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Helicopter Parenting (Star Wars: Fatal Alliance - Part 3)
10 Plays2 months ago
Sometimes you can be such a helicopter parent that you make the sith look good. Wild right?
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Transcript
Introduction and Setup
00:00:00
Speaker
I only ever saw the first one.
00:00:03
Speaker
Yeah, I only ever saw the first one and that's like very clearly the one where it's like, we're doing this with no budget and it made a bajillion dollars.
00:00:15
Speaker
And then it was like a blank check from then on to just crank one out one a year.
00:00:19
Speaker
And they did.
00:00:22
Speaker
And they did.
00:00:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:26
Speaker
You know who else cranks one out one a year?
00:00:28
Speaker
Who's that?
00:00:30
Speaker
Hey, everybody.
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome back to Pixel It.
00:00:32
Speaker
My name is Kevin.
00:00:32
Speaker
With me, as always,
Review of Star Wars: Jedi Fatal Alliance
00:00:33
Speaker
is Phil.
00:00:33
Speaker
On today's show, we are finishing up Jedi Fatal Alliance Knights of the Old Republic.
00:00:42
Speaker
Jedi Republic Knights.
00:00:44
Speaker
The Jedi Republic Knights.
00:00:47
Speaker
Old timey style.
00:00:49
Speaker
We had a deep conversation about Sidney Sweeney at the beginning of
Patreon Promotion
00:00:54
Speaker
the episode.
00:00:54
Speaker
And if you want to hear that, you can go to the greatest website in the world, patreon.com slash pixelipod, where we offer three tiers.
00:01:03
Speaker
$1 gets you the ad-free episode.
00:01:05
Speaker
$5 gets you the bonus episode in front of every episode.
00:01:09
Speaker
And $10 gets your name shouted out.
00:01:12
Speaker
In each episode.
00:01:13
Speaker
To that end, I want to thank Jesuslovesukalseamanruthalismuttermiddleofthingsigmasal.
00:01:19
Speaker
And friendly friend, thank you so much for being a friend.
00:01:22
Speaker
Patreon.com slash pixelitpod.
00:01:25
Speaker
Do it.
00:01:26
Speaker
Today.
00:01:29
Speaker
Excellent.
00:01:30
Speaker
All right.
00:01:30
Speaker
Excellent.
00:01:31
Speaker
You want to wrap this sucker up?
00:01:32
Speaker
You want to put this body in the marsh once and for all?
00:01:35
Speaker
Let's put body in the marsh.
00:01:36
Speaker
Let's marsh it, marshies.
00:01:38
Speaker
When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them.
00:01:44
Speaker
In the marsh.
00:01:46
Speaker
Okay, Marshies, listen up.
00:01:48
Speaker
We are on chapter 30.
Ulysse's Predicament and Space Racism
00:01:50
Speaker
We're opening with Ulysse.
00:01:52
Speaker
He is in a tight spot.
00:01:54
Speaker
He's kind of in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation because he basically has recognized that...
00:02:03
Speaker
he doesn't know if he should like admit that he is not in the Republic.
00:02:07
Speaker
Like he he's, he's, he's a spy and any information is going to get him fucked over by somebody.
00:02:14
Speaker
Uh, he's, he's very certain he's not going to make it out alive, uh, at this point.
00:02:18
Speaker
Um, and he's part of the group that is heading out to meet, uh, Stryver because if you remember correctly, we left off with, uh, the Mandalorian calling them to the moon of the planet to come up with some sort of plan.
00:02:31
Speaker
Uh, so they're going to have a sit down.
00:02:33
Speaker
Yeah, have a little have a little sit down to talk about what is to be done about these living droid things.
00:02:41
Speaker
So he's chosen to go with the group.
00:02:43
Speaker
He's not thrilled about it.
00:02:44
Speaker
Jet wishes him luck because, quote, you're the only one who will need it, which is I do enjoy his and Jet's relationship because initially you can't imagine they have anything in common.
00:02:57
Speaker
But the more it goes on, like, oh, you're you're absolutely the same kind of dude.
00:03:03
Speaker
So it's pretty funny.
00:03:05
Speaker
So Axe is going to be speaking to the Mandalorian on her master's behalf.
00:03:11
Speaker
Stryver points out that the colony below has grown exponentially, despite only being three weeks old.
00:03:19
Speaker
These robots are the droids.
00:03:21
Speaker
They are building like crazy.
00:03:24
Speaker
We do get a moment, a little moment where Axe notices that Stryber only has four fingers and is therefore probably not a human.
00:03:34
Speaker
So that sets her racism, Sith racism off.
00:03:39
Speaker
Space racism, which has got to be one of the hardest kinds of racisms to maintain.
00:03:44
Speaker
Racism.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, that was an interesting little note.
00:03:50
Speaker
We're like, oh, only four fingers.
00:03:51
Speaker
And speaking of eugenics, it's like not a natural born Mandalorian.
00:03:58
Speaker
Right.
00:03:59
Speaker
And I did do the research and Mandalorians can be from other...
00:04:04
Speaker
species that's that's actually the part of the i mean that's that's a big uh not a big part a part of the show the mandalorian which i've never watched and i need to so uh yeah uh the main character uh pedro pay played by pedro pascal um everybody's uh bedroom fantasy pedro pascal god help us god help us
00:04:29
Speaker
Uh, he is not a Mandalorian by
Mandalorians and Droid Threat
00:04:33
Speaker
birth.
00:04:33
Speaker
He is what's called a foundling.
00:04:35
Speaker
He was found by Mandalorians as like basically just a kid who had no parents and they're like, all right, come on.
00:04:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:45
Speaker
So yeah.
00:04:46
Speaker
So we get a little bit of those prejudices coming out.
00:04:50
Speaker
So Axe starts talking about a plan to kill the the well, they start talking about a plan to kill the human down on the the inventor.
00:05:04
Speaker
Axe's mom starts talking about coming up with a plan because she clearly can't be reasoned with.
00:05:10
Speaker
Twitch Mandalorian points out that she's already dead.
00:05:14
Speaker
Um, then says that if, uh, if these, and this is, this is absolutely the thing, like you totally fucking nailed it because this is where he points out that if these droids are left unchecked, the self replication process that they do would take over the galaxy within a generation.
Negotiations and Betrayals
00:05:35
Speaker
This is Wilford Brimley looking at his computer model in the thing.
00:05:41
Speaker
And it's like, however, I forget how many weeks it predicts that it would take no time at all.
00:05:48
Speaker
That's exact.
00:05:49
Speaker
So you fucking nailed it.
00:05:51
Speaker
Basically, one generation, it would take them to generation like 25 years or something like that.
00:05:59
Speaker
Right.
00:06:00
Speaker
To take over the galaxy.
00:06:02
Speaker
And that's yeah.
00:06:03
Speaker
So that so they basically have to destroy the planet.
00:06:07
Speaker
They have to, you know, glass parking lot, that bitch.
00:06:11
Speaker
Well, it comes up with the idea that he will negotiate, quote unquote, with Darth Kratos.
00:06:17
Speaker
But it has to be alone.
00:06:18
Speaker
No one else can be in there.
00:06:21
Speaker
There's no reason for me.
00:06:23
Speaker
No reason at all.
00:06:24
Speaker
Just you don't want to piss him off.
00:06:26
Speaker
I just just leave me alone.
00:06:28
Speaker
I'll take care of it.
00:06:29
Speaker
And so he's he's sent out there with axe and he tells her he tells he tells her and Darth Kratos who he is and agrees to turn on the Republic when the droid threat has been taken care of and they're at their most vulnerable.
00:06:44
Speaker
They're going to they're going to turn on the Republic.
00:06:46
Speaker
What a shock.
00:06:48
Speaker
He admits to his crush, Laren, on the ship, and Kratos uses that information to say, we will kill the shit out of her if you betray us on any level.
00:06:59
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Yeah, which brings us to part five.
00:07:03
Speaker
He's like, make your choice of what do you want if all this goes well.
00:07:09
Speaker
And he's like, oh, my girlfriend.
00:07:11
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I'd like this girlfriend.
00:07:13
Speaker
You fool.
00:07:14
Speaker
That is your weak spot.
00:07:15
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We'll kill her if you fuck up.
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:17
Speaker
It's textbook.
00:07:19
Speaker
Like, you fucking idiot.
00:07:20
Speaker
It's like, thanks for telling me what you value most in the world.
00:07:25
Speaker
In the world.
00:07:26
Speaker
That's sad, by the way.
00:07:28
Speaker
Because they say, just name your heart's desire.
00:07:31
Speaker
And he's like, well, there's this hot girl I literally just met.
00:07:34
Speaker
It's like, that's it?
00:07:35
Speaker
That was your...
00:07:37
Speaker
Wow.
00:07:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:39
Speaker
Like that's bleak.
00:07:41
Speaker
That's that is bleak.
00:07:43
Speaker
That's pretty bleak.
00:07:45
Speaker
That brings us to part five, the eponymous fatal alliance part where we are going to get into the alliances that are fatal.
00:07:55
Speaker
They're quite deadly.
00:07:57
Speaker
They're deadly, deadly alliances.
Alliance Against Droid Threat
00:07:59
Speaker
People, people going to die.
00:08:00
Speaker
Well, not as many as you'd expect, but but people.
00:08:04
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Chapter 31, the Alliance, the Sith and the Jedi and the Mandalorian are all going to have to work together.
00:08:11
Speaker
And they plan on hitting what they assume to be the source of the Hex droids, this factory area.
00:08:19
Speaker
And they're going to also hit the HQ area.
00:08:23
Speaker
And those are both in two completely different places on the world, like continents apart.
00:08:28
Speaker
So they're going to have to...
00:08:30
Speaker
come up with two teams to go in there and take care of it.
00:08:33
Speaker
They agreed to having Ula having the final authority since he's the one who, as far as they know, he's part of the Republic and he's also but he's also the one who negotiated with the Sith.
00:08:44
Speaker
So they're like, OK, he's kind of a neutral party and he's really unsure how he's going to handle this.
00:08:53
Speaker
We get Chapter 32, Laren kisses Shigar and boy, howdy, is it awkward.
00:08:59
Speaker
It is super awkward.
00:09:01
Speaker
So awkward.
00:09:02
Speaker
It is a very I told you I loved you like a brother loves his sister kind of moment.
00:09:09
Speaker
It's yeah.
00:09:10
Speaker
He's like, you know, I'm a Jedi and it's like a virgin for life promise rings.
00:09:15
Speaker
Right.
00:09:16
Speaker
Like that's like vow of celibacy.
00:09:19
Speaker
I'm married to space God.
00:09:21
Speaker
Right.
00:09:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:22
Speaker
Married to space Jesus wizard.
00:09:24
Speaker
And and that's it.
00:09:26
Speaker
So so she bless her heart.
00:09:29
Speaker
She she is just not having a good time.
00:09:32
Speaker
Not having a good time.
00:09:34
Speaker
No, if it was meant to be believed, she is smoking hot and she's not used to having people certainly not altar boys with swords basically turn her down.
00:09:48
Speaker
So she's not feeling so good.
00:09:50
Speaker
And then to make matters worse, she meets the troopers that she's going to be leading in the battle.
00:09:55
Speaker
And one of them is the shitty Zabrak guy who knew about her history.
00:10:01
Speaker
Who was like toxic Moxler.
00:10:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:04
Speaker
Like, what are the fucking odds?
00:10:06
Speaker
But he's going to be in the team.
00:10:07
Speaker
Cool.
00:10:08
Speaker
All right.
00:10:08
Speaker
That's great.
00:10:10
Speaker
So after that happens, Axe and Shigar get into it.
00:10:14
Speaker
He's pissed off.
00:10:15
Speaker
He's feeling awkward from the kiss thing.
00:10:17
Speaker
And
00:10:19
Speaker
They get into kind of a not a scrap, but like they get into an argument and he's clearly pissed off and that turns her the fuck on.
00:10:28
Speaker
She is like, oh, you got some sith behind those eyes.
00:10:34
Speaker
Mama like like that's that's literally energy.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:38
Speaker
And so that's now that's an interesting twist.
00:10:43
Speaker
So, yeah, the Jedi and the Sith are going to fight together.
00:10:45
Speaker
And what they do is they trade apprentices.
00:10:49
Speaker
So Tali will take Axe and Darth Kratos will take Shigar.
00:10:55
Speaker
So everyone knows, like everyone would be cool.
00:10:59
Speaker
You know what it reminds me of is you never read The Godfather, right?
00:11:04
Speaker
I never read it.
00:11:04
Speaker
No.
00:11:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:06
Speaker
Because this doesn't happen in the movie.
00:11:08
Speaker
But basically, when there were like these like high stakes negotiations between two families, a third family would volunteer a guy as a hostage.
00:11:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:21
Speaker
And basically that guy would be, um, he would be held.
00:11:27
Speaker
And like, if something happens and he was killed, it was like a hedge against anything happening at the meetup.
00:11:35
Speaker
Right.
00:11:35
Speaker
Right.
00:11:36
Speaker
Um, to, to kind of keep the stability so that the, um, basically there wouldn't be an all out war.
00:11:43
Speaker
Uh, it's like, Hey, this guy's here.
00:11:46
Speaker
we don't want to drag third family into a fight, you know?
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:50
Speaker
Or, or we're basically all dead.
00:11:52
Speaker
We're basically all dead.
00:11:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:54
Speaker
So like the trading, it reminded me of like they trade apprentices of like, okay, well,
00:11:59
Speaker
You know, I'm not going to do anything.
00:12:01
Speaker
You're not because you got my guy and I'm not going to do a thing because you got your guy, you know.
00:12:06
Speaker
And that's and that's exactly it.
00:12:08
Speaker
And Chigar basically he's talking to his master Satale and he's like, I don't I don't.
00:12:15
Speaker
She's like, well, keep on your guard.
00:12:17
Speaker
You might have to deal with his bullshit.
00:12:19
Speaker
And he's like, I can't.
00:12:21
Speaker
I can't fight him off.
00:12:22
Speaker
Like he's a, he's a Sith master and I'm just some Padawan, like, well, not Padawan, but he's like, you know, I'm, I'm not even a Jedi Knight yet.
00:12:29
Speaker
I can't find him off.
00:12:30
Speaker
She's like, Oh no, he's not going to kill you.
00:12:32
Speaker
Uh, he's got worse shit in store for you.
00:12:34
Speaker
Uh, he's going to try to turn you into a Sith boy.
00:12:38
Speaker
Exactly.
00:12:39
Speaker
And we've seen you get pissy just in this past chapter.
00:12:43
Speaker
So he recognizes that this is going to be a test.
00:12:47
Speaker
Um,
00:12:48
Speaker
Chapter 33, Ula is in the Auriga fire with Jet.
00:12:52
Speaker
He's taking command.
00:12:53
Speaker
We just get a chapter with him working with Stryver.
00:12:56
Speaker
They're going to try and triangulate
Laren's Mission and Equipment Failure
00:13:00
Speaker
on the communication grid that the hexes use.
00:13:05
Speaker
Because if they can follow that, they can figure out what the hell it is they're doing.
00:13:10
Speaker
Chapter 34, Laren and her squad are in transport.
00:13:13
Speaker
She takes an opportunity to make an example of the dickhead Zabrak.
00:13:19
Speaker
She's not going to take any shit.
00:13:21
Speaker
They essentially...
00:13:22
Speaker
paratroop like they fucking like like jetpack parachute into their target while under fire and she goes into a tailspin and she is crashing plummeting towards the ground and the Zabrak he does reach to help her but there's a very distinct hesitation there and it's and it's enough of a hesitation that he misses her and she drops like a stone um
00:13:50
Speaker
Chapter 35, Shigar's transport.
00:13:53
Speaker
He's transporting with Darth Kratos into the planet.
00:13:56
Speaker
They get hit by a bunch of hexes, and he and Darth Kratos fight their way through them.
00:14:01
Speaker
As I've always said in these books, there are actually some really kick-ass action scenes.
00:14:07
Speaker
I'm not going to get into the details.
00:14:11
Speaker
Spoiler alert, this is a book you should read.
00:14:13
Speaker
This is a good book.
00:14:14
Speaker
So if you want some kick ass Sith slash Jedi team up John Wick action, give this one a read.
00:14:24
Speaker
So while they're doing this, this Darth Kratos is like lecturing him and tempting him and doing exactly what his master is doing.
00:14:33
Speaker
thing.
00:14:34
Speaker
He's doing search your feelings to be true.
00:14:38
Speaker
Right.
00:14:38
Speaker
Doing all the greats.
00:14:40
Speaker
The whole song and dance.
00:14:42
Speaker
He's trotting them out.
00:14:43
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:14:44
Speaker
And it's kind of working.
00:14:48
Speaker
He is absolutely getting Chigar's goat.
00:14:52
Speaker
And that's got to be a motherfucker.
00:14:54
Speaker
When the first thing that you can do to get somebody off of the light side is just troll them.
00:15:02
Speaker
Like that's, that's so mean.
00:15:05
Speaker
Like that's just because the Jedi, I've got to like teach you to be altruistic and kind and patient and all like really hard things to master.
00:15:14
Speaker
And the Sith are just like, I'm not touching you.
00:15:17
Speaker
Does this bother you?
00:15:18
Speaker
I'm not touching you.
00:15:18
Speaker
Does this bother you?
00:15:19
Speaker
I'm not touching you.
00:15:20
Speaker
Does this bother you?
00:15:21
Speaker
Boom.
00:15:21
Speaker
You're on the dark side.
00:15:22
Speaker
It's a, that's a motherfucker.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:26
Speaker
So the path to the dark side is stop hitting yourself.
00:15:35
Speaker
It's true.
00:15:35
Speaker
It starts with a schoolyard bullying.
00:15:37
Speaker
It's such bullshit.
00:15:40
Speaker
It's so unfair.
00:15:41
Speaker
Why are you hitting yourself?
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah, stop hitting yourself, girly.
00:15:46
Speaker
It's it's yeah, it's all that shit.
00:15:49
Speaker
They end up jumping from the transport and heading towards the surface together in their own grab chutes.
00:15:55
Speaker
Um, chapter 36, uh, we got another parallel scene.
00:15:59
Speaker
Basically Axe is landing on the planet with Sitali.
00:16:02
Speaker
Uh, they have a similar situation.
00:16:04
Speaker
Sitali is kind of trying to get through to Axe with, and it's kind of working, um, cause she's poised and patient, uh, and, and seemingly unafraid at all times.
00:16:14
Speaker
And Axe is kind of blown away by that.
00:16:17
Speaker
Um, yeah.
00:16:18
Speaker
They fight their way into an S of hexes with a group of commandos.
00:16:21
Speaker
And yeah, once again, you can see the apprentices are both being a little shaped by the opposite one's master.
00:16:28
Speaker
They find evidence of geothermic drilling on the planet, and they are not sure what that's for.
00:16:35
Speaker
That would be for something really, really goddamn big.
00:16:39
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:16:40
Speaker
But they want to get rid of the site.
00:16:42
Speaker
And they've mentioned before that one of the transports is in just a death drop on its way into the atmosphere.
00:16:51
Speaker
And they're like, what are we going to use to blow up this mining facility?
00:16:55
Speaker
And Master Satelli is like, what about that?
00:16:58
Speaker
Let's...
00:17:00
Speaker
that giant spaceship.
00:17:02
Speaker
How are we aim that at them?
Mining Facility Attack Plan
00:17:05
Speaker
And they do.
00:17:06
Speaker
And they have to get as far away as they possibly can.
00:17:10
Speaker
And they are running from all these waves of red lava that are coming after them.
00:17:15
Speaker
And the chapter ends with them on their way into falling straight into some of the lava.
00:17:22
Speaker
And that we get the cliffhanger.
00:17:24
Speaker
Glorious.
00:17:25
Speaker
Glorious lava.
00:17:27
Speaker
It's true.
00:17:27
Speaker
They're playing the floor is lava game.
00:17:29
Speaker
And just like the floor is lava game, eventually you go, oh, wait, the floor actually isn't lava.
00:17:34
Speaker
Spoiler alert.
00:17:36
Speaker
For both the book and for life.
00:17:41
Speaker
Chapter 37, Ula finds out that leading an attack and betraying his allies is complicated.
00:17:50
Speaker
He doesn't really know.
00:17:51
Speaker
He's promised to betray the Republic, but he's also like, how the fuck?
00:17:54
Speaker
fuck do I do this?
00:17:56
Speaker
Like, I've got to be I can't be too nice to the Imperium, but I also have to do something.
00:18:06
Speaker
This is when Jet points out that they are very similar people, that they're basically both in it for themselves.
00:18:12
Speaker
They're scoundrels.
00:18:13
Speaker
Right.
00:18:15
Speaker
So they end up the chapter ends with them watching Stryfer flying away from the planet that just shit is going down.
00:18:22
Speaker
And they're like, what the fuck is this Mandalorian guy doing?
00:18:25
Speaker
And and just disappears.
00:18:29
Speaker
Chapter 38.
00:18:30
Speaker
Laren's still falling, still going.
00:18:33
Speaker
She she.
00:18:34
Speaker
this is actually a very funny scene.
00:18:36
Speaker
Uh, in my opinion, she's like jury rigging her grab shoot and she like gets it to, okay.
00:18:42
Speaker
All right.
00:18:42
Speaker
At least it's gonna, it's good.
00:18:43
Speaker
She's getting a feather fall spell on like, it's like, okay, this'll, this'll, this'll help.
00:18:47
Speaker
And then she runs out of fuel.
00:18:48
Speaker
It just drops again.
00:18:50
Speaker
And, uh, and it's, it's ridiculous.
00:18:52
Speaker
It's amazing though, that, that star Wars, it, it's, it feels like every, uh, sci-fi, uh,
00:19:01
Speaker
universe like big sci-fi universe like halo like warhammer uh like and i didn't realize this till now like star wars they have their own version of of the odst you know yeah like the the it's like the the hell diver uh type thing where you know you're getting the drop ship you know like the drop ship we're putting you in a tube and you're going down to the surface
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's
Laren's Discovery and Droid Ship Emergence
00:19:26
Speaker
exactly it.
00:19:26
Speaker
And so this is this is their version of which is as best as I can tell, just a backpack, essentially.
00:19:34
Speaker
But yeah, so she's she's still falling.
00:19:37
Speaker
She's ultimately saved by Hetchkey, who I realize now is someone we have not really given any focus to during this podcast.
00:19:43
Speaker
He's not that interesting of a character.
00:19:46
Speaker
Not that interesting character.
00:19:47
Speaker
So he was one of the guys that was with there was like the captain of the guard who was a character for a bit.
00:19:55
Speaker
He was just one of his dudes.
00:19:56
Speaker
He was basically the only other dude to survive.
00:20:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:01
Speaker
Huda.
00:20:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:02
Speaker
So he's, he's just, and he's been like promoted into a leadership role.
00:20:07
Speaker
It's like, Oh, you can clearly take care of your shit.
00:20:09
Speaker
So Hetchki saves her and she wonders how,
00:20:13
Speaker
He knew to do it.
00:20:14
Speaker
And he says that the Zabrak Jop sent him, like gave him an alert.
00:20:20
Speaker
So we can see that this at least that guy might be a dick, but he's got his head on straight when it comes to being in a fucking war zone.
00:20:30
Speaker
Thank God.
00:20:33
Speaker
The troops regroup and fight their way to a structure that ends up being a balls, huge ship, basically, like a kind of ship that they've never seen before.
00:20:45
Speaker
It's got this huge dome top.
00:20:47
Speaker
They can't see any engines or boosters on it.
00:20:52
Speaker
And they're like, oh, well, these guys, the way they fucking work, they might not need them.
00:20:57
Speaker
We do not know how their shit works.
00:20:59
Speaker
Um, they're on top of it.
00:21:00
Speaker
It starts to take off and the chapter ends with them getting ready to jump.
00:21:05
Speaker
Um,
00:21:06
Speaker
Chapter 39, Shigar watches the base that he's basically in the distance and he sees Master Sitali and Axe in the distance.
00:21:19
Speaker
It's this like maze building that they were in.
00:21:21
Speaker
It just gets swallowed up by the earth.
00:21:24
Speaker
And Darth Kratos suggests that maybe this is fate because you just lost a master.
00:21:29
Speaker
I just lost an apprentice.
00:21:31
Speaker
Hmm.
00:21:32
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:21:33
Speaker
He's swooping in right after the girl gets dumped.
00:21:37
Speaker
It's low class, but it often works.
00:21:41
Speaker
So that's basically what he's doing.
00:21:43
Speaker
He points out that Jedi kind of suck, you know?
00:21:49
Speaker
He's like, you know, your Republic is doing the same shit the Empire's doing.
00:21:54
Speaker
It's like you talk about and Shigar's only response is kind of babyish elementary school.
00:22:02
Speaker
Like, well, you guys are evil and that's why we fight you.
00:22:04
Speaker
It's literally the kind of.
00:22:06
Speaker
That's the invective he has.
00:22:09
Speaker
And he's talking circles around him, basically saying, like, you guys are responsible for your with your inaction.
00:22:15
Speaker
You're responsible for just as many deaths as the Sith are.
00:22:19
Speaker
We're just more honest about where we come from and that sort of thing.
00:22:22
Speaker
And it's like.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, no, no, no, not a bad point.
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:28
Speaker
He's not, you know, Shigar is not happy about it.
00:22:31
Speaker
And and they get and it just finally gets his goat and they start fighting.
00:22:35
Speaker
They get into a fight and Shigar totally loses himself.
00:22:40
Speaker
He is furious.
00:22:41
Speaker
He's riding his rage like a Sith.
00:22:44
Speaker
And he is totally going dark side.
00:22:46
Speaker
And the whole thing, the only reason that it ends is a his lightsaber explodes.
00:22:53
Speaker
He's that's like I just they don't really get into the details because he's getting I think it's because he's getting, you know, force lightning by Kratos.
00:23:02
Speaker
And I think that is ultimately what does.
00:23:04
Speaker
But I like to imagine he was just so angry and he's squeezing the lightsaber so much that he just pops it like a water balloon.
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:13
Speaker
And the other reason that the fight stops is because they're like, oh, look at the ship, the size of a county pushing its way out of the out of the earth.
00:23:25
Speaker
So that's that that kind of puts a damper on the little skirmish they were having.
00:23:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:30
Speaker
Chapter 40 opens up with Citalia and Axe.
00:23:33
Speaker
They have fallen into what they assume was lava, but it is actually this like weird red liquid.
00:23:40
Speaker
And there's actually a really cool moment where Sean Williams describes the sensation because they're being sucked downwards in this red liquid.
00:23:51
Speaker
And he describes it as it must.
00:23:54
Speaker
Taco Bell medium sauce.
00:23:56
Speaker
Right.
00:23:58
Speaker
I mean, kind of says they're zipping along like a red blood cell during a heart attack.
00:24:06
Speaker
And I was like, shit, that's that's that's pretty good.
00:24:09
Speaker
That's pretty good.
00:24:10
Speaker
Good writing.
00:24:12
Speaker
So they're they're just getting they finally end up in this area where they find this old ass Imperial ship.
00:24:20
Speaker
um they take off their masks and this all they can smell is blood like for all intents and purposes all this red but it's blood as far as they can tell so there it's it's totally uh uh iron lung uh uh oceans of blood metal yeah uh oceans of blood right when is that movie coming out what is is is what's what's what's just gonna be like i thought it was just gonna be like
00:24:48
Speaker
It's like you told me, right?
00:24:49
Speaker
It's like a 10 minute movie, right?
00:24:51
Speaker
Like, no, it's a feature film.
00:24:54
Speaker
Is it really?
00:24:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:55
Speaker
I don't know how they're going to do that.
00:24:58
Speaker
I mean, it's, it's, it's finished.
00:25:00
Speaker
I think, I don't, I think he might've been shopping it around, but I don't know.
00:25:04
Speaker
Trying to get, yeah, probably.
00:25:05
Speaker
That's probably what it is.
00:25:06
Speaker
Trying to get someone to distribute it.
00:25:08
Speaker
Um,
00:25:10
Speaker
So they find this ancient ass, well, not ancient, but a really old imperial vessel, and they get inside and they realize that it's Lima Xandrit's ship.
00:25:20
Speaker
And it's kind of sterile at first, but they find an area that is like the living quarters that's hidden away and it's filled with mementos of a life like children were raised there.
00:25:33
Speaker
It's a very kind of warm environment in the middle of this sterile ship.
Ancient Ship and Clone Conflict
00:25:38
Speaker
And then they ultimately find a tank that's like a back to tank, but it's filled with more of that red blood liquid.
00:25:46
Speaker
And a woman who looks just like Axe kind of, you know, presses against the glass and and claims, I am you like you.
00:25:56
Speaker
Right.
00:25:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:58
Speaker
So we get chapter 41.
00:26:00
Speaker
We come back to Jet and Ula.
00:26:02
Speaker
They are watching the rise of a skyhook that's also just been built by the droids.
00:26:08
Speaker
And the skyhook's basically like a port for a ship to attach to to get in or out of the atmosphere.
00:26:17
Speaker
And so they're watching this, just watching a whole goddamn ship hangar for all intents and purposes just rise out of the earth.
00:26:27
Speaker
the Republic and the Empire both are kind of frozen.
00:26:32
Speaker
They're not doing anything.
00:26:34
Speaker
He's like, we got to blow that fucking thing up because I think these fucking robots want to get out of town and, you know, give a generation or two and take over the galaxy.
00:26:47
Speaker
And I think there's one thing to say to that.
00:26:52
Speaker
Do you think wants to be a dog?
00:26:56
Speaker
It doesn't want to be a dog.
00:26:57
Speaker
It doesn't want to be a dog.
00:26:59
Speaker
It wants to be us.
00:27:00
Speaker
It wants to be us.
00:27:04
Speaker
That's it.
00:27:05
Speaker
And that's that they're there.
00:27:06
Speaker
I mean, they're basically just two different versions of him like panicking up there.
00:27:11
Speaker
And yeah, and the Republic and the Empire are not willing to like really attack this thing because they will run out of ammunition and they're afraid that the other side will blow them up when they've run out of ammunition.
00:27:25
Speaker
Right.
00:27:26
Speaker
There's like resources.
00:27:28
Speaker
It's not it's funny because resources as a
00:27:31
Speaker
as a concept are not brought up that often in like star Wars or star Trek or any sci-fi thing.
00:27:38
Speaker
But in the face of, I think it's important to reestablish that there are resources, especially in a battle against just an endless, uh,
00:27:49
Speaker
machine factory of droids, you know, my blaster pistol is going to run out of charge.
00:27:56
Speaker
Right.
00:27:56
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:27:57
Speaker
Exactly.
00:27:57
Speaker
It's why this is an important situation to consider that kind of thing.
00:28:01
Speaker
And and they are.
00:28:03
Speaker
And it's the cut and it's the decision, the the the lack of the inability or the not even the inability, but the refusal to do anything is ultimately going to get
00:28:15
Speaker
Everyone killed like Ula correctly points out.
00:28:18
Speaker
He's like, dude, you getting blown up by the Empire, the Empire getting blown up by the Republic isn't going to matter if we let this, you know, droid disease out into the galaxy.
00:28:31
Speaker
So Jet basically admits that he can hack.
Jet Nebula's Cunning Strategy
00:28:37
Speaker
the vessels.
00:28:39
Speaker
He's like, you've got to pretend that you didn't see what I'm about to do.
00:28:43
Speaker
But he basically forces them to do the right thing.
00:28:47
Speaker
He takes over both vessels and forces them to start firing on the Skyhook and everything like that.
00:28:56
Speaker
And we get a moment here with Ula where, again, he's kind of like...
00:29:01
Speaker
He's always playing the angle of what's in it for you, what's in it for me.
00:29:03
Speaker
Right.
00:29:04
Speaker
And he realizes with Jet, this is not an altruistic gesture.
00:29:08
Speaker
It is basically the surefire way of him getting out alive.
00:29:11
Speaker
Right.
00:29:12
Speaker
So it just happens to be the right thing to do for everybody, really.
00:29:17
Speaker
Right.
00:29:19
Speaker
So let's see.
00:29:19
Speaker
Chapter 42.
00:29:22
Speaker
We've got this is actually it's a really short but really good chapter where Laren and the Zabrak, who hated her, they find each other on the Skyhook.
00:29:32
Speaker
They both landed on the Skyhook, which has a billion missiles coming at it all at once.
00:29:37
Speaker
And so they just kind of go.
00:29:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:40
Speaker
And they sit down and just go, all right, well, they make some cop out about like, we're commandos.
00:29:45
Speaker
We're idiots.
00:29:46
Speaker
We're most people watch fireworks from the other side of this.
00:29:49
Speaker
How stupid are we?
00:29:50
Speaker
It's terrific.
00:29:51
Speaker
Gallo's humor.
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:53
Speaker
And so they're basically like, okay, here we go.
00:29:56
Speaker
This is, it's been, I'd love to say it's been nice knowing you, but I don't want to lie in my final moments.
00:30:01
Speaker
Right.
00:30:04
Speaker
We cut to chapter 43.
00:30:05
Speaker
Sitalia and Axe have met Axe's clone, Cinzia.
00:30:11
Speaker
Her mother, after her daughter was kidnapped by the Sith, she made a clone of her, but keeps her in this tank, quote unquote, to keep her pure because the red liquid suppresses any force powers that she could have.
00:30:28
Speaker
Right.
00:30:29
Speaker
And it was like, you start finding out that Lima Zandrit is a fucking lunatic.
00:30:36
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:30:37
Speaker
I remind.
00:30:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:38
Speaker
And Axe, you know, you don't get to say this often.
00:30:43
Speaker
Probably better off with the Sith.
00:30:45
Speaker
Probably.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah, probably.
00:30:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:47
Speaker
She didn't.
00:30:48
Speaker
It was either become a Sith rage knight or like, you know, Carrie.
00:30:56
Speaker
Like, you know, I can see dirty pillows shit.
00:30:58
Speaker
No more wire hangers stuff from Lima.
00:31:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:02
Speaker
And she's and she and Lima, we will find out she is dead, but her consciousness has basically been uploaded into the red liquid.
00:31:12
Speaker
So while submerged in it, uh,
00:31:15
Speaker
this Cinzia clone who breathes in the liquid is what keeps her alive.
00:31:20
Speaker
She can hear her and they have conversations and they argue and that sort of thing.
00:31:25
Speaker
We find out that basically
00:31:27
Speaker
the Hex droids entire mission is to keep her safe.
00:31:33
Speaker
And because people are stupid and AI is stupid, the Hex droids take that mission and say, well, the most efficient, surefire way to keep her safe is
00:31:47
Speaker
is to kill everybody else.
00:31:49
Speaker
And that's what happened.
00:31:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly it.
00:31:53
Speaker
So because Zendrit wanted to keep her daughter safe, she's damned the existence of the universe because she didn't think to throw in like a PS thing
00:32:07
Speaker
not at the expense of the whole galaxy, please.
00:32:10
Speaker
So that's what's happening right now.
00:32:12
Speaker
And they're trying to talk to her and explain to her, like, she's the only person that these droids will not attack.
00:32:18
Speaker
And they're like, dude, they're out there killing people.
00:32:20
Speaker
And she's like, they are?
00:32:21
Speaker
Yeah, they're killing a bunch of people.
00:32:24
Speaker
She goes, well, they must have attacked them.
00:32:26
Speaker
You know, and it's like, well,
00:32:29
Speaker
Yeah, but we've got these.
00:32:31
Speaker
This is a liability.
00:32:32
Speaker
Like, so they're kind of arguing over how to handle this.
00:32:37
Speaker
And it's made more difficult by the fact that Cynthia is really isolated and she knows nothing about the outside world.
00:32:46
Speaker
She doesn't know the Republic.
00:32:47
Speaker
She doesn't know the Empire.
00:32:48
Speaker
She doesn't know anything about what's going on.
00:32:51
Speaker
But she does.
00:32:52
Speaker
Sorry.
00:32:54
Speaker
No, she doesn't.
00:32:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:56
Speaker
But but she does have like a sense of empathy for them.
00:33:00
Speaker
And she's kind of arguing with her mom, with her ghost mom, saying, I want to help them.
00:33:05
Speaker
And she's like, no, don't join them.
00:33:06
Speaker
It's just, you know, they're all going to laugh at you.
00:33:08
Speaker
They're all going to laugh at you.
00:33:10
Speaker
That kind of thing.
00:33:11
Speaker
And and finally, because it becomes clear that since he has got her mind made up, she's going to help them.
00:33:17
Speaker
The liquid like starts to choke her like mommy dearest tries to kill her to avoid her ending up with the Sith and the Jedi, which to echo what Kevin just said.
00:33:30
Speaker
Probably better off with the Sith, ultimately.
00:33:32
Speaker
Yeah, ultimately.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:33
Speaker
Because the Sith will kill you, but they'll teach you some cool shit first.
00:33:37
Speaker
You get to throw force lightning.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:39
Speaker
It's a somewhat fulfilling life, I guess, as opposed to sitting in goo.
00:33:44
Speaker
I agree.
00:33:45
Speaker
I would prefer that unless the goo had an internet connection.
00:33:48
Speaker
That might be better.
00:33:49
Speaker
It's basically the mood slime from Ghostbusters 2.
00:33:52
Speaker
That's exactly what it is.
00:33:53
Speaker
If you could breathe the mood slime, that's what she's in.
00:33:57
Speaker
And while this happens, the tank gets blown up by Axe, who's talking about like –
00:34:07
Speaker
She's like, it looked like she was dying.
00:34:09
Speaker
She panicked and wanted to release her.
00:34:12
Speaker
Unfortunately, the clone doesn't breathe oxygen.
00:34:16
Speaker
She breathes through the red gooey liquid stuff.
00:34:19
Speaker
And so she's dying like a fish outside of the bowl, essentially.
00:34:24
Speaker
The clone makes her promise to save the genetic code that contains she and her mother's collective memory and hints at like a password, basically, and dies.
00:34:38
Speaker
And we get a very brief but fascinating moment where Axe is like, was this fratricide?
Axe's Decision and Genetic Control
00:34:46
Speaker
Suicide?
00:34:47
Speaker
I killed myself, kind of?
00:34:50
Speaker
Like, what?
00:34:51
Speaker
exactly is this?
00:34:53
Speaker
If we're going to get pedantic.
00:34:54
Speaker
I don't like qualifiedness.
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:56
Speaker
What is, yeah.
00:34:57
Speaker
What is this?
00:34:58
Speaker
Um,
00:34:59
Speaker
So Axe goes to the genetic, this gene machine, basically, and she gets her blood recognized by it.
00:35:07
Speaker
And so like, OK, theoretically, the droids should be cool with me now.
00:35:15
Speaker
And so it's like there's literally only one way to find out.
00:35:18
Speaker
So they head out to see if if their if their gene tampering worked.
00:35:24
Speaker
So chapter 45, Laren and Zabrak are riding the Skyhook down because suddenly out of nowhere, all of the hexes who are supporting the Skyhook and all this other shit, they for all intents and purposes have turned off.
00:35:41
Speaker
And there's a really good description where he says something like, instead of them acting as a single unit, they are now surrounded by a million individual things all falling separately, which I thought was a really interesting way of putting it.
00:35:58
Speaker
Right.
00:36:00
Speaker
So Laren uses the these passive bodies of the hexes to kind of like hopscotch her way off of the sky hook and onto the ground floor where she finds Shigar and Darth Kratos, hugs all around.
Regrouping and Reflection
00:36:16
Speaker
And then another thing emerges from underground.
00:36:19
Speaker
This is the old imperial ship that belonged to Xandrit that
00:36:25
Speaker
Axe and, sorry, yeah, Axe and Satale are on board and it rises up and they come outside.
00:36:32
Speaker
They create like a walkway of Hexbots to walk down.
00:36:39
Speaker
It's pretty hilarious.
00:36:40
Speaker
So clearly it's working.
00:36:41
Speaker
And Axe
00:36:45
Speaker
doesn't request tells Darth Kratos, I am releasing myself from you.
00:36:51
Speaker
I'm not, not working with you anymore.
00:36:53
Speaker
You're an asshole.
00:36:54
Speaker
Fuck you.
00:36:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:55
Speaker
Because this whole thing has, has made her realize how much she's being used and, and that this isn't fully what she's looking for.
00:37:05
Speaker
Right.
00:37:05
Speaker
Basically the way I took it was kind of like, if you're going to be a Sith, you don't want to be,
00:37:11
Speaker
the apprentice to kind of a shitty weenie Sith.
00:37:14
Speaker
You gotta go hard and Kratos ain't it.
00:37:19
Speaker
He is not it.
00:37:20
Speaker
He sucks.
00:37:21
Speaker
He sucks.
00:37:22
Speaker
It's not great for a lot of reasons, really.
00:37:25
Speaker
Um...
00:37:26
Speaker
So she and Kratos get into a big old fight and Axe is just using waves of the droids to shield her and fight against him, that sort of thing.
00:37:39
Speaker
While this happens, a rescue ship kind of comes down and goes, we're getting the shit out of here.
00:37:44
Speaker
Marines, we are leaving.
00:37:46
Speaker
And they they hop in there.
00:37:49
Speaker
We find out that Jet kicks Ula, Ula, who is now in the rescue ship.
00:37:56
Speaker
But we find out through flashbacks that Jet, after it was all done, was like, you got to get the fuck out of here and kicks him out like a one night stand and gets out of Dodge.
00:38:06
Speaker
And fortunately, the rescue ship found him.
00:38:09
Speaker
And you get a lot of respect to him from Ula.
00:38:13
Speaker
Ula's like, God, that guy was an asshole, but he was all right.
00:38:16
Speaker
Like he's just like the Sith and the Jedi are kind of getting perspectives from each other.
00:38:23
Speaker
Ula is getting this kind of scoundrel perspective from him where it's like, oh, I don't have to be one or the other.
00:38:31
Speaker
Like I can be kind of.
00:38:33
Speaker
in the middle, not necessarily out for myself, but like I don't have to do.
00:38:38
Speaker
There's a lot of gray is the point.
00:38:41
Speaker
So let's see.
00:38:43
Speaker
All right.
00:38:43
Speaker
So axe is using the hexes to destroy what what's left of the facilities.
00:38:48
Speaker
She's like, yeah, fuck this.
00:38:50
Speaker
We're going to we're just I'm just ending the tear down.
00:38:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:53
Speaker
Let's tear it all down.
00:38:54
Speaker
And and she stays as long as she can and leaves before everything completely goes to shit.
00:39:01
Speaker
And that brings us to part six preparations for war.
00:39:08
Speaker
Chapter 46, we cut forward to Laren being debriefed by Supreme Commander Stantors back on Coruscant.
00:39:17
Speaker
So basically, we find out that the Empire and the Republic came in and reinforced their teams and collected their shit and left.
00:39:26
Speaker
That's like they just they took their balls and went home.
00:39:29
Speaker
They're like, OK, this let's get out of here before this Cold War gets any warmer.
00:39:34
Speaker
This barely worked.
00:39:36
Speaker
Let's get the fuck out of here.
00:39:38
Speaker
Good game.
00:39:39
Speaker
I'm going home.
00:39:40
Speaker
Exactly.
00:39:40
Speaker
Going home.
00:39:42
Speaker
Not worth it.
00:39:43
Speaker
You are not worth the crabs.
00:39:45
Speaker
They don't know where the Mandalorian is.
00:39:48
Speaker
No one does.
00:39:49
Speaker
But the Supreme Commander lets Laren know they are forming a new special forces team and she's going to be leading it.
00:39:56
Speaker
He knows about her history and getting in trouble and all that stuff.
00:40:00
Speaker
And he goes, eh, we're going to...
00:40:02
Speaker
We'll whitewash that a little bit, give you some commendations.
00:40:04
Speaker
You did a real good job with this and no one will give a shit.
00:40:07
Speaker
So she basically gives her her old job back.
00:40:11
Speaker
And then some.
00:40:14
Speaker
So Ula has basically been demoted to data collection over this whole thing.
00:40:19
Speaker
And he's kind of okay with it.
00:40:23
Speaker
Like, he's like, I'm fine with that.
00:40:25
Speaker
I'm fine being out of the spotlight.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, this isn't, that's just not for me.
00:40:30
Speaker
And we do get some kind of sparks between the two of them, which Laren, honey, you just got turned down by a Jedi.
00:40:36
Speaker
You can give yourself a minute.
00:40:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:39
Speaker
You don't need to go to Ula just because he's the other- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:40:42
Speaker
You got to know your value, sweetheart.
00:40:44
Speaker
You're okay.
00:40:44
Speaker
Other age-appropriate guy in the vicinity, you know?
00:40:48
Speaker
Right.
00:40:49
Speaker
You know, it's bad enough when people settle for someone beneath them in a state or in a country.
00:40:56
Speaker
But if there's a whole galaxy of multiple planets out there, there's somebody else.
00:41:02
Speaker
You can wait a minute.
00:41:02
Speaker
You'll be fine.
00:41:04
Speaker
Anyway, speaking of which-
00:41:08
Speaker
She goes off to meet with Chigar.
00:41:10
Speaker
They have another awkward but kind of nice moment where they both essentially thank each other for their help because they've she provided him with backup that he
00:41:21
Speaker
couldn't possibly have done without and he basically helped her get her life back um and so we have a a nice moment she has a moment where she recognizes that there's still some anger behind his eyes uh we get some hints that there's a little sithy still there's a little sithiness there uh but ultimately they they leave each other and quote never they don't they don't look back
00:41:44
Speaker
Um, chapter 47, Ula waits for a call from the empire, uh, at his, uh, at his now shabby looking
Strategic Deception and Moral Complexities
00:41:53
Speaker
apartment.
00:41:53
Speaker
He realizes he like looks at his apartment and goes, this place does kind of suck.
00:41:57
Speaker
Uh, maybe I should get, maybe I should get like a headboard or something like that instead of sleeping on a, on a mattress.
00:42:05
Speaker
Um, yeah.
00:42:06
Speaker
So he's waiting.
00:42:07
Speaker
He gets he gets his contact.
00:42:09
Speaker
He gives him the whole story, but leaves out certain details.
00:42:13
Speaker
And Kratos is dead.
00:42:16
Speaker
He died on the planet.
00:42:16
Speaker
So he's basically able to blame everything on Kratos, which means that it'll take the heat off of Jet.
00:42:23
Speaker
It'll take the heat off of a lot of people.
00:42:25
Speaker
And so you can't really punish the people who are already dead.
00:42:30
Speaker
So that's really just the most convenient thing to do.
00:42:32
Speaker
Uh, after that, he gets a phone call from, uh, the master of logistics, which was like the old friend of his, uh, that they'd come up in the Academy together.
00:42:40
Speaker
And now she's the minister of logistics.
00:42:43
Speaker
Um, and he tells her, he kind of lies to her.
00:42:47
Speaker
He says, he says, uh, cause their whole thing was that they believe that the Sith didn't need to be a part of the empire.
00:42:54
Speaker
Um, and, and he, he,
00:42:57
Speaker
It's not a lie, but he basically says, he's like, you know what?
00:42:59
Speaker
I've changed my mind.
00:43:00
Speaker
I've had to change it hard.
00:43:01
Speaker
I do.
00:43:02
Speaker
Now that I've worked with the Sith, they're pretty cool.
00:43:05
Speaker
And I want to work with them, which is not the truth, but it's going to basically mean that she's not going to contact him anymore.
00:43:13
Speaker
He's basically burning the bridge.
00:43:16
Speaker
Right.
00:43:16
Speaker
Because his whole thing now, he believes that cultures should he's he's in between.
00:43:23
Speaker
He believes that there should be logic and thought, but it should have emotion and and passion and that sort of thing.
00:43:30
Speaker
So he's basically I'm going to stay a spy, but I'm going to kind of work them against each other and try to do the right thing.
00:43:40
Speaker
He's basically going to be Varys from Game of Thrones.
00:43:43
Speaker
Right.
00:43:44
Speaker
He's like, it's, it's like, instead of, he's not going to be, uh, what's his name?
00:43:49
Speaker
He's not going to be little finger who is like, I'm working all the angles to get out on top.
00:43:55
Speaker
He's going to be Varys who is like, I'm working all the angles because, uh,
00:44:00
Speaker
Somebody needs to think of the regular people in the world.
00:44:04
Speaker
And that's exactly where he is.
00:44:06
Speaker
So it's like he honestly, out of all the people in this book, he kind of gets the best message as far as I'm concerned.
00:44:12
Speaker
He does the he makes the biggest change into probably the best person of everybody.
00:44:17
Speaker
Right.
00:44:19
Speaker
So he yeah, it's clear he's going to have to play both sides.
00:44:22
Speaker
But he's but yeah, you're right, Kevin.
00:44:23
Speaker
He's just going to have he's doing it for the sake of the people.
00:44:27
Speaker
Chapter 48, Shigar's training as a knight is going forward.
00:44:31
Speaker
He's proven himself.
00:44:33
Speaker
If you remember at the beginning of the book, they said, you know, you're not there yet.
00:44:38
Speaker
So they're going to push him forward.
00:44:40
Speaker
He has a moment where he talks to the Jedi Council and tries to convince them that we need to hit the Sith now.
00:44:49
Speaker
We have to do a preemptive strike.
00:44:51
Speaker
And that's just not the Jedi way.
00:44:54
Speaker
You know, he's like, what?
00:44:56
Speaker
He starts kind of like, not dark side, but kind of George W. in the early 2000s, preemptive strike kind of shit.
00:45:07
Speaker
And most of the Jedi give him kind of the calm your tits kid kind of answer, which you'd expect.
00:45:15
Speaker
But there's one Jedi in particular who is who he's a he's a character in the Old Republic and he's kind of the head of the Defense Council there.
00:45:25
Speaker
He's a he's a true military guy and he clearly agrees with him.
00:45:30
Speaker
And he but he has to keep himself.
00:45:33
Speaker
He kind of shuts up because he doesn't need to be too conspicuous about that.
00:45:37
Speaker
Right.
00:45:38
Speaker
So Shigar, by the end of this chapter, has a realization that he also is going to have to bend the rules, basically, that for all of their talk about peace and calm and, you know, being a Jedi master and all that stuff, that he's still going to find himself in real world situations where he's just going to have to do what he needs to do.
00:46:00
Speaker
And that there's going to be a lot of gray in there.
00:46:03
Speaker
He's still on the light side of the force, but he's also thinking, OK, when I get when I move up a little more, I'm going to go find that Jedi who clearly agreed with me.
00:46:14
Speaker
And he's he's he's going to be a light side Jedi, but he's going to be a pretty militant one.
00:46:19
Speaker
That's that's right.
00:46:20
Speaker
Clear.
00:46:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:22
Speaker
Isn't the more like a mace mace Windu?
00:46:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:26
Speaker
Kind of guy.
00:46:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:27
Speaker
Purple lightsaber kind of shit.
00:46:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:31
Speaker
And chapter 49, my favorite chapter in the entire book, by the way, this, this is a axe has been invited to Darth Howl's hunting
Sith Apprentices and Brutality
00:46:40
Speaker
grounds.
00:46:40
Speaker
Darth Howl being a member of the Sith council who she met briefly, who has sharpened his teeth.
00:46:48
Speaker
And it's just amazing.
00:46:49
Speaker
This chapter is amazing because it's like, I just imagine that.
00:46:53
Speaker
Like he's sitting there in like a plaid, like hunting jacket and cap, like looking like Dick Cheney.
00:47:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:06
Speaker
Like hunting lodge shit with like a broken shotgun over his arm.
00:47:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:12
Speaker
And so they're having a conversation and Darth Howell is like basically trying to his assumption.
00:47:18
Speaker
He's like, oh, you killed your master.
00:47:20
Speaker
You know, and I killed my master.
00:47:23
Speaker
I did the same thing.
00:47:23
Speaker
So how did you do it?
00:47:24
Speaker
Like, like he's trying to kind of needle into telling him a little bit more information while they're having this conversation.
00:47:31
Speaker
They are every now and then leaning over this balcony, looking into this jungle area and shooting these creatures.
00:47:38
Speaker
We never find out what they are specifically, but they're these fluffy, cute.
00:47:42
Speaker
You get the impression they're really cute kind of rodent things.
00:47:46
Speaker
And they're just like,
00:47:47
Speaker
blowing them to fucking kingdom come with these laser guns while they're having this conversation annihilating them.
00:47:54
Speaker
There's nothing left when they're, there's no sport, no sport.
00:47:58
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:47:58
Speaker
There's just a, just like a, a bit of ash, but when they're finished, um,
00:48:03
Speaker
And he tells her ultimately that he's going to take her on as his apprentice.
00:48:11
Speaker
And because he kind of warns her, he's like, you know, my last apprentice really disappointed me.
00:48:17
Speaker
And she's like, well, what did she do?
00:48:19
Speaker
And he goes, she liked keeping pets.
00:48:22
Speaker
And so now as punishment, she actually has a view of this.
00:48:28
Speaker
Basically, the implications, all these little fluffy things were animals that she really loved and was always.
00:48:34
Speaker
And so he forces her, his old apprentice to watch him killing all of these fluffy animals that she loves so much.
00:48:41
Speaker
It's really fucked up.
00:48:42
Speaker
But I left my ass off.
00:48:44
Speaker
That was great.
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:46
Speaker
Finally, we get to the epilogue.
00:48:49
Speaker
Jet meets Stryver in a cantina in Tatooine.
00:48:55
Speaker
He tells Stryver that he knows that Stryver is a Gectal and a female at that.
00:49:02
Speaker
And Gectals are kind of a bipedal lizard race.
00:49:07
Speaker
And to the point with also having detachable tails, the way that a lot of skinks and different kinds of lizards can detach their tails.
00:49:14
Speaker
He even says at some point, he's like, so do you just keep your, do you keep trimming your tail down to fit into the Mandalorian outfit?
00:49:21
Speaker
Or have you had it like permanently removed or, you know, she doesn't answer.
00:49:25
Speaker
So yeah.
00:49:29
Speaker
Jet has a hunch, and he's correct as it turns out, that Stryver has basically orchestrated this whole thing, all of it, everything from the release of
00:49:45
Speaker
of the hexes to the Hutts, trying to collect it and make some money.
00:49:50
Speaker
Just he's just she has totally orchestrated the whole thing all in the name of finding out between the Republic and the Empire.
00:50:01
Speaker
who is better on their feet, who should we be more concerned about, and who should we ally ourselves with ultimately when and if all this comes to war.
00:50:12
Speaker
So the whole thing wasn't even about these droids or anything like that.
00:50:16
Speaker
It was about the Mandalorian getting a look at how...
00:50:20
Speaker
these two gigantic armies would deal with this situation and who she believes is better, would be a better support to the Mandalorians in the long run.
00:50:31
Speaker
And also just to keep them fighting amongst themselves, because as long as the Republic and the Sith are fighting, they're not focusing on the Mandalorians.
00:50:38
Speaker
This will not last, as the history books will tell you.
00:50:42
Speaker
But for the time being, it's working out for them.
00:50:46
Speaker
It turns out that Jett's droid Clunker is like God-tier powerful.
00:50:53
Speaker
Because that's why he was able to like basically take over those ships.
00:50:58
Speaker
Because Clunker is just this broken droid that happens to have these moments of complete destruction.
00:51:07
Speaker
Again, God level power.
Jet Nebula's Local Support
00:51:11
Speaker
But the problem is, is Clunker resets itself every few days.
00:51:16
Speaker
So it has no memory.
00:51:18
Speaker
It has no long term anything.
00:51:19
Speaker
It's motivation.
00:51:20
Speaker
It only remembers him, basically.
00:51:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:23
Speaker
Exactly.
00:51:23
Speaker
And so he's the only person that won't try to fuck over.
00:51:26
Speaker
The Mandalorian clearly wants Clunker out of the picture, is not comfortable with that level of power in the droid's hands.
00:51:35
Speaker
And also, it lets slip that she knows Jet Nebula's real name, which is Jeet Keren, which on one hand...
00:51:44
Speaker
way more of a standard Star Wars name.
00:51:48
Speaker
Not as good as Jet Nebula.
00:51:49
Speaker
Not as good as Jet Nebula.
00:51:52
Speaker
I came around to it.
00:51:53
Speaker
I think a lot of people did.
00:51:55
Speaker
So the Mandalorian and Stryver attempts to take out Clunker and is basically...
00:52:03
Speaker
has herself taken out by like four or five different patrons of the bar.
00:52:08
Speaker
And she wakes up.
00:52:10
Speaker
She didn't die.
00:52:11
Speaker
She just, she just got basically stunned.
00:52:13
Speaker
The bar has not changed any at all, except that jet and clunker are gone.
00:52:18
Speaker
And everyone's kind of given her a side eye and she realizes because she's been stalking jet and he's been, he keeps coming into this bar.
00:52:26
Speaker
And she,
00:52:27
Speaker
that while he was doing, he wasn't just coming into that bar to get drunk.
00:52:30
Speaker
He was basically paying everyone off and saying, Hey, some shit might happen.
00:52:33
Speaker
And if that happens, uh, you're going to want to help the guy who's been buying all the drinks and shit.
00:52:38
Speaker
Right.
00:52:38
Speaker
Um, so that was that.
00:52:40
Speaker
So she's, and, and, and she has like this really, Oh, that's good.
00:52:44
Speaker
That's a, that's a worthy opponent, uh, uh, moment, you know, cause he's, he's just as he's, he's not the simple, you know, scoundrel that he appears to be.
00:52:53
Speaker
He's always planning it right to.
00:52:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:56
Speaker
Um,
00:52:56
Speaker
So she's happy to have a worthy adversary, and she is going to kind of chase him down as best as she can, but ultimately go back to Mandalore with her findings, and then
Book Discussion Conclusion
00:53:08
Speaker
who knows?
00:53:08
Speaker
And that is how the book ends.
00:53:11
Speaker
So that is the Old Republic, Star Wars, the Old Republic, Fatal Alliances.
00:53:16
Speaker
Kevin, what did you think?
00:53:19
Speaker
I really like the last few, the action of the second to last segment and just kind of like the whole, like it really landed the plane well.
00:53:32
Speaker
Like you got to the title, you got to the title concept, the Fatal Alliance, because you got to hit a hint of it on Huda where they kind of had to work together to get out of things.
00:53:43
Speaker
And it still kind of retained a little bit of twists and turns where
00:53:47
Speaker
like Jet, for example, where it's like he's a Han Solo smuggler type, and it's like, oh, he's actually a lot more crafty and or dangerous than he's ever letting on.
00:54:00
Speaker
And he also has this robot that is probably as powerful, not as powerful as the Hex is, but in terms of like,
00:54:09
Speaker
doing damage to things, he can really fuck some shit up.
00:54:14
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:54:14
Speaker
Because Clunker is able to remotely hack...
00:54:19
Speaker
both Imperial and Republic ships and control them from a distance.
00:54:24
Speaker
Like, that's a big deal.
00:54:26
Speaker
Like, that's a, that's a lot of power.
00:54:29
Speaker
That's R2, for example, R2D2 barely was able to turn off the garbage mashers on the detention level in time.
00:54:42
Speaker
Where could he be?
00:54:44
Speaker
And that, where could he be?
00:54:46
Speaker
That was a direct connection.
00:54:47
Speaker
He was plugged in.
00:54:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:49
Speaker
That wasn't a wireless.
00:54:51
Speaker
He wasn't doing Wi-Fi.
00:54:52
Speaker
He was doing an Ethernet connection to get in there.
00:54:56
Speaker
And this is a droid that is thousands of years older on top of everything else.
00:55:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:02
Speaker
You know what?
00:55:02
Speaker
Star Wars kind of strikes me as a universe where the technology stagnated.
00:55:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:16
Speaker
There's a Warhammer thing to that, too, where it's like the Archaeo tech.
00:55:21
Speaker
Yeah, it kind of got to a point and then it stopped.
00:55:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:31
Speaker
is suddenly an existential threat, you know?
00:55:34
Speaker
So yeah, like the Hextroids.
00:55:36
Speaker
And then you can go forward to like the Death Star in the original trilogy.
00:55:41
Speaker
You know, things like that where it's like suddenly, oh, this really upsets the apple cart.
00:55:48
Speaker
So I think it's a fun book.
00:55:53
Speaker
A lot of fun characters had a good time with it.
00:55:56
Speaker
Yeah, me too.
00:55:57
Speaker
I agree.
00:55:59
Speaker
I was impressed with how well-crafted it all ultimately was.
00:56:04
Speaker
Like you said, Jet ends up being a more dangerous character than you'd expect.
00:56:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:10
Speaker
I was actually kind of getting annoyed because the whole Mandalorian thing just kind of the Mandalorian just kind of disappears and we don't wrap that up.
00:56:22
Speaker
And I was like, what the fuck are we doing?
00:56:24
Speaker
That was the Mandalorian was this huge part of the book for a while.
00:56:30
Speaker
And then
00:56:31
Speaker
they just disappear.
00:56:32
Speaker
That's kind of a loose end.
00:56:34
Speaker
But then when we get the explanation, it does not disappoint.
00:56:38
Speaker
And it's really interesting.
00:56:39
Speaker
And it's a very, it's a very meaty kind of explanation rather than just kind of hand wavy thing.
00:56:45
Speaker
So yeah, same.
00:56:46
Speaker
I was, I was impressed with this.
00:56:48
Speaker
I think I'm going to, I want to keep reading these as we go.
00:56:51
Speaker
These are these, the rest of them was good.
00:56:53
Speaker
And I think we've read, um,
00:56:56
Speaker
works by the other people who wrote these.
00:56:58
Speaker
So, um, yeah.
00:57:00
Speaker
So what's the next one?
00:57:02
Speaker
Uh, the next one I think is, hold on.
00:57:06
Speaker
Oh boy.
00:57:07
Speaker
I was just looking this up.
00:57:13
Speaker
It's another Sith heavy one.
00:57:15
Speaker
As I recall, I know one of them is called Revan.
00:57:18
Speaker
Uh, Revan's the third one.
00:57:20
Speaker
And I've actually read, I read that one years ago.
00:57:23
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:57:25
Speaker
That's a third one.
00:57:27
Speaker
Anyway, it doesn't matter.
00:57:28
Speaker
I want to keep reading these.
00:57:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:57:32
Speaker
And it's nice to have a double dip of a video game and also one of the most popular franchises ever.
00:57:39
Speaker
Deceived.
00:57:40
Speaker
Deceived is the... Deceived, okay.
00:57:43
Speaker
Deceived, yeah.
00:57:44
Speaker
And then it goes Revan by Drew Capartian.
00:57:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:57:53
Speaker
And there's another one called Annihilation.
00:57:58
Speaker
I think that there's also by true.
00:58:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:01
Speaker
There are four novels and three short stories.
00:58:05
Speaker
Yes.
00:58:05
Speaker
Yes.
00:58:06
Speaker
So, yeah, I'm happy with this one.
00:58:09
Speaker
So now that now that we have wrapped another and this is a big one, we wrapped another epic one up.
00:58:14
Speaker
Kevin, I've got one question left for you.
Kevin's Gaming Experiences
00:58:18
Speaker
Yes.
00:58:19
Speaker
Oh, what are you playing?
00:58:21
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:58:24
Speaker
I'm still playing a few games.
00:58:26
Speaker
So I actually started playing The King is Watching.
00:58:31
Speaker
Oh, nice.
00:58:31
Speaker
Nice.
00:58:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:32
Speaker
It's a fun game.
00:58:32
Speaker
It's got a lot of weird elements that just make it
00:58:42
Speaker
different enough from other games in the genre to keep you playing, like trying to maximize the, like, okay, I'm setting things up like this so that when I'm hovering over with my gaze or whatever, that it's producing in the right way.
00:59:03
Speaker
I nearly won beat the final boss of the first king that you get.
00:59:12
Speaker
Like first king level zero dangerousness or something.
00:59:15
Speaker
I nearly beat the final boss.
00:59:17
Speaker
I was like, he had like 13 hit points left and then he destroyed my, he like hit my wall and destroyed it.
00:59:24
Speaker
And I was like, I was like trying to like,
00:59:27
Speaker
I was I was like trying to get an archer or something.
00:59:29
Speaker
Just like somebody, anything.
00:59:32
Speaker
One one thing left and I lost and I was like, I haven't played since then.
00:59:36
Speaker
Just because I understand why I was like, I was like, fuck you game.
00:59:42
Speaker
It's it is it's tough.
00:59:43
Speaker
It's a tough.
00:59:44
Speaker
I will say that when you get over that first hurdle at first level zero, you start rolling down the hill a little more because you can get some upgrades and stuff like that.
00:59:53
Speaker
Sure, sure.
00:59:54
Speaker
It does.
00:59:54
Speaker
It is a it is a tough start.
00:59:57
Speaker
Yeah, I've been putting things into the upgrade tree a little bit, like starting with wine.
01:00:05
Speaker
That's because that gives a little buff to your soldiers while they are in combat.
01:00:12
Speaker
Stuff like that.
01:00:14
Speaker
So I'm playing it and it's good.
01:00:19
Speaker
Did I talk about when did I?
01:00:24
Speaker
Let's see.
01:00:25
Speaker
Did I talk about the drifter?
01:00:28
Speaker
No.
01:00:29
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:31
Speaker
The drifter is...
01:00:35
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:35
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:35
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:35
Speaker
No, I beat it.
01:00:36
Speaker
I beat it after we recorded.
01:00:38
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:38
Speaker
So the drifter is a point and click horror slash thriller.
01:00:43
Speaker
Oh, you did mention it, but you just started it.
01:00:46
Speaker
Sorry.
01:00:46
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:46
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:48
Speaker
I beat it.
01:00:50
Speaker
It is absolutely amazing.
01:00:53
Speaker
I got to say, you got to check this out.
Game Recommendations
01:00:58
Speaker
It is probably one of, if not the best voice acted point and click games that I have ever played.
01:01:09
Speaker
It's got a neat story that you don't know where it's going as you're going through it.
01:01:21
Speaker
And there is limited moon logic in the game.
01:01:26
Speaker
A lot of the solutions are not, it's not that they're obvious, it's just if you're
01:01:32
Speaker
thinking like oh yeah no that makes sense it's not like use the rubber chicken with the pulley in the middle right right um you know i say that and that's not even the most moon logic thing in in monkey island uh right but no the drifter uh gorgeous pixel art amazing voice acting it's got a really uh
01:02:01
Speaker
It's got a story that says has something to say about grief, both grief and letting go of that grief.
01:02:12
Speaker
I can't recommend it enough.
01:02:14
Speaker
It took me about seven hours to beat.
01:02:17
Speaker
I know some people.
01:02:19
Speaker
You know, some people take longer and I probably I might go back and do another run just to kind of like get the achievements on it.
01:02:30
Speaker
Sure.
01:02:32
Speaker
But yeah, the Drifter.
01:02:33
Speaker
Great game.
01:02:34
Speaker
It's really good.
01:02:34
Speaker
I mean, the fact is you.
01:02:37
Speaker
I would say you are probably in my life, my authority on on point and click games like, you know, that shit better than anyone I know.
01:02:47
Speaker
And so for you to say I offer such high praise to it, I was like, oh, shit, this is this must be this must be good.
01:02:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's a good game.
01:02:57
Speaker
What else am I playing?
01:03:00
Speaker
Wordplay, I got back into a little bit of wordplay, the game makers toolkit.
01:03:05
Speaker
uh, Mark Brown's, uh, game that he released, uh, earlier this month.
01:03:11
Speaker
It's, it's, it's a fun game to play when you're, it works on, you know, play on the steam deck and you're just sitting there doing your, your boggle stuff, you know, figuring out words.
01:03:21
Speaker
Um,
01:03:22
Speaker
He is coming.
01:03:23
Speaker
I finally beat the I beat the first level of of of he is coming.
01:03:34
Speaker
I will say one of the things that holds me back from like fully recommending he is coming is that it it feels like it's one of those games where as you discover more things as you as you
01:03:51
Speaker
hit more achievements it unlocks more weapons and armor and stuff like that but as you it's sort of like a vampire survivor's situation where you start that just decreases the odds of you getting the thing that you want to get necessarily because now the every time you pick up a treasure chest the um
01:04:18
Speaker
the odds it's like you choose one of three things right but now the the there are more options in the pool for it to pull from so if you're trying to get a specific build it becomes less likely as you play more and more of the game which is something that's that happens in vampire survivors that being said vampire survivors does a lot of things to mitigate that um you you know you have your you'd
01:04:45
Speaker
You choose a character with a specific starting weapon.
01:04:48
Speaker
You're like, I want to do this kind of build so I can figure, I can pick, I pick the guy, I want to do the garlic again.
01:04:56
Speaker
So I pick Poe, you know, like, hey, my boy Poe, he's slow, but he knows what's up.
01:05:02
Speaker
So there isn't any of that in He is Coming.
01:05:06
Speaker
So it's still in early access.
01:05:08
Speaker
So I wonder if that is something that might be considered as you go through.
01:05:12
Speaker
Because it took me eight hours to beat the first game.
01:05:16
Speaker
the woodland area just by going playing over and over and over again.
01:05:20
Speaker
Um, I really wish this would be a mobile game.
01:05:24
Speaker
Uh, I feel like I, I think I feel like I'd really haul ass through it.
01:05:28
Speaker
Uh, if it was a mobile game, you just sitting there on the, on your phone or whatever.
01:05:32
Speaker
Right.
01:05:32
Speaker
Uh, it would, it would really, uh, it, it would work as a, as a mobile game.
01:05:38
Speaker
Um, but yeah, so, uh, he is coming, uh, played it more.
01:05:44
Speaker
Still like it, but it's one of those... It can't really land on my recommended list quite yet just because I feel like there's some balance-y things that need balance.
01:05:53
Speaker
And there's like an early game boredom, I guess, that you can kind of run into where if you're okay... And I think that's something with all of these Autobattler games where if you're okay, just kind of like... You're just sitting there listening to a podcast, just fucking...
01:06:13
Speaker
you know, doing your thing.
01:06:14
Speaker
Um, that's fine, but it doesn't have the, uh, stickiness necessarily quite yet of say a vampire survivors or, um,
01:06:26
Speaker
Even Vampire Survivors is, you know, you're more active in what you're doing in Vampire Survivors than you are in He Is Coming.
01:06:33
Speaker
Right.
01:06:35
Speaker
And it doesn't have the second level of, like, a loop hero where you're doing the strategy to build out the... You're rebuilding things, and that's also part, like, the survivor camp.
01:06:49
Speaker
So there's something missing.
01:06:51
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:54
Speaker
I started playing Lies of P again because I bought the DLC.
01:07:00
Speaker
And, you know, I just want to get into that and see what the deal is with that.
01:07:07
Speaker
And Rogue Trader.
01:07:11
Speaker
Still playing Rogue Trader, of course.
01:07:13
Speaker
I'm never not playing Rogue Trader, technically.
01:07:15
Speaker
I think that's also the situation with me.
01:07:19
Speaker
It's always kind of there.
01:07:22
Speaker
I've been kind of like doing it where I've been playing it.
01:07:28
Speaker
I'll like play an adventure.
01:07:30
Speaker
I'll have like a session and put it away and go do something else and everything.
01:07:36
Speaker
And I kind of love that.
01:07:37
Speaker
I feel like I could make the game last forever.
01:07:39
Speaker
Got that right?
01:07:40
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of stuff.
01:07:42
Speaker
I'm going to go to this planet and do a quest.
01:07:46
Speaker
That's exactly it.
01:07:46
Speaker
I get to a new planet and I scan a few things and there's usually one quick adventure or something like that.
01:07:53
Speaker
And I can hop in there and do that in less than an hour and then I give it a break.
01:08:00
Speaker
I'm the same way.
01:08:01
Speaker
It's just kind of always there.
01:08:04
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:06
Speaker
So, Phil...
01:08:09
Speaker
What are you playing?
01:08:11
Speaker
Oh, I actually, interestingly enough, been playing a lot of Slay the Spire, which I never played when it was new.
01:08:20
Speaker
I got it on my phone.
01:08:23
Speaker
And while I'm working and that sort of thing, I'll just have it on and be able to kind of slowly go through it.
01:08:30
Speaker
It's really good for that.
01:08:31
Speaker
I've always had Marvel Snap and that sort of thing for that sort of thing.
01:08:35
Speaker
But I've started to realize that it's just not
01:08:38
Speaker
in my best interest to have a game where there's another player.
01:08:43
Speaker
You know, it's just you don't want them.
01:08:45
Speaker
Yeah, no, I get it.
01:08:47
Speaker
It's it's rude at best and like completely fucks me over at worst.
01:08:53
Speaker
And so I was like, I need to find a good like one player game, single player game that I can that I can.
01:08:59
Speaker
just have in the background and enjoy and that's it's very very good for that uh it makes me think of those old browser games like it makes me think of a game you'd play on new grounds or something like that in the early thousands and i think that's it was weird because i always i was always like i would look at slave spire and i was like i feel like the art style is a little cheap um
01:09:22
Speaker
And, but now that you say it's like a new grounds game, be like, yes, that's what it reminds me of.
01:09:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:28
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:28
Speaker
It's, it, it looks kind of like ass, but who gives a shit and it's, it's, it is what it is.
01:09:35
Speaker
It does it pretty well.
01:09:36
Speaker
It's got a good loop and I'm, I'm enjoying it.
01:09:39
Speaker
I it's, it's a nice, uh, it's a nice game to have in the background while you get, you know, other shit done.
01:09:46
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I like that.
01:09:48
Speaker
Um,
01:09:49
Speaker
i played a demo uh for uh no i'm not a human um i think i've heard of this i think briefly this was like a a a lot of people were playing on tick tock and like that um it makes me think a whole lot of uh don't look outside uh the plot line's fairly similar something's wrong with the sun and you can't go out except for at night and people are there are imposters out there
01:10:19
Speaker
And the whole loop of the game is that you're answering the door and deciding whether or not people should be allowed to stay at your place.
01:10:28
Speaker
And every day that goes by the TV or the radio or something like that gives you another thing to look out for, another sign that they might be an imposter.
01:10:38
Speaker
Sure.
01:10:40
Speaker
Problem is, is they're all very mundane things.
01:10:43
Speaker
They're like they're like they have perfectly straight teeth and they have dirt under their fingernails.
01:10:48
Speaker
And I just I just went whole hog into it and ended up killing anybody who had any of the things wrong with them.
01:10:55
Speaker
And it was very clever.
01:10:58
Speaker
It's you're in the summer.
01:10:59
Speaker
It's the whole games in the summer or in the demo.
01:11:02
Speaker
You're in the summer and you'll find things that will say, well, this this will be valuable in the fall.
01:11:06
Speaker
Better hold on to this for a fall.
01:11:08
Speaker
And then I find out the full games releasing in the fall.
01:11:11
Speaker
And that's what they're talking about.
01:11:12
Speaker
It's that it's content that I.
01:11:15
Speaker
It was a small I just thought that was really clever and it's very unsettling.
01:11:20
Speaker
I kept waiting for something to jump scare me.
01:11:23
Speaker
It never did.
01:11:24
Speaker
But the camera is just a little too close to your face.
01:11:29
Speaker
Like it's a first person and everything's just a little too in your face.
01:11:33
Speaker
I'm looking at the I'm looking at the artwork and you know what?
01:11:38
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:39
Speaker
What's funny is the guy in the main
01:11:42
Speaker
like the key art, right?
01:11:45
Speaker
He's like got a got no shirt on and he's got a huge smile ish.
01:11:49
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:50
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:11:50
Speaker
That's are kind of rolled back.
01:11:52
Speaker
He's this.
01:11:52
Speaker
What got me to play the game?
01:11:54
Speaker
That was like, it's upsetting.
01:11:57
Speaker
So there is a there's a picture of
01:12:03
Speaker
Judge Holden, like an artwork of Judge Holden.
01:12:06
Speaker
I know exactly what you're talking.
01:12:08
Speaker
Yes.
01:12:09
Speaker
You know exactly the one you're talking about.
01:12:11
Speaker
I'm talking about is basically that.
01:12:14
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, I was like, I was like, why?
01:12:17
Speaker
Because I remember seeing the picture and I'm like, where have I seen this picture?
01:12:23
Speaker
art before like or this picture or it has this game is this game where it's like I thought this game already came out or whatever and then it's like I'm thinking of the literally the Judge Holden picture of it's just like a little bit too low looking up at him the smiles a little too big smiles a little too big yeah that's it's very creepy looking
01:12:52
Speaker
I yeah.
01:12:53
Speaker
And the rest of the artwork is it.
01:12:55
Speaker
I don't quite ever reach that level.
01:12:58
Speaker
Right.
01:12:59
Speaker
But it's an unsettling style of artwork.
01:13:01
Speaker
The music is very simple and it made me think of like not in the content of it.
01:13:10
Speaker
But it made me think of Bellatro, where it's the same kind of loop of music over and over, and you don't get sick of it somehow.
01:13:20
Speaker
But it's a very unsettling musical theme and very strange and spooky.
01:13:28
Speaker
The atmosphere, you can cut with a knife.
01:13:31
Speaker
It's very impressively done.
01:13:33
Speaker
The writing is good.
01:13:35
Speaker
The satire aspects of it are good.
01:13:37
Speaker
Nothing
01:13:40
Speaker
I take it back.
01:13:41
Speaker
There were a couple of like overtly scary things that happened.
01:13:45
Speaker
But for the most part, it's just very paranoid and atmospheric.
01:13:52
Speaker
Like I said, it made me think of Don't Look Outside.
01:13:56
Speaker
because it has a similar inciting incident and and like basic plot line but i think the similarities kind of end there because they're very different styles of game uh and this is a lot more subtle whereas uh don't look outside is very over the top in what it's trying to do and and that's great this one is way more subtle and and very skin crawly um and i i i can say for a fact that i'm i'm going to play this when it comes out in the fall this is this is you
01:14:25
Speaker
Did you beat Look Outside?
01:14:28
Speaker
No, I keep telling myself I'm going to get back to it.
01:14:30
Speaker
I reached a point where I wasn't sure what to do.
01:14:34
Speaker
And I just kind of let it go.
01:14:36
Speaker
And I do want to beat it before the end of the year.
01:14:39
Speaker
There are... Yeah.
01:14:42
Speaker
It can be tough because it does have some like...
01:14:45
Speaker
There is like a meta puzzle that you're trying to solve.
01:14:49
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:49
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:50
Speaker
And I reached a point game.
01:14:52
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:52
Speaker
There was there was never I was never out of things to do.
01:14:56
Speaker
Oh, it was so much in the game to do.
01:15:00
Speaker
You'll never run out of thing.
01:15:01
Speaker
But there's there's specific things that you're trying to do.
01:15:05
Speaker
Right.
01:15:06
Speaker
And I couldn't help figure out.
01:15:07
Speaker
I couldn't help but wonder, I don't know if I'm moving forward.
01:15:10
Speaker
I think that's one disadvantage the game has.
01:15:13
Speaker
It's hard to say how much of this I'm just floating in this weird world or how much of it I'm just, it's just fucking...
01:15:27
Speaker
the actual road that I need to be on to beat it.
01:15:30
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:30
Speaker
But I do want to sit.
01:15:31
Speaker
I want to start over on it and give it another go because that is a worthwhile game.
01:15:37
Speaker
That game is fucking excellent.
01:15:38
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:40
Speaker
But yeah, that is me too.
01:15:42
Speaker
So pretty good stuff.
01:15:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:45
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:45
Speaker
Great stuff.
01:15:47
Speaker
That'll do it for tonight's episode.
01:15:49
Speaker
Thank you all so much for listening.
01:15:51
Speaker
Go ahead and follow us on social media.
01:15:53
Speaker
Blue Sky Instagram.
01:15:56
Speaker
the TikToks and jump into our Discord.
01:16:00
Speaker
You can find the link through our Patreon, patreon.com slash pixelitpod.
01:16:05
Speaker
Phil, would you rather have a space marine the size of a Goomba or a Goomba the size of a space marine?
01:16:21
Speaker
Is this to fight or someone who's backing me up?
01:16:25
Speaker
Uh, to fight.
01:16:27
Speaker
Oh, to fight.
01:16:28
Speaker
Okay.
01:16:28
Speaker
All right.
01:16:29
Speaker
I know this isn't going to make sense at first, but I'm going to fight the Goomba the size of a space marine.
01:16:38
Speaker
And I know that sounds like the less logical answer.
01:16:43
Speaker
But, but it all makes a lot of sense once you realize that the breed of mushroom