Transcriber: Finch Collins @definitelyfinch [0:00:00-1:07:09], Aaron @goblinfootfall#6647 [1:07:09-2:05:50]
[Music begins: TANAGER. PERFECT. TOUCHPAPER.]
AUSTIN: It was remarkable. All across Partizan, as if overnight, Millennium Break seemed to flash into existence. In the foggy mountains of the Nidean ridge, communes emerged, supported surreptitiously by a nearby temple. A skirmish in the streets of Oxbridge left four dead and 4000 radicalized. In Vigil City, a judge ruled that protesters were allowed to march but not to use the Millennium Break symbol. They did it anyway - violence.
And in the sordid Orion city of Marengo, where the Kesh-trained historian turned information broker Sloe Uplight made his home, the symbol of Millennium Break had caught fire in the streets themselves. A massive M lit down city boulevards, fire slashing across rooftops, a spark so bright that it could be seen from space. Uplight knew that revolution, what was happening across Partizan, wasn't novel, but that didn't make it any less remarkable.
Despite the Palace's attempt to downplay and obscure such events, this was hardly the first uprising of its kind. Year 380 of The Miraculous Millennium: a newly formed Horizon takes Leraphon-4 [???], but is betrayed by the people they're saving. 620 years later, the Song of a Nidean resort attempts a coup. The world was wiped from the maps: its name, its location, its people turn adrift, which is of course what happened to the world where the Farmer had led his uprising, too. But that Sovereign Immunity had done what few others had managed: made his revolution visible, memorable, unerasable, and here he was again, a background player this time, but still.
They say that lightning doesn't strike twice, but Sloe Uplight, who had lit a symbol so bright that it could be seen from space, knew better. If you want to bring the thunder down, become a lightning rod.
[Music continues for thirty seconds, then ends]
AUSTIN: Um, all right. So, any other last business before we move on to this next crossroad? [pause] Um, Dre, are you staying-
DRE: (overlapping) Um, I-
AUSTIN: Yeah, go ahead.
DRE: No, I think Valence shifts from a perspective to a power.
AUSTIN: Which, I was gonna say "well what's that look like?" but you should listen to the last two hours of our (Austin laughs) podcast! (Laughter) Alright, so I had... I had a crossroad ready for the next one, but it looks like y'all suggested, have sent one here to me that I think is interesting, but it's not my decision to approve or not. Someone want to read what you've written?
ALI: Sure, yeah. There's two versions of this written, me and Dre decided to write in the chat simultaneously to see if we had the same idea. Um...
DRE: And we did.
ALI: And we did. Um... Dre's version of it is, "will Clementine Kesh be put on trial?" And my version of it is, "the next crossroad is to push out Clementine and anyone else the public doesn't want involved." We can probably find a middle ground there?
AUSTIN: Yeah, I think that-
ART: (overlapping) Wow, trial is so cinematic. (Ali laughs.)
AUSTIN: Trial is so cinematic, yeah.
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: The, the... it's up to Jack here because of it being around Clementine. The other thing is, crossroads should not technically be about individuals. I think there's a general- I think that the, Ali's version of this which is like, the- anyone else the public doesn't want is like, you know... um... is generalizable in the sense of like, "will people be put on trial for their past crimes? Will, you know, will there be some sort of anti-corruption trial enacted?" You know?
ALI: Right. Yeah.
AUSTIN: I do love the power of "will Clementine Kesh be put on trial," though. (Ali and Jack laugh.) That's a great, that's a great sentence.
ART: We could, we could universalize it. So it's not about a specific person. [ALI: Right...] "Will people like Clementine Kesh be put on trial?" (laughter)
AUSTIN: I will note something else here, which is interesting that like, we- we fucked up, but also it's too late. But we should think about this going into this next set, which is that predictions should not be about individual characters. Predictions should be about the kingdom. Now. I think that like, who will win the election is broad enough and about the kingdom in that sense that, like, it's worth it, but our predictions going forward shouldn't be like, "and then Gur Servaq will, will change- will get eight eyes instead of six eyes." You know what I mean? Like that isn't... anything that particular is about a character more than the kingdom, so...
KEITH: I would love to see how we got to predicting how many eyes Gur Sevraq has.
AUSTIN: Well, it would have to be-
ART: (overlapping) Stop peeking at my Google Doc, Austin. (Austin and Ali laugh.)
AUSTIN: But I hope that that makes sense, right? Like that, again, like the way it's written here is um... ah... [searching noises] "You can make as many predictions as you want about one or both alternatives, but you predictions must be about the kingdom, not specific characters." So, good to know, to think about so what is, what is it? What is the wording here? Will the kingdom...
ALI: I do like centering it around trials and around it being, like, a group trial or multiple trials for multiple people because then it ends up that the... the different punishments become different for who, who it is, right. And then also... by making it a trial put on by the kingdom... the consequences can be beneficial to the kingdom.
AUSTIN: So yeah, is it "will the kingdom begin trials" or "hold trials?" Against who, against its members, against...
KEITH: Will counterrevolutionaries stand trial?
AUSTIN: Yeah, will the kingdom put counterrevolutionaries on trial?
ALI: Love it.
AUSTIN: With Clem being one that someone will make a prediction about presumably very quickly. If yes, Clementine Kesh-
ART: I'm the only Perspective, so I have to make so many predictions-
AUSTIN: No you're not. You're, you're- I'm also a Perspective.
KEITH: Gur Sevraq.
ART: Oh, I thought you were a Touchstone.
KEITH: I’m a Touchstone.
AUSTIN: Yeah, that's Apparatus.
KEITH: Um...
JANINE: We need to make a law.
AUSTIN: We do need to make a law. Well, y'all need to make a law, I don't need to make shit. (Sylvia and Ali laugh.)
JACK: Oh, okay. What if it's just something like, you know, "free and fair elections will be held every x time..." [lighter voice] Every eggs time. (Laughter)
AUSTIN: Every eggs time. One word-
DRE: (overlapping) Every time that fucking bunny comes around-
AUSTIN: (overlapping) We gotta-
DRE: (overlapping) -and starts putting eggs everywhere.
JANINE: Yeah, I think that's, I think that's the way to go. It needs to be something...
AUSTIN: Regularly?
JACK: No, no, let's set term limits.
AUSTIN: Okay, how long?
JACK: Ah... um... four year seems to work out great for you lot, right? [AUSTIN, DRE, and ART make noises of resignation and disagreement]
AUSTIN: Nope!
DRE: Not at all.
ALI: Let's do two, let's meet in the middle.
DRE: (overlapping) I was gonna say one year.
JANINE: (overlapping) I was also gonna say two. (Ali laughs.)
KEITH: Two weeks!
AUSTIN: Powers say two weeks. Powers say, what is it, two years? Okay.
JACK: Two years.
AUSTIN: All right.
ART: And it's these weird years, right?
AUSTIN: It's these weird years. They're very long years. That's the thing to remember, they're 500 day years. [ALI: Oh...] Every year.
ART: So that's like three years-
JACK: (overlapping) 1.8 years!
AUSTIN: Every, every Earth, every two Earth years. (Sylvia laughs.)
JACK: Every Earth year. It's somewhere in the center of the galaxy, maybe, still? Who knows?
AUSTIN: Who could say?
SYLVIA: What the fuck is Earth?
DRE: (overlapping) Every 17.4 Nobel [??] years.
AUSTIN: Oh, Okay. All right. So this new, this new thing kicks off. How- what- phew. Ha. Okay, where do- how does this begin? Is this like, is this one of, is one of the things on the list that Valence has to get to? Is this someone knocking on Valence's door? Is this, like, Leap leading people? Like, what is it?
ALI: Oh god... yeah... is it Leap putting like... a thousand-
DRE: Yeah, who was it that asked the question at the debate? (Ali laughs.)
ALI: It was Leap.
AUSTIN: Oh, absolutely it was Leap-
KEITH: (overlapping) It was me. Yeah. It was Leap, yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Is this, like, Leap, Valence and Sovereign Immunity... in Valence's office? God, Valence has an office now...
KEITH: Sure.
DRE: Would Millie wanna be there?
SYLVIA: I- yeah. I'll be there to support Leap.
KEITH: Well, yeah, cuz, because only Jesset City put a hand up. Oh, no, actually-
AUSTIN: (overlapping) That's not true!
KEITH: (overlapping) Valence, you did too-
DRE: (overlapping) No, Valence did too. Yeah. [AUSTIN: Right.]
KEITH: (overlapping) Yeah. All right. Well, you put your hand up. So let's get to it.
AUSTIN: Draw me the picture. Also Valence, what's your office? What's your office look like?
DRE: Oh... It's probably the library. There's a lot less flyers everywhere. There's probably like a half open box tucked in a corner that still has a bunch of flyers inside of it.
AUSTIN: Amazing, amazing. This feels like Leap opens it up with some sort of wild demand.
KEITH: Yeah
KEITH (as Leap): So you gonna put her in jail yet?
DRE (as Valence): Hm. How...
KEITH (as Leap): It's been a month.
DRE (as Valence): Yeah, no. How do... how do trials normally work here?
KEITH (as Leap): On Fort Icebreaker? I don't know. (Keith laughs.)
DRE (as Valence): Yeah, fair point. Well... you three know her best and are arguably-
KEITH (as Leap): (overlapping) What's the trial for?
DRE (as Valence): Hold on I'm asking - I'm about to ask! You three have been, like, the most wronged by her so what do you want to happen?
DRE (as Valence): (overlapping) Yeah.
SYLVIA (as Millie): (overlapping) Yeah, any of the above.
KEITH (as Leap): (overlapping) [inaudible] - walk the plank before.
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): You're not describing a trial, you're describing sentencing--
KEITH (as Leap): (overlapping) Why would we need a trial?
SYLVIA (as Millie): Yeah, she did the stuff we're talking about.
KEITH (as Leap): Yeah, we know she's currently jailing. We know that she did it. There was no, like, what's the trial for?
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): You didn't say trial?
KEITH (as Leap): No, you all said trial. If I said trial.
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): Then I didn't say it. I was - I thought you said it. This is a mistake, this is my mistake.
DRE (as Valence): No, I said trial. I think there should be a trial.
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): I still didn't say that.
ART: That was, that was a player mistake I mistook who said something.
KEITH: Okay. It's- I want to say just to cover my bases, I may have said trial by mistake. I didn't, I never meant to say trial, if I did, just in case.
KEITH (as Leap): There's no point in having a trial. We all know - she's currently doing it. You can just look at her and be like, yep, that's, that's the one doing the crime.
DRE (as Valence): Yeah, but not... okay. Let me put this loud and clear. I believe you. But not everyone knows. And everyone should know. We can't just like - throw someone--
KEITH (as Leap): (overlapping) I think everyone knows. She's Clementine Kesh!
DRE (as Valence): I don't think people know the extent. I think throwing someone off a plank... you throw them into a plank, when they walk the plank?
KEITH (as Leap): (overlapping) Off a plank, they walk off the plank.
SYLVIA (as Millie): (overlapping) No, I mean, they were supposed to walk off of it, but I'm hearing something about throwing and I'm thinking about it, so...
DRE (as Valence): Well, okay-
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): Well you don't need a plank, if you're gonna throw...
KEITH (as Leap): (overlapping) You can build a floating plank, throw her into it, and she falls into the sea.
SYLVIA (as Millie): You build the plank so you have a run up for the throw.
DRE (as Valence): Okay, I think just doing that, like out of nowhere, is a bad precedent.
SYLVIA (as Millie): They've got a point.
KEITH (as Leap): Well... I mean, yeah, it's a bad precedent for jailers and war criminals, that if you do those things, you don't get a trial, you just get thrown into the ocean. Or exile or whatever, put her in jail, I don't know.
SYLVIA (as Millie): But like, what if they think like - they being every- they think that we're bad because we threw a lady in the ocean without explaining why. I just think it's like, if we cover our bases, there's less-
KEITH (as Leap): (overlapping) I'm already a pirate, I deal with people thinking I'm bad all the time.
SYLVIA (as Millie): Okay, fair.
DRE (as Valence): Can I ask you all what might be a weird question?
SYLVIA (as Millie): Yeah.
KEITH (as Leap): Yes.
DRE (as Valence): And I would want honest answers from all three of you. Is there anything Clementine Kesh could do to redeem herself to you?
(pause)
KEITH (as Leap): Could or would?
SYLVIA (as Millie): Yeah, it...
KEITH (as Leap): No. (Sylvia laughs.)
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): What was your answer if it was would?
KEITH (as Leap): No, still no.
DRE (as Valence): (overlapping) Yeah, I kind of-
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): (overlapping) Then why would you ask?
KEITH (as Leap): (overlapping) But it was, it was dramatic effect.
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): [noise of disbelief]
DRE (as Valence): Mm hmm.
SYLVIA (as Millie): I don't, like, that is a question that is, like, hard for me to fathom an answer to. Pretty much all she's ever done is point us in a direction and say "do this." Um...
KEITH (as Leap): We delivered this fort directly to her, and still couldn't imagine a world where we were not under her control.
SYLVIA (as Millie): I got something - Kesh have a lot of stuff that we can use and so far we haven't really, like, siphoned much of that.
KEITH (as Leap): Well yeah, take her credit card first.
SYLVIA (as Millie): For real, like, at least have her show that she's committed to this.
KEITH (as Leap): (overlapping) Can Figure A-
SYLVIA (as Millie): (overlapping) That would be a start to like-
KEITH (as Leap): (overlapping) Figure A, can you run back how many times I said that we should be embezzling from Kesh?
DRE (as Valence): Sovereign, what do you think? Is there anything she could do?
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): She could kill her mother. (Ali barks a laugh.)
SYLVIA (as Millie): She could kill her mother, and you know what?
DRE: Valence's eyes go real big. (Dre laughs.)
SYLVIA (as Millie): [excited] We should - we should do that.
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): I would be interested in that as a form of penance. Her- I think, I think Crysanth is the bigger villain, I would, I would trade a smaller villain for a bigger villain.
KEITH (as Leap): Her war with her mother has nothing to do with her... ability to be a better person.
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): Her war with her mother has everything to do with her ability to be a better person.
DRE (as Valence): The reason I ask is I think it's a question that we're going to have to ask a lot, should ask a lot. And I think there's some people who... genuinely the answer will be, I don't know if there's anything they could do. But I think for this to really work and to be different and to not just be us overthrowing one thing to just turn into the same thing, we have to ask that question - genuinely - a lot.
KEITH (as Leap): To me, it sounds like taking steps to protect Clementine Kesh is the thing that looks like the old thing.
DRE (as Valence): Hm, yeah, fair. Okay, so how do we arrest somebody on Icebreaker Prime? How does the Millennium Break arrest somebody?
SYVLIA: Millie pulls out a pistol.
SYLVIA (as Millie): I don't know. How else- how do they usually do it?
DRE: (Dre laughs.) Do we just end this scene there?
AUSTIN: I think so. (Sylvia laughs.) Are there predictions there from Sovereign Immunity?
ART: Um... it's probably a little early for...
AUSTIN: You can make as many predictions as you want, as long as you're in the scene.
ART: If no, there will be, you know, a great period of civil unrest. If yes, there will be, like, a French-Revolution-esque Reign of Terror.
AUSTIN: I think it's- I do think it is- we had previously said one per scene, so I think we should keep it to that. But if you want to - that's what I was saying.
ART: (overlapping) Alright then the first one is better because we're not quite at the second.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Okay. All right.
ART: I see that writing on the wall.
KEITH: To be fair, I was, I was doing that anyway, so we're good -
AUSTIN: (overlapping) That was what - yeah, yeah - oh, right. You're also- are you also a prospective now? No, you're a touchstone.
KEITH: No, no, sorry. I meant I was doing a French revolution thing.
AUSTIN: Of course. Yes. (Dre laughs.) All right, Valence, that was your scene, right? Is that what we're saying? I guess it could have been Keith's scene. But...
DRE: Yeah, I mean, I think it was Keith's idea, but I figured that was basically where we would start from.
AUSTIN: Yeah. I'm gonna mark you, but if you want to come back around, we can do that.
DRE: Okay. Sure.
AUSTIN: Cause Apparatus wasn't in that scene, but you know. Alright, who else has--who has scene or a reaction to that? (Austin laughs.)I have stuff but I don't know that it's right yet.
ALI: [clicks tongue] Yeah, it's tough to know where to start.
JANINE: Yeah, I also have like, ideas, but they feel deeply premature, [AUSTIN hums] until something else has happened. What are you looking for to happen before it feels... is it just like to get this further on? Because that's kind of where I'm at. It's like-
JANINE: (overlapping) Moves need to be made, basically.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) I need, yeah, I need, I need to see... I need, I need GS to see that this is happening for- to, to have a reaction, right? I guess I could just say that it is...
ALI: But it could be- it's the- it could be the TV thing of like, oh, we're gonna go, (Ali laughs) you know, scene one: we're arresting Clem, scene two: Clem is arrested and something is happening about it, right?
ART: Yeah, it feels, it feels foolish to have to have scenes where everyone finds out about it, right? Like we can just skip that, right, everyone finds out.
AUSTIN: I guess that's the question - like, how do we find out? Do we find out because people start getting arrested?
DRE: Yeah, who besides Clem gets arrested? I think that's a really interesting question-
AUSTIN: (overlapping) You're a power, you can decide that. As long as-- [DRE: noise of aversion] - that's one of the things powers do is, "When you order the kingdom to do something, the kingdom does it. Describe what you do to make it happen. You can throw someone in jail, give them a raise, et cetera. Another player's main or minor character does not have to obey you, but you can order the kingdom to punish or reward them."
ALI: Um... actually, I mean, I guess in my case, I... the... huh. I could do like a paired Broun... I think even Aiden could get involved in this too, where like the... we as a group should come up with the list, right? But I think that there might be like a Semaphore thread? Or like, like a suggestion box or something like that. God, there was like a media property that did this, [softly] am I thinking of Persona 5 or something else that was during it... [louder again] where it was the same sort of thing, It was like, you know, go on this website. Tell us who's wronged you and we'll take care of it. And it's not quite that... but I do think that when you have... if we have the system in place already, and we've established that that's how a lot of these ideas are coming together. [AUSTIN: Mm hmm.] That I don't know if it would be like Broun and Leap, figuring out- rounding up that list or whatever, or if it would be like, Broun-Cedra-Millie, pulling what the names are and then like Aiden and some other strong people. Like strong boys, or strong, strong hands-
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Strong boys gang, yeah uh-huh. (Ali laughs.)
ALI: The strong boys gang-
KEITH: (overlapping) Hm, a gang of strong boys
ALI: (overlapping) of A.O. Rooke and Eiden Teak are going and arresting people. [AUSTIN: Mm hmm.] But that could be my Broun scene, or Broun reaction.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Is that, is that, is that the Broun reaction is like, making that happen, basically? Valence, are you, are you ordering this to happen? Because it doesn't happen unless a power orders it, right.
DRE: What is it specifically that's happening?
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Or I guess Broun can do it - beginning to kind of, like, collate a list of wrongdoers and bring them in.
DRE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Who is that list? What is, what is the - yeah, who is being hauled off? And also, I guess the question for Clem, is does Clem let herself be taken in? We have to get to what that scene looks like for sure. Like that has to be on screen when it comes down to it.
SYLVIA: (overlapping) Yeah.
AUSTIN: But other- are other people being arrested who are not powers, who cannot so easily protect themselves?
KEITH: Agon, maybe?
AUSTIN: Right - like this is the- like, sure. There's a question there. It's like, depending on what that list of charges is, a lot of people in this place have been guilty. Broun-
ALI: (overlapping) Right - yeah, yeah, I was gonna, just gonna say... [nervous giggle] I don't know if some of the, the piracy groups...
AUSTIN: Right - Tes'ili - like is- if one of these, if one of the things is like, taking things from poor people for profit, Tes'ili Serikos is arrested. [ALI huffs]
JACK: Oh my God, I'm gonna get both my characters arrested in one rule, this rules. (Everyone laughs.)
DRE: Would anybody else get arrested for using forced labor?
ALI: Oh, sure.
JACK: That sounds like, sounds like... I mean, I don't want to step on your toes, but it does sound like that seems to be what you lot would like to arrest people for. ()Austin snorts, Keith cracks up.
DRE: Well, I'm asking, is there anybody besides [AUSTIN: Clem] Clementine?
AUSTIN: Only--
KEITH: (overlapping) I mean, not on this list that I can, that I can see.
AUSTIN: I mean, only indirectly, only in the sense that they're in the, in the supply chain. Absolutely.
DRE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: In which case, everyone. (Ali snorts.)
DRE: Right.
AUSTIN: But, but no, I don't think-
JACK: (overlapping) It's the Amazon Web Services of Fort Icebreaker, right? (Dre laughs.)
AUSTIN: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. But no, I think if you're talking about forced labor, it's - if you're talking about slavery, it is Clementine Kesh. Right? I don't think it's Gucci... But! But Gucci absolutely has people who are barely paid (Dre laughs) working for her.
ALI: Right, yeah. It's almost making me wonder if like... people would-
KEITH: (overlapping) Well, better give them a raise, Gucci!
ALI: If people would actually end up doubling down on Clem, because she's such an obvious target that it's like, oh, we can make her the scapegoat while establishing these other guidelines or rules or laws or whatever.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: I would say this is probably, this is a great example of why the prediction should be broad and not just, like - I do think that you're right that like the ideal thing here is anyone who has, you know, participated in forced labor or you know, hurting civilians or whatever, like that, versus "let's round up specific names," because it's much easier to be like, "Oh, yes, here are other people." We might not know their names, but like, Clem is one of 12 people who are rounded up, you know what I mean? When you're talking about it in that broader sense.
AUSTIN: It mostly just sounds like we need... We just need to handwave and basically say that, yes, people start getting arrested, right, or jump to the Clementine Kesh arrest scene. Which we can just do.
JACK: Can we decide whether or not Tes'ili and Broun are getting arrested? (Ali laughs.)
AUSTIN: Yeah. I mean, yes. Except that we can also decide later that yes they are, even if we say no now, right?
ALI: Yeah.
JACK: Oh, right. Yeah. This game is great for that.
AUSTIN: Yes. (Dre laughs.) The thing right now is like, how do people learn this is happening so everybody else can frame scenes around it? And the big question there is, is that an arrest - an attempt at an arrest on Clementine?
KEITH: (overlapping) I think it's a big public arrest.
AUSTIN: So who is there? Where is that happening? What happens?
SYLVIA: Oh, I'm there.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: I'm there
AUSTIN: Millie is there-
ART: And who's - and this is ordered from - there's - a power is ordering it.
AUSTIN: It sounds like Valence is ordering it.
DRE: Yeah, yeah.
AUSTIN: Um, so yeah, who all is there? Where is it happening? Who's - Valence is, is this your scene?
DRE: Sure, yeah-
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Or is it, you know, I think maybe between this and, and the last one is you and Keith, that feels right. That feels like you're both collaborating on this.
KEITH: Yeah, yeah, it seems like two collaborations.
AUSTIN: [quietly] I'm going to decide that's all right. Boom. [louder] Okay. So who's there? Clem. Leap. Millie.
SYLVIA: I want to be there. Yeah.
AUSTIN: Sovereign or A.O.?
ART: I want to be there, yeah.
AUSTIN: Which one?
ART: I mean, it's a, it's a problem with the thing that I can only be one-
AUSTIN: (overlapping) I mean, you could, you could do both-
KEITH: (overlapping) It actually can be both-
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Yeah, you just have to be very clear about it. And I especially when you're like, if they're not talking to each other, it should be fine.
KEITH: Yeah.
ART: I want them [???]
AUSTIN: Alright, where is this happening?
DRE: [hesitant] Is Gucci there?
AUSTIN: Good question.
ALI: Ohhh (Ali laughs.)
JANINE: Ah, I... don't think she would be, just because... this... so this is, this is, this is like a... Okay, so I can't find - I don't have a narrative reason for Gucci to go, like, to be eager to be there? [AUSTIN: Mm hmm.] And simultaneously, from a narrative perspective, I think it's important that this mostly be Clem's crew. [AUSTIN and DRE: Mm hmm.] You know what I mean?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
DRE: (overlapping) Yeah.
JANINE: Like, it feels like that's the important thing, it feels to me like having Gucci in that scene versus maybe using Gucci for a scene with Clem later... Um, having Gucci there kind of weakens the moment, you know?
AUSTIN: Yeah. Alright, then. How does it kick off? Also, where do they find - is this just on the bridge? The command deck? I guess, let me frame it much more dramatically: Clementine Kesh. What are you doing when they come to arrest you?
JACK: Oh, that's my favorite Mountain Goats opening line. (Everyone laughs.) Ah... well, first I have an outfit. Um...
AUSTIN: Great.
DRE: Good.
JACK: Happy to take suggestions on which of these outfits - let me put it in the chat. But I think it's probably the high-collared - sorry, the high-shouldered outfit with the diamond collar. (Ali and Dre laugh.) The third picture, bottom, bottom on the left here.
AUSTIN: [??? tone] Oh god...
SYLVIA: That's sick.
AUSTIN: Love it. Love it. Love it, love it.
KEITH: She's already in an arrest pose. Just put the hands back instead of on the hips.
AUSTIN: Very interesting.
DRE: (overlapping) These are all great-
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Yeah, these are all fantastic.
KEITH: (overlapping) I just saw, I also just saw Sylvia's milk joke. (Sylvia laughs.)
JACK: Oh also we should shout this out, this is a tweet by @sadaboutchiffon who is one of my favorite fashion twitters... twitters? Accounts? And the title of the tweet is "Aniki & Caren Jepkeme for SCHÖN! MAGAZINE 38," with the photo by Elliot James Kennedy and the stylist is Saik Gonzalez.
AUSTIN: It's an incredible look.
JACK: It is a... [ART: I like the-] it looks like khaki [cocky?] almost.
AUSTIN: Do you have the belts that say "sex" on them on?
JACK: Yeah. (Ali giggles.)
KEITH: They say, but they say "arrest."
JACK: [lightly] No, no, they say "sex."
ART: It's weird that Austin asked, "Are you a coward?"
AUSTIN: That is what I- well, "Clementine Kesh, are you a coward?" was actually how the- (struggling through laughter) that's actually how the Mountain Goats song starts. (Keith and Dre crack up.)
JACK: Oh, god.
SYLVIA: Do we go in loud? I- like- how do we- a question to the people who are going to be there: are we going in, like, obvious about it? Or is this like, are we just- are we trying to catch her off guard?
DRE: If you're asking Valence as the power, I think it is not going in loud. It is basically like, "Hey, you know, you're under arrest for these charges. We're going to confine you to your room until a trial." [SYLVIA: Okay.] Please don't make us, like, drag you kicking and screaming there.
SYLVIA: But it is, like, making it clear what we're doing there.
DRE: Yes. Yeah.
AUSTIN: Let's see it. I want to see it.
JACK: I'm gonna let you take the lead.
KEITH: I think Leap's in front.
SYLVIA: Yeah, that seems right. Leap seems the most excited by this.
KEITH: Um, it's something I've been working, working on for a long time - or thinking about for a long time, at least. It took, it took a shift in power of an apostate government to do it, but I guess, what do I have, handcuffs? We should have handcuffs?
SYLVIA: I guess...
KEITH: Or do we not even need - no, we do-
SYLVIA: We wouldn't- I think Millie doesn't think we need them, but if Leap wanted to bring them...
KEITH: I don't think we need, no, I don't think we need them.
ART: (overlapping) Didn't we just say we were going to do this quietly?
KEITH: I don't see that- um... [pause] I mean we'll find out, because I open the door, and... rich people seem to know when they're about to get arrested?
AUSTIN: [disbelieving] Hmm... Clem?
KEITH: Do you know that we're about to - have you already heard that you're about to be arrested? You don't have to have.
JACK: No no no.
KEITH: [pause] Um... we opened the door to whatever room that Clem is in, and I say,
KEITH (as Leap): Clementine Kesh. You're under arrest for crime- various crimes against the people of Fort Icebreaker.
JACK: And you said you didn't bring handcuffs, this is a no handcuffs situation?
SYLVIA: Millie has a gun.
KEITH: Yeah, there's a group of guards or whatever. There's a group of people here to arrest you.
JACK: I think Clem rolls her eyes and holds her hands out for handcuffs.
KEITH (as Leap) and SYLVIA (as Millie): (overlapping) We didn't bring those.
KEITH (as Leap): We didn't bring handcuffs. We're just gonna grab you.
JACK (as Clem): Valence has gotten to work very quickly, haven't they?
SYLVIA (as Millie): [sarcastic] This, this was kind of a collaboration.
KEITH (as Leap): Yeah this was very much our work.
JACK (as Clem): Hm, no handcuffs. Yes. I thought you would... come kicking the door down - Valence. Thank you. It means a lot. Where would you like me to go?
DRE (as Valence): I think your room is fine.
JACK (as Clem): Oh, just down the hall?
KEITH (as Leap): (overlapping) I think it's the brig! What? No, it's the brig. We're taking you to the brig.
JACK (as Clem): Well, you're going to need to decide. Is it the brig or my room?
KEITH (as Leap): [decisive] It's the brig.
DRE (as Valence): It's her room.
JACK (as Clem): Hm, okay. So, you need to work this out. I'll be at the, I'll just wait here-
DRE (as Valence): (overlapping) No, we've worked it out. It's your room.
SYLVIA: (overlapping) The gun is pointed at Clem. [ALI giggles]
JACK (as Clem): Which is it?
KEITH (as Leap): Well, I-
DRE (as Valence): (overlapping, calmly) It's your room.
KEITH: I grab Clementine Kesh by the, sort of, the shoulder and start leading her out.
JACK (as Clem): Okay, let's go.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Nothing from Sovereign Immunity, no words, no eye contact?
ART: I'm not initiating words or eye contact.
AUSTIN: [rapidly] Just looking off into the middle distance, refusing to make eye contact? That says more.
ART: I'm not saying, "I'm not saying anything." I'm saying, "I'm not saying that."
AUSTIN: I'm just saying.
ART: I want to point out that there is still a disagreement about where this is going.
AUSTIN: Yeah,
SYLVIA: Yeah, I'm fine with-
KEITH: (overlapping) Well, I was gonna lead and I have the prisoner and so I'm walking to the brig.
JACK: Wait, so I just want to get this image. Like, I want to make sure that the image is clear for all of us. There are four people who aren't Clementine. There's Sovereign Immunity. There's Leap. There's Millie and there's Valence?
AUSTIN: And A.O. Rooke.
JACK: And, and A.O. Rooke. There is Clementine, who is not gone limp, but is just walking in the direction that Leap is moving her. Valence, what are you doing?
DRE: I think Valence is like out in front and trying to move towards the direction of Clem's room.
SYLVIA: Oh my god.
SYLVIA (as Millie): Okay, why don't we... like, compromise or something and like, put her in her room, but like, take all the nice shit? Or like most of the- [quick] like she can keep her bed I guess, I don't fucking know. But like... [sighs] I don't know. I'm fine guarding it.
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): We have so many guards.
SYLVIA (as Millie): Yeah, I know, but it's more fun if I'm doing it.
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): You're gonna do it the whole time? It could take weeks-
SYLVIA (as Millie): (overlapping) I want to do it until - No, I mean, Leap. You're probably gonna want a turn, right?
KEITH (as Leap): Yeah, whatever.
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): [disbelieving] The two of you are going to do 12 hour shifts the whole time.
KEITH (as Leap): No, I don't really want to guard...
DRE (as Valence): Let's keep it moving.
AUSTIN: People are definitely watching now. This is - now this is TV.
JACK: Clementine smiles.
AUSTIN: Uh-huh.
AUSTIN (as Crowd): They're arresting, they're arresting - what's, what's going on?
AUSTIN: Hey, I've got a question for you, Dre: does Zo'la film any of this?
DRE: Oh sure, yeah.
AUSTIN: Just making sure. Where do you go?
KEITH (as Leap): The brig.
DRE (as Valence): Umm, no.
SYLVIA: We like, out of character, we need to pick one.
KEITH: Yeah, I mean my perspective is: why- I never would have assumed that when we arrested anyone we would let them stay at their house.
JACK: Maybe...
ART: (overlapping) But the Power said- brig, said room-
JACK: (overlapping) -they should have figured this out before. Oh yeah, Power said-
ART: Power said room.
AUSTIN: Power said room. This is like, is- well Leap isn't any- Leap is a minor character. Leap can try to challenge that ruling, but mechanically speaking, the non-player characters who would listen to Valence would listen to Valence here. So unless Leap is planning on, like, guarding 24/7, it sounds like she will eventually be moved to her room.
KEITH: Um...
AUSTIN: Now that could be a-
KEITH: (overlapping) I mean sure, I can challenge it as Leap, it's just harder, right?
AUSTIN: You, you will automatically lose it if Valence says no. Minor characters can't just force challenges like that, the way that major characters can. But that is- but my point is like, I do think that you're right that there is- this is a real dispute between these two characters. But what, what is interesting is that Valence is the one who technically can make this decision long-term. Valence is the one who can say where she goes. And also, yes, this is definitely showing a lot of immediate disorganization on the part of the arresters for sure to the people, right?
DRE: If the challenge is that instead of you know, her room, Clem goes to the brig, then I would say yes that can happen but then Leap spends the night in the cell next to Clem.
SYLVIA: [distant] Oof.
KEITH: [incredulous] Why? What?!
SYLVIA: [high-pitched] Can I challenge that?
DRE: Because Leap is directly, like, refusing to do...
KEITH: Okay, no we can- we can do that, but then I'm going to tick a crisis box as, as a Touchstone, as Apparatus.
DRE: (overlapping) That's fair.
AUSTIN: Because of the way this goes.
SYLVIA: I might too. (Sylvia laughs.) But yeah, okay, so brig.
DRE: Because for Valence that goes back to the whole thing of like, we need to ask like, what could Clementine Kesh do that would make us feel differently about her? And, like, throwing her in a jail is not the way to start asking that question.
ART: And of course, you can't tick crisis until the crisis is over. Until the challenges is over.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) No, that's not true. You can, after you know how you feel you can choose to describe seeing other people in the kingdom showing or acting-
JACK: (overlapping) Oh, it's like contempt ghosts?
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Yeah, it is- If they're unhappy, if people aren't happy about how this is going, you can check crisis if you want, but only once per turn.
KEITH: (overlapping) Yeah. So, so, so as far as I'm concerned, this happens: Clementine Kesh is put in jail, Leap is also put in jail. And, um, this causes, I think, tension between, um... well, I, I guess I'll-
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Just talk about your character. Talk about what Apparatus thinks, because that is the way it works-
KEITH: Apparatus immediately feels justified in their apprehension over the elections and about electing someone without... I guess without clear enough boundaries over what Fort Icebreaker as a political unit even is? Or what it means, or what people are allowed to do or not allowed to do? And seeing Clem and Leap getting the same punishment for, for what, for what they've done is - aggressive.
DRE: (overlapping) It's not saying it's- it's eight hours.
KEITH: (overlapping) It doesn't matter. It's still, [DRE: Hm, fair.] it's eight hours of the entire ship being like what the fuck is going on?
AUSTIN: The clock ticks.
DRE: Yeah, no, that's fair.
AUSTIN: Um, Millie, are you also clicking and ticking a thing? And also what's that? What's the Touchstone vibe?
SYLVIA (as Millie): Yeah, it's like this kinda spiraled out of control faster than Millie wanted, and she, like, is really not happy that Leap got punished for what she thought was doing the right thing. Um... like she was happy to compromise there, but like she doesn't think that Leap had that- was really in the wrong for saying Clem should be in the brig.
KEITH (as Leap): (overlapping) You're arresting someone, when you arrest someone they go, they don't go home.
SYLVIA (as Millie): I mean, sometimes they do, unfortunately, but they shouldn't in this case. And I think that, like, it's also just that unease has sort of started to set back in? Like, we were, like... oh great, we put another person in charge who's just gonna throw us in the cell whenever they want.
AUSTIN: Crisis goes up to four, it's halfway - no that already went up one-
SYLVIA: (overlapping) Oh, I just marked one, did you already mark it?
AUSTIN: (overlapping) It was, it was at two before this. Yeah.
SYLVIA: (overlapping) Oh, Okay.
KEITH: (overlapping) So we should have four total-
AUSTIN: (overlapping) In fact, actually, I did actually skip something, I actually skipped - I just remember I skipped a huge thing. We can retcon this if we need to but, [reading from game book] "When time advances or when we do Time Passes, things get calmer and crisis decreases, or potentially decreases, depending on what we all vote." And I should, I should have done this at the time and I apologize for having missed this-
JACK: (overlapping) Oh, no...
AUSTIN: "Crisis fades according to..." Alright. Can we all get ready to type something in chat but not send it?
JACK: And we're voting pre-everything that just happened in the last-
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Pre all of this, yes, yes. Um, so-
KEITH: (overlapping) As our main characters?
AUSTIN: (overlapping) [reading from game book] "As your main characters, everyone simultaneously hold out one hand, pointing fingers to show how much you think crisis should be reduced: one to five fingers, or a fist for zero. Take the second lowest number even if that's zero or a tie and erase that many checks." Everyone write but do not send the number that you think the first 30 days of the Valence campaign will have reduced crisis, which previously had been at two, and get ready to send it. Tell me when you're ready.
JACK: "Several people are typing..."
KEITH: Ready.
AUSTIN: One to- or, zero to five.
ALI: Ready.
SYLVIA: I'm ready.
ART: Wait, wait zero to- [indecisive noises]... yeah, okay. [pause] I briefly forgot how numbers work but I think I'm back.
AUSTIN: [amused] Okay, everyone good?
KEITH: And this is for- the number is how much it should be reduced by?
AUSTIN: Correct.
DRE: Yeah.
KEITH: Got it.
ART: Before all this.
AUSTIN: Before all this.
SYLVIA: Oh, okay.
ART: None of this happened.
AUSTIN: Yes. Are we ready? [affirmative noises]
ALI: I am.
AUSTIN: Is anyone not ready? [pause] All right. 3, 2, 1, send. [40:00]
AUSTIN: Second lowest is one, so it reduces by one. There was - just for the record: Keith, zero. I love that Keith and Allie both did the fist. Very powerful emoji. (Ali, Dre, and Keith laugh.) I did one, Jack did two, Art did one. Syvli did one, Janine did one, Dre did one. So the second lowest is one, because the lowest is a zero. So this drops back down by one, which would have - we would have come in at one and then both Millie and Apparatus just increased it, so we're at three out of eight.
AUSTIN: All right, all right. Any predictions from, from this? Again, Sov Imm - nothing, says no words to Clem, just - the camera feasts on the absolute non-interaction between these two characters.
ART: Yep, I think that's where we're at. (Ali laughs.) I mean -
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Any pre-
JACK: (overlapping) I'd like to change my role.
AUSTIN: You're just changing - you’re voluntarily - you don't want to rule from the brig?
JACK: No.
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: I'm changing my role.
AUSTIN: To?
JACK: Ah, to a Perspective.
AUSTIN: Ahh, I see. How does that happen? [ALI: Hmmm.] What's the, what is it that gives you the perspective?
JACK: (matter-of-fact) I'm in the brig.
AUSTIN: I see. (Dre laughs.)
ART: You're not in the brig.
AUSTIN: Well, you're in the brig tonight. Tomorrow, you won't - oh,
JACK: (overlapping) I'm in the brig.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) You're in the brig with, with - in the same cell as...?
JACK: Oh, no, no, no, adjacent-
DRE: (overlapping) Next to-
AUSTIN: Different cell. I was gonna say, Jesus Christ. Um, how's that? And then we'll talk about-
DRE: Sounds like a good way for Clementine Kesh to be killed.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) - to be killed, yeah. (Dre laughs.)
AUSTIN: Silence? [???]
ART: As, as the newest Perspective, I'll let you predict first.
AUSTIN: I'm not there. Oh, do you mean Clem? Yes.
ART: You're not the newest Perspective.
AUSTIN: (upbeat) Oh right, Clem has joined us!
JACK: (cheerful) Hello. Happy to be part of the squad. My name is Clementine Kesh. (Austin laughs.)
AUSTIN: And I predict...
JACK: I was born in the year 1400.
AUSTIN: (quietly) Oh my god.
DRE: Just graduated from predicting school...
SYLVIA: Never learned how to read. (Jack laughs.)
JACK: Um...
ART: You don't have to, I wasn't trying to put you on the spot.
JACK: No, I'm just trying to think of, I'm just trying to think of if I want to color this scene with Leap at all - Silence, I think, stonewalling. I think stonewalling him. In the brig.
KEITH: Stonewalling what? I'm not saying anything.
AUSTIN: Great.
JACK: Two walls can stonewall each other. That's how you begin to get a house.
ART: (overlapping) Two parallel stone walls... (Keith laughs.)
JACK: Okay, ah... so I'm gonna make a prediction. [AUSTIN: Uh huh.] Oh, what's the exact wording of this Crossroads?
AUSTIN: "Will the kingdom put counter-revolutionaries on trial?"
JACK: Mm. Hmm. Okay. If yes, espionage and active... maneuvering will begin for Icebreaker in Cruciat.
AUSTIN: Can you... elaborate a little bit here?
JACK: Yeah, ah, a campaign against Kesh proper will commence.
AUSTIN: From, from Millenium Break?
JACK: Icebreaker.
AUSTIN: Okay.
ART: I have, I have a prediction.
JACK: (overlapping) I needed to clarify that, otherwise, I wasn't suggesting that Kesh would start spying on us.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) I was a little - yeah, okay, yeah, mhm?
ART: Oh but I have a - I guess, I'm not sure if I can make this Prediction.
AUSTIN: What is it?
ART: If yes, Chrysanth will discover the location of Fort Icebreaker.
AUSTIN: Yeah, I think that that's fine, or just in general, the location of Fort Icebreaker will be discovered.
ART: Will be discovered, yes.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) By - by the Curtain, right?
ART: Yeah.
JACK: Wait, actually, I've changed my mind. (Ali laughs.) Can you put my exact same Bond in No, please?
AUSTIN: Is that what you meant, or...?
JACK: Yes, I was -
AUSTIN: Interesting. Okay. So wait did you change your mind or is that what you met?
JACK: That's what I meant.
AUSTIN: Okay. So, if no, if counterrevolutions are not put on trial, then espionage and active maneuvering will begin in - begin for Millenium Break in Cruciat. (To himself) And that is Sovereign Immunity... okay, is the Curtain will discover the location of Icebreaker Prime. (Louder) Okay. Ah, next scene.
KEITH: I have a rules question, um, do characters - can characters leave the kingdom?
AUSTIN: Sure!
KEITH: At some point it references that, but it doesn't, it doesn't ever say that we - it doesn't have that as a rule?
ART: It's a "Time Passes" -
AUSTIN: (overlapping) It is, but it doesn't have to be. You can, you can just change your role, you can just change your character, you can say, like, I'm going to start playing - a character can die, for instance. And if that happens, then you can switch to your minor character or bring in a new character. Time Passes is, like, the best place to do that, but it can just happen in play also. I don't know if these rules lay that out as clearly as they can, because it's playtesting rules, but that was absolutely a thing in the past Kingdom for sure. So, reactions? Or new scenes?
JANINE: I have a question about... as... Okay. Do I have to do a scene to use my, my Power power?
AUSTIN: Versus... just saying something happens?
JANINE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: I would say, I mean, it could be a reaction, but it would, it wouldn't--it wouldn't be nothing, right? If it's interesting enough for you to use it, then it's probably interesting enough to put it on screen. And show it through your character's eyes.
JANINE: Okay, uh, you know, I had one plan and then, and then... took a real pivot in terms of what I want to do. Um, I think that... this is, well, yeah, I mean, this is you're right that this is, this is like half a reaction, but should also just be, like, maybe a short scene or something. I think Gucci, uh, I think Gucci and Jesset probably have this conversation of like, maybe they are, you know, maybe they're--I tend to picture Gucci like looking extremely fabulous and like, sitting on her Mac and doing shit. [AUSTIN: Mmhm.] While someone else is nearby sitting on a Mac and also doing shit, and they're just like, you know, talking.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
JANINE: And I think the conversation that she has, or that she has with Jesset, that they have, is why does it feel like Sovereign Immunity still has sovereign immunity here? Because Sovereign Immunity was helping Clementine do everything that Clementine did, and Clementine's in trouble and Sovereign Immunity is not.
AUSTIN (as Jesset): It's a good point
JANINE (as Gucci): Seems weird.
AUSTIN (as Jesset): That's...
JANINE (as Gucci): I'm not saying Clementine shouldn't be where Clementine is, but--
AUSTIN (as Jesset): (overlapping) No, no, I think... are you, are you planning something?
JANINE (as Gucci): You know, I just think--
AUSTIN (as Jesset): (overlapping) You want me to get the lads together? [Huffs] I got lads now, by the way. (Sylvia laughs.)
JANINE (as Gucci): [lightly] I think it's questions people should be asking, you know. I can't be the only one who is.
AUSTIN: Um, alright, so, so Gucci, this is mostly you putting it in the air, then, in a sense, right? Like you're not, you're not ordering it. You've, you've asked the question. Why do people--I guess my question here is like, why do people listen? Wh--presumably other people have, (Austin huffs) have raised questions on this internal communication system about why certain people haven't been arrested yet. Why is it that this is you using Power to make this happen? Is it just that you're more influential, or...?
JANINE: I don't know that I had assumed that people would be asking questions about Sovereign Immunity specifically.
AUSTIN: Oh, I guess I just mean--I guess to that point, then, is this just one in a number of other arrests, I guess. It's just that this is, for this moment you've directed people in this direction, then.
JANINE: I think so. Like I think, I think the way that this is Power or that this is a Power thing versus you know, versus the way that, that Oxblood kind of prompted the elections and stuff like that, is because it is very specifically Gucci who was going to people and who was asking you know, why... why, you know, is someone who helped, who helped crimes happen walking free still?
AUSTIN: (overlapping): --walking free--right, right.
JANINE: While the person who, like, acted through him is, is imprisoned.
AUSTIN: Right, right.
JANINE: So does it, you know, with Oxblood it is a group of people who are coming together and collectively and, you know, there's, there's a back and forth and a shaping of ideas. With, with Gucci, in this case, it is specifically Gucci going to people and, like, sort of inorganically forming this.
AUSTIN: Right, right.
ART: It's the, "Don't you think he looks tired of criminality? Don't you think he looks like a criminal?"
AUSTIN: (overlapping) God, I love that bit so fucking much... We can't get into Doctor Who shit but.. Janine, off-call I'll explain this--one other thing I think is sick about Doctor Who.
ART: (overlapping) Is that from Doctor Who?
AUSTIN: Yeah, that's, yeah.
ART: (overlapping) Oh, shit! I thought that was like, a... Okay, sorry everyone.
AUSTIN: [slightly confused] What?
ART: I didn't know that was, I didn't know that was a Doctor Who reference--
AUSTIN: (overlapping) No, that's fine!
ART: (overlapping) --I thought it was like a political science concept.
AUSTIN: I'm--well maybe it is, and my, my big touchstone is Doctor Who, in which case I'm the fool. Uh.
ART: Usually when it's you and me, I'm the fool, but--
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Aw, (Austin laughs) that's not true at all. (Art and Austin laugh.)
AUSTIN: No, Doctor Who ruined someone's political career by saying that to somebody and it's, it's exactly the thing you're talking about. Anyway. Sorry, "The Doctor," his name is not Doctor Who, please. I'm sorry. (Austin laughs.) Alright--
ART: Oh...
JANINE: (overlapping) Doctor is his first name, Who is his last name.
AUSTIN: Right. [Quietly] He's an owl. [Louder] Anyway.
JANINE: What?
AUSTIN: [Pitching his voice up to sound like an owl] Whooo?
ART: Doctor Whooo.
JANINE: [Not amused] Oh...
AUSTIN: Thank you! (through laughter) See, Art! I'm the fool this time! Um. (Austin chuckles.) Sovereign Immunity, what's this look like from your side, then? So this gets out in the air, people come. I don't know that we need to get into who specifically. My guess is it's a group of people you know and some you don't know. But mostly what I'm interested in is like, what's this look like on your side of it? Do you, do you go willingly? What's the play?
ART: I think it's like... the, the immediate thing is, is like you can't--what are you doing? You can't arrest me. No one, no one on this, on this ship has the authority to, say, to even question me.
AUSTIN: Because of being a Sovereign Immunity.
ART: Right. It's, this isn't done--this is, this isn't how this works.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Right...
ART: And of course that doesn't, that doesn't work. [AUSTIN: No.] Just as it didn't work all those years ago.
AUSTIN: No, (Austin laughs) when you kidnapped the princept, right. Yeah, uh huh.
ART: Yeah, eventually it doesn't matter. The people with the guns, they take you where they want you to go. [AUSTIN: Mmhm.] And it's like, when it becomes clear Sovereign Immunity is like,
ART (as Sovereign Immunity): Fine, take me. But this won't, this won't last.
ART: And we get like, Sovereign Immunity going to the... it's a... we have a brig? We established there's a brig.
AUSTIN: There's a brig, yeah. At this point I bet, I bet that Leap and Clem are not in it at this point. It's probably been a few days.
ART: Sure, sure. And I think we get like, Sovereign Immunity goes into a cell. But like, just the act of being, like, led through the ship like this, it's like, it like sets off the next step here, which is, you know, the people that Sovereign Immunity has connections with, both spiritual and temporal... was that the, was that the opposite of spiritual?
AUSTIN: Ah--sure, I know what you mean.
ART: Sure. And if--
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Secular, but also I know what you mean. Yeah.
ART: Start like asking like, wait a minute, what?
AUSTIN: Like that's the dude who helped us in the prison. And also, that's a Sovereign Immunity, you can't do that. Because there are people here who believe, who are--there are lots of people here who are Asterists, who believe that Sovereign Immunities are blessed by the Divines in such a way that allows you to get a degree of unity. Like that is not a fake belief that these people have--or it's not like, there are people here who are like, yes, we need to change everything. But one of those things is not, getting rid of Sovereign Immunities.
ART: Right. It's, you know, we've changed everything but we're not throwing out light bulbs.
AUSTIN: Right, right. Sovereign Immunity is useful as--
JANINE: (overlapping) What a flattering comparison.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) I know! (Austin laughs.) Brings, brings, you know illumination to every room that he goes in.
ART: Sliced bread, I don't know, which would--any, any of them. (Austin laughs.)
AUSTIN: The wheel, I think.
ART: Yeah, um. If I were a simple machine, I would be a lever. We're not gonna get rid of levers. [AUSTIN chuckles]
AUSTIN: So is the vibe, then, that people are like, hey, like...
ART: (overlapping) Yeah, what, what?
AUSTIN: (overlapping) What is it?
ART: Yeah, you can't do that. And so there's, like, I think it probably starts with the people in Lambic House, who are most like directly affected by this? Like, by the, the optics of this?
AUSTIN: Sure, yeah.
ART: And I think--but I think it like, grows, it becomes you know Oxblood--
AUSTIN: (overlapping) I was gonna say, ironically Oxblood even, who despite everything still ideologically are probably the people who know you best in a weird way. Know your, know your mythology best. Know who the farmer is, right?
ART: Yeah. And then, like, the people you know, the--A.O. and the people of the prison that Sovereign Immunity has worked hard to help. That's like the rest of it and you know, and others, right--
AUSTIN: (overlapping) It does sound like--
ART: (overlapping) I'm not--this is not an exclusive list.
AUSTIN: Just to be clear though, like, I, I'm fine with that as someone who--I mean like, A.O. is obviously your minor character, I think you're probably right that A.O. is like, what the fuck. But you are not a Power so you can't tell people to do that, um.
ART: No I'm just trying to pay off my minor--my long term project.
AUSTIN: Oh! I see. Yeah yeah yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense.
ART: My, my Beam Saber long term project of...
AUSTIN: Building rapport with all these people.
ART: (overlapping) Building rapport with prisoners.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Yeah, that makes sense.
ART: (overlapping) Yeah, that's how I'm getting those people. [AUSTIN: Yeah.] And they come and they, they amass a... I don't, I don't have a sense of the scale of the interior locations.
AUSTIN: It's, yeah, it's a huge space with lots of small spaces inside of it, is the way I'm imagining it. But...
ART: So I don't know how many people would go to the brig to make it look like a lot of people. Is it, is it twenty? Is it fifty? Is it a hundred? Like, I don't know what it looks like, what it has to look like, you know. However big the room is in your head.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) It looks sick, that--yeah, it looks filled, right? I think it's probably more than, I think it's probably more than two dozen. I think that's the moment at which I start going, "Oh, that's a lot of people in here."
ART: It's like five more people than fit in the, in a room.
AUSTIN: Right.
ART: So it's like, when they go in a room, there's a few people outside.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: And, you know, there's no, there's no system, right? Because there's no--one of our things is we don't have enough people.
AUSTIN: Yeah. One of our--
ART: (overlapping) And so there's no system of like, yeah, a bunch of people came and they took the prisoner. "Why didn't you stop them?" Because there were like, more of them.
AUSTIN: I guess briefly, Gucci, are--you're not interf--none of the powers are interfering here, it sounds like, so.
JANINE: No. And like, to be honest, I imagine, I imagined that, that Sovereign Immunity has supporters in the guard, right? Like, maybe it's not even a thing of like, maybe the crowd showing up is a case of plausible deniability, where the people who are actually in charge of the keys can say, "Hey, a lot of people showed up." But at the same time, they're unlocking that door because they agree. Like, it's possible. I'm not saying that's it. But like, when you have support, you have support in a lot of places in an organization like this, like, it might have just been a matter of waiting for the right time. Right?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: (overlapping) Yeah--
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Right, (Austin laughs) which has been the Sovereign Immunity story, waiting for the right time.
ART: The second shift is the one. It was like, he was there for 10 hours, and then the right combination of guards cycled and I was like, "Okay, I'm leaving now." And I think the group goes to that, the cantina location that I've, that I like, set up and sort of like, repurpose the space. The tables are all moved toward the doors. It's hard to get in now. And like, a lot of people are just here all the time.
AUSTIN: Right.
ART: And this is like, this is like asserting the, well, come and take him back.
AUSTIN: Right.
ART: And I'm gonna use this as a shift to Touchstone.
AUSTIN: That's what it sounds like you were doing, that is (Austin laughs.) Yes, it sounds like you may now be... It's weird, cause I feel like you could also shift to Power if you wanted to lean more mobster? Like the, the, you know, the kingpin who is on house arrest but still runs, runs the show, you know?
ART: Right, yeah.
AUSTIN: But Touchstone I think does fit, because what you're actually describing is that your attitudes about everything are shared by a big group of people here, right? That makes sense here.
ART: (overlapping) Right, and I'm not trying to exert... I don't want to, I don't want to say how things go.
AUSTIN: Right...
ART: I want to just hang out with these people.
AUSTIN: Right. Do you, are you doing like, not sermons but speeches? Are you, are you running, like... we're talked about a lot of flyers here, but like: is there pamphlet making in this space, like what's happening in this space?
ART: Yeah, I think, I really--just because of the way we framed these last couple exchanges, I can't be like, "well, like it is in Goodfellas, I have to move, (Austin and Janine laugh) I have to lean away from mobsters for at least a minute here. But yeah, I think it's, I think there's pamphlets and there's speeches; I think there's also just like, like a little bit of glad-handing.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Sure.
ART: (overlapping) Just like pressing the flesh a little bit.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Yeah, yeah, people come through. You kiss a baby. There's no babies here. But if there were, you'd be kissing those babies, right? You'd be like, "yeah, cool baby."
ART: And like, the commissary is no longer even nominally a store. It's all just, like, broken up. Like, "hey, what do you need? Do you need a pack of..." ramen noodles, is what's in my--
JANINE: (overlapping) You walk through the streets and someone gives you an orange and says, "thank you, thank you Godfather." (Austin laughs.)
ART: Uh huh, yeah.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Yeah! (Austin keeps laughing.)
ART: (overlapping) And in a scene of Sovereign Immunity cutting the orange into the little teeth. (Janine laughs.)
AUSTIN: Yeah, perfect. All right. Gucci, is this, is there any final thoughts on Gucci as this all kind of unfolds? Is she like, "alright, here it is"?
JANINE: So I mean... I want to be clear that, like, I don't think Gucci made this move.. out of, like, hatred or, or like a particularly strong sense that Sovereign Immunity needed to face justice, et cetera.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Mmhm.
JANINE: I think it was a degr-- I think, you know, it was, it was that recognition of like, well, this is unfair, like, if we are drawing lines, we need to draw lines and this seems unfair, that he's sort of just exempt from it.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Uh huh.
JANINE: Are people cool with that? Is that exemption a thing that we as a group are still fine with? Or, you know, is that a thing that we want to do differently? Um, so--and I mean, also, there is a personal element to it, which is I think Gucci thinks that he is a coward. For... for, you know, serving Clem intensely up until the point that it stops being convenient. And then not even, not even having the nerve to disown Clem. Just, like, sidestepping the issue all together until the political climate turns, right.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Right...
JANINE: Like, Sovereign Immunity has not said shit about Clem being arrested, Sovereign Immunity did not say shit about the elections. About Clem, you know, in the elections and stuff like that. So I think Gucci has noticed that, and thinks it's kind of pathetic.
AUSTIN: Which is like, the funny thing about Sovereign Immunity is that 20 years--not 20 years ago, 12 years ago--when, when he kidnapped Dalia, you know, he acted incredibly rashly. He acted, he jumped, like full speed ahead, here we go. Let's do it. Let's do the big dramatic action right now, we have an opportunity. And then spent 12 years in prison. And, I don't know, Art, if you can answer me this, but was the lesson learned maybe too, too well learned that you have to be patient, and you have to let things kind of just go? Or maybe, maybe we'll find out if it was too well learned based on how all this shakes out, I guess.
ART: Yeah, I mean, I don't want to get too far into it, but like I've, I've recently like, started to know people who've spent a lot of time in prison. And it fucks with you.
AUSTIN: Mm.
ART: And I'm not trying to play that here, but like, it's certainly worth thinking about.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JANINE: [quietly] Yeah.
ART: All right.
JANINE: (overlapping) Well--
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Is there any--oh, go ahead.
JANINE: So the, the, like the thing that Gucci actually does, like I, I wanted to frame her motivation like she's not gonna, she's not coming after him or anything. But I think the thing that Gucci does is Gucci starts putting out flyers. And does it in that kind of, like, abstract way where like, flyers appear. I think the flyers, like, have the sort of... like clipart-library-style portrait of The Farmer, you know? Um, the way that you can go into a clipart library and like, type in like, "Benedict Arnold, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln."
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Oh, okay, I thought you were (Austin laughs) I thought you were saying, go to a clipart (inaudible) and type in "farmer." (Janine laughs)
JANINE: No, no, no. Um, I think it's like a, it's like a, it's like a posterized like, three, three-shaded version of Sovereign Immunity. And it says something like, "Reformation before Revenge," some like, I don't know, "Rehabilitation before Revenge: Look to the farmer to lead the way for for nonviolent counter revolutionaries," or something like that.
AUSTIN: God... is there a response to this, Farmer?
ART: No, I'm not...
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: (overlapping) I'm not getting into it.
AUSTIN: Good. Great. All--
JANINE: (overlapping) Hey, this is an endorsement! This is, this is Gucci saying, "Hey, you know what, maybe it's bad to put people in jail if they haven't really--"
AUSTIN: (overlapping) My god.
JANINE: (overlapping) "--if they haven't," (Janine laughs) "maybe, maybe the thing we should do is we should let them, let them work it off."
ART: Absolutely. Sure. Why not? I just, Gucci is for Clem.
AUSTIN: God... (Janine laughs.) All right, so, does anyone else have any reactions to that scene or have an idea for the next scene?
JACK: Can I reword my prediction? Because I've been looking at it and as a piece of sentence writing, it makes me feel ill. (Dre laughs.)
AUSTIN: Yeah, uh huh.
JACK: Uh, I'm gonna say, uh, "Fort Icebreaker installs spies in Cruciat."
AUSTIN: Okay. Wait. So "Millennium Break, uh..."
JACK: Oh, sure sure sure. Yeah, yeah.
AUSTIN: "...installs spies in Cruciat," is your prediction if no.
JACK: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Uh. All right. So then, yeah, I have a scene but I don't know that it... follows, if that makes sense. If there's something that, like, jumps right off. Broun? Is that--Ali, is that you?
ALI: Yeah. I mean, we were speaking about murderers. So I could definitely (Ali laughs) step in here. We were also talking about recent murderers versus thirteen-years-ago ones, and um, I think if you really stack up all of the, the opinions that there could be... Broun has definitely... (Ali laughs)
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Done a few!
ALI: (overlapping) Made, you know, a handful of counterrevolutionary murders, accidentally. Or--
KEITH: (overlapping) Accidentally?
ALI: (overlapping) --on purpose.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Well, are they even counterrevolutionary? Or are they in fact just regular revolutionary murders?
ALI: See, that's the arg--you know, this is why (Ali laughs) they need to be put on trial.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) I see.
KEITH: Who are we--who are we--who did you murder?
ALI: Brown had specifically and deliberately was, um, in team with Tes--
KEITH: (overlapping) You sound like a prosecutor--
ALI: (overlapping) I know! (Ali laughs)
KEITH (overlapping) --when you said that Broun specifically and deliberately did something. (Ali laughs)
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Their own worst enemy, yeah.
ALI: They were, they were like... um... uh... separating the team groups for the piracy in ways that would put--
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Oh, that murder--
ALI: (overlapping) --more people at risk than others. Yeah, that murder!
JANINE: (overlapping) That's not murder, that's like... negligent homicide or something.
AUSTIN: Sure.
ALI: (overlapping) Sure...
AUSTIN: I thought you were talking about the time you gassed all those civilians.
DRE: That's what I thought you were talking about. (Ali laughs.)
JANINE: They didn't all die from that, right?
AUSTIN: (overlapping) But that--
KEITH: (overlapping) Oh, right, I had forgot about that.
AUSTIN: Yes, people did die from that. Yes--
ALI: (overlapping) People did die from that, yeah.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Absolutely. There's no such thing as, "you can gas huge civilian populations..."
JANINE: I didn't remember which kind of gas it was.
ALI: (overlapping) Yeah...
KEITH: (overlapping) I mean--
AUSTIN: (overlapping) There is not a gas that you can use that does not kill people--
KEITH: (overlapping) Was it, was it--
AUSTIN: (overlapping) --in enough, in enough use, period. Like, you cannot drop huge artillery shells of gas on huge civilian populations without someone having a heart disorder. People die. Like... it was, it was--just a reminder, it was gas that made people feel they were drowning.
JANINE: Oh right. Yeah, that one was...
ALI: (overlapping) Yeah...
AUSTIN: Yes, it's bad! Broun did bad.
ALI: Broun did very bad and then Broun followed that up by
KEITH: (overlapping) And then you got in trouble with K.O. Rooke, right?
AUSTIN: Yes.
ALI: Um... (Ali laughs,) followed that up by being like, "Well, I diluted it!"
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Right--
ALI: And then was very emo about (Ali laughs) killing all those people. Um, and then came to Millenium Break and was like, "Oh, you know, you know, this is... you cut people's necks, that's what you do." Um...
AUSTIN: Right, right. (Ali laughs.) Okay, no, so I--yeah, okay, so what do--it sounds like you're framing a scene of your own arrest? Or...
ALI: (overlapping) Yeah, I am.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Okay!
ALI: (overlapping) And it's weird, because I think that there's a couple ways to do this, where I don't know if it's like, Broun and Millie and Sidra, in the like comms office getting the list of names that should be arrested, and Broun is like, "Oh, that's me." Or if it's like, Broun already in the cell, and like... maybe Gucci comes by? Maybe Valence comes by?
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Oo, yeah. Yeah!
ALI: (overlapping) I'm leaving that door open.
AUSTIN: I like that idea of like, going directly to, um...
ALI: (overlapping) The cell, yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah, uh huh.
ALI: Um... sure. Uh.
AUSTIN: Who shows up? Also, I'm gonna add the brig to the locations on board--
ALI: (overlapping) Sure.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) --because that's been a recurring place. (Ali laughs.)
DRE: [sighs] Valence is probably there.
ALI: Sure!
JACK: So --
AUSTIN: Thisbe? Gucci?
JANINE: Oh, yeah. Um, I think… So, wait, waitwaitwait, hang on. Are we -- is this, like, visiting, or is this, like, hanging out, or is this, like, at the arrest?
ALI: This is post-arrest, been arrested.
JANINE: OK.
ALI: I think if we have, like, camera work here, we see Broun, like, being the person who sees their own name, right? And then the door opens, and then…
JANINE: Yeah.
ALI: ...they just go peacefully.
JANINE: I think --
ART: [in a mock-excited stage whisper] Like in Minority Report!
[ALI giggles]
JANINE: I think Thisbe would be there with Valence. I think Gucci would send flowers.
ALI: OK, yeah.
AUSTIN: Classic Gucci.
[ALI laughs again]
JANINE: Like, modest flowers. Very narrow vase, very narrow arrangement, ‘cause, like, you’re in prison, you’re not in the hospital, but…
ALI: Sure. Yeah, well… [laughs] What flower represents -- God, what even… [continues laughing] What would you try to represent there? “Condolences?”
JANINE: [deadpan] Well, in the Victorian language of flowers, I think a tulip with a hyacinth is the traditional pairing for “Thanks for letting my bodyguard die.”
[AUSTIN laughs]
ALI: Sure.
AUSTIN: God…
[ALI laughs]
ALI (as Broun): Thisbe, you can break this door, right? [nervously] Thisbe…
JANINE (as Thisbe): Ah. Hmm.
JANINE: This is Thisbe ahhing, umming, thinking of words.
(as Thisbe) Physically, I can, but ethically, I cannot.
ALI (as Broun): [exasperated and increasingly worried] I -- what does it matter? Thisbe!
DRE: This has -- this has gone too far. I’m just gonna open all the doors.
AUSTIN: It’s a prison break! Valence is leading a prison break!
[ALI and JANINE laugh, overlapping]
AUSTIN: How many people are -- how many other people are in there right now?
JANINE (overlapping): Valence is in charge, it’s not a prison break -- that’s a pardon, right?
AUSTIN: That’s a pardon. Fuck.
KEITH (overlapping): Theoretically, you --
DRE (overlapping): I mean, yeah, who do we have besides Broun and Clementine?
AUSTIN: Clem isn’t in a -- the brig, right?
DRE: Oh, that’s right. She’s back in her --
AUSTIN: --Back in her room. But is that what Valence is doing? Is Valence, like, opening the doors and basically being, like, “No. It’s done. No one’s arrested?”
DRE: Yeah. Yes.
AUSTIN: Using your power.
DRE: Mmhm.
KEITH: Theoretically, as leader, weren’t -- isn’t Valence in some way responsible for who’s being arrested?
AUSTIN: No, we talked -- we -- yes and no. The thing that has been happening is they’ve been -- remember, the way that Gucci specifically got Sovereign Immunity arrested was basically just by asking, with all of the social capital that she had, “Hey, why hasn’t anybody arrested Sovereign Immunity yet?” And then it happened.
KEITH: Right, yeah.
AUSTIN: People just did it, right? There is a degree of, like, the mob is alive in this moment, right? People are just making those decisions. Yes, the Clementine one was an official order from Valence, but since then it has become kind of a rolling, ongoing thing.
So, Valence, tell me what this looks like. You open the door [pauses] for your friend, and then everybody else.
[strangled laughter in the background]
AUSTIN: [pointedly] Moments ago we were talking about how the Tories in England changed the rules to help their friends!
DRE: Well, and it’s -- I mean, I think Broun is the breaking point for Valence, but it’s much more about -- I mean, honestly, Valence agrees with the statement that Gucci was saying earlier, you know? What’s the point -- like, how can you be a movement that says, you know, “we’re going to liberate everyone from prisons” and then just put the people back in -- just fill those with different types of people?
This has gotten way out of hand and it’s gone way farther than Valence ever thought it would, and I think, again, this is another, like, well intentioned but naive Valence moment, and they’re like, “No, I was wrong. This has to stop.”
AUSTIN: Broun? Let’s zoom back in on this actual moment.
ALI: Yeah, um…
(as Broun) Wait. Wait, for real?
DRE (as Valence): For real what?
ALI (as Broun): Well, it just feels like you didn’t put me here, and, um… I don’t know. I’m gonna stop talking and just try to hide somewhere. [laughs nervously] What’s next?
DRE (as Valence): I think it’s time for us to start doing things outside of the ship instead of just doing things to each other.
AUSTIN: Can we cut that scene there? I have a really good lead-in.
ALI: Sure. [laughs]
AUSTIN: If that’s fine with y’all.
ALI: Yeah, yeah.
DRE: Yeah!
AUSTIN: Millie, could I bring -- can Gur go with you off base somewhere?
SYLVIA: [excited] Yeah, sure!
AUSTIN: All right, so -- also, that’s a mark, and then -- we’re going down to the fourth scene of this thing. So, I kind of like this as being like -- I’m gonna add a new location that’s just, like, “In the Field” -- which is not on board but is still a place we should start framing scenes. I think a thing that came up in conversation in the last recording we did was very much, like… the camera’s focus has been 100% on board Icebreaker with a couple of exceptions, like the refugee stuff or going out on pirate raids, but we’re not seeing [laughs] the kingdom do the stuff -- do revolutionary shit. And I think that’s largely because the structure of the game is about these things that no one agrees on. It’s about the crossroads and how those things tear the world apart and tear the kingdom apart.
But if we were doing a show -- and I used this in chat with y’all so I’m just repeating myself for the audience -- if we were doing a show about making a show, if we were doing a Kingdom game about making a TV show, we might -- a crossroad wouldn’t be “do we do another episode of the TV show.” [laughs] Or, that might be one of the last crossroads, once everything is boiled up. But for the bulk of that game, it would be just, like, “Oh, yeah, that’s happening in the background, of course.”
But because this is such, like, high stakes stuff, it can feel like none of the revolutionary stuff is happening outside of, like, “Yeah, we made some flyers, yeah, we’re doing some propaganda stuff, yeah, we did the refugee stuff, yeah, we did some piracy.” But that’s not, like, y’know -- we’re not, like, touching flesh. We’re not out there helping people on-screen. And so the highlight here is, the frame for this next scene, I think, is: Millie, Gur, and then -- you know, maybe this is an A. O. Rooke thing, maybe this is, uh, Jesset City is there -- I’m not gonna play Jesset, but, like -- you know, there’s other people around for this. And we’re going to a place -- or maybe we’re coming back -- or maybe we are… maybe we’re there already, undercover, in this place called Marengo, which, if you have the map open, is in the west of Orion territory, and if you don’t, I’m just gonna paste the area here. It’s right near the Prophet’s Path.
And Marengo is, like, Oxbridge’s rival. It is another big urban environment, kind of sprawling, low hills… I kind of imagine it as, like, “What if the Dakotas had a huge metropolitan area?” And it’s also this interesting space because it’s like: it’s Orion, which means it has money and resources. It’s next to the Prophet’s Path, which means it there’s lots of religious pilgrims going through it. It’s the biggest city on this side of the Prophet’s Path, so it’s a lot of, like, people getting supplies to go travel through the Prophet’s Path or to go on their pilgrimage or whatever. It’s a lot of religious -- it’s a city of temples, there’s tons of different temples to different Divines here. Um, and also a ton of fucking crime. [chuckles] Like, a ton of crime. Because it’s so close to, like, unclaimed territory that it’s easy to move things between Orion and Apostolos, it’s easy to get things into unsecure waters.
And so I think it’s maybe the two of us, and maybe A. O. is here, and we’re here to investigate a thing that is, like… kind of a claim that there is a Millennium Break unit here, already.
[1:15:00]
Independent of what we’ve done. And I don’t even think that we need to roleplay that stuff, but that’s the premise of, like, why we’re here, in these different city streets, you know, walking up and down these dark hills and chatting. And I think at a moment of, you know, we kind of, like, are all in front of a big Millennium Break graffiti mark, like, someone’s tagged the wall with “Millenium Break.” And it’s like -- I think Gur is like,
(as Gur Sevraq) So neither of you did this. Right? And no one you know did this.
SYLVIA (as Millie): No, this is -- this is my first time seeing this.
AUSTIN (as Gur): This is organic. This is -- this is real. This is happening.
SYLVIA (as Millie): Yeah!
AUSTIN (as Gur): Huh.
SYLVIA (as Millie): People seem excited about it here.
AUSTIN (as Gur): [ruefully] That’s because they’re not on board. They don’t know what’s happening right now on Icebreaker. How do the two of you feel about these trials.
SYLVIA (as Millie): Eh. I… don’t know. I think they’re more of a gesture than anything. But, like, it has the potential to get really out of hand. Valence is… like… really obsessed with trying to find, like, the “right” way to handle this…
SYLVIA: Millie did air quotes there.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
SYLVIA: I don’t know if that came through.
[ALI chuckles]
AUSTIN: They smile -- they smirk in a way that is, like, as close to Gur Sevraq trying to do the wolf smirk that Valence does. [laughs]
(as Gur) Yeah, that’s -- that is who Valence is. Idealist. A perfectionist. And deeply, deeply naive.
SYLVIA (as Millie): Yeah, I was mostly -- I mostly just know about the last one, but that sounds right. I don’t know. If I’m being honest, I just hope no lives -- no damage comes from giving Clementine Kesh a live mic in front of everybody.
AUSTIN (as Gur): A nightmare. I’m not sure she knows how to use it, but you can do damage without knowing how to do damage. What will the two of you damage? I… [sighs]
SYLVIA (as Millie): [sighs]
AUSTIN (as Gur): ...You’re walking the streets. Certainly not outside of the reach of Crysanth and the Curtain, Kesh or Apostolos. But I know how much freedom means to you both.
SYLVIA (as Millie): Yeah, but… I think I’m choosing to stay here. I don’t know. It gets kinda hard to figure out after you’ve been told where to be for so long. It’s like… Where do I go, if not to fight in another war that I don’t really care about? Or do I stay here and try and, like, do things that might actually affect something? So I guess this is the answer, is helping people set up shit like this new branch. ‘Cause if we get more of this happening, we’re not gonna need Fort Icebreaker. I mean, it would be nice. That thing’s pretty sick. But…
AUSTIN (as Gur): [gently] But…?
SYLVIA (as Millie): You know what I mean.
AUSTIN (as Gur): A. O., are you still looking to move on?
ART (as A. O. Rooke): Yeah, you know, right now, Millennium Break feels like freedom. And I wonder what’s gonna happen when it doesn’t feel like that anymore.
AUSTIN: I think before Gur can answer, someone puts his arms around -- like, one arm around Gur Sevraq, one arm around A. O. And it is Sung Kang, the actor who plays Han in The Fast and the Furious, in an incredible suit, a kind of, like, dark… It’s like a shimmery dark gray with a blue button-up shirt underneath, it’s like a, again, kind of a satiny vibe.
ART: Sounds like you’re just describing the Fast and the Furious grandson, but go on.
AUSTIN: Uh huh. And this is Sloe Uplight, who is an information broker, an academic, and a character I’ve been trying to sneak into this game since the beginning of the season.
[general laughter]
AUSTIN: Uh, and is like
(as Sloe Uplight) I thought you three would never arrive. Come inside.
I don’t think we need that scene, but, like, this person is apparently helping to run one of these organically emerging Millennium Break cells in Stel Orion space.
I’m gonna make a prediction here, which is, um… Do I want the “no” version of it or the “yes” version of it? Hm. I think --
KEITH: I’m gonna wait a year for the “maybe” version to come out.
AUSTIN: [amused] Yeah.
[ALI laughs]
AUSTIN: I think it’s if “no,” um… If “no,” then there will be more Millennium Break cells autonomously created across Partizan, because of the confidence in there not being internal crisis, um, if that makes sense. So, that is [slowly, writing it down] “Millennium Break cells will be created autonomously across Partizan” -- Gur. All right, that is my turn. Who has another scene or reaction? ...Gur Sevraq is also incredibly relieved, by the way, to hear that from Millie. I think the last shot before Sloe -- which is S-L-O-E, by the way, and then Uplight, one word, U-P-L-I-G-H-T -- shows up is just, like, relief on their face as he hears that Millie is, like, committed to doing this, you know?
SYLVIA: [overlapping] Actually, I think... I have a reaction coming off of that
AUSTIN: [overlapping] Had no doubt about A. O, but… Two people talked at once. Yeah, go ahead.
SYLVIA: I think Millie is like, really feeling invigorated. I think we get a lot of her spending time, like, in the hangar doing, like, extra work to make sure people are ready before they go out and do stuff.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
SYLVIA: Like, making sure everyone’s properly equipped and, like, they’re not leaving without enough ammo or rations or whatever.
AUSTIN: [enthusiastically] Damn!
SYLVIA: They’re like, squad mom shit, honestly.
AUSTIN: Hell yeah. Finally. Finally we got a squad mom!
SYLVIA: Yeah. Just, y’know, there’s a lot of people here who just learned how to fight. She’s worried about ‘em. But yeah, it’s that sort of like… I guess to broaden it to the Touchstone thing, it’s like, there’s that sort of energy in the air, where people are just, like, ready to get shit done. And I think that does tie into the trials in some way. In a bad way, probably.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
SYLVIA: But, y’know. It’s there.
AUSTIN: All right. I like that. I like that reaction. Um, is that your scene for this round?
SYLVIA: I think so, yeah.
AUSTIN: OK, I’ll mark it. All right, so… We need a Clem, we need a… I guess we need a Sovereign Immunity?
ART: Uh, we could count the transition scene as a reaction scene to the -- um, count that.
AUSTIN: [overlapping] Yeah, OK, that makes sense to me.
Um, we need a Clem. This says we had an Apparatus, but I don’t remember the Apparatus one now. I feel like that was misclicked on my part, maybe.
KEITH: There were two Valence and Apparatus scenes that we counted -- it was kind of neither -- or I guess -- It was Leap, there was two Leap and Valence scenes that were both, like, half of each of ours.
AUSTIN: [overlapping] Half of each, yeah, yeah, yeah. The original arrest stuff.
KEITH: [overlapping] Yeah.
AUSTIN: Do you -- if you have something else here, that’s, you know… If people have stuff, we should do stuff. That’s really where I’m at. We should -- we’re nearing the end of this, but if someone has stuff, we should get to it.
KEITH: I’m still trying to feel things out, for now, for this one.
AUSTIN: OK. Yeah. Sounds good. Then, Clem… what’s up?
JACK: Hm… [emphatically] Sulking. Just… just [sighs dramatically]
JANINE: Gucci has also sent Clem flowers, but it is the wider bouquet.
[ALI and JACK laugh]
JACK: Is there someone posted outside Clem’s room?
DRE: No. Not anymore.
AUSTIN: No. Valence -- Valence is like, “Everyone’s free.”
JACK: Huh.
AUSTIN: [excitedly] Can we get -- can we get a Clem-Valence follow-up, maybe? Or just like a… I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. You decide. You decide. You decide.
[ALI laughs]
AUSTIN: [sheepishly] I backed off.
JACK: Huh. Boy. That’s interesting. I wasn’t anticipating that. Um. OK. I’ll invite Valence to my quarters.
AUSTIN: Which, as a reminder for people who don’t recall, are small quarters that have been overstuffed with nice things, bleeding out into the hallway.
JACK: Yeah, it’s like basically, “what if a corridor was a long weird room connected to a smaller, rectangular room.”
[DRE laughs]
KEITH: Because -- if you also don’t remember, it’s because Leap --
JACK: [overlapping] Took the --
KEITH: -- filled all of the master quarters with bunks in order to force Clem to share a room or pick a very small room for her bedroom.
AUSTIN: Mmhm!
JACK (as Clementine Kesh): Valence. Thank you for coming.
DRE (as Valence): I’ve always been too curious for my own good, and I was really curious about why you wanted to see me.
JACK (as Clem): Well. I just wanted to check with you to see, uh, why it is that you did what you did. It seems to me that you want something, and I think that it would be better for both of us if we had this conversation now and worked out what it is you think that I can offer you.
DRE (as Valence): What I want is for us to get to work on what this is supposed to be instead of just bickering with ourselves, all day, every day.
JACK (as Clem): [innocently] I’m not bickering.
DRE (as Valence): Touché.
JACK (as Clem): What is this supposed to be, Valence?
DRE (as Valence): I don’t think I can answer that, and I think that’s part of the point. I don’t think one person can answer that.
JACK (as Clem): Hm.
DRE (as Valence): But I think part of it is, we should be out there helping people, working with and for people, redistributing assets, food, whatever…
JACK (as Clem): [unconvincingly nonchalant] I don’t know that that entirely works for me.
DRE (as Valence): Fair. What would you propose?
JACK (as Clem): Well, I think that if we marshal our forces, we could probably make an effective push into Kesh territory, if not directly. Apostolos also is weak. We’ve taken out their front lines, and I’m sure that they would be upset and surprised if we were to launch some sort of -- I wouldn’t want to march Icebreaker Prime toward their cities. We know the power of the Stels. But, uh, I think that… I think that we could probably start making efforts. And I think that -- I respect where you’re coming from, all this helping people stuff, but I think that the Stels are in a war already, and it’s only a matter of time before we join it directly.
DRE (as Valence): Is this for your throne?
JACK (as Clem): [matter-of-factly] Yes.
DRE (as Valence): [deadly serious] And what is your plan, once you have a throne? \
JACK (as Clem): [inappropriately nonchalant] Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure that our plans could dovetail at that point. We could sign some border arrangements. You would be able to continue your philanthropic activities as you wish, you know, in and around my regions. I would obviously ask for a certain level of support, but I would be prepared to offer a certain level of support as well.
[more seriously] Valence, I don’t care very much about whatever it is that you’re doing, but I understand that you care about it a great deal. And you seem to think me valuable enough to let out of jail, so I’m just hoping that we can come to some kind of an agreement.
DRE (as Valence): Um, I’m not ready for an agreement, but I think this has been very fruitful --
[AUSTIN laughs]
DRE (as Valence): -- and I think you’ve really helped me figure out what it is Millennium Break should be doing.
JACK (as CLEM): [long pause] Excellent. Thank you very much.
AUSTIN: Ohh! Valence with the fucking “You have to be like water” judo toss on Clementine Kesh! Perfect.
[JACK laughs in appreciation]
AUSTIN: You have to, you know, find the shape of whatever the thing is you’re trying to conquer and use it against it. Perfect.
JACK: Ha! Janine.
AUSTIN: Yes? What? I missed it.
[growing avalanche of laughter as the friends see what JANINE has posted in chat]
JACK: Janine has posted a screenshot of the cover of a book called Help! I’m Turning Into My Mother (asterisk: With a Few Quirks of My Own) by Becky Freeman and Ruthie Arnold.
AUSTIN: Amazing. Amazing!
ART: Great cover art, whoever --
AUSTIN: It’s -- yeah. Uh huh. It’s perfect.
ART: If that was one of those two, great work. A third person? You did great!
AUSTIN: You did great, yeah. Whoever did it. Awesome. Of course, we know the quirks of her own are “distinct silhouette, rare components, low latency operating system, and highly sensitive safety suite.”
Um, I actually have another quick, quick, quick reaction that is not me making a prediction, but it is me filling in a blank that I left on that last scene, so that we can have in mind something that I think helps -- helps -- [laughs] would have been useful to have in that Valence-Clem conversation, but also Gur was not back yet, so that makes perfect sense. It’s a small thing, and it is just a -- it’s not a full scene, so I don’t need people here, but it is like, Gur delivering a report on Valence’s desk. And then maybe to, like, members of each -- or maybe it’s just public, it’s in the internal Palace or the internal whatever, semaphore system, you know, social media-whatever. So it’s on the timeline.
The situation in Marengo, the reason people are starting to get together, is because the local governors have started rationing food. Um, and Uplight, the information broker -- he’s actually a Kesh academic who’s just moved to Marengo --
[1:30:00]
-- but the reason that he has kind of kickstarted this branch is because part of his information-broker shit has let him know that there’s like -- There seem to be two things coming, and both of them are bad for people here on Partizan.
The first is that last year’s crops were not particularly great -- and normally that’s fine, because you just import what you need. But the rumor is, Orion is about to create a system-wide blockade, which is going to stop Columnar from delivering their own food, which is huge. And also force people to buy stuff from Orion. The second thing is, this next crop also seems bad. A specific thing happened, which is, the very southern end of Stel Orion’s territory -- there’s this place called the Old Old, which is, like, a place where the moon, the un-miracled moon has bled into Orion’s territory, the Low Slate, where, like, there is not the correct amount of gravity. Things don’t grow, the soil isn’t fertile, there’s no air in the sky. It’s as if there’s a magic bubble that, like stops there. And it’s begun to eat into the rest of Orion territory. And it means that there’s going to be a lower crop output this year, which means even Orion will be in a worse position than they think they are. And so the governor of Marengo has already started food rationing. And the only reason that he’s able to do it is because he’s the governor in an Orion territory. The rest of the planet, er, the rest of the moon just doesn’t know that this is about to hit them.
Some other places might be fine. Apostolos has lots of great, like, very fast ships that can smuggle things in, but Orion, like, controls the gate system. So they just shut that down and it really will impact everyone in a way that no one has planned for yet. And so, that is a little color as we begin to tee up this end of -- there’s no prediction here. I don’t think that this is, like, tied to this crossroad. But I do think that that is, again, some flavor of what’s coming soon, to some degree, at least.
Any other final reactions? Is there an Apparatus scene you wanna wrap up?
KEITH: There is. I do have a reaction, and I’m on the fence between something, but… There’s something that Apparatus Aperitif and the house -- the participants in the house parties that they’ve been organizing…
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: ...and it’s the reversal of the campaign promise by Valence to put Clementine Kesh, a war criminal and jailor, in jail herself. It was on the debate. Everyone saw them raise their hand. And I don’t know whether I’m taking it or overthrowing it, but I think Apparatus Aperitif is going to be a Power.
AUSTIN: Oh, interesting. How does that -- is that because of the house parties? Which, as a reminder for people who maybe don’t remember the house parties, were like… they’re parties, but they’re also literally places where Apparatus was able to deliver, like, lectures and sermons about what Metronomica believes, but also just kind of political treatises on change, on the turning of history, on revolution, basically.
KEITH: Yes. So I’m seeing a sort of, uh, the assemblage of a coalition legislative body comprised of Aperitif, some of the members of Perennial, and some of the ex-prisoners from Kesh, and maybe some of Oxblood.
AUSTIN: I feel like Oxblood is pretty sewn up with Sovereign -- I mean, it bleeds, right, like, this is -- this is not a city, everyone does know each other.
KEITH: (overlapping) Yeah, just some, just “some of.”
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
KEITH: Just people from these places. And that’s sort of why I was thinking of an overthrow.
AUSTIN: Rather than…
KEITH: This might be a “We’re writing -- we’re writing the rules for you to announce now.”
AUSTIN: Mm. So it’s an overthrow of Valence, is what you’re planning.
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: Do you wanna do this in this moment, or do you wanna wait until the procedural moment where Valence can’t then re-overthrow you?
KEITH: [long pause] Oh, that sounds nice, yeah. I like that!
AUSTIN: I -- [laughs] Sorry, again, to get into the Robert Rules of Order thing, but, like, if you sneak that in right now, Valence would be in their power to then immediately overthrow you in the first stage of the resolution…
KEITH: Yeah. Yeah.
AUSTIN: But, y’know.
KEITH: Well, so, then I guess my reaction is that I’m showing -- I’m showing that these people are…
AUSTIN: You’re building. You’re building, yeah.
KEITH: They’re writing rules, they’re writing ideas. Anything. We’re in the “no wrong answers” stage.
AUSTIN: Right, we’re in the -- there is a bloc now of organized legislators who have, like, organically become a group that you have to pay attention to, basically.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Gotcha. All right, change -- er, don’t do it yet, but get ready to.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: [Laughs] Um, all right. It’s time to resolve this crossroad, unless someone has anything else. Let’s review the crossroad. The crossroad is -- [jokingly] “the password is: Kingdom.”
“Will the Kingdom put counterrevolutionaries on trial?” If yes -- Sovereign Immunity, will you read this one even though it’s abandoned?
ART: “If yes, the Curtain will discover the location of Icebreaker Prime.”
AUSTIN: Um, and then if no -- ?
ART: Oh, it’s still me.
AUSTIN: It’s still you.
ART: “There will be a great period of civil unrest.”
AUSTIN: The reason that it’s important that you read those even though they’re abandoned is that they could be adopted by different perspectives, and that happens after the vote on whether or not you do this. So the --
JACK: [intrigued] Hmm!
AUSTIN: The Powers have to consider that these might be picked up by the Perspectives at the table, which are Gur Sevraq and Clementine Kesh. Clem, can you read your prediction for “no?”
JACK: Yes. “If no, Millennium Break installs spies in Cruciat.”
AUSTIN: And then the final one is, “If no, Millennium Break cells will be created autonomously across Partizan” -- built on the back of the internal stability. Um, so, this is the moment where the Powers decide what they wanna do, and if anyone wants to overthrow someone, now also is the time to do it. [laughs]
KEITH: [overlapping] Oh, that’s me. You’re talking to me?
AUSTIN: [overlapping] I guess actually the votes happen first. Count the votes, the majority wins.
KEITH: [overlapping] Yeah, that’s what I thought.
AUSTIN: If someone wants to change the outcome, they have to challenge the Power’s decision or overthrow them.
DRE: Well, Valence is voting no.
JANINE: Gucci is also voting no.
AUSTIN: OK. If someone wants to change the outcome, they have to challenge a Power’s decision or overthrow them. Otherwise, the crossroad is now decided and there’s no going back.
KEITH: Um, I w -- I’m over -- I’m going -- I’m doing an overthrow.
AUSTIN: You’re doing an overthrow. What’s this look like? It is the thing you set up already, right?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So that is somehow -- I’m curious, Valence, is this just, like, you feel you have to respect this bloc of voters?
DRE: Honestly, I think it’s Valence being relieved, and this is -- this is their way out.
AUSTIN: Ohh, interesting! So it’s like, sorry, when you say “relieved,” you don’t mean “relieved of duty--”
DRE: No.
AUSTIN: --you mean like, [sigh of relief]
KEITH: Or both.
[ALI laughs]
DRE: Both. Yes. They are relieved to be relieved.
AUSTIN: Interesting. So that means there is no single executive at this point. Now it has been replaced by a council, the first group of which seems to be the --
KEITH: I was -- I was anticipating Valence to be a figurehead, and if they want to re -- I mean…
JANINE: [overlapping] If you wanna be a puppet, you can!
KEITH: Valence will have to resign to this -- to the power of this legislative body, otherwise the body’s gonna make them a figurehead. So it’s up to V -- I think that’s up to you, Dre.
DRE: No, I think Valence is very happy to cede all power to that.
AUSTIN: You can -- Just as a note, Valence, you can respond with one of the same three choices as a challenge. You could say -- you could offer a “yes, you can overthrow me if you do what is necessary” or “yes, it works but there’s a consequence, some fallout or repercussion of the action,” and at that point, Keith can say “Oh, yeah, sure, I’ll take those consequences or whatever,” or can just say, “No.”
KEITH: Although, unlike a challenge, if we can’t agree then it goes to me by default, instead of to you by default.
AUSTIN: (overlapping) Yeah, that is what I just said, exactly.
KEITH: (overlapping) Oh, OK.
AUSTIN: I don’t know if you have anything like that.
DRE: [thoughtfully] I don’t know if this would even count… but the only challenge I would have would be, like, “Sure, yes, just vote no so the trials don’t happen.”
AUSTIN: Ooh.
KEITH: Um --
DRE: Although, what happens if it’s just one to one?
KEITH: [overlapping] Well, our --
ART: We would have to keep going on this crossroads.
AUSTIN: Uh huh. If no one backs down -- or if no one overthrows anyone else.
KEITH: There’s -- well, our mandate is to put Clementine Kesh in prison.
AUSTIN: So that’s a no. You don’t accept that consequence, or that --
KEITH: Right. Well, I’m prepared to not -- we’re prepared to not do any trials, but we’re not prepared to keep Clem out of prison.
DRE: Sure!
KEITH: OK.
AUSTIN: So that’s the deal? No trials writ large, but Clem stays in prison. Valence, is that what you just decided?
DRE: Yeah. If they will vote no on this, sure.
AUSTIN: [amused] Wow. Love it. I love the backdoor politicking. What’s this look like??
All right, so, let’s confirm. Apparatus and Metronomica get into power, alongside --
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Alongside this much more -- like, the thing that I love about the way that Gucci has set herself up is like -- it feels like you’re the mythical undecided voter…
[General laughter]
AUSTIN: ...or you’re the, like, the silent majority, Gucci, in the sense that -- “Oh, these people don’t have a name,” there’s no bloc of voters, but Gucci is representing or able to push and pull on the vast majority of people that don’t have their heads in the game in the same way, that don’t have, like, capital -- they don’t have their, like, “Ah, yes, this is my Big Ideology,” they’re just have, like, “Yeah, let’s do this thing.”
So I’m curious -- there’s like a lot I’m curious about here. I guess the first thing is, this happens the way you just said. Valence, you stay on as figurehead or you -- you step back? I’ve already lost that bit.
KEITH: [overlapping] They’ll resign, right?
DRE: [overlapping] I think Valence -- Valence steps back. The only thing that I would say is when it comes time for law, I think there’s, like, one thing that Valence has basically left on the desk that we could potentially zoom into.
AUSTIN: OK.
DRE: But to me that’s not the same as being a figurehead.
AUSTIN: OK, and that’s not the -- oh, I see what you’re saying. You’re saying you would like to propose -- can we -- maybe that’s also part of this -- You would like to propose the initial law for this crossroad, is what you’re saying.
DRE: Yes.
AUSTIN: I see. Apparatus and Gucci, are you --
KEITH: What is it? It depends what it is.
AUSTIN: Well, we have to get to the end of this to see how it all wraps up anyway, but… Yeah, you can say it. You can say what you wanna say. You can leave it on the table.
DRE: All thrones are rubble.
AUSTIN: [appreciative] Oh!
JANINE: All your cities lie in dust.
[AUSTIN laughs]
AUSTIN: All right. We can say what it is. We don’t have to adopt that or not, yet, because we have to do that at the end of this, and the Powers can probably just reject it, but -- Apparatus, you go ahead and vote no on this?
KEITH: Yes.
AUSTIN: All right, so then, this -- the motion passes. No, the Kingdom won’t put counterrevolutionaries on trial. However, as part [laughs] of that negotiation, and as a new Power, Apparatus and the Metronomica bloc re-arrests Clementine Kesh?
KEITH: Yes.
AUSTIN: Amazing. Clem? What’s this look like? Is Clem just re-escorted back to the brig?
[DRE laughs]
AUSTIN: Or is her room --
JACK: Yeah, but angrier.
AUSTIN: I see.
[KEITH laughs]
JACK: I think, I think this time it is much more like… I think Clem is just confused.
KEITH: Yeah, do you know -- you don’t know that this wasn’t Valence’s idea as a result of your talk with them, right?
AUSTIN: God…
JACK: I mean, I guess not, no! I think it’s kind of just a sort of bemusement, like “What is happening on board this ship? Why am I getting arrested again?”
[Laughter and groans]
AUSTIN: Clementine Kesh, this is what power looks like from the outside.
KEITH: Yeah.
JACK: [agreeing] Uh huh!
AUSTIN: You don’t get to know why things are happening. They just happen to you. Incredible.
All right! Well, that is a resolution on the Power part of this.
KEITH: Um, I do wanna put just a little bit of color on this, because -- because we don’t have Valence as a figurehead, there has to be some sort of explanation as to why power was relinquished to this legislative body, this unknown group…
AUSTIN: Well, it’s -- Yeah.
KEITH: And I think, I think the only way to do it is to… uh, basically lie…
[AUSTIN laughs]
KEITH: ...that this was some sort of, you know, Valence project that they were putting together from the jump…
AUSTIN: [overlapping] From the jump! That the plan was always to take the executive office and then to eradicate the executive office.
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: Like, it was always a transitional -- you were never the president of Millennium Break, you were always like, interim executive…
KEITH: [overlapping] The overseer of the installation of a legislature, yeah.
AUSTIN: [overlapping] Of the transition. Which actually then makes it seem that much more noble [laughs], even though what has actually happened here is a terrible power play!
KEITH: Yeah. Yeah. Mmhm. Yup.
AUSTIN: [overlapping] Valence, do you go along with that story?
KEITH: [overlapping] “Terrible power play,” I think it’s a pretty good power play.
AUSTIN: [overlapping] Yeah, yeah, it’s a successful power play.
DRE: Yeah. Sure.
AUSTIN: OK. Great. People are, like, “Yes! Valence! Incredible job!”
[General laughter]
AUSTIN: Like, suddenly we’ve gone from having elections to there now being like two or three internal mythologized heroes of the revolution, between Sovereign Immunity being arrested and then being freed, Valence taking power and giving it up -- like, ah! Mwah! [chef kiss noise]
KEITH: This is like, uh… [searches for words] God, I can’t remember what it’s called, but in the French Revolution, they would put all the heroes’ of the revolution’s, like, tombs in this one building, and it’s like how they had to -- when they found out they they actually, when they decided they actually sucked…
AUSTIN: [overlapping] Right, when they retroactively…
KEITH: They had to wait an amount of time before exhuming the bodies and moving them out…
[ART cackles]
KEITH: ‘Cause, like, they have to take them out because they’re counterrevolutionary, but they have to wait until it doesn’t seem like a mistake to have put them in there…
[1:45:00]
AUSTIN: To begin with! Right! Incredible. Um, all right. Well, that is the Power part of this. Perspective time! Um, show us the consequences. Perspective, tell us whether each of your predictions on the winning side of the crossroad come true or not. Describe your character seeing what happens. Um, Clem, show me -- does your thing still work? Does Millennium Break still install spies into Cruciat --
JACK: [overlapping] No.
AUSTIN: -- So it doesn’t happen. You’ve retracted it. Because of where you are.
JACK: [“no shit Sherlock” voice] Yeah. Because I’m in jail.
AUSTIN: So you can’t do it.
JACK: No.
AUSTIN: OK. Mine was “Millennium Break cells will be created autonomously all across Partizan.” That happens! Um, and I think maybe we even see it in Cruciat. You know, I think we see someone quickly spray paint the M with the line through it, the struck-out M, and then run away from some guards. We see it in Oxblood territory in Oxbridge. We see it in, um… we see it in Vigil City, a place we haven’t seen much of yet, that is the kind of Columnar capital, and I think we specifically see it from a kind of teen Equiaxed mech pilot. We don’t see the mech in this moment, but we do see this kind of teenaged Equiaxed --
KEITH: It’s too cool to describe.
AUSTIN: Too cool -- I think -- here’s my note: “Has a hoodie on.”
KEITH: The mech does??
AUSTIN: No -- yes, the mech does.
KEITH: [overlapping] The mech has a giant mech hoodie.
AUSTIN: [overlapping] The mech has a giant hoodie, a giant mech hoodie, to hide its profile, and is spray -- Actually, you know what, yes, absolutely has a mech that has spray paint, like, under arm -- You know where the Assassin’s Creed blades are?
KEITH: Yeah. Mmhm.
AUSTIN: You know how Spider-Man does, like, the press down on the middle of his palms to shoot webs? It’s that, but big spray paint sprayers.
KEITH: I had a toy like that when I was a kid, where it was Silly String attached to your arms and it was Spider-Man colored, and you would do the Spider-Man hand motion to spray Silly String. So it’s that but graffiti.
AUSTIN: Perfect. Perfect.
ART: I thought you were gonna say “graffiti.” “I had a toy like that as a kid. Fucking painted everything.”
[explosion of laughter from EVERYONE]
ART: “The neighborhood had a meeting about it.”
AUSTIN: There is a huge structure in Vigil City that is, um -- this just truly ridiculous thing that’s this giant tower with bits all over it, that has a cross through it like another structure has pierced through it at a diagonal, and I think this pilot, they climb up, or he climbs up, and sprays a big Millennium Break logo on the middle of this huge structure in the center of Vigil City. Shoutouts to this motherfucker, we’ll see more of him shortly, I’m sure. And then yeah, like, I think that totally works. I think we do see Millennium Break start to gain traction across the entire moon.
Now we have to talk about these abandoned predictions, which are, again:
Sovereign Immunity, you said “The Curtain will discover the location of Icebreaker Prime” and then also -- Or, sorry, that one’s no, because that’s --
ART: That’s no just because --
AUSTIN: --It just didn’t happen, and then “There will be a period of great civil unrest.” I think I’m gonna let that slide based on how this happened. Clem, though, is also a Perspective, now, right?
JACK: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So, Clem, you could adopt that.
JACK: Hm.
AUSTIN: Or let it go [laughs] based on how you feel about how this has all gone.
JANINE: I have a question…
AUSTIN: Sure.
JANINE: ...about people who aren’t, you know, voiced characters, and how they feel about Clementine Kesh. Like, is this a situation where there are people in the group who are, like… what’s the word for people who are really into the British royal family?
KEITH: Royalists?
JANINE: [overlapping] The less political one.
KEITH: [overlapping] Oh, you mean now, like, today.
JANINE: The one that’s like, they buy the magazines called, like “Snap! Crown” and shit like that. There’s like a --
ART: [laughs] Snap! Crown sounds like it’s anti-.
AUSTIN: Snap, Crown, and Pop. Yeah. Uh-huh.
KEITH: [overlapping] My impression was that because, until a minute ago, me and Jack, our characters were both Touchstones, that there was probably totally a group that felt however about Clem that Clem felt about herself.
AUSTIN: Wait, was--
ALI: No, it was me and Millie who were Touchstones.
AUSTIN: Yeah, the Touchstones are Millie and Broun.
KEITH: Oh, right, yeah, Clem is a Perspective.
AUSTIN: Yes, you’re right.
KEITH: OK, so then it was my character that was a -- a Touchstone, and definitely not pro-Clem.
AUSTIN: Yeah. I think it comes --
JANINE: I’m just wondering if there are people around there who are, like, really proud of having a cool rebel princess, you know?
AUSTIN: I think there are probably some... ?
JANINE: And then like ignoring the actual truth of it, just, kind of, like, you know…
AUSTIN: Right.
JANINE: “More female war criminals,” that kind of thing.
[ALI laughs]
AUSTIN: Right, no, I get you. I think the answer is going to fall on the Touchstones, basically, right? Or, I think you’re right, of course there are some of those people, but are they the majority, is the question, right? And that ends up being a Touchstone question, more than, you know, a specific question about Clem.
Real quick though, Clem, are you adopting this abandoned, either of these abandoned…
JACK: Ah… no.
AUSTIN: OK.
JACK: I don’t think I’m adopting. I’m… ah, the spies aren’t happening, but I also don’t think there’s a period of civil unrest, at least yet. I think that, like, it’s this vibe of, like, some kind of revolutionary play has happened…
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: And I think that among Icebreaker there is a delight in the apparent cleanliness with which this has taken place, even if that’s not necessarily true.
AUSTIN: All right. And step 4: Touchstone, how do you feel? Tell us how your character feels about everything that happened. That’s how the people of the Kingdom feel, too. Check or uncheck up to two crisis boxes to reflect your feelings.
That is, again, Millie, Sovereign Immunity, and Broun.
SYLVIA: I think I’d like to mark a crisis box just because people are confused about it.
AUSTIN: OK.
SYLVIA: There were supposed to be trials and then all of a sudden there weren’t…
AUSTIN: Mmhm.
SYLVIA: Also we’ve just, like, had a lot of power structure shakeup.
AUSTIN: Yeah, fair. Sovereign Immunity?
KEITH: [overlapping] [sarcastically] No, it was meant to go like this from the beginning.
AUSTIN: [overlapping] But how do you feel? More importantly, Millie, how do you feel about it?
SYLVIA: [sighs] It feels off. Millie feels like something’s up because this all of a sudden isn’t happening, right?
AUSTIN: OK, so Millie doesn’t buy the thing that was kind of trotted out by the new legislative body and Valence, that this was all part of the plan from the jump? It just feels fishy? OK.
SYLVIA: Well, she was there when they arrested Clem!
AUSTIN: [laughs] Right, yes.
SYLVIA: It doesn’t make sense to her at all.
AUSTIN: Yup. OK. Sovereign Immunity and Broun?
KEITH: To be fair, Clem is still in jail!
SYLVIA: Yeah, but she had to be arrested by a second group of people!
ART: Yeah, this feels like horseshit, right? This is definitely not what it was supposed to be. It’s a beautiful story, but it’s -- it’s a lie. And I think that people aren’t like that, you know?
AUSTIN: Sovereign Immunity isn’t like that, specifically. Sovereign Immunity specifically sees through it, right?
ART: Well, Sovereign Immunity knows for a fact it’s not true! Sovereign Immunity was there brokering with Valence about taking power.
AUSTIN: Mmhm.
ART: So, like, yeah. It feels bad to be in a situation that’s this precarious, right? This is... I’m not gonna mark crisis, but it’s… but I’m marking unease. I’m marking, uh…
AUSTIN: You’re putting that ghost in the chat.
ART: You know that feeling you had in your stomach for, like, the first X months of 2017?
AUSTIN: [ruefully] Yeah, uh huh.
ART: Through… let’s just say now.
AUSTIN: [more emphatically] Yeah, uh huh!
ART: That feeling.
AUSTIN: Cool. [not cool]
ART: Everything’s just slowly -- everything’s getting worse at a pace that we were not prepared for.
AUSTIN: Fair. Broun?
ALI: Yeah. I’ve been a little torn on this. I think that Broun themselves is a little shaken by how close they felt like the knife got.
AUSTIN: Yeah. God.
ALI: Not that they felt they were, like, in real big-time danger, but it still sucked. [laughs] It’s still -- I don’t know how, like, going down to the fucking cafeteria goes now, right? But I think that there’s also a little bit of relief there. I think the general public is confused, like everyone else said, but I think that there’s the feeling of, like, learning that you knew to pull your hand away off of a stove, right?
AUSTIN: Mm.
ALI: Where, like, they -- there was a picture of how much worse that could have gotten.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ALI: But we kinda came off the ledge there and it’s, like, still really weird, but at least it’s --
AUSTIN: There was still a knife at everyone’s throat. Everyone felt that, right?
ALI: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
AUSTIN: A substantial amount of people were, like, “Oh, shit, you know what? Ooh, this could be me in a week!”
ALI: [laughs] Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
AUSTIN: “They arrested Clementine twice. They could arrest me twice. Shit!”
ALI: [laughs] Yeah.
AUSTIN: Um, all right. Are you marking or unmarking any crisis boxes?
ALI: Um…
KEITH: Oh, you can unmark?
AUSTIN: Yeah, up to two.
ALI: Oh, can I unmark?
AUSTIN: Mmhm.
ALI: I’m not gonna unmark. I feel like because I put the slightest positive twist on this one --
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ALI: --I’m not gonna mark it for now, but we’ll see how it goes
AUSTIN: Sounds good. Before we move on, we have to set a new law. Valence, do you want to reiterate that one that you suggested before you gave up power?
DRE: Mmhm. “All thrones are rubble.”
AUSTIN: [impressed] Whoof. Powers?
KEITH: It seems extremely ambitious. But I don’t hate it.
JANINE: I mean, it’s ambitious, but it’s also very, um… vague and idealistic in a way that feels like it can be adapted, you know? Like, it’s one of those -- it’s very -- I mean, I guess all of our laws are, like, guidelines more than, like, to the letter.
AUSTIN: Mmhm. And will be, like, the sort of thing that goes out in a manifesto to rally support, right?
JANINE: Yeah. Yeah.
AUSTIN: You accept -- are you -- is there any change to it?
KEITH: Do we have any other thoughts about it?
AUSTIN: Y’all are the Powers now.
KEITH: Janine, do you have another proposal? This is my first -- I don’t know if I -- [surprised] Have I ever been a Power in a Kingdom game, ever?
AUSTIN: [overlapping] I don’t think so. In a Kingdom game? No.
JANINE: What if we modified it to something like, “All thrones to tables,” or something?
[scattered background laughter]
KEITH: Gourmet throne to table?
[growing laughter from everyone]
AUSTIN: Wow, we’re really going further with this revolution than I thought!
JANINE: [overlapping] I mean, like, you know…
AUSTIN: [overlapping] We’re pro-cannibalism, but only for the royals. “Eat the rich,” right? Throne to table!
[more snickering]
JANINE: Something that’s like, instead of having one person in a position of power, it is a, you know, we want to have a situation where it’s groups of people, it is, like, councils, it is, like, coalitions. And not just, like, anarchy.
AUSTIN: Oh, you’re gonna lose Keith, now.
KEITH: You’re gonna lose me, now.
JANINE: [mock-outraged] You just installed the thing I’m talking about! You did it!
KEITH: Well, I’m not -- I’m not -- Look. Anarchists like councils sometimes. Depends on how big the council is.
JANINE: Sure, yes, but I mean anarchy in the -- in the --
KEITH: Colloquial?
JANINE: Shitty Internet sense.
KEITH: Yeah. Um, sorry, can you say your proposition again?
JANINE: [joking] Turn thrones into artisanal tables. [more seriously] Basically, like, if the original thing is “All thrones to dust,” then the revision is “All thrones to --” I need a better word than “tables.” I guess what I’m pushing for, basically, is something that says, like, you know, not individual rulers but a reinforcement of group government.
KEITH: What’s the -- what’s the wording on it?
AUSTIN: Tables.
KEITH: Tables.
AUSTIN: Comma, “we got ‘em!”
[KEITH giggles]
AUSTIN: We got that table.
KEITH: We’re giving -- everyone gets a -- Free tables for everyone!
AUSTIN: Mm. This is why the rubble thing works so well.
KEITH: See, I’m worried -- and I know that I helped with making things look more like the French Revolution like we wanted, but that means that if we say something like “Thrones to rubble” someone could kill me.
JANINE: Mm-
AUSTIN: But you’re not on a throne.
JANINE: You’re at a table.
AUSTIN: You’re at a table.
JANINE: [laughs] I’m saying.
KEITH: Anything -- if the speech is good enough, anything is a throne.
AUSTIN: ‘Strue.
DRE: [mock-callously] Good luck, Keith.
AUSTIN: Yeah, have fun out there, bud.
[ART or DRE starts laughing]
JANINE: No thrones, only argy-bargy.
KEITH: No, let’s do it! I’ll adopt it. I’m agreeing to adopt “thrones to rubble.”
AUSTIN: Gucci?
JANINE: Well, that was the thing, was I was trying to --
AUSTIN: I know you were.
JANINE: [laughing] We already had that. We already -- we already had that agreement, and I was like, “Well, what if we broadened this?” Or what if we like --
AUSTIN: Oh, I j -- you were fine with it to begin with, you just wanted to…
DRE: What about “Burn thrones, build tables?”
JANINE: [overlapping] I still hate tables…
KEITH: [overlapping] I don’t want people getting the wrong idea about what Fort Icebreaker does, because we don’t build tables.
AUSTIN: We do build -- “But, Black Dynamite, we do build tables!”
[Laughter]
ALI: Yeah, isn’t the -- I mean -- we built a coalition, so that’s the…
AUSTIN: Yes. Yeah. Burn thrones, build tables.
JANINE: Right. And everybody will sit there and talk about what they want.
KEITH: Maybe I’m too into -- maybe I’m imagining too literally a conversation that would happen where someone’s trying to explain to someone else what Millennium Break is, and they go “Wait, so they make tables?”
AUSTIN: [overlapping] [exasperated] No one would -- Everyone would understand what “Burn thrones…”
ALI: [overlapping] [deep sigh] No one would ever…
JANINE: This is a -- this is a conversation we’d do on screen as a joke, but it’s not a conversation that would really happen, right?
ART: Yeah, that’s the conversation in Bluff City, not Partizan.
[Laughter]
JANINE: [overlapping] That’s -- yeah, someone puts that in their window, and then someone walks in and says “Oh, you sell tables here?” and they’re like, “No, we’re a revolutionary organization.”
KEITH: [overlapping] All right, OK, then I’m fine with it, as long as we can --
ART: [overlapping] [mock-exasperated] Save it for Bluff City! God! We have so many more Bluff Cities to make!
JANINE: [overlapping] And then a bird flies in the window.
[2:00:00]
[Continued cackling from DRE]
ART: Don’t give it away here! Five bucks for that!
KEITH: I’m just saying, when we talk about Bluff City, we’ve said before, Bluff City is everywhere.
JANINE: OK, counter --
KEITH: There are pieces of Bluff City everywhere, even in Partizan.
AUSTIN: That’s not what we’ve said! Don’t give people ideas about crossovers that don’t exist!
KEITH: No, it’s -- I meant semantically.
JANINE: It’s for Sloe Point, OK. Counter-offer--
AUSTIN: Oh my god, Sloe Point wasn’t -- it’s Sloe Uplight! It’s a different name, spelled the same way, but it’s -- it’s not that -- they’re not related.
KEITH: [overlapping] What’d Sloe Point say?
JANINE: [overlapping] Counter-offer: Thrones for Cash.
[laughter]
AUSTIN: [emphatically] We’re moving on. “Burn thrones, build tables.” It’s time for a new crossroad, and you’re gonna tell me -- um, actually, hm. You know what? Let me just set this up. How’s that sound? Let me set up this next one.
KEITH: That sounds like the usual.
AUSTIN: That does sound like the usual one. There is one coming up that you’re gonna have some flexibility and you’re gonna have to tell me, but, uh, instead, let’s just go for this one.
It has been -- How long has it been between that last bit and this bit? Maybe like a week? Things are going OK -- Maybe two weeks? We get like two weeks? Does that feel fine? Things are, like, settling…
KEITH: Yeah, I’ll give you two weeks. Granted. [gavel bangs]
AUSTIN: Thank you, Powers, for the two weeks. Uh, [laughs] next order of business.
As Clementine Kesh rots in jail --
JANINE: She’s not rotting!
AUSTIN: As --
KEITH: It’s been two weeks.
AUSTIN: Sorry, as Clementine Kesh spoils in jail --
[ALI laughs]
KEITH: Withers?
AUSTIN: [overlapping] Withers, yeah.
JANINE: [overlapping] That’s already happened!
SYLVIA: Clementine Kesh is already spoiled.
AUSTIN: Yeah, fair! [laughs]
ART: Clementine Kesh: unrefrigerated cheese left on the counter.
AUSTIN: Eugh. As Clementine Kesh smells in jail…
[SYLVIA laughs]
AUSTIN: There -- OK. I think then we have a -- a moment when Gucci Garantine is in the emergency command deck, the kind of secondary bridge, and someone looks up to you and says,
(as unnamed Icebreaker crewmember) Um. What’s that?
And the scanners go wild. There’s all sorts of loud beeping, there’s a proximity alert, something is about to hit the station, alarms go off everywhere as Icebreaker Prime braces for impact. And in the sky, something, like, breaks through the sound barrier, comes down through the heavens at you, and then comes to an impossible quick stop.
It is a white ship with kind of gold trim, and with almost like a sweep of light, it sort of freezes the sea into place -- as if it’s turning it into ice, into solid matter -- and then lands there and… takes a knee?
And at first you’re like, “Is it kneeling for us? What’s happening?” And then a light is projected from its eyes, and those eyes flash and project an image, a person. This is the Divine Present. And what you see is the image of its Elect, Gallica. And she addresses all of Millennium Break, and says:
[TANAGER. PERFECT. TOUCHPAPER. begins to play under voiceover]
(as Gallica) My name is Gallica, and I request a conversation with those of you in charge of this… admirable initiative.
And as a reminder, she is, like, as big as -- this projection is as big as Icebreaker Prime is.
(as Gallica) Should I come on board or should we do it like this?
How do you receive this Elect?
[music continues through outro]