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Star Wars: Republic Commando: Hard Contact - Part 3
7 Plays1 year ago
The finale of Hard Contact and also our last "normal" episode of the year!
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
It's okay.
Becoming Full-Time Game Critics
00:00:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's, you know, when the moment, the moment we are professional podcasters slash game critics, uh,
00:00:12
Speaker
the moment that happens and this is literally just our lives and that's all we have to worry about, um, then, then we'll, we'll be far more stringent with our, our game of the year list and all that shit.
00:00:25
Speaker
But, uh, but for now we've got, we've got lives to lead and that's important to remember.
00:00:31
Speaker
Looking forward to when this is just like, uh,
00:00:34
Speaker
The big part.
00:00:35
Speaker
I'm not going to be upset about it.
00:00:36
Speaker
Not going to be upset about it.
00:00:37
Speaker
I'm not going to be upset about it.
00:00:39
Speaker
Especially when people are recognizing us and being like, hey, you're that guy.
00:00:42
Speaker
Dude, what the fuck?
00:00:43
Speaker
Like, that's some cool shit.
00:00:46
Speaker
It's cool.
00:00:46
Speaker
It's cool shit, you know?
00:00:48
Speaker
That is cool shit.
00:00:49
Speaker
You know what else is cool shit?
00:00:51
Speaker
What's that?
00:00:52
Speaker
Hey there, everybody.
00:00:53
Speaker
Welcome back to Pixel It.
00:00:54
Speaker
My name is Kevin.
00:00:55
Speaker
With me, as always, is Phil.
00:00:56
Speaker
And on today's show, we are finishing up Republic Commando Hard Contact.
00:01:03
Speaker
Hard Contact.
00:01:05
Speaker
That contact is so hard.
00:01:08
Speaker
It's hard.
00:01:11
Speaker
It's so hard.
00:01:13
Speaker
So hard.
00:01:15
Speaker
So, yeah, it's books, books finished.
00:01:19
Speaker
We have read it.
00:01:20
Speaker
And today, Phil is going to tell you what happened in that book.
Exploring 'Republic Commando: Hard Contact'
00:01:27
Speaker
I was channeling my that what happened was really channeling Branson Reese.
00:01:31
Speaker
Oh, I was going to say it sounded like you were Fozzie Bear without actually doing Fozzie Bear's voice.
00:01:36
Speaker
Like what happened?
00:01:38
Speaker
That's basically Branson Reese.
00:01:40
Speaker
I mean, yeah, you're not wrong.
00:01:40
Speaker
Most of the time.
00:01:42
Speaker
You're not wrong.
00:01:45
Speaker
I love that man.
00:01:47
Speaker
We should get him on the show.
00:01:48
Speaker
That would be.
00:01:48
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, that would be a get.
00:01:51
Speaker
They just finished.
00:01:53
Speaker
Well, as of this recording, it will be like a month ago, but they just finished the first campaign.
00:02:00
Speaker
Oh, man.
00:02:03
Speaker
I keep telling myself I'm going to listen to that.
00:02:05
Speaker
Now that it's over, I might go back and binge it.
00:02:08
Speaker
I think that might be it.
00:02:09
Speaker
Like now that, now that it's finished, now that it's got, they're starting their second campaign, uh, soon ish.
00:02:15
Speaker
Uh, how long has that been?
00:02:16
Speaker
It's been years.
00:02:17
Speaker
It's been years started before COVID.
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:21
Speaker
It was started in the fall of 2019, I want to say.
00:02:26
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:02:27
Speaker
You know why?
00:02:28
Speaker
Because I forget who from, I can't remember which cast member was at PAX Unplugged, but we were at a, because when we went to PAX Unplugged that year in December of 2019, we're in a panel and one of the cast members talked about being on Rude Tales of Magic.
00:02:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:48
Speaker
Maybe it was Carly Minardo.
00:02:51
Speaker
I can't remember who it was, but they talked about being, you know, like, Rude Tales of Magic, and everybody was like, yay!
00:03:01
Speaker
And it had only been out for like two months or something like that.
00:03:04
Speaker
Right, it was brand spanking new at that point.
00:03:07
Speaker
Oh, that's funny.
00:03:08
Speaker
Gotta get back to that.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:10
Speaker
Having a baby soon.
00:03:12
Speaker
You're gonna have a baby.
00:03:13
Speaker
When is Pax Unplugged?
00:03:16
Speaker
It will be next December would be the next one.
00:03:20
Speaker
No, no, but I mean, like, I feel like it's falling on, like, my kid's doom date.
00:03:24
Speaker
It's falling when the child arrives.
00:03:26
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much.
00:03:27
Speaker
So shall Pax Unplugged.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's...
00:03:31
Speaker
There's a lot resting on this kid.
00:03:33
Speaker
So there's a lot.
00:03:35
Speaker
With PAX Unplugged 2023.
00:03:38
Speaker
Looking it up.
00:03:38
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:03:39
Speaker
No, it's a couple weeks before the due date.
00:03:41
Speaker
It's December 1st through 3rd.
00:03:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:44
Speaker
So not quite.
00:03:46
Speaker
Not quite there, but... Still too soon for me to be able to leave and not get divorced over it.
00:03:54
Speaker
You know, yeah.
00:03:56
Speaker
I mean, also, well, badges are still available, so...
00:04:01
Speaker
No, no, no, no, no.
00:04:03
Speaker
Anyway.
00:04:07
Speaker
We left off.
00:04:08
Speaker
Oh, bodies, bodies.
00:04:10
Speaker
There's going to be a lot of bodies going in the marsh in this episode.
00:04:12
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:04:12
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:04:13
Speaker
We're going to put this body in the marsh, and then we're going to put another body in the marsh, and a few other bodies in the marsh.
00:04:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:19
Speaker
A lot of droid bodies.
00:04:20
Speaker
A lot of droid bodies.
00:04:21
Speaker
I don't think they should go in the marsh.
00:04:23
Speaker
I doubt they decompose, but maybe if you throw them.
00:04:27
Speaker
I think if you threw the droids into the ocean, they would sink and become an artificial reef.
00:04:31
Speaker
That'd be cool.
00:04:32
Speaker
That'd be cool.
00:04:32
Speaker
You know, for Coral.
00:04:33
Speaker
But otherwise, I think you're right.
00:04:34
Speaker
It's not good for the ecology.
00:04:36
Speaker
You don't want that.
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:38
Speaker
Police have confirmed that the body of the man found dead in the Fenway Marshes yesterday afternoon is that of Timothy Delahunt.
00:04:44
Speaker
So, we, um, let's see.
00:04:48
Speaker
We start at chapter 13, I believe.
00:04:52
Speaker
We start with a report from the Republic Command, a cruiser outside of the planet's atmosphere, reporting that a separatist ship is approaching and they are anticipating possible hostilities.
00:05:08
Speaker
So possible hard contact, hard contact, hard contact, space contact.
00:05:14
Speaker
Have yourself a space war.
00:05:18
Speaker
We are on a niner and the squad are together with Goutanay.
00:05:23
Speaker
They send out a remote and they find Dharmon, who is shaving.
00:05:31
Speaker
Which is not something I thought much about with these guys, but of course he'd be shaving.
00:05:35
Speaker
He basically...
00:05:38
Speaker
And it's awfully kind of low key.
00:05:42
Speaker
They're re-meeting.
00:05:43
Speaker
Like you're expecting like this big emotional outburst of stuff.
00:05:46
Speaker
And he basically is like, Niners, that fucking you.
00:05:48
Speaker
Like he's just so exasperated.
00:05:53
Speaker
But they get their coordinates and they're all going to be together soon.
00:05:56
Speaker
And they're heading towards the villa.
00:05:59
Speaker
So next for the first time ever, it ain meets the full squad.
00:06:05
Speaker
She sees all of them, sees all of them with her helmets off and it's just kind of flabbergasted because they're all identical except for a few scars here and there.
00:06:14
Speaker
Right.
00:06:14
Speaker
And they pick up on what she's putting down.
00:06:17
Speaker
And I believe it's fee who, who's who apologizes for the weak way.
00:06:22
Speaker
That's their interpreting her discomfort being over him.
00:06:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:30
Speaker
She puts it in a very interesting way.
00:06:32
Speaker
She says, seeing the four of them together, it's like four different moods for the same man.
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah, I like that.
00:06:40
Speaker
I like that, too.
00:06:41
Speaker
Because Fee is like lighthearted and, you know, Sarge is serious and Atten is like...
00:06:49
Speaker
Just the saddest boy of all time.
00:06:51
Speaker
Well, we talked about this and we talked about this last episode and I'm obsessed with this now because I think it's perfectly correct.
00:06:57
Speaker
They're the Ninja Turtles.
00:06:58
Speaker
Yeah, they are the Ninja Turtles.
00:07:00
Speaker
Yeah, we're hitting all the Ninja Turtles shit here and it's kind of perfect.
00:07:05
Speaker
So she asks for their proper names, not their ID codes and that throws them a little bit because they're not...
00:07:12
Speaker
Those are used.
00:07:13
Speaker
Those are really personal.
00:07:14
Speaker
And they're also on top of that.
00:07:16
Speaker
It's not protocol to let the commanders know, uh, what their name, but they, but they do it because she, she, you know, requests, um,
00:07:25
Speaker
Let's see.
00:07:25
Speaker
Itain recognizes Gutene as the Weequay who chased her down in the very, very beginning of the book.
00:07:32
Speaker
Points out he's a rapist and just a nasty character.
00:07:37
Speaker
She just about cuts him down with her lightsaber.
00:07:40
Speaker
She is pissed.
00:07:42
Speaker
She's ready to give in to the dark side with this guy.
00:07:45
Speaker
She's so ready to defect to the dark side like that.
00:07:51
Speaker
And I mean, your attempted rapist, that would be the one to do it, to be fair.
00:07:55
Speaker
Which is wild to think that I don't think I've actually read in a Star Wars book or in a movie, even the implication of rape.
00:08:09
Speaker
And now in this, we have a Jedi Padawan saying, like, that man is a rapist.
00:08:14
Speaker
I'm going to cut his fucking balls off.
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:18
Speaker
And this book is pretty brutal, but God damn, that's that's that's yeah.
00:08:23
Speaker
So I mean, more power to Karen Travis to taking Star Wars into a more it's almost like a mature.
00:08:33
Speaker
This makes me think very much for Star Wars in the same way that Rubicon Protocol for Halo made us feel.
00:08:41
Speaker
It goes into this very real, very dark, very clearly inspired by actual war kind of direction.
00:08:49
Speaker
Yeah, I'm totally with you.
00:08:52
Speaker
Um, let's see.
00:08:52
Speaker
Darman stops her from, from joining the dark side.
00:08:57
Speaker
Uh, and, uh, attain, uh, is going to interrogate him.
00:09:01
Speaker
Um, she's a, that's, that's going to be her job.
00:09:03
Speaker
And so they can see what they can get out of him, how they can use him.
00:09:08
Speaker
Um, she, she witnesses aton like awkwardly hug Darman.
00:09:15
Speaker
Uh, it's kind of a cute moment at, and it's kind of coming out of his shell.
00:09:18
Speaker
He's so relieved to see him.
00:09:20
Speaker
Um, let's see.
00:09:22
Speaker
And, and this is when she's starting to realize that these, these they're clones, but they're as human as she is.
00:09:28
Speaker
Right.
00:09:28
Speaker
Uh, that, that outside of their advanced, uh, aging and that sort of, that they are, that they are people, uh, underneath those helmets, uh, which is pretty important, uh, for basically all of this shit.
00:09:43
Speaker
She started using her Jedi mind powers to question Gutanee while the squad discusses what the next step of the plan is going to be, where they're going to hit first and that sort of thing.
00:09:55
Speaker
Darman gives the squad the lowdown on Itain.
00:09:59
Speaker
They're unsure about her at first, a little edgy around her, but they're kind of but they're still impressed because she is successfully getting her getting Gouttine to talk using her Jedi powers.
00:10:13
Speaker
So they're not sure what to think about it, but they but they they like her.
00:10:18
Speaker
Itain is getting, she's giving them some information on Loken.
00:10:24
Speaker
She points out that Loken is a game player who likes to bluff and double bluff, which is exactly, if you remember from last episode, exactly what he's doing.
00:10:35
Speaker
He's playing the bluffing game with where he's keeping Uthan.
00:10:40
Speaker
Niner is not comfortable with her request to not call her commander.
00:10:46
Speaker
Uh, he's not because he is the by the book sergeant guy.
00:10:49
Speaker
So he's not really comfortable with it.
00:10:51
Speaker
He's going to do his best.
00:10:52
Speaker
Uh, he's amazed though, that she can tell them apart.
00:10:57
Speaker
Uh, and after she gets over her initial shock at seeing them all together, it's really no issue for her to tell them part between knowing them and her Jedi powers.
00:11:08
Speaker
Right.
00:11:08
Speaker
Um, and Niner has never felt like anything but a product.
00:11:13
Speaker
Right.
00:11:13
Speaker
His life.
00:11:14
Speaker
He's, he's just a weapon.
00:11:15
Speaker
And so this person who was able to differentiate between all of them, uh, it kind of, I, I, I feel like she's giving them all squishy feelings at different points for different reasons.
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:27
Speaker
She's like mom in a way.
00:11:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:29
Speaker
There's a bit I highlighted.
00:11:31
Speaker
Right then Niner didn't care if she had less of an idea of grill warfare than a Mott.
00:11:36
Speaker
She possessed one fundamental element of leadership that you couldn't teach in a lifetime.
00:11:41
Speaker
She cared about those that she led.
00:11:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:44
Speaker
And that's, and that's really the theme in the book from here on out.
00:11:47
Speaker
Right.
00:11:48
Speaker
Is, is her actually giving a shit about the people under her charge.
00:11:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:53
Speaker
And case in point, she sees this darkness around Aten, the guilt that he's feeling and everything.
00:12:01
Speaker
She, she's reading his aura basically and decides that she wants to help him lose that guilt, which I've written down here is the only way that the Jedi aren't like the Catholics.
00:12:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:11
Speaker
Uh, actually trying to get them to get rid of the guilt.
00:12:14
Speaker
So that's interesting.
00:12:17
Speaker
Um, Janart, uh, comes by, she's bringing up some meat.
00:12:21
Speaker
Um,
00:12:23
Speaker
Let's see.
00:12:24
Speaker
And while they're eating and getting together, attain kind of is marveling at the differences between the clones in fighting mode versus just relaxing mode.
00:12:34
Speaker
Cause when they're fighting, it's all business.
00:12:36
Speaker
And when they're just chilling out, uh, they are, they're, they're silly or, or, you know, they've got all, which is true of soldiers in general, because you have to compartmentalize the difference, you know?
00:12:46
Speaker
Right.
00:12:47
Speaker
And, uh, and that's, that's what she's saying here.
00:12:50
Speaker
Um,
00:12:51
Speaker
Jannart tells them that the villa is a distraction, but they're still going to have to deal with both the villa and the facilities there because both of them are going to they're very close to each other.
00:13:03
Speaker
And so when one gets hit, anybody who's in the other one is going to be popping by toot sweet.
00:13:09
Speaker
So they're going to have to deal with both of them.
00:13:13
Speaker
Let's see.
00:13:13
Speaker
They're going to start to work on their plans.
00:13:16
Speaker
They're going to blow up the villa to damage the droids that are in there.
00:13:21
Speaker
And they're going to use Goutanay to give Hoken bad information, basically.
00:13:28
Speaker
They're going to mind control him and tell him to...
00:13:32
Speaker
Basically make him lie, which means almost certainly that he's going to die.
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:37
Speaker
And Etain has some very serious, like, sure, she wanted to kill him, but also like doing this bums her out.
00:13:47
Speaker
Yeah, she is very, you know, she knows that whatever happens, whether this works or not, Hoken is not going to let the weak way just walk away after this.
00:13:58
Speaker
So she is very literally sending him to his death.
00:14:00
Speaker
And that's something she realized she's going to have to get comfortable with on a certain level.
00:14:05
Speaker
And it's about weighing the needs of the few versus the needs of the many, basically.
00:14:10
Speaker
Yep.
00:14:11
Speaker
Uh, Janart reveals that Jedi meets, uh, Vulcan.
00:14:15
Speaker
Yes.
00:14:16
Speaker
Yes.
00:14:17
Speaker
You know?
00:14:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:18
Speaker
That's exactly it.
00:14:19
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, it's, it's, so she's struggling with a lot of that.
00:14:23
Speaker
Um, uh, Janart reveals that this is her home world.
00:14:26
Speaker
Uh, she is among the last of her kind and she's only doing this, um,
00:14:32
Speaker
She doesn't really give a damn about the Republic's cause.
00:14:36
Speaker
She, she cares because she, she wants to fight out the invaders who have.
00:14:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:40
Speaker
She just wants people fighting.
00:14:43
Speaker
She just wants the, them to stop fighting a war on her, her home planet.
00:14:48
Speaker
Exactly.
00:14:48
Speaker
Go, go, go have your cause elsewhere in the galaxy.
00:14:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:52
Speaker
So she's not like she and her and her consort, I think she calls him her boyfriend.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:57
Speaker
That are not like freedom fighters in any more sense than they are freedom fighters for their own planet.
00:15:03
Speaker
And that's it.
00:15:04
Speaker
They don't care about any other shit.
00:15:07
Speaker
Let's see.
00:15:08
Speaker
Darman and Fee go ahead and hit the sack while Itain meets with Atten.
00:15:16
Speaker
We get a little weapon gear porn.
00:15:19
Speaker
He shows her the night vision scope on the rifle.
00:15:21
Speaker
She wears a helmet, see their HUD and how that all works.
00:15:25
Speaker
And Atten describes their training from trooper up, basically, that there are the different tiers of clone soldier.
00:15:37
Speaker
And the ARC troopers, which I thought was interesting.
00:15:42
Speaker
Uh, we're, uh, they trained, they're trained from one day to be more obedient than us.
00:15:47
Speaker
And we're more obedient than arc troopers.
00:15:50
Speaker
They're pretty well raw Django, which is terrifying.
00:15:55
Speaker
That's, that's crazy.
00:15:56
Speaker
Cause that's the first I realized like, like, oh, we aren't following the elite of the elite.
00:16:01
Speaker
Don't get me wrong.
00:16:02
Speaker
These commandos are more specialized than your average trooper, but there are still like levels above them in clone troop that I thought that was pretty interesting.
00:16:10
Speaker
Yeah, there's a few out there that are just fucking Jango Fett, basically, working for the Republic.
00:16:17
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:16:20
Speaker
That's insane.
00:16:23
Speaker
So basically, he's describing it like they're a commodity.
00:16:28
Speaker
Right.
00:16:29
Speaker
They're just tools.
00:16:31
Speaker
And Itain has that realization.
00:16:32
Speaker
I thought this was great.
00:16:33
Speaker
She looks at him and goes, we use you.
00:16:35
Speaker
Like, like, like you're not people.
00:16:37
Speaker
And he's like, yeah, yeah, that's, that's pretty much it.
00:16:40
Speaker
And he's good with that.
00:16:42
Speaker
It's Hane gives, does her best shot at pulling a goodwill hunting on Atten.
00:16:47
Speaker
Son, it's not your fault.
00:16:48
Speaker
It's not your fault.
00:16:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's not your fault.
00:16:52
Speaker
And it seems to work, actually.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:56
Speaker
She helps him smooth out.
00:16:58
Speaker
What the fuck are you doing, man?
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah, fuck you, man.
00:17:02
Speaker
They have that moment.
00:17:04
Speaker
She wins an Academy Award and he goes on to make Ocean's Eleven films.
00:17:09
Speaker
Yep.
00:17:16
Speaker
It's funny because, and I know you can always use the excuse of like...
00:17:20
Speaker
Um, well, it's a, she's, she's a Jedi.
00:17:23
Speaker
So there's more at stake here, but this did like for, cause we still note from here on out that he is far more at peace and it's literally for her or just like going, Oh, pookie bear, you know?
00:17:34
Speaker
And he's like, you know what?
00:17:36
Speaker
You're right.
00:17:36
Speaker
I am pookie bear.
00:17:37
Speaker
Everything's cool now.
00:17:39
Speaker
thanks so it seems to work i'm not at it anymore i'm pookie bear yeah and he looks at her maybe we can keep your code name he's like no call me pook no pook pooku uh pookoo fat and pookoo fat the cutest mandalorian
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:58
Speaker
Just to build a bear with a Mandalorian helmet on.
00:18:01
Speaker
That's pretty much it.
00:18:02
Speaker
That's what he is.
00:18:03
Speaker
He's just the squishiest guy.
00:18:06
Speaker
And he says, hey, you want to help me make some IEDs?
00:18:09
Speaker
And she went, you bet.
00:18:10
Speaker
And so they sit there making bombs.
00:18:14
Speaker
And she has this law.
00:18:16
Speaker
He teaches her all about what an IED is.
00:18:21
Speaker
Uh, improvised explosive devices, you know, they are just building bombs, like, like helping mom in the kitchen, make some cookies.
00:18:31
Speaker
Uh, it's kind of wholesome in a weird way.
00:18:35
Speaker
It's adorable.
00:18:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:36
Speaker
Her thought is this is how you slide from peacekeeper to soldier to assassin.
00:18:40
Speaker
Yes, I wrote that down.
00:18:41
Speaker
Great, great line.
00:18:43
Speaker
Great line.
00:18:45
Speaker
Atten wants to see her lightsaber and we get the inevitable, well, you showed me yours, so I guess I have to show you mine line, which is deeply unfortunate, but okay.
00:18:57
Speaker
He is notes that it doesn't really feel like a real weapon.
00:19:02
Speaker
He's kind of amazed that she's made it this far and she's she's gaining his respect.
00:19:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:11
Speaker
Let's see.
00:19:12
Speaker
As the evening progresses, Itain has been waiting for Gutene to escape.
00:19:18
Speaker
Uh, uh, thinking that any minute he will leave and he does not because he won't, yeah, he's not going back to Hoken without Jedi mind tricks because he knows that it's his death warrant.
00:19:28
Speaker
So what is it?
00:19:29
Speaker
It's like, why would I do that?
00:19:30
Speaker
This is, this is the, I, they are keeping me alive.
00:19:33
Speaker
Pretty much.
00:19:34
Speaker
These people are keeping me alive.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:37
Speaker
Uh,
00:19:38
Speaker
She has been she's feeling way more responsible for the squad in general.
00:19:43
Speaker
Let's see.
00:19:44
Speaker
So she fills Goudiné's head with the idea to tell Hoken that they're going to attack the villa.
00:19:52
Speaker
And yeah, so she is in squads.
00:19:55
Speaker
And there are two squads, not just the four.
00:19:57
Speaker
There are eight of them total, not four.
00:20:00
Speaker
So he leaves and she watches him go and feels shame because she feels like this is he's not dead yet, but she has, for all intents and purposes, killed a second person.
00:20:10
Speaker
And she tells Darman it's hard to send men to their death and then realizes that one day that's exactly what she's going to be doing for men like Darman because that's her role.
00:20:21
Speaker
She's a commander.
00:20:22
Speaker
She has to lead.
00:20:23
Speaker
And he points out that she'll get used to it.
00:20:27
Speaker
Chapter 14.
00:20:31
Speaker
14!
00:20:31
Speaker
14!
00:20:31
Speaker
We get a quote from an admiral on the importance of fear.
00:20:35
Speaker
Basically stating fear is not a bad thing.
00:20:37
Speaker
Fear is something that keeps you alive, which is what we find these young clone troopers kind of repeating to themselves on an hour-to-hour basis.
00:20:46
Speaker
Right.
00:20:47
Speaker
Which is great.
00:20:48
Speaker
It's terrific because it's true.
00:20:50
Speaker
No bullshit toxic masculinity among the clone troopers.
00:20:53
Speaker
Good to know.
00:20:55
Speaker
I'm sure that some alt-right dweeb would take this.
00:20:58
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:20:58
Speaker
Among clones.
00:21:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:01
Speaker
NPCs.
00:21:02
Speaker
NPC.
00:21:03
Speaker
Yeah, you're very clever.
00:21:04
Speaker
Good for you.
00:21:05
Speaker
You're the main character.
00:21:06
Speaker
Got it.
Themes of War and Morality
00:21:07
Speaker
Tyler Durden.
00:21:13
Speaker
Hoken is waiting at Ankit's villa.
00:21:17
Speaker
There's, let's see, he's making a
00:21:21
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:21:21
Speaker
Making a point of being visible at the villa for the sake of the decoy effect.
00:21:26
Speaker
He wants anybody who happens to see him, uh, is going to, it's going to further the notion that that's where everybody is and where they should be.
00:21:35
Speaker
Right.
00:21:35
Speaker
Um, Uthen is inside.
00:21:37
Speaker
She is not happy, uh, with this whole thing.
00:21:39
Speaker
She is pissed.
00:21:40
Speaker
In fact, uh, stop moving us so much.
00:21:43
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:21:44
Speaker
I just, I can't get any work done.
00:21:46
Speaker
That sort of thing.
00:21:47
Speaker
Um, um,
00:21:49
Speaker
Okun explains that he's trying to bring the fight to him rather than have to chase them around because that that so, you know, and that's true.
00:21:58
Speaker
Being on the defensive is always more effective in a situation like that.
00:22:03
Speaker
Let's see.
00:22:04
Speaker
He knows he knows what they have in there is a small group.
00:22:09
Speaker
that they're not going to survive a full army.
00:22:12
Speaker
But out there in the bush, so to speak, they could pick them off slowly, squad by squad, and they'll be at a huge disadvantage.
00:22:19
Speaker
So he wants to face them with the... He wants a head-on confrontation.
00:22:23
Speaker
Exactly.
00:22:24
Speaker
Fully operational.
00:22:26
Speaker
He wants hard contact.
00:22:29
Speaker
Exactly.
00:22:30
Speaker
Who doesn't, really?
00:22:31
Speaker
Everyone wants hard contact.
00:22:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:38
Speaker
Let's see.
00:22:38
Speaker
It's not what gets in.
00:22:39
Speaker
It's what what gets out.
00:22:42
Speaker
That's what she's concerned about.
00:22:45
Speaker
She's concerned that, you know, like I don't you know what what's what I'm concerned about is the virus escaping somehow.
00:22:51
Speaker
Right.
00:22:52
Speaker
And and Loken doesn't like the sound of that.
00:22:55
Speaker
She's getting kind of nervous on a little twitchy.
00:22:57
Speaker
And finally, she admits that the nano virus in its current state doesn't.
00:23:02
Speaker
It's going to kill everybody.
00:23:04
Speaker
So the problem is clones are clones of humans.
00:23:09
Speaker
And right now it kills everybody, not just clones.
00:23:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's great at killing clones.
00:23:16
Speaker
Great at killing clones.
00:23:17
Speaker
Great at killing everyone else, too.
00:23:19
Speaker
So.
00:23:21
Speaker
He is pissed because she's lying to him and he gives her a chance like anything.
00:23:28
Speaker
It's like your dad when he's there.
00:23:30
Speaker
He catches you in a lie.
00:23:31
Speaker
Any other things you want to tell me?
00:23:33
Speaker
No.
00:23:34
Speaker
And he really wants to kill her.
00:23:37
Speaker
He even says at some point that the only reason he hasn't just fucking murdered her is that she's a woman, which is a little fucked up, but okay.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah, a little weird side angle misogyny.
00:23:50
Speaker
A little bit.
00:23:50
Speaker
Yeah, which is funny because don't female Mandalorians become warriors as well?
00:23:55
Speaker
They do.
00:23:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:56
Speaker
So I think then that's the thing is like this is still a little bit before a lot of the Mandalorian lore is fleshed out.
00:24:08
Speaker
But yes, in Mandalorians in as is current lore, basically it's like, oh, yeah, men, women.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yeah, doesn't matter.
00:24:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:22
Speaker
Not everybody on Mandalore becomes a warrior, but both men and women become warriors.
00:24:28
Speaker
Yes.
00:24:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:30
Speaker
So they're basically sitting on top of a weapon that's going to kill everybody if it gets out.
00:24:36
Speaker
So the stakes are a little higher, just a little.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yep.
00:24:41
Speaker
Let's see.
00:24:41
Speaker
So and Hoken points that out.
00:24:43
Speaker
He says, all right, look, we're staying then.
00:24:47
Speaker
If a bomb could kill all of us, it's best to keep everybody on their best behavior.
00:24:53
Speaker
So the scientists are going to be held in the core area near the virus and basically just stay put.
00:25:03
Speaker
We're all going to have to be very, very, very careful now.
00:25:06
Speaker
Don't spill anything.
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:08
Speaker
Fucking shitting Tiffany cufflinks here.
00:25:10
Speaker
That is all there is to it.
00:25:13
Speaker
So then finally, Lieutenant Harati emerges with a Trandoshan mercenary, bringing in Goutanay, who declares he has information.
00:25:26
Speaker
Meanwhile...
00:25:30
Speaker
Uh, Niner is assessing their gear.
00:25:32
Speaker
Uh, they've got a ton of it, uh, but they can't carry it all.
00:25:35
Speaker
They have basically reached the moment in Skyrim where you've been picking up every goddamn thing on your run.
00:25:41
Speaker
And, uh, you really gotta have a sit down and decide if you need that 15 wheels of cheese.
00:25:46
Speaker
Do you need all of those skulls that you've been picking up?
00:25:50
Speaker
Exactly.
00:25:50
Speaker
They're metal as fuck.
00:25:51
Speaker
That is true.
00:25:52
Speaker
But they are, they are, you know, weighing you down.
00:25:55
Speaker
I had a friend, by the way, who playing Morrowind back in college built a... Because I don't think you could... Could you buy a house in Morrowind?
00:26:06
Speaker
I don't think so.
00:26:08
Speaker
I think in Skyrim you could.
00:26:09
Speaker
You might have been given one at one point, but I don't know if you could buy one.
00:26:12
Speaker
I just remember he built a house out of all the skulls that he picked up.
00:26:17
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:26:19
Speaker
Just start piling them all up.
00:26:21
Speaker
Marwin was crazy enough and like loose enough with that shit that you could absolutely do that.
00:26:28
Speaker
Makes a lot of sense.
00:26:29
Speaker
I love that game.
00:26:30
Speaker
Damn.
00:26:31
Speaker
I've got that.
00:26:31
Speaker
I bought that on sale just to have it.
00:26:34
Speaker
I feel like I really ought to sit down and play through that again.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:37
Speaker
I mean, you know, and we'll get into Steam's Tale stuff later because... Oh, yes, we will.
00:26:42
Speaker
Oh, yes, we will.
00:26:43
Speaker
By the time this comes out, the fall sale will have ended, but the winter Christmas sale...
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:26:49
Speaker
We'll be on the eve of it.
00:26:52
Speaker
That's what I tell myself.
00:26:53
Speaker
I'm like, hey, you don't need to buy all this shit because it's just going to be on sale again in about three weeks.
00:26:59
Speaker
Yep.
00:27:00
Speaker
So, okay.
00:27:01
Speaker
So we get a little light weapons porn.
00:27:05
Speaker
the stuff that they've, all the bombs and the guns and the equipment, pretty cool.
00:27:11
Speaker
Let's see.
00:27:12
Speaker
They arm Itain with what amounts to a Trandoshan shotgun.
00:27:18
Speaker
Short distance spread, point click, don't need to aim.
00:27:21
Speaker
Point click, it's,
00:27:22
Speaker
Yeah, you don't, no need to aim.
00:27:25
Speaker
And they're like, listen, you know, I know you Jedis love your lightsabers, but it's kind of silly.
00:27:31
Speaker
Like it's a fucking sword and we don't want to act, we don't want to get that close.
00:27:37
Speaker
They say what every Imperial Guardsman has always wanted to tell their commissar with his sword.
00:27:43
Speaker
Like, please keep shooting.
00:27:46
Speaker
That's not going to help us much.
00:27:49
Speaker
She is kind of taking to it.
00:27:50
Speaker
Like, she digs having a gun a lot.
00:27:55
Speaker
Let's see.
00:27:58
Speaker
Okay, Itain and Jannart are basically going to act as pack mules during this part of the mission.
00:28:04
Speaker
They're going to be carrying a bunch of shit.
00:28:07
Speaker
Niner notices that Itain is getting close to Darman.
00:28:12
Speaker
Real close.
00:28:14
Speaker
Little girl action there.
00:28:17
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:28:20
Speaker
He is worried that Itain will become dead weight, but Darman vouches for her.
00:28:25
Speaker
And of course he does because she is his girlfriend.
00:28:30
Speaker
So that's just how that works.
00:28:32
Speaker
That's just a sweetie pie.
00:28:34
Speaker
They're just adorable together.
00:28:37
Speaker
that's going to be hard.
00:28:37
Speaker
If you date a clone and another clone says, what does he got that I don't have?
00:28:41
Speaker
Then that you're, you're really at a loss for words on that.
00:28:43
Speaker
You really didn't be like, well, he's less Django Fett than you.
00:28:47
Speaker
It's like, Oh, okay.
00:28:49
Speaker
That's, that's all you've got.
00:28:50
Speaker
Really?
00:28:51
Speaker
That's all you got.
00:28:52
Speaker
It's just levels of Django Fett.
00:28:54
Speaker
If they do another video game with this that's more involved and interactive, then that will be one of the rows there where it's like, where on this are you?
00:29:04
Speaker
On a scale of zero to 10, what Django are you?
00:29:08
Speaker
It's not a morality scale.
00:29:11
Speaker
It's just like, it's just how Django are you?
00:29:14
Speaker
How Django, yeah.
00:29:15
Speaker
Django level increased.
00:29:16
Speaker
Django levels increase.
00:29:18
Speaker
Yeah, when you're like, well, when you're like, you choose to equip a flamethrower and be like, well, that's going to increase your Django level.
00:29:28
Speaker
That's going to, yeah.
00:29:29
Speaker
Oh, damn.
00:29:31
Speaker
If I increase my Django level, some of my communication points that I invested in go down.
00:29:35
Speaker
Fuck.
00:29:38
Speaker
Why did I decide to be a charismatic clone trooper?
00:29:41
Speaker
The more war crimes you commit, the higher your Django level goes up.
00:29:45
Speaker
It's true.
00:29:45
Speaker
It's true.
00:29:46
Speaker
He loved himself some war crimes.
00:29:51
Speaker
Oh, man.
00:29:53
Speaker
So they pull all the rations together and decide to have a couple of big meals for a final kind of send off before they possibly march off to their deaths.
00:30:06
Speaker
Cut to Hoken interrogating Guteney, who he says he basically escaped from the four commandos from four commandos and, quote, girly Jedi and lies that there is, in fact, another squad.
00:30:20
Speaker
And it basically just goes through with everything that they've ordered him to tell him tells him they're coming to the villa.
00:30:26
Speaker
He describes their armor as similar to Mandalorians and that they all look identical, basically confirming Hoken's suspicion that these are clone troopers.
00:30:37
Speaker
And Hoken's surprised because he honestly thought that clone troopers would be more mindless.
Clone Troopers' Humanity and Missions
00:30:43
Speaker
And the people who have been doing this work...
00:30:45
Speaker
are clearly calculating and excellent at strategy.
00:30:49
Speaker
And that is not what he saw coming.
00:30:53
Speaker
So based on that, he assumes they've got two squads.
00:30:55
Speaker
It's going to be a two-pronged attack.
00:30:58
Speaker
They're probably going to go after both the facility and the villa, which he's correct on, just not fully at the same time.
00:31:06
Speaker
Yeah, not fully.
00:31:07
Speaker
He's right.
00:31:08
Speaker
He just doesn't have all the information.
00:31:10
Speaker
As in one squad that doesn't exist is going for one.
00:31:13
Speaker
Right.
00:31:16
Speaker
So, so Hogan decides they're going to evenly spread out the army, uh, between the two, uh, locations.
00:31:23
Speaker
And then finally does what we all need him to do.
00:31:26
Speaker
It just kills the shit out of.
00:31:28
Speaker
He just cuts Scutinay's head off with a lightsaber, which is probably for the best.
00:31:33
Speaker
Um,
00:31:34
Speaker
Chapter 15 opens with a quote from a Padawan Jedi, essentially opposing the clones.
00:31:41
Speaker
Yeah, basically saying the same thing that Aitain is feeling.
00:31:46
Speaker
Like, what the fuck are we doing here?
00:31:48
Speaker
Right.
00:31:49
Speaker
And which, thank God, like, thank God, like somebody, you get the impression that it's kind of monolithically like, no, these are great.
00:31:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:56
Speaker
And so that's nice.
00:31:57
Speaker
It's these Gen Z Padawans.
00:32:00
Speaker
They're all a bunch of bleeding heart liberals.
00:32:05
Speaker
Can't kill clones.
00:32:06
Speaker
Oh, boo-hoo-hoo.
00:32:07
Speaker
Boo-hoo.
00:32:08
Speaker
I got spanked when I was growing up and I turned out fine.
00:32:11
Speaker
So I saw a meme the other day where someone, it was like a boomer talking to a younger person and the boomer was saying, I got spanked and I turned out fine.
00:32:23
Speaker
And the Gen Z are saying, my brother in Christ, you've taken your abuse and turned it into one of your personality traits.
00:32:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:33
Speaker
I think my favorite thing that Gen Z has done is turn my brother in Christ into a just a slang for your friend.
00:32:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:43
Speaker
No, I like I enjoy the my brother in Christ.
00:32:48
Speaker
I love it.
00:32:49
Speaker
Good for you kids.
00:32:50
Speaker
It is hysterical, you know, whenever I hear it or see it or use it myself.
00:32:57
Speaker
Yeah, I love it.
00:32:58
Speaker
I fucking love it.
00:32:59
Speaker
I don't use it.
00:32:59
Speaker
I need to make a point to use it.
00:33:00
Speaker
I don't use it that often, but, you know, I just get a little, I get a sensible chuckle.
00:33:05
Speaker
You know, when I see it.
00:33:06
Speaker
Sometimes you kids, I don't understand you and your weird things and your, you know, hip lingo.
00:33:11
Speaker
Sometimes I port man to two phrases together.
00:33:15
Speaker
I'll go, my brother in Christ in this economy.
00:33:18
Speaker
And that's like...
00:33:20
Speaker
That's peak Gen Z right there.
00:33:23
Speaker
My bruh in Christ.
00:33:25
Speaker
My bruh in Christ in this economy, question mark.
00:33:28
Speaker
Question mark?
00:33:29
Speaker
And the laughs abound.
00:33:31
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:33:32
Speaker
And they're like, oh, wow, you're totally not a millennial.
00:33:36
Speaker
You are young and hip like us.
00:33:38
Speaker
Young and hip.
00:33:39
Speaker
I am in no way an elder millennial, which I realize now if I'm like, wait a minute.
00:33:47
Speaker
So it's 81 to 96.
00:33:49
Speaker
And I was born in 84.
00:33:51
Speaker
And I'm like, fuck, I'm like, I'm there's a whole group of millennials that are just.
00:33:59
Speaker
younger and hipper than me.
00:34:01
Speaker
I think it makes sense with us, because I was born in 82, and I think someone pointed out, I read it online, they call our section of millennials the Oregon Trail millennials.
00:34:15
Speaker
Sure.
00:34:16
Speaker
And that basically we, the first half of our lives, we grew up without the internet and then got it at around high school or so.
00:34:25
Speaker
Yep.
00:34:25
Speaker
And that that...
00:34:27
Speaker
gives us a different perspective on all that stuff.
00:34:29
Speaker
I was like, that makes a lot of sense.
00:34:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:32
Speaker
We had, it's like we had computers, but they weren't connected to the internet, which I imagine him is like fucking mind blowing.
00:34:41
Speaker
Like, so what did you do with them?
00:34:42
Speaker
Be like, well,
00:34:44
Speaker
video games or word processing, you know, that's pretty much it.
00:34:49
Speaker
Well, what if you wanted someone, if you wrote something and you wanted someone to see it, well, you saved it to a disc and like a thumb drive.
00:34:55
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:34:57
Speaker
You're, you know, the, you know, the symbol on the save button.
00:35:00
Speaker
That's that's, we had those, we had stacks of them.
00:35:02
Speaker
And it was called a three and a half inch floppy.
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:06
Speaker
So it was floppy.
00:35:07
Speaker
No, it was hard.
00:35:09
Speaker
It was hard.
00:35:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:11
Speaker
It was called a floppy because there's a five-inch floppy.
00:35:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:15
Speaker
That was floppy.
00:35:16
Speaker
That was floppy.
00:35:17
Speaker
That one was wibbly-wobbly floppy.
00:35:22
Speaker
Damn, I remember all that shit.
00:35:23
Speaker
I remember installing Indiana Jones and the Temple of Atlantis on 16 three-inch floppies.
00:35:32
Speaker
Yeah, it was a lot.
00:35:34
Speaker
It was a lot.
00:35:38
Speaker
We had so many.
00:35:39
Speaker
I just remembered when we got rid of our Commodore.
00:35:43
Speaker
I think it was our Commodore.
00:35:45
Speaker
We got rid of our... It was like the last thing that had a five-inch floppy.
00:35:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:51
Speaker
And so we got rid of all of our five inch floppy disks.
00:35:55
Speaker
And like looking back, I wish we had kept them.
00:35:58
Speaker
But, you know, the only one I remember my mom was just throwing them out.
00:36:02
Speaker
And for those who have listened to the podcast long enough, you know, my abject fear.
00:36:09
Speaker
of Howard the Duck, the video game.
00:36:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:13
Speaker
So that one I took from her and I took a pair of scissors and I just absolutely fucking destroyed it before I allowed her to throw it out.
00:36:22
Speaker
You're just like, here, you can have this back.
00:36:25
Speaker
There you go.
00:36:27
Speaker
Which is hilarious because I've had Howard the Duck pinned in Marvel Snap now for weeks.
00:36:33
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:36:36
Speaker
I love that they brought him in.
00:36:37
Speaker
That's cool.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:40
Speaker
Anyway.
00:36:41
Speaker
Anyway.
00:36:42
Speaker
We're in chapter 15.
00:36:42
Speaker
We're in chapter 15.
00:36:45
Speaker
Itain senses that Gutene has died and knows that she has killed him.
00:36:51
Speaker
Fee gets kind of snide about it and Darman gets really defensive of her and everyone's like, ooh, Darman's got a girlfriend.
00:37:02
Speaker
Why don't you kiss her?
00:37:03
Speaker
Why don't you marry her and have a bunch of clone babies?
00:37:11
Speaker
We get a lot of discussion about the ends justifying the means.
00:37:14
Speaker
We were made for this kind of thing.
00:37:16
Speaker
You know, she says, you know, she says, well, what if I do that to you guys?
00:37:21
Speaker
And they're like, yeah, you will.
00:37:23
Speaker
That's the idea.
00:37:23
Speaker
That's how this works.
00:37:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's how this works.
00:37:26
Speaker
You will be.
00:37:28
Speaker
You will be.
00:37:28
Speaker
You will justify those means.
00:37:31
Speaker
You will.
00:37:32
Speaker
You'll send people to die.
00:37:35
Speaker
Cool it will be.
00:37:37
Speaker
Taste for it you'll get.
00:37:42
Speaker
Yoda to a fucking sociopath.
00:37:45
Speaker
So what if they had, if she did have a clone baby, would the baby pop out at like three months or?
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:52
Speaker
I mean, we find out later with a quote when we're going to get to it, where, how old they basically get to.
00:38:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:02
Speaker
And so they're like,
00:38:04
Speaker
chronologically so like an old man clone chronologically is 23 but the age of the clone is about 60 about 60 so a little over you know it's like a four a little under 4x yeah yeah and and so yeah i mean a couple of months yeah yeah acceleration and then you cut it in half because it's half normal human half clone so it would so it would be half the gestation period
00:38:33
Speaker
And that's how we got that Robin Williams movie about the...
00:38:40
Speaker
That's how this works.
00:38:42
Speaker
Jack.
00:38:43
Speaker
Jack.
00:38:44
Speaker
There we go.
00:38:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:45
Speaker
That's how this works.
00:38:46
Speaker
This is like a movie just made for tears.
00:38:49
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:38:50
Speaker
I saw that movie in the theater, and I just immediately remember going, oh, God, why have I come to see this?
00:38:56
Speaker
Like, this is a mistake.
00:38:56
Speaker
This is a mistake on so many different levels.
00:39:00
Speaker
But they're all Jacks.
00:39:01
Speaker
They're all Jacks.
00:39:02
Speaker
Yep.
00:39:03
Speaker
They're all that.
00:39:04
Speaker
Jacks all the way down.
00:39:05
Speaker
Jacks all the way down.
00:39:09
Speaker
Oh, I like this moment.
00:39:11
Speaker
Darmot realizes, based on these conversations, why their old instructor was always so sad about them.
00:39:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:19
Speaker
He's starting to understand why daddy drank, basically.
00:39:23
Speaker
Why daddy drank, yeah.
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:27
Speaker
He can't quite understand her hesitance yet, but he's starting to get it.
00:39:33
Speaker
we find out this is going to be the first time that they have ever actually fought together as a squad, which doesn't sound right, but it's totally true.
00:39:41
Speaker
Totally true, because Darman fucked it all up in the beginning by... Fucking Darman.
00:39:46
Speaker
Trying to get more explosives from the plane.
00:39:50
Speaker
What an inciting incident, by the way.
00:39:53
Speaker
Like...
00:39:54
Speaker
whole thing started because he kicks his sergeant out of the play because he wants more bombs.
00:40:01
Speaker
Who the fuck does he think he is?
00:40:03
Speaker
BJ Blazkowicz?
00:40:05
Speaker
What is this?
00:40:07
Speaker
It's bad.
00:40:09
Speaker
So they get remotes set up.
00:40:12
Speaker
There are remotes set up at the villa.
00:40:15
Speaker
They see droids leaving for the lab along with Hoken.
00:40:18
Speaker
So everyone's splitting up.
00:40:21
Speaker
And it seems that Goutiné did his job too well.
00:40:24
Speaker
Basically, that he made him paranoid enough that he's going to split them up.
00:40:31
Speaker
So they're going to have to do a little more improvisation.
00:40:35
Speaker
This is where I wrote down some notes here about the fact that they refer to the droids as tinnies, which evokes skinnies for me, which was what.
00:40:49
Speaker
American soldiers called Somalian soldiers in the 90s when we were over there.
00:40:59
Speaker
And I did some research and they claim, because at that point Somalia had gone through a huge famine and so a lot of them were incredibly emaciated.
00:41:09
Speaker
And they claim in the thing that I read that it wasn't because they were actually skinny, but it was because a lot of the guys in that group
00:41:18
Speaker
were big fans of Starship Troopers, and that's what they called some of the aliens in there, they called them skinnies.
00:41:23
Speaker
And I was like, okay, that's still not great.
00:41:25
Speaker
Still not better.
00:41:26
Speaker
Still not great.
00:41:29
Speaker
Is it just kind of an ignorant thing you called them, or is it an actively fascist thing you called them?
00:41:35
Speaker
Are you being, so like, are you, when you're coming up with a nickname for the group that is opposing you,
00:41:44
Speaker
How racist is it?
00:41:46
Speaker
You got to stop and think.
00:41:47
Speaker
Like, where are we talking about because they went through a famine?
00:41:53
Speaker
Is it because their skin is dark?
00:41:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:56
Speaker
Or are you comparing them to the antagonist of a book and movie where the antagonist is a literal insect?
00:42:05
Speaker
Right.
00:42:06
Speaker
Right.
00:42:08
Speaker
Which one is it?
00:42:09
Speaker
They're all bad.
00:42:10
Speaker
This is all bad.
00:42:11
Speaker
This is all bad news.
00:42:16
Speaker
So, you know, yes.
00:42:19
Speaker
Tinnies, like every time I heard Tinnies, like, why is that striking me weird in my head?
00:42:24
Speaker
This is the point in my notes that it was the same thing.
00:42:26
Speaker
I was like, this is making me think of something.
00:42:29
Speaker
It was an interesting detail.
00:42:31
Speaker
Um, Niner wants backup, uh, but fee notices some kid taking a side entrance at the Villa, bringing fruit to the Villas, uh, sellers, which doesn't make sense because they're only supposed to be droids in the Villas.
00:42:47
Speaker
What the hell do they want with fruit?
00:42:49
Speaker
And they realize that it's Janart and that ain't fruit.
00:42:52
Speaker
Those are the explosives, uh, that they have, uh, loaded her up with.
00:42:56
Speaker
So their backup is already there.
00:42:58
Speaker
Essentially already ready to go.
00:43:01
Speaker
Oh, Janart Janart's the MVP of this book, by the way, she really is.
00:43:05
Speaker
She really does pretty much everything for them.
00:43:09
Speaker
Yeah, no, she kicks ass.
00:43:10
Speaker
They would not be they would not have succeeded in this without Janart.
00:43:15
Speaker
We cut to Dr. Uthon and Hoken in the in their office.
00:43:19
Speaker
Hoken is pitching the idea.
00:43:22
Speaker
of trapping the clones and gassing them effectively.
00:43:26
Speaker
With the virus.
00:43:26
Speaker
With the virus.
00:43:27
Speaker
You'd be like, let's test it on them.
00:43:28
Speaker
And Utham's like, it's a terrible idea.
00:43:30
Speaker
It's stupid as shit.
00:43:32
Speaker
And in fact, I'd rather you catch at least one of them alive so that I can do some tests on him.
00:43:39
Speaker
And Hogan's like, you're an idiot.
00:43:42
Speaker
They're basically having a you're an idiot moment at each other at the same time.
00:43:46
Speaker
They're idiot off.
00:43:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:43:50
Speaker
Hogan tells her and the scientists to stay put.
00:43:54
Speaker
It cuts to Niner contacting the Republic ship and asking for gun support.
00:44:00
Speaker
The ship might have an attack of their own to fend off, they point out, but they agree.
00:44:05
Speaker
They're like, look, we're going to help you.
00:44:06
Speaker
But if we don't, if we don't immediately respond, it's because we're getting shot at.
00:44:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:11
Speaker
So it was like, Hey guys, we're, yeah, we'll slow down.
00:44:14
Speaker
And it's, but the funny thing is, it's like, it's done with this like really, uh, straightforward, like, uh, military.
00:44:24
Speaker
Like that's a, that's a Roger on that.
00:44:26
Speaker
If we, if we slow down a little bit, we're dealing with some issues of ourselves, but you know, it's, it's just, you can, you can hear his best Delta pilot voice.
00:44:35
Speaker
Like, uh, we are slowing down here and, uh, we're, uh,
00:44:41
Speaker
Don't worry, guys.
00:44:42
Speaker
We're going to pick up the fire soon.
00:44:45
Speaker
But we got a little visitor on our port side.
00:44:48
Speaker
We're not going to deal with.
00:44:49
Speaker
And we'll get back to you.
00:44:51
Speaker
We'll get back to you and see if we can't nuke some tinnies.
00:44:55
Speaker
Over and out.
00:45:00
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:45:02
Speaker
Jannart arrives and lets them know that Uthon is not in the villa, but it is filled with explosives underneath of it that are ready to be blown to shit at a moment's notice, which is great news.
00:45:16
Speaker
They just need a new angle.
Tactical Strategies and Challenges
00:45:20
Speaker
Over time, Niner's starting to realize how important this flexibility is to the squad that he's considering.
00:45:28
Speaker
He's like, Intel is great, but Intel is often bullshit.
00:45:31
Speaker
And this is not the first time that we've seen that happen to the point where Jannard, not Jannard, Attain actually had to point out, look, you've got the wrong buildings assigned to you here.
00:45:42
Speaker
So he's starting to realize the value in that level of flexibility.
00:45:47
Speaker
He also realizes they're more or less doing full-fledged army work.
00:45:51
Speaker
He kind of has to remind himself, like, we're special forces.
00:45:54
Speaker
Like, we're supposed to be, like, in and out, like, covert ops kind of shit.
00:45:59
Speaker
This is, like, this is a job for more people.
00:46:03
Speaker
We are doing the work of several squads, in fact.
00:46:08
Speaker
And Itain hears this and it gives her some kind of relief because she's just kind of relieved to see that they don't follow all orders blindly necessarily, that they do have points of view and they do think about this stuff.
00:46:21
Speaker
We got a great set of lines talking about how bullshit this whole thing looks at.
00:46:28
Speaker
And Fee says, if you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined.
00:46:31
Speaker
To which Atten replies, I didn't join.
00:46:34
Speaker
Which is...
00:46:36
Speaker
You were the you you were volunteered, my friend.
00:46:39
Speaker
Yeah, that is totally fair.
00:46:42
Speaker
Conscription from birth.
00:46:43
Speaker
Yeah, literal.
00:46:45
Speaker
Yes.
00:46:45
Speaker
Literal births conscription.
00:46:48
Speaker
It's a it's a good moment of levity.
00:46:49
Speaker
I got a kick out of that.
00:46:52
Speaker
Darman wants to know if there is a way that they can sneak into a.
00:46:57
Speaker
the, uh, the, the area and through drainage or something like that and fight their way out.
00:47:02
Speaker
And Janart points out that the Gdans have a warrens and tunnels that interconnect all throughout the area under there.
00:47:11
Speaker
And there should be some tunnels that would be wide enough to get them to drainage pipes and that sort of thing so that they can, uh, make it into the facility from underneath basically.
00:47:23
Speaker
Exactly.
00:47:24
Speaker
Um,
00:47:25
Speaker
And so they start to notice that the G'dans always avoid her.
00:47:29
Speaker
They even try to eat them.
00:47:31
Speaker
And so they say, why do the G'dans always avoid you?
00:47:33
Speaker
And she goes, because we eat them.
00:47:35
Speaker
Oh, right.
00:47:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:37
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense.
00:47:38
Speaker
It's easy to forget because she's a shapeshifter that the way they describe her in her actual form, she is like quadrupedal and very bestial in nature.
00:47:50
Speaker
So it's it's it's
00:47:52
Speaker
Things like that that remind you, oh, right, right.
00:47:54
Speaker
She's a hunter out there.
00:47:56
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:47:58
Speaker
So the new plan is that Janart and Darman with Atten are going to infiltrate while, thank you, Ripley.
00:48:08
Speaker
Ripley is just wants to.
00:48:11
Speaker
Hi, Ripley.
00:48:11
Speaker
Oh, she is.
00:48:13
Speaker
She is a chubby little kitty.
00:48:15
Speaker
She's so fat.
00:48:18
Speaker
Look at that.
00:48:18
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:48:20
Speaker
Chonky girl.
00:48:21
Speaker
She is a chonky girl.
00:48:22
Speaker
She is built for comfort, not for speed.
00:48:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:28
Speaker
That is for damn sure.
00:48:29
Speaker
Just sitting on your back for a second there.
00:48:32
Speaker
She does that.
00:48:32
Speaker
She used to, when she was a kitten, she would sit.
00:48:36
Speaker
We got her when she was very little and she would just sit on my shoulder and that was her spot.
00:48:42
Speaker
And now whenever I pick her up and hold her there, she's not content to be held.
00:48:45
Speaker
She has to crawl up onto my shoulder and she'll still just do her best.
00:48:50
Speaker
She'll plop kind of on your shoulder.
00:48:52
Speaker
It's adorable, but it is kind of sad.
00:48:54
Speaker
Uh,
00:48:55
Speaker
That butt does not fit up there anymore.
00:48:58
Speaker
That's not where this is.
00:49:00
Speaker
You need a couch, honey.
00:49:04
Speaker
And I can say that because I need a couch.
00:49:07
Speaker
It's like father like daughter, basically.
00:49:11
Speaker
Um, so yeah, the new plan, Janart and Darman are, uh, and Aten are going to infiltrate the facilities while Niner and fee provide, uh, uh, support outside.
00:49:21
Speaker
They're going to extract Dr. Uthon and attain is going to help get her, uh, get her clear of the place, uh, basically using her mind powers and that sort of thing to, uh, keep her calm and get more information out of her.
00:49:35
Speaker
And then they're going to blow the place to kingdom come.
00:49:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:39
Speaker
If the mission fails, Etain promises that she will order that the facilities be vaporized from orbit, basically.
00:49:47
Speaker
Just a straight up orbital bombardment.
00:49:49
Speaker
Yeah, she goes all, speaking of Ripley, she goes full Ripley on them and says, you know, I'm not gonna, you know, nuke the site from orbit.
00:49:56
Speaker
It's the only way to be sure.
00:49:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:59
Speaker
So she, and we do get this really interesting moment with her and Niner at the end of the chapter, where they're basically both offering brave faces for the mission's success.
00:50:10
Speaker
Niner recognizes that she's like, you guys are great and you've got this.
00:50:15
Speaker
And it's like,
00:50:17
Speaker
No one was asking.
00:50:19
Speaker
She just kind of like, and Niner's like, well, yeah, that makes sense, though, because we can't, we just, in a moment like this, there's no room for doubt.
00:50:25
Speaker
Right.
00:50:27
Speaker
Chapter 16 opens with a core.
00:50:29
Speaker
So wait, 15, they all take drugs.
00:50:31
Speaker
Oh, yes, yes, you're absolutely right.
00:50:33
Speaker
They do a lot of drugs.
00:50:34
Speaker
They take a lot of stems.
00:50:36
Speaker
They take a lot of stems.
00:50:37
Speaker
And it's like, and Tane is like, well, I should get my power from the force.
00:50:45
Speaker
And she's like, but no, give me a stem.
00:50:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:50:47
Speaker
She's like, I mean, normally Jedi would do powers from the force, but I'll do a bump.
00:50:52
Speaker
Sure.
00:50:53
Speaker
I'll take a bump.
00:50:55
Speaker
So, yeah, you're right.
00:50:57
Speaker
Yeah, they all do drugs.
00:50:59
Speaker
No one's sleeping well.
00:51:00
Speaker
Let's face facts.
00:51:03
Speaker
You might need a little meth.
00:51:04
Speaker
You just might.
00:51:05
Speaker
You might need some.
00:51:07
Speaker
It worked for the Nazis right up until it didn't.
00:51:10
Speaker
So.
00:51:14
Speaker
Chapter 16 opens with a quote from a retired.
00:51:17
Speaker
We talked about this.
00:51:18
Speaker
This is an actual honest to God retired clone trooper who is not retired through death, not retired by cop, but he's too old.
00:51:30
Speaker
And he is, yeah, and as Kevin pointed out, he is 23 years old, but that effectively makes him 60.
00:51:35
Speaker
So they don't need him out there.
00:51:38
Speaker
He's a liability.
00:51:41
Speaker
Let's see.
00:51:42
Speaker
We get Darman, Aten, and Jannart in the country.
00:51:45
Speaker
They're feeling kind of conspicuous in their white armor.
00:51:49
Speaker
It's nighttime, but they're kind of glowing out there, basically.
00:51:53
Speaker
The armor is awesome.
00:51:56
Speaker
But it also they feel like sitting ducks sometimes.
00:52:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:00
Speaker
Like we need to get black versions of black.
00:52:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:02
Speaker
Next time.
00:52:03
Speaker
Please.
00:52:03
Speaker
Exactly.
00:52:04
Speaker
This is another of many like lists of things that they're going to go.
00:52:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:09
Speaker
To the master.
00:52:10
Speaker
They've been making a list throughout the book.
00:52:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:13
Speaker
Like we got to do this.
00:52:15
Speaker
We got to do that.
00:52:16
Speaker
Like it's pretty.
00:52:18
Speaker
They're so wrong.
00:52:19
Speaker
And like, yeah, the the designers of everything are so wrong.
00:52:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:23
Speaker
So wrong.
00:52:24
Speaker
So wrong.
00:52:25
Speaker
We just need to cover this up.
00:52:28
Speaker
They find the Warren hole and it gets pretty claustrophobic pretty quick, which is interesting because they say they're both both Darman and Atten are feeling kind of.
00:52:41
Speaker
wary of being in a tunnel.
00:52:44
Speaker
And they were like, and they realize that this must be something Django dealt with.
00:52:49
Speaker
Django.
00:52:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:52:51
Speaker
He's like, I don't know.
00:52:52
Speaker
We're cloned from the same guy.
00:52:53
Speaker
He clearly had hangups when it came to this sort of thing.
00:52:56
Speaker
Oh, right.
00:52:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:57
Speaker
And like the, yeah, then like the claustrophobia.
00:53:03
Speaker
I thought that was interesting.
00:53:05
Speaker
I think it's fascinating the way they talk about Django Fett is, um,
00:53:10
Speaker
It's very there's almost like a D.E.D.
00:53:14
Speaker
level to it in a way.
00:53:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:16
Speaker
You know, it's something they all have in common.
00:53:19
Speaker
It's a common part of the culture and they can only speculate on him now.
00:53:25
Speaker
It's it's really very interesting.
00:53:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:28
Speaker
He's like somewhere between a father and a god.
00:53:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:53:32
Speaker
Just this legendary out there kind of force.
00:53:36
Speaker
Right.
00:53:36
Speaker
A force.
00:53:38
Speaker
Anyway.
00:53:39
Speaker
Force.
00:53:39
Speaker
The force.
00:53:41
Speaker
The force.
00:53:42
Speaker
The Mandalorian force.
00:53:44
Speaker
God damn it.
00:53:45
Speaker
Give Mandalorians Jedi powers and we're all fucked forever.
00:53:48
Speaker
We're all fucked.
00:53:51
Speaker
They find a wall that if they drill through it, it will lead to drainage.
00:53:56
Speaker
And Jannart leaves to assist Niner and Fee.
00:54:01
Speaker
As they dig, we get Darman kind of missing Itain.
00:54:06
Speaker
Mwah!
00:54:09
Speaker
He gets little pink hearts above his head.
00:54:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:12
Speaker
But he's only missing her because she could use her force power to make sure the thing didn't collapse on them.
00:54:17
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:54:18
Speaker
That's the only reason, though.
00:54:20
Speaker
You guys.
00:54:21
Speaker
It has nothing to do with those childbearing hips, you guys.
00:54:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:25
Speaker
You guys, they drill through the pipe and get covered in literal shit, covered in shit, covered in shit.
00:54:34
Speaker
And they both have a good laugh about it, which they comment is kind of this primal relief feeling that the laughter comes less from actual humor of the situation and more from the fact that they are about to step into the lion's den here.
00:54:49
Speaker
Right.
00:54:51
Speaker
We cut to Niner and Fee setting up guns outside of the facility with the Tane.
00:54:57
Speaker
They're coordinating.
00:54:59
Speaker
Let's see.
00:54:59
Speaker
Coordinating charge explosions.
00:55:02
Speaker
Oh, coordinating charge explosions in the facility and the villa.
00:55:05
Speaker
Attain reassures them.
00:55:09
Speaker
And it feels more like this is for her than for Niner and Fee.
00:55:16
Speaker
They set off the explosions and fire on the droids that are escaping it to keep the distraction going.
00:55:24
Speaker
Niner calls in support from the Majestic, who thinks they're absolutely out of their fucking minds.
00:55:29
Speaker
It's pretty funny.
00:55:32
Speaker
And they're just blowing these droids to pieces.
00:55:37
Speaker
And Niner has not noticed that none of the debris from all these exploding robots has been hitting them.
00:55:43
Speaker
I love this moment.
00:55:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great.
00:55:45
Speaker
He looks over and attain is in kind of this meditative pose.
00:55:49
Speaker
And he realizes she's been using her force powers to shield them from all the debris.
00:55:55
Speaker
It's a cool reveal.
00:55:56
Speaker
It's pretty neat.
00:55:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's like he notices that there's like there's like a chunk of like shrapnel not too far from him that just like would have been that would have been it would have given him a haircut.
00:56:08
Speaker
He says that's that's right.
00:56:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:10
Speaker
It's terrific.
00:56:12
Speaker
And it's nice.
00:56:13
Speaker
And this is one of the things we're starting to see Atain kind of coming into her own.
00:56:21
Speaker
And I interpret it as, because at first it's like, she's just shitty.
00:56:25
Speaker
She's a terrible Jedi.
00:56:26
Speaker
She's not good at anything.
00:56:27
Speaker
But she's also never, her Jedi Master sucked and got
00:56:32
Speaker
gave her nothing to really fight for, gave her nothing to believe in on that level.
00:56:38
Speaker
And so now she's with the irony is that she's a much, much better Jedi now that she's with these non Jedi clone troopers.
00:56:47
Speaker
But she's, she's, she's got something to believe in and it's actually helping her get in touch with the force.
00:56:53
Speaker
And I thought that was pretty cool.
00:56:55
Speaker
Um,
00:56:56
Speaker
Cut to Dharmon and Atten are in the inner chamber of the facilities there.
00:57:02
Speaker
They are looking for the nanovirus and setting explosives up.
00:57:06
Speaker
They hide them.
00:57:07
Speaker
They basically, they're little bitty explosive devices, and there are two of them, and they hide them in medicine cabinets and shit like that.
00:57:17
Speaker
And they make sure to hide both of them because they're like, all right, well, if they find the one, they might not assume that there's a second one.
00:57:24
Speaker
And one by itself is plenty to just blow this place to kingdom come, including including the virus, by the way, like the explosion heat will destroy any level.
00:57:35
Speaker
Everything.
00:57:36
Speaker
Yeah, everything.
00:57:39
Speaker
We get a little war tech porn.
00:57:41
Speaker
We learn about some EMP weaponry.
00:57:44
Speaker
Very cool.
00:57:45
Speaker
This door jack kind of thing, which is neat.
00:57:47
Speaker
They use this jack to open up one of the doors using, you know,
00:57:54
Speaker
high-powered compression or something like that and uh and actually that becomes a problem uh when the bulkhead doors start dropping basically we'll find out later that the whole reason that the security failsafe got set off is because one of the doors wasn't allowed to close the system interpreted that as an invasion correctly and everything shut
00:58:17
Speaker
Everything shuts down.
00:58:18
Speaker
There's nothing for them to do.
00:58:20
Speaker
They are pinned down by droids and surrounded by bulkheads.
00:58:24
Speaker
And well, the bulkheads cut them off.
00:58:27
Speaker
Right.
00:58:28
Speaker
So there and then they look up and they see somebody off in the distance.
00:58:33
Speaker
And who is it?
00:58:34
Speaker
But Dr. Uthan.
00:58:36
Speaker
It's trapped in there with them.
00:58:38
Speaker
She's trapped in there and she's armed to the teeth.
00:58:41
Speaker
So.
00:58:43
Speaker
Like, oh, good, our objective.
00:58:45
Speaker
Oh, shit.
00:58:46
Speaker
Oh, shit, she's got a gun.
00:58:47
Speaker
Here we go.
00:58:49
Speaker
Chapter 17, Hoken and his lieutenant are sealed on the wrong side of the bulkhead, and Hoken is pissed.
00:58:57
Speaker
He wants to go.
00:58:58
Speaker
He wants to know who did this.
00:58:59
Speaker
This is another great example of him going, God, these people are strategic geniuses.
00:59:04
Speaker
And it was just them fucking up.
00:59:05
Speaker
They fucked up.
00:59:06
Speaker
This was not on purpose.
00:59:07
Speaker
This is brilliant.
00:59:10
Speaker
Fuck, we accidentally activated the doors.
00:59:13
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:59:14
Speaker
Cut to Hogan and be like.
00:59:16
Speaker
Oh, these are Django fat clones.
00:59:18
Speaker
It's Django, all right.
00:59:19
Speaker
God damn, they're good.
00:59:23
Speaker
What's more dangerous than one Django?
00:59:24
Speaker
Four Djangos.
00:59:27
Speaker
Or as far as he knows, eight.
00:59:31
Speaker
Yeah, so security's been triggered, and Harati, the lieutenant, is going to try and break through the security while Hoken literally stands in front of the bulkhead with the lightsaber just going, woom, woom, woom.
00:59:45
Speaker
And he does.
00:59:46
Speaker
Yeah, the metal's too thick.
00:59:47
Speaker
It's like, yeah, it's not.
00:59:48
Speaker
He's like, he's like looking at it and noticing it's kind of warping a little.
00:59:52
Speaker
But I bet you money that's his own imagination.
00:59:55
Speaker
He just has to feel like he's doing something.
00:59:58
Speaker
And that's where we leave them.
01:00:01
Speaker
We got to Darman and Atten dealing with a heavily armed Dr. Uthan who is hiding a room with some Trandoshans and a melee scrap breaks out.
01:00:13
Speaker
This is this is our first like knife fight, basically.
01:00:18
Speaker
Right.
01:00:19
Speaker
So the Trandoshans get dead by stabbing is what I wrote here.
01:00:25
Speaker
They sure do.
01:00:26
Speaker
They get stabbed a lot.
01:00:28
Speaker
And one of them even goes, oh, yeah, I remember the sergeant saying stabbing is a real slow way to kill a guy.
01:00:34
Speaker
It's pretty brutal.
01:00:35
Speaker
It's a pretty brutal scene.
01:00:37
Speaker
Jesus Christ.
01:00:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:00:40
Speaker
So they don't know what else is in the room with Dr. Uthin, so they both EMP and flashbang it because they're like droids, meat, whatever.
01:00:50
Speaker
Anything that's in there is not going to be EMP.
01:00:51
Speaker
Take them down.
01:00:52
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:53
Speaker
And when they get in there, it's just amazing because they get in there and she's like, and Utham is just fucking down.
01:01:01
Speaker
And then Darman's like, oh, yes, not everybody.
01:01:06
Speaker
He had become used to attains resilience.
01:01:09
Speaker
Utham was a regular human, untrained, unfit, and apart from her intellect, nothing special.
01:01:15
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:15
Speaker
So, yeah, they really overkilled on throwing stuff into that.
01:01:19
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:20
Speaker
Need a little aloe for that burn, Dr. Uthan?
01:01:24
Speaker
Damn.
01:01:26
Speaker
So they drag Uthan out of there.
01:01:29
Speaker
She mentions that there are four scientists.
01:01:32
Speaker
We get a brief moment of what do we do with them?
01:01:35
Speaker
Do we just let them go up with the building?
01:01:38
Speaker
But they're civilians.
01:01:39
Speaker
Atten points out that they're just following orders.
01:01:43
Speaker
They're just following orders.
01:01:45
Speaker
They're just following orders.
01:01:46
Speaker
And...
01:01:48
Speaker
They're like, Darmond's like, nah, all right, fuck it.
01:01:50
Speaker
They can die.
01:01:51
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:52
Speaker
Darmond, I mean, he points out, he says, we're kind of, we're good with letting them fry.
01:01:59
Speaker
It's about time they learn.
01:02:00
Speaker
They're part of a war.
01:02:02
Speaker
Let's let them feel like they're part of a war.
01:02:04
Speaker
Not all soldiers wear uniforms, man.
01:02:06
Speaker
Exactly.
01:02:07
Speaker
Exactly.
01:02:08
Speaker
So Darmond is anti-Operation Paperclip.
01:02:11
Speaker
Yes.
01:02:13
Speaker
We stan an anti-Nazi king.
01:02:16
Speaker
Thank you, Darmond.
01:02:18
Speaker
We cut to Hogan still attacking the door.
01:02:22
Speaker
I love this scene because he's still just wom wom wom wom.
01:02:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:27
Speaker
And the door opens.
01:02:29
Speaker
And for a split second, he goes, ah, I did it.
01:02:33
Speaker
The lightsaber worked!
01:02:35
Speaker
But it's... Hiradi.
01:02:36
Speaker
It's Hiradi.
01:02:37
Speaker
Hiradi actually hacking the system.
01:02:40
Speaker
He's managed to hack open some of the doors and some of the bulkheads.
01:02:44
Speaker
And so they head over to the lab and find the remaining four scientists.
01:02:48
Speaker
The nanovirus is there, but it's locked up, and Utham's the only person who has passcodes.
01:02:57
Speaker
So this is...
01:02:59
Speaker
Yeah, if this can make trouble for, if this is, and this is very frustrating to Hoke Cannon, he thinks to himself, this is the kind of trouble that four, or again to his mind, eight clones can make.
01:03:11
Speaker
He's trembling at the thought of millions of them out there.
01:03:14
Speaker
Right, yep.
01:03:17
Speaker
Chapter 18, the last like four chapters are like half the size of the rest of them.
01:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, they really power through.
01:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, they do.
01:03:27
Speaker
They really do.
01:03:29
Speaker
Niner and Fee get the lowdown from Darman and Atten through transmissions.
01:03:35
Speaker
There's a gunship on its way.
01:03:38
Speaker
And Niner wants Fi and Attain to head to the extraction point, like without him immediately.
Jedi Powers and Mission Dynamics
01:03:43
Speaker
And they're like, no, we're not going to do that.
01:03:45
Speaker
Right.
01:03:46
Speaker
So as far as that's concerned, they're wondering if Attain can use her powers to help Darman and Atten escape from the facility somehow, because they're basically, because of the bulkhead situation, going to have to go back the way they came underground.
01:04:00
Speaker
And so she says, yeah, yeah, I can do something.
01:04:03
Speaker
I just need to find the shallowest area.
01:04:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:07
Speaker
along their route.
01:04:08
Speaker
So she takes a blaster and she and Janart, uh, cross the fields to an area that Janart quote senses echoes.
01:04:16
Speaker
It looks like she's sniffing, but she's actually sensing, uh, doing some sort of echolocation thing, like intense bat shit.
01:04:24
Speaker
Right.
01:04:24
Speaker
Basically.
01:04:25
Speaker
And finds a good spot and says, they're, they're not, they're not under here.
01:04:29
Speaker
They're further along, but if you do this, that it won't,
01:04:33
Speaker
And then attain force rips like a trench in the ground, revealing them.
01:04:39
Speaker
It's a really cool scene.
01:04:42
Speaker
It's really, it's like, it's well, it's well written in terms of like how the force is used and that sort of thing.
01:04:48
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:49
Speaker
And she like, it's like this perfectly scooped, uh, uh, mound of earth, like an, like an, like a, like a piece of construction equipment would have done.
01:04:58
Speaker
Right.
01:04:59
Speaker
Right.
01:05:00
Speaker
And Jannart is really impressed.
01:05:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:03
Speaker
And Darman and Atten come out covered in shit.
01:05:07
Speaker
Yes, they do.
01:05:07
Speaker
Yes, they do.
01:05:09
Speaker
With Dr. Uthan.
01:05:10
Speaker
And Dr. Uthan is drugged to the gills.
01:05:13
Speaker
You get the impression she was a real pain in the ass.
01:05:16
Speaker
And they just gave her like 14 Benadryl.
01:05:17
Speaker
Shot her up with some morphine.
01:05:21
Speaker
Shot her up.
01:05:23
Speaker
Jannart tells them that she's done all that she can and hopes that the Jedi will honor the promise that they made to help retake the world for them.
01:05:33
Speaker
And she's gone.
01:05:35
Speaker
That is a wrap on Jannart.
01:05:39
Speaker
And we cut to Hoken with Harani and the scientists.
01:05:42
Speaker
They've got some speeder bikes.
01:05:44
Speaker
And basically he says, what we're going to do is we're going to kill the lights and we're going to fucking ride like hell out of here.
01:05:50
Speaker
This whole thing.
01:05:52
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:52
Speaker
He goes, this whole plan.
01:05:53
Speaker
You'll find out in a second why.
01:05:55
Speaker
It's just hilarious.
01:05:56
Speaker
It's hilarious.
01:05:57
Speaker
He's just laying out this whole plan.
01:05:58
Speaker
This whole plan.
01:06:00
Speaker
When I say drop, you drop to the ground.
01:06:02
Speaker
When I say lights, we're going to go.
01:06:03
Speaker
We're going to hit those speeders and we're going to get the fuck out of here, okay?
01:06:07
Speaker
He's basically giving the whole plan.
01:06:08
Speaker
We're going to go straight out.
01:06:10
Speaker
Just fucking ride for your lives.
01:06:12
Speaker
Scientists going to be holding on Harati.
01:06:14
Speaker
Scientists holding on to Hoken.
01:06:16
Speaker
And then scientists off on their own.
01:06:18
Speaker
Like, yeah, you're drop, drop.
01:06:20
Speaker
You know, like, just really psyching them up.
01:06:22
Speaker
Okay, hit the lights.
01:06:25
Speaker
And we get to chapter 19.
01:06:27
Speaker
Cut to outside.
01:06:29
Speaker
Yes, to outside.
01:06:31
Speaker
Yes.
01:06:33
Speaker
Snyder and Fee see Hoken and the party escaping the facilities and they're like, ah, and just start shooting.
01:06:40
Speaker
Just start fucking shooting.
01:06:42
Speaker
And they lose sight of Hoken, but everybody else is just gone.
01:06:49
Speaker
You hear, like they hear someone yell drop from far away, but then, but then, but the three shapes didn't, at least not until the plasma rounds hit them.
01:07:01
Speaker
What's this drop?
01:07:02
Speaker
And they do not drop.
01:07:04
Speaker
Well, they do, but yeah.
01:07:06
Speaker
So, you know, the scientists that Hocan was going to save because they knew as much as anybody about the nano virus.
01:07:13
Speaker
They're dead.
01:07:14
Speaker
They're dead now.
01:07:15
Speaker
They're dead now.
01:07:20
Speaker
So Niner gives Darman the order to blow the facilities and he does, and it just fucking blows to shit.
01:07:28
Speaker
And this is, this is another moment where, uh, uh,
01:07:34
Speaker
we get proof that Fee is totally our Michelangelo on the team.
01:07:39
Speaker
Because they basically get blown, like literally blown away.
01:07:42
Speaker
They're both like carried, it's that big of an explosion.
01:07:45
Speaker
They're carried away.
01:07:46
Speaker
They're both face down in the mud.
01:07:48
Speaker
And like Niner looks over at Fee.
01:07:52
Speaker
And it's basically he says, what's,
01:07:56
Speaker
The word they use is index.
01:07:58
Speaker
Index.
01:07:58
Speaker
Because he does one explosion and says, that's an index.
01:08:03
Speaker
There's a second one.
01:08:03
Speaker
And he goes, no, that's the index.
01:08:07
Speaker
But the way they're describing him, it's like you could just hear that just like, that was fucking awesome.
01:08:11
Speaker
Like, he's so.
01:08:13
Speaker
He loved it.
01:08:15
Speaker
It just describes how happy he is in that moment.
01:08:18
Speaker
It just looks fucking cool.
01:08:21
Speaker
Yes, Fee is totally our Michelangelo of the group.
01:08:24
Speaker
It's wonderful to see.
01:08:27
Speaker
We cut to Hogan on his speeder bike covered in the blood of the scientist who used to be riding behind him.
01:08:35
Speaker
He almost feels guilty.
01:08:37
Speaker
Haradi shows up also alone and points out all the scientists are dead.
01:08:41
Speaker
He said, he said, I said, drop.
01:08:43
Speaker
They didn't drop.
01:08:45
Speaker
Civilians don't.
01:08:46
Speaker
It turns out civilians don't really listen when gunfire starts popping.
01:08:50
Speaker
No, it's not.
01:08:52
Speaker
So now this Hoken realizes now that nanovirus is gone.
01:08:57
Speaker
The scientists are gone.
01:08:58
Speaker
So now we got to get Uthan.
01:09:01
Speaker
We have to get Uthan.
01:09:02
Speaker
Like it's really important.
01:09:04
Speaker
We get her.
01:09:06
Speaker
And the only thing he thinks about, he says, the only thing that could be happening next is they could be getting extracted.
01:09:12
Speaker
So the only thing to do is to sit quietly and listen for an extraction ship of some kind.
01:09:20
Speaker
So that's what he's going to do.
01:09:23
Speaker
We cut to Itain, Darman, and Atten.
01:09:27
Speaker
They are located by a gunship.
01:09:30
Speaker
And just as they're about to board, Atten drops.
01:09:33
Speaker
He's been shot.
01:09:35
Speaker
And Darman kills the shooter, says that it was one of Hogan's captains.
01:09:41
Speaker
It's basically heavily implied that it was Haradi.
01:09:44
Speaker
It was probably Haradi.
01:09:45
Speaker
Yeah, who had been doing the same thing, listing from an extraction vessel.
01:09:48
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:49
Speaker
Itain, and we get first aid scenes with Darman.
01:09:54
Speaker
Really interesting stuff.
01:09:55
Speaker
We get a lot of really cool details.
01:09:57
Speaker
Like, for example, he gives him a painkiller and he gives him, I think, a blood clot or something like that.
01:10:02
Speaker
Yeah, and he's writing what he's been given on the helmet.
01:10:07
Speaker
On the helmet.
01:10:08
Speaker
P and Z. Z is for blood loss agent because B looks too much like P when you're in a hurry.
01:10:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:18
Speaker
It's interesting.
01:10:19
Speaker
It's very cool details.
01:10:23
Speaker
Itain is blaming herself for the whole situation because she was trying to help carry Uthon with the power of the force.
01:10:31
Speaker
And if she'd been using the force to keep an eye on them, then she might have noticed the sniper before.
01:10:37
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:38
Speaker
Atten got shot.
01:10:40
Speaker
Even worse, she goes to go pick up Uthon.
01:10:43
Speaker
Uthon's been hit by shrapnel from Atten's armor.
01:10:47
Speaker
So she is bleeding out steadily herself.
01:10:54
Speaker
Man, Haradi just really complicates things.
01:10:57
Speaker
It's a good thing Haradi's already dead.
01:10:59
Speaker
Because how can you...
01:11:02
Speaker
pissed.
01:11:05
Speaker
Yeah, and this is when we're getting more change from Itain.
01:11:09
Speaker
She is getting real military here.
01:11:12
Speaker
She's speaking and not even recognizing her voice.
01:11:17
Speaker
You know, just like, we gotta go, let's go.
01:11:19
Speaker
She is part of the squad, basically, at this point.
01:11:22
Speaker
We cut to Niner and Fi on their way to the evacuation point.
01:11:25
Speaker
Fi's clearly worried about Aden.
01:11:27
Speaker
They know what's happened.
01:11:29
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah.
01:11:29
Speaker
The one thing.
01:11:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:11:31
Speaker
The Italian also knew it had forged a bond that would cause her enormous pain in years to come.
01:11:38
Speaker
It was worse than falling in love.
01:11:40
Speaker
It was a totally different level of attachment.
01:11:41
Speaker
It was shared trauma.
01:11:44
Speaker
Master Foulier said you could fall out of love, but Itain knew you could never fall out of this because history could never change.
01:11:55
Speaker
Like, damn.
01:11:57
Speaker
That's good shit.
01:11:58
Speaker
That's good shit.
01:12:00
Speaker
It's, damn, yeah.
01:12:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's stuff like that that I keep coming back to Rubicon Protocol.
01:12:06
Speaker
Yep.
01:12:07
Speaker
Just that real life war shit.
01:12:10
Speaker
It works.
01:12:11
Speaker
It's great.
01:12:11
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:12
Speaker
So let's see.
01:12:14
Speaker
They they happen to see Hogan on his speeder.
01:12:18
Speaker
One of them says, can you shoot him?
01:12:20
Speaker
And he's like, yeah.
01:12:21
Speaker
So they blow his speeder up, knock him off.
01:12:24
Speaker
And they're like, great.
01:12:25
Speaker
And so but he is he's been they think he's prone.
01:12:29
Speaker
They think he's down, but he's faking it.
01:12:31
Speaker
And we get this kind of cat and mouse scene in the dark because he throws out an EMB grenade and blows out their visors and all of their technological equipment.
01:12:45
Speaker
They're like, Jesus Christ, can't they harden the electronics in our stuff a little bit more?
01:12:52
Speaker
It's like, put that on the list.
01:12:54
Speaker
Put that on the list for the quartermaster.
01:12:57
Speaker
We need better armor, as it turns out.
01:12:58
Speaker
Didn't know that.
01:13:01
Speaker
I can't put it on the list.
01:13:02
Speaker
It was all in my computer setup, and that's been fucked.
01:13:08
Speaker
They try throwing the remaining IEDs, but those also got ruined by the EMP.
01:13:13
Speaker
Yes, they throw them.
01:13:15
Speaker
Nothing happens.
01:13:16
Speaker
Nothing happens.
01:13:17
Speaker
So what do you do in a moment like that, Kevin?
01:13:20
Speaker
What do you do when you're out of, like, your technology is gone?
01:13:25
Speaker
You're playing cat and mouse in a very primal way with his Mandalorian warrior.
01:13:29
Speaker
What do you do?
01:13:30
Speaker
What do you do?
01:13:32
Speaker
Well, you do the whole, hey, guard, this guy is really injured.
01:13:41
Speaker
You got to come check on him, Trey.
01:13:42
Speaker
Yeah.
01:13:44
Speaker
Yeah, Niner throws himself to the ground and starts screaming as if he's terribly injured.
01:13:52
Speaker
Yeah, just screaming his head off.
01:13:55
Speaker
That's okay.
01:13:56
Speaker
Sure.
01:13:56
Speaker
And he even points out, he goes, I don't, I never really heard it.
01:13:59
Speaker
I've never screamed before, but I've seen people scream.
01:14:01
Speaker
I wonder if I'm going to be any good at this.
01:14:04
Speaker
He is, as it turns out.
01:14:05
Speaker
He knows how to play dead.
01:14:07
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:08
Speaker
We, chapter 20, we get a quote from Cal Scarada, their old training sergeant, basically saying he doesn't know who the good guys in this situation are, but he definitely knows who the bad guys are.
01:14:20
Speaker
Just basically about how muddled and the shades of green.
01:14:25
Speaker
of war.
01:14:29
Speaker
We get Darman and Atten are watching the gunship coming in.
01:14:35
Speaker
Uthan and Atten are both collected by medics and that sort of thing onto the ramp.
01:14:41
Speaker
General Zay is there with Valaquil, the shapeshifter, and an ARC trooper.
01:14:46
Speaker
We get a look at an ARC trooper.
01:14:48
Speaker
And these people are like the only kind of troopers that scare our commandos.
01:14:55
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:56
Speaker
Just very intense, very intense looking dude.
01:14:59
Speaker
Very intense looking dude.
01:15:01
Speaker
Basically pure Django.
01:15:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:04
Speaker
They'll do whatever the fuck they want.
01:15:06
Speaker
Unfiltered.
01:15:06
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:10
Speaker
Itain has impressed General Zay clearly.
01:15:15
Speaker
She doesn't really give a shit.
01:15:17
Speaker
He's like sitting there going, well, you've been doing great.
01:15:19
Speaker
We've just got to find you a new master to work under, and you're going to be a Jedi Knight before you know it.
01:15:24
Speaker
This is really impressive.
01:15:26
Speaker
And she doesn't give a shit.
01:15:27
Speaker
She's like, I don't care about that.
01:15:28
Speaker
We're a niner in feet.
01:15:29
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:30
Speaker
Where are they?
01:15:31
Speaker
And he's kind of like, I don't know.
01:15:36
Speaker
Well, their comms are down.
01:15:37
Speaker
They're probably dead.
01:15:38
Speaker
We can go.
01:15:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly it.
01:15:41
Speaker
Their comms are down.
01:15:41
Speaker
Probably dead.
01:15:42
Speaker
We should head on back.
01:15:45
Speaker
Poor Darman has a minor flashback where he's like, oh, Jesus Christ.
01:15:49
Speaker
No, no, not again.
01:15:50
Speaker
Not again.
01:15:51
Speaker
He's worried that Adam's going to die and these two are dead too and he's going to be an orphan again.
01:15:58
Speaker
Yep.
01:15:59
Speaker
So it's really sad, actually.
01:16:00
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:02
Speaker
Atten, or not Atten, Itain will not, she refuses to leave.
01:16:06
Speaker
She says, we're not leaving any of these people behind.
01:16:09
Speaker
Um...
01:16:11
Speaker
The general's trying to pull their soldiers.
01:16:14
Speaker
That's what they signed up for.
01:16:15
Speaker
This is how it works.
01:16:16
Speaker
And she says, no, I don't give a shit.
01:16:18
Speaker
I know them.
01:16:20
Speaker
If we're going, she goes into the whole Jedi thing.
01:16:22
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:23
Speaker
And she threatens to ground the ship.
01:16:27
Speaker
Yes.
01:16:27
Speaker
She holds her lightsaber out at a power conduit.
01:16:30
Speaker
And it's like, either we save them or we're all stuck here.
01:16:36
Speaker
And finally, the general's like, oh, OK, go ahead.
01:16:39
Speaker
And Darman.
01:16:41
Speaker
But you are not ready to be a Jedi Knight.
01:16:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:16:44
Speaker
She says, I don't think I'm ready to be a Jedi Knight anyway.
01:16:47
Speaker
And he's like, yeah, I think we're in agreement on that.
01:16:51
Speaker
But Darman does note a look on the general's face where he thinks he might be proud of her, like he's actually impressed.
01:16:58
Speaker
Yeah.
Emotional Bonds and Jedi Detachment
01:16:59
Speaker
We cut to Hocan listening to Niner scream for Cal.
01:17:05
Speaker
And because he knows that most people at the end when they die, they scream for their mother.
01:17:10
Speaker
They cry for their mother.
01:17:11
Speaker
These clones don't have.
01:17:14
Speaker
But they got Cal.
01:17:15
Speaker
Yeah, they don't have a mom, but they've got Cal.
01:17:17
Speaker
So they've got their.
01:17:18
Speaker
So and it's actually really poignant and sad.
01:17:20
Speaker
This whole scene is incredibly unspeakably sad to me.
01:17:25
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:26
Speaker
Because Hocan is horrified.
01:17:29
Speaker
at a Niner for so many reasons.
01:17:32
Speaker
He's horrified at like, he's like, God, this is what the clones are.
01:17:36
Speaker
Like, it's kind of pathetic on one hand.
01:17:39
Speaker
On the other hand, he feels sorry for him because he's like, he's not really a person.
01:17:44
Speaker
He's, he's just, this is pathetic what they've done to him.
01:17:47
Speaker
He doesn't deserve this.
01:17:48
Speaker
And he's got all these emotions and as a Mandalorian and he's cloned for Mandalorian stock.
01:17:54
Speaker
And so he kind of feels like he's got a duty, uh,
01:17:56
Speaker
to this guy and he says, I'm just, I'm going to finish him off and just go up.
01:18:00
Speaker
So he goes up.
01:18:01
Speaker
He's not going to cut him up with a lightsaber because Mandalorians deserve better than that.
01:18:05
Speaker
So he's about to, he hates this.
01:18:08
Speaker
He absolutely hates what's going on.
01:18:11
Speaker
And it's kind of, you get this, that Spartan sense of humanity, that Mandalorian kind of feel to him.
01:18:17
Speaker
And Hoken is our villain, but at the same time,
01:18:20
Speaker
you get where his head's at in this.
01:18:22
Speaker
Right.
01:18:22
Speaker
He's just really sad at what's become of this whole situation.
01:18:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:27
Speaker
And as he is about to kill Niner, he hears a lightsaber over his shoulder.
01:18:36
Speaker
The teen cuts his fucking head off.
01:18:38
Speaker
Cuts his fucking head off.
01:18:40
Speaker
So damn, girl, she's getting pretty good at that lightsaber, I gotta say.
01:18:49
Speaker
Uh, so, so Hogan's dead.
01:18:54
Speaker
Everybody's okay.
01:18:55
Speaker
And accounted for a fee goes through Hogan stuff and gets her master's lightsaber back and gives it to her.
01:19:02
Speaker
Uh, she just kind of barely registers that she is shell shocked.
01:19:06
Speaker
Um,
01:19:08
Speaker
Niner says, do you mind if I call you commander now after everything?
01:19:12
Speaker
And she says it would be, it's an honor.
01:19:15
Speaker
Yeah, they tell her to put away her lightsaber.
01:19:18
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:19:19
Speaker
She's still just standing there staring into the middle distance.
01:19:22
Speaker
But then they're like, um, attain.
01:19:28
Speaker
You might want to put that away.
01:19:29
Speaker
You can put that away.
01:19:34
Speaker
Tane, is everything okay, honey?
01:19:37
Speaker
Do you want some tea?
01:19:38
Speaker
You want some tea?
01:19:40
Speaker
Let's get on with it.
01:19:42
Speaker
Let's get out of here.
01:19:43
Speaker
And she kind of snaps out of it.
01:19:44
Speaker
The gunship is waiting for them.
01:19:54
Speaker
Itain, we get this little detail I had to write down.
01:19:57
Speaker
Itain is really haunted by the sound of Niner screaming.
01:20:02
Speaker
She knows that it was a distraction.
01:20:04
Speaker
She knows that he was just putting it on.
01:20:06
Speaker
But him crying out for Cal and everything like that really fucked with her head.
01:20:13
Speaker
And she's starting to understand the Jedi tradition of detachment, of not getting so close to everybody.
01:20:20
Speaker
Right.
01:20:22
Speaker
And General Zay even explains to her its importance.
01:20:26
Speaker
And despite all of that, she can't let go of it.
01:20:31
Speaker
It hurts like hell, but she's still, she'd rather have that attachment to these people than, you know.
01:20:39
Speaker
Protect herself.
01:20:41
Speaker
Basically, he gives her the lowdown that that he's going to be staying on Kilara to help honor the agreement that they had with Gerlanians to protect the planet.
01:20:52
Speaker
But frankly, to make basically rip the Trade Federation out root and stem from from Kilara.
01:20:58
Speaker
Exactly, exactly.
01:20:59
Speaker
Which benefits the Republic more than anything, but that doesn't matter.
01:21:04
Speaker
They're keeping, a bargain's a bargain.
01:21:06
Speaker
And he basically says to her, you can stay here with me and maybe one of the clone troopers can stay too, or you can...
01:21:15
Speaker
go off with them.
01:21:17
Speaker
Cause she's like, I don't want to leave.
01:21:18
Speaker
I want to stay with Omega squad.
01:21:19
Speaker
I want to stay with these guys.
01:21:21
Speaker
I don't want to leave them.
01:21:22
Speaker
And he says, well, you know, that's your choice.
01:21:24
Speaker
You can do that.
01:21:26
Speaker
Uh, or you can stay here.
01:21:27
Speaker
There's a lot of work to be done here and you'd be really good at it.
01:21:30
Speaker
And maybe one of the clone troopers can stay with you.
01:21:32
Speaker
So of course she immediately thinks maybe, uh, Darman could stay.
01:21:36
Speaker
Um, so she goes off to, uh, the Omega squad and lets them know I'm, I'm staying here.
01:21:42
Speaker
I'm going to stay here.
01:21:44
Speaker
They have their goodbyes and sign my yearbook and have a great summer and do that whole thing.
01:21:50
Speaker
And then she gets a moment alone with Darman and says, you know, you could stay.
01:21:55
Speaker
He said that, you know, one of y'all could stay and I'd love for you to stay.
01:21:58
Speaker
And he tells her he can't do it.
01:22:00
Speaker
He can't leave his squad behind.
01:22:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's just not in his nature.
01:22:04
Speaker
Totally.
01:22:05
Speaker
She totally gets it.
01:22:06
Speaker
But she gets off of the gunship and it flies away and she watches it.
01:22:11
Speaker
Tears streaming down her face, hoping that the Jedi master isn't watching her cry over these clones leaving.
01:22:18
Speaker
But as they as as they leave without her, she considers that she will never, ever she'll she will lead and become a commander and do all this stuff.
01:22:26
Speaker
But she's never not going to see these clones as anything less than her.
01:22:30
Speaker
Right.
01:22:32
Speaker
And they're not just expendable.
01:22:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:22:34
Speaker
Under that grim helmet was a man.
01:22:36
Speaker
Exactly.
01:22:37
Speaker
Someone just like her.
01:22:38
Speaker
And that's the end.
01:22:40
Speaker
That's the end of Star Wars Republic Command Hard Contact.
01:22:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:22:45
Speaker
So, Kevin, what'd you think?
01:22:47
Speaker
Oh, it was really good.
01:22:49
Speaker
And I think it's kind of like, I feel like some of the, so there's like,
01:22:56
Speaker
It's really good.
01:22:56
Speaker
And I think there's more of this kind of stuff that I know I feel like and or I need to watch and or still because I know and or kind of gets into the nitty gritty of like fucking war sucks, man.
01:23:08
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:09
Speaker
More than than other of the more recent stuff.
01:23:13
Speaker
But yeah, no, I'm I'm I was a big fan of this and I understand why a lot of people are fan, huge fans of Karen Travis's work, both across Star Wars and Halo.
01:23:25
Speaker
Yes.
01:23:26
Speaker
So I'm looking forward to whatever we read next from her.
01:23:31
Speaker
God help me.
01:23:31
Speaker
She makes me want to read the Gears of War novels.
01:23:34
Speaker
Yes, yes, yes.
01:23:36
Speaker
She wrote those and fuck, if she did half as good a job on those as she did with this, then that sounds like a treat.
01:23:42
Speaker
I'm in.
01:23:43
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:23:44
Speaker
I think one of the things that the only thing this book suffers from, and it's not her fault, is the Mandalorian lore has changed a little bit from when this was written.
Mandalorian Lore and Character Trauma
01:23:57
Speaker
One of the things was, like, Hogan mentions something about, like,
01:24:03
Speaker
Mandalorian armor probably couldn't stand up to a lightsaber.
01:24:07
Speaker
And literally the only thing in the universe that stood up to lightsabers was Mandalorian armor.
01:24:16
Speaker
That's been established later that the Mandalorians were basically the counterpoint to the Jedi in terms of fighting.
01:24:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:24:25
Speaker
So...
01:24:28
Speaker
I think that was, that's like something that's been developed later.
01:24:31
Speaker
And, but yeah, otherwise it's really fucking good in terms of getting into the nitty gritty of, you know, the, the characters and the, the trauma, like, yes, these characters aren't just like, and that's something that star Wars never really,
01:24:53
Speaker
leans on ever is the idea of, of trauma.
01:24:58
Speaker
Yeah.
01:24:59
Speaker
Being something that, and it's something that is going to be in a war setting, wartime setting.
01:25:06
Speaker
And these are all characters like throughout the course of, like you have Aten who has been traumatized before the story even starts.
01:25:16
Speaker
You have Aten who is been traumatized by,
01:25:21
Speaker
you know, being poorly trained.
01:25:23
Speaker
She's been stuck on this planet now without her master and just being chased around by, you know, would-be rapists or whatever.
01:25:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:25:33
Speaker
She has, and like then going through this entire experience, if it takes like,
01:25:40
Speaker
I can't remember how long this takes over the course of the book.
01:25:44
Speaker
It feels like it's like a couple of weeks.
01:25:46
Speaker
Uh, yeah, it's, yeah.
01:25:47
Speaker
I think right.
01:25:48
Speaker
Uh, the whole operation.
01:25:51
Speaker
Um,
01:25:53
Speaker
But yeah, no, it's great.
01:25:55
Speaker
And I'm hoping, I'm looking forward to reading the other Republic Commando books that she wrote.
01:26:04
Speaker
Yeah, same here.
01:26:07
Speaker
And it's almost bittersweet because, you know, we're building up this amazing character in like Attain and you know she's not long for her
01:26:19
Speaker
the world anyway.
01:26:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:26:21
Speaker
Yeah.
01:26:21
Speaker
That's that.
01:26:22
Speaker
I mean, that's the thing.
01:26:23
Speaker
There is an underlying feeling of tragedy in all of this.
01:26:28
Speaker
None of these people are along for this world that attain is just feels so heartbroken for these for this group of people that ultimately one day will turn their blasters on her and cut her down.
01:26:40
Speaker
Yeah.
01:26:43
Speaker
That's fucking crazy.
01:26:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:26:47
Speaker
No, I, I, I, yeah, I totally agree.
01:26:49
Speaker
I I'm going to read more of this, this, this is, this is one of those books that, um, I, I can't help but recommend to all of our fans.
01:26:59
Speaker
Like anybody who's listening, like this is, this is one of those books you definitely ought to read.
01:27:03
Speaker
Yeah, if you're a Star Wars fan or you just like sci-fi military stuff, I mean, either way.
01:27:10
Speaker
Sci-fi military is just the real sweet spot of all of our video game novelization shit.
01:27:17
Speaker
The more we go, the more we go.
01:27:18
Speaker
So far, yeah.
01:27:19
Speaker
Yeah.
01:27:20
Speaker
It's been the most, yeah, it's been good the most often, I believe.
01:27:28
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
01:27:29
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:27:30
Speaker
Yeah.
01:27:30
Speaker
All right.
01:27:31
Speaker
Well, now that we've gotten that out of the way, Kevin, I just have a single question for you.
01:27:35
Speaker
Yes.
01:27:38
Speaker
What are you playing?
01:27:41
Speaker
Oh, okay.
01:27:43
Speaker
Let's see.
01:27:44
Speaker
What have I been playing?
01:27:46
Speaker
All
Gaming Experiences and Reviews
01:27:47
Speaker
right.
01:27:47
Speaker
So I have been playing Fear and Hunger 2.
01:27:50
Speaker
Yeah.
01:27:52
Speaker
It's a fun game.
01:27:54
Speaker
Really, really enjoy Fear of the Hunter 2.
01:27:56
Speaker
Fun's an interesting word for it, but okay.
01:27:57
Speaker
It's a fun game.
01:27:58
Speaker
You know, you might just be taking your character, like you're dodging all enemies.
01:28:03
Speaker
You're trying not to get engaged with certain enemies.
01:28:06
Speaker
And then you accidentally step on a landmine.
01:28:08
Speaker
That ends your run.
01:28:12
Speaker
That's that.
01:28:12
Speaker
Or you're walking through the forest and there's like a trap, a boot spikes that you step on.
01:28:20
Speaker
You know, you go down, you fall through the leaves.
01:28:24
Speaker
And that's that.
01:28:26
Speaker
Um...
01:28:29
Speaker
Sounds great.
01:28:30
Speaker
Sounds awesome.
01:28:30
Speaker
It's great.
01:28:31
Speaker
It's great.
01:28:31
Speaker
You know, I do love myself some of these games that are just a little bit masochistic.
01:28:38
Speaker
That you do.
01:28:38
Speaker
That you do.
01:28:39
Speaker
Just like, but to me, as long as there's like a learning element to it, like,
01:28:47
Speaker
Each time you play it, you learn a little bit more about what the game wants of you and what it expects of you.
01:28:53
Speaker
Yeah.
01:28:55
Speaker
I think it's important.
01:28:57
Speaker
I totally agree.
01:29:00
Speaker
As long as it isn't just fucking with you at a certain point.
01:29:03
Speaker
No, I don't think it's that's the thing is I don't think it's fucking with you because it's like, okay, well, I've learned that this is a thing now.
01:29:13
Speaker
Next time I play, I'm aware of this thing.
01:29:15
Speaker
Right.
01:29:16
Speaker
Like you don't you don't make that mistake again.
01:29:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:29:20
Speaker
So Funger, Funger 2.
01:29:24
Speaker
I've also been playing Lies of P again.
01:29:26
Speaker
I've gotten through the boss that was giving me a bunch of trouble.
01:29:31
Speaker
I've run into another boss that is... It's one of those bosses that's like...
01:29:38
Speaker
Their attack pattern is like relatively simple.
01:29:43
Speaker
It's just like, I'm like, why am I just not doing enough damage?
01:29:47
Speaker
I got to go back around and figure out why suddenly, like I'm able to clear out the enemies in the area pretty easily.
01:29:55
Speaker
But I'm at this boss and it's just like...
01:29:58
Speaker
it becomes more of a battle of attrition.
01:30:01
Speaker
And eventually, because the boss does more damage than me and, you know, I don't have enough heals, like, yeah, I probably just got to get good and parry the attacks more often.
01:30:11
Speaker
But I don't know.
01:30:13
Speaker
It's more of an annoying... It's not like, I got to put the game down like the other boss was.
01:30:19
Speaker
It's more of like, I'm watching this boss and hitting and all that stuff.
01:30:24
Speaker
And like, I feel like I should be doing...
01:30:27
Speaker
able to take care of it.
01:30:28
Speaker
It feels it feels attainable, but for some reason it's not.
01:30:32
Speaker
And I got to figure out why that's that's been the the issue.
01:30:39
Speaker
I've been firing up on occasion.
01:30:43
Speaker
What's it?
01:30:44
Speaker
Void Stranger again.
01:30:46
Speaker
I'm still messing around with that.
01:30:48
Speaker
There's so many weird little things in Void Stranger, and I'm not sure if I love it or hate it, but I'll probably have an answer on that.
01:30:57
Speaker
I've beaten, quote unquote, beaten the game once before.
01:31:03
Speaker
It's a Sokoban game.
01:31:05
Speaker
Oh, right.
01:31:06
Speaker
Yes, yes, sir.
01:31:07
Speaker
What are you talking about?
01:31:08
Speaker
Yeah.
01:31:09
Speaker
I've beaten it.
01:31:09
Speaker
I've rolled credits on it, but there's a lot of like...
01:31:14
Speaker
Spoilers, I guess, for people who are interested in playing Void Stranger.
01:31:19
Speaker
There's a lot of frog fractions-ish hidden stuff, it feels like.
01:31:28
Speaker
Just like, oh, there's the game that it is on one layer, and then there's the other stuff underneath.
01:31:37
Speaker
And it's so weird that you can look up a guide on what, on like all of the hidden things on every level.
01:31:45
Speaker
The guide makes no fucking sense to me.
01:31:49
Speaker
It's like, it's like it's written in code and it's like, oh, here's how you access all the hidden things.
01:31:54
Speaker
And it's just like, so level 178 B3 comma dash 290.
01:32:01
Speaker
And it's like, what am I looking at?
01:32:07
Speaker
So, yeah, it's like something, it kind of tugs on me a little bit, but, I mean, there's friends who are very interested in that kind of stuff, who are more attracted to the pull of a game like that, that I am less so.
01:32:27
Speaker
To me, I feel like if you're going to do, if you're going to be clever, I don't like...
01:32:34
Speaker
I like clever.
01:32:35
Speaker
I don't like too clever.
01:32:37
Speaker
And that's a personal thing.
01:32:39
Speaker
It's why I don't like tunic.
01:32:41
Speaker
It's why I have issues with Void Stranger is because it's one of those...
01:32:47
Speaker
Fuck, just dial it back a little bit, guys.
01:32:53
Speaker
It's like, ooh.
01:32:55
Speaker
It's too much.
01:32:58
Speaker
You didn't need to be that fucking clever.
01:33:01
Speaker
Just knock it down a notch.
01:33:04
Speaker
I play games like that, and I'll be impressed for about five minutes, and then I'll be like, all right, cut me some fucking slack, please.
01:33:11
Speaker
Just after a while.
01:33:12
Speaker
Just...
01:33:13
Speaker
Yeah, I get it.
01:33:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:33:15
Speaker
So I like clever, but I like clever in the game that I'm actually playing as opposed to clever in a layer underneath the game.
01:33:25
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
01:33:29
Speaker
You know what I mean?
01:33:30
Speaker
When you have to go into the program files and all that shit.
01:33:34
Speaker
Well, yeah, yeah.
01:33:35
Speaker
Or it's like, things are not what they seem.
01:33:38
Speaker
Okay.
01:33:41
Speaker
Okay, fuck you.
01:33:43
Speaker
All right.
01:33:43
Speaker
I got higher.
01:33:46
Speaker
Yeah, all right.
01:33:48
Speaker
I've thought about reading House of Leaves, too.
01:33:51
Speaker
Oh, my God.
01:33:58
Speaker
Oh, God.
01:33:59
Speaker
Which is funny because I love Signalis, which definitely has a lot of that, but I feel like it wears more of it on its sleeve than anything else.
01:34:08
Speaker
It's a very readily apparent level of that as opposed to Void Stranger, which is also apparent, but what it's, I don't know, it's one of those, you know it when you see it, feelings.
01:34:22
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not...
01:34:23
Speaker
I don't want to articulate, spend too much time articulating why I like one thing over the other.
01:34:29
Speaker
I could, but I'm not going to.
01:34:33
Speaker
I absolutely get that.
01:34:34
Speaker
Without this episode being another hour longer.
01:34:37
Speaker
It's just its own.
01:34:38
Speaker
Yeah.
01:34:38
Speaker
And if something could be very similar, it could have some similar style to it in one way, shape or form.
01:34:44
Speaker
And there's just one detail that just can throw you off completely about it.
01:34:48
Speaker
And I get that.
01:34:49
Speaker
I absolutely get that.
01:34:50
Speaker
Yeah.
01:34:51
Speaker
So, Phil, what have you been playing?
01:34:54
Speaker
I have been playing, well, I have played everything that there is in microcivilization in the current form that it's in for early access.
01:35:05
Speaker
Okay.
01:35:06
Speaker
I've gotten to...
01:35:09
Speaker
basically unlocked all of the research I can unlock and basically gone as far as I can.
01:35:14
Speaker
I've beaten the first, they have scenarios and I built the Tower of Babel essentially and brought down God's wrath upon myself.
01:35:22
Speaker
Oh, that's great.
01:35:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's super fun.
01:35:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:35:27
Speaker
No, it's really very good.
01:35:29
Speaker
It's still a very, very solid clicker 4X.
01:35:36
Speaker
I'm really enjoying it.
01:35:37
Speaker
So I'm just looking, I'm really just waiting on the next update at this point.
01:35:43
Speaker
Beyond that, I have been indulging a little in the autumn sale and picking up some games that maybe I haven't had the chance to...
01:35:52
Speaker
get on uh haven't wanted to get on full price essentially and i picked up fights in tight spaces oh okay um yeah for anyone who doesn't know fights in tight spaces is a kind of a strategy beat-em-up game where it's deck builder uh and you play a kind of uh what's that fucking show uh the british uh
01:36:17
Speaker
like the gentleman spy things.
01:36:21
Speaker
It's based on a Garth Ennis comic book, I want to say.
01:36:25
Speaker
Are you talking about, what's it?
01:36:27
Speaker
Kingsman?
01:36:28
Speaker
Yes, yes, it's got a very Kingsman vibe in terms of its world.
01:36:33
Speaker
It's very English and very, it's fist fighting, but you're in a suit.
01:36:40
Speaker
You know, that kind of thing.
01:36:40
Speaker
Like gentlemen.
01:36:42
Speaker
Exactly, and it's got a very minimalist black and white and red style, which I really dig.
01:36:49
Speaker
And you have a deck based on the style of fighting you want to do.
01:36:54
Speaker
And it is hard.
01:36:55
Speaker
It's very hard.
01:36:57
Speaker
But every time you have to just do the run, you do this run, you're going from room to room.
01:37:05
Speaker
In one level, in one mission, I was fighting this biker gang.
01:37:08
Speaker
And then the next one, you get planted in a jail and you got to fight your way out and all that stuff.
01:37:15
Speaker
And...
01:37:16
Speaker
And it's very difficult, but every time you die in a run, whenever you finish, when you're done, you're done.
01:37:24
Speaker
You don't get to save it and go back.
01:37:26
Speaker
It's one and done.
01:37:28
Speaker
But when you do that, you get experience based on how well you did, and it unlocks more cards and more styles.
01:37:35
Speaker
And I remember that first run I was doing, you start out with just the balanced deck.
01:37:40
Speaker
Right.
01:37:41
Speaker
You know what it sounds like.
01:37:42
Speaker
Yeah.
01:37:43
Speaker
And I went through I went through it a couple of times and I was like, Jesus Christ, like because everything like the deck building aspect of it.
01:37:51
Speaker
Yeah, I played it a little bit a while ago and it is it is it feel when you first start out is like this is ball grindingly hard.
01:38:00
Speaker
Yes, yes.
01:38:02
Speaker
And I was like, I don't know if I'm going to make it.
01:38:05
Speaker
And then I unlocked my first non-balanced deck.
01:38:11
Speaker
And it's counters.
01:38:14
Speaker
And I was like, counters, whatever.
01:38:17
Speaker
I fucking love it.
01:38:17
Speaker
I've unlocked several decks since then.
01:38:19
Speaker
Counters is still my favorite.
01:38:21
Speaker
There's something really fun about setting yourself up to block and counter move instead of just like, Jonesy.
01:38:28
Speaker
Instead of just...
01:38:30
Speaker
Fucking one cat.
01:38:30
Speaker
If it's not one, it's the other.
01:38:34
Speaker
And that has unlocked a lot of shit for me in the sense that I got to, I beat the first run and now I'm getting into the second one and slowly unlocking new...
01:38:48
Speaker
moves and upgrading them and everything like that.
01:38:51
Speaker
And it is hard.
01:38:52
Speaker
It is a very hard game, but it's one of those things, like a lot of these games, it's like roguelikes where it's like the main thing you need for these games is patience.
01:39:03
Speaker
Eventually, you'll get to a point where you've got the arsenal that will see you through.
01:39:09
Speaker
And it's all about whether or not
01:39:11
Speaker
You have the patience for that thing.
01:39:13
Speaker
Right.
01:39:14
Speaker
But I've been enjoying it.
01:39:16
Speaker
I put about eight hours into it right now.
01:39:19
Speaker
I've turned the music off.
01:39:21
Speaker
Not that the music's bad.
01:39:23
Speaker
I just need to play Prodigy and heavy metal and all my favorite music in the background.
01:39:31
Speaker
There's nothing better than playing Firestarter in the background while this English techno band while you're beating up as an English gentleman in a suit.
01:39:39
Speaker
Very delightful.
01:39:40
Speaker
Very delightful.
01:39:41
Speaker
You make your own fun in that sense.
01:39:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:39:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:39:45
Speaker
But I've really, yeah, after I got over that hump, I really, really started getting into it and appreciating it.
01:39:54
Speaker
And they've got a DLC that includes weapons, which should be very interesting.
01:39:59
Speaker
I'm going to try eventually at some point.
01:40:02
Speaker
Oh, and I played the demo for a game called Last Train Home.
01:40:07
Speaker
Okay.
01:40:07
Speaker
Which, it's coming out in a couple, as of now, it's coming out at the end of November.
01:40:14
Speaker
And for those of you at home, we are at the end of November.
01:40:19
Speaker
But it's part strategy.
01:40:22
Speaker
It takes place after a World War war.
01:40:27
Speaker
Two, no, sorry, after World War I, and you are a Czech regiment who has been fighting for the Russians, you've been fighting on their side, and you're trying to get out of Russia now because the war is over, but you are caught in the middle of the Bolshevik Revolution.
01:40:47
Speaker
And so you've got the reds and the whites on either side of you.
01:40:51
Speaker
And so part of it is real time strategy where you've got your little squad and you're setting them up and using their strings and stuff.
01:40:59
Speaker
And the other part is a train, a civ game basically.
01:41:06
Speaker
It's really interesting, and you're going to the next town, and you've got to make sure that you've got enough fuel and enough food, and your soldiers have an on-the-train job, like cook or doctor or something, and an off-the-train job, like marksman or scout or something like that.
01:41:21
Speaker
And it's about that balance of stuff.
01:41:24
Speaker
And I played a couple of hours of the demo, and it's very, very good.
01:41:28
Speaker
Yeah.
01:41:29
Speaker
at some point I think I would like to get back to it.
01:41:31
Speaker
I don't know if I doubt I'm going to get back to it in time for game of the year shit.
01:41:36
Speaker
Right.
01:41:36
Speaker
But it's such a unique time period.
01:41:39
Speaker
Sure.
01:41:40
Speaker
And, and, and yeah, it's, it's, it's after world war one during this revolution.
01:41:45
Speaker
It's really interesting.
01:41:46
Speaker
That's awesome.
01:41:47
Speaker
It's really cool.
01:41:48
Speaker
And you get storytelling choices and very, very interesting stuff.
01:41:54
Speaker
I'm really impressed by, uh,
01:41:57
Speaker
buy that because they because I can see where it's not it's a double A game and for that reason I mean I can see people being like you can't make a fucking game about the Czechoslovakian regiment like coming out of Russia or something you gotta shoot Nazis like that's all people want or whatever and it's such a specific time and place and they've done a beautiful job with it so far and it looks good it feels good to play I'm looking forward to the full release I think I want to give that one a shot
01:42:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:42:28
Speaker
So that's, that's awesome.
01:42:30
Speaker
Yeah.
01:42:30
Speaker
All right.
01:42:31
Speaker
Well, that's it for our last normal episode of the year.
01:42:36
Speaker
Um, next time, uh, we have a, a regular book episode.
01:42:41
Speaker
I'll be joined by, uh, our friend Sam from afterthoughts.
01:42:47
Speaker
Um,
01:42:48
Speaker
I'm really looking forward to listening in.
01:42:49
Speaker
I'm going to read along, too, for the record.
01:42:52
Speaker
Oh, that's awesome.
01:42:53
Speaker
That's good.
01:42:55
Speaker
And in between this and that, we will be having our Game of the Year episode to talk about the games that we thought were of the year 2023.
01:43:08
Speaker
They were of the year.
01:43:09
Speaker
They were.
01:43:10
Speaker
They sure were.
01:43:11
Speaker
They sure were of that year.
01:43:14
Speaker
In the meantime, if you want to, you know, come over to patreon.com slash pixel of pod and hit up one of the tiers.
01:43:24
Speaker
We got a free tier.
01:43:26
Speaker
We got a cheapy tier.
01:43:27
Speaker
We get a $5 a month tier.
01:43:28
Speaker
We got a $10 a month tier.
01:43:29
Speaker
And yeah,
01:43:33
Speaker
Through those, you can join our Discord or you can join our Discord for free.
01:43:37
Speaker
And you know what?
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01:43:39
Speaker
It's a blast.
01:43:40
Speaker
Come by, say hi.
01:43:42
Speaker
Now's the time of the show where we shout out our friendliest of friends in the top Patreon tier.
01:43:50
Speaker
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01:43:52
Speaker
Thank you for being a friend.
01:43:56
Speaker
We love it.
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01:44:01
Speaker
We adore the support and friendship.
01:44:04
Speaker
Thank you.
01:44:06
Speaker
Otherwise, on all other socials, we're at PixletPod, so you can find us there.
01:44:12
Speaker
And until next time, have a good night, everybody.
01:44:17
Speaker
Bye.
01:44:26
Speaker
Bye.