Star Wars: Republic Commando: Hard Contact

Transcript

Speaker: Not sure the council would go for that.

Speaker: I'm not sure the Jedi council is going to go for that.

Speaker: But you know what?

Speaker: Look, let's be real.

Speaker: The Jedi kind of suck.

Speaker: I don't like the Jedi.

Speaker: The Jedi are assholes.

Speaker: They're kind of shitty and not very smart.

Speaker: And honestly, this whole clone trip, and I'll get into it in the episode, but like this whole thing, I can't believe it took me as long as it did to go, hey, yeah, cloning some guy and basically just using clones as an army is kind of immoral and fucked up, isn't it?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And the Jedi basically setting themselves up as the superior officers for all of it.

Speaker: Like,

Speaker: This is this is this is not OK.

Speaker: Like this is deeply wrong.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know what else is deeply wrong?

Speaker: Hey there, everybody.

Speaker: Welcome back to Pixlet.

Speaker: My name is Kevin.

Speaker: With me, as always, is Phil.

Speaker: And on today's show, we're talking Republic Commando Hard Contact by Karen Travis.

Speaker: And it is a Star Wars book in the Republican, not Republican Commando.

Speaker: That'd be a very... I'd play that.

Speaker: That's a different type.

Speaker: That's a very different game.

Speaker: Final boss is storming January 6th.

Speaker: That's basically Far Cry 5.

Speaker: I mean, you know what?

Speaker: Yeah, you're not wrong.

Speaker: You're not wrong.

Speaker: Final boss is January 6th.

Speaker: Like if this was the 90s, yes, there would have been like a game made on the whatever whatever postal was made on.

Speaker: Is that the source engine or something where it was like like Jan six stormer or something like that.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Oh, man.

Speaker: Oh, Jesus.

Speaker: Republican commando.

Speaker: Good Lord.

Speaker: Yeah, so it's part of the Republic Commando series, which was intended as like a multimedia effort of books and games.

Speaker: So they didn't really...

Speaker: It never really got finished.

Speaker: So I'm looking at the Wookieepedia of it.

Speaker: And so you have Hard Contact, which is the first thing that comes out, and that's a book.

Speaker: And then you have Star Wars Republic Commando, the game, which was made by LucasArts.

Speaker: And then you have a bunch of short stories and novels, everything written by Karen Travis.

Speaker: There was also another game, Republic Commando Order 66.

Speaker: I don't know if that's a port of the... No, it's its own.

Speaker: Oh, wait a minute.

Speaker: Was this a... It was a mobile game.

Speaker: Ew.

Speaker: Oh.

Speaker: No, here's the thing.

Speaker: I said, ew, as in, like...

Speaker: I actually kind of like there's a lot of mobile games I like, but this is a mobile game in 2005.

Speaker: A phone game in 2005.

Speaker: You can't imagine that this was like really anything.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So there are a bunch of...

Speaker: There are a bunch of novels.

Speaker: There was supposed to be a game that kind of culminated the whole thing called Imperial Commando.

Speaker: That was canceled.

Speaker: And there was one book in that series, too.

Speaker: There was one book, and there was supposed to be a second book.

Speaker: So it was supposed to be Imperial Commando 501st, and then that was the only novel that came out.

Speaker: There was supposed to be a second novel written by Karen Travis and an Imperial Commando video game.

Speaker: Those two things were canceled.

Speaker: And according to this, I mean, I don't know.

Speaker: It doesn't say why it was canceled necessarily, but it looks like we're closing in on the Disney purchase.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So that's probably when things kinda like- I'm seeing here that at least as far, cuz this looks, I mean, this is such a great idea in terms of like taking Republic Commando and moving onward into Imperial Commando and the changes that could, that's a fascinating idea to the point that- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: I actually really wanna read these.

Speaker: And it says here that she didn't write the sequel to Imperial Commando, at least the book, because of the Clone Wars television series and they were having issues with canon stuff.

Speaker: Oh, gotcha.

Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker: It's similar to the Disney buy thing, like canon shit.

Speaker: And this is my edition of the book has that lovely legend.

Speaker: Legends, yeah.

Speaker: Fuck you, Disney.

Speaker: It's been relegated.

Speaker: And that's the thing.

Speaker: It's like, I was as excited as anybody else when the new trilogy came out and a lot of these new shows that are coming out, some of them look really good, some of them are good.

Speaker: But it's like, you look at,

Speaker: the stories that take place, the way that the canonical story takes place after Jedi in the books with like the Yuuzang Vong and like all this, like Vector Prime and all that shit.

Speaker: And it's absurd and it's crazy and really over the top.

Speaker: And it's still better than what we ended on with the final trilogy.

Speaker: And it's hilarious because you got, you got, what's his name?

Speaker: The guy who did, who was the runner for the Clone Wars series.

Speaker: He was clearly a fan of the old canon because he includes,

Speaker: Like the Ahsoka series, the Ahsoka TV show that just came out.

Speaker: I mean, the main villain is Grand Admiral Thrawn, you know?

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: He's been slowly weaving in stuff from the Legends canon because I feel like he even recognizes how cool some of this shit was.

Speaker: Some of it's amazing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like so make like Vector Prime anymore.

Speaker: Make it canon again.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like, let's make it canon again.

Speaker: Like Vector Prime, which was that's the one where Chewbacca gets killed.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You can't just spoil alert for like a 20 year old book, but 20 year old book.

Speaker: That's that's quote, not canon anymore.

Speaker: But well, that's true.

Speaker: That's a good point.

Speaker: But you can't kill Chewie just any old way.

Speaker: They had to crush him with a goddamn planet.

Speaker: That's the only way you can get rid of that Wookiee bastard.

Speaker: Like, you've got to smash him with the moon.

Speaker: If you're going to fucking R.A.

Speaker: Salvatore, a lot of people were pissed off at him over that decision.

Speaker: But, you know, if you're going to do it, R.A.

Speaker: God damn it, man.

Speaker: He didn't die like some bitch going down trying to get his son to join him and give up bad ways and then get sliced in half with a lightsaber.

Speaker: God, they really did that to Han Solo.

Speaker: They did him so dirty.

Speaker: I know Harrison Ford was thrilled, and I respect his wishes, but god damn, they did Han dirty.

Speaker: They did Han so fucking dirty in that movie.

Speaker: They did so many things dirty in that movie, and I'll never forgive...

Speaker: I will never forgive J.J.

Speaker: Abrams.

Speaker: They just... I understand what... So I understand it now.

Speaker: I understand Star Trek fans that were pissed off at J.J.

Speaker: Abrams.

Speaker: And I was like, well, I'm not... Because I'm not a big Trek guy, right?

Speaker: No, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: I'm like, I don't know.

Speaker: I thought they were pretty good, whatever.

Speaker: And then he went and he did it to Star Wars.

Speaker: And I'm like...

Speaker: I get it.

Speaker: He went from your thing to my thing, and he did the thing that you hated over there to my thing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So we're united now.

Speaker: I mean, Abrams.

Speaker: Oh, God, that man.

Speaker: I'm glad that we live in an era where people are mostly wise to his bullshit, but it's just...

Speaker: It's just, yeah, it's just he took one of the most important franchises in the modern world and just just clearly the level of not taking it seriously was just off the charts and off the charts, off the charts.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So and I think there's so much, you know, there's there's obviously there's a bunch of things that happen like.

Speaker: He like he fucking lets Oscar Isaac talk him into his character staying alive.

Speaker: He Carrie Fisher literally fucking dies during production of the second one.

Speaker: You know, things like that.

Speaker: But you know, you just gotta be a fucking better filmmaker overall than what we had.

Speaker: And you should have a clear vision of how it's going to start and end before you get started and not just fake it as you go.

Speaker: Somehow the Emperor has returned.

Speaker: I just... I hadn't seen that movie.

Speaker: I had never seen that one until earlier this year.

Speaker: I just skipped out on it.

Speaker: I didn't want to know.

Speaker: In the end, I came out mostly positive on the second one.

Speaker: It had problems, but God, it had some of the most picturesque moments in the franchise.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: Rian Johnson.

Speaker: I mean, it's Rian Johnson.

Speaker: It was great.

Speaker: And...

Speaker: And finally, Emily and I did this thing this year.

Speaker: We actually just watched a bunch of trilogies, and we watched all nine Star Wars films, like main canon Star Wars films.

Speaker: And she, this is one of the rare instances where she out-geeked me, because she had seen all three of the new trilogy, but I had not.

Speaker: And she was like, I don't know.

Speaker: Do you know what happened?

Speaker: And somehow, Kevin, I didn't.

Speaker: I had avoided.

Speaker: I had like some vague idea of emperor something, but I didn't.

Speaker: I had somehow avoided the worst of it.

Speaker: I'm actually pretty good at that.

Speaker: If I don't want to be spoiled, I can avoid it, generally speaking.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But I watched that and I was, she looked at, she goes, look, I'm not a Star Wars geek and everything like that, but I know why people were pissed.

Speaker: I can see why people are pissed.

Speaker: And I was like, okay, wow.

Speaker: All right, sure.

Speaker: Now I really need to watch it.

Speaker: And it was just, I was amazed.

Speaker: You know what I was?

Speaker: I don't give a fuckery.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know what I was?

Speaker: What was wild to me was the first one is, we made a death star, but it's a super death star, planet death star, planet death, and it can shoot, kill a bunch of planets at once.

Speaker: And because of time dilation, you see them all happen at the same time.

Speaker: And I'm like, oh, oh.

Speaker: fine whatever fine fine where are we going with this and we're like we're destroying all these planets and i'm like oh that sucks yeah

Speaker: I had no idea that meant that the entire New Republic was destroyed.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: I was like, wait, why are they on the run?

Speaker: You mean they destroyed every New Republic planet?

Speaker: Off camera, yeah.

Speaker: It was only like they destroyed five planets.

Speaker: I don't think they destroyed Coruscant.

Speaker: What's going on here?

Speaker: Why would they be on the, why?

Speaker: Like, I understand this is a massive disaster, but there have been other times when the bad guys have destroyed a populated planet in Star Wars, and it didn't mean that the fucking, there just wasn't any ships anymore.

Speaker: It just, it just, it was, it set everything in a weird tone and it was like an artificial sense of urgency that was just kind of plopped in your lap and it just, it didn't.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, what you're hearing right now is a couple of aging geeks who, despite the fact that this podcast has been going for about two and a half, two and a half years, have never covered a Star Wars anything on this show and we're just letting loose

Speaker: we're ripping that band-aid off right now baby right off the bat yeah that's how this works that's how this works oh god um yeah so and i just have to ask you this after you watched all nine yeah what were your feelings and i i we did that like a couple years ago right we watched all nine

Speaker: I came out of that with better feelings about the prequel trilogy than I had when I was younger.

Speaker: What was your, what was your vibe?

Speaker: No, no, that didn't change for me.

Speaker: That didn't change at all.

Speaker: That didn't change for me.

Speaker: I appreciate the fact that nowadays, especially, um,

Speaker: Geeks in there, especially the aging ones, are starting to come around and realize that Hayden Christensen was in kind of an impossible position.

Speaker: He's not the reason that those movies failed.

Speaker: If anything, Natalie Portman is just as awful in them as he is, but he's the one who got all the fucking dirt slung at him.

Speaker: And it's just when you've got terrible dialogue, there's only so much you can fucking do with it.

Speaker: So I'm glad that he's getting kind of a clap on the back these days.

Speaker: You know, he's showing up at cons and people are cheering for him.

Speaker: I love that.

Speaker: I think that's great.

Speaker: Yeah, he came back to play Anakin in the Ahsoka series.

Speaker: And by all accounts did an incredible job.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so good for him.

Speaker: I think that's great.

Speaker: I wouldn't mind, and we've talked about this before, I wouldn't mind some sort of TV show where it's like prototype Vader, like going off and like starting shit like that.

Speaker: I would watch him in that.

Speaker: That'd be fine.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I would just fucking watch Vader.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: If you've got a good writer for it and everything.

Speaker: But no, those films are still hot garbage.

Speaker: I'll tell you what it did make me want to do.

Speaker: It did make me want to somehow, in some way, crack open the impenetrable walnut of the Clone Wars series.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: There's so much of it, though.

Speaker: Every time I want to start, it's like 200 hours.

Speaker: I'm like, Jesus Christ.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The Clone Wars series and Rebels.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: The base, the two, Dave Filoni, that's his name.

Speaker: The two Dave Filoni series are kind of like the things that make

Speaker: they're like the redeeming features of the prequel era stuff, right?

Speaker: So, and honestly, I mean, you could go back and watch the Gennady Tarkovsky Clone Wars series, which is super stylized and all that.

Speaker: It was like running when the movies came out.

Speaker: But then there's the second Clone Wars series that came out much later by Dave Filoni, which not as heavy on the style, but in terms of like,

Speaker: the fucking war story shit that you're looking for, still targeted towards kids, teens, whatever, but it's not like for adults or whatever.

Speaker: It's not like fucking Andor.

Speaker: Right, yeah, it's not that bleak.

Speaker: It's not that bleak, but it has a lot of fucking good stuff in it.

Speaker: There are some moments in Rebels, or no, in the last season of Clone Wars, where just the cinematography,

Speaker: of, I mean, I know it's all CG, but the cinematography, just the shot design was impeccable.

Speaker: And because, I don't know, it's just amazing to see that kind of care and effort put into stuff like that.

Speaker: And that was the one thing I had always heard that those series were amazing, that they were just like, you know,

Speaker: in many real love letters to the star wars universe and it's like then you see then it's like you got dave filoni gets all this you know does all this stuff then you get to jj abrams with the sequel series right who clearly doesn't have that same connection to the universe that dave filoni filoni had and i know a lot of people criticize dave filoni because he's very very um

Speaker: He's very, very comic book-y in his character.

Speaker: Like, he loves to do the character crossovers, you know?

Speaker: He loves this character appearing in this thing and whatever.

Speaker: And then, you know, some people criticize him for that.

Speaker: I'm like, fine, fuck it, whatever, you know?

Speaker: It's a saga.

Speaker: You can have characters everywhere.

Speaker: That's part of the fun.

Speaker: You can have those crossed lines, you know?

Speaker: But I will say, go on, sorry.

Speaker: No, no, no, go for it.

Speaker: Well, I was going to say, I still think that the prequels are garbage, but I was able to watch them with a more critical eye in terms of what could be made of this that is so good as everyone says.

Speaker: And by the end of...

Speaker: The prequels, I was able to see it.

Speaker: I was able to go, okay, they've set a lot of seeds here.

Speaker: There's a lot of stuff that they could play with that you could, I get it.

Speaker: I can see where that would be going.

Speaker: I still have not braved that because that's going to take a long time.

Speaker: But yeah, I get it.

Speaker: Yeah, you watch it with your kid.

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: That's a way to think about it.

Speaker: Eventually, like...

Speaker: That's a good way to think about it.

Speaker: That's going to be a good way to... I'm going to be revisiting everything with that boy.

Speaker: Holy shit.

Speaker: That's going to be cool.

Speaker: That's going to be pretty cool.

Speaker: This kid is going to be just tempered and raw geek.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: It shall be.

Speaker: He shall be the purest of geek steel.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: my my my in this you can trust uh that's another thing i'll show um uh well let's you want to get on with it then you want to uh let's put the body in the marsh let's put the body in the marsh but you know i do real quick want to say a little bit about karen travis oh yes let's take that body back out of the marsh take the body out of the marsh uh she is an english writer and uh

Speaker: And it does a lot of stuff.

Speaker: She wrote like all of the Gears of War novels.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: She's written a bunch of Halo novels and she's written a bunch of Star Wars stuff, including like you pointed out, the entire Republic Commando series.

Speaker: And I was pretty impressed with this book.

Speaker: Because of the military nature of it, it's very authentic in that sense.

Speaker: And that's because Karen served in the in the the UK's version of the Army Reserves and the Navy Reserves.

Speaker: So she's OK.

Speaker: She's actually a military woman for first firsthand.

Speaker: She's OK.

Speaker: Got it.

Speaker: Yeah, so I think that's pretty cool.

Speaker: And so we're probably going to be revisiting her if we ever get to the Gears of War series.

Speaker: I'm sure we're going to, I mean, Gears of War and Halo.

Speaker: And Halo, yeah, and she's in that kind of mid-level.

Speaker: Her first Halo book came out in 2011, so she's not as modern as some of the stuff we've read, but she's not as classic as some of the other ones we've read.

Speaker: So it might be a bit till we get to her on the Halo front.

Speaker: Yeah, but we will get to her.

Speaker: uh yeah so this is but honestly that this is this is this is a great way to get introduced to her yeah this is fantastic i i totally agree and as uh i believe as troy denning said uh karen travis was was the one who kind of uh influenced him to get into writing halo

Speaker: Did he say that?

Speaker: I totally forgot.

Speaker: Holy shit.

Speaker: That's cool.

Speaker: I think he was talking about Karen Travis.

Speaker: Oh, that's cool as shit.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I love that.

Speaker: Karen, we're going to get you on the show.

Speaker: We've got to get you on the show, Karen.

Speaker: Got to get you on the show, Bubla.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Body.

Speaker: Body in the marsh.

Speaker: Marsh body.

Speaker: What fucking size a dog is that?

Speaker: That's a big fucking dog, man.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: We open up.

Speaker: With a prologue, we are introduced to a member of a Theta squad, Darman, who sets an explosive during a high-intensity battle in the Geonosian planet.

Speaker: And we basically witness, in a couple of pages, him losing his entire squad.

Speaker: And Republic Commandos are made up of four-people squads.

Speaker: They are the best of the best.

Speaker: And they work in tiny groups that basically function as families for them for all intents and purposes.

Speaker: So we get to witness the moment where he loses his whole family, essentially.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: And not all that is clear in the moment, but we do pick it up.

Speaker: So we start out in chapter one with a report of Republic ships carrying literally thousands of wounded and casualties after this battle in Geonosia.

Speaker: It succeeded.

Speaker: They accomplished their mission, but the cost was crazy, crazy high.

Speaker: Yeah, this was literally, this is literally the final moments of episode two.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Is is this is the battle on Geonosis where the the clone troopers swoop down and start, you know, killing a lot.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And they accomplish what they're out for.

Speaker: But at what cost?

Speaker: We Darman, also known as RC 1136, because all of the clone troopers are basically just given serial code.

Speaker: And so they all kind of develop their own nicknames and that sort of thing.

Speaker: Uh, Darman, he is among a bunch of other clone troopers, not, uh, commandos like himself.

Speaker: They, uh, the troopers are kind of more of your grunt, basic boots on the ground, meat shields, uh, and, uh, kind of act like it when they see Darman, they're kind of impressed, uh, by the look of him.

Speaker: Um, he is waiting for a pickup, uh, very, it makes a point of saying very specifically, this is not a retreat, uh,

Speaker: We got what we wanted.

Speaker: We're leaving.

Speaker: And he's also waiting for the rest of his squad, who he assumes has made it out.

Speaker: Or maybe not assumes, maybe the proper ones.

Speaker: He's hoping.

Speaker: Hoping.

Speaker: He threatens the guy who is getting people onto the ship, and he's like, they're going to fucking come.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And he's like, ah, okay.

Speaker: And the loadmaster's like, okay, man, just don't fucking...

Speaker: He just screams dookie in Darman's face.

Speaker: Dookie!

Speaker: Darman wants to know what's that smell.

Speaker: What's that smell?

Speaker: Dookie!

Speaker: So,

Speaker: Eventually, he's basically alone.

Speaker: Nobody comes.

Speaker: He is informed that anybody who isn't there is dead.

Speaker: So the deck is silent.

Speaker: And he just gets on a gunship.

Speaker: And it's a ship full of trauma.

Speaker: Just all the bags of trauma everywhere.

Speaker: Oh, just everywhere.

Speaker: Just troopers and commandos.

Speaker: A bunch of guys who all look like each other.

Speaker: Just dealing with...

Speaker: The horrors of war.

Speaker: He keeps asking about his squad, but basically he's like, you know, just like, look, they're gone.

Speaker: They're gone.

Speaker: He knew, like, you know, like identical twins know what's going on with their twin.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Twin sense.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He has a vibe.

Speaker: He figures it out.

Speaker: And I think we also get some like interesting, uh, in this, in the, these moments on the ship where he's like asking around and talking and all that stuff.

Speaker: Some like interesting different differences between a rank and file file, uh, clone trooper and, uh, a commando.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Um, whereas like the commandos have better gear.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Uh, and then they're harder trained than the troopers are.

Speaker: And the troopers think the commandos are arrogant.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's so funny to think of it in terms of these being clones because they are.

Speaker: They're all genetically identical.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But some of them are better than others at certain things and are chosen for special positions and resentment forms.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So they are not the...

Speaker: in many ways they lack a certain level of free will, at least in the sense that they have been trained to death.

Speaker: Sometimes literally you hear a lot about, as we'll find out.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You hear a lot about them dying in the training.

Speaker: So, but yeah, you, you do get some interesting, the better kit, better training.

Speaker: We get existential crisis.

Speaker: Number one, where he considers the fact that, um,

Speaker: As a trooper or a commando, as a clone, you basically don't need to know the purpose of your life.

Speaker: You already know what it is.

Speaker: It's to go out there and go where the Jedi tell you to go and go kill people.

Speaker: And he experiences shame even though they won.

Speaker: And he kind of contemplates to himself, if this is how it feels to win, how much worse would it have felt to lose?

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And that's just the beginning of the story.

Speaker: Just the beginning!

Speaker: Of the existential meltdowns that make up, I would say, 60% of this book.

Speaker: Yeah, because guess what, folks?

Speaker: Get ready to meet the worst Jedi ever.

Speaker: The worst.

Speaker: Yes, and we cut two!

Speaker: The planet Quirlora, where Itain Turmuran is running from a Weequay sex pest, let's just say.

Speaker: Yeah, no, he's feeling a little amorous.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, he is.

Speaker: He is.

Speaker: He is trying to find her.

Speaker: And it just seems kind of at first like he's a nasty character who maybe she met in a bar or something like that.

Speaker: But it does get steadily worse as time goes on.

Speaker: She hides successfully and her pursuer is attacked and threatened by a stranger.

Speaker: Who she recognizes the voice of or or can guess at who the voice is, but doesn't.

Speaker: But we don't we don't get that information quite yet.

Speaker: She hides in basically a dung heap is covered in shit.

Speaker: And finally runs.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And she runs.

Speaker: She meets up with a local farmer and kind of make sure she's got her lightsaber on her.

Speaker: And you realize that she is a Padawan on the run and not even a very good one.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Very bad.

Speaker: She's not a good fighter.

Speaker: She's not really good at Jedi mind tricks, as we'll see.

Speaker: She's not really good at moving shit with her mind.

Speaker: She's not really all that in tuned with the Force.

Speaker: As she puts it later in the book, her special skill is seeing opportunity, which I don't think you have to be a Jedi for that one.

Speaker: I feel like...

Speaker: I feel like you could have just done something else.

Speaker: I remember, and this is kind of funny and off track, but it's still Star Wars.

Speaker: I remember it was, I think it was Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina or something like that.

Speaker: There's a short story in there about this guy.

Speaker: A guy who's at the bar the night that Luke meets up with Han Solo.

Speaker: Oh, so he witnesses the whole fucking massacre there.

Speaker: He witnesses the whole thing, but he was there tracking Han Solo because the guy is a luck vampire.

Speaker: And and he's like he and he has there's this whole internal monologue about how luck is just as much of a like a thing in the universe as the force.

Speaker: Just nobody else realizes it.

Speaker: And he kills people and absorbs their luck.

Speaker: And he could see it radio radiating off of Han Solo.

Speaker: And it like always like stuck with me.

Speaker: This like weird little, I think it was tales from most like Mos Eisley Cantina or something like that.

Speaker: So I was like, yeah, she's like a, she's like a, you know, like Han Solo just has that, that luck energy.

Speaker: That is cool as shit.

Speaker: That's really neat.

Speaker: I would want to play one of those.

Speaker: And this is the fucking weird shit that you would get in the pre-Disney Star Wars universe.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: You could do this shit.

Speaker: So cool.

Speaker: You could have a random sci-fi author write a random story about a thing in Mos Eisley Cantina.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: I absolutely love it.

Speaker: I'm going to find that because that's some cool shit.

Speaker: Yeah, find that.

Speaker: Because I might have just made it up.

Speaker: I don't... But I'm pretty sure I remember... If you made that up...

Speaker: If you made that up, we've got to get you a gig fucking working to do right for hire shit for Star Wars.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: One thing about this entire scene is it could not be written like this today.

Speaker: Not because the weak way is a little sexual assaulty, but because of the way it talks about the weak way racially.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: And we get that a lot, actually.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We get that a lot.

Speaker: And it's like, it's a little, it gets a little uncomfortable in the, in the book where it's just like the week is, you know, they're just fucking dumb, you know?

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And when they learn words, it's only about their baser needs or something like that.

Speaker: And I'm like, Ooh, Jesus Christ.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: There are a bunch of week way characters in a clone wars and other things like that, that are like,

Speaker: you know, really bright characters.

Speaker: And we have, you know, there's a smuggler, smuggler slash pirate guy who, oh, fuck, I'm forgetting his name now.

Speaker: But he's like, he's one of the guys that talks, they actually have an animatronic of him at Disney World now in one of the Star Wars rides.

Speaker: Oh, that's cool.

Speaker: because of how big of a character he is in, like, Clone Wars and Rebels and things like that.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: But, yeah, so I read those parts, and I'm like, uh.

Speaker: Huh.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, I can...

Speaker: Yeah, that's among the issues there.

Speaker: We find out that Itain is not an amazing Jedi, isn't really known for her discipline.

Speaker: She basically demands that the farmer give her some shelter, and they go off together.

Speaker: Meanwhile... Oh, it was my own.

Speaker: We head over to the barracks at Ord Mantell and RC 1309, also known as Niner, who is a sergeant within the public commandos.

Speaker: We meet him and he meets RC 8015 Fee, and they are both orphaned troopers.

Speaker: And basically they're going to be put together and it gets real awkward right off the bat.

Speaker: They're sharing a barracks and just kind of... Fee is like really friendly, kind of, and just trying to make friends, trying to be sweet.

Speaker: And Niner is still feeling some shitty feelings.

Speaker: And so he's kind of not being...

Speaker: He's not being mean.

Speaker: He's just not really.

Speaker: He's kind of cold.

Speaker: He's giving him a cold short.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And keeps pointing out that the whole campaign, the Geonosian campaign was a giant waste, even though they won.

Speaker: He was like, we're we are commandos.

Speaker: We are like elite.

Speaker: We should not have been thrown into that to that fucking pressure cooker.

Speaker: That was that was something you just need to throw a wall of troopers at.

Speaker: And it was a waste that we lost our people.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And so Fee finally gets in his bunk and it's actually a really cute moment where he gets in his bunk and he starts kind of singing this little Mandalorian war chant to himself.

Speaker: It's just, it's like, you can tell he's like, just like, this is something he does when he's nervous or upset or something.

Speaker: He's trying to calm himself.

Speaker: And Niner joins in with the whole thing.

Speaker: And they sing together a little bit.

Speaker: Finally, they finish the song and Fee,

Speaker: looks at Niner and says, I did my best.

Speaker: You know, he didn't run away.

Speaker: He just lost his people.

Speaker: And Niner says, I know.

Speaker: And it's a nice bonding moment between the two of them.

Speaker: And that's chapter one.

Speaker: Chapter two takes us, we start off in a briefing room in Ord Mantell.

Speaker: One second.

Speaker: The character's name is Danic Jericho.

Speaker: Oh, I know that name.

Speaker: He is a guy with like he's the guy that's smoking a pipe and has a really fucked up nose.

Speaker: He may have been a character in that Star Wars mobile game I was playing for years.

Speaker: He shows up in a bunch of things.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But yeah, he is Jericho drank his victims brain matter or soup of life, as he called it.

Speaker: Jesus.

Speaker: He preyed on murderous thieves and thugs.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And he, on the day of Greedo's death, Jericho sensed a strong intoxicating soup of life from a human.

Speaker: And then he was, Jericho's attention was drawn upon his discovery of Han Solo's presence.

Speaker: Sensing a strong soup and wearer.

Speaker: of the bounty on his head jericho planned to make his move but the smuggler departed from tatooine before he could act ah i know i've read him and something uh yeah i know that name so yes i wasn't making it up no uh he's dan uh danic jericho or uh the uh the the luck eater uh they call him um

Speaker: He just Hannibal's people.

Speaker: I will never get tired of that, of the thing that Star Wars does where they're like, look, we had a million and one characters who pop up on screen very briefly.

Speaker: We did their makeup for hours to get them in that shot.

Speaker: Let's give them a full backstory.

Speaker: Why not?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Why?

Speaker: And it's Timothy Zahn who wrote the story.

Speaker: That's, oh, that, yeah.

Speaker: I think he might be my favorite.

Speaker: Who wrote the specific short story that I'm thinking of.

Speaker: He is an incredible fucking writer in general, but his Star Wars stuff is incredible.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Anyway, chapter two.

Speaker: Sorry.

Speaker: Chapter two.

Speaker: No, no.

Speaker: I just had to bring it back.

Speaker: That was absolutely worth coming back to.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Chapter two.

Speaker: We're in a briefing room in Ord Mandel.

Speaker: We get a quote about clones having free will.

Speaker: Darman is awoken from his stasis and is assigned to Fi and Niner.

Speaker: The three of them have a meeting with a Jedi Padawan and some sort of strange shapeshifter alien that they do not know.

Speaker: And he just kind of creeps around being creepy.

Speaker: Yeah!

Speaker: He really just adds to the tension of the creepiness in the room.

Speaker: This whole scene is very tense because the Padawan is like talking and giving orders and stuff like that, but also doesn't know what the fuck is going on.

Speaker: Oh, yes, very much so.

Speaker: Somehow simultaneously is like, ooh, don't ask me.

Speaker: I'm just a little boy who doesn't know anything.

Speaker: But then he orders him around.

Speaker: It's...

Speaker: And all these clones know is obey Jedi, no matter how little they may know about what the fuck is going on, which will come into play later.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: So finally, we got our fourth squaddy, RC3222, who is not, we don't know his nickname just yet, but he joins them, and he's very badly scarred from the battle.

Speaker: He has refused back to treatment for this elaborate, long, red scar on his face.

Speaker: And so right off the bat, we're like, OK, you're different.

Speaker: Got it.

Speaker: He's not like other clones.

Speaker: Not like the other clones.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: So we get our objective.

Speaker: The planet Kulura is neutral but likely to change.

Speaker: It's mostly farmland.

Speaker: There is no government, but it's run by the traitors there through a militia that is led by a Mandalorian named Gez Hogan, who is known for being particularly nasty, brutal kind of a dude.

Speaker: And so it's very early days in the war still.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: And so it's like...

Speaker: Yeah, it's right now.

Speaker: Yeah, it is.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: It is neutral, neutral, but it's trade.

Speaker: It's a trade federation planet for all intents and purposes.

Speaker: Right, right.

Speaker: So and very specifically, what they're meant to do is twofold.

Speaker: They need to go there and apprehend a scientist named this incredible name, even for Star Wars.

Speaker: And I don't mean incredible, but I love it.

Speaker: It's just so over the top.

Speaker: Ovalot Quail Uthon.

Speaker: That is a name.

Speaker: That is three names.

Speaker: She's a scientist and they are meant to capture her and destroy a nanovirus that she is working on.

Speaker: They used to have a Jedi contact there, but they haven't heard from him.

Speaker: They have no idea what's happened.

Speaker: Hasn't checked in.

Speaker: There's no long reach communications that they will be able to do down there.

Speaker: They won't because they don't want their signals to get picked up by the Neimoidian overlords there who are the basically the traitor, the leaders.

Speaker: And they don't want to piss them off.

Speaker: This needs to be super, super covert.

Speaker: Very covert.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So any comm stuff is like literally within like 15 meters of each other, which isn't much at all.

Speaker: Oh, and by the way, the nano virus they're working on is aimed specifically at destroying clones.

Speaker: So kind of an important mission they're on.

Speaker: So it's like clear that at some point, because the war hadn't really started quite yet until like there was the attack on Naboo and that was like 10 years earlier.

Speaker: I don't know if the war is full of...

Speaker: full-throated yet until really the clones get involved.

Speaker: But clearly somebody had started this development of this virus knowing that there was a clone army coming.

Speaker: Yes, yes.

Speaker: It's super early.

Speaker: Clearly she's got some kind of insider information.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Okay, yeah, side quest, if they can, rescue the Jedi.

Speaker: Please do so, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, if you got it, it'll give you 500 extra experience if you can pick up that Jedi.

Speaker: But the virus and scientists are the priorities.

Speaker: So they're led to the armory by the Padawan, lots of tasty gun porn.

Speaker: Um, for them to, uh, to enjoy, um, Jusic, the, uh, uh, the Padawan is kind of just as curious about them as they seem to be about him.

Speaker: Like this is clearly his first time really interacting with the clones.

Speaker: Um, and he's kind of asking them about their nature and that kind of thing.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: He the wounded commando has his I ain't got time to bleed moment or they say, you know, we really need to take care of that fucking giant massive head wound you've got.

Speaker: And and gives gives his nickname, which is Aten, which is I believe they said it was Mandalorian and stubborn.

Speaker: Mandalorian for stubborn.

Speaker: Yeah, there you go.

Speaker: Which, fun fact, my last name, Erhard, could be translated in German and like, I guess, middle German as stubborn.

Speaker: Oh, I love that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I love that.

Speaker: That's perfect.

Speaker: Erhard.

Speaker: That makes sense.

Speaker: Darman very quickly takes on the munitions role.

Speaker: He sees all the blowy-uppy stuff and goes, yeah, I will have one of each, please.

Speaker: Thank you very much.

Speaker: I like the bombs.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: The shapeshifter explains that the Jedi Master that's missing, Fulier, has quote-unquote discipline issues, which totally weirds Darman out, because the idea that a Jedi would be anything other than this master...

Speaker: you know, Buddhist monk is crazy.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: To the clones up until this point in their short, relatively short lives, the Jedi have always been talked about as perfection, you know?

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: So hearing that is, it's like finding out that Jesus Christ bit his fingernails.

Speaker: It's just, it's not really what you expected to hear.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He was a bit of a glutton.

Speaker: What?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He was a bit of a glutton.

Speaker: I mean, that splitting the fish and the loaves.

Speaker: Right, right.

Speaker: I saw propaganda showing him that's... He ate half of it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know, that's just propaganda.

Speaker: That's just fat-shaming propaganda that they throw up on the cross there.

Speaker: There were lots of people who wanted to eat and chose not to, but they didn't make a stink out of it because they didn't want to make a big deal.

Speaker: They didn't want to draw the attention.

Speaker: Anyway, they ask how much time they have to prep for this mission.

Speaker: And the guy says, oh, eight hours, because that's how long it takes to get to the planet.

Speaker: And we're fucking leaving now.

Speaker: We're leaving.

Speaker: We're going.

Speaker: Get in the car.

Speaker: So get your iPad.

Speaker: We're going to grandma's.

Speaker: And so we cut to Etain, the world's worst Jedi, hiding out in a barn.

Speaker: She assumes that her master, Fulia, is dead.

Speaker: And she needs to either escape the planet or get word of what's going on off of the planet somehow.

Speaker: She's stolen some building schematics that would be really helpful for this exact mission.

Speaker: And we also learned from her that Gez Hogan is basically a total fucking monster.

Speaker: She has memories of wandering through villages that were just burnt to a crisp because they just kind of mildly inconvenienced him.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: She hears something outside, turns her lightsaber on, but it's just this old woman who has brought her some livestock.

Speaker: Well, no, she brings, she also has livestock, but she's bringing her dinner.

Speaker: She's bringing her dinner and also bringing the livestock into the barn for the night.

Speaker: Right, right.

Speaker: So Attain is very much like Jesus in that sense.

Speaker: In that sense, yes.

Speaker: Seeking shelter in the barn.

Speaker: We find out a little more about Bark, B-A-R-Q, which is like the major crop that that area...

Speaker: It grows and it's kind of like it's like a vegetal.

Speaker: It's like truffles in a way, like it's obscenely expensive.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: It's it's you don't get a lot of information on what it is at first.

Speaker: Later on, they'll talk about it being kind of earthy and kind of unpleasant in a way.

Speaker: But but the rich people love it.

Speaker: So it fetches a high price.

Speaker: But none of the farmers themselves could afford it.

Speaker: But she has actually sprinkled a little bit of bark on top of the food that she's brought to Attain.

Speaker: And Attain is like, dude, you can't you that you shouldn't have done this.

Speaker: This is too much.

Speaker: This is this is crazy.

Speaker: And she goes, well, you know, I got it out of the dung that was all over your robe and it seemed a waste.

Speaker: She was using, because she was, in an earlier scene, she had manure all over her, and she was using a handful of bark to, like, chip away at the manure.

Speaker: Oh, that's right, that's right, right, right.

Speaker: So she said, so we gathered it up and put it on.

Speaker: It would be a shame to waste, so knock yourself out.

Speaker: And then kind of cryptically tells her, they're coming.

Speaker: Ooh.

Speaker: So we get that.

Speaker: Ooh.

Speaker: Chapter three, we meet Gez Hogan.

Speaker: He is going to the Neimoidian to see a Neimoidian named Lick Anik.

Speaker: Lick Ankit.

Speaker: Ankit.

Speaker: That's it.

Speaker: Ankit.

Speaker: What a name.

Speaker: God.

Speaker: Yeah, he's been, quote unquote, questioning a Jedi for Lick.

Speaker: And he gets there, he's kind of mocked by him.

Speaker: There's some real elitist overtones.

Speaker: And he's got the lightsaber of the Jedi.

Speaker: We do get a heavy implication that he has killed the guy and taken his lightsaber.

Speaker: So he is now in control of a Jedi weapon.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: We cut back to Ord Mantell, where the squad, our fully formed four-person commando squad, is basically taking an old rust bucket down.

Speaker: It's like a sprayer, basically.

Speaker: It's like a crop sprayer.

Speaker: They're like, we're trying to keep you guys, like, fucking undercover here.

Speaker: So you're going to have to take this...

Speaker: this ship, this piece of shit down.

Speaker: Luke Skywalker, what a hunk of junk, you know?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They're going to do that.

Speaker: And it's just like, maybe it'll land, maybe.

Speaker: We find out, this is funny.

Speaker: This is when I first suspected that maybe she was actually, our author, Karen Travis, is a military woman.

Speaker: When they talk about the six Ps.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Which, for those of you who don't know, the six Ps are proper planning prevents piss, proper planning prevents piss poor people.

Speaker: Oh, what is the last one?

Speaker: Performance.

Speaker: Thank you.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: And he changes it to proper planning prevents bad.

Speaker: He goes, the six Ps, sir.

Speaker: Proper planning prevents inadequate performance.

Speaker: That's it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Sir.

Speaker: Because I grew up hearing that.

Speaker: It's kind of.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So and that level of levity kind of raises the hackles of the Padawan in a way.

Speaker: He kind of he kind of gets gets a little shitty with him.

Speaker: And he says, this is real.

Speaker: to them, which you don't need to tell them that, which pisses off Niner.

Speaker: Of course, he's not going to say anything.

Speaker: He's not going to do anything about it.

Speaker: But he's like, yeah, we know that.

Speaker: All of us have lost all of our buddies.

Speaker: We know this isn't real.

Speaker: Atten is not playing well with others.

Speaker: He's very standoffish, kind of storm cloudy, not really, not very, very friendly, not getting along with everybody.

Speaker: Let's see.

Speaker: The Padawan basically tells them, I hope I hope to debrief you later after you get back.

Speaker: And it isn't until he's left that because Niner goes, what?

Speaker: Of course he does.

Speaker: Why would he?

Speaker: And Niner realizes what he meant was good luck.

Speaker: It was his way of saying good luck.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Which I got I got a real kick out of that.

Speaker: It cuts to Itain and the villagers.

Speaker: They are inside for the night to avoid Gedans, which are we get more and more about them.

Speaker: They're basically rats.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Or jackals or something.

Speaker: I was like, I started picturing them as like the attitude of rats, but at the size of capybaras.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That's a good way of looking at it.

Speaker: Like if capybaras weren't chill as fuck.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: And they had more of like that rat, you know, rat mode attitude.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: That's what you would.

Speaker: I totally agree.

Speaker: That's perfect.

Speaker: And they're and they're and they all and they they basically swarm things that are way bigger than them and try to eat them.

Speaker: And they're most active at night.

Speaker: So basically everyone has to lock everything up.

Speaker: You can't be out at night because the G'dans will fuck you up.

Speaker: They will just munch you down.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: There's like a reference to like children being killed by G'dans or whatever.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Nasty customers.

Speaker: It's a is kind of eating her dinner.

Speaker: She's not really she's not really her poop dinner.

Speaker: Yeah, her poop dinner.

Speaker: And she gets a, I just felt a loss in the force moment and realizes that's probably her master who has died.

Speaker: She senses that someone has gone from the force and it must be him because on this planet could only probably be him.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And starts considering the cryptic, they're coming message from the old woman.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And an after is kind of just getting more and more scared by the sounds of movement outside.

Speaker: And that's actually the end of my second notebook.

Speaker: That's the end of your notebook.

Speaker: That's the end of your second pixel-lit notebook?

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Got the other one up here.

Speaker: So that was the end of my second pixel-lit notebook.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: Jesus.

Speaker: Starting a fresh one.

Speaker: Fresh one.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: It needs a sticker on it.

Speaker: I know.

Speaker: I've got, I've got, you can see, because I'm basically a middle school girl.

Speaker: I'm obsessed with my stickers.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: And I put all my stickers in my books.

Speaker: And this one's so fresh, it doesn't have a single sticker on it yet.

Speaker: And I'm glowing with anticipation of what will be the first.

Speaker: Something to peel off the little back end.

Speaker: Oh, the beauty of it all.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We cut to the commando squad undercover in the rust bucket.

Speaker: They pass through security, claiming that all they've got is farming equipment on there.

Speaker: We get a little more weapon porn.

Speaker: They are carrying a lot more gear than they normally do.

Speaker: I think they said that usually they'll carry like 25 kilos on their back, which is a considerable amount.

Speaker: And they're all stacked to the gills with double that.

Speaker: Uh, so they're, they're, it's a little odd, uh, and cumbersome to say the very least.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Um, an engine, uh, one of their engines goes out when it sucks up a bunch of birds.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: If you're wondering how well, right off the bat, this mission is going, it's going shit.

Speaker: I'm surprised FUBAR, as an acronym, doesn't make an appearance in this book.

Speaker: I can't believe they didn't bring up FUBAR.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: Maybe that one's not in the military reserves over in Britain.

Speaker: But yeah, so the fucking birds take down this rust bucket and they start to crash.

Speaker: So they are being ordered to jump.

Speaker: They're getting all their shit together.

Speaker: Niner, the sergeant, orders Darman to jump.

Speaker: But Darman really wants to salvage more of the gear than he should.

Speaker: He's literally trying to strap it to the back of his legs and shit like that.

Speaker: And he doesn't want to lose anything.

Speaker: Darman wants to take more of the gear with them.

Speaker: He doesn't want to waste it.

Speaker: He's literally strapping it to the back of his legs and shit.

Speaker: And he wants to salvage as much of it as possible.

Speaker: And Niner's screaming at him to go.

Speaker: And so he just literally shoves Niner out the goddamn thing and listens to him cussing him out all the way down.

Speaker: It's kind of great.

Speaker: He finally loads himself up and jumps.

Speaker: And the droid who is piloting the rust bucket, he's watching it go down and basically has this moment of realization where he says, you know, we're better than the droids.

Speaker: Everyone seems to say so.

Speaker: But we're just as expendable as they are.

Speaker: In many ways, I am no different than a droid.

Speaker: And this is existential crisis number four.

Speaker: five or six by now.

Speaker: He slams into a tree, blacks out.

Speaker: He is out.

Speaker: Chapter four.

Speaker: Is he dead?

Speaker: We don't know yet.

Speaker: Well, we don't know yet.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: We don't know yet, but no, he's not dead.

Speaker: He's not dead.

Speaker: He's the main character.

Speaker: We cut to the other three who are not Darman, and they are hauling their shit out.

Speaker: And Niner is hauling his parachute, grumbling to himself about what a piece of shit Darvin is, basically.

Speaker: And watches the ship explode and then suddenly is kind of worried that Darvin didn't make it.

Speaker: That's wild, though, when you think that we really don't get a lot of, like, fucking, like, just straight up paratrooper action in Star Wars.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: He's putting away a literal parachute.

Speaker: It's...

Speaker: It's kind of wild.

Speaker: My dad was a paratrooper, and I remember we'd go and watch him doing these jumps, and there was a whole thing you had to do with your gear and everything.

Speaker: And that's basically what he's doing here.

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: I thought that was a really neat detail.

Speaker: So, yeah, he's worried that Darman didn't make it.

Speaker: We get a really funny moment where the G'dans notice him, and they all start to try and chomp on him, but they're doing nothing, so he just kind of leaves a little...

Speaker: So it's just him like trying to clean up his gear while these little monsters are like trying to shoot.

Speaker: Putting away his shoot, you know, his fucking rodents are chewing on his arm.

Speaker: Chewing on him and not getting, and basically one by one going, there's no fucking point in stopping.

Speaker: Um...

Speaker: He's trying to triangulate their position.

Speaker: He has no idea where they are.

Speaker: Finds Fi and Atten at a meeting point that they had set up.

Speaker: They have several rendezvous points that they're going to be going to throughout this.

Speaker: And they, of course, realize Darman and most of the explosives as a result are missing.

Speaker: Um, Etten's still kind of being a prick about finding Darman.

Speaker: He's, you know, he's kind of, he's like, he's probably dead.

Speaker: Why are we bothering?

Speaker: And Edmund Reiner's very, um, you know, heavy on, no, we're not giving up on him.

Speaker: We're not giving up on him.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: And it's just more of the fact that these guys, this is basically all the family that they have.

Speaker: So they really plant that home here.

Speaker: We cut to Itain and the farmer, Burhan.

Speaker: They are surveying an explosion in their bark field, which we can only assume is the...

Speaker: The rust bucket.

Speaker: It's the rust bucket, yeah.

Speaker: And it's just, it's just like destroyed this huge portion of his yearly crops.

Speaker: And he's fucked.

Speaker: He's absolutely fucked.

Speaker: And let's see.

Speaker: It's being inspected.

Speaker: The crater's being inspected by some of the mercenary militia that work there.

Speaker: And I really like this line, by the way, from The Farmer.

Speaker: And it's a really interesting, and I think something that Karen Travis really does well

Speaker: in this book is like i that the movies don't necessarily touch on that because like the movies are like oh there's the bad guys and the good guys and they're like yay whatever and the farmer says to attain can't you have your fight on someone else's planet don't you think i have enough problems absolutely like this doesn't your your fucking galactic bullshit doesn't affect me right

Speaker: And I agree with you.

Speaker: They don't really touch on that all that much in the movies.

Speaker: But this is just the beginning of that.

Speaker: You get to see like the civilian life.

Speaker: It's like I don't it's it's like how it works in real life.

Speaker: Frankly, you know, it's like some of us are more politically inclined.

Speaker: Some of us read the news.

Speaker: Some of us pay attention to world events.

Speaker: But most people are just trying to get by and they barely know what the fuck is going on.

Speaker: They don't know.

Speaker: So who or if anyone to pull for, they don't have that hard of opinions on things.

Speaker: And they would just wish that if you're going to have a huge, massive fucking battle, do it over there.

Speaker: Do it the next house over.

Speaker: No, I totally agree.

Speaker: I think that's terrific.

Speaker: Militia gets an urgent call away.

Speaker: And Itain finds the remains of a Republic astrodroid in the rust bucket there and realizes that it's a rescue party.

Speaker: Cut to.

Speaker: Meanwhile.

Speaker: Darmond, he has dug himself into a pit and is watching the road.

Speaker: He's not sure where he is.

Speaker: His leg is badly damaged.

Speaker: He's treating it with bacta.

Speaker: He's hurting.

Speaker: He's hearing voices and it's the militia.

Speaker: They are searching.

Speaker: And one of them just kind of comes straight away.

Speaker: for him to the point where he's literally standing on top of his cover and, uh, Darman fucking assassins creeds the shit out of him.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: With the vibro blade.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Vibro blades him and, uh, and then shoots the other one, uh, in the head and takes them both out.

Speaker: And, uh, and, and he realizes he sees these tracks and the Gadan who have also been like, uh,

Speaker: Chomping on him and trying to get his attention.

Speaker: They basically given him away because their tracks leading up to where he is.

Speaker: That's stop.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So fucking good Dan anyway.

Speaker: And then, but he, then he notices, well, the one good thing about the good Dan is a cleanup.

Speaker: See, he doesn't need to bury these bodies because they swarm the dead bodies and, and basically go to work disposing of them.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: He does realize that one of the Weequay, though, that he thought he had killed is still alive, and he regrets that, not doing a clean kill.

Speaker: And he makes a point to kill him before the G'dan move on to him, because that would be a horrible way to die.

Speaker: And we find out that this is the first time.

Speaker: He's never really seen death up close.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: I love this moment.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They drilled him to.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So the last last paragraph here is they drilled him to kill and kill and kill, but nobody had thought to teach him what he was supposed to feel afterward.

Speaker: He did feel something, but he wasn't certain what it is.

Speaker: He'd think about it later.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: And that's a great line right there, too, because that applies for a lot of the shit that goes on.

Speaker: I'll think about it later.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And yeah, he's never seen it up close.

Speaker: Every kill he's ever done in the Geonosian campaign was, you know, at best he saw at the end of a scope.

Speaker: You know, he never really got up close and dirty like this.

Speaker: So he's feeling some feelings.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Let's see.

Speaker: We cut to chapter five, and Darman is setting up a post at the tallest point in a certain area he's at to observe and try to figure out where he is.

Speaker: We get a lot of moments here of, and I count this in with the existential meltdowns, just in awe of how beautiful the nature around him is.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And if any of you have never been in areas that are just largely farmland, they can be quite comical in a way if you go out to like cornfields and stuff.

Speaker: And it's just just endless, endless corn.

Speaker: And it's kind of hilarious.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But they are tremendously beautiful at the same time.

Speaker: And and he's seeing that for the first time.

Speaker: He's never really left.

Speaker: He went to Geonosia.

Speaker: What's the name of the planet?

Speaker: Not Geonosia.

Speaker: Geonosis.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So he had he had he had lived on Camino.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: And then he went to Geonosis for his first battle.

Speaker: But he hadn't really seen anything like this.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: You know.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And everything he saw was like through a simulation or something like that.

Speaker: So he's like out in nature and having this like I am Groot moment of like watching, you know,

Speaker: daisies grow and all that shit um it's it's it's kind of sweet um he uh we get a little background on the bark uh sort of thing i i kind of think of it as caviar uh people go absolutely apeshit for it but myself and most other regular ass people go what the fuck no what's going on here it's basically shit well every time that and also every time they say bark i just think of the root beer

Speaker: Oh, well, it is kind of.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker: That makes sense.

Speaker: And I don't like that either.

Speaker: It's one of the main things that my wife criticizes me for because she is obsessed with root beer.

Speaker: She I mean, that'll be why you end up getting divorced.

Speaker: Probably.

Speaker: You're of your.

Speaker: Yeah, it'll be bark and John Carpenter's the thing relationship forever.

Speaker: He starts questioning the wisdom of his superiors and the orders.

Speaker: Cue Billy Eilish's What Was I Made For to start playing Existential Meltdown number 26.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: In the distance, he sees some farms burning and the militia is responsible.

Speaker: He wants to do something.

Speaker: Civilians are freaking out, but he doesn't want to make it worse.

Speaker: He shouldn't do something, but he realizes that these civilians are being punished because of him.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker: He doesn't want to do it right up until the moment he does.

Speaker: And so finally he just starts shooting and he kills everyone in record time.

Speaker: Pure easy mode, you know, full vats, just headshot, headshot, headshot.

Speaker: 360 degree no scope.

Speaker: No scope, exactly.

Speaker: It just...

Speaker: Takes them all out, checks all the barns, makes sure that no one else is there.

Speaker: And this is a Republic commando with, from what I understand, he has a torn ACL.

Speaker: Yeah, he's fucked up.

Speaker: He's not at his best.

Speaker: And he just destroys everybody.

Speaker: And he goes to one of the civilians and they're all freaking out at the sight of him.

Speaker: They're all terrified of him.

Speaker: This goes back to what you were talking about before, Kevin, where it's just like, and everyone, they associate him with Hocam.

Speaker: which we'll get more of it.

Speaker: You know, he realizes his armor is similar to Mandalorian armor, and that's the only thing they can associate him with.

Speaker: So they associate him with Hogan, and they're all scared of him.

Speaker: And we do get a moment where one of them says, we don't want your help.

Speaker: Fucking go.

Speaker: You're the reason they're here.

Speaker: Right, exactly.

Speaker: And he literally has a moment where he's like,

Speaker: They didn't train us how to deal with ungrateful civilians.

Speaker: This is weird.

Speaker: It's a true, like, we'll be greeted as liberators kind of moment.

Speaker: He doesn't realize just how he thought he saved these people.

Speaker: And he did.

Speaker: But at the same time, this wouldn't be happening if it weren't for him.

Speaker: And he kind of knows that.

Speaker: It's just a mess.

Speaker: There's a part that I highlighted.

Speaker: that he's remembering from his training officer, Skirata.

Speaker: Don't worry.

Speaker: It's your forebrain shutting down.

Speaker: Just a fear reflex.

Speaker: You're bred from sociopathic stock.

Speaker: You'll fight just fine.

Speaker: You'll carry on fighting when normal men have turned into basket cases.

Speaker: I love that.

Speaker: You're bred from sociopathic stock.

Speaker: That is a great.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And they are.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It doesn't solve anything.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So he's confused and just he's left with a lot to think about.

Speaker: And then he realizes he sees like a reflection of himself.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And he realizes that the clone armor is designed after the Mandalorian.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Battle armor.

Speaker: And he really I was like, oh, everybody fucking is terrified of guess.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: No wonder they're afraid of me.

Speaker: He gets it.

Speaker: He's a scary looking dude.

Speaker: They don't know who he is.

Speaker: The clone troopers are not a common – are not common knowledge for most people at this point.

Speaker: So, yeah, it makes perfect sense.

Speaker: We cut to the best – the rest of the squad.

Speaker: I wrote – I thought I wrote the best of the squad.

Speaker: No, the rest of the squad.

Speaker: It was the best of squads.

Speaker: It was the worst of squads.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They're hiding from detention, detention, detection.

Speaker: They are there.

Speaker: People are still looking for them.

Speaker: They are hiding.

Speaker: And they're they're on their way to one of the rendezvous points.

Speaker: Atten is still kind of being a piece of shit.

Speaker: But then he surprises Niner by offhandedly commenting.

Speaker: I've been Darman, suggesting that he be.

Speaker: actually might understand what's going on more than, than he lets on, uh, the speeder that they are, that is searching for them locks on to Niner and Niner goes, Oh fucking shit.

Speaker: And, uh, then basically has to blow it up and has a, uh, has a run the fuck away from an explosion action movie moment.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: And Fee starts giving him a little shit, and Niner starts getting kind of paranoid, like, because he saw me run from that thing.

Speaker: Is he accusing me of being a bad leader that I was running from?

Speaker: And Fee's just, like, giving him shit.

Speaker: And so they check the wreckage together.

Speaker: And Atten comes around with a fucking computer from inside of the speeder and says, I might be able to hack this.

Speaker: So that's that's their good.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: That's their next mission there.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I think I think it's funny because Fee is like, yeah, that'll make a good marker, you know, with all that smoke and shit.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: good.

Speaker: Yeah, because they want to leave behind markers for Darmond in case he shows up.

Speaker: They would do it.

Speaker: That way he'll know that we were there.

Speaker: This will do.

Speaker: That'll probably do a good job.

Speaker: I wonder if he'll know it was us.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We cut to Hogan with his mercenary senior staff, let's say.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We get basically informed that these people suck.

Speaker: They're the lowest low.

Speaker: He doesn't have a lot of options, to be honest.

Speaker: He's not being funded a lot by Ankit.

Speaker: And so the only people he can really afford are people who otherwise cannot take any other gigs, which means they've got a criminal record as long as my arm.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: so they're not the cream of the crop here.

Speaker: And he's pissed at them because they torched yet another farm.

Speaker: Um, he explains to them that you need to warn these people first.

Speaker: And, and if, cause they're, they're trying to say like, Hey, we were just like, just in case we're trying to show them what happens.

Speaker: If they, if they decide to hide one of these troopers, because no, no, you fucking warn them.

Speaker: And then if they do, uh, you know,

Speaker: hold somebody.

Speaker: Then you burn the place to the ground.

Speaker: So otherwise you're just making them hate you right off the bat and they're going to hate you.

Speaker: Their kids are going to hate you.

Speaker: And my fucking life is going to be terrible.

Speaker: And he's like, basically, do we all understand the difference between a warning and a punishment?

Speaker: And they all go, yes, teacher.

Speaker: And the mercenary that he's been berating, he cuts his head off with a lightsaber, just flick, flick of the wrist.

Speaker: And he explains to the crowd that,

Speaker: That was a punishment for fucking up those farms.

Speaker: But for all of you, for him, for the rest of you, it's a warning.

Speaker: Do we see the difference?

Speaker: It's such an amazing moment.

Speaker: I love this scene so much.

Speaker: It was so good.

Speaker: So, yeah, it's a terrific, terrific big bad moment.

Speaker: We just see how brutal he is and how clever he is.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: You get a Mandalorian with little to no, like, he's, yeah, sociopathic stock.

Speaker: Oh, absolutely.

Speaker: You get a Mandalorian, you know, full battle armor Mandalorian who now has a lightsaber.

Speaker: Oh, yeah, who loves this lightsaber.

Speaker: loves it he's like because he like he checks his clothes out and everything it's like oh it cauterized the neck immediately my clothes aren't covered in blood this fucking sword rules all right i'll take it he's pretty clean no blood none rather liked this lightsaber now yeah

Speaker: It's great.

Speaker: It's a great expansion of this character.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: He's still missing some of his mercenaries.

Speaker: He knows that the Republic's there.

Speaker: He knows that shit is going down.

Speaker: And he's actually kind of anticipating... No, Ripley, for Christ's sake.

Speaker: She got up here and she likes to stand directly on my notebook.

Speaker: It's like, I really need that.

Speaker: What if I gave you this notebook?

Speaker: I'm done with this notebook.

Speaker: Here.

Speaker: Here you go.

Speaker: Stand on that.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Oh, she wants my notebook.

Speaker: No, that's... Here, I'll open it.

Speaker: It's like a computer screen.

Speaker: They're gonna... Here, do that.

Speaker: Okay, anyway.

Speaker: Jerk.

Speaker: So, rather than being particularly afraid that the Republic is coming for him, he's kind of pumped because his reputation as a Mandalorian is in the shitter.

Speaker: He sees this whole assignment as kind of beneath him.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He's very much a Marty McFly of a Mandalorian where you really just got to call him chicken to get.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He's ready.

Speaker: And hope that he'll just fuck you up.

Speaker: No, that's absolutely it.

Speaker: So he's looking forward to this.

Speaker: He sees this as an opportunity to show that he's still got some worth.

Speaker: He's still got some skill as a Mando.

Speaker: Chapter six, we open with the farmer trying to kick Itain out.

Speaker: This is all your fucking fault.

Speaker: Get out.

Speaker: Never darken my towels ever again.

Speaker: Itain tries to use the Jedi mind trick on him.

Speaker: She said, she's like, actually, you want me to stay?

Speaker: And he looks her in the eye and says, no, I don't get the fuck out.

Speaker: One more piece of evidence that Itain, worst Jedi of all time.

Speaker: I have it written here, terrible Jedi.

Speaker: Terrible Jedi.

Speaker: But then the old woman comes in and kind of saves her bacon and explains, like, look, after this is all said and done, we'll need her because the Jedi can, like, help grow crops.

Speaker: And Itain goes, yeah, you know, like, outwardly she's going, uh-huh, uh-huh.

Speaker: In her head she's like, uh-huh.

Speaker: I'm not going to do that.

Speaker: I don't want to do that.

Speaker: I've heard of Jedi who do that.

Speaker: I can't imagine a worse hell.

Speaker: I know that's theoretically probable or possible.

Speaker: Yeah, it's possible, not probable.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: I don't want to do it, and I don't think I could do it.

Speaker: Right, exactly.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Although we find out that basically the only time she can do well as a Jedi is when like all the conditions are perfect.

Speaker: And if she's just sitting there in a field able to like hum to the plants, that might be the only thing she's good at with this shit.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: She she goes to the old woman and basically says, like, please explain yourself.

Speaker: And her name is Jinnart.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Jinnart.

Speaker: And she says, you know, you said they're coming.

Speaker: You want to maybe clarify on that?

Speaker: She does not.

Speaker: But for whatever reason, she starts to have a sense of family with this woman.

Speaker: She has a sense of trust in this woman that she can't quite put her finger on yet.

Speaker: We cut to Darman in a huge field.

Speaker: He sends a little micro droid remote ahead to basically scout the area ahead of him.

Speaker: He's kind of nervous about it because it's got a lot of public tech and information on that thing.

Speaker: And if it gets caught, he could be fucked.

Speaker: But he doesn't anyway.

Speaker: Because he figures he might be alone for a good long while.

Speaker: So he's thinking, OK, I might have to find out if Gadan is good to eat.

Speaker: That'll be interesting.

Speaker: He spends a lot of time fantasizing about cake, which I can relate with.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, I do that.

Speaker: Oh, God, yes, absolutely.

Speaker: It made me think a little bit of...

Speaker: The, oh, what was it?

Speaker: The Brandon Sanderson thing we read.

Speaker: The Infinity Blade thing.

Speaker: And he was like, I'm going to have a whole pie.

Speaker: It's that kind of, it's that kind of feeling.

Speaker: And a whole pie.

Speaker: Yeah, it's really cute.

Speaker: And like you find out like that basically their training officer, like their main trainer, who they, who's basically their father figure, would, uh,

Speaker: like sneak them little delicacies and shit like that, even though they weren't supposed to have it.

Speaker: The Kaminoans were like very strict about what they were supposed to eat.

Speaker: But the training officer, the actual military dude that trained his batch of clones would be like, you want a little cake as a treat?

Speaker: And you can't help, but they don't say this, but I can't help but imagine that for all intents and purposes, this is like a little Debbie snack cake.

Speaker: Like it's not that big of a fucking deal.

Speaker: They got it for like 79 cents at the gas station on the way there.

Speaker: It's a fucking Twinkie.

Speaker: Right, right, exactly.

Speaker: But because these guys are basically used to eating like nutrition paste and shit like that, it's the greatest, most decadent thing in the world.

Speaker: And now here, Darmond is fucking in a field in the middle of nowhere fantasizing about this cake.

Speaker: It's really cute.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Not long after that, he finds out that his remote has been eaten by a bird, possibly one of the same kinds of birds that brought their ship down in the first place.

Speaker: He can basically hear it screaming and cawing revenge over his head.

Speaker: He crosses the field eventually.

Speaker: He wants to rest, but he keeps pressing himself.

Speaker: We get more of nature stuff.

Speaker: And finally, he's kind of playing drill sergeant in his head, and he's imagining what a drill sergeant would say to him.

Speaker: And finally, he realizes this drill sergeant would point out that you being exhausted is not going to help anybody.

Speaker: You do need to rest.

Speaker: So he finds a pond or something, and he bathes in that.

Speaker: But then he cleans his armor off and then puts it all right back on because you're

Speaker: I'm gonna sleep in my armor.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Yeah, and he's also, suddenly he's paranoid about contamination because he notices these bugs in the field and they just kind of die.

Speaker: And he assumes there must be some sort of poison in the air, some sort of biological weapon.

Speaker: And he throws on his helmet and does the pressure seals and stuff.

Speaker: And the helmet's like, no, this is fine.

Speaker: And he doesn't quite get there, but he kind of starts to realize...

Speaker: these bugs just die.

Speaker: They just, they're just like, they, they reached the end of their life cycle or something.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And, and, and that kind of sad to him.

Speaker: He can't quite put his finger on that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so he saves them in a bottle.

Speaker: It's, it's so, there's so much humanity in this section and I really love it.

Speaker: So much.

Speaker: And the,

Speaker: Yeah, it's just a really interesting whole segment when just Dharmon's little existential nightmare segments.

Speaker: It's fascinating to see what he's going through.

Speaker: He even creates his own, at one point he creates his own acronym.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: NFQ, normal for Kilara.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: I was like, I'm just going to assume that this is normal for this planet.

Speaker: Yeah, I'm just going to go, what choice do I have?

Speaker: This has got to be NFQ.

Speaker: That was a nice touch.

Speaker: At first, he can't sleep at all because his helmet keeps picking up movement, but eventually he does fall asleep.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We cut to Hocan, who has been summoned by, let's say it again, Ovalot Quail Uthon.

Speaker: Who in my head is voiced by Shora Agdishlu, who is she is the she's the Indian woman with the very like very husky smoker voice.

Speaker: Yes, I love her.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Good call.

Speaker: She is the voice for this doctor.

Speaker: Very good choice.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: I'm rewriting that in my head canon.

Speaker: Bingo.

Speaker: He's summoned by her.

Speaker: She's this scientist.

Speaker: Now, and that's the thing.

Speaker: She's not quite what I expected because she's a scientist.

Speaker: She's doctor.

Speaker: But...

Speaker: She has this stately kind of regalness to her, this noble way about her.

Speaker: And she's clearly a very, very big player on this planet.

Speaker: Hoken likes her, despite the fact that she develops weapons that are not what he thinks of as real weapons, like nanoviruses and shit like that.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But he likes her a lot.

Speaker: He respects her.

Speaker: He likes the way she carries herself and that sort of thing.

Speaker: Now, she's concerned about recent events and her own protection.

Speaker: And Hogan agrees.

Speaker: Yeah, your security is bad.

Speaker: You are vulnerable here.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Your security is bad.

Speaker: My security is bad.

Speaker: I don't have the troops.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He's like, you know, Ankit is, you know, and she's like, well, I thought you were supposed to.

Speaker: There's a lot of money, you know, set aside for all this shit.

Speaker: And he goes, well, I'm not getting any of it.

Speaker: So she.

Speaker: She basically suggests, well, maybe we can go around, Ankit.

Speaker: We can get you better resources for this contract that I can set up for you.

Speaker: And you can work for me.

Speaker: Oh, we'll go over Ankit's head for now.

Speaker: She clearly has no love lost between her and that guy.

Speaker: Lick Ankit.

Speaker: Ankit.

Speaker: And so she tells Hoken, she says, she basically tells him about the clones and says, do you know who's fighting for the Republic now?

Speaker: Oh, they're these clones.

Speaker: And he's like, well, that's fucked up.

Speaker: And she goes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: You ready to hear what's really fucked up about him?

Speaker: You know who they're a clone of?

Speaker: And he goes, no.

Speaker: And she says, Jango Fett.

Speaker: And he...

Speaker: fucking flips out.

Speaker: He's so pissed off.

Speaker: He flips his shit.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's just the level of disrespect for one of the greatest Mandalorian warriors of his time.

Speaker: It's horrifying to him on so many levels.

Speaker: And she goes, oh, but you know, and completely off topic, you know, the nano virus I'm working on, it's specifically meant to kill clones.

Speaker: Isn't that fun?

Speaker: And he says, when can I sign on?

Speaker: And she goes, right the fuck now, fuck boy, here you go.

Speaker: Sign on the dotted line.

Speaker: And he's like, yes, I am in now.

Speaker: Yes, everything.

Speaker: And he literally says to her, I would have done this for free.

Speaker: Like, I am in.

Speaker: And she's like, great.

Speaker: I thought you'd say that.

Speaker: Yeah, that's great.

Speaker: I'm still going to pay you, but, you know.

Speaker: I'm still going to pay you.

Speaker: We'll get you a better army.

Speaker: Your mercenaries suck.

Speaker: And he's like, yeah.

Speaker: So she says the nanovirus is meant to kill the clones.

Speaker: And his response is, the kindest solution.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: And I...

Speaker: I can't help but agree with them on a certain level.

Speaker: I'm feeling worse and worse for these clones as it goes on.

Speaker: As it goes on, because here's the thing is, well, you know, I'm going to save my thought, my thought on this till after, because this is the last chapter coming up, right?

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Chapter seven.

Speaker: I'm going to save my thoughts on it until after this chapter because it kind of reveals some additional context about the clones.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: So, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, we'll get into that.

Speaker: Chapter seven, we cut to Niner and the rest of the squad.

Speaker: Niner is considering the differences between their training and real life, and he's basically taking notes.

Speaker: He's like, I've got so many notes I'm going to give to our trainers when we get back.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We are not.

Speaker: This is bullshit.

Speaker: This is totally not prepared.

Speaker: Not any good.

Speaker: They're they're hiding from some militia forces, the dregs, and they're waiting for them to go.

Speaker: They're all sitting out getting drunk and they're like, fuck, our rendezvous point is over there and we got to wait for these guys to leave.

Speaker: And I think Atten is the one who's like, maybe they'll die of alcohol poisoning eventually.

Speaker: That'd be good.

Speaker: Yeah, maybe.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: As they're doing this, suddenly this new group of mercenaries show up who are almost entirely droids led by what was the what's the alien that leads them?

Speaker: Oh, I am.

Speaker: Umbaran.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Led by an Umbaran.

Speaker: And they basically show up and just blow them all away.

Speaker: Just just like there's a new there's a new boss in town.

Speaker: Go fuck yourself.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Consider this their severance package and just decimate the militia and leave back the way they came.

Speaker: Just as casual as if you're kicking a can down the street.

Speaker: So the Embarans, just as a descriptor, are like very human looking, but bald, like they don't have any hair and they have like really creepy pale eyes.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: I do remember that.

Speaker: And as they watch them go, the Niners considering the similarities between droids and clones.

Speaker: They've got a lot of things in common and they're probably just as off-putting to regular people.

Speaker: So how much difference is there really between us and these droids?

Speaker: Do clones dream of electric droids?

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: It's kind of where we're at right now.

Speaker: I think it's pretty much it, yeah.

Speaker: We cut to Itain at the farm again.

Speaker: She is moving boards with the force in the back of the barn.

Speaker: Best she can do.

Speaker: It's the best she can do because no one's watching her.

Speaker: She's under no pressure and she can move these boards.

Speaker: She's got to make a little escape.

Speaker: She's trying to make an extra exit.

Speaker: She's sort of like that.

Speaker: Was it mystery men where there was the guy that could turn invisible, but only if nobody was looking at him.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: It's that kind of... She might as well not be a Jedi, is what I'm saying.

Speaker: Might as well, yeah.

Speaker: Just the worst Jedi ever.

Speaker: She starts to sense... She realizes she senses the Force in Jannart, who shows up.

Speaker: And she says, like...

Speaker: what you know like why didn't you tell me why you know she's so confused by the idea of this person who isn't and genard's like because you're fucking my shit up girl yeah yeah she's like she's like i chose to let you like she says she says why should i trust you what if you're a sith or something like that uh it's yeah yeah genard basically is like go fuck yourself you can only sense that i'm strong in the force because i let you so shut your fucking mouth and just do what i say um it's it's kind of great

Speaker: One of your dudes is here.

Speaker: Let's go.

Speaker: Yeah, that's exactly it.

Speaker: She's like, your soldier's waiting for you.

Speaker: She's like, my soldier?

Speaker: Like, yeah, follow the stream up there.

Speaker: So Itain leaves and starts going through the woods, and she senses a child in the distance, and she can't quite...

Speaker: She's like, what the fuck is a kid doing?

Speaker: And the kid isn't, she senses that he isn't afraid per se, but his pulse is jacked.

Speaker: He's alert.

Speaker: And then before you know it, she's flash banged.

Speaker: Just, what the fuck?

Speaker: And it's a clone trooper.

Speaker: But she thinks it's a Mandalorian.

Speaker: So she swings on him with a lightsaber and the clone trooper very calmly says, man, please stop doing that.

Speaker: Please stop doing that.

Speaker: Don't make me.

Speaker: It's an amazing scene.

Speaker: It's so calm because she's such a shitty fighter and he's so cool and collected.

Speaker: He's like, ma'am, I beg you to please stop.

Speaker: And finally he grabs her and shoves her down in the stream and she loses her lightsaber and he goes, ma'am, please stop making me drown you.

Speaker: I'm begging you.

Speaker: And then he lets her up and she realizes this is not...

Speaker: Hoken, this is not the Mandalorian.

Speaker: And he apologizes.

Speaker: And he's like, you know, I should have made it clear who I was.

Speaker: Sorry about that.

Speaker: And he calls her general.

Speaker: Then he calls her commander, which very unnerving to her and the rest of the audience because she sucks.

Speaker: It's

Speaker: But that's all he knows Jedi as.

Speaker: And he sees that she's... He calls her general, and she goes, I'm not a general.

Speaker: And he goes, oh, you're right.

Speaker: I see now that you have the braid commander.

Speaker: Commander.

Speaker: And she's like, what?

Speaker: I beg your pardon?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So she's... Yeah.

Speaker: So just very, very confused.

Speaker: She goes, what's the Grand Army?

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: She has no idea about any of this shit.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: She's like, I don't know what the Grand Army... She doesn't know anything.

Speaker: And so this guy...

Speaker: who was like armed to the teeth, who is a commando who she's very much thinking in terms of like, this guy has to save my, save me, uh, is going, well, you're, you're in charge.

Speaker: She's like, what?

Speaker: No, no.

Speaker: You're the man now, dog.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And she's just kind of shocked.

Speaker: She makes a point of thinking like she's completely alarmed by not just his confidence, but how much confidence he seems to have in her.

Speaker: Like he'll follow her anywhere, that kind of thing.

Speaker: And she's like, well, who the fuck was the child I was sensing?

Speaker: And she asks him like how old he is.

Speaker: And he says, I'm 10.

Speaker: Uh, which of course he is.

Speaker: Cause he was in the lab.

Speaker: Like, yeah.

Speaker: I mean, for me, the price is right.

Speaker: You lose horn just kind of played in my head as soon as I read that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: yeah yeah oh without a doubt this is oh man this really makes every prequel thing a supreme bummer doesn't it yes it's like this is this is not great uh we were killing children sweet uh yeah

Speaker: So we cut to Hoken admiring his new droid army.

Speaker: He is thrilled to be with them.

Speaker: They are heading to Ankit's villa.

Speaker: And he lets Ankit know, by the way, I'm keeping my droids here.

Speaker: You're staying in your house.

Speaker: Your house is now my base.

Speaker: Exactly, because we are under martial law because the Republic's here.

Speaker: Go fuck yourself.

Speaker: And I beg you, I beg you to push back on this.

Speaker: I beg you to give me a reason.

Speaker: Please give me a reason to fuck your day up, your fuck your rest of your life up.

Speaker: And it's, it's, it's, it's very satisfied.

Speaker: He's like, it's, it's this nice little moment of revenge.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: We cut to the squad, the remaining rest of the squad.

Speaker: They're on their way to rendezvous point beta, but they can't find it.

Speaker: They basically have like, they know what they're looking for, but they can't find it.

Speaker: Fee actually expresses some frustration at the HQ.

Speaker: They've kind of bungled this mission.

Speaker: He says, we're not going to make it, are we?

Speaker: Like, we're going to die down here.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Everything has gone wrong.

Speaker: And it's clearly the first time he's ever, like, fully questioned the leaders.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: And they're bad.

Speaker: They're bad at their... Like, the leadership is clearly not...

Speaker: set up to do anything completely incompetent.

Speaker: Uh, and so, yeah.

Speaker: And, and so they, they have these memories of their first trainer, uh, who was a miserable drunk of a man, uh, who was just as likely to like basically throw clone slurs at them, but then he would get into his cups and suddenly recognize their humanity and clearly hated what, uh,

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: There's a little moment here where they say they talk about how the Kaminoans were the only.

Speaker: Who was it?

Speaker: Fee is thinking he might have been bred for selfless obedience, but he wasn't stupid.

Speaker: The Kaminoan technicians were the only things that truly terrified him.

Speaker: And because and he's thinking about the time when a batch of clones is born with slightly less than 2020 eyesight and they were they just were disappeared after their first training exercise.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: fully, fully expendable.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's, it's deeply disturbing.

Speaker: And, and so they're, they're, they're, it's, it's, it really is eyeopening.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And, and that trainer at, at, at some point then says, be proud.

Speaker: However much these ugly gray freaks treat, treat you like cattle.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's just, it's, there's so much good stuff.

Speaker: There's, it's great.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: It's really good shit.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Um, Atten suddenly comes under fire by droids.

Speaker: Uh, they take out the organic leader and, uh, and then make short work of the droids themselves and decide they've got to make a marker, uh, for, uh, Darman.

Speaker: Uh, they basically have to, you know, they're, they're going to skip this next rendezvous point because it's too close to where this all went down.

Speaker: So they're going to go to another rendezvous point and, uh, just leave a marker there.

Speaker: Uh,

Speaker: Niner finally gets a chance to ask Atten what he meant by, why have you been Darman?

Speaker: And Atten explains that he's been the last man of his squad twice.

Speaker: Uh, so he knows what, and the, one of the first times was when he, uh, they were trying to rescue him.

Speaker: He got separated and they were trying to rescue him.

Speaker: So it wasn't that he disliked Darman for getting, uh, rescued.

Speaker: He just didn't want him to go through the survivor's guilt that he now struggles with, uh, on a daily basis.

Speaker: And he says, he tells me someone, someone told me there's this thing called survivor's guilt.

Speaker: I'm still trying to wrap my damn head around that.

Speaker: And then he says, and this is my favorite quote of the whole book so far.

Speaker: He says, he's talking about survivor's guilt and he said, they bred a lot of stuff out of us.

Speaker: Why not that?

Speaker: And that's, you know, like, that's great.

Speaker: It's, and it's so fucking true.

Speaker: It's like, for all of the shit that they are doing when they play with their genetics, they don't do anything to help them feel better after all this is done.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They they're having trouble dealing with this shit.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And the one other moment is Atten got shot in the chest.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And he's like, so, you know, Darman, who they're still trying to, you know.

Speaker: find, you know, is down a leg, basically.

Speaker: He has an ACL tear, some sort of tendon tear.

Speaker: And Atten now has, like, they have to do, like, field work on him just to make sure he didn't have, like, a collapsed lung.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, because it didn't break through his body or something, but, like, it's bad.

Speaker: It's a serious impact.

Speaker: Yeah, it's a massive bruise on his chest, so they're not doing well.

Speaker: They're not doing great, so...

Speaker: If I had to predict anything, that this feels like one of those, oh, they're all going to die stories.

Speaker: Oh, absolutely.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: It feels like they're setting us up for each one of them to get picked off one by one.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Without question.

Speaker: And I am going to be so bummed out if that happens because you want to talk about like getting to know your characters before you punish them.

Speaker: Travis is doing a wonderful job with that.

Speaker: Yes, yes.

Speaker: So finally, we cut to Hocan, and he finds the remains of said destroyed droid platoon.

Speaker: One of his kiss-ass sergeants runs up and tells him that they found something, and it's a pile of droid pieces that was a marker that they'd clearly left for Darman.

Speaker: However, Hocan interprets it as a trophy, as like them mocking him.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: So he is pissed.

Speaker: pissed and marvels over the idea of how much the clones resemble Jango Fett.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, and that is chapter seven.

Speaker: That's all we got for today, folks.

Speaker: So, Kevin, what are you thinking so far?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's, there's a lot of really good stuff in this book.

Speaker: Just really good war.

Speaker: And you can like look at this book and be like, yeah, this makes sense.

Speaker: Why?

Speaker: She, you know, she, I would be, I'm very interested in her Halo books.

Speaker: Oh, me too.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: Or Gears of War.

Speaker: There's a reason she does a lot of military science fiction.

Speaker: A lot of good military stuff.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And not just, not even just like...

Speaker: the stuff where it's like the specifics, the movements and all that.

Speaker: She does a lot of good work in terms of the humanity in it as well.

Speaker: So I think that's pretty cool.

Speaker: And also I think there's two times in the book so far where hard contact is actually defined.

Speaker: Yes, yes, I forgot to bring that up.

Speaker: That's the name of the book.

Speaker: The name of the book is Hard Contact, and Hogan mentions it to the doctor at one point.

Speaker: He's like something like, yeah, I don't think the mercenaries I've hired would survive hard contact.

Speaker: And then he defines it for her because he realizes that she wouldn't know it.

Speaker: And it's like that hard contact meaning an actual engagement with the enemy.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I think that's, yeah.

Speaker: I think that, yeah, that's terrific.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay, so.

Speaker: How are you feeling?

Speaker: I'm really enjoying it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I'm really, really enjoying it.

Speaker: I agree with you.

Speaker: This is actually, this is the first time that actually has made me excited about the prospect of maybe reading one of the Gears of War books.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Which has always kind of been on the shelf in terms of.

Speaker: Yeah, we've always had it floating out there as a choice.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But now that I know that this is the kind of fucking quality that she brings to the table, it actually makes you go, you know what?

Speaker: Could be fucking good.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I'm impressed.

Speaker: I like I've always enjoyed when we get into the military sci fi shit.

Speaker: It feels like military sci fi is where video game adaptations really take it seriously.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Really seriously, yeah.

Speaker: I mean, we even had like a, what was it, the last one, Fire Warrior, like as a middling game, and the adaptation is like, well, this adaptation is going to go fucking hard.

Speaker: Well, that's just it.

Speaker: The last two, they've both gone so fucking hard.

Speaker: This one, it's crazy.

Speaker: So I'm really impressed.

Speaker: I think...

Speaker: And I feel silly for this, but this is actually the first time I ever thought about how immoral what they're doing.

Speaker: That's what I wanted to.

Speaker: That's that.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Thank you for reminding me, because that's what I was about to bring up is is like it wasn't until.

Speaker: What's her name?

Speaker: Etienne or 18.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: senses the clone trooper, his presence in the force is that of a child.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because he is a child for all intents and purposes.

Speaker: And I was like, ew.

Speaker: Oh, wait a minute.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's an army of child soldiers.

Speaker: Yes, exactly.

Speaker: It's crazy.

Speaker: And I can't believe it took me that long to realize that.

Speaker: But this puts...

Speaker: It changes everything.

Speaker: And I never liked the Jedi anyway.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But it changes everything.

Speaker: And it just shows you just how immoral and fucked up this whole situation is.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I'm really impressed by that.

Speaker: That's pretty cool shit.

Speaker: Yeah, because like... And you can get into the whole... Of course, like... All right, well, it was the...

Speaker: There was a Jedi who had a vision of the future and that they would need a clone army.

Speaker: And that's why the clone army got started 10 years before the war actually happened.

Speaker: Like, there's a whole bunch of shit that goes into that.

Speaker: But still, the Jedi are totally cool with using a clone army of clone, just because they look like men, like he's 10.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He's a child.

Speaker: And they are people.

Speaker: They are people.

Speaker: And they're people.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And this is what they're bred for.

Speaker: They're literally bred for this.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's like, but then again, you think about it, how surprised can you be?

Speaker: The Jedi literally go into people's homes and steal their kids away.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like, this kid's got midichlorians.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Jedi are basically an analog for the Roman Catholic Church.

Speaker: Big time.

Speaker: Yeah, no.

Speaker: Fuck the Jedi.

Speaker: Fuck the church.

Speaker: Well, yeah, think about the Roman Catholic Church in like the, you know,

Speaker: from like 900 to 1500 or what have you, where it's like they had an undue, they like controlled countries and shit like that.

Speaker: Uh, you got popes that are just like, you know, bigger than any King.

Speaker: And it's like, it was like, Oh shit, the Jedi are, are basically a church like institution.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They're pretty much it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They're not great.

Speaker: They're not the heroes.

Speaker: Nope.

Speaker: They're just the church space cops, wizards.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And all Jedi are bastards.

Speaker: A-Jab.

Speaker: Yes, exactly.

Speaker: A-Jab.

Speaker: So, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, now, with all of that out of the way, Kevin, I have a single question to ask you.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: That is, what are you playing?

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: I...

Speaker: Did not expect you to ask me this question.

Speaker: I realize I'm putting you on the spot a little bit.

Speaker: So I have been playing a little ditty called Robocop Rogue City, and I talked about it last episode, and I'm getting pretty close to the end, I think.

Speaker: The time to beat says about 9 to 11 hours, and I put just about 8 1⁄2 into it, so I think I'm...

Speaker: I'm getting there.

Speaker: I'm closing in.

Speaker: It's a fun little game.

Speaker: You can shoot some people in the dick.

Speaker: Some of the juiciest headshots I've ever seen in my entire life.

Speaker: Such juicy headshots.

Speaker: It's ridiculous.

Speaker: Just blood everywhere.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: I actually have, like, you can actually get a power up on the... So there's these things when you're upgrading your pistol.

Speaker: There's these little boards with chips that you slide into them.

Speaker: And some of them, some of the boards have, like, an upgrade for more gore.

Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Speaker: How?

Speaker: Won't that shut your computer down after a certain point?

Speaker: And it just reminds me of the original Fallout games.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: There's a perk called Bloody Mess.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: And it did nothing.

Speaker: That's all it does.

Speaker: And it did nothing but make people die in the most violent way possible.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: And it's brilliant.

Speaker: I'm having a lot of fun with it.

Speaker: I'm almost towards the end.

Speaker: It's one of those games where I'm like, OK, well, I can skip most of the dialogue and just get to the question that they're asking me.

Speaker: Because it's like the story's fine.

Speaker: Actually, what's funny is towards the end, there's actually a really good horror.

Speaker: There's like a really good horror sequence.

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: Like three quarters of the way through the game.

Speaker: That's kind of been hinted out throughout the game.

Speaker: But other than that, yeah, I'm having a lot of fun with RoboCop Rouge City.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: The other thing I've been playing is I just started playing Fear and Hunger 2 Termina.

Speaker: Oh, Jesus Christ.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Because I love to do it.

Speaker: Because you hate yourself.

Speaker: It's actually, what's funny is I fired it up and I was like, all right, well, I'm going to start it.

Speaker: I'm going to play it on easy mode first.

Speaker: And easy mode is not easy in the Funger games.

Speaker: But it is a bit...

Speaker: Like I know next to nothing about fear and hunger too.

Speaker: Like I've seen super eyepatch wolf play it a little bit, but I don't like fear and hunger one.

Speaker: I know like a lot of the broad strokes of where things are, what I need to do, all that stuff.

Speaker: Fear and hunger too.

Speaker: I don't, I don't know where items are located, but like I was able to pretty much put like a solid three hours into the game and get to a save point.

Speaker: like a save point, like three hours in and then put another like hour into it before I died and got sent back to the save point.

Speaker: But I'm at a save point, like three hours in and I've done some stuff, you know, like, oh, okay.

Speaker: You know, I don't, it's not like as punishing.

Speaker: It feels like as the first one where like there is, it's a little bit,

Speaker: fine more finely tuned than the first one um i did have a bullshit and this one kind of has like a um masks to majora kind of thing right it doesn't it does it does actually the so um so was it majora's yeah moon name um

Speaker: So, okay.

Speaker: So in Majora's Mask, the festival is called Termina, I believe.

Speaker: Oh, okay, okay.

Speaker: This is not a coincidence.

Speaker: The moon of Termina appears in Majora's Mask and plays a massive... And it's not a coincidence that it's Termina, that's Fear and Hunger 2 Termina, because the moon is in its... Like, there's this moon presence, and it kind of looks like the moon from Majora's Mask.

Speaker: The difference is, basically what's going on is, as the days of the festival go on, people are becoming what's called moon-scorched.

Speaker: And they're becoming like mutated from this moon's like presence.

Speaker: It's and so you're you're finding villagers and they're like some of them are still like coherent and they're like, ah, it's like my skin's burning and itching, but I can't stop.

Speaker: And they're like ripping their own skin off.

Speaker: And others are like, have lost all semblance of sentience and are just running at you trying to kill you.

Speaker: There's this one character who is a doctor and I'm not playing as him, but I had him briefly as like a party member.

Speaker: And when you interact with a dead body, you get a list of options of things you can do with it.

Speaker: And when he's in your party, one of the options is medical examination.

Speaker: And basically, when he does the medical examination, he goes through, it's like, well, the skin seems to be falling off and underneath the muscles seem to be going...

Speaker: growing into this, like there's like a new skin like forming over the muscle.

Speaker: Like he gives this detailed synopsis of what's happening to the moon scorched people.

Speaker: um so that's that's interesting and each there's like there's a bunch of playable characters and over the course of you know time in the um game like as days pass more and more of those playable characters

Speaker: out in the city or whatever, they become moon scorched as well.

Speaker: And they become basically like mini bosses if you don't like save them or whatever.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Before they're before they're moon scorched.

Speaker: Um, so yeah, that's, that's kind of, that's, that's also a thing that I am playing.

Speaker: Um, and I think that's, that's it.

Speaker: Uh, I've been firing up world of horror on occasion.

Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker: Um, because the 1.0 came out.

Speaker: I need to get back into that.

Speaker: I was enjoying it.

Speaker: I just fell off that one.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, it's got its full release out, so, you know, might as well, it's a good time to do it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But yeah, Phil, what are you playing?

Speaker: Well, I actually, I'm here to say that I haven't played Marvel Snap in like almost a week.

Speaker: What?

Speaker: Yes, I have been playing Warcraft Rumble.

Speaker: How is that?

Speaker: It's pretty good.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Is it like a... Is it a snap-like?

Speaker: No, it's... It's... Hold on.

Speaker: Which one is it?

Speaker: It's... Yes.

Speaker: It's kind of like...

Speaker: Clash, what's the name of the game?

Speaker: The one where you have a tower on either side and you send people up the board.

Speaker: Oh, a tower defense type thing.

Speaker: Yeah, well, kind of.

Speaker: But you've got, you collect, instead of cards, like in Marvel Snap, you're collecting minis.

Speaker: That got my attention right off the bat.

Speaker: And some of them are proper characters from Warcraft.

Speaker: Some of them are types.

Speaker: And it's like the Clash of Clans games and stuff like that, except it's got a pretty robust single player.

Speaker: And you're upgrading the characters.

Speaker: There is a ton of...

Speaker: payable shit, which I'm not really all that interested in just yet, because I've only been playing for a week, but I gotta say, I'm enjoying it.

Speaker: You do hit kind of a part where it just becomes real tough as nails, and you're like, okay, if I'm not gonna spend money, I'm going to need to

Speaker: You know, really, it's going to take a while.

Speaker: And that's fine by me because I only play these games when I'm bored and I'm pooping or something like that.

Speaker: So fuck it.

Speaker: But it did pull me away from Marvel Snap for almost a week.

Speaker: So that's got to be worth something.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I've been enjoying that.

Speaker: I'm going to see how long, just to ride this out, see how long.

Speaker: Yeah, see how long it keeps your attention.

Speaker: The feeling sticks.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But I'd say the big game that I played this past week, though, was Cocoon.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Which is by, I believe, I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name right, Jeb Carlson, who made Limbo and Inside.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And Inside was one of my top 10 games of the year when it came out, and I also like Limbo quite a bit.

Speaker: And it is very similar to those games.

Speaker: It's that kind of adventure.

Speaker: This guy should teach a class on how to deliver narrative without...

Speaker: looking you in the eye and telling you the story.

Speaker: It's all picked up as you go.

Speaker: And you play this beetle, basically, this little space beetle, and you are traveling between dimensions and solving puzzles and that sort of thing.

Speaker: But these different dimensions can be collected as a sphere, basically.

Speaker: And every sphere has a different ability, that kind of thing.

Speaker: And you have to find the right ways to use these spheres and these dimensions to solve certain puzzles.

Speaker: It gets very obtuse.

Speaker: It might be Jep Carlson's best game.

Speaker: It might be the best game he's ever made.

Speaker: It also might be the most difficult.

Speaker: Because when you're playing inside, for example,

Speaker: the extent of the puzzles, they can be difficult, but they're not going to blow your mind apart.

Speaker: I've got to figure out how to get these mindless guys over here to turn this lever or whatever.

Speaker: And you'll get it.

Speaker: You'll get there eventually.

Speaker: The level of difficulty in these puzzles was such that I used a guide for about 50% of it.

Speaker: And I am proud of myself that that's all I used it for.

Speaker: Some of them are so traveling.

Speaker: It's like you've got to put the dimension within this dimension and put that dimension over here.

Speaker: And it's so difficult.

Speaker: But the aesthetic is gorgeous.

Speaker: The music is beautiful.

Speaker: It's got this kind of biomechanical.

Speaker: Did you ever play Thumper?

Speaker: Yes, yes.

Speaker: It's got thumper vibes, like not just the fact that you're playing like a shimmery beetle.

Speaker: It's got, yeah, it's like metal and organic, not biomechanical like H.R.

Speaker: Giger, but like this kind of...

Speaker: It's beautiful, and the colors are incredible.

Speaker: It tells this story that's very strange, and I'm not fully understanding it, but I loved it, and I was fully engaged.

Speaker: And it's the first of his games that have boss fights.

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: And they're very similar to, was it Death's Door?

Speaker: With the raven?

Speaker: Yes, yes.

Speaker: Very similar.

Speaker: The boss fights put me in the mind of Death's Door.

Speaker: And like his other games, literally the only button is, you've got like the A button.

Speaker: Everything is done with the one button and the directional pad.

Speaker: And the level of versatility...

Speaker: that he is able to get out of that single button is nothing short of genius.

Speaker: This is not, and I'm put in this funny position where this is not my favorite of his games, but it is unequivocally the best of his games.

Speaker: It is a work of art.

Speaker: It's amazing.

Speaker: That's awesome.

Speaker: I'll check it out.

Speaker: It's absolutely worth checking out.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: This guy, he is...

Speaker: Way up there in terms of game designers that from here on out, anytime I hear his name and attach to a project, I'm going to, I'm in.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because he knows how to get atmosphere right.

Speaker: And that's such a big thing for me.

Speaker: Yeah, because for me, that guy is like Lucas Pope.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: Yes, exactly.

Speaker: Like, he's up there with Lucas Pope for me.

Speaker: It's like, if I hear Lucas Pope is releasing a game, I'm like, oh, I'm in.

Speaker: That's, it's a done deal.

Speaker: You don't have to tell me about it.

Speaker: I'm buying it.

Speaker: No, I don't care.

Speaker: Or the guy who wrote, the guy who did, it was one of our top games last year.

Speaker: It was a card game, the really creepy one.

Speaker: Oh, oh, oh, Inscription.

Speaker: What's his name?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's a difficult name, if I recall incorrectly.

Speaker: Daniel Mullins.

Speaker: No, that's not difficult at all.

Speaker: But yeah, same deal.

Speaker: It's like Daniel Mullins, the moment I remember who he is, apparently, I will jump on.

Speaker: You don't even need to ask.

Speaker: I will play his games.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Because there's just that level of consistency.

Speaker: And this is the third of his games that I've played, and it just kind of sealed that deal for me.

Speaker: Absolute work of art.

Speaker: Again, I think I'd play inside again over it just because of the level of difficulty and everything.

Speaker: But I can also look at it objectively enough to be like, oh, no, but this is a better game.

Speaker: This is just a better designed game.

Speaker: It's definitely worth a look.

Speaker: But that's me.

Speaker: That's what I've been playing.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Well, that'll do it for this episode, everybody.

Speaker: A beefy episode to kick off.

Speaker: Beefy episode.

Speaker: Beefy side of beef.

Speaker: Wiggle, aren't you lucky?

Speaker: Aren't you lucky?

Speaker: You all got to listen to us for almost two hours.

Speaker: Almost two hours?

Speaker: Talking about Star War.

Speaker: A Star War.

Speaker: How did you not?

Speaker: Of course this was going to happen.

Speaker: Like either of us are surprised.

Speaker: either of us are surprised uh if you'd like to hear us and pay us you can go to patreon.com slash pixelit pod because that is where you can pay us your money we got three tiers one dollar five dollars and ten dollars and uh speaking of ten dollars if you are in

Speaker: the $10 tier, you get a little special shout-out at the end of the episode.

Speaker: So today, right now, we're going to shout-out the person that we shout-out every episode.

Speaker: You know who it is.

Speaker: It's Friendly Friends.

Speaker: Friendly Friends.

Speaker: Thank you for being a friendly friend, Friendly Friends.

Speaker: So...

Speaker: I know one of you out there is thinking, how could I join Friendly Friends?

Speaker: You know?

Speaker: And it's simple.

Speaker: Just you get an extra $10 burning a hole in your pocket every month.

Speaker: go on over to patreon.com slash pixelitpod.

Speaker: Or if that's too many slashes, just put in pixelitpod.com into your browser and it'll take you there as well.

Speaker: How easy is that?

Speaker: I'm going to do it right now.

Speaker: Do it right now.

Speaker: I'm going to do it right now.

Speaker: Phil's going to do it right now.

Speaker: While Phil's doing that, just to prove how easy it is and how easy was that, Phil?

Speaker: I'm there.

Speaker: I'm done.

Speaker: You're there.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So simple.

Speaker: You know what is so simple?

Speaker: Following us on social media, on Twitter, on Instagram, on Blue Sky, on all the sites, at PixelitPod.

Speaker: Go there.

Speaker: You'll love it.

Speaker: You love us.

Speaker: You can find us.

Speaker: We have a Discord server that's linked in the show notes on every episode.

Speaker: Also, I haven't called for this in a while because you folks have been rocking it.

Speaker: But if you can, rate us five stars.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: I have not asked in a while, but you guys, y'all have been just crushing it with the rating of five stars.

Speaker: But I'm just throwing it out there as a friendly reminder.

Speaker: If you haven't, you're listening on iTunes or you're listening on Spotify or you're listening on some other platform that allows for a rating.

Speaker: Go ahead.

Speaker: Rate us five stars.

Speaker: Leave a lovely comment.

Speaker: And that would be awesome.

Speaker: Thank you so much, everybody, for listening tonight.

Speaker: Have a good night, everyone.

Speaker: Good night.

Star Wars: Republic Commando: Hard Contact - Part 1

Recommended