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