0:00

On the far northeastern reach

0:02

of counterweight central sprawl, there

0:05

rests an outlier, a progenitor,

0:08

a sign of what was and

0:10

what is to come. It

0:13

was built long before the

0:15

populace of the planet was

0:17

locked away inside of climate-controlled

0:19

domes, a place where

0:21

still mighty apostolos hosted

0:23

diplomatic visitors from their

0:25

then-new rivals, the peoples

0:27

conglomerate of Orion and

0:30

the autonomous diaspora, a

0:32

long, clear-ceilinged, high-security habitat meant

0:35

to create the perfect conditions

0:37

for statecraft, to show off

0:40

the strength and brilliance of

0:42

apostolos, and to protect its inhabitants

0:45

not from the chemical storms of

0:47

modern counterweight, but from the seasonal

0:49

hurricanes from what was then still

0:52

the nearby ocean. It

0:54

was called the provisional diplomatic

0:57

cylinder. Today,

1:00

it's just called the sill. And

1:03

just as it was before the war,

1:05

today the sill is a strange cousin

1:07

to the rest of the planet's cities.

1:10

It is, just as the name

1:13

suggests, a low-lying cylinder and

1:15

not a dome, and unlike the

1:17

other habitats, its roof is perfectly

1:20

clear, letting its residents see the

1:22

scarred skies, the stars, and of

1:24

course the blue and green miracle

1:27

world of weight. By

1:29

law, the sill is administered by

1:31

the consolidated counterweight technocracy, but

1:33

day-to-day matters are actually run

1:35

by the Ithacaos family, an

1:38

old-fashioned mob crew, and the

1:40

only remaining apostolosians in real

1:42

power on the planet. The

1:44

family operates a casino, the

1:46

cerulean, out of what was

1:49

once being built as a

1:51

general assembly complex for a

1:53

hypothetically unified golden branch government.

1:56

But unification never came. There

1:59

is only an uneasy peace,

2:02

an ignored occupation, and

2:05

the sense that something wrong is

2:07

just below us, waiting

2:11

to emerge. Welcome

2:23

to Friends of the Table, an actual play

2:25

podcast focused on critical role-building, smart characterization, and

2:27

fun interaction between good friends. I am your

2:30

host, Austin Walker. Joining me today,

2:32

Keith Carberry. Hi,

2:34

my name is Keith Carberry. You can find me

2:36

on Twitter at Keith J. Carberry. You can find

2:38

the Let's Plays that I do at youtube.com/run button.

2:41

Allie Acampora. Hi, my

2:44

name is Allie. You can

2:46

find me, honestly, over at

2:48

friendsatthetable.cash. I'm going to use

2:50

this plug to say that I ran

2:52

a session of Grandpa's Farm over there.

2:54

You did. It was like a little

2:56

mini campaign. I've been

2:58

hosting a monthly show called Gathering Information,

3:01

where I interview the cast

3:03

of Friends of the Table about Friends of the Table.

3:05

It's a banger. Which is great. Yeah, I'm

3:07

one of that cast. I remember that. So yeah,

3:09

go support us. Go listen. Yeah, it's

3:11

really good. I

3:14

am also joining us, Art Martinez-Tebl. Hey, I'm Art Martinez-Tebl. I'm a

3:16

writer. I'm a writer. I'm a

3:18

writer. I'm a writer. I'm a writer.

3:20

I'm a writer. I'm a writer. I'm a

3:23

writer. Hey, you

3:26

can find work that I've done

3:28

recently at FriendsTheTable.shop. By

3:32

the time you're hearing this, who knows how long

3:34

that's been on sale. But it's still exciting. The

3:36

counterweight shirt is back after

3:39

years, years in the

3:42

wilderness. Yeah, we lost it for a

3:44

while. It disappeared. Yeah. Yeah.

3:47

And we found it again, which is good.

3:49

The graphics from the partisan hoodie are back

3:51

in a slightly different form. And

3:54

a Twilight Mirage shirt that I think is just great.

3:57

And also the rest of the stuff. The beanie, the stickers.

4:00

good yeah love it

4:02

and Jack Dekeet hi

4:04

I'm Jack you can find me on

4:07

co-host at JDQ and you

4:09

can buy any of the music featured on

4:11

the show at not quite real dot bandcamp

4:13

dot-com if I

4:15

could put another plug out for gathering information every

4:18

time I've been on one of those I

4:21

leave it going I should have said less

4:23

about that I know it's a good show

4:26

I see I see okay I will not learn my

4:31

lesson right no I'm

4:33

hearing such more out of

4:35

Keith I'm hearing I'm hearing

4:41

you're gonna get more out of Keith yeah I just don't

4:43

shut up get him to do the thing

4:47

where he reads out his credit

4:49

card number no finally going to

4:51

complete it no it

4:54

makes everybody so anxious

4:56

it me included except Keith and I always

4:58

talk a

5:05

big game about loving that bit

5:07

when it is not happening because as soon as

5:09

it starts happening I feel like I'm being stabbed

5:11

by daggers and if I

5:14

can you know if I can

5:16

take credit for something never have

5:18

my identity stolen never happened yeah

5:21

still scary today life lock

5:24

guy himself oh wait what

5:26

was that about life lock the

5:29

life lock guy was like I'm so confident

5:31

in life locks and I put our my

5:33

security number on this truck I remember that

5:35

I'm like drove it around New York or

5:37

whatever and it's like a media yeah why

5:39

of course of course that's what happened that's

5:42

that's what happens yeah

5:44

the real thing that the real life like

5:46

product is it's

5:49

insurance they'll pay for the shit that happens

5:51

oh I see so it was it was

5:53

an insurance scam right he gave you a

5:55

benefit away nobody stole it from

5:57

them I would like to make it clear I

6:00

am NOT committing insurance fraud. I

6:02

like that. I'm

6:06

gonna say I've never had to say that.

6:08

Today... I'm gonna start

6:11

putting all my enemies in a position to

6:13

have to decline... Say that they're not committing

6:15

fraud. Today

6:17

we are playing Mecnoir, which is

6:20

a hack of a game called

6:22

Tecnoir, both of which are by

6:24

Jeremy Keller. We

6:26

played this game years ago. A

6:29

little show called Counterweight, at

6:31

least for the first nine episodes. And

6:35

today we are... You're

6:37

cashing in the money in the bank. You're cashing in

6:39

a thing. You the listener are cashing in a

6:42

thing that you earned during our fundraiser

6:45

for the National Network of Abortion Funds

6:47

in 2022. We

6:50

are finally letting you have the

6:53

reward. You've been very patient. And

6:56

so we are doing a Chime prequel. Is

6:59

that what we sold? Is that how it was sold out? Yep. I

7:02

think we sold specifically as the

7:04

Chime's first mission. I

7:07

love it. Fantastic. I have the

7:09

reason for why it is now, thanks

7:11

to this wonderful game Tecnoir, which if

7:13

you haven't listened to Counterweight, I

7:15

really think you should probably start there. That's...

7:21

Yeah, this isn't... I know people love

7:23

to listen to things in chronological order. Release

7:26

order is always the best order to listen to anything.

7:30

No, I'm the opposite of that. No, no,

7:32

you love it when people... You love watching

7:34

the Star Wars movie straight through. You love

7:37

when people reorder the

7:39

Clone Wars cartoon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can

7:41

only get Star Wars examples. Yeah,

7:44

yeah, yeah, yeah. History, I always read

7:46

from the beginning forward. You know?

7:48

Can I just say something? Yeah.

7:50

Of course. You haven't

7:53

listened to Counterweight. Thank you for listening to this and

7:55

welcome. That's all there is to say. No,

7:58

thank you so much. You're

8:00

being stupid. You're being stupid. Welcome

8:04

to these characters, welcome to the system.

8:06

Oh, now you can tell me, here's the thing, Ally.

8:08

You just set yourself up. Now

8:10

you have to play like this is the

8:12

first time anyone's ever heard Aria Joy. Because

8:17

I was getting you... Aria's the

8:19

famous one. Spoilers, if this is

8:21

your first time. That's

8:23

fair. Again, I think you're weird. Thank

8:28

you for supporting... No, no, no. We

8:31

played this game, TeknoR, for

8:33

the first nine episodes or so of

8:36

Counterweight. And we switched to a game called

8:38

The Sprawl by Hamish Cameron.

8:40

We really loved both of these games.

8:42

I think we were really... We really

8:44

stumbled over certain parts of TeknoR, but

8:46

I never stopped loving it and have

8:48

in fact run it since then, once

8:50

or twice here or there. I

8:53

really love this game and I think that we are just better.

8:57

And yeah, I was too green. Maybe

8:59

we are going to suck at this game

9:01

again. What if we

9:03

suck in... You know, you would hope

9:06

that after essentially a decade, we would

9:08

suck in new ways. But

9:10

I think it would be especially funny if

9:13

we stumble in exactly the same ways we

9:15

stumbled before. No learning, no learning. No learning.

9:18

Despite currently playing a game that has a very similar

9:20

thing to the thing that we stumbled over and we're

9:22

doing okay with it this year. Not 50% of us.

9:25

That's true. Yeah, I guess that's true. It

9:27

would be gutting to me if we

9:29

failed in the exact same way. Well,

9:32

let's find out. I would

9:34

really take that personally. It would

9:36

be devastating to me. It's

9:40

funny to think it personally, like not just

9:42

seriously, but also like... Yeah. You'd

9:46

be upset at... It's hard to like learn... Me?

9:48

Who were you personally mad at? Also

9:52

me. Okay, okay. Yeah,

9:55

I gotcha. We are our own

9:57

worst enemies, Austin. Oh, I've heard this before.

10:00

Yeah. So,

10:03

before we jump into it, can we get

10:05

a high level recap of who you are

10:08

playing as? This

10:10

mini arc, this arc, for

10:13

people who maybe don't remember, or for

10:15

new listeners who decided to stick around?

10:18

In which case, welcome. You

10:21

avoided my devious

10:23

attempt to snare you with

10:25

listening to 40 different

10:28

episodes, or you're back, welcome

10:30

back. Welcome back. Yeah. Welcome

10:33

back. If you're back, welcome back. Welcome back, how was the last

10:35

three months of your life? I hope

10:37

you had a nice winter. How's

10:41

the family? Who's

10:43

wants to start with who they're playing?

10:45

Where are the character sheets? Under the

10:48

sheets. Someone's there. There's

10:50

more new characters again. I

10:53

had to make my avatar right. I

10:55

can keep Ryan in his chat. Okay, but

10:57

why don't you... When I click, it

10:59

says Edit Agrunandob. Allie,

11:02

why didn't you copy over the stuff from

11:04

your sheet? I can't see your sheets.

11:06

Y'all can't see your sheets because you didn't join this until today.

11:09

We already have sheets. Let me just

11:11

give you access. I think I'm playing

11:13

Agrunandob. I think I'm playing Agrunandob. Oh,

11:15

keep me. Yeah,

11:17

keep sending a message. Allie,

11:20

I want to make all

11:22

of these visible by everybody, so that everybody

11:24

can see. Thank you. I noticed there were

11:27

two Aryas in there. Wait,

11:29

you did see an Arya before. No, no, no, because when

11:31

I was like, I think I fucked up Roll20

11:33

because there's no three Arya Joys in

11:35

the like... Oh my gosh. It dropped

11:37

out? Yeah,

11:40

a couple of days ago, Keith messaged our

11:42

group chat saying, I accidentally added two character

11:44

sheets to my page, period. Shouldn't

11:47

be a problem, but also I don't see

11:49

a way to delete them. New message, I'll

11:51

bow tie Pydons and

11:53

Gappraxo Lamo. Yeah. I

11:56

accidentally did make TU, you sick

11:58

of Kiphi. Can be

12:01

can y'all now see? Yeah,

12:03

I can see make a trick there. Yeah,

12:05

I could also only see a go trick

12:07

and the character I'm playing today a grew

12:09

Nana There's

12:20

a button in the role 20 that sort of looks like if you

12:22

press it it will like Unshrink everyone's

12:25

name. Uh-huh. Just plus character and

12:27

if you press it it auto

12:29

generates a character Name,

12:32

even if you press cancel it will not

12:34

there there. It's they will never yeah,

12:36

uh-huh I can see everybody's

12:38

character. I can see Cass, Odie,

12:41

Arya Joy brackets precious bell and

12:43

Mako trick my character

12:45

sheet for Odie Shows

12:47

that I have 1500 hum Already

12:50

use me. I can't see our where do

12:52

you where you looking at? I also can't

12:54

see Aria. Yeah, what? Your

13:00

Jack yeah, you are

13:02

not in the right game There's

13:07

a different yeah, there's a different one you're not a

13:09

different one that you are not Thank

13:13

you for importing these uh-huh You

13:17

remade a grew Nana up I Realize

13:20

he was still up on the face. I just

13:22

saved you gotcha. Uh-huh. All right, everyone's been everyone

13:24

should be able to see everybody's character sheets so

13:28

can we Can

13:31

we get introduced to your characters or reintroduced really quick

13:33

part of the reason why I'm like, hey Go

13:36

listen to the other stuff first is because like We

13:39

might spoil it right? I'm gonna

13:41

not not spoil counterweight During

13:44

this, you know, yeah,

13:46

does that make sense? So like, you know

13:49

Potentially, yeah, it's worth going to listen to that

13:51

stuff so that you don't know how like how

13:53

this show ends Because we hit some weirdly sure

13:57

Right. We are right. We know

14:00

what's going to happen. We know.

14:02

We know. But the characters don't.

14:04

But if some like particularly cool

14:06

thing happens, you

14:08

know. The table's oldest, dearest

14:10

friend, dramatic irony. Exactly. Make

14:12

its appearance. Exactly. Um, I

14:14

will begin by saying that

14:16

in Counterweight we play the

14:19

chime. A team of four

14:21

plus some friends

14:26

sort of mercenaries slash odd job

14:29

crew in

14:31

on the planet of counterweight in

14:35

Largely in the city called Centralia, which is

14:37

kind of like a large city in a

14:39

dome but we

14:41

head out across counterweight to complete

14:44

missions solve objectives find missing

14:46

people and make a buck

14:48

in order to repair our I

14:52

don't know if we have it yet. We probably do we'll

14:54

find out I suppose a bucket

14:57

of bolts ship the kingdom come I

15:00

am playing automated dynamics Short

15:04

to or D who has they

15:06

them pronouns or D is the pilot of

15:08

the kingdom come they are a former

15:13

Parking robot they parked cars

15:16

as part of a unit

15:18

of automated dynamics Robots

15:21

they were not sent in as a

15:23

unit. They just you showed up you

15:26

swiped your card the robot

15:28

got into your car and parked it in

15:30

the garage and then I have to imagine

15:33

they did something like they sat motionless in

15:35

the car Until it was

15:37

time for your car to come

15:39

back at which point they just drove the car

15:41

back for reasons so many It is worldwide

15:43

as I say it it would require so many

15:46

robots, but also I don't know I feel like

15:49

There is something so establishing this show

15:51

that robots are expensive. Yeah,

15:53

that's true. That's true Maybe there's

15:56

such for people If

15:59

you didn't leave I just

16:01

ruined a joke for you. Yeah, uh-huh. The

16:03

counterpoint answer is probably

16:05

that there is some algorithm that determines

16:07

whether it is more efficient for the

16:10

robot to remain in the vehicle or

16:12

get out and park another vehicle. With

16:14

the idea being that the time spent from

16:17

the robot walking from the charging station to

16:19

the vehicle could be wasted time when the

16:21

car could move more easily. Anyway, for reasons-

16:23

God, in my lifetime I hope that that

16:25

algorithm gets put to use for

16:29

human parking valets.

16:32

My job. It's like, go just chill in the

16:34

car. Yeah, go chill somewhere. No, it's in

16:36

that hot car for a few hours. Yeah. It's

16:39

not a good way to come back. Maybe not

16:41

the car. I don't know. Um, for reasons unknown

16:44

and mysterious, uh, Audi

16:46

recently found themselves fully

16:48

sentient. They gained consciousness

16:50

midway through parking a car, uh,

16:53

and decided that's quite enough of

16:55

that. Thank you. Uh, and signed

16:57

on, uh, with, uh,

16:59

various outfits, uh, to act

17:02

as a pilot or act as muscle or

17:04

again a sort of odd jobs person. They

17:07

are probably even

17:09

at this point close friends with someone

17:11

called Scene Six Heart who is a

17:14

robotics specialist who they look to for

17:16

help. And they also, uh,

17:18

had a working relationship with a man

17:20

called Orth Godlove who is a kind

17:23

of city bureaucrat. And

17:26

that's Audi. Sure. Who's

17:28

up? I guess since I assumed this would

17:30

be really easy to go over, I can

17:32

say that I am playing Arya Joy. Arya's

17:35

pronouns are, um, she-her. Um,

17:39

Arya was

17:42

once, um, famously, uh,

17:44

um, shorthand. And

17:47

I ended to, um, what

17:50

if Han Solo used to play

17:52

Beyonce? Um, but to

17:54

sort of stretch that, uh, explanation out

17:56

a little bit, what if

17:58

you went to Disneyland

18:00

and there was a woman there who

18:03

did live music performances

18:06

to promote war

18:08

propaganda with a dancing war

18:10

machine behind her. And she

18:13

was really famous and that Disneyland

18:15

was an entire planet. So

18:18

she was like, not that famous, you know, and then

18:24

she like through like

18:27

not getting her contract renewed or just, you know,

18:29

I don't know, lost

18:31

her job. And then,

18:35

you know, was just out on the streets and

18:37

making money, doing jobs for

18:40

people. And

18:44

that's very cool. There's no more Aria

18:46

Joy songs, right? Ali, Aria Joy is

18:48

no longer performing or? Well,

18:50

it's really interesting talking about kind

18:52

of way in 2023 with some of the questions of

18:57

contracting or AI

19:00

or visual rights or after

19:02

the tragic downfall of Luna.

19:05

So for Aria, there

19:08

is a look like

19:10

the spoilers for kind of weird sort

19:13

of the the the friction

19:16

of what had happened to her was that she

19:18

like changed her government

19:21

name because of this contract. So

19:24

Aria Joy is her legal

19:26

name, but also something that's

19:28

Oricon. What was that

19:30

called? Oricon. And then

19:32

what was the name of the world? Joy

19:35

Park. Yeah, Joy Park. Joy

19:37

Park. Earth Home Joy Park. Earth

19:40

Home Joy Park. Yes. Like

19:42

Space Jam, the whole planet's the park. That's

19:44

correct. They own

19:47

her name and her likeness and her

19:49

voice. So music is

19:51

still being produced by that

19:54

performer. She is not the

19:57

one performing it. did

20:00

this is the weird

20:03

thing cuz now I'm remembering that at the

20:05

beginning of counterweight and she already had she

20:07

like got away with her back she

20:10

zoomably has it now yeah

20:12

I'm not changing anything that you had like

20:14

we're not I'm not taking things away from

20:16

when you made your characters right sure sure

20:18

um would you please the kingdom come for

20:21

your thing audi yeah so she

20:23

was she was at least able to smoke smuggle that

20:25

off of the the park maybe they had it just

20:28

in a warehouse somewhere because they had replaced it and

20:30

she got rid of it and

20:32

then her relationships were she also

20:34

had a relationship with

20:36

seeing six heart and

20:39

also had a relationship with

20:41

Jamil Quartz noble who

20:44

is a local journalist yep

20:49

correct god the aria stuff

20:51

you ever you ever come up with a science

20:53

fiction horror and then it happened less

20:56

than ten years budget that stuff in

20:58

counterweight that's like while self-driving

21:01

coughing we invent NFTs I do

21:05

want a wild one I think I

21:07

I do want to just look at

21:09

some some counterweight

21:11

and partisan

21:14

palisade rhyming with the person getting paid by the

21:16

military industrial complex and then they stopped getting paid

21:19

they're like fuck the military yeah we can talk

21:21

about Mako Mako trig was

21:23

a sort of what do you an indentured

21:42

student at the

21:44

September Institute who

21:46

specialized in a

21:48

kind of magic

21:54

hacking called

21:57

fogging and was

21:59

able to escape this

22:01

school to become

22:05

a a

22:08

petty to medium criminal slash

22:14

mercenary I guess yeah you do

22:17

some crime stuff for sure yeah

22:20

kind of uh you know you're shadow

22:22

runners that's the thing that's happening here

22:24

right you're you're skirting the

22:26

line between mercenaries and criminals sometimes

22:28

a mercenaries a criminal you know

22:30

yeah you're not a criminal unless you get caught

22:32

that's what my understanding sure

22:34

yeah or unless you

22:36

take seriously the people who are telling you that

22:39

way right right yes

22:42

and very easy for make

22:44

oh to not take someone seriously let's

22:49

see sir anything

22:51

else about make oh that I

22:53

remember blue

22:56

skin lightly blue skin I think that we make a head

22:58

we forgot by the end of it all sharp

23:01

teeth wore

23:07

a slew of out the most outfits I've

23:09

ever had a character wear but I think

23:16

mostly was wearing like

23:20

jeans and like a

23:22

t-shirt and a flannel that's

23:25

all you go back that's not it's not

23:27

true that's not true no

23:30

fucking make always your most nips out

23:32

carry yeah are well

23:34

anytime anytime I describe something else

23:36

that I was wearing you you

23:39

talk about picture make a flannel

23:41

is what you've talked about before

23:43

I think I was wearing a

23:45

translucent blue sort of almost like

23:53

vinyl crop top well

23:55

this is at a party that's a different

23:57

situation yeah that wasn't a party sure But

24:00

it's like in Keith's defense the like most

24:03

popular Mako Like

24:05

art that you see is usually

24:08

Mako with the hoverboard. Yeah, we

24:10

don't have that yet right Um

24:14

with some sort of like t-shirt and

24:17

like a and like an open button

24:19

down Sure, would you like

24:21

a bad hat? Yeah,

24:23

but Mako Trig ran so that

24:25

Grand Magnificent could run Wait

24:28

until he passed out. I see. Okay.

24:30

Yeah. Yeah, can I say? Keith

24:35

oh, I was thinking I was thinking in

24:37

my head also I have like future flannel

24:39

imagine flannel but for the future Yeah, Ally

24:41

softly. Okay, Ally and Jack laugh Austin. I

24:44

am okay Yep, Jack says it's the

24:46

size of a car Austin as I could see why your

24:48

laser Ted's best friend out laughs Keith

24:51

laughing tomorrow. This is I'm

24:53

wearing tomorrow's flannel. Uh-huh. There's

24:55

no other laughing

25:01

You then put it on someone else Point

25:03

is also this is a scene in which

25:05

you were being healed you were someone's

25:07

ripping the flannel off of

25:09

you so that they can turn it into

25:12

a To

25:14

a bandage. Yeah, yeah, uh-huh. And

25:16

you just say outright like a fan art

25:18

Well, or a fan will figure out what

25:20

what it looks like So

25:23

and then I want to give you

25:25

credit for something really quick. Yeah, because

25:27

two episodes after this I

25:31

ask what you're wearing and you

25:33

say Jean shorts a

25:35

yellow t-shirt and then a pink and gray

25:38

flannel with one sleeve rolled up and the

25:40

other just ripped off I'm

25:44

guessing you remembered that

25:46

it was ripped off to bandage you Probably

25:49

probably almost for sure what it had to

25:51

be. Mm-hmm. That's great. Yeah, that's

25:53

great I give a color to it took it

25:55

only took me a couple sessions Come

25:58

up with it to pink and gray Yeah,

26:00

and yellow, it was yellow, right?

26:02

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And

26:05

then, yeah, and then the word flannel then

26:07

appears a bunch with, a

26:09

couple times, I guess, with, uh, with

26:12

Grand Magnificent. So, there is a three

26:14

line there. Uh,

26:16

Art, speaking of your characters. Yeah.

26:19

Talk to me about your character. This is one

26:21

of them. Mm-hmm. He doesn't say. Flannel?

26:23

He doesn't say. Yeah. This

26:26

is maybe the least flannel. Oh,

26:28

yeah. Character I've ever played. Is that true? I

26:34

think it's, I think it's

26:36

a, it's a crapshoot for me between this one and Duval. It's

26:38

hard for me to imagine Duval and flannel.

26:41

Mm. But that world is more flannel, so.

26:44

Yeah. Fair enough.

26:47

I've. But, I think you're right.

26:49

Leave it to the audience. I think that you're

26:51

right. The audience can make a flannel axes

26:53

and plot all the characters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They'll

26:55

have a great time doing it. I

26:58

don't know what the other axis is on that. I don't know

27:00

what the other. How much does flannel even exist here? They'll

27:03

call it. Versus how like, where the flannel.

27:05

Flannel, right? They'll figure out

27:07

everyone's flannel proclivities for the entire

27:09

run of the show, everyone. Yeah.

27:14

Um, flannel-rue-ary. That's

27:16

good. Oh, my God. Talk to me

27:18

about Cass. Cassander

27:20

Tameus Berenice is the non-inheriting scion

27:22

of the Royal House Pelagios. Cass's

27:27

pronouns are most simply they

27:29

them. It was more

27:31

complicated back then and we communicated poorly.

27:33

So for the purposes of this, it's

27:36

they them. Cass

27:39

is, like I

27:41

said, a non-inheriting scion of

27:44

a fish people empire. Back

27:47

then, these weren't fish people. I was

27:50

really explicit about how not fish people they

27:52

were. Yeah, they're fish people now, though. And

27:54

I lost. Yeah. So now they're

27:56

fish people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um,

27:59

there was a war. for a

28:01

minute it looked like Cass was going to

28:03

be Emperor and then

28:06

then they were not

28:08

yeah and and

28:10

now they're hanging out on counterweight

28:12

sort of half and hiding half

28:14

being a mercenary yeah I

28:17

think importantly we always kind of set

28:20

Cass is like the

28:23

not the not the

28:25

leader but the most

28:27

like world not world

28:29

weary even but most worldly

28:31

worldly or most experienced had

28:33

fought in a war I

28:35

think importantly right yeah I

28:38

think no one else fought in the golden

28:40

branch can I ask a clarifying question about

28:42

the fish thing yeah yeah

28:44

my memory of it was that

28:46

it was basically like our

28:50

people assert that they

28:52

are Atlanteans uh-huh I

28:55

think we were pretty explicit in counterweight that

28:58

it was a lie my memory was that

29:00

they that is that no one knew it

29:03

is a lie it is a lie

29:05

yeah okay but they're Atlanteans

29:07

but they could still be fish people

29:09

without being literally Atlanteans yeah

29:12

I thought they are like maybe they're alien

29:14

saying that they're from earth for clout

29:16

I mean we know exactly where they

29:18

came from at this point at the

29:20

end of counterweight it is clear where

29:22

they come from they are

29:24

not from Atlantis they are

29:26

descended from humans but they are also

29:28

fish people which is to say some

29:30

other shit allegedly okay in

29:33

the country in brines the

29:38

only reason I made a tender

29:42

a catgirl was because of a

29:45

counterweight planet that Jackie is from

29:47

correct where people were doing like

29:49

hyper human engineering yeah it was

29:51

like other long enough timeline if

29:53

people did this cackles would exist

29:55

which is oh I thought you were just

29:57

doing cat beats fish What?

30:00

What? What? What? What? Cat?

30:02

Cat? Cat? Cat. Cat. Cat.

30:05

Cat. I don't know what that means. You

30:07

know? You're just one of them. It's tomorrow's

30:09

rock, paper, scissors. Oh. Yeah. Well. What's

30:12

the third one? What beats cat? Dog. Dog.

30:14

Dog. Dog beats cat. Fish beats dog. Fish beats dog. Fish beats

30:16

dog. And it doesn't make sense, but it also doesn't make sense

30:19

that paper beats rock. You know what I mean? No.

30:21

Paper covers rock. It actually works better than

30:23

it doesn't work. I thought fish covers dog.

30:25

Fish covers dog. I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

30:30

Well, a fish would lure the dog into the

30:32

sea where it is weaker than the fish. Right,

30:34

because dogs are mentally weak. They're like curious. Yeah.

30:36

Yeah. And a curious is a dog, is what

30:39

I'm saying. If you go on TikTok and put like dogs and

30:41

fish, I think you'll see fish get in the upper hand most

30:43

of the time. Yeah, that's probably true. Anyway.

30:48

Brian has guilt because of a long

30:50

timeline of... By the

30:52

time we got to Twilight Mirage, they were fish people. Yeah. We, we

30:54

get, you know, I think even by the time we finished Counterweight, I

30:57

had already made that call. To be fair. The,

30:59

the, the Apostolicians have a lot

31:01

of nautical

31:03

imagery associated with them, and oceanic

31:06

imagery. They have ships that have

31:08

big sails. They have lots of

31:10

like Grecian sort of nautical aesthetics.

31:14

Yeah. It's in there. As we'll see

31:17

today. Oh, God. Because today

31:19

we are going back to Counterweight and

31:22

to a new part of it. You

31:25

want to jump into it? What's up? Can

31:27

we talk about what Counterweight is for a

31:29

second and just the sort of things that

31:31

it holds in society? Yeah, absolutely. Counterweight

31:34

is the point

31:36

where, where the sort of climax

31:39

of the Golden War happened. A

31:41

war between on one side, the

31:43

expanding Apostolician Empire, and on the

31:45

other side, a pair of rival

31:47

empires. The People's Conglomerate of Orion,

31:49

aka Oricon or the Orion Conglomerate.

31:51

And on the other side, the

31:53

Autonomous Diaspora, which by the end

31:55

of the show, we often also

31:57

called the Automated Diaspora a lot.

32:00

was the autonomous diaspora. Orrecon

32:03

was once a kind of

32:05

workers revolutionary state and

32:08

has long since changed into

32:11

being a kind of

32:14

neoliberal post-fortist nightmare capitalist

32:17

hellscape. And

32:19

the automated diaspora became

32:22

a sort of, you

32:25

know, algorithmically and,

32:30

God, it's wild to think about it now,

32:32

but like a sort of a democracy

32:35

built on constant

32:37

digital interaction. A

32:41

sort of like, what if everyone's

32:43

favorite website was like

32:45

a version of Twitter where all you

32:47

did was vote, was the

32:49

short version of the pitch. And

32:51

is effectively led by a type

32:53

of being called a divine, which

32:58

are algorithmic beings often

33:00

put into giant robotic bodies,

33:02

many of which looked like

33:05

humans, but not all of them. And

33:07

these divines are meant

33:09

to represent, important

33:12

qualities in the world, things that we

33:15

believe in, like

33:18

righteousness or grace, or

33:21

determination, or detachment,

33:24

right? This kind of broad

33:26

collection of virtues or

33:29

emotional attributes that represent

33:32

the things that make up the people in

33:34

the world. You know, they're not always as

33:37

simple as virtues, you know, but they

33:39

are a sort of like, here is

33:41

a perspective that's important for a good

33:43

democracy. Those two groups

33:45

had been at war in the

33:47

past, had come to

33:50

peace over a previous enemy, a

33:52

monstrous being called

33:55

Rigger. And

33:57

now they faced a... a

34:00

new threat in the Apostolician

34:02

Empire, as the three

34:04

of them met in a star sector called the

34:07

Golden Branch, which exists

34:09

where two arms of the galaxy, the

34:11

Sagittarius and Perseus meet, at

34:13

least in the maps of the galaxy we were using in 2015.

34:18

Today we use a different map where those two arms

34:20

don't really meet in the same way, but don't worry

34:22

about it, it's fine. Hey, stars

34:24

moving stuff, right? Yeah,

34:27

sure, 100%. They move all the time.

34:29

They're literally always moving. Rotating around the

34:31

Earth once every day. That's

34:33

what they're doing. Nope, mmm. Counterweight

34:37

is at the very middle of the

34:39

Golden Branch star sector. It

34:41

was a sort of, you

34:44

know, fork in the

34:46

crossroads, fork

34:49

in the road, I guess, a crossroad, a

34:51

point of careful, difficult peace

34:53

after this war, very

34:59

much in the sort of film

35:01

noir, Cold War style of story.

35:05

More film noir at the beginning than

35:07

like an espionage story. We weren't doing

35:10

James Bond stories, really, but we were

35:12

doing The Third Man, right? We were

35:14

doing Meet a Weirdo in the Park

35:16

and not be sure which side they're

35:18

working for, but

35:20

they have information you want, or they want you to

35:22

give them information or retrieve something from them. It

35:25

is a collection of domes because during

35:27

the Golden War, this

35:30

whole planet was destroyed, it was ruined,

35:33

devastated. It became toxic to live

35:35

outside. There are trillions

35:37

of people on this planet living in

35:40

big domes, and

35:43

some people, somehow, living outside the domes

35:45

in certain key places. That's

35:48

the kind of short pitch. It's a

35:50

cyberpunk world. Techno-R and the Sprawl are

35:52

both cyberpunk games, drawing on

35:54

the work of William Gibson, films

35:57

like Blade Runner, anime like Ghost in the

35:59

Shell. We leaned

36:01

really hard in that direction, especially early.

36:04

And then also, obviously with giant

36:06

robots, brought in influences from things like

36:09

mobile suit Gundam, bottoms,

36:13

you know, pat labor, things

36:15

like that. So huge,

36:18

huge wide range of touchstones.

36:21

And that's counterweight. That's kind of the short version. Above

36:24

counterweight, there's another planet. There's a

36:26

planet that appeared in the final moments of

36:29

the Golden War. And

36:31

that planet is blue and green

36:33

and perfect. It is called weight,

36:36

and it is under close control

36:38

by Oricon and the Diaspora. And

36:41

no one's allowed to go live on it. And

36:44

most people don't get to look at

36:46

it because the domes, at

36:48

this point, the domes are these kind of

36:50

gray things, kind of hot, like dilute, not

36:53

dilute, but, you

36:55

know, they saturate the color, but yeah, they

36:57

obscure it basically. But you can still see

36:59

it, the form of it. You just

37:01

can't see the blues and the greens. And eventually, the

37:03

blue sky domes get rolled out and you just straight

37:05

up wouldn't even know it's there because it's a fake

37:08

cyber sky all around you. Great, pleasant

37:10

sky. Yes, nice blue. So

37:14

that's the short thing. And

37:17

it's lots of powers

37:19

that are technically at peace

37:21

but working against each other,

37:24

remnants from the Apposolacian Empire, which at

37:26

this point has been pushed back to

37:28

its homeworld, elements of

37:30

a group called the Rapid Evening, which is a

37:32

– at this

37:35

point, a spy organization, part of

37:37

a thing called the Principality of

37:39

Kesh, which tries to tip things in

37:41

their own balance. And to keep

37:43

things from blowing up again because they're kind of

37:45

– they see themselves as sort

37:47

of like the space, you

37:50

know, CIA or something. Not the

37:52

good guys. And they run like a

37:54

weird closed planet where everyone is kept

37:56

at like year 10 –

37:59

year like – 1000 technology this path here 1000

38:01

technology. It's like year 1900 technology It's

38:05

like Victorian is kind of where we where

38:07

we you know gestured with

38:09

that and and to be clear They're not

38:11

kept there. They choose that

38:15

That's an important thing is that the people

38:17

there know about the rest of the galaxy?

38:20

And they chose that this

38:22

is how it becomes on cycle eventually, right? That's

38:25

that's they decided it would be better to live

38:27

in this fucked up Broken

38:30

backwards ass system. Anyway, that

38:32

is What counterweight

38:34

is it's it's what we would explore for the bulk

38:36

of? The

38:38

season not all of it. We eventually

38:40

of course leave can't wait behind But

38:43

today we are back on counterweight though in a new

38:45

place Look

38:48

at the map in front of you which many of us

38:50

have not probably seen in years You know

38:52

there's anything weird about it. Is there anything here that you're like, I

38:54

don't know what this is. I Don't

38:56

know why the map does this There's

38:59

a black line that we now see that

39:01

is the line the line Keith is talking

39:03

about is the broken Starlight

39:06

Express Straight line

39:08

now that solid expresses the Android

39:10

like weapon musical that goes out

39:13

across Canyon to an abandoned

39:15

dome question mark, of course, we know that that

39:17

is not an abandoned dome It is the home

39:19

of sister rust and her Choir,

39:22

let's see. Oh, yeah, the non Canyon it

39:25

is a it is a dried

39:27

out seabed Of course, it is seabed

39:29

City. Yeah, we have

39:31

the blue sky dome In

39:34

the not built yet not finished Not

39:36

not really unfinished blue sky down. Yeah,

39:38

we have the metadome in the southeast

39:41

I recognize that dome then we have

39:43

a series of numbered domes. We have

39:45

the krill and CED that is a

39:47

entertainment district I think it's the central

39:49

entertainment district commerce and entertainment But

39:52

I famously couldn't remember what what?

39:56

The D stood for I couldn't remember that

39:58

it stood for for district district and

40:00

so I kept trying to come up with things

40:02

that D meant like dancing or that

40:05

it meant like come enjoy a

40:07

game yeah yeah yeah beach in

40:09

the krillum CD I think that's

40:11

right I believe we did that

40:13

we did that yeah there is

40:16

the ruffle adax memorial spaceport so

40:18

named after the two war heroes

40:20

of the Iran conglomerate and the

40:22

diaspora joining together now the

40:24

ones that are odd to me or

40:26

that I am less sure about is

40:28

we have the arachon expeditionary dome

40:31

and the diaspora dome I have to imagine

40:33

those are the sort of

40:35

semi segregated housing for each of the

40:38

two parts and then we have dome

40:40

7 apostolusian refugees we

40:42

or fed a bunch of

40:45

people there once yeah so

40:47

these numbered well or just look at the way

40:49

the map is laid out look at there's if

40:51

there's any sort of absences I mean

40:55

weirdness oh

40:58

yeah a dome is completely missing there are

41:00

two lines of starlight straight running

41:03

between dome 2 and dome 23 in

41:05

the northeast yeah and in the middle

41:08

where there should be a dome there

41:10

is not well that

41:12

is where the provisional diplomatic

41:15

cylinder or the city of

41:17

sill is which is

41:19

what I described during the

41:22

intro the

41:24

short version just to reiterate some of

41:26

that stuff this is a long cylindrical

41:29

habitat you know it's like it's a

41:31

city in itself a small city the

41:33

way that the the domes across counterweight

41:35

are but instead of a dome

41:37

it is a low cylinder a comparatively

41:40

low cylinder it's still big enough for buildings

41:42

to fit in there right but it's not

41:45

the the super massive super tall skyscraper

41:47

buildings that are in some of the

41:49

other domes and it's

41:51

long and flat it's

41:54

climate controlled it

41:57

predates the war it was supposed to be a

41:59

sort of diplomatic embassy

42:02

center for the Episthenocian Empire.

42:04

It was supposed to be

42:06

a place where the Oricon

42:08

and diasporan envoys

42:10

could come to do business.

42:12

In fact, one of the central structures

42:15

was the sort of general assembly complex

42:18

for what would have been a sort of

42:20

unified golden branch government, sort of like a

42:22

UN complex. That

42:24

is now a casino, like that

42:27

structure, the offices

42:29

there have been turned into

42:32

hotel rooms and the big assembly center has

42:34

been turned into a

42:36

huge slot machine center and

42:38

you can go play the horses and you

42:40

can go bet on all sorts of stuff.

42:43

It is a casino, we are here yet again

42:45

in the casino. I can't escape it. And

42:49

there's some other stuff here that I didn't

42:51

get into maybe worth saying really quick. I

42:53

talked about the Ithaca family in the intro,

42:55

the sort of mafia family, the mob family,

42:57

the Episthenocian mob family that runs the SIL.

43:01

But there is also the CCT is here,

43:06

the consolidated counterweight technocracy is

43:08

here. They technically

43:10

run it and I'll talk more about that in

43:12

a little bit. There

43:15

is also some diasporan

43:17

and Oricon interests here.

43:20

They have some folks here who are looking to their stuff. There

43:24

are some other Aposilosian groups

43:26

besides the Ithaca family.

43:28

There's a group of young, kind of

43:30

a young gang of war orphans called the

43:33

Revenants that think of the Ithaca as almost

43:35

like relics that need to be replaced. And

43:38

there is the tourist union, which

43:41

kind of has the claim on

43:44

advocacy and defense of

43:47

any visitors or guests here, any high rollers

43:49

who want to come bet at the Cerulean,

43:52

which again is the name of the big casino. And

43:56

then they take a cut from all the guests, basically

43:58

all travel in to. The

44:00

facility has to go through the tourist union

44:03

or like securities handed by CCT But then

44:05

the the the tourist union handles all booking

44:07

and transit and all that stuff. So I

44:10

also deal with the tourists union also Anyway,

44:13

that's the sill and you're headed

44:16

there today hired by one or

44:18

God love for your first mission

44:21

Trying you out and the

44:23

thing is normally Orth

44:26

wouldn't work with untested people But

44:28

it's the fact that you

44:30

have no record inside of the

44:32

CCT that makes you perfect for this

44:36

Because or it's a little concerned about

44:38

how the current CCT administrator

44:42

is running things or really more what

44:44

the current CCT administrator of the sill

44:46

has gotten themselves into a message

44:49

was set saying that the

44:52

Administrator of the sill the this

44:54

person who Technically is

44:57

there in charge of things kind of like

44:59

kind of like a mayor But

45:02

more of a bureaucrat and even more

45:04

in reality Someone who kind

45:06

of just kicks back and cash has the check and like

45:09

plays the slot machines and the horses one

45:12

coffee affogato has been

45:15

arrested in Effect

45:19

by the Ithico's family has been

45:21

detained inside of the casino security

45:24

And you're being sent to find out why That

45:28

is the immediate setup you'll

45:31

note that over Here

45:34

on The move

45:37

you over Do

45:39

on the map screen? There

45:41

are two maps The map of the

45:43

area and you can get a sense with here

45:45

what the sill is You know, it's

45:47

partly called the sill because it's a cylinder. It's a

45:49

long, you know a ground-based cylinder

45:51

It's also kind of like a windowsill type

45:54

of situation because like if you imagine like

45:56

the big window looking up in the sky

46:01

It's long from east to west. And

46:03

there are two entryways to this thing originally.

46:05

There was a front gate on the

46:07

east, or an eastern gate and a western gate, right?

46:11

Those gates are big. Those gates

46:13

are huge airlocks that you would

46:15

move entire ships into. You would

46:17

land ships there. And

46:19

then, or freight or

46:21

trains or cargo trucks and

46:24

stuff like that. And then you would wait for

46:26

the daily opening and you would be able to

46:28

go from the kind of interior airlock into

46:31

the body of the cylinder. And

46:34

then that also happened on the western end. So there's an

46:36

eastern and a western entrance point, or maybe it would be

46:38

like southeast and northwest and based

46:40

on the direction of the previous map.

46:44

But today, there is the front

46:46

gate where visitors line up

46:48

to come inside. And then the west gate

46:50

has been completely taken over and turned into

46:52

a campground. I'll talk more about that,

46:54

I'm sure, at some point. Also here on the kind

46:57

of actual sil map, there's a big area called

46:59

the Agora, which is an agora, it

47:02

is a marketplace and

47:04

a park and

47:06

a venue for live music and other

47:08

stuff like that. There

47:11

is the embassy district where the

47:14

Oricon and diaspora folks used to come and

47:16

stay. And then there's the Cerulean, which again,

47:18

it looks like a single building here, but

47:20

think of it as like the

47:23

UN complex. Yes, there's a big building, but

47:25

there are also other smaller buildings as part

47:27

of it that has been totally taken over

47:29

and turned into a casino by

47:32

the Ithicos family. You'll

47:35

also know that there is the classic Technoir

47:38

plot map up on the top. And

47:40

there are a few things here on there. One

47:42

is your connection to this place, or Godlove, who

47:45

has a connection to Coffee Afogado, their

47:48

peers, they're both members of the CCT. And

47:51

then Coffee has a connection to two

47:53

other things, the Cerulean VIP card and

47:55

Cameron McLeod. Importantly, for

47:57

people who don't remember this or for people who...

48:00

who are listening for the first time, TechnoR is

48:02

not a game where I have come up with

48:04

a mystery that is going to be solved. TechnoR

48:06

is a game where I've built a, what's

48:09

called a transmission, a collection of, I guess,

48:11

36 things. Six

48:13

connections, six events, six factions,

48:16

six locations, six objects, and

48:19

six threats. And then

48:21

using a randomization, like rolling

48:23

some dice, I got this set of

48:25

three starter mystery

48:28

objects. One of them is coffee, who

48:30

is a contact or connection. One

48:32

of them is the Cerulean

48:35

VIP card, and one of them

48:37

is this person named Cameron, Cameron

48:39

McLeod. For people

48:41

who are truly deep cut fans of Friends

48:43

at the Table, who have read

48:45

the kind of pusher tier background stuff,

48:49

the name Cameron McLeod might actually

48:51

be familiar, and so many of

48:53

some other ones, because some of

48:55

this transmission originates in the half

48:58

of a transmission I ran in

49:00

TechnoR for a while that

49:02

I made before counterweight. And I

49:04

took about half of that and

49:07

turned it into counterweight.

49:10

A lot of people, I think,

49:12

we often tell the story of

49:14

counterweight as beginning with that Titanfall match,

49:16

right? And that's

49:18

not wrong, right? The words,

49:21

divines, and rigors start there.

49:24

But let me tell you, if

49:26

I do a search in my Google Drive for

49:31

transmission, for TechnoR transmission, I

49:33

have a cyberpunk Atlantic City thing

49:37

here that includes the

49:39

following two factions, and these

49:41

should be pretty clear right away. The

49:44

Federation, the Federation of Northeastern Metropolines

49:47

city-states is an authoritarian yet benevolent

49:49

government comprising New York, New England,

49:51

and Toronto. It seeks to add a sea to its

49:53

holdings, a modern-day Amsterdam, a holiday

49:56

escape from most deserving citizens, and Delcon.

49:58

The Delaware conglomerate is a loosely- organized

50:00

technocratic collection of corporate states stretching from

50:02

Philadelphia to Miami. Atlantic City is the

50:04

latest front in their northern expansion. This

50:07

is where the Iron Choir is from originally. Much

50:11

different Iron Choir, much different. This

50:14

is where the Blue Sky Dome is from originally.

50:16

A lot of this stuff, the Gnosis virus is

50:19

in here. The Rook is

50:21

in here, but it's not a mech because there's

50:23

no mechs in this original transmission. It was just

50:25

a gun. It was just a, it was like

50:27

the M16 of this war. It was actually the

50:30

AK-47 of this world, basically. There's

50:32

a bunch of stuff here that is just nowhere. There's

50:34

an airship in here that I've never done anything

50:36

with this airship. There's

50:39

a bunch of other stuff I knew that's, again, fucking

50:41

Horizon Tactical Solutions right here, Hebbys,

50:44

Adler, Beth, this is them. They're just

50:46

right here. Then

50:48

there's a lot of stuff here that's just completely not used.

50:51

Some of that has worked its way into this transmission.

50:54

Some of it hasn't. Some of it's still not. I

50:57

will tell you 2011 Austin

50:59

or whatever who wrote

51:03

a group of people who had been

51:05

experimented on by a

51:08

genetics corporation, I probably wouldn't today

51:11

call them Gene Freaks, but

51:14

in 2010 I did. I

51:17

wouldn't, of course, do that now because I'd say, well,

51:19

that sounds too close to Gene Freaks, the important character

51:21

from Hunter x Hunter. Right. Well,

51:23

they could be G-J-E-A-N-C. Right.

51:26

They could love Denim. They could love Denim. Yeah.

51:29

Actually, I'll understand. But yeah. Of course,

51:31

Gene Freaks does. Right. As

51:33

far as I know, from my experience with Hunter x Hunter, Gene Freaks loves

51:36

Denim and writing a Tower of Moltenstuffs.

51:38

Yep. That's correct. That's accurate.

51:40

I don't want to spoil anything else, so I'll just

51:42

cut that there. People should go listen to Media Club

51:44

Plus. If you're listening to this and are not listening

51:46

to Media Club Plus, you are missing out. The

51:50

best episode that we've done yet, I think, came out

51:52

today. Today. Yesterday. I'll

51:55

be with you with that. And what episode was it? Who

51:57

could say? The mystery. Who

52:01

is Cameron McLeod? Good

52:03

question. Let's get there

52:06

after you do the step

52:08

that I needed to do first. Because Cameron

52:10

McLeod is not a connection. Cameron McLeod is

52:12

a threat. And so you

52:14

don't have direct access to a write-up on Cameron. I'll

52:16

set up Cameron when it's time to set up Cameron.

52:18

For now, I need y'all

52:21

to look in the handout section

52:23

of Roll20. And

52:26

you should have a thing called connections. Do

52:29

you? Yep. There

52:32

are six connections in here. I'll read them really quick

52:34

for the listener. Hey, this is a

52:36

white on white on mine. Can you change

52:38

the font? Mine is a white on charcoal.

52:43

Because if I change it, it'll... Maybe

52:45

close it and reopen it? I

52:47

think this is a dark mode versus light mode thing. I

52:49

think Roll20 is fucking us. Are

52:52

you in dark mode? Or something in

52:54

dark mode? I don't

52:56

believe in dark modes. It's not how my

52:58

eyes work. Yeah, I'm not... I'm gonna do

53:01

that. I want to just change color. I'm

53:03

not fixed like that. I am primarily

53:05

a light mode person. Gotcha. My white

53:07

on black is bleed for me. Well,

53:10

that's... Whoa, that's fucking wrong. Let

53:14

me just copy the text if I'm to you. No,

53:17

I got it. I got it. Yeah,

53:19

if this was like... I can make

53:22

this as big as I need to. Yeah. It's

53:24

not... Copy to another thing. I won't

53:26

die if I misread it. You know, it's not like

53:29

it's driving in a car at night where this is

53:31

a real problem. Yes. So

53:34

there are six people here who are connections. Vosky

53:37

Kovach, who is solid,

53:39

calm, and melancholy, was the last mayor

53:41

the sill ever had. Now

53:43

they run a small whiskey bar simply

53:45

called Kovach. Sage

53:48

is flexible, fearless, and malleable. The

53:50

Golden Branch's first fully holographic idol.

53:53

They died during the Golden War, but

53:56

they have an extended residency with the

53:58

Cerulean, so they're still performing. Hunter

54:01

Cash, Scarred, Stubborn, and Skeptical.

54:03

They are a cyborg boxer turned

54:05

reticent enforcer for the Ithicos family.

54:08

I'm using they them pronouns right now for

54:10

everybody because that's how techno art works is

54:12

just like you leave up the

54:15

gender of characters generally to the characters who

54:17

end up getting their connections with them but

54:20

there are a couple here of like Vosky, Izzapostelosian

54:22

so Vosky will probably remain they them but

54:26

the others we can change as needed. Club

54:29

Steelheart unit 22 aka

54:31

Tutu, Tutu, stylish

54:33

friendly and careful a professional

54:36

conversationalist and flirt were

54:38

they just programmed that way question mark I've used he

54:40

P pronouns I said was he programmed this way I

54:42

think I just have to to my mind as a

54:45

as a sexy robot guy but

54:47

we can change that if whoever takes them

54:49

or if anybody takes takes him. Coffee

54:51

affogato is discreet personable and cute I

54:53

think cute in a like in

54:56

a like flailing baby girl way not

54:58

cute in like an actual cute way

55:00

you know. St. Leopsequeus. Yeah yeah yeah.

55:03

But not like a don't get cute way either.

55:06

Maybe in a don't get cute way I don't

55:08

know we'll see how it goes. The CCT appointed

55:10

administrator of the silk collects a check plays the

55:12

horses and I've written let's and then I haven't

55:14

finished the sense and so

55:16

far as I'm concerned that's a good

55:19

description of coffee. Coffee lets

55:21

something. Let's let's we know let

55:24

the chips fall where they may.

55:26

There we go added. Let a

55:28

series of abandoned apartments on the

55:30

eastern side of the empathy district.

55:33

Yeah exactly. She's the highest bidder

55:35

and Grandpa Hart wise prepared and

55:37

empathetic the diasporan old-timer who runs

55:39

the open arms campground at the

55:42

rear of the sill. So

55:44

the way this works you might

55:46

remember this this is this is I mean you actually

55:49

probably don't remember this because we didn't we only ever

55:51

did one transmission in counterweight

55:53

or in in techno. But

55:56

if you're adding a new one if you're

55:58

adding a new transmission. you everybody

56:00

gets one new contact that they can

56:02

pick from a list. You

56:05

can tell me how you know them and then you can you

56:07

pick a an adjective

56:09

to describe your relationship with them. Do you

56:11

remember doing that? You know, were those days?

56:13

I do remember that. Yes. And

56:15

there's a set of those to pick from

56:18

but we can also make some up the

56:20

adjective is your feeling about them. That is

56:22

not their feeling about you. That is important

56:24

and correct. And that is

56:27

not on the cheat sheet. No, but I can I mean,

56:29

we can make them up but I can also just grab

56:31

them really quick. They are the let's

56:35

see. I

56:37

know one of them and so I can find the rest. They

56:40

are the lustful. He sure was key.

56:43

Affectionate, dependent,

56:46

loyal, lustful,

56:49

obsessive, protective, respectful,

56:51

sympathetic, trusting. I'll

56:54

just drop those in

56:56

here. There's also the one that

56:59

I remembered. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember on that list.

57:03

It really is. So

57:06

give those a read and make a

57:09

decision about what what's

57:12

what's going on here. I

57:14

would like to make a bid for to to a

57:16

call. I'd

57:20

like to bid for Hunter

57:22

cash. Really bidding.

57:26

I think money and you're getting real money

57:28

with just real money. Auction house situation here

57:30

like Diablo three. So who's

57:33

giving me money? What's going on? I'm waiting for the money. I

57:38

fold on to and cash.

57:41

Okay, so you're you have one you're interested

57:43

in. I'm thinking about I'm thinking about it.

57:46

And I would like to be sympathetic for Hunter

57:48

cash. No one else wants sympathetic. Really,

57:51

really buying up these claims. Second,

57:54

let me add these to the board. I'm trying

57:56

to be deferendum. You

58:00

put Cath on the board. You're

58:03

sympathetic, you said? Yeah, love

58:05

that. I think I'm gonna take loyal

58:07

to Tutu. Sorry, to Club Steelhut

58:09

Unit 22. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I

58:11

mean, I understood. Have there been any

58:13

calls for Voski? No.

58:18

I might be dependent on

58:20

Voski. I think we're... Well,

58:22

we could say however you want. I've been saying

58:24

Voski. We could say Voski if you'd rather Voski.

58:26

If you'd rather Voski. Voski is fine. Kovach.

58:33

Tutu. Alright, so we have... Who's

58:36

missing? We're I'm missing one person. I'm missing one

58:39

person. I haven't gone.

58:41

You haven't picked it all. Okay. I haven't picked it

58:43

all, yeah. We have

58:45

dependent, we have... sympathetic,

58:48

and we have... loyal.

58:51

Loyal. Okay, that's what it

58:53

sounds like. Keith, if

58:55

you want dependent, I could maybe take protective

58:58

or trusting. I could... I

59:01

was gonna go protective Grandpa Hart. Okay.

59:04

Oh, that's fun. Oh, that's

59:06

really good. Loyal.

59:11

None of us picked the person who's directly

59:13

connected to them. That's fine. You

59:15

know, you're also connected to Orth, right? Some of you

59:17

are also connected to Orth. So there's

59:19

like an indirect... I think it's actually better that

59:21

you don't know coffee. That's kind of fun, you

59:23

know? Yeah. Yeah,

59:25

I mean, I don't know most people give Grandpa

59:28

Hart. It

59:30

could also be Grandma Hart, if we wanted, I

59:32

guess, or Grandparent Hart.

59:36

Granny, Grand Hart. We could have

59:38

a she-her-Grandpa Hart, though. That's true. We could have

59:40

a she-her-Grandpa Hart. Yeah.

59:42

Well, too bad we're doing Grandpa Hart.

59:44

I would love to be a she-her-Grandpa

59:46

Hart in my later years. Grandpa's

59:51

farm. Grandpa's farm.

59:53

Yeah, see, there you go. Yeah.

59:55

And Keith, what was Mako to Grandpa Hart?

59:58

Oh, it was protective or something? Protective. I've

1:00:00

already done it I've

1:00:05

already been productive. Sure. I've

1:00:07

just displayed that just you did you did Alright,

1:00:11

so they are now on the chart. They are

1:00:13

not connected to the core of mystery yet, but

1:00:15

they are there they're here, right? Again

1:00:18

as a reminder for people who maybe haven't Heard

1:00:21

this game before played it themselves one don't play this

1:00:23

game. I think this game is great It is a

1:00:25

game we only played nine episodes of but that like

1:00:27

lives rent free in my fucking mind in

1:00:30

a real way The

1:00:35

The Way

1:00:38

that it talks about narrative is really

1:00:40

interesting and important to me the way

1:00:42

that it uses the gameplay mechanics to

1:00:44

communicate Theme is really important to me

1:00:47

and in general the

1:00:50

way that it like it Opened

1:00:53

my mind to a different way of storytelling. It's

1:00:55

really important the same way that some other key

1:00:57

games for Me

1:01:00

learning what games could do in this in the tabletop

1:01:02

games could do or like with great power or burning

1:01:05

wheel, right? Things we haven't played a lot of on

1:01:07

this show, but nevertheless

1:01:09

very important Alright,

1:01:11

so sure I remembered how I was feeling around

1:01:14

the time when we stopped playing this and started

1:01:16

playing the sprawl I just like I have

1:01:18

I have no I will say I'm not having

1:01:20

as bad of a time I think as we

1:01:22

were with not bad of a time is wrong,

1:01:24

but like it was a

1:01:26

really quick today I think we would have stuck

1:01:28

it out another session or two, you know, yeah,

1:01:30

we kind of eject We were any short seasons

1:01:32

at the time, you know Yeah,

1:01:35

it just felt a little gummy. Yeah, you're getting

1:01:37

gummed up The works

1:01:39

are all gummed up a little bit. So we'll

1:01:41

see if that's the case today or that's not the case So

1:01:44

the way that this game starts again, so behind the

1:01:46

scenes I have a document that has those 36 things

1:01:48

that I mentioned before Across

1:01:50

connections and objects and threats and all the other

1:01:53

shit And they are in like

1:01:55

a map or they're like at a table

1:01:57

and I rolled to get these starting three

1:01:59

things And those three things get

1:02:01

put together in a connection. I think the connection is

1:02:03

this I think that

1:02:06

coffee Was

1:02:08

you know arrested? for

1:02:11

killing Classic

1:02:14

reason to get arrested. Yeah, huh? Mm-hmm

1:02:17

right boom arrested for killing One

1:02:20

of the most famous crimes is killing. It's

1:02:22

kind of it's kind of a big one,

1:02:24

huh? I think Cameron Cameron's a Cerulean

1:02:28

VIP card was

1:02:30

missing or isn't missing or maybe just

1:02:32

simply You

1:02:35

know what here's what we're gonna do we'll do this this

1:02:38

is mix it mix it up a little bit And

1:02:41

coffee is looking for the

1:02:43

cerulean VIP card Prior

1:02:46

to the killing I don't know well,

1:02:48

we'll see how it plays out in conversation, right? You

1:02:51

can met this person yet. Maybe they're looking for it

1:02:53

now. Maybe they were looking for it I don't know

1:02:55

maybe so maybe that's not going looking for it. Let's

1:02:57

go wanted There we

1:02:59

go That's

1:03:01

actually I think a good mystery setup

1:03:03

here. All right So

1:03:06

again, yeah, this is a random plot

1:03:08

map you imagine a triangle with coffee

1:03:10

Cameron in the cerulean VIP card The

1:03:12

coffee has a thing that says arrested for

1:03:14

killing pointing at Cameron Cameron has a thing

1:03:16

pointing at the cerulean card saying missing And

1:03:19

then coming up the other side of the

1:03:21

triangle coffee has a thing that says wanted

1:03:23

or wants, you know The cerulean VIP card.

1:03:25

So that's how this starts And then the

1:03:27

way the scheme ends up working is I

1:03:29

was read this during runtime a protagonist can

1:03:31

lean on her connections for information She may

1:03:33

be attempting to find some opportunity She can

1:03:35

take advantage of or get further

1:03:37

details on a plot She started to

1:03:39

learn about when this happens have her

1:03:41

player roll a die and consult that

1:03:43

connections table in the transmission so each

1:03:45

of these connections has a list of

1:03:49

12 things that they know about

1:03:51

to connection to other connections to

1:03:53

objects to threats, etc and

1:03:56

when you do that and and get information

1:03:58

from them whether that's an easy thing to

1:04:00

do or a hard thing to do, I

1:04:03

will generate a roll some dice or I'll

1:04:06

pick, depending on how clear things are, an

1:04:09

option from their list in

1:04:11

order to add

1:04:13

another node to the sheet. The reason there's

1:04:15

12 things is they have a different list

1:04:17

depending on whether or not they are connected

1:04:20

to the core mystery yet. Once they're connected,

1:04:22

there's a sort of like different set of

1:04:24

things that they could potentially bring in, which

1:04:26

is a fun way to weight the

1:04:28

story in different directions. Again,

1:04:31

make a predictive grandpa heart, aude

1:04:34

loyal to Tutu, aria

1:04:36

dependent on Vosky, cast

1:04:38

sympathetic to Hunter. And

1:04:41

I think that in my mind, the place that's like

1:04:43

a cool place to come back in on

1:04:46

is like already in the air, so to

1:04:48

speak, right? Or already on the way or

1:04:50

maybe even already in the front gate, nearing

1:04:52

the front gate maybe. With

1:04:56

the mission, it's like, do I

1:04:58

wanna put, here's how I've been thinking about this. You

1:05:01

know when there's an anime, you know what an

1:05:04

anime is? You know when there's like a movie

1:05:06

in an anime series and it's

1:05:08

like, it's real and

1:05:10

you can like place it sort of

1:05:12

in the continuity, but like sometimes

1:05:15

stuff doesn't line up exactly right and you just kind

1:05:17

of hand wave it and be like, well, okay, well,

1:05:19

Goku didn't have that power yet, but like he

1:05:22

has it in the series by the time the movie comes out.

1:05:24

We don't wanna like undo it, so

1:05:26

like if, you know, we're like, oh, you

1:05:28

know, it's, you know, at the end of this,

1:05:31

Goku learned this incredible technique but doesn't go on to use

1:05:33

it in the cell saga. Why didn't he use the thing

1:05:35

that he'd learned in the tree of life or

1:05:37

whatever? And I think

1:05:39

that. This is Austin's short way of saying

1:05:42

that Cassandra is super saying. Cassandra is super

1:05:44

saying. Cassandra is super saying too. This

1:05:47

is what it means to go beyond super saying. And

1:05:50

I'm a Yoko make-out. That's correct.

1:05:53

That's right. What's that from? What's

1:05:55

Yoko from? Yoko Karama from Yu

1:05:57

Yu Hager Show. Oh, sure. Okay.

1:05:59

Got it. Yeah. Uh, so,

1:06:01

uh, that's to say, for

1:06:03

instance, if, if a

1:06:06

character dies, it has to be

1:06:08

resuscitated by getting cybernetic surgery. And

1:06:10

we just never talk about that

1:06:12

in counterweight. Don't worry

1:06:14

about it. If they had, oh, Aria happened to

1:06:16

have a cyborg heart the whole time? Good

1:06:19

to know. Uh. It

1:06:21

is good to cover now because I was gonna bring this

1:06:23

up as like, uh, what happens if someone dies or... I

1:06:27

think it's, it is genera- it enables

1:06:29

us to play generously with each other

1:06:31

as well. The idea of playing this

1:06:33

in such a way that we are

1:06:35

constantly trying not to catch ourselves in

1:06:37

continuity errors. Yes. I think

1:06:39

would produce a kind of episode that

1:06:41

might be satisfying to some people, but

1:06:43

would be a, a, it would be a

1:06:45

real headache to make. And b, we would

1:06:48

fail. We would

1:06:50

invariably snare ourselves in some continuity errors. So I

1:06:52

think, I think this is the way to do

1:06:54

it. And like, TechnoR is resistant in

1:06:56

some ways to this because like, it is

1:06:58

a thing where characters can die and then come back

1:07:00

to life via cybernetic implants. And we would just be

1:07:03

hand waving how that happened off screen, for instance. But

1:07:05

I think even more broadly, the thing I'm just trying

1:07:07

to gesture at is that like, think about this a

1:07:09

little, I mean, here's the thing. And this is, this

1:07:11

is a little bit of synchronicity that

1:07:13

works for us. I say synchronicity, but I designed

1:07:16

it this way. So it's not synchronicity. It's, I

1:07:18

designed it this way. In

1:07:20

importance, you're synchronizing your past work with your current-

1:07:22

With my current work. Right.

1:07:25

My present self who was then making a

1:07:27

different work set before the previous work. The

1:07:30

sill is kind

1:07:33

of air gapped from the rest of counterweight.

1:07:36

Once you go in the front gate, you will

1:07:38

lose access to the mesh that the rest of

1:07:40

counterweight is on. The sill isn't

1:07:42

on the mesh. The sill has its own different

1:07:45

local mesh called the holidays

1:07:48

with a Z, like a Daze that you enter

1:07:50

that you have to like get access to. And

1:07:52

you boot in, it's called the holidays in. That's,

1:07:54

well, if you, if you can afford it, it

1:07:56

sure is. People

1:07:59

who can't afford it. do things called

1:08:01

days drops where what they can

1:08:03

do is like relive someone else's

1:08:05

holidays experience someone like go record

1:08:07

their experience and then kind

1:08:10

of filter it out into an

1:08:12

eye drop and you can take this eye

1:08:14

drop that then like lets you have the

1:08:16

experience of being in the virtual world for

1:08:18

an hour. So can you

1:08:20

buy anyone's or do they sell them as blind box packs

1:08:22

where you can get a random really good one? I bet

1:08:25

there is a blind box. They

1:08:27

are not random right because it is like someone has to go record

1:08:29

it right? But like this

1:08:31

is a popular drop. Well you buy like a

1:08:33

summer pack and you can get one of eight

1:08:35

different summer flavors. Yeah it is like a blind

1:08:37

box like you said where it is like oh

1:08:39

there are 30 but which three are you going

1:08:42

to get in this set? You want to get

1:08:44

the one of the lady who just goes and

1:08:46

looks at the aquarium for the sexy and aloes.

1:08:49

Yes. And so how about you get the one from the day

1:08:51

where Henry Kissinger died? So

1:08:53

in this way it is worth saying that like you

1:08:56

won't be able to go contact scene 6R right? The

1:09:00

gate opens once a day. You come in and you sit

1:09:02

in the airlock and you go from the airlock in and

1:09:04

then you are off the fucking net. You know you are

1:09:06

not on the mesh. You can't make

1:09:08

outgoing calls. You know

1:09:10

the call has to go through

1:09:13

an official CCT you know thing

1:09:15

or has to you have to

1:09:17

leave the whole thing entirely right?

1:09:20

Which is why it took some extra time for Orth

1:09:23

to find out about this and Orth is trying

1:09:25

to solve this before it becomes a huge incident.

1:09:28

And I think this is what Orth explains to you. Maybe

1:09:31

we get Orth talking to you as the gate.

1:09:34

We get the image of my mind is

1:09:36

almost like the gate is coming the back

1:09:38

airlock. The airlock, the eastern lock to the

1:09:40

rest of the planet is slowly closing so

1:09:42

that you can wait the rest of the

1:09:45

day here on the front gate as

1:09:47

the message Orth sent to you is playing. Which

1:09:52

explains the situation and the situation is

1:09:55

that coffee who

1:09:57

is a member of the Consolidated

1:09:59

Counterweight Technocracy. is being

1:10:01

held captive by a

1:10:03

group called the

1:10:06

Ithicos family. They're a crime family

1:10:08

in the sill. They, I'm not

1:10:12

gonna say they don't do anything good, but

1:10:14

they're a crime family and

1:10:17

they can't be

1:10:19

trusted and I'm sure that what's gonna happen

1:10:21

is they're gonna put out a request

1:10:23

for some sort

1:10:25

of hostage exchange or some sort

1:10:28

of prisoner exchange or they'll

1:10:30

want us to pay him pay him off

1:10:32

to get to get coffee back. I'm

1:10:35

not even sure coffee did anything and so

1:10:37

what I need you to do is go

1:10:39

make contact, find

1:10:41

out what coffee did, ideally get

1:10:44

get them out of there and otherwise

1:10:48

report back if

1:10:50

if there's anything important that you need

1:10:53

further instruction on. You

1:10:55

should be able to make a direct call to

1:10:57

me if you can get into coffee's office but

1:10:59

otherwise you'll have to leave the you

1:11:02

know the sill and make a call. That's

1:11:06

kind of the basic pitch here and

1:11:09

a lot is gonna be left up to

1:11:11

you. How loud do you want to be

1:11:13

with this? Not to say like go in

1:11:15

guns blazing but the way

1:11:17

that the front gate works is it's partially

1:11:19

run by the CCT, it's partially run by

1:11:21

what I already mentioned is the Tourists Union

1:11:24

and the Tourists Union is a both

1:11:27

of those groups try to like

1:11:30

monopolize as much of this process as they can.

1:11:32

The CCT does a

1:11:34

lot of like security theater scanning and

1:11:36

data collection so if you go in you

1:11:38

know with the kingdom come with all your

1:11:40

mechs and stuff all that will go down on

1:11:42

on record you know that will that will

1:11:44

be everyone will know and everyone will know

1:11:47

but the CCT will know that you're here

1:11:49

with that stuff or if it's not giving you

1:11:51

any protection in terms of like oh

1:11:53

yeah we'll let you sneak in you

1:11:55

know that stuff is then verified by

1:11:57

the Tourists Union and and the Tourists

1:12:00

Union like generally doesn't let anyone

1:12:02

come in without having an account

1:12:04

with them and being a quote-unquote

1:12:06

member of the union which

1:12:09

is to say paying them an exorbitant

1:12:11

fee. They're

1:12:13

effectively a very powerful travel

1:12:15

agency that only does travel agency

1:12:17

work inside of the sill. They

1:12:21

basically are toll collectors they get their cut

1:12:23

and they can connect you to other people

1:12:26

who can help right so like there's a

1:12:28

group of bodyguards and escorts here called

1:12:30

the chaperones and those

1:12:32

that you know the tourist union has a deal with

1:12:34

them you can get you know 15% off if you

1:12:36

go through the tourist union right of course that means

1:12:39

the tourist union knows that you've done that so some

1:12:41

people choose not to do that and they get their

1:12:43

own bodyguards elsewhere but but they're kind of like your

1:12:45

go-to group and so the question of just like how

1:12:47

loud or quiet you want to be here is up

1:12:50

to you the question of do you want to wait

1:12:52

the extra 12 hours for the

1:12:54

inner the inner door to unlock and open

1:12:56

is up to you but you're

1:12:58

basically in you're basically stuck

1:13:01

in traffic classic chime thing

1:13:03

waiting to be let through a

1:13:06

door or a portal or whatever you

1:13:08

know waiting to be scanned by the

1:13:11

fucking police what

1:13:14

are you all what's the vibe

1:13:17

are you on the ship did

1:13:19

you come some other way etc

1:13:24

also I just remember something I have to add to your connections

1:13:26

list which is that each of these folks can do favors for

1:13:28

you and you

1:13:30

wouldn't have done them already normally in

1:13:33

during character creation you call

1:13:35

on favor from your contacts to

1:13:37

build your character but you've already done that

1:13:39

with other characters but those con those favors

1:13:41

are still available and

1:13:43

so I'm gonna add them to this list right now so

1:13:46

that we can have them all here but

1:13:48

yeah so what's the what is the what is

1:13:50

the plan and

1:13:55

are you so are we on board this ship

1:13:59

and the ship is thing that has to wait you would also

1:14:01

have to wait well in the ship

1:14:03

right yeah and if you'd like to fuck the idea

1:14:05

here you would still have to wait also the

1:14:08

idea being that we could immediately try

1:14:11

and break the law by stopping the

1:14:13

fence oh yeah well it's on a fence sorry it's

1:14:15

a giant airlock that's big enough for yeah

1:14:18

sorry the fence was a metal then yes yes

1:14:20

you could you could hop the metaphor I could

1:14:22

have also said the turnstile yeah that would have

1:14:24

been clear although there might be a turn there

1:14:26

is a turnstile it's gigantic it's bigger because bigger

1:14:28

for a spaceship you

1:14:31

swipe for the people behind you they

1:14:33

won't let you know they track it

1:14:35

they're really really shitty about this yeah

1:14:39

yeah I think that at least for the time being

1:14:42

audience decided to wait inside the

1:14:45

cockpit of the kingdom okay I

1:14:47

think the kingdom come is parked

1:14:50

in one of these sort

1:14:52

of like landing bay things inside the

1:14:54

front gate with

1:14:56

the sort of cockpit

1:14:58

facing forward an audio is just

1:15:00

sitting there in the chair watching

1:15:02

the airlock door watching the people

1:15:05

milling about contrast

1:15:07

it to that you know

1:15:09

Audie's a robot I

1:15:11

feel like robots are pretty good waiters

1:15:14

make us bored if we're waiting make us bored

1:15:16

this is my first character decision 12 hours 12

1:15:21

hours do I see

1:15:23

you in the crowd through the screens

1:15:26

of the kingdom come oh

1:15:30

have you left the ship I missed that yeah like that I

1:15:33

don't know oh no no no I'm gonna show

1:15:35

them the ship okay I'm still in the ship

1:15:37

or I'm yeah I'm letting there are people milling

1:15:39

about that right I think they're like by a

1:15:41

machine yeah there's vending machine okay there's like a

1:15:44

little picnic area there's like there's a food court

1:15:46

there's probably a higher there's like a highway rest

1:15:48

stop but that's right toll booth yes a toll

1:15:50

booth rest stop that's exactly the vibe and a

1:15:52

truck weighing station and you know and the big

1:15:54

Sunoco where you can get your truck refilled and

1:15:57

I'm you know it is a it has

1:16:00

the New Jersey Parkway thing of like having

1:16:03

some local counterweight, you know celebrity

1:16:06

nothing nothing adds to

1:16:09

the experience of like a long day

1:16:11

of travel than just like being

1:16:13

full of like gas station snacks And

1:16:17

an energy drink So

1:16:20

you come back with a bunch of snacks for people Mako Yeah,

1:16:23

I've got beef jerky. I've got like

1:16:27

Entomans like Like

1:16:30

donuts and I've

1:16:32

also got hostess. I have two different kinds of

1:16:34

like shitty little chocolate donut I've

1:16:37

got you know sweet milky coffee

1:16:40

drinks like a frappuccino and

1:16:44

also coffee flavored energy

1:16:46

drinks and I've got Like

1:16:51

you know It's hard to pick

1:16:53

what kind of gummy you want. So it's like I

1:16:55

want dots. I want Swedish fish. I want a Jelly

1:16:58

bellies, I've you know, these are all the same

1:17:00

kind of thing really but and this is the

1:17:03

first time as a group You've

1:17:05

spent real time together Mako,

1:17:07

Quizler, Rising, just arms

1:17:09

absolutely full of snacks.

1:17:11

They have a Near

1:17:14

the front gate in like a little rest

1:17:16

stop. They have one of those What are

1:17:18

the names of those Coca-Cola machines that let

1:17:20

you mix your own drinks? Freestyle, Coke Freestyle.

1:17:22

They have a Coke freestyle machine for donuts

1:17:25

Do you do can

1:17:28

I give you my real life hacker

1:17:30

moment my stratus my actual time fogging

1:17:32

in real life? I was

1:17:34

at a five guys one time. This

1:17:36

is the old they've they since changed the firmware

1:17:39

But I know that I saw a guy put

1:17:41

in the special code into the Coke freestyle machine

1:17:43

There was three bubbles that you had to tap

1:17:46

anybody who worked in a machine with the freestyle

1:17:48

machine around that time can say Yeah, there was

1:17:50

three bubbles you had to tap and then it

1:17:52

opened the back end up and you could fuck

1:17:54

with Which syrups went to

1:17:56

which things and how much the ratios

1:17:59

were so? I used to always go

1:18:01

to those machines to make it

1:18:04

so that I could get a syrup that

1:18:06

wasn't technically allowed with another drink. You could

1:18:08

make wild mixes. I've done this before. I'm

1:18:10

going to link this in the chat. It's

1:18:13

important to me. Activate

1:18:15

the whiskey tube. It's stuff

1:18:18

that's like, well, okay, you want

1:18:21

cherry Coke. How much cherry is in

1:18:23

cherry Coke? Right? Or you

1:18:25

wanted to mix cherry and vanilla. I just had one of these where

1:18:28

they must have had it set like... It

1:18:31

felt like I had just browned seltzer water. Like

1:18:34

someone at the movie theater side, they were going to be

1:18:36

like, oh, they got rid of anything. This

1:18:39

also just happens because they're just bags in

1:18:41

there. They're super heavy. They're like

1:18:43

25 or 35 pound bags

1:18:45

of syrup. And sometimes that mix just

1:18:47

runs low. And you don't know until

1:18:50

someone complains. And sometimes you

1:18:52

find that bag is empty. People have

1:18:54

been drinking browned seltzer water all day

1:18:56

and not saying anything. And

1:18:58

then you get to change a bag out. I've changed many

1:19:00

of those bags in my life. There you go. Well,

1:19:02

one of those for donuts is my understanding.

1:19:05

And nevertheless, Mako showed off

1:19:07

with pre-packaged chocolate donuts. Okay,

1:19:11

I'll say now that we've introduced the

1:19:13

Coke freestyle machine for

1:19:15

donuts, I'm going to apply

1:19:18

my real life freestyle experience

1:19:22

to this and say that like, I

1:19:24

got combinations you couldn't get. I got a chocolate donut.

1:19:26

Oh, my friend. No, no, no, no, no. But we

1:19:28

got to roll some dice. Okay.

1:19:30

Also, wait, I'm sorry. Did we

1:19:32

not already have self-service dough dispensary

1:19:35

in counterweight already? We had a

1:19:37

beach episode. The

1:19:40

self-service dough? Yeah, it was

1:19:42

like a... Fried dough? Yeah, it was

1:19:44

like a... Oh, a churro. A churro situation.

1:19:47

Right. I mean... That's different.

1:19:50

Well, I'm saying that this is sort of like... This is

1:19:52

sort of a... Like Entomans would make both of these

1:19:54

machines. Oh, right. I see what you're saying. Yeah,

1:19:56

there was an Entomans brand. I see what you're

1:19:58

saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'd

1:20:00

do it free. This is like a

1:20:03

brand of pastry that Has

1:20:06

these machines throughout right? Yeah. Yeah.

1:20:08

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We this was

1:20:10

this was explicitly On

1:20:13

in episode 11 we talked about there

1:20:15

being a trur that came out of a machine Jack

1:20:19

I think you said it's a bad trip years later.

1:20:21

This is a cast. It still likes fried. Yeah, turns

1:20:23

out Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah,

1:20:25

uh-huh So

1:20:28

yeah Anyway,

1:20:37

yeah, the tank apparently said industrial choro

1:20:39

goo on it So

1:20:43

I want to roll some dice Check

1:20:48

this out. We're not gonna use we're not gonna use it

1:20:50

is a hack role Work

1:20:53

here's here's one of the things that we're gonna

1:20:55

change about how we did this Which

1:20:58

is before we were rolling

1:21:01

dice in the slash roll system, you

1:21:03

know You know where you slash roll

1:21:05

and you rolled like 3d6 and they're like and

1:21:07

then we would have to also roll Hurt

1:21:10

die separately or maybe

1:21:13

we're like the last two counters hurt die or something because

1:21:15

it's it's Not it wasn't

1:21:17

cuz it rolls cuz it rolls them all at

1:21:19

once tricky tricky tricky tricky Now

1:21:22

do you see these dice on the screen? We

1:21:25

just grab some action dice and grab some

1:21:27

hurt dice if we need them and grab

1:21:29

some push dice Oh, well, I roll them

1:21:31

on like a roll them up here right

1:21:33

click right, you know I can't

1:21:35

just like throw them so you can you click and

1:21:37

drag them as like a unit Right, and

1:21:39

then you can right click them hit multi-sided and then

1:21:41

hit random side boom and

1:21:43

what's that right for everybody? Nothing

1:21:46

make sure we're looking those like a three of five and

1:21:48

six and a three. Perfect. So we all see the same

1:21:51

thing Love that. So yeah, um,

1:21:53

let's roll some die here. You're

1:21:55

rolling against just the default I

1:21:57

guess actually I know exactly what you're rolling against

1:22:00

which is on-screen

1:22:03

roll yeah how do we yeah yeah

1:22:05

yeah great yeah let me let me

1:22:17

see here okay yeah yeah

1:22:19

I just want to say before while we're

1:22:21

getting into roles and characters

1:22:24

yeah to

1:22:27

the end even choose

1:22:29

your goose that's what

1:22:31

it's called we just haven't spoken

1:22:33

about any of the like adjectives on our

1:22:35

character sheet you're right we should go over

1:22:38

those and we should have a fashion romance

1:22:40

we should do on Mako right now and

1:22:42

then yes I agree Mako what are

1:22:47

your adjectives clever

1:22:49

quick and charming love it what are you

1:22:52

wearing what do you look like what are

1:22:54

your what are your but you're what's

1:22:57

the weather and this is a this is

1:22:59

a nice place is a big cheese a

1:23:01

nice place but yeah there is like a

1:23:03

thing that happens here that you know about

1:23:05

okay which is it has very old and

1:23:08

and remember this predates the golden war which

1:23:10

is an old right as a decade ago

1:23:12

or whatever 15 years 10 years but

1:23:15

it wasn't so it's not ancient or anything but

1:23:17

it is decades old compared to the rest of the

1:23:19

domes which are all very new and it

1:23:21

was an experimental thing and

1:23:23

it was not built for

1:23:26

sustaining against a apocalyptic world-destroying

1:23:28

crisis it was built to

1:23:31

keep the regular weather out and so it's

1:23:33

been updated and once

1:23:36

the while the air filters will

1:23:38

break in a really weird way

1:23:40

that turns the like toxic dust

1:23:42

from outside into a

1:23:44

pale white dust and

1:23:47

it'll fuck up the HVAC so it gets

1:23:49

cold and so it's like there's snow in here

1:23:51

sometimes no

1:23:54

storm will actually come through ash

1:23:56

it's basically ash that comes through okay

1:23:58

and that and for whatever reason It's

1:24:00

uh it's snowy. So it is actually I'm

1:24:02

gonna say it up front. This

1:24:04

is a this is a winter holiday special It's

1:24:07

snowy in there right now. Yeah, okay,

1:24:09

so then I'm wearing I'm

1:24:14

wearing some bright

1:24:16

green sweat pants that have zippers

1:24:19

at the knees to turn them

1:24:21

into sweat And

1:24:26

This is based off of a pair of Cargo

1:24:28

short pants that I had as a

1:24:30

kid that were popular in the early

1:24:32

2000s. I think for some reason And

1:24:39

I'm wearing a It's

1:24:44

I'm wearing it's a tank top

1:24:48

with some Some

1:24:52

logo it's like You

1:24:55

know future Walmart tank

1:24:58

top tucked

1:25:00

into the sweatpants, but then also like

1:25:02

a coat like a the

1:25:05

kind of coat that Rich

1:25:07

people and people that are genuinely

1:25:09

cold would wear in Now

1:25:12

where it's like got the puffy segments

1:25:14

and it's got fur on the hood.

1:25:16

Yeah. Yeah and

1:25:20

and like

1:25:24

like a North face is what I'm thinking or yeah,

1:25:26

and Yeah, North face

1:25:28

or a candidate candidate. Yeah.

1:25:31

Yeah Like

1:25:33

the big Canadian logo like the yeah the

1:25:35

red enormous and

1:25:38

then die seemingly Well,

1:25:41

I will tell you something the Canadian goose one

1:25:43

of the Canada goose one was all

1:25:45

over Canada They every one of my students

1:25:47

had one of those Because

1:25:50

it genuinely got cold

1:25:52

right I know yes, I understand but then you

1:25:54

don't need that yeah I know it gets cold

1:25:56

as shit in Massachusetts, but there's people wearing $2,000

1:26:00

Right. Like sub, you know, sub

1:26:02

zero rated for minus 30 temperature.

1:26:04

And it's like, guys, it's 20

1:26:06

degrees out. We're a regular show.

1:26:08

You can see the things that people wear in Los

1:26:10

Angeles. Yeah. It's 50 degrees. Cause

1:26:14

it's winter clothing. So, and I'm

1:26:16

wearing what, what are their, they're

1:26:18

essentially they're closed toed flip flops.

1:26:21

Um, so the plastic for what would be

1:26:23

a normal flop. My drink. Is,

1:26:29

uh, it looks like a flip flop. All the

1:26:31

plastic for wear and the padding for where the

1:26:33

flip flop would be is, is,

1:26:35

um, like is

1:26:38

colored. It's, uh, like, uh,

1:26:40

like, like pink. Um,

1:26:42

but then the rest of the shoe is

1:26:44

clear plastic. So

1:26:46

it's a shoe that visibly, it looks like a flip

1:26:48

flop. Wow. Okay. I

1:26:51

see what I say. Yeah. Okay. You know what I mean?

1:26:53

Yeah. I guess I do. I

1:26:56

do. I do. I do think I

1:26:58

understand. You got it from a Coke

1:27:00

freestyle machine. Vassu. Yeah. Yeah. You're

1:27:03

not supposed to be able to have them. Yeah.

1:27:05

Yeah. Definitely not. Uh,

1:27:08

and then let's go over your verbs really quick. Um,

1:27:11

so my, my learning

1:27:13

programs are engineer, engineer, and criminal, uh, which

1:27:16

means that, uh, I'm, uh, really

1:27:20

good at operating Cokes. I have a three out of

1:27:22

five each of those and then a very good with

1:27:24

hack. I have four and then I

1:27:26

have a two in shoot and prowl and a

1:27:28

one in detect, fight,

1:27:32

move, and treat. Love it. Uh,

1:27:34

I'll note, um, on top of your, your

1:27:36

adjectives that you have set, you also have

1:27:39

objects. Um, uh, we don't have to

1:27:41

go too deep into them, but, uh, it might be

1:27:43

worth thinking about headjack for this one. Um, uh,

1:27:46

the way this game works is you

1:27:48

have a difficulty set by the, uh,

1:27:51

oppositions. Actually, let's go

1:27:53

through the whole thing. One, recharge, push dice. What

1:27:55

are pushed dice? Push dice are a

1:27:58

resource that you can spend. to

1:28:00

a role in order to increase

1:28:03

the chance that you succeed at what you want to do.

1:28:06

You start with three of them and

1:28:08

as you you can always use

1:28:10

them as when you have

1:28:13

them and you'll get them back from

1:28:15

kind of action to action but but

1:28:17

if you succeed in

1:28:20

this game you can there's

1:28:22

a chance for you to spend those push dice on something

1:28:24

I'll explain in a second. So let's

1:28:27

just walk through this for now. One,

1:28:29

recharge your push dice. You got them. Yeah,

1:28:31

there's three of them. You got them over

1:28:33

here to your left. Two,

1:28:35

assemble your dice. The player gets a number of

1:28:38

action dice equal to her rating in the verb

1:28:40

she's using. She can add a push dice for

1:28:42

each positive adjective object or tag that helps her.

1:28:44

She must take a hurt die for each negative

1:28:46

adjective she has. You don't have any hurt die.

1:28:49

We'll talk about that in the future. For now,

1:28:51

are you going to use

1:28:53

your any of your push dice on

1:28:55

this role? Yeah,

1:28:58

I'm gonna use my push dice.

1:29:00

For how are you doing it?

1:29:02

What adjective or object are

1:29:05

you using to let you use a or

1:29:08

tag are you using for push dice? So

1:29:12

like you said I have the head

1:29:14

jack device. Its

1:29:17

tags are cerebral input experimental

1:29:19

linked nerve linked and dermal

1:29:21

linked. Pretty much any of

1:29:23

those I could go towards this

1:29:25

which means I could probably use all of my push

1:29:27

dice on this role which I'm not

1:29:30

going to do. Sure. I'm just

1:29:32

gonna use one. Okay, which one?

1:29:34

Pick one here. I'm

1:29:37

gonna use it for the whole hand jack if you wanted to

1:29:39

and just say like that's the thing. You don't have to get

1:29:41

it. Yeah, sure. Yeah, just the head. And then none from your

1:29:43

adjectives. Or I'll say just to

1:29:46

dermal link. There's like a hand pad. Yeah,

1:29:48

I think the same thing. Yeah, you we

1:29:50

get the shot of your hand touching it

1:29:53

and like the early 2000s

1:29:55

like zoom in that shows that like

1:29:57

you know you've zoomed in on your

1:29:59

hand. and doing a little

1:30:01

connection to the Edmonds created file. It

1:30:03

looks like a home scanner where the

1:30:05

thing is... Sorry, the Edmonds choose your

1:30:07

goos machine. Yeah, it's use your goos.

1:30:11

But then you're not going to use any of your adjectives.

1:30:13

Clever, quick, or charming here? No.

1:30:16

Okay. So then that gives you five

1:30:18

dice. And then the second thing

1:30:20

here is describe the... Or the third thing,

1:30:22

describe your action. So

1:30:27

I've got the dermal link set

1:30:29

up. I've got a

1:30:33

sort of like a

1:30:36

new panel sort of pushes the old

1:30:38

panel out of the way. And it gives

1:30:40

you access to the back end. And I'm just like looking...

1:30:43

I'm seeing this is like a

1:30:46

group. There's like groups

1:30:48

of doze, cook

1:30:51

styles, and toppings. And

1:30:53

I'm just seeing which ones you

1:30:55

can add together. And it lets you do like weird

1:30:58

like... Well, let's see if you can have a... Okay,

1:31:01

well, I'm just I'm seeing that you can make

1:31:03

stuff that doesn't even make... Sure. I'm

1:31:05

going to have a donut that's two

1:31:07

kinds of does cooked two different ways. Like

1:31:09

I won't do this even if I asked

1:31:11

it to. Right, right, right. Like

1:31:14

things that would be impossible to achieve even

1:31:16

by the machine. Importantly, you're just seeing this

1:31:18

in like an interface. You're

1:31:20

not in the world of... No. You're

1:31:23

not entering the mesh in that way. And in fact,

1:31:25

again, there isn't that sort of mesh in the space

1:31:27

without going to the holidays. World of goo. Well, this

1:31:29

is just the other world of goo, actually, I guess.

1:31:33

But yeah, okay. So now, roll the dice.

1:31:35

The player rolls all of her action, push,

1:31:37

and hurt dice. The hurt dice cancel any

1:31:39

matching action and push dice. So if you

1:31:41

were hurt from an adjective, a negative adjective,

1:31:43

which we'll talk about in a second, you

1:31:46

would... It could be

1:31:48

a problem. But thankfully, you don't have any of those.

1:31:50

And what you rolled is... What do you roll here?

1:31:53

I rolled a two twos, a

1:31:55

three, a five, and a six. Take your highest. Simple.

1:31:58

Your six is the highest. Determine the

1:32:00

reaction the verb the target uses

1:32:02

to react Determines

1:32:05

his reaction rating for each positive adjective

1:32:07

object or tag that helps him He

1:32:09

can discharge or push dice and increase

1:32:11

his reaction rating by one. You're

1:32:13

going against two here this this Edamids

1:32:17

choose your goos machine only has a two

1:32:19

in the counter thing, which is

1:32:21

also hacked Yeah, that's not enough

1:32:23

to beat your six and I don't have any push dice

1:32:26

if I had pushed ice I could spend them to try

1:32:28

to like get my defense to

1:32:30

resist here But I don't have that right

1:32:32

and that's different than discharging you would be

1:32:34

giving me back a push die that you

1:32:36

had is not correct No,

1:32:39

that's then that's the other thing

1:32:41

to increase the effect from sticky to law

1:32:43

right at normal point I mean that you're

1:32:45

doing is if I could go back

1:32:47

to where it was before we where did where did your black

1:32:49

die go? Oh, it's it was it's in

1:32:51

discharge Let's keep them all up there for a second

1:32:53

because that's we're not done the role yet at this

1:32:55

point We resolved the role players result

1:32:58

is higher than targets reaction rating her

1:33:00

actions effective So your actions going to

1:33:02

be effective then you apply the adjective

1:33:04

with an effective action The player asserts

1:33:06

a new adjective on the target by

1:33:08

default the adjective is fleeting you

1:33:10

can spend one push die to

1:33:13

make it sticky or two to make

1:33:15

it locked a Fleeting

1:33:18

adjective is gone once The

1:33:20

person who's affected by it takes action

1:33:23

to address that it's there that might

1:33:25

be immediate or it might be an

1:33:27

hour from now right, yeah But

1:33:30

you're applying an adjective in this case you're applying the

1:33:32

because of the way technical works You're applying the adage

1:33:34

of not to the machine, but to like whoever

1:33:37

runs enemy

1:33:39

likes the security Yes,

1:33:42

and this particular case it is the

1:33:44

it is the CTT or the sorry

1:33:46

the CCT that counter rate thought it

1:33:48

can rate Technocracies like a local like

1:33:50

network Defender right

1:33:52

the person who who takes can who

1:33:55

looks at all of the defenses inside

1:33:57

of this little zone right

1:33:59

this this? the front gate basically. Sure.

1:34:02

And this, like the head guard here basically,

1:34:05

does not have a high hack, and

1:34:07

so easily was hacked here. And

1:34:11

you could give them a short... That's good to

1:34:13

know. That's who it is. You've learned a little

1:34:15

information here. So yeah, you can apply a fleeting

1:34:17

adjective of your choice. And

1:34:22

I'm a... Or you could spend... And I'm

1:34:24

a planning to set to one push die to make

1:34:26

it sticky, and spend as in to

1:34:28

give to you. Give me that push die, correct.

1:34:30

Yes. And then I would get to use that

1:34:33

against y'all on the other side of

1:34:35

this, right? And that, we go back and forth on

1:34:37

that, and eventually you've got a little information, and you

1:34:39

get your push dice back, and then you can kind

1:34:41

of make some big swings as you try to figure

1:34:43

out the mystery. And

1:34:48

so because I'm applying

1:34:50

it to this person instead

1:34:52

of the thing, it wouldn't be something

1:34:55

like free because... Correct. You're

1:34:57

not applying it to the machine. It'd

1:35:00

be something like outfoxed. Right, 100%. Outfoxed,

1:35:02

distracted. Confused,

1:35:05

whatever you... Humiliated. Yeah,

1:35:09

or... You know. The

1:35:16

thing I wanna say is, we should go

1:35:18

quick with these. We should do our best. Let's

1:35:21

not let the perfect

1:35:23

be the enemy of the good. Distracted, distracted

1:35:25

is good enough. How is it that you've

1:35:27

distracted them from this? How is it that

1:35:29

you've made a little noise somewhere so that

1:35:31

they don't notice you hacking the

1:35:33

enderman's machine? Maybe

1:35:38

just sending some junk to a terminal. Oh,

1:35:41

sure. Yeah, and

1:35:43

it's like opening autoplay, ad spam.

1:35:45

Oh, I love that. Distracted,

1:35:48

ad spam.

1:35:50

Okay. So

1:35:52

yeah, normally, this

1:35:54

allows you to do something that would have tripped

1:35:56

an alarm normally, or they would have noticed the

1:35:58

signal, but it just lost... and the mess of

1:36:00

all this other stuff and you're able to get

1:36:02

what you want here. The remainder

1:36:05

of this, the remainder of the dice roll

1:36:07

thing is, let me

1:36:09

make sure we don't skip any steps for

1:36:11

the first roll. I've

1:36:13

lost my my

1:36:16

whole little breakdown. Where did it

1:36:18

go? I had it up and I lost it.

1:36:20

Do you want me to tell you what donuts

1:36:22

I'm getting? Tell me about your donuts.

1:36:24

Okay. So are you getting everybody a

1:36:26

donut? Or are you like is it a custom

1:36:28

donut per person? Are you just getting your interested,

1:36:30

your interested in your donuts? You're

1:36:33

gonna get donuts for your grab-back.

1:36:35

I'm doing, I'm doing a,

1:36:38

get a handful of donuts and

1:36:41

people can dibs them. Right. Sure.

1:36:43

So I'm getting a

1:36:46

chocolate glazed jelly filled.

1:36:49

I'm getting a chocolate glazed

1:36:51

then regular

1:36:54

glazed. I'm

1:36:56

getting an old-fashioned cream

1:36:59

filled and

1:37:01

then I'm getting a sprinkles

1:37:07

then glazed then sprinkles

1:37:10

then chocolate coated. Okay.

1:37:13

So you're getting four donuts. You're not getting

1:37:15

any extras. So everyone has to pick from

1:37:17

this set. I guess Audie will

1:37:19

not be eating a donut probably. I

1:37:21

will not. You can

1:37:23

still have one. Maybe I just want to hold on.

1:37:25

I do know. Yeah, you can just have a donut.

1:37:27

Okay. Look at a donut.

1:37:31

Okay. Well at this point,

1:37:33

I'm guessing by the way distracted was just

1:37:35

a temporary one. Just a loose one. Yeah,

1:37:37

I'm not gonna. Okay. Then

1:37:40

yeah. So then now we can go ahead discharge

1:37:42

that push die. It goes over in your little

1:37:44

right column like you did before over there and

1:37:46

then the rest of them pull back down to

1:37:48

the action dice segment and then the last step

1:37:50

here respect the adjective play

1:37:52

continues with the new adjective representing

1:37:55

a change in the narrative and

1:37:58

so like Audie I think you actually see some of the this, which

1:38:00

is like, some of the CCT

1:38:03

guards are like, were milling about near

1:38:05

one of these picnic tables I described, and

1:38:07

they get a call. And then

1:38:09

so they're breaks over and then they get

1:38:12

up and start heading towards like the nearest,

1:38:15

like guard post, you know, outpost.

1:38:20

Something's up. And

1:38:23

so something that could have happened,

1:38:25

yes, is that I could have

1:38:27

spent to die, give them to

1:38:29

you made distracted locked and made

1:38:32

this a very different kind of situation that

1:38:34

we're I would say that if you did

1:38:36

that, we probably want something bigger than distracted,

1:38:39

or like, distracted, but it have already

1:38:41

be you've sent them evidence

1:38:43

of their spouses infidelity.

1:38:46

And now they are distracted, oh, no,

1:38:48

like a bigger, longer term. I mean,

1:38:51

yeah, permanent is even bigger than that, right?

1:38:54

Because I think a thing to say here

1:38:56

is there's kind of three tiers of adjective,

1:38:58

there is fleeting, I believe, I

1:39:00

believe the word that we use for that is fleeting,

1:39:03

there is sticky, and

1:39:05

then there's permanent. And, you know, jet,

1:39:09

an example that comes up in the book is

1:39:11

that you might break an

1:39:14

arm, and that would be sticky, you

1:39:16

might sever an arm, and that would be

1:39:18

permanent. Right? Yeah. And

1:39:20

so like, permanent is a

1:39:22

big deal, you know, right?

1:39:25

But I'm just saying like, this is something these

1:39:27

are the levels of what I already I had

1:39:29

learned. So you could not sorry, you could not

1:39:31

have done a two things, you only

1:39:33

rolled one push die. You can only

1:39:35

spend push dice that you actually added to the

1:39:37

role. Oh, sure. Okay, okay.

1:39:40

So it's you're spending discharge dice, you're

1:39:42

not spending holdover. Correct. You're not spending

1:39:44

the holdover dice for resisting not correct,

1:39:46

correct, or helping I want to because

1:39:49

you can also help others by discharging

1:39:52

a die. And that yeah, adds something

1:39:55

I'll have to look it up when it comes to make

1:39:57

my hypothetical more realistic.

1:40:00

I could spend I could have spent this

1:40:02

core and push die to make it sticky

1:40:04

to then like have having Substantively

1:40:08

changed our situation in terms of should

1:40:10

be say and what I'm gonna say

1:40:12

is right now. Yeah, yes, correct Yeah,

1:40:14

yeah, if you want to like capitalize

1:40:16

on this this second, it would help

1:40:18

you the person is still distracted

1:40:21

They're doing the things they need to do

1:40:24

to get undistracted that will happen. But if

1:40:26

you all decided fuck it we're sneaking in

1:40:29

We're leaving the ship here then you

1:40:31

could do that I've seems like a

1:40:33

good way of giving yourself away is

1:40:35

leaving the whole ship behind I think

1:40:37

they would figure out who it's luck

1:40:39

asked if that was the case But

1:40:41

they're very bad tourist union who didn't yeah,

1:40:44

exactly. They don't know they don't know who ship this is So

1:40:47

Mako returns with the donuts in hand

1:40:50

Cass Aria, who

1:40:53

do you think of this guy and his donuts? And

1:40:57

my stack of other things. Oh, right

1:40:59

also the other the energy drain is

1:41:01

this is a smorgasbrough, uh-huh It

1:41:07

feels risky you

1:41:10

say as much that in character no

1:41:14

I'm passing. Oh, I think it's like You

1:41:17

don't want to say that I mean Maybe

1:41:19

like looking for like a sympathetic glance

1:41:22

first to Audie who does

1:41:24

not return the

1:41:27

glance and then maybe

1:41:29

to Aria I Mean

1:41:32

to tell you what Audie does know you're right We've

1:41:36

established that they don't do

1:41:38

sympathetic glances Not

1:41:40

today, but before so

1:41:42

if this is again your first time here Does

1:41:46

does odd eat anything or have

1:41:48

a food analog? No,

1:41:52

and can I have gotten it not

1:41:54

really I realize that this is

1:41:56

the opposite of yes and but historically,

1:41:59

Odie does really eat

1:42:01

or drink. Oh

1:42:03

sleep they sort of tone themselves off. That's

1:42:05

a huge thing with us. We've always got

1:42:07

at least one person that's going to drink.

1:42:09

It's weird but yeah. Seems true. It's

1:42:13

so true. Hey I mean that's

1:42:15

fun. I got you a trucker

1:42:17

hat. Thank

1:42:20

you. Does it say something on it or is it just color?

1:42:23

It says I

1:42:26

break for and then like

1:42:29

an emoji of a toilet. For

1:42:34

toilet. Yeah like I go to I only thought

1:42:36

to go to the bathroom. Okay.

1:42:40

Blading this to Audi. Looking

1:42:43

perplexed. Going

1:42:45

to the bathroom is a thing that. I

1:42:48

thought it would be ironic. Okay. Thank

1:42:51

you. I thought it was like

1:42:53

I break toilets. No

1:42:56

no. Don't understand toilets. Toilets

1:42:58

would be like the hardest thing for a robot to

1:43:01

understand right. We agree on that. I think

1:43:04

it's that or the mystery of human life and love.

1:43:07

Or the other. But it's

1:43:09

like it's neck and neck. Yeah. And

1:43:12

they poop. Aria.

1:43:15

Aria and Cass I need to know

1:43:17

which donuts you're taking and also I'd

1:43:20

like to know what you think of

1:43:22

this. Yeah. I think

1:43:24

I'd like the chocolate glaze with the regular

1:43:26

glaze on top. Good choice. Which

1:43:28

of these doesn't have any filling. The

1:43:31

one that oh

1:43:33

the one that Cass took and

1:43:35

then also the glaze sprinkles

1:43:38

glaze sprinkles doesn't have

1:43:40

filling. Wait. There's two

1:43:43

different sprinkles. Right. You're normally not

1:43:45

allowed to mix glaze and sprinkles but

1:43:47

this is glaze and sprinkles twice each.

1:43:50

Wait so double layers? It's

1:43:52

double. Yeah four layers to each

1:43:55

glaze and sprinkles chocolate

1:43:57

sprinkles. Think

1:44:00

that's too sweet Aria

1:44:04

immediately realizes this when she takes a bite

1:44:06

Oh Texturally

1:44:08

very nothing at that though Yeah

1:44:13

I'm going I'm gonna have

1:44:15

the chocolate glaze jelly filled.

1:44:18

This sounds so gross to me I

1:44:20

sound so good. I don't like a chocolate donut

1:44:23

as it is So

1:44:25

or a glaze really yeah Yeah,

1:44:27

I don't like it. I like chocolate glaze that

1:44:30

specific kind of chocolate donut. I really like They're

1:44:33

like cakey donut. Yeah, I don't I don't

1:44:35

it's too much too rich Anyone's

1:44:38

getting up to anything during this downtime any

1:44:41

other convert like icebreakers between this crew and

1:44:43

he So

1:44:45

I'm there's maybe a Dunkin donuts thing. It's not

1:44:47

a nice enough donut to be rich. You know,

1:44:49

I mean um Is

1:44:53

there like I want

1:44:56

to have like a conversation about the security

1:44:59

But I don't know What

1:45:02

this like oh I do But

1:45:05

like I want cast to

1:45:07

say something smart But

1:45:09

art is done. Okay. I see what you

1:45:11

mean. I know I I get

1:45:14

it now art doesn't know about the

1:45:17

security What

1:45:20

kind of smart thing might you want to say if

1:45:22

you knew how to say it, you

1:45:24

know like identifying You

1:45:27

know identifying the weak point if we are

1:45:29

gonna go around this blockade What's

1:45:32

the how do we hop the fence? What's

1:45:34

the I identified the dumbass in charge as

1:45:36