Transcript
Speaker: Why does Boston market taste so good?
Speaker: It's mostly salt.
Speaker: It's mostly salt.
Speaker: It's food that got onto a plate of salt.
Speaker: Yeah, look, your tongue isn't supposed to be bleeding after you eat ham.
Speaker: That's just the generosity of the salt.
Speaker: The mashed potatoes aren't supposed to be crunchy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know what that is?
Speaker: Salt, baby.
Speaker: Neither is the water.
Speaker: But you can't get enough.
Speaker: You can't get enough.
Speaker: You can't get enough.
Speaker: And you know what else you can't get enough of?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixlet.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me as always is Phil.
Speaker: Hi.
Speaker: And today we're starting a brand new book.
Speaker: Oh boy, here we go.
Speaker: It is... Ticka, ticka, ticka, ticka, ticka.
Speaker: Halo Outcast.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: By Troy Denning.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you might be asking, like, whoa, this game, this book is not even out yet.
Speaker: And you're right.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: It's not even.
Speaker: It's going to be out in, like, a couple days from this first episode.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And, um...
Speaker: Yeah, we're reading it early, courtesy of the publisher.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, full disclosure, Gallery Books contacted us and asked if we would like to cover this book on our show.
Speaker: And we're not being paid for this, but we are also, you know, this is something that was provided to us early.
Speaker: Gratis.
Speaker: Gratis.
Speaker: Yeah, look at that.
Speaker: We got some early ARC copies.
Speaker: And so all of the, now to be fair, all of the nice things we're going to say are still our genuine feelings.
Speaker: Still genuine feelings.
Speaker: It's just, you know what I love is when we get something for free and then we can say nice things about it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because the opposite would be terrible.
Speaker: We have spent money on things that we hated.
Speaker: And so far, the things that we've gotten for free have been pretty good.
Speaker: So if you think that we can be bought with a couple of free advanced novels, I mean, you're kind of right, but not really.
Speaker: Like, we're still going to, you know, we're going to say what we mean.
Speaker: It's just a little bit right.
Speaker: It's a little bit right.
Speaker: We're still, where'd the spoon come from?
Speaker: That was a random implement you just brought out of nowhere.
Speaker: There is no spoon.
Speaker: I thought I was grabbing like a pen.
Speaker: Just emphasizing your point with a pen and it turned out to be a spoon.
Speaker: It's just like, you know, a pen makes sense, right?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, sure.
Speaker: But a spoon doesn't really.
Speaker: Anyway, we can be bought.
Speaker: That was the point.
Speaker: You know how you can buy us.
Speaker: Where's a website that somebody can go if they wanted to buy us?
Speaker: Oh, let's say that you guys wanted to buy us.
Speaker: I would recommend first and foremost, patreon.com slash pixel lit pod, where you can join up on any number of one of three tiers or actually a fourth free tier.
Speaker: Am I correct in that, sir?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You could go ahead and just become a free member.
Speaker: And you know, that's an easy way to follow us.
Speaker: Yeah, be a part of the community.
Speaker: Be a part of the community.
Speaker: If you don't want to be on the social media anymore, and I understand you.
Speaker: And I get it.
Speaker: I totally understand.
Speaker: An easy way to follow our updates is use the free membership option on Patreon.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Do that.
Speaker: Follow us around.
Speaker: And that is where we post a lot of our bonus material, including, as of the recording of this, our first two episodes of our deep dive into the 1989 cartoon series, The Legend of Zelda.
Speaker: And by the time this comes out, we'll have had four episodes out.
Speaker: I think, yeah, we'll have been all the way through The Legend of Zelda and into 1997.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So we've got bonus stuff coming.
Speaker: More stuff than you can shake an angry spoon at.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So please check out patreon.com slash pixelitpod.
Speaker: Do it today.
Speaker: Do it today.
Speaker: The spoon commands you.
Speaker: Please, don't anger the spoon.
Speaker: So, Phil, um...
Speaker: You just did the Patreon shill, so I'm going to give you a break and talk a little bit about what... If you don't know, the book is based on Halo, right?
Speaker: This is our fifth... How many Halo books have we read?
Speaker: This is our fifth, I think, yeah.
Speaker: Fifth?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's absolutely the franchise we've covered the most.
Speaker: But honestly, of everything we've touched, it's the franchise that has the most material.
Speaker: They keep pumping these books out.
Speaker: It has the most material we are going to be covering Halo for a while.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Halo Outcast, there's a note at the beginning.
Speaker: It takes place before the events on Halo Zeta, which means it is taking place before the last book that we read, which was Rubicon Protocol.
Speaker: So Rubicon Protocol, which was released first, hasn't happened yet.
Speaker: And Rubicon Protocol was the direct prequel story to Halo Infinite.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Halo outcasts, meanwhile.
Speaker: The two main characters are Thel Vadam and Olympia Vale, right?
Speaker: Who are characters Vadam has been in, and I'm sure I'm saying that wrong, because there's an apostrophe in there, but Vadam has been in a bunch of other of the Halo games.
Speaker: He was in charge.
Speaker: He was in charge of the fleet that glanced Reach.
Speaker: et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker: Olympia Vale was from Halo 5.
Speaker: She was a character in Halo 5.
Speaker: This book more or less bridges the events between Halo 5, in which Cortana basically becomes an evil tyrant overlord, and the events of Halo Infinite.
Speaker: So this is kind of like that gap in between.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, so yeah, that's, that's where, that's where we are in terms of what video games is this based on.
Speaker: It's based on that space between Halo five and Halo infinite.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And this is part of a standalone series anyway.
Speaker: So it's, it's, uh, this one isn't part of any of the trilogies, any of the series is, is, is, so you're able to hop in there and just go, uh, which is, by the way, everything I just said, I looked up some of it, but most of it gets explained during the course of the book.
Speaker: So you,
Speaker: You don't have to know as long as you're familiar with like the concept of Halo, the video game.
Speaker: You don't really need to know a whole lot because unless you you're afraid of getting spoilers on the games that you haven't played, you don't have to know a whole lot.
Speaker: A lot of it gets you get caught up easily.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker: So who's Troy Denning?
Speaker: Oh, Troy Denning, you ask.
Speaker: I gotta tell you, every time we do one of these, I look forward to looking up the authors here because there's that feeling of like, I don't always know the names of these guys and there's always something crazy surprising and exciting that I find out like, no, not always, but a lot of the times.
Speaker: And this is one of those times
Speaker: Troy Denning actually started his career as a game designer in 1981 for TSR.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah, this guy is old school.
Speaker: Did he work on Dungeons & Dragons?
Speaker: He worked on Dungeons & Dragons.
Speaker: Not only did he work on Dungeons & Dragons, he co-created the Dark Sun setting, which is one of my favorite settings.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah, he worked with Brom, he worked with Tim Brown, Mary Kirchhoff.
Speaker: He worked with a lot of excellent legends within the thing.
Speaker: This would have just been advanced D&D, right, that he worked on, right?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Because first edition is...
Speaker: 70 something to, cause.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, this would have been advanced second edition.
Speaker: Which is his second edition.
Speaker: Yeah, it gets very, it gets very nebulous.
Speaker: I forget the years, but yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, but he worked on some really cool original stuff for game design.
Speaker: And while he was doing that and
Speaker: after he was doing that, he wrote, let's see, he wrote five novels for the Dark Sun series.
Speaker: He wrote about over a dozen Forgotten Realms novels.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: He has written, this is his seventh Halo book, and possibly the thing that he would be best known for is he wrote about a dozen Star Wars books.
Speaker: books that are all now, I believe all of them are now considered in the, what do they call that?
Speaker: The Legends.
Speaker: Oh, the Legends canon.
Speaker: Yeah, which is whatever.
Speaker: But he wrote The Swarm War and Tatooine Ghost and a few of these that I have absolutely read.
Speaker: And it was really cool to, to, to,
Speaker: see them put up again.
Speaker: So this guy has worked on some big damn franchises and has really left his thumbprint on them.
Speaker: And it's really impressive to me because he's up there with Alan Dean Foster and some of the other old school fantasy writers that we have talked about.
Speaker: And
Speaker: who laid a lot of groundwork, but were very much of their time.
Speaker: But as we're gonna get into with this, Troy Denning is an exceptionally modern writer.
Speaker: And so finding out that he wasn't just some up and coming guy that I just, I've actually read his work before, that he is old school as shit,
Speaker: made all of this that much more impressive.
Speaker: It's really cool.
Speaker: And sometimes we say modern versus old school, and it's not necessarily a detraction against the old school writers.
Speaker: I think usually when we say that, it means that a lot of times modern writers, especially in science fiction,
Speaker: have a little bit more, they tend to layer in other genre tropes or other genre tones into the science fiction, if that makes sense.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: So like Halo Outcast is very much, it's almost like it's between military and political thriller.
Speaker: Yeah, yes.
Speaker: I couldn't agree more.
Speaker: I think that's it.
Speaker: And that's what's funny is whereas the old school writers, an old school fantasy novel is far more straightforward, it's simpler.
Speaker: There's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker: It's a dungeon crawl.
Speaker: Who doesn't like a dungeon crawl?
Speaker: It's awesome.
Speaker: But that's been done so much that modern writing tends to, like Kevin said, involve- Subvert a little bit by adding some other elements to it.
Speaker: Yeah, it tends to be a little more complex and that sort of thing.
Speaker: And for a lot of people and for a lot of writers,
Speaker: that means that some people read it and roll their eyes and go, Jesus Christ, just tell a fucking story.
Speaker: But when it's done well, that's where you get your Game of Thrones.
Speaker: That's where you get the big classics.
Speaker: And Troy Denning has skirted both
Speaker: Side to that aisle.
Speaker: And I find that really impressive.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, being a big being somebody who had such an impact on the fantasy genre, not only writing all those those D&D books, but but his work with the game itself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, that's a huge impact on just the genre to begin with.
Speaker: And then also then jumping over to science fiction is is a pretty interesting thing.
Speaker: it's something that you don't see that often you know people tend to stick to one or the other right exactly so obviously there's exceptions to all these rules but just saying it's he seems like a seems like he's had a neat career you know yeah yeah he really has it's really it's a it's a very if you get a chance guys check out his bibliography it's pretty impressive it's pretty cool
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So, as we do, though, no matter how much we like the book or dislike the book, the only thing that happens next is we've got to put the body in the marsh.
Speaker: Let's do that.
Speaker: Let's put that dang old body in that dang old marsh.
Speaker: I don't believe it.
Speaker: What can't you believe?
Speaker: I spent all the fucking night dragging the pill bastard in the...
Speaker: Okay, so Halo Outcast by Troy Denning.
Speaker: As I mentioned, it starts with a historian's note that it takes place right before the events on Halo Zeta.
Speaker: So that's Rubicon Protocol and Halo Infinite.
Speaker: Chapter one.
Speaker: is told from the point of view of Arbiter Thelvedam, who is considering how to handle the Chidons, who are kind of like the governors of the Sangheili in order to unite them.
Speaker: I just said a bunch of words that you don't get yet.
Speaker: If you're not like, if you're not into the Halo stuff, the Sangheili are the ones that are, are where the enemies in the game who are normally called elites.
Speaker: Arbiter Thelvadam is like, he's like the president of the Sangheili, but he has not much power.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He can't do a whole lot.
Speaker: He's stuck in bureaucratic hell, basically.
Speaker: And there's a bunch of... Sangheili have a bunch of different worlds that they occupy, and each world has like a kaidan, and that's a governor.
Speaker: And he's basically like, what am I going to do?
Speaker: With these folks, you know, the Sangheili aren't very united.
Speaker: They have all these different factions.
Speaker: Vadan was once a high-ranking official in the Covenant.
Speaker: Now that the Sangheili and humans are allied, he's doing his due diligence to unite his own people.
Speaker: And he became the arbiter who was responsible for dealing with disagreements between the different factions of Sangheili.
Speaker: While they're driving, they're stopped at a checkpoint by Cortana's minions called, and this is a word I had to look up, and then when I first searched it, you know what the first thing that came up?
Speaker: So the word is armature.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: And when you search armature, there's the definition, and then there's Warhammer 40K stuff.
Speaker: Ah, yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Of course there is.
Speaker: If you find an old word that used to be like a Roman term for military whatevers, but you're right.
Speaker: Holy shit.
Speaker: You put an armature and hit the image search and it is, I'm going down the page and I, okay, there's one thing here for raid shadow legends that is not 40 K. Holy shit.
Speaker: That's hilarious.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, okay, Games Workshop has good and rightly just taken that word.
Speaker: Just taken that.
Speaker: It's like they made that word up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, no, it's an old word.
Speaker: They didn't.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I love that shit.
Speaker: That's hilarious.
Speaker: That's, you know, an old TSR guy throwing that word in there.
Speaker: It makes sense, you know.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Talk about that at the next TSR versus Games Workshop softball game.
Speaker: I've read about how Gary Gygax had this book, this old book full of words that just weren't used anymore.
Speaker: That was the whole point of the book.
Speaker: It was like one of these novelty books.
Speaker: And it was like words that had lost usage had gone.
Speaker: And that's where so many of these words that he chose from, that have now in geek communities become actual words again.
Speaker: You know, and he found orc and shit like that.
Speaker: It's it's hilarious.
Speaker: I love that stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like like who was using sanguine or sanguinary or something like that before?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Before Boarhammer.
Speaker: Boarhammer or Magic the Gathering.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Use the word a lot.
Speaker: So I love that stuff.
Speaker: That's really fun.
Speaker: Yeah, I do too.
Speaker: So they're stopped by the armatures.
Speaker: They're basically the cops.
Speaker: Yeah, the MPs.
Speaker: Yeah, they're the cops that Cortana deploys to these to these cities.
Speaker: And the cops are like, can we talk to you?
Speaker: And there's an entire living complex, like an apartment building or whatever that was destroyed by some sort of fight.
Speaker: And the armagers are like, what do you know about it?
Speaker: And Evdam's like, I don't know.
Speaker: I just got here, man.
Speaker: And then they take his and his bodyguard's guns and send them on their way.
Speaker: It's a really well-written scene.
Speaker: It's hard to describe how tense this scene actually becomes.
Speaker: Yeah, right off the bat.
Speaker: You know what it actually made me think of?
Speaker: It made me think of 24.
Speaker: Yeah, it was that level of like just everyone's like looking this way and looking that way.
Speaker: Someone bites their lip, you know, and you're just waiting for the first shot to be fired.
Speaker: The dam is with his bodyguards and he's like trying to like communicate to his bodyguards not to do anything.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And there's these cops and they're like, and they're like, all right, we're just going to like take all your guns.
Speaker: They're, they're, they go into the car, they're taking the guns up.
Speaker: There's like guns up on hooks on the wall.
Speaker: And then there's like, there's like, yeah.
Speaker: And your, your energy swords, what's our, you know, you know, classic kind of classic, classic elite weapon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then the Arbiter's like, well, how can I protect myself?
Speaker: And then the Armagers are like, it's no longer your obligation to protect yourself.
Speaker: We are here to protect you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay, Armagers.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: I believe you.
Speaker: I believe you.
Speaker: Protect and serve.
Speaker: Chapter two.
Speaker: Vadam continues on his way back to his estate while speaking with his bodyguards about the nature of Sangheili pride, the antagonism that happens in the high council meetings.
Speaker: And his bodyguards are talking about how they think he has to strike first against the tyrant if he learns...
Speaker: And there's one point where V'Damn was like, he doesn't answer because he's like, I can't say no.
Speaker: If I say no, I'll lose face.
Speaker: And if I say yes, then I'm just dumb.
Speaker: He just like remained silent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They get back to his place and Vedam's butler, basically, they call him a keep master.
Speaker: He's basically the butler.
Speaker: Q Vedami comes out and meets them at their crav or their car, whatever, and to tell them about a visitor.
Speaker: Vedam assumes it's Olympia Vale, the Spartan who lives nearby and is a liaison between him and the UNSC, but it's not.
Speaker: It's an oath warden.
Speaker: And I couldn't stop calling them an oath keeper in my head.
Speaker: And I'm like, well, where was this guy on January 6th?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Sounded like somebody they could have used.
Speaker: He's actually effective.
Speaker: So he's basically a hitman or mercenary that people hire to make sure that people keep their promises.
Speaker: I love this concept so much.
Speaker: If you find out someone.
Speaker: You're not there to kill anybody.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you find out someone broke an oath, these guys, they're just weirdly traditional.
Speaker: Of course, they get paid for it, but they're also like these quasi-religious fanatics.
Speaker: But nobody, everybody looks down on, like they have no status.
Speaker: Everybody hates them.
Speaker: Yeah, because everyone wants to lie, Kevin.
Speaker: Because everyone wants to break their promises.
Speaker: That's why.
Speaker: That's why, yeah.
Speaker: World full of dogs, Kevin.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, it's such an interesting concept.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: It's cool.
Speaker: I think that actually be a neat D&D antagonist.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like if you were running a campaign with a paladin in it and it's a paladin that breaks their oath.
Speaker: Oh, that'd be amazing.
Speaker: Wouldn't that be cool?
Speaker: That'd be really cool.
Speaker: You get word that the oath warden is coming for you or something like that.
Speaker: That would be fun.
Speaker: Like, and it's just like a stalker.
Speaker: And I I've been, I've been wanting to run a D and D campaign with like maybe a little bit of a stalker enemy where I'm just doing like silent roles every time they show up to a town, just rolling.
Speaker: And if it hits, if it's like over,
Speaker: it has to be like, uh, over a certain number.
Speaker: So it would start at like 99.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Uh, and it would be like, all right, a 1% chance.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But every time they go somewhere, it, the DC on it reduces.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I think that's great.
Speaker: I, yeah, that would be hilarious.
Speaker: I'd love that.
Speaker: I think that would be fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, so the earth warden, um,
Speaker: So Vedam meets the Oath Warden in his Grand Hall, which has been totally stripped of any electronics.
Speaker: Basically, the only way to make sure that Cortana hears nothing is that there's nothing electronic in the entire room.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: They have to go full Luddite to protect themselves.
Speaker: It has to be a clean room in order for it to work.
Speaker: I mean, it makes sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They talk a little bit about the he has these installations on the walls that tell the history of his his like ancestors and his his like journey so far through life, the stuff that he's done and and things like that.
Speaker: And the Oath Warden comes in and lays out his case.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: He's looking for someone that was living in that complex that got destroyed.
Speaker: And the destruction happened because of confusion between the people that live there and some Cortana drones and like just gunfight, a gunfight broke out.
Speaker: He's looking for a woman named Kili Ayuska, a xenoarchaeologist who is doing work on pre-forerunner technology and was hired by the client that he was also hired by.
Speaker: Keely has gone into hiding after taking the money.
Speaker: Basically, she may have discovered a pre-Forerunner weapon that was able to destroy a Guardian, which is something that can destroy a planet by itself.
Speaker: I looked up Guardian just to see a picture of it.
Speaker: It's one of the things in Halo 5.
Speaker: I don't know why whenever I was thinking Guardian, though, the thing that popped into my head was Nimrod.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, you're not that far off.
Speaker: He's a little smoother.
Speaker: I mean, Nimrod is like, you know, not the biblical Nimrod, the Marv one.
Speaker: Yeah, duh.
Speaker: What do you think, Google?
Speaker: The pink one.
Speaker: The pink one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I kept thinking, for some reason, Nimrod kept popping into my head, and I was like...
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I like his design.
Speaker: I think it makes sense.
Speaker: I use him in my Marvel snap deck.
Speaker: Oh, you do?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker: He's a good guy.
Speaker: He's a good guy.
Speaker: He's a good guy.
Speaker: He's a good guy.
Speaker: He's there to do things.
Speaker: Good guy, that Nimrod.
Speaker: Good guy, that Nimrod.
Speaker: He's definitely a villain.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Bad guy.
Speaker: Very, very bad guy.
Speaker: Bad guy.
Speaker: Bad guy.
Speaker: So basically, Keely's client would get first pick of whatever she found there.
Speaker: And Vodam realizes that if the client, if the humans got it first, they wouldn't need the Sangheili.
Speaker: And if any of the Kaidons were getting it, that means they could take control over the rest of the Sangheili.
Speaker: So he's like, OK, so we have to go find this thing.
Speaker: Chapter three, Olympia Vale is at her house and she's been paging Vadam to figure out what's been going on with the armagers all day.
Speaker: She also goes through her other contacts, including a human who works at Kolar Manufacturing, which is a Sangheili ship manufacturer.
Speaker: While she's thinking about this, she notices a transport driving up the road to her house and she gets ready in case something dangerous.
Speaker: And the driver throws something out the window and continues on.
Speaker: And it's this little pod thing.
Speaker: And it's a pod that makes a noise to attract.
Speaker: So like female Sangheely put it out to attract mates.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's an interesting, it's like a little orgy pod or something.
Speaker: Yeah, like it's a I'm in heat and down to clown Charlie Brown pod.
Speaker: It's an interesting choice.
Speaker: It's a Sangheely thing to hide the identity of the father or something like that.
Speaker: You're not supposed to find out who your dad is.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I thought that was kind of interesting.
Speaker: Anyway, she breaks the pot open because she's like, well, I'm not a Sanghealy.
Speaker: And she finds a message in it that says, open the Sally port.
Speaker: Which does sound like something that a woman would ask you to do if she wanted you to impregnate her, to be fair.
Speaker: Open it right up.
Speaker: Open that Sally port.
Speaker: Open that Sally port.
Speaker: I feel bad about that one, I actually feel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, you should.
Speaker: I should.
Speaker: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: Don't go easy on me.
Speaker: It's a the Sally ports, a hidden garage door that she has underneath her house that opens out to like the valley side.
Speaker: So like away from the road.
Speaker: So she goes down into her underground garage and opens the door and outside is Keeley.
Speaker: And they were friends with each other when they were younger.
Speaker: And they are very familiar with each other.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: There's a there's a part at which at one point I think it's it's Olympia who says, well, you're not here to make out.
Speaker: So what is it?
Speaker: They take that subtext and make it text.
Speaker: They make it text, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, Keely had not seen Olympia since she went through her augmentations for the Spartan program.
Speaker: I thought that was a really cool touch.
Speaker: Like, she's shocked by her size.
Speaker: She's shocked by it.
Speaker: Because like, so Olympia was like 5'5 when she knew her and now is like 6'9".
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's a giant.
Speaker: An actual literal giant.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, you know, there's like some old childhood bullshit between them where where Keely calls her Pia, which Olympia is like, I haven't got I haven't been called by that in years.
Speaker: Stop calling me.
Speaker: Stop calling me that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, someone's a little testy.
Speaker: Someone doesn't like that name.
Speaker: At one point, Keeley slips and calls her Pia again.
Speaker: And Olympia is like, it's like Olympia lets it slide.
Speaker: Yeah, eventually she just drops.
Speaker: She's like, fuck.
Speaker: But yeah, it's a neat little scene.
Speaker: So Keely fills Olympia in on the details about the weapon, and she's assuming that it's on the planet Enba or Nesca or Netherop.
Speaker: All the same planet.
Speaker: It has three different names depending on who you're asking.
Speaker: But first, they need to travel to Gao, the planet Gao, to find someone.
Speaker: Chapter four, Vadam and his ships are already at the planet.
Speaker: He's left his bodyguards and butler back on Sanghelios with instructions to show themselves often to make it seem like he's still there.
Speaker: Vadam has some contemplative moments in this chapter thinking about how brilliant Cortana once was and how she ultimately became the tyrant that she is today.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: uh vedam meets the other kydon he requests to join him in the mess hall so there's tallet who is this like old crotchety old man and misogynist uh-huh who uh are there sanghilly misogynist you bet there are you bet your ass there are you
Speaker: In a world with little orgy fuck pods, you bet there are some misogynists.
Speaker: You bet there is.
Speaker: Those guys still somehow get rejected by them.
Speaker: Sanjali incels.
Speaker: That's all there is to it.
Speaker: And then Ola Bisi, who is a badass woman, who basically, like...
Speaker: she like saved an entire planet by herself and, and then, then took that group and she, she colonized a uninhabited planet and the planet is named after her.
Speaker: It's like, he's like, oh, this.
Speaker: Because so at one point Talon's like, oh, this woman is here.
Speaker: And I guess she's a kydon.
Speaker: And Vadam's like, she's a high kydon.
Speaker: Like, she's the governor of her own planet.
Speaker: Shut the fuck up, old man.
Speaker: Basically tells him to get his fucking shine box.
Speaker: It's pretty amazing.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they have these debates back and forth about
Speaker: what are the merits of actually being here?
Speaker: Does the tyrant already know we're here?
Speaker: Um, but they do realize one thing is the tyrant feel the tyrant fears Keely in, uh, specifically for some reason, like, like Cortana should know everything that Keely knows.
Speaker: So why would Cortana be afraid of one human Zeno archeologist figuring it all out?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Meanwhile, we're on the planet Gao with Olympia and Keeley, and they're taking a helicopter to land outside of a small settlement.
Speaker: They're looking for someone who can guide them on Netherop, and the settlement is made of people who used to live there years ago before the UNSC evacuated them to Gao.
Speaker: This is an awesome moment.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: There's these there's these guys who are just kind of like hanging outside and veil walks up to one of them and it's like neat gun.
Speaker: Can I look at it?
Speaker: And just like grabs it and she rips it out of his hands and then she like she checks it and she completely disassembles it in front of him.
Speaker: to look at each of the parts and then like reassembles it.
Speaker: And she's like, this is going to point at it at us at any time, is it?
Speaker: And he's like, no.
Speaker: And I love that she's not being sarcastic.
Speaker: She's like, look, I really did just want to look at your gun.
Speaker: I haven't seen one of those in a while or something like that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: She wants to talk shop and everyone's treating her like a bitch.
Speaker: It's hilarious.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then they they mentioned that they have money to hire somebody.
Speaker: And that's when things get a little testy.
Speaker: And because the guy that she's talking to like signals something.
Speaker: And at that moment, Vale grabs the gun and shoves him into a built like inside of a building and.
Speaker: And her and Keely, like Keely follows them in and they close the door.
Speaker: And he's like, he's like, what are you doing?
Speaker: You you're all surrounded now.
Speaker: What are you, what are you going to do?
Speaker: And then the woman that they actually came to see, her name is Fuertes, comes down from the second floor and she's like, you idiot.
Speaker: Look at her.
Speaker: Do you think they need the armor to fight?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He finally puts together that Olympia is a Spartan.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: She looks like she plays for the bulls, so let's just... She can just rip your head off if she wanted to.
Speaker: Oh, Lord.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Fuertes was kind of the person in charge of the village that was on Netherop.
Speaker: And she's de facto in charge now.
Speaker: She's the person that they were looking for, that they were going to hire.
Speaker: The problem is she's contracted some sort of prion disease.
Speaker: And prions tend to be... It's something like your proteins begin misfolding.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like a brain-wasting type of thing.
Speaker: It's like this really interesting detail that you have to wonder.
Speaker: Dennings goes into some really interesting detail on this one thing where it could have just been anything.
Speaker: It could have been cancer or whatever.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I wonder how much of this...
Speaker: is going to play out as important later, or if this is just, he was like, yeah, let's give her a weird sci-fi brain-wasting disease.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a weird thing.
Speaker: And it's a thing you can have happen to you.
Speaker: Oh shit, I thought, see, I'm an asshole.
Speaker: I thought they made it.
Speaker: You can.
Speaker: Such an asshole.
Speaker: I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker: Is it sound sci-fi?
Speaker: The term prions refers to abnormal pathogenic agents that are transmissible and induce abnormal folding of specific normal cellular proteins called prion proteins that are most found abundantly in the brain.
Speaker: See, that's the sign of a good writer.
Speaker: Take something that's totally...
Speaker: Yeah, it's something real, but it's like, oh, yeah, she contracted this.
Speaker: And it's like it's just life gets worse for you gradually as you as you have this thing.
Speaker: Basically, so they negotiate and Fortes is like, I'm going to die anyway, but you leave the money for this village and I'll come with you.
Speaker: And that's what they all agree on.
Speaker: Chapter six.
Speaker: Farther out in the solar system is Atriox's fleet of the Banished.
Speaker: And they're a former Covenant military group.
Speaker: And they're just watching shit from afar.
Speaker: These are the same guys that we got to see in the last... In Kelly Gay's Halo book, yeah?
Speaker: The Banished?
Speaker: Yes, they were banished.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: It's basically...
Speaker: So like the covenant dissolved.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then the people who were still militaristic and still wanted to fight the war, even though it's like basically the entire, you know, the entire purpose of the covenant was perpetuated by this big lie.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And once that was exposed, the covenant fell apart.
Speaker: But the banished are still together because they're, you know, the South will rise again, I guess.
Speaker: Yeah, they really are the adherents of the lost cause.
Speaker: That's essentially what they are.
Speaker: Yeah, good call.
Speaker: So they're watching the Arbiter's group from afar using some sort of holographic technology to hide their presence.
Speaker: And Atriox is speaking with Solju, who is the one who hired Kili to find the artifacts that can kill the Guardians.
Speaker: And Solju also hired the Oath Warden to find Kili.
Speaker: which is what kicked this whole thing off.
Speaker: And he knows a lot.
Speaker: He already knows that there is a weapon on this planet that can destroy Guardians just based on his own preliminary research.
Speaker: But he needed somebody who is more familiar with this stuff, who is an expert.
Speaker: And that's a thing they kind of make clear.
Speaker: there aren't a ton of experts in pre for runner alien technology.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like how could there be Keely is the only one who has kind of like spent time studying it.
Speaker: And she's a professor.
Speaker: She's a professor at the university of Edinburgh, uh, Edinburgh, um,
Speaker: to like teach that stuff.
Speaker: Um, but, and actually I'll pause.
Speaker: That was actually a fun side discussion that I kind of like skipped over, but Keely and Olympia talking about academia.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's snappy dialogue.
Speaker: It's really snappy dialogue.
Speaker: Basically, Keely Keely needed the money because the O and I couldn't do it.
Speaker: That's why she took the money in the first place.
Speaker: Yeah, I should have.
Speaker: I should have made that clear.
Speaker: But also, like, she couldn't like she couldn't use the university like the university wasn't going to pay her to do this.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: She's just she's just burning bridges left and right to get to this thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At the end of the chapter, there's a Tau signature, which means the UNSC has now arrived.
Speaker: And chapter seven, V'Dam and company have landed on a crater by a tell, which I had to look this up because I wasn't 100 percent sure.
Speaker: So and I was like, oh, wait, tell Aviv.
Speaker: wait a minute.
Speaker: And then I was like, the tail is a mound.
Speaker: It's like a, it's like a, it's like a hill.
Speaker: It's like one of those, one of those places that's been construct.
Speaker: It's a mound that's been constructed as opposed to like a natural forming one.
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: I didn't put that together.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I thought that was also sci-fi.
Speaker: More sci-fi words.
Speaker: More fake bullshit.
Speaker: Tell Latin mound for ceremonial purposes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'm over here like Homer Simpson being like, you don't eat bacon?
Speaker: You don't eat pork?
Speaker: You don't eat ham?
Speaker: Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Speaker: Surely it's a magic animal.
Speaker: That's what this entire first third of the book has been for me.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh, that's not real.
Speaker: That's a thing that Troy Denning came up with.
Speaker: He invented it.
Speaker: Yes, of course.
Speaker: Space.
Speaker: Space, of course, is nonsense.
Speaker: What's a game?
Speaker: Oh, a game.
Speaker: I see.
Speaker: I always quote that in my head every time somebody says the word Jim.
Speaker: And it's one of the only jokes.
Speaker: It's like a joke from The Simpsons that doesn't work without the visual reference.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With the fact that he sees the sign Jim and says, what's a guy and walks in, sees people walking out and then says, oh, a guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I forgot about that one.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: So they're down there and they're really preoccupied with some weird mirage shit that's going on off on the horizon.
Speaker: They're watching a shape slowly grow larger off in the distance and they're not sure is it coming towards them or not.
Speaker: there's just a lot of discussion about whether it's a real thing.
Speaker: Is it a trick of the eye?
Speaker: Is there a thing coming at us that we, and we don't know what it is.
Speaker: What is going on here?
Speaker: And it's like, I love this scene.
Speaker: So I love this moment.
Speaker: It's such a weird moment because they're like,
Speaker: I don't know what the fuck is going on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I kept stopping and second guessing myself because they're as confused as we are.
Speaker: And I was like, am I, am I meant to know what's going on?
Speaker: I have no idea.
Speaker: And it was, it was, but no, we're, we are meant to know.
Speaker: No one's meant to know what's going on.
Speaker: No one knows what it's great.
Speaker: It's like, it's like you come here.
Speaker: And they're like, one of the people comes down and like puts a telescope and, and they're like, yeah, it sure is a fucking thing coming towards us.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's so great because they're so out of their element.
Speaker: It's just nobody on this planet is doing well.
Speaker: This planet is so alien.
Speaker: It's hot.
Speaker: It's uncomfortable.
Speaker: It's rocky.
Speaker: There's a thing on the horizon.
Speaker: And it might be getting closer.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: It's such a strange way to basically introduce this whole new seven.
Speaker: The water's changing colors.
Speaker: What's going on here?
Speaker: Dogs and cats living together.
Speaker: Total anarchy.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: Oh, gosh.
Speaker: So he's like, all right, just send some ships to go that way and look at it.
Speaker: But then there's like some scuffling happening and then the ships like fly overhead, but they're flying all weird.
Speaker: And he's like,
Speaker: What's going on there?
Speaker: Like, wait a minute.
Speaker: Those are humans in that ship.
Speaker: And he's like, it's not the UNSC because they haven't landed yet.
Speaker: So these are humans that have... And he has a brain explode.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: He realizes that these are humans that have been marooned on this planet for like 30 years.
Speaker: Yeah, since the war ended.
Speaker: Since before the war ended.
Speaker: Since before.
Speaker: Here's the thing.
Speaker: It was even before the events of the first Halo game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: These are the Halo equivalent of that one Japanese guy in the jungle who thought that the war was still going on and was just living it.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: Because that was another moment I was like, wait, who are they?
Speaker: What the fuck is going on?
Speaker: It's just chaos.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: It's just chaos.
Speaker: It's so good.
Speaker: Everybody is rushing.
Speaker: That's the thing I love about this story so far is every one of the characters is rushing to figure something out.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Before the other group figures it out or before Cortana realizes that people are trying to figure out.
Speaker: But they're going so fast that they're not really taking the time to check the fact that there's weird other shit happening.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love, there's this, they're like, they're riding these, there's humans and those ghosts.
Speaker: They say, well, what happened to the pilots?
Speaker: They're dead, sir.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Yeah, they've been decapitated, sir.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: What happened to the Phantom?
Speaker: They're in the Phantom.
Speaker: Who did who with a what now?
Speaker: It's like, well, I'm going to the Phantom.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: You can't.
Speaker: The door is closing.
Speaker: What do you mean the door is closing?
Speaker: Yeah, they went into the Phantom.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're going to tell me that malnourished, basically feral humans have stolen our ships.
Speaker: Yes, sir.
Speaker: Yes, sir.
Speaker: Sick.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: And he's like, he's like, these are when he puts out again, it's like, yeah, these are going to be really hard to kill people.
Speaker: He's like, these people have been here for 30 years, so they're good at what they do.
Speaker: So they're tough as nails.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they see like there's like a couple of their of their people like at the entrance of a cave who just mysteriously disappear.
Speaker: And Vdam and the Oath Warden are like there.
Speaker: So they start running into the cave and they run into a woman and her two sons, I assume.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know if they ever get into it at this point, but I but they were born on the planet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're teenagers.
Speaker: They're yeah.
Speaker: They're young.
Speaker: So she's a former UNSC commander who still thinks that the war is going on.
Speaker: And Vadan is like trying to explain to her that the war has been over for a while now.
Speaker: And I'm reading this scene and he's like, and I'm like, I'm like looking at it from Vadan's point of view of like, oh, buddy, you have no point.
Speaker: You have no, you have nowhere to start with them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, you're just, you're just the enemy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You can't even tell them about the halos.
Speaker: They don't know what those are.
Speaker: Right, yeah.
Speaker: They haven't even played Combat Evolved yet, motherfuckers.
Speaker: Just imagine Vadam just sitting there like, all right, what do you know?
Speaker: Just imagine Vadam being like, first the earth cooled, and then the dinosaurs came.
Speaker: But they got too big and fat, and so they all died and turned into oil.
Speaker: Sit on my lap, little boy.
Speaker: I'm going to tell you about the history of the world.
Speaker: I like movies with gladiators in them.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: The Vedam and Horvath Christmas Special.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We've got, oh my gosh.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: The dam and Horvath explain Christianity.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In broken English.
Speaker: So she she's like attempts to kill Vadam and then the oath warden has like basically Boba Fett tricks at this point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He has like a thing in his wrist that he just holds up and sprays in her face.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's a drug that it's like a truth serum drug that he sprayed in her face.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, he's basically a bounty hunter for all intents and purposes.
Speaker: He's basically like a Boba Fett type character.
Speaker: And it's hilarious because Phantom's like, what did you do?
Speaker: And the Oath Keeper's like, basically, he's like, what?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: What have I done?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: What's wrong?
Speaker: What have I done?
Speaker: She's still alive.
Speaker: She's fine.
Speaker: I didn't kill her.
Speaker: I kept the peace.
Speaker: I kept the peace.
Speaker: And she's still, she's going to talk more now.
Speaker: And Van Am's like, you drugged her?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's like, well, you know, you didn't want me to kill her, so she'll talk now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Vadam's like, what?
Speaker: He hates it.
Speaker: He hates the fact that he did this.
Speaker: But he's like, well, I'm not going to let this go to waste.
Speaker: But that's just it.
Speaker: It's like this really great, like, I hate that he's right kind of moment.
Speaker: He's like, yeah, this is probably going to help.
Speaker: So Vanam's like, all right, tell us what you know.
Speaker: And the Oath Keeper's like, Oath Warden.
Speaker: Oath Warden.
Speaker: I did it too.
Speaker: I did it too.
Speaker: The Oath Warden's like, nope, don't say anything.
Speaker: Just watch.
Speaker: And it's like, whatever the drug is, it makes her want to talk.
Speaker: So it's cocaine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's good cocaine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She just wants to tell him everything.
Speaker: She's like, she's not going to be able to resist talking.
Speaker: She's going to say something, so just wait for it.
Speaker: She's like, okay, the thing you saw, that's called a runner, and you're near the Citadel, and then
Speaker: you're going to want to take cover because, uh, shipped shit starts falling out of the sky.
Speaker: Um, he's like, there's a drop ship, uh, but it's not, it's not coming down pretty.
Speaker: Uh, so we'll find out in the next chapter.
Speaker: Um, so yeah, everybody has to take cover and we're in chapter eight.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Back up on the UNSC ship, they're hovering over the same tell that Keeley has identified as the most likely location.
Speaker: Everybody basically is coming in.
Speaker: It's going to be a meeting of the minds here.
Speaker: Everybody's here.
Speaker: Everybody's here.
Speaker: Everybody's partying.
Speaker: And it's like what's funny is like it took it didn't take them any time at all because they have Keeley.
Speaker: Keeley's like, yeah, that's it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, VADAM, it took them, like, a week to figure it out, like, with topographical scans and all that stuff to figure out where to land.
Speaker: So Keeley's identified as the most likely location.
Speaker: Keeley and Vale are discussing how they're going to get down there and how they're going to convince the Sanghealy that they have claim over the dig.
Speaker: And Vale's like, well, I could try to say that it's a human planet because the only time it's been settled recently were humans.
Speaker: And Keeley's like, yeah, I'm sure that'll work.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: I'm sure they'll go right for that.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: That'll be fine.
Speaker: But they do have a full unit of ODSTs to help them with the dig.
Speaker: And I'm sure glad we got those ODSTs.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, they're going to be great, right?
Speaker: They're going to save the day.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I wonder why we're not meeting any of them right now.
Speaker: Suddenly, the camera of the ship passes over the tell while Olympia is looking at the monitor.
Speaker: And she has a hallucination, sort of, I guess, of...
Speaker: and the creation of the universe and stars.
Speaker: And she's feel, it feels like she's there for looking at it for thousands and thousands and thousands of years.
Speaker: And then it stops.
Speaker: And when the camera moves past that spot.
Speaker: So, uh, she's like, uh, uh, and then Fuertes is like, you saw two, right?
Speaker: I thought it was another one of my seizures.
Speaker: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker: I was like, oh, OK.
Speaker: So that wasn't just me.
Speaker: No, the mine knife?
Speaker: No, we all see it.
Speaker: We all saw it.
Speaker: We all saw it, yeah.
Speaker: So then Vale notices a bunch of contacts on the ground, seemingly fleeing the area.
Speaker: So I think in this moment, what they're seeing is the chase between the Sangheili and the marooned humans and all that.
Speaker: Shit's just going back and forth.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So she hops onto the nose camera and to take a look and the camera again catches that spot on the tell and the the universe starts happening again all at once.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's the best way of putting it.
Speaker: The universe starts happening.
Speaker: The universe starts happening.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's that's literally what happens in the book.
Speaker: She's like she's like in a in an instant.
Speaker: She sees everything like the life of the of the entire lifespan of the universe happens in her eyes and this moment.
Speaker: But this time it also happens to fry the ship's electronics.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And the ship starts falling through the atmosphere.
Speaker: As they get down, the pilot is able to stabilize the ship before they crash, like 45 meters before they hit the ground.
Speaker: The pilot is able to stabilize and pull back up.
Speaker: And the pilot's like, yeah, I guess we're done here, right?
Speaker: And Vale's like, no, we found our insertion point.
Speaker: And the pilot's like...
Speaker: Inserting with what, ma'am?
Speaker: And the ODSTs are gone.
Speaker: And she's like, what do you mean?
Speaker: And he's like, look.
Speaker: And the thing that's carrying the ODSTs was just like vaporized.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The ODSTs are just gone.
Speaker: They have ceased to be.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I wonder.
Speaker: I was, yeah, and I did seriously think, well, I love the ODSTs.
Speaker: I wonder why we haven't gotten to know any of them.
Speaker: Oh, oh, I see.
Speaker: I thought we would give a few of them names.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: So far, just if anybody's keeping track of casualties, that was seven of the dams people were killed by the marooned humans and 40 ODSTs were killed by the birth of the universe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: By space baby.
Speaker: By space baby.
Speaker: Yeah, just reaches out and slaps them out of existence.
Speaker: And Vale's like, well, we're going to land anyway because I think we found what we're looking for.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And that's where we're leaving it for today's episode.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: So, Phil, you've already said you like the book, but what are your thoughts so far?
Speaker: I, this is great writing.
Speaker: It's great writing.
Speaker: It's, you know, where Kelly Gay took us with the Rubicon protocol, took us into this.
Speaker: Super gritty war story.
Speaker: Gritty, yeah, nom kind of like experience.
Speaker: It's just as you said, you know, Troy here is getting us into, um,
Speaker: political thriller and espionage and the tension is really high, the stakes are high.
Speaker: It's very much a, which one was the Star Wars movie that was based on getting the plans of the- Oh, Rogue One.
Speaker: It's a very Rogue One kind of thing, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And he's got a lot of characters in here, but he has kept up with them very, very well.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I'm really enjoying it so far.
Speaker: Yeah, all the characters are pretty well fleshed out.
Speaker: And I think he does an amazing job of explaining things as we're on the run in a way that, like, I am not a Halo game, you know, fanatic.
Speaker: I've played the first one and...
Speaker: I think I played and beaten the first one and reach.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think that's it for me.
Speaker: I think that's it for me as well, actually.
Speaker: So, yeah, I think he does a really good job explaining –
Speaker: what you need to know about each of these characters and how they kind of fit in with the Halo wider Halo universe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As we're going.
Speaker: But yeah, I love the tension.
Speaker: Every chapter has something in it that's just weird and tense and and even the the chapter with where we introduce Olympia Vale.
Speaker: There was like a moment of tension with the driver like she thought the driver was throwing a grenade at her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: For a second.
Speaker: It's these little details that didn't have to be there.
Speaker: She's worried it was a hit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It just keeps you on edge at all times.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: And, you know, everything is like, everything is so tense because, like, you can't, you know, what's it?
Speaker: The Arbiter, like, he's off world right now.
Speaker: He's not supposed to be off world.
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: Like Cortana's forbidden it from, you know, traveling without like notifying her staff or whatever, one of the AIs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's that's I really like it.
Speaker: I like I like all the stuff.
Speaker: I like that it's from a lot of it has been from the point of view of Thelvedam, who is kind of like.
Speaker: He's kind of like the master chief of the Covenant in a way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I remember when you texted me about that and I hadn't thought about it like that.
Speaker: But yeah, you're totally right.
Speaker: Like in a way, yeah, because he was like –
Speaker: He was the one who gave the order to Glass Reach, for example.
Speaker: He was the one that chased them to the first Halo.
Speaker: If I'm wrong on that lore, I think that's right, though.
Speaker: I think you're right.
Speaker: He's just a very... He and Master Chief are both responsible for countless numbers of deaths on the other side.
Speaker: They're both genocidal maniacs and we're pulling for them.
Speaker: We're pulling for them.
Speaker: Belvedom at one point mentions that he's killed Billy.
Speaker: He's responsible for the death of billions.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, you know, he's on the good guys now.
Speaker: Yeah, he's so weirdly reasonable.
Speaker: Like, he isn't this lost cause kind of guy.
Speaker: Like, when he's very patient with the humans who don't know the war is over and, like, he doesn't want to hurt them.
Speaker: And he's very insistent on, like, we were following a lie and now it's over and we are allies now.
Speaker: And it's just like...
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: He is a very pragmatic and understanding character.
Speaker: I killed entire planets of your people.
Speaker: But that's behind us now.
Speaker: That's all behind us now.
Speaker: It is kind of conflicting, isn't it?
Speaker: It is a little bit because in any other setting, you'd be like, well, you know, war crimes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Were committed.
Speaker: Huh?
Speaker: Like the glassing, that was totally optional on your guys' part.
Speaker: You have to understand why.
Speaker: War is war.
Speaker: Genocide is genocide, my friend.
Speaker: Yeah, so.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Still, I like him.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: I can't help it.
Speaker: It's so weird.
Speaker: Despite that disconnect on what he's done and where his character is now.
Speaker: It's so strange.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, it is strange.
Speaker: You know what else is strange?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, oh, okay.
Speaker: Well, so I played Aliens Dark Descent again.
Speaker: Again.
Speaker: I finished it again because I got an itch.
Speaker: I gotta say, man, it's one of the fastest times I've gotten an itch for a game after I'd finished it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They have indeed cleaned it up quite a bit.
Speaker: There were fewer, if any, game breaking issues that I ran into.
Speaker: There's still some middling kind of like indie jank.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But it's focused, so you're just going to deal with that.
Speaker: And that's always gonna be there.
Speaker: And this is such a, what's the word?
Speaker: They're trying for something big.
Speaker: It's an ambitious.
Speaker: Ambitious, ambition, yeah.
Speaker: To follow that XCOM format into the real time strategy format, the way that they did is such an ambitious move.
Speaker: And frankly, when you look at XCOM 2 and the more recent XCOMs, they are filled with even more bugs than this game is.
Speaker: So I was frustrated before, but I think I've gotten over it for the most part.
Speaker: It really is just a solid game.
Speaker: I wasn't thrilled with the way it came out initially, and I still think that fucking games need to come out in a...
Speaker: in a finished state, but now that it's done, I'm willing to forgive and forget because I really did love it both times.
Speaker: And then I also finished Pokemon Arceus.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Only the second Pokemon game I've ever played.
Speaker: Very different from all the other Pokemons, because it's kind of like this weird open world, almost action RPG kind of thing.
Speaker: I enjoyed my time, but I noticed that I beat it without realizing I beat it, so that might have something.
Speaker: I was literally sitting there one afternoon with my wife, and we were just having some lunch and dicking around, and I was playing on my Switch.
Speaker: And I'm doing some boss battle and I finished the boss battle and I put the switch down to go refill my drink or something like that.
Speaker: And when I got back, the credits were rolling and I went, oh shit, I beat the game.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: So yeah, I mean...
Speaker: I think that'll probably keep me satisfied with Pokemon for another 10 years, because the last one I played was about 10 years ago.
Speaker: Right, yeah.
Speaker: So I think we're good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And in a more recent thing, I played a little bit of Gravity Circuit.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Now, Gravity Circuit is kind of this, you look at it, and you're like, oh, this is Mega Man.
Speaker: And there's no question, they're trying to do a Mega Man X kind of thing with a little bionic commando thrown in, which had me intrigued.
Speaker: It's fun, it's goofy, I'm not gonna play any more of it.
Speaker: I found that I was just kind of exhausted already by the first level.
Speaker: I was just like,
Speaker: I don't know if it was the mood I was in or what, but like if you guys like the sound of a new Mega Man X style game or something, it looks beautiful.
Speaker: The music's great.
Speaker: The controls were I didn't care for the controls, but you could totally remap them.
Speaker: So there's no that's there's no excuse there.
Speaker: I just feel like I think the more most interesting thing about it is instead of or at least up to the point that I was playing instead of it being a shooty
Speaker: kind of thing.
Speaker: You're actually a melee robot, so you're beating them up.
Speaker: And that's kind of cool, but I found that after... It's not your bag.
Speaker: It just didn't keep me.
Speaker: I was like, I'm not going to finish this.
Speaker: But if that sounds interesting, it looks very cool.
Speaker: It looks like someone would really, really enjoy it.
Speaker: So that's Gravity Circuit.
Speaker: What about you, Kevin?
Speaker: What do you play this week?
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: Let's open up my Steam.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: Did I talk about that?
Speaker: I think I did.
Speaker: I played a bit of Trepang 2.
Speaker: I think I talked about that last week.
Speaker: I might have.
Speaker: If not, it's a shooter.
Speaker: It's a first-person shooter.
Speaker: Very, very gory.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: A lot of fun.
Speaker: It's actually... It's like...
Speaker: How do I put this?
Speaker: It's like you're John Wick with some superpowers.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And you can go into bullet time and you can make yourself invisible.
Speaker: And it's a lot of fun.
Speaker: Almost all the time, like, you'll be fighting in a dark area, and, like, the enemy guys will, like, throw a flare.
Speaker: So everything is red already.
Speaker: And then you're shooting these guys, and they're blowing up.
Speaker: And it's just, like, it just seems like this, like, smoky, cloudy, red room of blood and guts as you're tearing down these guys.
Speaker: It's...
Speaker: It's pretty cool.
Speaker: That sounds cool.
Speaker: It's fast-paced and a lot of fun.
Speaker: I haven't put a ton of time into it, but I beat, like, the first level.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: What else have I been playing?
Speaker: I have been playing some Early Access Baldur's Gate 3.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Let's have it.
Speaker: Let's have it.
Speaker: It's very good.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: Lie to me, Kevin.
Speaker: Lie.
Speaker: It's terrible.
Speaker: Oh, thank you.
Speaker: So the early access doesn't have, you can't like go everywhere in the, like, you'll get to points of the map where it's like, whoa, they're a partner that you can't get past that point without an early access.
Speaker: So you're just going to have to wait.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So, yeah, the basic setup of the game is that you were alien abducted by some some mind flayers and you got a mind flayer tadpole put into your eye, which is apparently how mind flayers reproduce.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They put the tadpole in your eye and after a few days you become a mind flayer.
Speaker: So that happens to your character.
Speaker: And while you're on this mind flayer ship, they get attacked by what are they called?
Speaker: The Kithik or something like that.
Speaker: Oh, Kithik.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're the ones.
Speaker: They're the dragon rider people that look like they're like goblins, but sexier and taller.
Speaker: Oh, I don't know.
Speaker: That I don't know.
Speaker: Dragon.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: I'm going to look this up.
Speaker: Dragon rider.
Speaker: D&D.
Speaker: Green skin.
Speaker: Why am I not?
Speaker: Why am I not saying that?
Speaker: I don't want image search.
Speaker: I just want all.
Speaker: Just tell me things.
Speaker: Just tell me things.
Speaker: Anyway, they're like these green, oh, the Githyanki.
Speaker: Oh, Githyanki.
Speaker: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: They're like sexy goblins.
Speaker: At least in this one, they're made to look a little bit hotter than they do in some of the official D&D art where they're like more ghoulish looking.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, cause there's like a, there's like a Githyanki who's like one of the main characters.
Speaker: Um, anyway, um, yeah, they are, uh, the Githyanki attack the Mind Flayer ship and it goes down and it goes down hard.
Speaker: Uh, it crash lands and basically you're out now.
Speaker: You're,
Speaker: you're just, you've landed, the ship has crashed, and you're just by yourself, and you start wandering around, and you start, like, finding other party members who were also people that were on the ship.
Speaker: So you, like, find a woman who is, you find a cleric who is, like, banging on a door to a church or something like that, and she's like, yeah, I was on the ship, you know, you want to
Speaker: try to figure this out together.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: It's a lot of fun.
Speaker: And it has real time mode and turn based mode.
Speaker: Anytime like a track, like a trap like activates, it goes into turn based mode so you can like react to it.
Speaker: And the first time this happened to me, I was like, why is it in turn based mode?
Speaker: There's no enemies.
Speaker: Go back to real time mode.
Speaker: And I switched back to real time mode.
Speaker: And then the room got set on fire and I died.
Speaker: I see.
Speaker: They were giving me a chance to react to the fact that... I really didn't want you to die, but okay.
Speaker: So it's a lot of fun.
Speaker: Hard as balls.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Especially when you're starting out your character as a level one.
Speaker: You're just a level one with 10 hit points.
Speaker: You run into literally anybody.
Speaker: Like...
Speaker: just literally anybody with like a level that's like level three you like you'll find a group of of uh people like treasure uh treasure hunters yeah in this one part and they're all like level three and there's like there's like 10 of them and there's two of you and it's like oh okay yeah i'm not supposed to fight these people right now no
Speaker: I'm just going to turn around and, oh, I've been caught.
Speaker: I am dead.
Speaker: So, yeah, I like it.
Speaker: I'm really looking forward to its final release, which actually will be, it's already out probably when this episode comes out.
Speaker: Okay, I was about to say, it's soon.
Speaker: It's next, as of recording, it's next week.
Speaker: But it'll have been the week before this episode, the prior week, I think.
Speaker: I think it's August 3rd.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Baldur's Gate 3.
Speaker: What else?
Speaker: More fear and hunger because I hate myself.
Speaker: I mean, yeah.
Speaker: That goes without saying.
Speaker: And I'm looking forward to Armored Core 6, Fires of Rubicon because some of the gameplay on that just looks so much fun.
Speaker: That looks really cool.
Speaker: It looks really cool.
Speaker: I'm frustrated with how cool it looks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're in a mech, Phil.
Speaker: And you're flying around and shooting things.
Speaker: I just, I know that that game isn't for me.
Speaker: I just know it's not for me.
Speaker: And, and, but it looks cool.
Speaker: And I just know I'm going to buy it.
Speaker: I just, I'm nervous.
Speaker: Ripley, for God's sake.
Speaker: This will just open the door for you to getting into like painting Gundams.
Speaker: I mean, I do, I do have Gundams, so.
Speaker: I don't watch any of the anime or read them.
Speaker: I just like putting, I like the idea of building action figures.
Speaker: I really enjoy that.
Speaker: And I just happen to enjoy their designs, so I just buy them without thought of anything about their background.
Speaker: I just put them together.
Speaker: It's super fun.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: But that's what I've been playing, and that's where we'll leave it for tonight, everybody.
Speaker: So if you can, follow us on threads.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes, we are officially on threads, and we have put up the outfishing sign on the horrible blue bird.
Speaker: On X. On the X. Oh, God.
Speaker: Come find us on threads.
Speaker: Do you not know what X is?
Speaker: Do you not know what... Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker: I know it's going to give it to me.
Speaker: It's going to give it to you.
Speaker: Yeah, it's whether you like it or not.
Speaker: Whether you like it or not.
Speaker: The dumbest thing ever... Sorry, Elon Musk is so...
Speaker: fucking silly.
Speaker: What is Twitter was probably the best thing about Twitter was the it's branding like you knew what Twitter was.
Speaker: Everybody knew what Twitter was.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And now it's X.
Speaker: You were fine.
Speaker: It's just, he's not, it's like, it's kind of like he was like, okay, all right, I'm losing $44 billion.
Speaker: So let's just say, fuck it.
Speaker: And let's make it spicy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just all the way into the ground.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's such a shame.
Speaker: It's such a shame.
Speaker: And I mean, I don't have high hopes for threads either.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: To be honest.
Speaker: But we're there, I guess.
Speaker: We're there for now.
Speaker: We're there until we can get an invite to Blue Sky, basically.
Speaker: To Blue Sky.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I also have us over on Mastodon.
Speaker: If you're a dork who enjoys that, go to atpixlit atbookstodon.com.
Speaker: That is our Mastodon account.
Speaker: And you can follow us there.
Speaker: Otherwise, go to our website.
Speaker: That's our website and our Patreon and our Discord are probably the safest bets if you want to know what's going on and what we're up to.
Speaker: Go to our website, PixletPod.com.
Speaker: You can sign up for our newsletter.
Speaker: Go to Patreon.com slash PixletPod where you can follow us there or you can throw us some money.
Speaker: Please.
Speaker: Or go to our Discord, the link to which you can get there through our website, or if you're a patron, you'll get automatically slid right into the Discord as well.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Go there.
Speaker: Follow us there.
Speaker: That's the best places to keep in touch with us.
Speaker: And that'll do it.
Speaker: Have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Bye.
