her her hand needs binding and a fairly sprints to go help her going.
00:27:23
Speaker
Yeah, I took basic first aid.
00:27:24
Speaker
I could help, you know, just like just right.
00:27:27
Speaker
So very, very thirsty for that five fingered galahiz.
00:27:32
Speaker
Chapter 23, Shigar links up with Master Satale.
00:27:38
Speaker
She's really impressed with everything that he has managed to accomplish at this point, including fending off both a Mandalorian and a Sith at the same time.
00:27:46
Speaker
I'd be impressed, too.
00:27:49
Speaker
He thinks that the droids are the the invention of Lima Zandrit, our long lost woman here.
00:27:57
Speaker
We've learned that she's a droid maker.
00:27:59
Speaker
This is part of her stuff.
00:28:01
Speaker
He put two and two together.
00:28:04
Speaker
He's super unconfident about his abilities to read this droid thing.
00:28:09
Speaker
And she gives him the old there is no try kind of.
00:28:14
Speaker
It's just like, just fucking do it.
00:28:18
Speaker
Stop thinking so damn hard.
00:28:19
Speaker
Stop thinking about it.
00:28:21
Speaker
Literally stop thinking so hard about it.
00:28:24
Speaker
That's exactly it.
00:28:27
Speaker
Laren is getting her hand tended to by Ula.
00:28:30
Speaker
It's brutal because like her hand is partially melted and grafted to the glove she'd been wearing.
00:28:38
Speaker
And it's it's pretty harsh.
00:28:40
Speaker
It's a gnarly cut.
00:28:42
Speaker
It's a real gnarly cut.
00:28:43
Speaker
And he is trying to help her as best as he can using and doing actually honestly.
00:28:49
Speaker
a better job than I expected him to.
00:28:51
Speaker
Um, he helps her undress partially, uh, and then glows bright red when she says a girl's got to keep some secrets.
00:29:01
Speaker
And he excuses himself.
00:29:04
Speaker
And she starts and once again kind of contemplates this new group that she's fallen in with.
00:29:12
Speaker
Once again, this happens a few times in the book so far.
00:29:15
Speaker
Axe boards her master's cruiser and we get kind of...
00:29:19
Speaker
uh, the counterpoint scene, uh, the Sith version of the Jedi scene we just had where, uh, she, uh, she meets up with her master before beforehand.
00:29:30
Speaker
She demands a tech specialist, uh, take the dead hex and get some information out of it.
00:29:35
Speaker
Uh, then she gets physically and verbally bitch slapped by master Kratos for how bad the mission went.
00:29:42
Speaker
Um, she gives them the same kind of lowdown that she gave, uh, uh,
00:29:47
Speaker
his master promises to find the home planet with the droid remains and, and, and then wonders.
00:29:53
Speaker
And she has a moment where she's wondering about the droids and she compares herself to the droids.
00:29:59
Speaker
Like we're both my mother's creation.
00:30:02
Speaker
Shouldn't maybe we be allies.
00:30:06
Speaker
She, she really does not like her master, which is not unusual for a Sith.
00:30:12
Speaker
I mean, I feel like that's like the, the end of the road for a Sith,
00:30:15
Speaker
apprentice relationship, you know.
00:30:18
Speaker
I mean, that is how it's supposed to end.
00:30:20
Speaker
Like the apprentice is supposed to kill the master, I think.
00:30:26
Speaker
Well, the new stuff, the original stuff.
00:30:28
Speaker
In the original stuff.
00:30:29
Speaker
The newer stuff chronologically.
00:30:33
Speaker
Because it's like in the newer stuff chronologically, the Sith are like, oh, there's only ever supposed to be two.
00:30:40
Speaker
But way back in the day, it's like, oh, there's like 40 bajillion of them.
00:30:44
Speaker
We got whole goddamn planets of Sith Corbin.
00:30:47
Speaker
It's a, it's a, it's a wild town.
00:30:51
Speaker
Uh, uh, chapter 25, Laren checks on Shigar who's still working on reading the droid.
00:30:58
Speaker
Uh, it's not going well.
00:31:00
Speaker
Uh, he's, he's really in his head about it and she tries to cheer up, uh, and tells him the story about her ratting out her CEO.
00:31:08
Speaker
Um, and, and this is where we finally get, it's kind of this mundane sort of thing.
00:31:14
Speaker
It's just that her CO was corrupt.
00:31:17
Speaker
She turned him in.
00:31:19
Speaker
But part of the and he got punished.
00:31:22
Speaker
But part of it was that they didn't like tell the people not going to release the files to the public.
00:31:30
Speaker
Nobody knew what happened except that she turned him in or whatever.
00:31:35
Speaker
And so she suffered retaliation and had to had to resign.
00:31:40
Speaker
So, yeah, as far as they knew that she was she was just somebody who didn't like their leader and was trying to move up the ranks or something.
00:31:46
Speaker
So she tells him that story and tells him that he's overthinking the whole thing.
00:31:50
Speaker
And it actually puts him in a worse mood.
00:31:53
Speaker
So she leaves and finally gets some sleep.
00:31:57
Speaker
After she leaves, Shigar wonders – he kind of thinks about it as like, wonders, would I be able to rat on somebody like Master Satali, who I respect?
00:32:07
Speaker
It's really good internal monologue that Williams writes.
00:32:13
Speaker
has a lot to do with what we're talking about in these books.
00:32:16
Speaker
It has, it's part of the themes of the novel.
00:32:19
Speaker
It's sure it's, it's really solid stuff.
00:32:21
Speaker
I, I, I enjoy it normally with these books.
00:32:24
Speaker
A lot of the time when we get internal monologue, it's kind of window dressing.
00:32:27
Speaker
It's kind of stupid.
00:32:28
Speaker
Um, but this is actually very solid, uh, well-written stuff.
00:32:34
Speaker
So he finally realizes that there is no try and just gets out of his head and his powers, boom, work.
00:32:40
Speaker
He basically travels mentally through the history of this droid and ends up in the mind of Lima Zandrit and feels her thoughts and her thoughts.
00:32:54
Speaker
Angry leftist shit, as it turns out, just.
00:32:58
Speaker
She's pretty based, pretty based, pretty based.
00:33:02
Speaker
She's angry leftist ranting and cool.
00:33:09
Speaker
So but then he knows where the planet is.
00:33:11
Speaker
And so we can move forward with the story.
00:33:14
Speaker
Chapter 26, the Sith droid tech tells Axe that the droid wasn't finished, that it was actually evolving.
00:33:24
Speaker
I got the thing vibes from this discussion.
00:33:29
Speaker
It was like this is like a robot version of the thing.
00:33:32
Speaker
It was like, you see, and you're like, that's man.
00:33:36
Speaker
That's exactly it.
00:33:38
Speaker
If you if you at home are imagining a Sith droid tech played by Wilford Brimley, you're correct.
00:33:44
Speaker
That is that is that is essentially what we're dealing with here.
00:33:50
Speaker
And he explained that.
00:33:52
Speaker
I mean, that's seriously it.
00:33:53
Speaker
I can't believe I didn't think about that.
00:33:54
Speaker
That's exactly what it is.
00:33:56
Speaker
That's that moment.
00:33:57
Speaker
And he says, you think you wanted to be a dog?
00:34:01
Speaker
You didn't want to be a dog?
00:34:02
Speaker
You wanted to be us.
00:34:07
Speaker
That's pretty good.
00:34:08
Speaker
You wanted to be us.
00:34:10
Speaker
It sounded like Keeler a little bit.
00:34:16
Speaker
And he tells him that the droid could have finished itself if it had time and more access to a central computer.
00:34:25
Speaker
And they also managed to get planet coordinates from the droid brain.
00:34:29
Speaker
But according to the Imperial records, it's right outside of a black hole.
00:34:35
Speaker
And acts very much like when Ron Swanson was asked, not Ron Swanson.
00:34:48
Speaker
Oh, I fucked it up.
00:34:57
Speaker
Will Ferrell's character in Anchorman, Ron Burgundy.
00:35:02
Speaker
Much like when Ron Burgundy was asked to take someone to Pleasure Town, Axe says, oh, we're going there.
00:35:11
Speaker
See, that was worth it.
00:35:13
Speaker
That was worth it.
00:35:15
Speaker
I think the other and the other thing they point out is that it's like it's not actually in the galaxy technically anymore.
00:35:23
Speaker
It's it's yeah, it gets very timey wimey when it's like it's a planet.
00:35:29
Speaker
It's a it's like a rogue planet captured around a black hole north of the galactic like accretion disk.
Humorous Mothman Discussion
00:35:37
Speaker
It's like if well north, but, you know, up.
00:35:43
Speaker
It's central West Virginia is what we're saying.
00:35:45
Speaker
It is out of the goddamn way.
00:35:52
Speaker
The cops don't come out there.
00:35:55
Speaker
Mothman is there for you.
00:35:56
Speaker
Mothman is absolutely there and he will protect you.
00:36:00
Speaker
Never, never doubt.
00:36:01
Speaker
Mothman sees you and knows that you're valid.
00:36:05
Speaker
The Mothman protects.
00:36:08
Speaker
And the Mothman has cake.
00:36:11
Speaker
I haven't seen that statue, by the way, but I would like to see the caked up Mothman statue in person.
00:36:17
Speaker
I just got done writing an assignment for work about Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
00:36:22
Speaker
And it was so funny because I did the research and I have to call, you know, I was calling up sources and stuff.
00:36:30
Speaker
And a lot of realtors are who I talk to.
00:36:32
Speaker
And some of them I was like, I was trying not to immediately go Mothman.
00:36:37
Speaker
you know, I wanted to like, you know, it's a town that's got people who live there.
00:36:41
Speaker
I'm sure there's more to it than that.
00:36:43
Speaker
And so I'd say, you know, so what's, what's Point Pleasant all about?
00:36:45
Speaker
And they go, Oh, Mothman, it's just Mothman there.
00:36:47
Speaker
It's all Mothman all the time there.
00:36:49
Speaker
And I was like, Oh, okay, great.
00:36:50
Speaker
So that was, it's a town of 2000 and their, their economy is centered around a,
00:36:55
Speaker
a cryptid like it's it's what you'd expect uh and now now we are absolutely planning a family trip up there you guys should come we should all go to uh that'd be good point pleasant west virginia they got us by god virginia and they've got a mothman escape room uh yeah it looks like it'd be fun uh it'd be cheap as shit uh super fun i'm sure
00:37:20
Speaker
So, uh, all right, that brings us to part four, Sebedon, which is the name of this planet.
00:37:26
Speaker
Uh, chapter 27, Shigar's party is driving into black hole territory.
00:37:32
Speaker
Uh, the Republic ships that they've contacted beforehand, which they did by the way, uh, are waiting for them.
00:37:38
Speaker
Um, and they, and then Satali squad comes in and they watch as one of Satali's ships goes a little off course and gets sucked into the black hole.
00:37:48
Speaker
Right into the black hole.
00:37:49
Speaker
Right into the black hole.
00:37:51
Speaker
They join her squad and she goes like, you know, we just lost a ship.
00:37:54
Speaker
She's pretty blase about the whole thing, actually.
00:37:58
Speaker
We just lost a whole crew of people.
00:38:01
Speaker
You should take their place.
00:38:02
Speaker
Why don't you just fall in as, as like unit two or whatever.
00:38:07
Speaker
It worked so well for them.
00:38:10
Speaker
So they're like, okay, sure.
00:38:12
Speaker
I'm not, I'm not, I don't love how, how literally you seem to care about the dead crew, but all right, fine.
00:38:20
Speaker
So she's like, at least we've got a spare.
00:38:25
Speaker
By the way, that crew is screaming an eternity with the way they are falling into the black hole.
00:38:32
Speaker
They are being squeezed like a tube of toothpaste.
00:38:36
Speaker
And the end result is very similar.
00:38:39
Speaker
Spaghettification.
00:38:42
Speaker
Not just for the Sam Raimi Doctor Strange movie anymore.
00:38:48
Speaker
Not for all of us.
00:38:51
Speaker
I didn't like that scene.
00:38:53
Speaker
That scene was upsetting.
00:38:55
Speaker
It's an upsetting scene.
00:38:56
Speaker
But it's perfect Sam Raimi.
00:38:58
Speaker
It's super Sam Raimi.
00:39:00
Speaker
They really let him cook.
00:39:03
Speaker
Sam Raimi is like, hey, can I kill Black Bolt and Mr. Fantastic in very terrible ways?
00:39:11
Speaker
And they're like, all right.
00:39:13
Speaker
Can it still be PG-13?
00:39:18
Speaker
I've never been that guy.
00:39:19
Speaker
And when I saw that movie, my son wasn't even in the picture yet.
00:39:22
Speaker
So I wasn't a parent or anything.
00:39:24
Speaker
And I watched that scene and I was just like, who's in charge of the rating system?
00:39:32
Speaker
Did she just cut Captain Carter in half?
00:39:36
Speaker
That whole scene, that whole like 15 minutes or so was my intrusive thought for no joke, like three weeks.
00:39:44
Speaker
Like I kept thinking about different moments of it and just getting bummed out.
00:39:49
Speaker
And when you're when you work in social media, that is not a good time.
00:39:51
Speaker
Yeah, that movie fucked with me for almost a whole month.
00:39:57
Speaker
So Sitali, she reaches out to the planet and gets an angry response.
00:40:03
Speaker
The very familiar phrase, we do not recognize your authority.
00:40:08
Speaker
When Sitali, like many Jedi, refuses to shut the fuck up, they get missiles shot at them.
00:40:16
Speaker
Yeah, I was like, well, I think they're deserving it at this point.
00:40:22
Speaker
The planet's like, you don't have clearance to be here.
00:40:27
Speaker
And Zatali's like, well, I see your feelings now.
00:40:32
Speaker
And I'm holding space for them.
00:40:35
Speaker
But we're going to land.
00:40:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, what did you?
00:40:40
Speaker
What do you think was going to happen?
00:40:42
Speaker
Look, I don't care for the libertarian commune out in the middle of the woods either.
00:40:47
Speaker
But if I go out there and bug them enough, I'm going to get shot at.
00:40:51
Speaker
And it's not not their fault, really.
00:40:55
Speaker
It's my stupid fucking fault.
Chaos in Space: Hex Droids Attack
00:40:58
Speaker
So, yeah, they get missile shot at them, which everyone on board except for Phil and Kevin agree is a bit of an overreaction.
00:41:05
Speaker
I was like, no, yeah, that's your assholes.
00:41:10
Speaker
One of the missiles, they kind of dodge a lot of them, but one of them finally hits Citalia ship.
00:41:16
Speaker
There's no explosion.
00:41:18
Speaker
Instead, we find out that the missiles are filled with hex droids.
00:41:23
Speaker
To the point, they point that the other missiles that broke in orbit are basically a cloud of these things.
00:41:30
Speaker
So we dealt with like three of them.
00:41:33
Speaker
And now we're dealing with thousands upon thousands of them in space.
00:41:39
Speaker
Everybody panics just in time for the Imperial forces to show up.
00:41:45
Speaker
Ula is reflexively happy to see them until he realizes that either he has to reveal that he's an Imperial while on board a Republic vessel and that'll fuck him over, or he keeps quiet and the Imperials blow him to smithereens, not knowing that he's.
00:42:03
Speaker
really doesn't have a win here.
00:42:05
Speaker
Ula is not there's no wins for Ula so far in this book.
00:42:09
Speaker
Just Ula is a whole big L and just L after L after L like that gif of the guy handing out L's, you know, that's exactly and he kind of deserves it.
00:42:20
Speaker
He's kind of short sighted windbag.
00:42:24
Speaker
Chapter 28, Axe and the Imperials arrive.
00:42:27
Speaker
They get ready to fuck up some Republic ships, but they're not really sure what the hell's going on.
00:42:33
Speaker
They're like, they seem to be fighting something.
00:42:38
Speaker
It's like it looks like they're firing at each other.
00:42:44
Speaker
And it's because the hexes are now are corrupting the computers on the Republic ships.
00:42:52
Speaker
They are taking fire at each other.
00:42:54
Speaker
They are eating them alive physically and systematically.
00:43:00
Speaker
So but they don't know this yet.
00:43:02
Speaker
So the fighters head out, including Axe and her interceptor.
00:43:07
Speaker
And she realizes a little too late that they are dealing with clouds of goddamn hexes.
00:43:13
Speaker
And so they try to keep them contained.
00:43:16
Speaker
But the Imperial fleet gets hit just as hard.
00:43:20
Speaker
One of the ships explodes.
00:43:23
Speaker
essentially nail bombing everybody with more hexes.
00:43:27
Speaker
Like any of the hexes that aren't directly destroyed from the exploding ship are pushed out, uh, just to do more damage.
00:43:35
Speaker
Uh, so it's, it's lovely.
00:43:37
Speaker
Chapter 29, the Auriga fire is blasting hexes.
00:43:41
Speaker
They're doing their best to save whatever ships and escape pods that they can.
00:43:47
Speaker
The hexes once again go kind of Voltron on them and they join together together.
00:43:53
Speaker
into this giant tube to kind of respond to the danger.
00:43:59
Speaker
And they're bouncing, they're using the mirror shields and bouncing back shots.
00:44:04
Speaker
The Auriga fire fires at them and the shot bounces right back to them doing 60% shield damage.
00:44:12
Speaker
So finally, what they realize they need to do is use physics against them and they build up as much energy as they can.
00:44:18
Speaker
And they fly into the tube and,
00:44:21
Speaker
Um, the hexes absorb all the energy that was fired at them, but it's too much.
Tactical Victory Against Hex Droids
00:44:27
Speaker
And they kind of explode, uh, uh, like, you know, overstuffed ticks essentially.
00:44:32
Speaker
Um, Satali reaches out to Shigar with the force, uh, uh, Shigar, uh, she's in, she's in some floating debris and he's going to put on a Vax, Vax suit and go save her.
00:44:45
Speaker
Um, he wants Laren to stay behind to man the guns.
00:44:48
Speaker
And we get an interesting moment.
00:44:49
Speaker
I wanted to read out loud here.
00:44:52
Speaker
He says, positive, he said.
00:44:53
Speaker
She's the most important person in the galaxy.
00:44:56
Speaker
Talking about Satale.
00:44:57
Speaker
It's my duty to save her.
00:44:59
Speaker
Then he was gone, leaving Laren feeling slightly wounded by his words.
00:45:03
Speaker
On Hutta, he hadn't come to save her.
00:45:06
Speaker
If his deal with Tassabarish had gone awry, she would have ended up ranker food for certain.
00:45:11
Speaker
But for Master Satale, he swept in with lightsaber swinging, risking life and limb, and not even letting Laren help.
00:45:18
Speaker
She wondered if he thought she might slow him down.
00:45:21
Speaker
That's actually very emotionally thoughtful, like in terms of like the writing here.
00:45:30
Speaker
OK, yeah, that's fair.
00:45:33
Speaker
Some doubt as to whether like am I seeing a friendship where there isn't any or is he just kind of like using me because we met and I'm a gun, you
Reflections on Relationships
00:45:44
Speaker
And that's the thing.
00:45:45
Speaker
And a lot of not just novelizations, but in kind of mass market genre fiction in general, just for simplicity's sake, so many big emotions are are treated like the same kind of way Ula treats this, his jealousy of Shigar.
00:46:02
Speaker
It's kind of like, oh, she thinks he thinks I'm prettier.
00:46:05
Speaker
He thinks that she's prettier than me or something like that.
00:46:08
Speaker
And that's kind of the extent of
00:46:10
Speaker
of the, uh, the complexity of these emotions.
00:46:13
Speaker
Um, and I was just kind of impressed with that.
00:46:15
Speaker
Cause it's, it's like, yeah, that's a, that's, I mean, we, I think we all see where it's going, but at the same time, you totally understand why she might feel that way.
00:46:23
Speaker
And it's, it's just good writing.
00:46:25
Speaker
It's good emotional, uh, motivation.
00:46:29
Speaker
He finds Shigar finds the Tali.
00:46:31
Speaker
There are like nine hexes around her and she's keeping them peaceful with the power of the force, which proves that they're not just droids, that there actually is a life.
00:46:42
Speaker
There is some biomechanical element to them.
00:46:48
Speaker
Which makes the thought of thousands of them dying in the vacuum of space horribly because they got overloaded.
00:46:56
Speaker
Kind of darker than it was originally.
00:47:01
Speaker
So, yeah, he gets to Satali and they basically cut their way out of the wreckage that she's in.
00:47:08
Speaker
She uses a force bubble instead of a back suit and they get the hell out of Dodge.
00:47:13
Speaker
They get back on board the Auriga fire and they see that the planet is now ringed with literal clouds of hexes.
00:47:21
Speaker
It's got like a ring of these things, like just the greatest defense system that a planet could have.
00:47:32
Speaker
And then she senses that Stryver is on a nearby moon.
00:47:35
Speaker
And he's like, yeah, I was here.
00:47:37
Speaker
I was here the whole time.
00:47:38
Speaker
I was watching the whole time.
00:47:40
Speaker
And they plan a rendezvous.
00:47:41
Speaker
He's like, you know, if we'll figure something out, I got it.
00:47:45
Speaker
I got a deal for you.
00:47:48
Speaker
You know, show up, no guns, that kind of thing.
00:47:51
Speaker
And as they're figuring out how they're going to handle that, it becomes clear that the Imperials got the exact same offer because they see that one of their shuttles has been sent off to the moon to talk to Stryber.
00:48:06
Speaker
And that's the end of the chapter.
00:48:07
Speaker
And that's the end of today's reading.
00:48:10
Speaker
So that's that's we keep these the fatal alliance.
00:48:14
Speaker
They're going to be the alliance.
00:48:16
Speaker
It's a tenuous alliance between all sides here.
00:48:20
Speaker
It's, you know, sometimes with these books, with those kind of titles, you don't think much about them.
00:48:24
Speaker
It's kind of like an action movie.
00:48:26
Speaker
It's like, you know, it doesn't mean anything.
00:48:28
Speaker
It's just kind of a cool thing.
00:48:31
Speaker
And with this, it's like, actually, that is actually that's exactly what this book is about.
00:48:35
Speaker
That's what it is.
00:48:37
Speaker
So what do you think so far, Kip?
00:48:40
Speaker
I like this chunk a lot more than the first chunk.
00:48:44
Speaker
You know, we got some good action, good interior monologue stuff from a bunch of characters, you know, trying to figure out where their place in the world, in this big kooky world that they're in of the Star War.
00:49:01
Speaker
And, you know, a little bit more development on this wild ass libertarian space robot commune.
00:49:13
Speaker
I can't wait to kind of to see what's going on in there.
00:49:18
Speaker
What do they got going on up in there on this on a on a planet?
00:49:24
Speaker
that you can only imagine is semi-dead-ish, right?
00:49:28
Speaker
Because it's not orbiting a sun, it's orbiting a black hole.
00:49:32
Speaker
And they say something about the energy signatures down there.
00:49:37
Speaker
I think they say it's like volcanic action or something.
00:49:39
Speaker
It's probably, whatever they're doing down there is probably geothermal.
00:49:45
Speaker
Because the gravity of the black hole would have prevented the core of the planet from...
00:49:54
Speaker
uh, fusing, it would have prevented it from like, uh, cause like earth has a, has a molten core, right?
00:50:00
Speaker
Not all planets have molten cores or whatever.
00:50:02
Speaker
So I guess there's, as long as there, uh, I don't know, there's some science stuff in there that I'm forgetting, but I feel like it's important that it has a molten core, uh, for I think possibly magnetic field reasons.
00:50:16
Speaker
Um, yeah, I think I might be forgetting something, but you know,
00:50:22
Speaker
Either way, that's that's it's an interesting, interesting concept.
00:50:28
Speaker
OK, yeah, I couldn't agree more.
00:50:29
Speaker
I'm really enjoying this part.
00:50:32
Speaker
I'm ready to hear the thrilling conclusion.
Potential Author Appearance & Game Reviews
00:50:36
Speaker
And actually, I'm going to be in contact with Sean Williams this week.
00:50:39
Speaker
He seems interested in being on the show, which I'm excited about.
00:50:43
Speaker
So maybe after the next episode, we'll have him on there.
00:50:46
Speaker
But in the in the meantime, in between time, Kevin, I have a single question to ask you.
00:50:52
Speaker
What are you playing?
00:50:55
Speaker
So I got some new things that I've been playing.
00:50:59
Speaker
First, Wordplay is a game from Mark Brown of Game Makers Toolkit, the YouTube channel.
00:51:09
Speaker
It's basically like a... Think of like a...
00:51:15
Speaker
It's like, um, it's like a, you know, the, what's, what is it where you have a bank of words and it's like, figure out how many words you can spell from, from this or bank of letters.
00:51:27
Speaker
And it's like, how many words can you spell out from that?
00:51:29
Speaker
Like a kind of thing.
00:51:31
Speaker
It's a word place.
00:51:32
Speaker
Kind of like a boggle, um, type thing.
00:51:35
Speaker
Um, but it has like Balotro level, like scoring stuff where every, every round you get like,
00:51:43
Speaker
mods or whatever, and you have to figure out like, okay, I'm going to do this.
00:51:48
Speaker
I got this modifier for this letter.
00:51:50
Speaker
And so when I use this letter and it's like, you can modify positions.
00:51:55
Speaker
So it's like the seconds.
00:51:57
Speaker
A letter in the second position earns three times more.
00:52:02
Speaker
It's a fun little game.
00:52:03
Speaker
It feels good to play.
00:52:06
Speaker
It's got good UI, very clicky, clicky-clacky, in that same way that Ballotro was.
00:52:15
Speaker
There's a good tactile sense to the sound design.
00:52:18
Speaker
um, when you're playing it.
00:52:20
Speaker
So it's, uh, and it uses, it kind of uses Scrabble scoring, I think on the letters themselves.
00:52:28
Speaker
Um, so yeah, uh, wordplay.
00:52:34
Speaker
I put in like 90 minutes.
00:52:35
Speaker
It was like one of those games where I put in like an hour and a half and I was like, oh, I didn't even realize that.
00:52:43
Speaker
That looks like a nice, simple fun.
00:52:46
Speaker
Well, maybe that's simple.
00:52:50
Speaker
Kaizen, a factory story, which is a new game by the Zachtronics people, but they're not called Zachtronics anymore.
00:53:00
Speaker
The new company is called Coincidence.
00:53:04
Speaker
So if you haven't played any Zaktronics games, they are basically, they're kind of like puzzle games.
00:53:12
Speaker
They often have a lot to do with automation, like figuring out how to automate a process.
00:53:18
Speaker
And Kaizen, a factory story is set in the mid-day.
00:53:22
Speaker
mid late 80s in Japan, where you play an American who goes over to Japan to work in a sale as a salesman for a factory for a company that that manufactures things.
00:53:34
Speaker
But instead of starting with sales right away, you're spending the first couple of years
00:53:40
Speaker
learning how they produce their stuff.
00:53:42
Speaker
So it's like designing the little the ways to to to produce the little Gidgets like a video camcorder VCR or Gundam or what have you.
00:54:00
Speaker
The last it's it's very reminiscent to was it 21st century food court.
00:54:09
Speaker
That was in our 20th century food court.
00:54:12
Speaker
So the previous game was called last call BBS, which had like five games in it.
00:54:19
Speaker
And the, there's a game.
00:54:20
Speaker
Oh, I remember when you were playing that.
00:54:23
Speaker
There's a game in there called 20th century food court where it's like, basically you have to create this, all these automation things to feet to like,
00:54:33
Speaker
It's like the, the, the patty has to get flipped out onto the grill and cook for the right amount of time and then go onto the thing.
00:54:40
Speaker
And the, the, the bun goes on it and all that stuff.
00:54:44
Speaker
Um, it's, it's, um, so yeah, it's a little bit simpler than 20th century food court so far.
00:54:51
Speaker
I'm sure it's going to get, uh, wacky soon enough.
00:54:55
Speaker
Um, so Kai's in a factory story.
00:54:58
Speaker
Definitely worth checking out.
00:55:07
Speaker
Also started playing He is Coming.
00:55:12
Speaker
Which is it's it's fun.
00:55:16
Speaker
It's an it really reminds me of Loop Hero.
00:55:20
Speaker
But without the loop element, it's more like, you know, you but the graphics wise, it's very similar.
00:55:27
Speaker
The idea is you have a week to kind of battle around a forest area.
00:55:36
Speaker
Yeah, you have a random account.
00:55:38
Speaker
Well, not random encounters.
00:55:39
Speaker
You can see them on the map, but you can you fight these critters.
00:55:44
Speaker
You have treasure chests to find.
00:55:46
Speaker
You have different like vendors and stuff like you.
00:55:49
Speaker
There's a shopkeeper.
00:55:50
Speaker
There's this guy called a golem who will combine to like.
00:55:54
Speaker
If you have duplicates, you can combine them and make a single item that does what the duplicates did.
00:56:02
Speaker
So you have an extra inventory slot.
00:56:04
Speaker
So you got there's a little bit of an inventory management like
00:56:07
Speaker
putting your items in particular order so they trigger the right way.
00:56:10
Speaker
It's an auto battler.
00:56:12
Speaker
So once you get into the battle, there's nothing you can do.
00:56:15
Speaker
It's like you just have to have built your character correctly.
00:56:22
Speaker
It's in early access, but I'm having a blast with that so far.
00:56:30
Speaker
Uh, it's a point and click game.
00:56:31
Speaker
It's called the drifter.
00:56:34
Speaker
Um, it's a horror mystery point and click with gorgeous pixel art.
00:56:40
Speaker
Just absolutely gorgeous.
00:56:43
Speaker
Um, it is, uh, the developer is, yeah.
00:56:50
Speaker
Um, so yeah, it's, it's, it's good.
00:56:54
Speaker
I, I, I really like it so far.
00:56:58
Speaker
I'm about an hour into it.
00:57:01
Speaker
I don't know how long the game is necessarily, but it actually has decent enough puzzles where it's not moon logic.
00:57:14
Speaker
to kind of figure them out so far um which i appreciate in a in a point and click sometimes it's just like you get into a point where you're like combining all your items in the inventory until something works um so the drifter uh is definitely something that um has it's it's got a good look good fun soundtrack it's fully voice acted um
00:57:40
Speaker
And I'm enjoying it so far.
00:57:44
Speaker
And that is what I have been playing.
00:57:46
Speaker
Oh, and I've actually been playing Stardew Valley with my daughter.
00:57:50
Speaker
What a great game to play with your kid.
00:57:53
Speaker
We're doing a co-op farm.
00:57:54
Speaker
It's, you know, it's a blast just sitting there doing a co-op farm.
00:58:05
Speaker
what are you playing oh oh well i i am also playing he is coming um i that was one of the that was one of the demos that i i picked up during next fest this year and and yeah so i was really excited when it got a full release i agree actually i think it is very it makes me think a lot of loop hero um not just in the graphics but in in kind of what it's doing it is a loop in its own way um right it's one of those things that
00:58:35
Speaker
I can't play it for a terribly long amount of time, but I always come back to it, which is which is right.
00:58:43
Speaker
Shows that they're doing something right.
00:58:47
Speaker
I love coming up with the different sets.
00:58:50
Speaker
You know, it's you know, yeah, you're it's a roguelike, so you're unlocking different abilities and things to find as you go along.
00:58:59
Speaker
And it's pretty crazy.
00:59:02
Speaker
It's very satisfying.
00:59:03
Speaker
I'm kind of obsessed with getting a speed character whenever I can, using the fencing epay and getting as many extra attacks as I possibly can.
00:59:12
Speaker
And that's super fun.
00:59:16
Speaker
So I really like that one.
00:59:21
Speaker
held up wonderfully uh compared to the demo and it's still only in early access but it's a it's a very polished early access game i'm genuinely impressed with that so yeah no it's it's it's a lot of it's a lot of fun and i know they're they're doing a lot of patching right now i don't i i assume they're gonna be able it's gonna be fully fully released
00:59:42
Speaker
by the end of the year.
00:59:47
Speaker
I am also playing.
00:59:48
Speaker
I played some Tony Hawk's three and four, the one that just came out.
00:59:56
Speaker
I played some of it.
00:59:58
Speaker
I played it on Game Pass.
01:00:00
Speaker
It is kind of perfect if you want a nice big dose of that nostalgia for those of us who are the right age to have played these games.
01:00:11
Speaker
It feels the same.
01:00:13
Speaker
The soundtrack is updated.
01:00:14
Speaker
Still pretty excellent.
01:00:18
Speaker
It's all of all the stuff it used to be.
01:00:22
Speaker
I don't know if I'm going to play any more of it, but it is true.
01:00:26
Speaker
It sounds obvious to say, but it's one of those things that if you're into this kind of game, you're going to fucking love it.
01:00:31
Speaker
It's it's yeah, it's wonderful.
01:00:33
Speaker
It's it's a really, really cool way to while away some time.
01:00:38
Speaker
I didn't play very much of it, but what I played, I was like, oh, I remember this.
01:00:42
Speaker
This is really, really good.
01:00:45
Speaker
um and then the you know the soundtrack hits and all that stuff the soundtrack is excellent uh tony hawk does you know all of his stuff in there you know he's doing the voiceover work and he's got a a great kind of sarcastic sense of humor with it it's kind of self-aware uh right i i played through the whole tutorial because i don't remember about how to play it um and you know it's got a good sense of humor about walking through it's
01:01:11
Speaker
Interesting that they have they have newer songs.
01:01:14
Speaker
They added new songs to the soundtracks.
01:01:17
Speaker
As I was looking at the listing, I was like, oh, it's got Kendrick.
01:01:23
Speaker
Uh, it's got, uh, oh, it's gonna say, is it got run the jewel?
01:01:27
Speaker
I was like run DMC.
01:01:28
Speaker
That's not who I'm looking at.
01:01:29
Speaker
Run the jewels is in there.
01:01:31
Speaker
But then, but then it's also got like Alice in chains and like punkers.
01:01:35
Speaker
It's, it's, it's a nice, uh, it's, I, I haven't run into any songs I haven't enjoyed so far, which is, which is always a good sign.
01:01:45
Speaker
But speaking of games that I played the demo of for Nexfest, The King is Watching just released.
01:01:56
Speaker
And that was probably my favorite game of all that collection of demos I played.
01:02:01
Speaker
So this is the one that I was genuinely waiting on.
01:02:04
Speaker
And it is terrific.
01:02:06
Speaker
The finished product is great.
01:02:11
Speaker
than the demo, but everything you learned from the demo, you know, is present.
01:02:16
Speaker
There's just a whole lot more to it, too, but not so much that it could overwhelm you.
01:02:25
Speaker
It's it's it's really solid.
01:02:27
Speaker
For those of you who don't know, it is a it is a city builder game.
01:02:31
Speaker
We are on a timer and your city is going to be attacked by increasingly dangerous forces on the timer.
01:02:39
Speaker
And you have to build your city and build up your army and that kind of thing.
01:02:43
Speaker
The trick to it, it's on a grid, but the trick to it is that you only have so much so many squares that you can actually.
01:02:54
Speaker
have working at any given time.
01:02:56
Speaker
So you start out with like kind of a Tetris piece, like a little L and any of the squares under that will work.
01:03:02
Speaker
Thus the name the king is watching.
01:03:04
Speaker
You have to be actually watching your farmers for them to give a shit and harvest wheat.
01:03:11
Speaker
or for your for your guard post to give a shit and train guards.
01:03:15
Speaker
So you have to arrange it just so that so that you get the right synergies.
01:03:21
Speaker
And it's challenging, but still very cool and laid back and fun.
01:03:27
Speaker
It's got a terrific sense of humor.
01:03:31
Speaker
disturbing sometimes.
01:03:33
Speaker
It has got some serious grimdark, like dark, uh, uh, uh, dark souls esque, uh, you know, uh, you know, uh, uh, what do you call it?
01:03:45
Speaker
Like it's, it's, it's, it'll be really goofy and funny and kind of chill and cartoony.
01:03:51
Speaker
And then all of a sudden a new bad guy will show up and you're like, what is this nightmare?
01:03:56
Speaker
I saw like a, a cut scene.
01:03:59
Speaker
I was like paying attention as,
01:04:00
Speaker
semi paying attention to like Northern line playing.
01:04:03
Speaker
And I saw a cut scene where it's like from the point of view of the King and you're like touching the, the, your advisors with a, like a rose and it, it like hits them and they, it kills them by like growing stalks out of their mouth.
01:04:18
Speaker
And I was like, what the fuck is this?
01:04:20
Speaker
That's your, that's your, that's one of the first things that happens in the game.
01:04:25
Speaker
And it's like, Oh Jesus Christ.
01:04:27
Speaker
Christ, what are we playing here?
01:04:31
Speaker
And then you get into the game and you're like, oh, this is funny.
01:04:33
Speaker
I'm fighting goblins.
01:04:37
Speaker
And then like, oh, there's a sun whatever.
01:04:41
Speaker
It's like some monster named after the sun.
01:04:44
Speaker
I wonder what that's all about.
01:04:45
Speaker
And it shows up this horrible giant with this ornate eldritch sun mask that it's wearing.
01:04:55
Speaker
it's like super dark souls and very over the top.
01:05:00
Speaker
And then you kill that and go, okay, all right, this is cool.
01:05:02
Speaker
All right, I'm back to it being a goofy old time, right up until the next thing comes along that freaks you the fuck out.
01:05:09
Speaker
It's a lovely balance in that sense.
01:05:12
Speaker
I really, I'm impressed with it.
01:05:15
Speaker
I think of all of my...
01:05:18
Speaker
You know, I've told you before that this is the year of my playing games where I can lean back in my chair and play the game and get some relaxation out of it.
01:05:29
Speaker
This might be my favorite one so far, which is saying something because I played some really good ones so far.
01:05:36
Speaker
This one is just clever enough.
01:05:38
Speaker
It's got a unique mechanic to it that I think is really cool.
01:05:44
Speaker
The king is watching.
01:05:45
Speaker
It's definitely worth, worth getting.
01:05:47
Speaker
I really enjoy it so far.
01:05:52
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening, everybody.
01:05:55
Speaker
You can find us on social media at all the social media outposts, blue sky.
01:05:58
Speaker
Well, not, not X the everything site, but blue sky and Instagram.
01:06:04
Speaker
uh, PixelitPod, uh, go to our, uh, Patreon and jump on our Discord from there.
01:06:11
Speaker
Um, Phil, I do have a question.
01:06:12
Speaker
The moon has been staring at me lately.
01:06:16
Speaker
What do I, so what's, what's the solution there?
01:06:20
Speaker
OK, what do they call it?
01:06:22
Speaker
Like, you know, there's like wardrobe screens you see.
01:06:26
Speaker
And in, you know, you see in cartoons or old movies or something like that.
01:06:30
Speaker
You need to set one of those up, make a big show of setting it up.
01:06:37
Speaker
put it in front of like your window so the moon starts to think that maybe you're going to hide behind it uh uh but then like make sure that you are actually right in front of it as you're changing your clothes you know uh but don't don't notice the moon all right and so right when it starts to get comfortable with the idea that you don't notice that it's there turn around and make sure that it can see your