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The Book Version of Luca Brasi (Halo: Empty Throne - Part 1)
13 Plays6 months ago
New Halo Book! And dang it's good. We will be covering this one for four parts because it is a massive tome but after part 1 we are enjoying ourselves. Hooray!
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Synopsis2559. It has been a year since the rogue artificial intelligence Cortana seized control of the Domain, an otherworldly dimension housing a vast information network. With an array of Forerunner weapons at her disposal, Cortana set out to enforce an authoritarian peace on the civilizations of the galaxy. But as the United Nations Space Command flagship Infinity prepares to strike against Cortana at Zeta Halo, another plan has also been set in motion.
An ancient access point hidden on a seemingly insignificant human colony has become the focus of a parallel effort to claim the Domain and its immeasurable capabilities. The UNSC, however, needs a key: a living, forsaken product of an old war. As a new generation of heroes rise to meet this challenge and Cortana's pursuit of control reaches a desperate and sudden crescendo, a cunning, ruthless warrior emerges from the shadows of the Banished, who has vowed to fill the new power vacuum by any means necessary...
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
My goodness, there's some there's there's a lot loaded into that name.
00:00:03
Speaker
There's a lot of pop stroke drink.
00:00:10
Speaker
Good place.
00:00:11
Speaker
I feel like that's that's going to be that's going to be something they say about me after I die.
00:00:16
Speaker
They're like, what happened to your dad?
00:00:18
Speaker
Pop stroke pop up in the attic, you know?
00:00:22
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:00:25
Speaker
What can you do?
00:00:26
Speaker
What can you do?
00:00:28
Speaker
What can you do?
00:00:28
Speaker
You know what else is pop pop in the attic?
00:00:32
Speaker
What's that?
Introduction to 'Halo Empty Throne'
00:00:33
Speaker
Hey there everybody, welcome back to Pixel It.
00:00:35
Speaker
My name is Kevin with me as always as Phil and on today's show we are starting a brand new book, Halo Empty Throne by Jeremy Patnod.
00:00:44
Speaker
Is that the pronunciation of the last name?
00:00:46
Speaker
I can't recall.
00:00:47
Speaker
I'm going to be perfectly bravely honest with you.
00:00:52
Speaker
And ladies and gents, I think we've already mentioned this, this not letting Cat out of bed.
00:00:57
Speaker
We got to interview.
00:00:59
Speaker
I've been saying Pat Node in my head, Jeremy Pat Node.
00:01:03
Speaker
We got to interview him, and I very deliberately avoided saying his last name.
00:01:07
Speaker
Sure.
00:01:09
Speaker
During the interview.
00:01:10
Speaker
Jeremy, if you listen, I'm sorry.
00:01:11
Speaker
I just, again, anxiety.
00:01:16
Speaker
We're professionals.
00:01:17
Speaker
We're very professional.
00:01:19
Speaker
We are very good at avoiding things.
00:01:21
Speaker
We're professionals at avoidance.
00:01:23
Speaker
It would have been the easiest thing in the world, way easier than what I ended up doing to just say,
00:01:29
Speaker
How do you pronounce that name?
00:01:30
Speaker
Before we even got started.
00:01:32
Speaker
What's the, how does, okay.
00:01:33
Speaker
Okay, great, great.
00:01:36
Speaker
Could have done that.
00:01:37
Speaker
Didn't do it.
00:01:38
Speaker
Didn't do it.
00:01:39
Speaker
Didn't do it.
00:01:39
Speaker
Chose not to.
00:01:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:41
Speaker
Yeah, we chose not to, but I'm excited about it though.
00:01:46
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:46
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:48
Speaker
Phil, who is Jeremy and what are we talking about here?
Jeremy Patnod's Role and the Novel's Context
00:01:54
Speaker
What's going on here?
00:01:55
Speaker
Well, Jeremy Patnot is a is a he's been he was the lead writer for the Halo franchise for like a while.
00:02:04
Speaker
And but now what's funny about that, though, is this is his first novel.
00:02:09
Speaker
He has written a ton for the world, for the Bible that that encompasses its history and goings on.
00:02:17
Speaker
He might be one of the most important writers involved in Halo and its history at this point.
00:02:25
Speaker
just because of how much of his thumbprint he left on the world.
Review Copies and Quality of Halo Books
00:02:31
Speaker
And so that's why we got Halo Empty Throne.
00:02:37
Speaker
We're going to full disclosure, we got this from Gallery Books.
00:02:42
Speaker
They sent these to us as review copies.
00:02:46
Speaker
It's never really been an issue because Halo books tend to be kind of universally
00:02:51
Speaker
High quality, especially the ones we're reading lately.
00:02:57
Speaker
So but but in to be perfectly open and honest that this is this is based on review copies we got.
00:03:04
Speaker
It just came out last month.
00:03:08
Speaker
And.
00:03:09
Speaker
On top of all of that, this is another one of the books that takes place in the Infinity or infinite universe.
00:03:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:16
Speaker
I'd like the yeah.
00:03:18
Speaker
Around the events of Halo Infinite.
00:03:20
Speaker
This will be the third or fourth book that we've read.
00:03:26
Speaker
I think fourth book that takes place around Halo Infinite.
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:31
Speaker
And this is another one
Setting of 'Halo Empty Throne' and Future Plans
00:03:32
Speaker
of them.
00:03:32
Speaker
And and this is also if you guys can see possibly the longest tale of books we've ever read.
00:03:39
Speaker
This is a beefy boy.
00:03:41
Speaker
This is look at all these pages.
00:03:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:43
Speaker
Pages in this thing.
00:03:45
Speaker
It's about 500 pages long, which puts it up there for one of the longer books we've read, period.
00:03:52
Speaker
So we have the pleasure of introducing a very special four episode book for you guys.
00:03:57
Speaker
A four episode book.
00:03:59
Speaker
It took a Halo book to make it a four episode book.
00:04:04
Speaker
But it's worth it.
00:04:07
Speaker
And then we're going to we're going to wrap this one up with an interview with with Jeremy.
00:04:11
Speaker
So next month, the next month is pretty much booked out for this book alone.
00:04:18
Speaker
That's pretty much it.
00:04:19
Speaker
So we get a lot of attention for the Halo one, so I don't see this as an issue.
00:04:23
Speaker
But if I want to apologize in advance, if if Halo is not your bag, I'm really sorry.
00:04:30
Speaker
We'll be returning to non Halo things immediately after.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yes.
00:04:35
Speaker
So I mean, the book we have after this is deeply non-Halo.
00:04:39
Speaker
It's about as big of a turnaround as you can do.
00:04:42
Speaker
Deeply non-Halo.
00:04:45
Speaker
What is the book after?
00:04:47
Speaker
I believe it's The Dig.
00:04:48
Speaker
Aren't we reading The Dig?
00:04:49
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:04:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:04:52
Speaker
Another LucasArts piece.
00:04:53
Speaker
The Dig, yes.
00:04:54
Speaker
I got to muck around with our schedule given that this is a four-parter now.
00:05:01
Speaker
But yeah, we're doing things different now.
00:05:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:05:05
Speaker
I'm looking forward to that in particular.
00:05:07
Speaker
I think that would be a lot of fun.
00:05:08
Speaker
And I'm and I will and I and I've made sure to buy the game to play that one as well, because when you get to play old school point and click adventure games for research, it really is no no no hardship.
00:05:25
Speaker
So but yeah, so Kevin, what do you say?
Patreon and Community Engagement
00:05:29
Speaker
Well, first and foremost, you want to talk about a website or anything like that?
00:05:33
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I want to talk about a website called patreon.com slash pixelitpod where you can become a follower free.
00:05:44
Speaker
You can become a free follower.
00:05:45
Speaker
Free follower.
00:05:46
Speaker
Just like that.
00:05:47
Speaker
Or you could pay us some money.
00:05:48
Speaker
There's $1, $5, $10.
00:05:51
Speaker
$1 gets you in the door.
00:05:54
Speaker
$5 gets you the bonus episode that we record before every episode.
00:05:59
Speaker
$10 gets your name shouted out in every episode.
00:06:03
Speaker
And to that end, I want to thank Jesus Loves You, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, the patron known as my dad nuts and me.
00:06:12
Speaker
I want to be very specific about that.
00:06:14
Speaker
I don't think you have any choice.
00:06:15
Speaker
You've got to.
00:06:16
Speaker
You've got to be as clear as possible.
00:06:17
Speaker
You've got to be specific.
00:06:19
Speaker
Chatbeaksdumathic, Langelier, and Friendly Friend, thank you so much for being a friend.
00:06:26
Speaker
Patreon.com slash PixelitePod.
00:06:28
Speaker
You can go there and you can hop into our Discord.
Cortana's Role and the Threat of the Banished
00:06:31
Speaker
It's fun.
00:06:31
Speaker
We've got good people in there.
00:06:34
Speaker
I love how steadily that last group of names has been growing over the past year.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's good.
00:06:44
Speaker
It's a nice feeling.
00:06:45
Speaker
We love you very much.
00:06:46
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not going to talk about the game that this is based on because I've done it before.
00:06:53
Speaker
a lot.
00:06:54
Speaker
Right.
00:06:54
Speaker
We've covered this one a lot.
00:06:55
Speaker
Whether the series Halo Infinite or whatever, I don't think we need to get into the fact that this is another Halo Infinite story.
00:07:03
Speaker
It's Halo.
00:07:05
Speaker
You know it.
00:07:06
Speaker
You love it.
00:07:07
Speaker
It's Halo specifically the last Halo game that was released.
00:07:11
Speaker
It's another book in that in that.
00:07:15
Speaker
It's more of that.
00:07:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:17
Speaker
You remember that?
00:07:18
Speaker
It's it's that it's before Rubicon Protocol, right?
00:07:25
Speaker
The infinite is not at Halo yet, right?
00:07:28
Speaker
Right.
00:07:28
Speaker
I think this is before all of them.
00:07:31
Speaker
Before all of them.
00:07:32
Speaker
I'd have to check, but I think this one might be for all of them.
00:07:35
Speaker
Got it.
00:07:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:37
Speaker
So we'll get more context.
00:07:39
Speaker
Right.
00:07:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:41
Speaker
This is this is the modern age of Halo where Cortana's a baddie and all that.
00:07:46
Speaker
Yes, Cortana.
00:07:47
Speaker
Yes.
00:07:49
Speaker
To catch people up, Cortana villain now.
00:07:53
Speaker
Covenant gone in their place called the group called the Banished, which is just like the covenant.
00:08:00
Speaker
But like, I don't know, they kind of suck a little bit more.
00:08:04
Speaker
They're not as organized, not as big, but they like it.
00:08:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:09
Speaker
I like, I like, I like, and we're going to get into it, but I think one of the cooler things about this part of the world, this part in the world of Halo is that it's such a great thing because it's like when a war, when a war happens and the side, one side gets defeated, they don't just blink out of existence.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, you got all splinter factions.
00:08:32
Speaker
Right.
00:08:33
Speaker
The banished is basically that, you know, right there.
00:08:35
Speaker
You got all kinds of little internecine like civil wars and shit like that.
00:08:40
Speaker
And that's right.
00:08:40
Speaker
And that's what we're dealing with this with this stuff.
00:08:42
Speaker
And that's pretty cool, especially with how huge the covenant was and how all powerful they seem to be.
00:08:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:50
Speaker
I think that we're going to put this body in the marsh.
00:08:54
Speaker
Let's do it.
00:08:55
Speaker
Let's marsh the body.
00:08:56
Speaker
When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them in the marsh.
New AI and Master Chief's Dynamics
00:09:06
Speaker
Chapter one, we start with Master Chief crash landing on Halo, basically, and using Cortana to get his bearings.
00:09:15
Speaker
Basically, we are getting a little preamble that is events from the first game slash second book, actually.
00:09:26
Speaker
Then we cut to seven years later, Octavio Morales is watching this footage.
00:09:32
Speaker
We get some exposition on the stuff.
00:09:34
Speaker
Me and Kevin just talked about Cortana and the new Cortana that's working with Master Chief.
00:09:41
Speaker
We learn Master Chief has a new
00:09:43
Speaker
version of Cortana, basically.
00:09:45
Speaker
The idea is that, you know, the A.I.
00:09:48
Speaker
that they work with has like it has a seven year shelf life, essentially.
00:09:52
Speaker
And after seven years, they have a chance of completely losing it.
00:09:57
Speaker
And and they're not meant to last that long.
00:10:00
Speaker
And Cortana did.
00:10:04
Speaker
And then, yeah, a bunch of other shit happened.
00:10:07
Speaker
A bunch of bad shit happened because there is like so they specify in the Halo universe.
00:10:12
Speaker
There's two types of AI, right?
00:10:14
Speaker
There's the ones that Cortana is, which is more of like it's almost like a like a ghost in the machine type of AI where it's like the AI is basically a person.
Types of AI in Halo: Advanced vs. Reliable
00:10:29
Speaker
Right.
00:10:30
Speaker
Right.
00:10:32
Speaker
And then there's another type of AI, which is closer in flavor to your chat GPT.
00:10:40
Speaker
Right.
00:10:40
Speaker
But more accurate.
00:10:42
Speaker
It's like, but more accurate.
00:10:43
Speaker
And you would trust it with your life.
00:10:46
Speaker
Right.
00:10:47
Speaker
Whereas chat GPT just kind of sucks a little bit.
00:10:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:53
Speaker
It's like...
00:10:54
Speaker
It's like the Google like AI results, but you would never actually take the Google AI results.
00:11:02
Speaker
Right.
00:11:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:03
Speaker
And it's it's it's basically the the original AI, the Cortana AI.
00:11:09
Speaker
It's just too advanced for it to exist for too long without having an existential meltdown, essentially.
00:11:15
Speaker
And so the secondary AI, they they.
00:11:19
Speaker
This is like the same AI, but it has like a small lobotomy.
00:11:23
Speaker
Let's just look at it that way.
00:11:24
Speaker
They're just a little more mild, let's say.
00:11:28
Speaker
Right.
00:11:29
Speaker
So Octavia Morales is overlooking something called the accession, which is basically it's ancient forerunner tech.
00:11:40
Speaker
Right.
00:11:42
Speaker
We find that they're going to be extracting something from the surface.
00:11:48
Speaker
Captain Richards lets us know it's going to be Jeremiah Cole's brash daughter who is going to lead the charge down there to pick up the asset.
00:11:59
Speaker
Abigail Cole.
00:12:01
Speaker
They very much.
00:12:03
Speaker
It's very much a she's a live wire.
00:12:05
Speaker
She's she's she's hot to try.
00:12:08
Speaker
Right, right.
00:12:09
Speaker
She plays by her own game.
00:12:10
Speaker
You know, it's a very 80s cop lethal weapon kind of shit.
00:12:16
Speaker
And yeah, she is.
00:12:17
Speaker
So and yeah, she's the daughter of Jeremiah Cole.
00:12:20
Speaker
And people will know Jeremiah Cole as the guy who created the
00:12:24
Speaker
Cole Protocol, which was just called it the protocol.
00:12:29
Speaker
I can't believe they missed the protocol.
00:12:31
Speaker
They missed the protocol.
00:12:32
Speaker
I can't believe they missed the Cole Protocol, which was like a basically the long short of it was you never jump directly to Earth.
00:12:42
Speaker
Like, yes, yes, that's it's just a mistake because because it just there's too many opportunities for the enemy to fall.
00:12:50
Speaker
You can never jump directly, leave where you are and go straight to Earth.
00:12:53
Speaker
You got to figure out your shit.
00:12:55
Speaker
Go someplace else first.
00:12:57
Speaker
Right.
00:12:57
Speaker
Exactly.
00:12:59
Speaker
So the the plan is they're going there is a subroutine on the surface, basically an AI of some kind that has a subroutine that can take over the didact domain, which you might remember from the last book we read, the domain, which is like.
00:13:18
Speaker
Covenant slash robot heaven.
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a heaven type thing.
00:13:24
Speaker
Type thing.
00:13:25
Speaker
And this subroutine will be able to remove Cortana's presence from that, which would basically, you know, kneecap her.
00:13:34
Speaker
Right.
00:13:35
Speaker
For all intents and purposes.
00:13:36
Speaker
So that's that's what they're they're going to do.
00:13:38
Speaker
Chapter two, we meet Lord Terrence Hood.
00:13:41
Speaker
He wakes up and starts working out immediately.
00:13:45
Speaker
We get to know him.
00:13:46
Speaker
He is he is one of three people who are in hiding on an uncharted world.
00:13:52
Speaker
It's him and and a Spartan.
00:13:57
Speaker
And let's see, Admiral Osmond.
00:14:00
Speaker
They are all there.
00:14:01
Speaker
They were all basically.
00:14:04
Speaker
evacuated when a Guardian came out to Sydney.
00:14:10
Speaker
And it's pretty horrifying.
00:14:11
Speaker
It's Sydney, Australia.
00:14:13
Speaker
The Guardian came out there and a ship, a great big battleship, went in to intercept them.
00:14:23
Speaker
The Guardian used an EMT that just...
00:14:27
Speaker
Shut it down.
00:14:28
Speaker
Shut it down.
00:14:29
Speaker
It crashes into Sydney.
00:14:31
Speaker
Yep.
00:14:31
Speaker
And it's it's nuclear reactor explodes and destroys Sydney.
00:14:36
Speaker
Destroys the city.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:38
Speaker
It just completely obliterates it.
00:14:40
Speaker
And you can almost imagine the Guardian going, I didn't do that.
00:14:43
Speaker
That wasn't you guys here.
00:14:45
Speaker
You're the ones playing with fucking fusion cores.
00:14:48
Speaker
Like, come on.
00:14:49
Speaker
That wasn't my if you had a nice gasoline powered spaceship, I'm guessing it wouldn't be very effective.
00:14:57
Speaker
But still, so these works use in 40 K to power their spaceships.
00:15:04
Speaker
I don't know.
00:15:05
Speaker
Hope and belief.
00:15:07
Speaker
It's faith.
00:15:08
Speaker
That's the gasoline that goes in the ships is faith is what it is.
00:15:16
Speaker
Just like putting putting like a gas hose into the ship and it's just pumping, but it's not pumping into anywhere, really.
00:15:24
Speaker
Right.
00:15:24
Speaker
It's just coming out and like leaking out the bottom of the ship.
00:15:27
Speaker
Like all all fueled up.
00:15:29
Speaker
Come now.
00:15:31
Speaker
I think it's Prometheum.
00:15:33
Speaker
I think that's it.
00:15:34
Speaker
You need something combustible in the 40K universe.
00:15:37
Speaker
It's always Prometheum.
00:15:39
Speaker
Prometheum.
00:15:40
Speaker
Prometheum.
00:15:42
Speaker
It's got, we got more Prometheum.
00:15:45
Speaker
The red Prometheum makes it go faster.
00:15:52
Speaker
So anyway, anyway, so they are.
00:15:56
Speaker
Sidney's dead.
00:15:57
Speaker
Sidney's gone.
00:15:59
Speaker
These people do not know about that, though.
00:16:01
Speaker
They they have.
00:16:02
Speaker
They were evacuated before all this shit went down and they are very important people and they are in hiding on this planet.
00:16:08
Speaker
And they're kind of they're basically going stir crazy.
00:16:11
Speaker
They're just like just driving each other nuts.
00:16:13
Speaker
Where's that reality show?
00:16:15
Speaker
I want to watch that one.
00:16:16
Speaker
Yeah, that would be a fun actually side book like just the lowest stakes ever.
00:16:23
Speaker
These three, they're three wacky military retirees on a planet together.
00:16:31
Speaker
So they've been there for about a year.
00:16:33
Speaker
And then out of nowhere, a guardian shows up just coming in over the horizon.
00:16:41
Speaker
And then so Hood, Osmond and the Spartan or Zell get ready for some shit because it's like, you know, it's like it's just the three of us.
00:16:50
Speaker
It's basically using a nuclear bomb to kill three ants, not even an anthill.
00:16:57
Speaker
It's the old nuclear bomb versus coffee, coughing baby.
00:17:01
Speaker
Right.
00:17:03
Speaker
classic classic it's that's exactly what it is and uh so the guardian doesn't do anything at first and then as if in response as if these two things are connected a razorback full of spartans arrive uh we've got uh i think it's high double oh six
00:17:23
Speaker
Adriana, 111 and Michael, 120.
00:17:26
Speaker
And these are old friends of Orzel.
00:17:28
Speaker
And they're there.
00:17:29
Speaker
It's very much a my name is Luke Skywalker.
00:17:32
Speaker
I'm here to I'm here to rescue you.
00:17:33
Speaker
I'm here to rescue you.
00:17:35
Speaker
And what's funny is the admiral is a former Spartan.
00:17:39
Speaker
Yes.
00:17:40
Speaker
Yes, that's right.
00:17:41
Speaker
That is a good point.
00:17:44
Speaker
Which is really cool.
00:17:46
Speaker
And we get into this a little bit more because the Spartans were very specifically built for the war against the covenant.
00:17:53
Speaker
And now their usages are so varied.
00:17:57
Speaker
Well, they were built for the war against the rebels.
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:00
Speaker
Right.
00:18:01
Speaker
Well, yes, you're right.
00:18:01
Speaker
You're absolutely right.
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:03
Speaker
But their war, their original intent is over now.
00:18:07
Speaker
So the it's fun to watch them kind of evolve.
00:18:12
Speaker
It's a very interesting.
00:18:13
Speaker
And just having like having this Spartan character who's like, I'm not like I am a literal admiral of the Navy.
00:18:21
Speaker
Right.
00:18:21
Speaker
Right.
00:18:22
Speaker
I'm not a Spartan like that.
00:18:24
Speaker
I'm not a grunt anymore.
00:18:25
Speaker
You know, right.
00:18:26
Speaker
Right.
00:18:26
Speaker
I love that shit.
00:18:28
Speaker
We cut to chapter three.
00:18:30
Speaker
This is two years previous.
00:18:31
Speaker
Abigail Cole is guiding the Oximandius ship through a battle with the banished.
00:18:39
Speaker
She the ship gets hit.
00:18:42
Speaker
She hits her head, blacks out and wakes up being saved by a Spartan.
00:18:47
Speaker
And in that moment, remembers lines from the Percy Shelley poem, Oxymandias.
00:18:53
Speaker
which has got to be the most overused poem in maybe science fiction history, maybe fiction in general.
00:19:01
Speaker
I mean, yeah, you got it's a real power couple, though.
00:19:04
Speaker
You got Frankenstein and that poem, you know?
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:08
Speaker
It's it's.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:09
Speaker
So that we cut back to the present.
00:19:13
Speaker
Cole is on the drop ship with the three Spartans.
00:19:16
Speaker
Their mission is to secure the asset.
00:19:19
Speaker
Collecting the three individuals on the planet is secondary.
00:19:25
Speaker
They say, look, like we would we it should be a simple enough thing to collect them and rescue them.
00:19:32
Speaker
But that is not why you are here.
00:19:34
Speaker
So your job is to get this asset and and.
00:19:38
Speaker
But not at the expense.
00:19:40
Speaker
You know, you save these people.
00:19:41
Speaker
Great.
00:19:41
Speaker
But not at the expense of the asset.
00:19:42
Speaker
And it's actually it's actually interesting.
00:19:44
Speaker
We see the same.
00:19:46
Speaker
We see this happen a few times where we have a scene play out multiple times from different points of view.
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:55
Speaker
So the first we have the Admiral.
00:19:57
Speaker
What's her?
00:19:57
Speaker
What's her name?
00:19:58
Speaker
Osmond.
00:20:03
Speaker
And then it's like, and then up to where she, the Spartans arrive, right?
00:20:10
Speaker
And then it's like, we rewind back to the Spartans getting their briefing to go.
00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:16
Speaker
It's, it's, it's pretty good.
00:20:18
Speaker
It's, it's, it's, and it's frustrating because I know Jeremy has been writing for this universe for a very long time.
00:20:24
Speaker
The dude has, and it's frustrating that this is his first book.
00:20:28
Speaker
It's frustrating that this is his first book because this is just, it's just damn well written and it's frustrating.
00:20:35
Speaker
This, this is great, Jeremy.
00:20:37
Speaker
So no notes.
00:20:40
Speaker
So we, yeah, we come back to the present.
00:20:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:44
Speaker
The Guardian shows up, which is forcing them to kind of, well, hurry.
00:20:49
Speaker
So the Spartans make it clear they need the AI.
00:20:51
Speaker
It's called Black Box.
00:20:52
Speaker
That's the name of the AI that has the subroutine.
00:20:56
Speaker
They need it or shit's going to get violent.
00:21:00
Speaker
And Osmond, when they when they are collecting them, Osmond is really super protective.
00:21:05
Speaker
of this AI.
00:21:08
Speaker
And it's makes a lot of sense when you know that Osman is a former Spartan because their relationships with their eyes, you know, you think of Cortana and Master Chief.
00:21:19
Speaker
It is a personal thing.
00:21:22
Speaker
So Osman has got this kind of a literal box that has the AI in it and is very not suspicious, just not thrilled at
00:21:35
Speaker
no husband knows why they're there, you know?
00:21:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:39
Speaker
So, uh, they collect the asset and the, what, sorry.
00:21:43
Speaker
Oh, I'm just going to, I was just like, I didn't say she's, it's, it's just funny how like, she's like, what?
00:21:48
Speaker
No, you can't have it.
00:21:49
Speaker
I can carry it.
00:21:50
Speaker
It's fine.
00:21:51
Speaker
Right.
00:21:51
Speaker
And, right.
00:21:51
Speaker
And it's like the response by one of the Spartans, this is a Spartan she came up with, by the way, these are Spartan twos.
00:21:59
Speaker
These aren't the Spartan fours.
00:22:01
Speaker
Um,
00:22:02
Speaker
These are they were kidnapped along with her as babies.
00:22:06
Speaker
Right.
00:22:07
Speaker
All that good stuff.
00:22:08
Speaker
They are bonded through that kind of stuff.
00:22:10
Speaker
And the response of one of the fellow Spartans when she hesitates giving him the thing is like you like his the description is like his gun shifts upwards imperceptibly.
00:22:25
Speaker
Right.
00:22:25
Speaker
Right.
00:22:26
Speaker
That's that's how.
00:22:29
Speaker
You know, that's that's what these people are.
00:22:31
Speaker
That's what the Spartans are.
00:22:32
Speaker
It is the mission.
00:22:33
Speaker
God damn it.
00:22:34
Speaker
You know, it's it's really fascinating stuff.
00:22:38
Speaker
It's it's kind of sad.
00:22:41
Speaker
This is the life they have.
00:22:44
Speaker
So let's see.
00:22:46
Speaker
OK, yeah, they collect the asset.
00:22:48
Speaker
They collect the trio of of of prisoners.
00:22:52
Speaker
I don't know.
00:22:53
Speaker
They're refugees, rescue rescue ease, I guess.
00:22:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:58
Speaker
So they start running from a bunch of armagers in the Razorback, trying to get back to the drop ship.
00:23:05
Speaker
And they're not really sure why the Guardian that is there, that is absolutely there, has not toasted them completely.
00:23:12
Speaker
Right.
00:23:13
Speaker
We get they reenact the scene of the bus jumping the broken bridge and speed.
00:23:20
Speaker
Sure.
00:23:21
Speaker
To get back into the contour.
00:23:23
Speaker
It's pretty great.
00:23:24
Speaker
The Razorback just.
00:23:26
Speaker
flies into and it doesn't have a lot of room and it just because they're Spartans it is perfectly every time I see that scene in speed I'm like I don't think that bus would have made that jump no I got a crazy feeling that this is not that maybe speed isn't above water when it comes to physics what yeah I know I know a bus that couldn't slow down yeah
00:23:53
Speaker
I need to know.
00:23:54
Speaker
All right.
00:23:54
Speaker
Look, I realize now that that speed is a much older movie than maybe me and Kevin see it as.
00:24:01
Speaker
So for any of you who have not who have not seen speed or not, what we know, what we're talking about is Keanu Reeves and basically the discovery of Sandra Bullock.
00:24:10
Speaker
And Dennis Hopper is a crazy terrorist who has put a bomb on a bus.
00:24:14
Speaker
And if the bus drops below 55 miles per hour for like
00:24:18
Speaker
five seconds or more, the bomb goes off.
00:24:21
Speaker
And Keanu Reeves is this cop and he's got to guide them through it.
00:24:24
Speaker
And it's about the most 90s thing you've ever heard.
00:24:27
Speaker
It's so 90s.
00:24:29
Speaker
Yeah, super 90s.
00:24:30
Speaker
It's the most like, what?
00:24:33
Speaker
Like, where the fuck
00:24:34
Speaker
did you come up with this plan where did where did this where did this come from this is insane yeah yeah so it's it's a whole thing uh and and it has a famous scene where this the bridge is out but they can't stop because it'll blow up they can't stop because otherwise they would blow up the bus can't slow down and my line uh to fully uh put this in the dirt uh body in the marsh so to speak is the
00:25:00
Speaker
that's from the Simpsons is where Homer is trying to remember the name of the movie.
00:25:06
Speaker
And he goes something like, uh, uh, the bus that couldn't slow down.
00:25:15
Speaker
That's pretty much it.
00:25:17
Speaker
That's pretty much it.
00:25:19
Speaker
Jesus.
00:25:19
Speaker
What was the name of that movie where the bus had to maintain a current speed?
00:25:24
Speaker
Right.
00:25:25
Speaker
The bus that couldn't slow down.
00:25:27
Speaker
The bus.
00:25:28
Speaker
There's a great Eddie Izzard joke where he's talking about speed.
00:25:33
Speaker
And he says, he says, because he speaks French.
00:25:36
Speaker
And he says, if it was proper, the French version of it would have called La Vitesse.
00:25:42
Speaker
But because it's an American movie, they just called it Speed Speed.
00:25:49
Speaker
Speed.
00:25:51
Speaker
So we got that scene, that scene, you know, that scene, we get it.
00:25:54
Speaker
But with a razorback into a condor, you know, when you think about that, just the animal kingdom terms, it's a far more interesting.
00:26:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:03
Speaker
A razorback into a condor.
00:26:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:08
Speaker
Arkansas right into the.
00:26:10
Speaker
Ooh.
00:26:12
Speaker
Right into a Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
00:26:15
Speaker
No, that was an albatross.
00:26:16
Speaker
Damn it.
00:26:17
Speaker
I'm getting my literary references.
00:26:21
Speaker
Yeah, totally.
00:26:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:24
Speaker
You did fine with yours.
00:26:27
Speaker
I fucked mine up.
00:26:28
Speaker
You did fine with yours.
00:26:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:35
Speaker
So they boom, they get in there and immediately hit the slipstream and slide right out of there.
00:26:44
Speaker
And Osmond says, what basically what the fuck is going on?
00:26:48
Speaker
What is what is happening here?
00:26:50
Speaker
Chapter four, we meet Severin, who is a banished leader.
00:26:55
Speaker
One of the elites, Jiralhanay, I think is the name of the alien.
00:27:00
Speaker
But if you only ever played the first couple of Halos like me, they're the elites.
00:27:05
Speaker
They're the ones with it.
00:27:06
Speaker
guys um right tougher than the grunts um so uh he's a leader with the banished and it's approaching uh warchief atriox to provide intel atriox is the head poobah uh of the banished um we get some exposition on who they are we learn about the civil war that happened there and and i say this usually but i'm going to say it again read the book
00:27:33
Speaker
We aren't going to go into every little detail or we would be here for a very long time.
00:27:38
Speaker
And this book is totally worth reading.
00:27:40
Speaker
So we're not going to get into all of it.
00:27:41
Speaker
But we do learn more about who the Banished are, about the Civil War that happened with them, that created them.
00:27:48
Speaker
Severin, his news is that he has found a human vessel.
00:27:54
Speaker
He brought it was one of the O&I leaders, and he brought him aboard after a game of tossers.
00:28:03
Speaker
And I'm sure that what you're wondering right now is what is tossers?
00:28:08
Speaker
What's tossers?
00:28:09
Speaker
That sounds like a fun game.
00:28:11
Speaker
Sounds like a fun game.
00:28:11
Speaker
game, right?
00:28:12
Speaker
It sounds like a fun game.
00:28:13
Speaker
So Tossers is a game where they rip limbs off of your friends slash coworkers and toss them around to each other in order to demoralize and frighten you so that you will talk.
00:28:27
Speaker
That's...
00:28:28
Speaker
That's I'm sure.
00:28:29
Speaker
Honestly, I'm sure that the that they blow off some steam in the meantime.
00:28:34
Speaker
So everybody wins, really.
00:28:35
Speaker
It's a very effective thing.
00:28:36
Speaker
So he delight.
00:28:38
Speaker
He's delighted to let you know that this game of tossers totally worked and he gave up some information and the fact that the humans intend to attack Cortana with the infinity in a couple of weeks, basically.
00:28:54
Speaker
Yes.
00:28:56
Speaker
So with that news, a trucks says that he wants something on the ring in Cortana's possession.
00:29:04
Speaker
Cortana has hold up on one of the old rings, one of the old halos there.
00:29:07
Speaker
Zeta halo to be Zeta halo.
00:29:11
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:29:12
Speaker
And and there's something there that a truck thinks would be useful to defeat Cortana and therefore the humans possibly a weapon.
00:29:24
Speaker
It's implied that it's a weapon to help neutralize the guardians, which are basically the God killers.
00:29:29
Speaker
They are they are the big, big guns.
00:29:33
Speaker
Severin suggests using some sort of mystery item called the a tricola to take the humans and Cortana out at the same time.
00:29:45
Speaker
We don't get into what a tricola is.
00:29:48
Speaker
Not really.
00:29:48
Speaker
And I think Severin, I think they say even Severin isn't sure what it is, but he has heard rumors.
00:29:53
Speaker
It's kind of playing his hand.
00:29:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:57
Speaker
This section, I was like, there's a lot of vague stuff happening in this part of the book.
00:30:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:07
Speaker
There's a whole lot of dramatic irony where we don't, well, no, sorry, opposite, basically.
00:30:13
Speaker
We don't really know what the specifics are.
00:30:16
Speaker
And Severn doesn't seem to either.
00:30:17
Speaker
Again, Severn seems to have heard some rumors about this thing, and it's just trying something out.
00:30:23
Speaker
And whatever it is, it works.
00:30:26
Speaker
Aatrox is impressed and tells Severn that he isn't going to be coming with them to go out to this ring to find this thing, but it's going to stay behind to command the remaining forces and stop any human incursions.
00:30:42
Speaker
And this is a big deal because Severn is not well liked within the Banished.
00:30:49
Speaker
Yeah, they were like...
00:30:50
Speaker
So when Aatrox was like talking about that, he was like, well, you're not coming with us.
00:30:54
Speaker
And one of the guys who hates Severn was like, ah.
00:30:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:59
Speaker
And he goes, yeah, because we have a greater honor in store for you.
00:31:02
Speaker
You're going to protect.
00:31:04
Speaker
You're going to control the rest of the military.
00:31:07
Speaker
Right, right.
00:31:07
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:31:09
Speaker
It's.
00:31:10
Speaker
Yeah, they don't like him.
00:31:12
Speaker
They don't like his dad.
00:31:13
Speaker
His dad was one of the covenant, one of the big leaders for the covenant and was kind of a religious fanatic.
00:31:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:19
Speaker
There's a lot.
00:31:20
Speaker
There's a lot there.
00:31:21
Speaker
There's a lot.
00:31:22
Speaker
There's a lot of baggage.
00:31:23
Speaker
There's a lot there.
00:31:24
Speaker
Severin's got a lot of baggage, a lot of daddy issues, let's say.
00:31:30
Speaker
We cut to chapter five.
00:31:31
Speaker
This is my favorite chapter of the one we read.
00:31:33
Speaker
This is fun.
00:31:34
Speaker
Spartan James Solomon on the planet Terseria, I want to say, Tersera.
00:31:41
Speaker
James Solomon is tracking slaver ships.
00:31:45
Speaker
Basically, what happened is after the covenant was defeated, corporations came in, they swept in and filled the vacuum that was left after Earth's defense of the area.
00:31:58
Speaker
And right.
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:00
Speaker
And just and and.
00:32:03
Speaker
started enslaving people like i just i just love the fact that it was like it's like there's a power vacuum and then suddenly it's like um you know how um i'm trying to think there's a homestar runner um uh teen girl squad animation it wasn't the wave of babies it was something else like where it would keep creeping in on the side of the frame oh oh um
00:32:27
Speaker
I can't remember what it is, but it's like, I just, I just remember.
00:32:32
Speaker
I just think capitalism.
00:32:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly what it is.
00:32:36
Speaker
That's exactly what it is.
00:32:38
Speaker
It's like, you just a wave of capitalism sliding into the picture.
00:32:43
Speaker
And that's what it is.
00:32:44
Speaker
And it's basically Johnson and Johnson came in and said, we own you now.
00:32:49
Speaker
That's, that's really what it is.
00:32:53
Speaker
He's working.
00:32:53
Speaker
He's he's a private Merc.
00:32:56
Speaker
We find out that he's working for pay now, which is crazy because he while he's considering his plan, because basically what he's going to do is he and his A.I.
00:33:05
Speaker
are going to stealthily leapfrog.
00:33:07
Speaker
There are like six or seven ships and he's going to leapfrog from one ship to another, planting explosives as they go and just set them all off and, you know, watch the watch the fun.
00:33:19
Speaker
Watch the fireworks.
00:33:22
Speaker
And and he gets noticed, of course, because this isn't going to go smoothly.
00:33:26
Speaker
He has to fight.
00:33:28
Speaker
And she was kind of anticipating anyway.
00:33:29
Speaker
And this is this is where he kind of he has this moment where he says, well, I can die as long as the mission goes over well.
00:33:38
Speaker
And then he goes, oh, wait, no, that's totally not who I am anymore.
00:33:42
Speaker
I'm doing this for money.
00:33:43
Speaker
I don't want to die doing this, which is crazy.
00:33:48
Speaker
crazy about face from what we've seen with the Spartans.
00:33:53
Speaker
It's very interesting.
00:33:54
Speaker
It's super interesting.
00:33:57
Speaker
I find this character to be pretty fascinating, really.
00:34:00
Speaker
He's fun.
00:34:01
Speaker
He's a fun character.
00:34:02
Speaker
I really, yeah.
00:34:04
Speaker
To circle back around, it is Teen Girl Squad number three.
00:34:09
Speaker
It's it's the what's her face or the ugly one.
00:34:16
Speaker
I can't remember.
00:34:16
Speaker
And it's possums.
00:34:21
Speaker
Oh, shit.
00:34:22
Speaker
Okay, I do remember that.
00:34:25
Speaker
Possums.
00:34:26
Speaker
I love home stars so much.
00:34:29
Speaker
That's capitalism.
00:34:31
Speaker
That's exactly what it is.
00:34:33
Speaker
That's what is.
00:34:33
Speaker
Yeah, you got a vacuum.
00:34:36
Speaker
If you got a vacuum, capitalism is going to fill it.
00:34:40
Speaker
That's what they're very good at.
00:34:42
Speaker
Or possums.
00:34:42
Speaker
That's also a thing.
00:34:45
Speaker
I'd rather have possums.
00:34:46
Speaker
I'd rather have possums.
00:34:48
Speaker
They're pretty cool.
00:34:49
Speaker
We got a big fight.
00:34:50
Speaker
You know they can't get rabies.
00:34:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:34:53
Speaker
They've got all their body temperature is too low.
00:34:57
Speaker
To get rabies.
00:34:58
Speaker
So don't worry.
00:34:59
Speaker
It's just so pet every possum you see, guys.
00:35:01
Speaker
There's no consequence to it.
00:35:03
Speaker
There's no consequence to chasing after a possum.
00:35:07
Speaker
They are really cute when they're until they're not.
00:35:09
Speaker
That's the thing.
00:35:10
Speaker
I've never seen an animal that was able to go from adorable to a hideous demon from hell.
00:35:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:16
Speaker
Uh, yeah.
00:35:17
Speaker
Like just like that.
00:35:18
Speaker
It's crazy.
00:35:20
Speaker
Um, I love them.
00:35:21
Speaker
So we get a big, uh, uh, fight scene.
00:35:23
Speaker
We get the classic, uh, one of the slavers shoots a rocket at him and he's on, he's on his little space.
00:35:29
Speaker
He's got, it's like a, some sort of speeder or something.
00:35:32
Speaker
And, and, uh, and he does the thing where he's running from the missile and he pulls a big loop and comes around and then guides the missile right back to the people who shot it at him and blows them all up.
00:35:42
Speaker
Um,
00:35:43
Speaker
Yeah, blows them all.
00:35:44
Speaker
He muses on the armor, which has a fail safe that would destroy him and everybody in the vicinity if someone would try to remove it.
00:35:57
Speaker
Right.
00:35:58
Speaker
It's just this kind of thing.
00:35:59
Speaker
It kind of feels like the Mickey Mouse meme was like, this is something we'll use later.
00:36:03
Speaker
This is this is information for later.
00:36:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:09
Speaker
So it detonates the explosives.
00:36:11
Speaker
Slavers go boom.
00:36:12
Speaker
It's a it's a really fun chapter.
00:36:14
Speaker
It's it's just a very tight action scene.
00:36:18
Speaker
It's very, very good stuff.
00:36:20
Speaker
So, yeah, I'm looking forward to more James Solomon.
00:36:23
Speaker
Chapter six, Tool Jaron is sneaking aboard a ship that's filled with forerunner war sphinxes.
00:36:32
Speaker
It's it's held by a bunch of covenant fanatics, like former covenant people who are still.
00:36:39
Speaker
considering themselves covenant and they're just, you know, the covenant was a bunch.
00:36:44
Speaker
It was like a big religious movement.
00:36:46
Speaker
Covenant started out as like a shitty megachurch, like, you know, and now all that's left of the snake handlers and Pentecostals.
00:36:55
Speaker
So when you're on is getting onto the ship, it's basically like just imagine Joel Osteen's floating megachurch out in space.
00:37:05
Speaker
He has taken all the gold with him.
00:37:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly.
00:37:08
Speaker
Well, yes, yes.
00:37:12
Speaker
So that's yeah, that's what we're dealing with.
00:37:13
Speaker
All that's left is this is kind of sad fanatics.
00:37:17
Speaker
And she's got a team there.
00:37:18
Speaker
They are there to steal the vessel so that they can have the the weapons aboard.
00:37:26
Speaker
She's she's got she's armed with an energy blade.
00:37:33
Speaker
And it's described as like kind of like I might not actually have to use it, which means you're totally going to use it.
00:37:39
Speaker
Sure.
00:37:40
Speaker
Same kind of thing.
00:37:41
Speaker
And so they've got their team and they've got the one young, dumb and full of cum member of the team, a member of the team who sets off an alarm.
00:37:49
Speaker
Fucking idiot.
00:37:50
Speaker
And so we get it.
00:37:51
Speaker
It's kind of the same thing as the last seed.
00:37:53
Speaker
It's like it's supposed to go smoothly.
00:37:55
Speaker
And then, of course, they've got it's not going to go smoothly.
00:37:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:59
Speaker
He's too full of cum.
00:38:01
Speaker
He's too full of cum.
00:38:02
Speaker
He's going to get to use it because this motherfucker's dying.
00:38:04
Speaker
He's dead.
00:38:05
Speaker
He's dead.
00:38:06
Speaker
Too much cum.
00:38:07
Speaker
It warps the brain.
00:38:09
Speaker
I think we all know that.
00:38:10
Speaker
We all know that.
00:38:11
Speaker
We all know that.
00:38:11
Speaker
So he gets that guy gets fatally wounded and they start looking for because as long as they're on there, they want to find this commander.
00:38:21
Speaker
It's not part of their mission necessarily, but there is a commander called Cafodine, I want to say, who's on the ship that betrayed their people during the Covenant War.
00:38:30
Speaker
And they're like, well, as long as we're here,
00:38:33
Speaker
We're going to try to get this guy.
00:38:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:35
Speaker
Shit's gone pear shaped.
00:38:36
Speaker
So let's just go ahead and try to take this guy out while we're here.
00:38:40
Speaker
Unfortunately, the leadership and the crew have escaped.
00:38:43
Speaker
They're heading towards this moon.
00:38:46
Speaker
And well, just the I'll say just the leadership escaped.
00:38:50
Speaker
Right.
00:38:50
Speaker
Right.
00:38:51
Speaker
Left.
00:38:51
Speaker
They they said they they they set the the the ship to self-destruct, but turned off the alarms and then went and got into the pods.
00:39:02
Speaker
It's so shitty.
00:39:04
Speaker
It's so shitty.
00:39:06
Speaker
They are just the classic piece of shit leaders.
00:39:09
Speaker
It's so funny.
00:39:12
Speaker
Real Joel Osteen movement.
00:39:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:14
Speaker
I mean, we got we got.
00:39:15
Speaker
And I think that's the message.
00:39:17
Speaker
We got Joel Osteen's on either side of the aisle.
00:39:20
Speaker
And that's always going to be the case.
00:39:23
Speaker
That's always going to be the case.
00:39:24
Speaker
Always going to be the case.
00:39:26
Speaker
So they.
00:39:27
Speaker
So so this team of stealth assassins all climb into war sphinxes and go after these motherfuckers.
00:39:34
Speaker
Like it's it's it's great.
00:39:38
Speaker
But you're essentially like giant battle suits for all intents and purposes.
00:39:43
Speaker
So they are chasing them.
00:39:45
Speaker
And while they're chasing them, the guy they're trying to kill, Dean, he he like appears and tries to negotiate with them.
00:39:52
Speaker
Basically tell them it's like, you know, what can we do to make you not follow us?
00:39:57
Speaker
Offers them money.
00:39:58
Speaker
He's like, right.
00:39:59
Speaker
How much money does this do I need to pay you to go away?
00:40:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:03
Speaker
And they're like, yeah, fuck you.
00:40:05
Speaker
And just totally ignore him.
00:40:08
Speaker
And so the rest of his fleet ends up chasing them and attacking them.
00:40:14
Speaker
Juran manages to destroy the leader ships before they reach the moon, but not before her own vehicle is totally compromised.
00:40:23
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:40:24
Speaker
She in the final moments of the chapter wonders how she's going to die.
00:40:28
Speaker
Like, am I going to die when this thing explodes?
00:40:30
Speaker
Am I going to float out into space?
00:40:32
Speaker
How is this going to work?
00:40:33
Speaker
But ultimately has no regrets.
00:40:35
Speaker
She's just happy she got to take this Dean guy down with her.
00:40:40
Speaker
Another really good action scene.
00:40:43
Speaker
It's good stuff.
00:40:44
Speaker
Both of these chapters can be read by themselves.
00:40:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:49
Speaker
They were like little vignettes.
00:40:51
Speaker
They're like, here's a former Spartan turned bounty hunter.
00:40:57
Speaker
What?
00:40:58
Speaker
Cool.
00:40:58
Speaker
All right.
00:40:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:59
Speaker
Give me that.
00:41:00
Speaker
I want to read that.
00:41:02
Speaker
They're there and they're very self-contained.
00:41:03
Speaker
They're great.
00:41:04
Speaker
And I'm I know we're going to meet these characters more as we go.
00:41:07
Speaker
And I'm excited about it.
00:41:09
Speaker
But that's a great way to meet some characters.
00:41:13
Speaker
You get them.
00:41:14
Speaker
You get them saving the cat.
00:41:15
Speaker
That's what you get them doing.
00:41:16
Speaker
That's exactly it.
00:41:17
Speaker
That's exactly it.
00:41:18
Speaker
Save the cat.
00:41:19
Speaker
Not that I ascribe wholly to save the cat as the writing methodology.
00:41:25
Speaker
I'm just saying, you know, you put it works.
00:41:28
Speaker
It works.
00:41:28
Speaker
You put them in the thing.
00:41:29
Speaker
You'd like they're doing a thing like you introduce this one guy.
00:41:33
Speaker
He you have him being paid to hunt down slavers.
00:41:36
Speaker
Right.
00:41:37
Speaker
And, you know, and suddenly, OK, got it.
00:41:39
Speaker
I'm there.
00:41:40
Speaker
And I'm in.
00:41:40
Speaker
I'm in.
00:41:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's excellent.
00:41:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:41:42
Speaker
No, they did a good job.
00:41:44
Speaker
Uh, chapter seven, uh, Abigail Cole, uh, has made it back to the ship, uh, with all three of the officers that she saved and the black box.
00:41:54
Speaker
Um, we have this moment where we find out that she's been up for 36 hours.
00:41:59
Speaker
She says, all right, we're going to debrief them.
00:42:00
Speaker
Uh, I'll beat you guys here.
00:42:02
Speaker
And they're like, uh, you've been awake for a day and a half, maybe take a nap.
00:42:06
Speaker
She's like, I'm going to get a coffee.
00:42:08
Speaker
Uh, that's exactly what she does.
00:42:11
Speaker
She goes to get a coffee.
00:42:13
Speaker
Um,
00:42:14
Speaker
And then we they discuss the plan and we learn more about what Black Box capable of.
00:42:19
Speaker
Basically, there is a clone of Dr. Halsey.
00:42:22
Speaker
You guys remember Dr. Halsey?
00:42:23
Speaker
She's still here.
00:42:26
Speaker
There is a clone of her, the original inventor of the Spartans, that nut job.
00:42:32
Speaker
And they can use the black box to find a clone of her that will be able to let them into the domain and thus be able to kick out Cortana.
00:42:43
Speaker
And they can oust her and have some actual leverage.
00:42:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:47
Speaker
And they're excited about this prospect.
00:42:50
Speaker
And Osmond, who has been very upset about the idea of having to give up Black Box for this, basically explains why that Black Box is past his seven year mark.
00:43:02
Speaker
And the moment they turn him on, he will die.
00:43:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:06
Speaker
So using him or go rampant.
00:43:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:09
Speaker
Well, yeah.
00:43:09
Speaker
Or yeah, that's the best case scenario.
00:43:12
Speaker
That's basically A.I.
00:43:13
Speaker
rabies.
00:43:14
Speaker
Right.
00:43:14
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much.
00:43:16
Speaker
Pretty much.
00:43:17
Speaker
And we don't and we don't have we don't have an Atticus Finch to shoot him down.
00:43:21
Speaker
No.
00:43:22
Speaker
Or maybe we do.
00:43:23
Speaker
We have a few.
00:43:23
Speaker
We probably have a few.
00:43:25
Speaker
But yeah, so so we find out why.
00:43:29
Speaker
Well, one of the reasons that Osmond is so protective of black box, because this is it.
00:43:33
Speaker
His days are numbered.
00:43:35
Speaker
Chapter eight, we cut back to Severin, who is on Werial, which is basically the location of the Jiralhanes.
00:43:45
Speaker
Well, his clan's last big settlement.
00:43:49
Speaker
It's where...
00:43:50
Speaker
you know, the children, women and children, you know, and it's like, it's right.
00:43:54
Speaker
It's like future generations, like ensuring the future of his clan.
00:43:58
Speaker
Right.
00:43:59
Speaker
Means protecting this place.
00:44:01
Speaker
And he is about to leave behind 900 of his best soldiers to protect this settlement.
00:44:08
Speaker
Um,
00:44:10
Speaker
while he goes off to do his job and take care of all the other all the other fleets.
00:44:15
Speaker
Nothing could go wrong, right?
00:44:17
Speaker
Right.
00:44:17
Speaker
Nothing.
00:44:18
Speaker
He does anticipate betrayal because, as we mentioned before, his father and his clan are are not well liked.
00:44:24
Speaker
They're seen as a reason the Civil War happened within the Covenant.
00:44:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:29
Speaker
We are introduced very briefly to a big ass Arxis, which I will refer to him as big ass Arxis from here on out.
00:44:35
Speaker
He is three meters tall.
00:44:38
Speaker
He they like his some rival of his family tried to cut his throat and succeeded, but didn't succeed in killing him.
00:44:48
Speaker
And as a result, he cannot speak.
00:44:51
Speaker
But he crushes heads and apparently wiped out the family of the guy who tried to kill him.
00:44:57
Speaker
As one does, you know?
00:44:59
Speaker
Right, right.
00:45:01
Speaker
And we learn a little bit about how he was used by the Covenant.
00:45:04
Speaker
You know, if you ever watch like Lord of the Rings or another fantasy thing or something, and they bring out like, or 300 or something, they bring out like a troll, this huge uncontrollable thing in a chain.
00:45:14
Speaker
And they're like, ah!
00:45:15
Speaker
You know, we got him and they let him loose and he kills some of their own people.
00:45:19
Speaker
That's essentially how Arxis was used by the covenant.
00:45:22
Speaker
I imagine him a little bit like I was imagining him like Luca Brasi.
00:45:28
Speaker
Luca Brasi?
00:45:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:32
Speaker
Go on.
00:45:33
Speaker
Go on.
00:45:33
Speaker
So if you read, if you just saw the movie, The Godfather, right?
00:45:39
Speaker
You would see Luca Brazzi as this guy who's like, oh, yeah, it's the dad's button man.
00:45:43
Speaker
You know, he's not to be trifled with.
00:45:46
Speaker
But then they wharf him, right?
00:45:49
Speaker
They do the old wharf and he gets killed.
00:45:52
Speaker
He's like, oh, he's the biggest bad guy.
00:45:53
Speaker
And then the other family kills him before he gets to do anything.
00:45:57
Speaker
But in the book, they actually...
00:46:00
Speaker
have the stories of why Luca is terrible.
00:46:03
Speaker
Oh, that's interesting.
00:46:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:07
Speaker
Covering up, uh, covering up illegitimate babies.
00:46:11
Speaker
Jesus Christ.
00:46:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:14
Speaker
By doing things.
00:46:17
Speaker
Uh, yeah, it's like some of this, this, like the one story that Michael tells, uh, what's her name?
00:46:26
Speaker
Um, Diane Keaton, Diane Keaton.
00:46:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:31
Speaker
The story that Michael tells Diane Keaton is pretty horrific.
00:46:35
Speaker
And I'm not going to like actually say what he does.
00:46:40
Speaker
Right.
00:46:41
Speaker
On the show, but he does some bad stuff.
00:46:43
Speaker
And you're like, oh, Luca Brasi, he's he'll he'll fuck you up.
00:46:47
Speaker
So in my head, when it's like a mostly mute like character.
00:46:53
Speaker
I mean, he talks a little bit, but he's not good at talking.
00:46:55
Speaker
He's good at right.
00:46:56
Speaker
Right.
00:46:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's a really good point.
00:46:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's essentially who this is.
00:47:01
Speaker
He is.
00:47:02
Speaker
He is.
00:47:02
Speaker
He is such a murder machine that Severin is even kind of uncomfortable in his presence.
00:47:09
Speaker
And when when the Covenant was dissolved, Severin freed him because they literally take him out in a cage and let him out of the cage.
00:47:17
Speaker
Right.
00:47:17
Speaker
And Severin released him from that.
00:47:21
Speaker
And and and and so basically,
00:47:25
Speaker
Arxis commits a blood oath to him, basically.
00:47:30
Speaker
Right.
00:47:31
Speaker
He's going to serve him.
00:47:32
Speaker
So he's one of their big muscle guys, literally.
00:47:37
Speaker
So while this is all going on, while he's trying to figure all this out, Cortana destroys a moon.
00:47:43
Speaker
No, not a moon.
00:47:46
Speaker
Is it a moon?
00:47:46
Speaker
I thought they are on a moon.
00:47:50
Speaker
Oh, OK.
00:47:51
Speaker
Cortana destroys the home planet.
00:47:54
Speaker
Right.
00:47:54
Speaker
Of the Jeral Hane.
00:47:56
Speaker
Right.
00:47:57
Speaker
She, she, yeah.
00:47:58
Speaker
Uh, dose, uh, which is referred to as the heart of the Jeral Hane people.
00:48:04
Speaker
Uh, and she, she basically an announcement pops up on everyone's radio.
00:48:09
Speaker
And she says, uh, we find out later that basically, uh, uh,
00:48:13
Speaker
Atriox didn't bend the knee to her and to show him how serious she is.
00:48:18
Speaker
She blows up their goddamn planet.
00:48:21
Speaker
Straight up Alderaan, you know, just blows it the fuck up.
00:48:26
Speaker
And so another commander is explaining all of this.
00:48:31
Speaker
And
00:48:33
Speaker
Severin goes straight into leadership mode, evacuates, you know, because everyone's going to die on this planet because now that the planet's gone, the gravitational pull is released.
00:48:45
Speaker
So there's two moons around the Jairulhane planet, which also have their own settlements on them.
00:48:54
Speaker
Right.
00:48:54
Speaker
Right.
00:48:55
Speaker
And they're like, he's like, all right, well, we don't have a lot of time.
00:49:03
Speaker
We're the A, the moon is going to get hit by the leftover remnants of the of the planet.
00:49:08
Speaker
And there's no gravity well holding us anymore.
00:49:13
Speaker
So it's going to just spin off.
00:49:15
Speaker
We're just going to skid off into the galaxy somewhere.
00:49:18
Speaker
So everyone's going to die.
00:49:20
Speaker
unless we get the hell out of here.
00:49:22
Speaker
So that's, he goes straight into that while he's doing this, this commander orders Severin to attack the humans basically mercilessly, not just as payment for creating Cortana, which is what they really hate the humans for, but also as a distraction so that while he's
00:49:43
Speaker
They are fighting the humans over here.
00:49:45
Speaker
It'll draw the attention of the humans and Cortana.
00:49:48
Speaker
And while they're doing that, everybody else on the other side with a trucks will be able to slip in, hopefully unseen and attack Cortana's home base at Halo Zeta.
00:50:00
Speaker
And that's that's chapter eight.
00:50:02
Speaker
And that is how far we are going today.
00:50:05
Speaker
I loved like ending on chapter eight was was was neat.
00:50:10
Speaker
It was a good call because it's like, yeah, yeah.
00:50:13
Speaker
That fucking moment of the of Cortana just like, hey, your butt, your guy didn't bend the knee.
00:50:21
Speaker
So here's a couple billion Jaro Hane people just killed.
00:50:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:28
Speaker
You've been warned.
00:50:28
Speaker
I told you.
00:50:29
Speaker
You've been warned.
00:50:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:31
Speaker
It's brutal.
00:50:32
Speaker
Uh-uh.
00:50:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:35
Speaker
it's brutal and i think what's what's great about this in terms of just writing is how our enemy has a level this might not be the right word but a level of humanity uh where this guy just and he even says uh uh uh severin even says like i i will i will get to mourn this i will be sad and angry later i've just got to get but i've got to get my people off this planet right now um he hasn't even processed
00:51:04
Speaker
And that's a lot.
00:51:07
Speaker
That's a lot to deal with.
00:51:09
Speaker
And this guy is our villain.
00:51:12
Speaker
Right.
00:51:12
Speaker
Theoretically, he's one of them anyway.
00:51:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:15
Speaker
But that is a horrifying thing.
00:51:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:18
Speaker
To see happen to him.
00:51:20
Speaker
So.
00:51:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:21
Speaker
Good writing.
00:51:22
Speaker
Good choice.
00:51:23
Speaker
Kevin, what do you think so far?
00:51:25
Speaker
Oh, I love it so far.
00:51:27
Speaker
It is.
00:51:28
Speaker
You texted me at one point in the week.
00:51:31
Speaker
You're like, it's it's crazy that this is his first book.
00:51:36
Speaker
It's so frustrating.
00:51:37
Speaker
It's it's it's such a good story so far.
00:51:41
Speaker
I'm liking where it's going.
00:51:43
Speaker
I like all the different points of view that we're kind of getting as we go through.
00:51:48
Speaker
Um, cause obviously we're going to, you know, the bounty hunter dude is the, or mercenary, whatever he is, uh, is going to come back around and we have all the admirals and we have the daughter of the legendary, uh, uh, Cole Admiral Cole is, is, uh, is involved.
00:52:06
Speaker
Um, so I think it's, it's good stuff.
00:52:08
Speaker
Uh, I'm, I'm really enjoying the action sequences are great.
00:52:12
Speaker
Um,
00:52:12
Speaker
really cinematic, I'll say, in some of their there's at one point where the what's his name, the mercenary guy?
00:52:21
Speaker
Solomon Solomon, where it's like he just like lands on somebody with his armor and it's like, I don't have to do anything else because they're just dead.
00:52:34
Speaker
You know, dude's dead.
00:52:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:36
Speaker
And it just reminded me of like of Warhammer 40K bolt gun.
00:52:42
Speaker
There's like a moment where when you start the game because you're playing as a space marine and they weigh like a metric shit ton in their power armor.
00:52:50
Speaker
There's a moment where you start the game and you just jump drop through a grate into the space and you land on a guy.
00:52:56
Speaker
That's right.
00:52:59
Speaker
Vaporize him.
00:53:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:03
Speaker
It's fan.
00:53:03
Speaker
I love it.
00:53:04
Speaker
I love it.
00:53:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:06
Speaker
I'm with you a hundred percent.
00:53:07
Speaker
This is, this is it.
00:53:08
Speaker
This is dense, but it, it doesn't feel that way.
00:53:13
Speaker
This, this is, it's, it's always nice.
00:53:15
Speaker
The irony of course, and we've talked about this on the show before, but the irony of course is that, um,
00:53:21
Speaker
Sometimes the shorter books are so much harder to read because they're not as well written.
00:53:26
Speaker
Yes.
00:53:27
Speaker
It's a drag.
00:53:28
Speaker
It's Einstein's relativity theory in action.
00:53:32
Speaker
I blew through the first 120 pages of this book in a couple hours this afternoon.
00:53:40
Speaker
I just sat down and I read it.
00:53:42
Speaker
And I got to tell you, Seventh Guest is...
00:53:46
Speaker
like 180 pages in total or whatever it is.
00:53:49
Speaker
Yep.
00:53:50
Speaker
And I just had the hardest goddamn time, like really making my way through seventh guest because I don't know.
00:53:59
Speaker
There's a whole lot of issue.
00:54:00
Speaker
Like there's a whole lot of things with the book that I was not a, not a particular fan of, but this, this is like, it's, it's breezy.
00:54:09
Speaker
You just, you just, it's, it's breezy.
00:54:12
Speaker
Like the wind.
00:54:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:14
Speaker
You're just going short.
00:54:17
Speaker
from word to word sentences the sentences all flow it's poppy it's snappy it it all makes sense it's a lot of fun and it feels good it's exciting it's it's great this is a really very good book so far so yeah i'm with you 100 i can't wait to uh lose most of these characters to really sad deaths
00:54:40
Speaker
Right.
00:54:41
Speaker
Right.
00:54:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:41
Speaker
I mean, we've got we got even more time to get to know them before they are before they untimely die in a very sad way, as is the case with like most non Master Chief Halo books is like, yeah, get ready to be sad.
00:54:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:01
Speaker
The Rubicon protocol.
00:55:03
Speaker
Like, holy shit.
00:55:04
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:55:05
Speaker
So many people died in Rubicon protocol.
00:55:07
Speaker
So bleak.
00:55:08
Speaker
So bleak.
00:55:09
Speaker
So bleak.
00:55:10
Speaker
So yeah, this is a lot of fun so far.
00:55:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:55:14
Speaker
Well, now that we're done with that, Kevin, I only have one question left for you.
00:55:21
Speaker
What are you playing?
00:55:22
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:55:23
Speaker
So the thing that's new that I'm playing this week is, uh, is it's a game called Eldorand, um, which is a, it's, it's a side scrolling, uh, Metroidvania.
00:55:37
Speaker
Um, and you know what?
00:55:39
Speaker
It's, it's fine.
00:55:41
Speaker
It's like the, it came out in 2023, not a lot of reviews for it.
00:55:44
Speaker
Only 451 reviews.
00:55:45
Speaker
So, you know,
00:55:48
Speaker
Check it out if you're interested in a Metroidvania that clearly, I feel like, has a little bit of blasphemous aesthetic.
00:55:59
Speaker
It's like blasphemous meets dead cells in a way.
00:56:05
Speaker
And there's something about the vibe that feels very particularly Dead Cells, and I can't really explain what it is because Dead Cells is more of a roguelite, is a roguelite Metroidvania kind of combo, whereas this is just straight up Metroidvania.
00:56:23
Speaker
And it's also got what's interesting about it is it doesn't have any auto saves.
00:56:28
Speaker
It's all manual saves.
00:56:30
Speaker
So you just got to be wary of how
00:56:33
Speaker
deep you go in without like saving because I've had I had instances where I was like I saved and it's like I'm going I'm going to go and then and like I died and I was like oh I just wiped out like an hour of progress so it's it's it's like that
00:56:51
Speaker
But it's it's for a relatively, you know, small company, I guess it's and, you know, it doesn't have a ton of reviews.
00:57:02
Speaker
Seventy seven percent on four hundred fifty one.
00:57:05
Speaker
I don't know if it's on sale or whatever.
00:57:07
Speaker
It's it would be worth, you know, checking out.
00:57:12
Speaker
I know I wonder if you have a theory on this.
00:57:15
Speaker
What is it about Metroidvanias in the stand?
00:57:19
Speaker
Why are they always the most gorgeous games, even ones you never heard of?
00:57:25
Speaker
Like there?
00:57:25
Speaker
Yeah, there will be ones that you never heard of and they'll just be pop up with just amazing artwork.
00:57:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:33
Speaker
And I don't know.
00:57:36
Speaker
I think it's I think because there might be a lot of inspiration from the genre is it's weird because the genre, although Metroid is where it mostly starts, right?
00:57:51
Speaker
You get Metroid.
00:57:53
Speaker
Uh, the vania is where the genre really draws a lot of inspiration from artistically and, and all that.
00:58:01
Speaker
Um, true.
00:58:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:02
Speaker
Uh, in a lot of ways, not all the ways, but in terms of aesthetics, like, I feel like seven out of 10 times you're getting a gothic or, or some sort of style side scroller.
00:58:18
Speaker
You know, it might even be just that this is my kind of like they tend to go in the direction of aesthetic for games that I just really like personally.
00:58:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:27
Speaker
I like the I like the the gruesome Gothic car vibes, man.
00:58:32
Speaker
I mean, it really ties the room together.
00:58:34
Speaker
This looks good.
00:58:37
Speaker
This looks really good.
00:58:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's fun.
00:58:39
Speaker
I like it so far.
00:58:40
Speaker
I put a couple hours into it.
00:58:42
Speaker
It's like it's 100% Steam Deck game for me.
00:58:48
Speaker
Like we're watching, you know, it's at night.
00:58:52
Speaker
We're sitting in bed watching TV.
00:58:54
Speaker
I got the Steam Deck going while, you know, some sitcom that we've watched before is playing on the TV as we wind down or what have you.
00:59:04
Speaker
It's that, you know, it's in between like
00:59:09
Speaker
Normally that game is Power Washer Simulator, right?
00:59:12
Speaker
Normally that's when I play that power washing.
00:59:16
Speaker
Occasionally a Metroidvania or some such slots into that spot and then I beat it and then I'm back to Power Washer Simulator.
00:59:23
Speaker
Oh, sure.
00:59:26
Speaker
Sure.
00:59:30
Speaker
Speaking of that, Power Wash Simulator, I've been playing the Wallace and Gromit pack.
00:59:36
Speaker
That's right.
00:59:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:37
Speaker
It's very cute.
00:59:38
Speaker
Very cute.
00:59:39
Speaker
Very Wallace and Gromit.
00:59:41
Speaker
I'm enjoying that a lot.
00:59:44
Speaker
I've been playing another game called Monomyth.
00:59:47
Speaker
I've only put in like... I feel like I've heard of this one.
00:59:49
Speaker
Our yeah, it's in early access.
00:59:52
Speaker
It's a immersive sim slash souls like game.
00:59:58
Speaker
If you look at it, you're like, OK, this is like, you know, this is very King's Field first person hack and slash type stuff.
01:00:04
Speaker
except it also has immersive sim elements.
01:00:07
Speaker
And what does that mean?
01:00:08
Speaker
That means the simplest definition of immersive sims comes from James Hot Cider.
01:00:15
Speaker
Can you stack a couple of barrels on top of each other to reach something that you normally can't get to?
01:00:20
Speaker
The answer is yes.
01:00:24
Speaker
That's a really good, I didn't know, that's great.
01:00:25
Speaker
Good job, Hot Slayer.
01:00:27
Speaker
That's a good definition.
01:00:28
Speaker
The answer is, yeah, you can.
01:00:31
Speaker
There will be a chest and you're like, I don't know how to get up there to get that chest.
01:00:34
Speaker
And be like, oh, barrel.
01:00:36
Speaker
Barrel.
01:00:36
Speaker
This here was developed by a single person.
01:00:39
Speaker
Yes, that's the wild thing about it.
01:00:42
Speaker
Wow, okay.
01:00:44
Speaker
It's in early access.
01:00:45
Speaker
It's neat.
01:00:48
Speaker
I like it so far.
01:00:49
Speaker
Yeah, we'll see how it goes.
01:00:54
Speaker
I mean, the developers still working out the kinks and things like that.
01:01:01
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:02
Speaker
And it's got a really interesting what's really fascinating is how it handles weapon degradation.
01:01:08
Speaker
So you're fighting and fighting, fighting, fighting weapon breaks.
01:01:11
Speaker
Right.
01:01:12
Speaker
Well, how do you fix it?
01:01:14
Speaker
Well, you go to you try to find a fire, right?
01:01:20
Speaker
And because you're in this dungeon and it's not necessarily there's going to be a blacksmith down there.
01:01:27
Speaker
You're trying to get out of this dungeon that you've been taken to.
01:01:30
Speaker
Right.
01:01:31
Speaker
So you find a blacksmith's hammer and you put your weapon into either like a coal pit or a fire or whatever, and you heat it up.
01:01:41
Speaker
And then you put it down onto an iron and you attack it with the blacksmith's hammer.
01:01:47
Speaker
Oh, that's funny.
01:01:48
Speaker
OK, OK, cool.
01:01:49
Speaker
All right.
01:01:51
Speaker
I like it.
01:01:52
Speaker
And that brings the weapon durability back up.
01:01:56
Speaker
I'm surprised I see that more often.
01:01:58
Speaker
That's really funny.
01:01:59
Speaker
It's really it's got some clever stuff in it.
01:02:04
Speaker
So, you know, that's what I've been playing.
01:02:07
Speaker
I mean, I'm almost finished with Dead Island 2.
01:02:09
Speaker
I think I only have like one quest left in the main storyline.
01:02:15
Speaker
And yeah, that's pretty much it.
01:02:18
Speaker
That's what I've been playing.
01:02:20
Speaker
Cool.
01:02:21
Speaker
Phil, what are you playing?
01:02:24
Speaker
Oh, I'll start with the demo I played.
01:02:28
Speaker
I played a demo called Blood Typers.
01:02:32
Speaker
I don't know why I have always been drawn to, you know, typing games.
01:02:39
Speaker
Maybe it's maybe it's enjoying them as a kid.
01:02:42
Speaker
And it was like a game you were allowed to play in school.
01:02:47
Speaker
But blood typers, however, is not like your standard like House of the Dead one where all you're doing when you type is shoot everything you do.
01:02:57
Speaker
It's very much more related to like Resident Evil in the sense that you've got puzzles, you got keys, you got all this stuff and you have to type to do everything, basically.
01:03:10
Speaker
which is a very cool idea and I enjoyed certain aspects of it.
01:03:14
Speaker
Unfortunately, I the demo that I played was just I felt like I was walking around in circles after a certain point.
01:03:22
Speaker
Yeah, I just I got lost.
01:03:23
Speaker
I wasn't it's not a terribly pretty game, but I don't care about that.
01:03:28
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:28
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:29
Speaker
If if it's engaging and it just wasn't, unfortunately, I feel like
01:03:35
Speaker
a lot could be done with this and I hope you're working on it.
01:03:38
Speaker
But it's it's just not for me at this point.
01:03:43
Speaker
I went back to Foundation, too.
01:03:46
Speaker
OK, which I played the demo of that earlier this year and I liked it.
01:03:53
Speaker
I liked it.
01:03:54
Speaker
But there was something I remember you talking about playing it and I kept
01:03:59
Speaker
coming back to it in my mind.
01:04:01
Speaker
And I finally said it was the spring sale.
01:04:05
Speaker
They had it on sale.
01:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's a sale.
01:04:08
Speaker
Yeah, I'm really digging on it.
01:04:11
Speaker
Good.
01:04:12
Speaker
It's just a solid city builder with a lot of
01:04:16
Speaker
There's a lot more freedom to it than there are in a lot of those.
01:04:21
Speaker
You can just do free play or you can have different quests you go for.
01:04:26
Speaker
It's very engaging.
01:04:27
Speaker
It's charming and it's well designed right down to the thing that I thought was going to annoy me the most is one of my favorite things now is that with certain buildings,
01:04:40
Speaker
you can you don't just construct the building, you can construct little add ons to the building.
01:04:46
Speaker
So if you're building like the tax office or something like that, you can put a belfry on it.
01:04:51
Speaker
You can put, you know, a certain type of door on it, that sort of thing, and that increases certain scores.
01:04:56
Speaker
And with a city builder that's
01:04:59
Speaker
this big, it gets really big after a certain point and it feels kind of like a waste of time at first.
01:05:06
Speaker
Sure.
01:05:06
Speaker
I really super got into it.
01:05:09
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:09
Speaker
I thought that was kind of neat where it is like these big, bigger buildings.
01:05:14
Speaker
It is like a little bit,
01:05:16
Speaker
Um, it can feel a little ticky tacky, but it's like, no, there's this door does this, this door does this.
01:05:21
Speaker
And yeah.
01:05:23
Speaker
And also you need the door.
01:05:24
Speaker
You need to put a door on there.
01:05:26
Speaker
You have to have it or it's not going to work.
01:05:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:28
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:28
Speaker
It's it's charming.
01:05:30
Speaker
I like the I like I like the aesthetic to it.
01:05:33
Speaker
I think it's very pretty and well done.
01:05:36
Speaker
I'm enjoying it.
01:05:37
Speaker
I'm going to keep at it.
01:05:40
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:41
Speaker
And finally, I started playing the root trees are dead.
01:05:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:05:46
Speaker
I need to get back to that.
01:05:48
Speaker
It's good.
01:05:49
Speaker
It's really good, isn't it?
01:05:52
Speaker
I finished the first half of it, I want to say.
01:05:55
Speaker
Okay, cool.
01:05:59
Speaker
So, The Root Trees Are Dead was an Itch.io game.
01:06:03
Speaker
Yeah, an Itch.io browser game or whatever.
01:06:06
Speaker
And the game that you buy on Steam now is that, and then there's a second half of the game now.
01:06:14
Speaker
is called root tree mania which is the that's original to the steam version which expands upon like the the family tree and and whatever i beat white i so i have it beaten up to like the itchio original issue version of like the the family tree um and i need to get back because it's like a breaking it was like a breaking point you know what i mean it's like yeah it was a stopping point you know like okay well i finished the first half
01:06:40
Speaker
I'm sure I'll come back to it.
01:06:41
Speaker
I'm sure I'll come back to it.
01:06:42
Speaker
I haven't come back to it yet, but I should because I really loved while I was playing it.
01:06:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's for those of you who don't know, it's it's it's a genealogy puzzle game, basically, where you this this famous opulently rich family, a bunch of them have died tragically, and it is your job to connect the family tree just right so that all of the money that's that's going to get passed down goes to the right people.
01:07:16
Speaker
And as you uncover it, you of course find out all kinds of little darknesses underneath it.
01:07:22
Speaker
And it's one of those games.
01:07:23
Speaker
It's another one of those games where I am constantly taking notes on it.
01:07:29
Speaker
And I love that in a game.
01:07:31
Speaker
I really do.
01:07:32
Speaker
The game does a pretty decent job of like keeping notes for you, but it's good to have your own notes.
01:07:39
Speaker
Yes, it does.
01:07:40
Speaker
It does.
01:07:40
Speaker
And I'm trying really hard to not use any walkthroughs or anything like that because it is so well, it's tight.
01:07:51
Speaker
It feels tight.
01:07:52
Speaker
It feels like really well designed.
01:07:54
Speaker
And any time I get stuck and I go back through the old evidence, I find that usually when I go through enough, I go,
01:08:00
Speaker
Oh, fuck, that's a thing.
01:08:02
Speaker
And, you know, so you you're reading a bio on one of the characters and you want it.
01:08:07
Speaker
You're trying to figure out who that character's dad is, let's say.
01:08:10
Speaker
Right.
01:08:10
Speaker
And so you you do a search engine search for the person.
01:08:14
Speaker
OK, well, not not not coming up with anything, but someone wrote a book about that family.
01:08:19
Speaker
Let me look up that in the periodical section.
01:08:21
Speaker
You don't do that.
01:08:22
Speaker
And you find out that that's not the real name.
01:08:24
Speaker
The real name is this.
01:08:24
Speaker
So, oh, so I search that name and boom, there it is.
01:08:28
Speaker
I.
01:08:28
Speaker
I love this shit.
01:08:31
Speaker
I really, I get a kick out of these kinds of games and this is a really well done.
01:08:35
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:35
Speaker
It's a, it's a, it's, and it does the Obra Dinn style.
01:08:40
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:40
Speaker
It's, it's not as tough as Obra Dinn, but yeah.
01:08:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:44
Speaker
Get three, get three for a lock in, you know?
01:08:47
Speaker
Yes.
01:08:47
Speaker
Which, which I really appreciate.
01:08:49
Speaker
Um, not just because it gives you that, ah, it keeps you going.
01:08:54
Speaker
It really does.
01:08:55
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:55
Speaker
But also because,
01:08:58
Speaker
It'll show you it's like, oh, I thought I had that guy.
01:09:00
Speaker
I didn't have that guy.
01:09:01
Speaker
OK, something's wrong here.
01:09:03
Speaker
And so that it really helps you move along.
01:09:08
Speaker
I'm really enjoying it.
01:09:09
Speaker
I was it was kind of funny.
01:09:12
Speaker
I was concerned at first with the art style because I thought maybe it was a I.
01:09:18
Speaker
Um, cause it has that very, so yeah, it was in the original itch.io version.
01:09:23
Speaker
Right.
01:09:23
Speaker
Right.
01:09:24
Speaker
And that's what I found out.
01:09:25
Speaker
And then you look at the itch.io and you're like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:09:28
Speaker
And I really respect, um, the designer for doing that for, um, uh,
01:09:35
Speaker
Here's the thing.
01:09:35
Speaker
If you're making a free game or something like that, a browser game or some damn thing where people can just play it and you're not trying to make money off it or something, it's harder for me to be pissed off about some judicious use of A.I., that kind of thing.
01:09:50
Speaker
It's hard.
01:09:51
Speaker
I still do it.
01:09:52
Speaker
Right.
01:09:53
Speaker
It's harder.
01:09:54
Speaker
And but then when you get some attention and a little money and and and some support and you turn around and go, I'm going to pay an artist now to actually create pictures for this original stuff.
01:10:09
Speaker
Good on you.
01:10:09
Speaker
That is that is that's good stuff.
01:10:12
Speaker
That's exactly what you hope for when it comes to an indie game like that.
01:10:17
Speaker
It's it's good.
01:10:18
Speaker
It's classy.
01:10:19
Speaker
It's just classy.
01:10:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:21
Speaker
Classy stuff.
01:10:22
Speaker
Classy stuff.
01:10:23
Speaker
So that's me.
01:10:24
Speaker
That's what I've been playing.
01:10:25
Speaker
Oh, fantastic.
01:10:27
Speaker
Yeah, really love The Root Trees Are Dead.
01:10:30
Speaker
Hoping to get back into it.
01:10:32
Speaker
And also, if anyone out there has more suggestions for games that are like that, because I would like to just like...
01:10:42
Speaker
Very much in the Obra Dinn, root trees are dead, like, like vain of just like, it's a mystery and you feel like you're really solving that mystery.
01:10:52
Speaker
I mean, I, there's, there's a, what's it, it, the, um, curse of the golden idol is, is, or, and the rise of the golden idols that is out now, like came out at the end of last year.
01:11:03
Speaker
I didn't get a whole lot, very far into it, but, um,
01:11:08
Speaker
Yeah, I have a taste for those mystery games sometimes.
01:11:15
Speaker
So, yeah, feel free to mention them in the Discord or wherever.
01:11:20
Speaker
That'll do it for tonight's episode.
01:11:23
Speaker
Thank you so much, everybody, for listening.
01:11:26
Speaker
We love you all.
01:11:27
Speaker
And...
01:11:30
Speaker
Let's make it a good end of March, right?
01:11:35
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:11:36
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:36
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:36
Speaker
Let's do this.
01:11:37
Speaker
So, Phil, I was not ready for the Ides of March.
01:11:42
Speaker
How screwed am I?
01:11:44
Speaker
Well, all right.
01:11:45
Speaker
It's funny.
01:11:46
Speaker
You've got to just make sure that...