PALISADE 37: Reach In / Reach Out Pt. 1
Transcriber: robotchangeling
Long Term Projects [0:34:49] 40
Eclectic’s Investigation [1:07:40] 74
Austin: PALISADE is a show about empire, revolution, settler colonialism, politics, religion, war, and the many consequences thereof. For a full list of content warnings, please check the episode description.
[“Nothing is Stationary” by Jack de Quidt begins playing]
Austin (as Gur Sevraq): It’s quiet here, living in your head.
It’s quiet here, and when I talk, you listen, at least when you can hear me, which isn't always. It isn't always, but it’s better than never.
It’s quiet here, living on this ship.
It’s quiet here, and I remember when it was loud. I remember different voices bouncing in these halls. I remember old arguments. I remember myself.
I wonder how much I can tell you, because I can tell you I have much to say.
But you never saw me astride the Prophet’s Path, beside the Resin Heart, imparting wrath and play.
So who am I? You only know what they've told you.
So who am I? You only know what’s written down.
So who am I? You only know what’s on recordings, and according to the world, I'm a hypocrite or drowned.
I doubt you can hear me, but I know that she can,
So pardon my frustration, I'm just tired of her plan.
I lost my life long before I understood,
Before metaphor became real, before I felt the wheel’s wood.
I wonder what she’ll tell you. I wonder what she’ll share.
I wonder what she’ll ask of you, what task of sweat and prayer.
I long to sweat and pray, a body in the day.
The color of the sun; the touch, the ocean spray.
[columns spoken simultaneously]
The last thing that I felt in life: / The first thing that I felt in life:
The touch, the ocean spray.
I hope she tells the truth to you. / I hope she tells the worst to you.
The touch, the ocean spray.
I loved her like she told me to. / I left her like she told me to.
The touch, the ocean spray.
She’s running out of time, you know? / We’re running out of time, you know?
The touch, the ocean spray.
I fear we might be mirrored, two echoes of a call
Shouted between two queens, two queens who want it all.
I fear we might be symmetry. I fear we might be one.
Make her tell the truth to you, before we come undone.
[song ends]
Austin: Welcome to Friends at the Table, an actual play podcast focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends. I’m your host, Austin Walker, and joining me today, Ali Acampora.
Ali: Hi, my name is Ali Acampora. You can still find me over at twitter.com at @ali_west, and you can also find me over at friendsatthetable.cash, where I just wrapped up, like, a mini campaign of Grandpa’s Farm set in Nievelmarch with Jack and Janine. I loved it.
Austin: Whoo!
Ali: It was good. You should listen to it.
Janine: Whoo!
Ali: And I also host a show called Gathering Information. Check it out.
Austin: It’s true. It’s good. Andrew Lee Swan.
Dre: Hey, you can find me on Twitter at @swandre3000, and I would like to ask everyone who’s listening to this to do us a favor and rate us five stars on your podcast app of choice.
Austin: [quietly] Wow. Damn.
Dre: If you only give us four stars, I will post a video of myself crying on Twitter.
Janine: Don't. They’ll want that, though.
Ali: Don't.
Austin: Yeah, don't give them incentive.
Janine: Some people will.
Dre: I know. That’s what I'm saying. Some people will.
Austin: Yeah, don't give them incentive.
Dre: Okay, all right.
Austin: Don't give them incentive to see you hurt, you know?
Dre: Okay.
Ali: Huh?
Austin: There are people out there— [Ali laughs]
Janine: So if we have a 100% five star rating, then you'll post a video of crying—
Austin: That’s right.
Dre: Yeah.
Ali: Oh.
Janine: But you'll be crying about something else.
Keith: I think it’s very tactical— it was very tactical to say that the crying vid comes at four stars, because if our enemies that are out there who want to see us hurt [Ali and Sylvia laugh] are going and rating four stars? That’s way better!
Dre: Instead of, like, one?
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvia: Than one, yeah. [Ali laughs]
Janine: Mm.
Sylvia: You know what?
Austin: Yeah, this is true. Brings the average up still.
Sylvia: Good point.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: That’s tactical thinking.
Sylvia: Give it five stars, though.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Right.
Austin: Keith J. Carberry.
Keith: Hi, my name is Keith J. Carberry. You can find me on Twitter and Cohost at @KeithJCarberry. You can find the let’s plays that I do at youtube.com/RunButton. And Dre, was it Friends at the Table that you were telling people to put five stars for, or was it…?
Dre: Yeah, sure, but is there another one they should…?
Keith: There’s also Media Club Plus that you can go do that.
Dre: Mm.
Austin: [announcer voice] Media Club Plus!
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I'm trying this thing for whenever anybody says Media Club Plus.
Ali: Wow.
Keith: [imitating] Media Club Plus!
Austin: Media Club Plus!
Sylvia: We can put, like, a filter over it, make it sound like an announcer in a fighting game.
Austin: [into cupped hands] Media Club Plus! [Ali laughs]
Dre: Whoa.
Sylvia: Yeah, there we go.
Janine: Mm.
Austin: I kind of blew out there, but yeah.
Keith: Did anyone hear the button? Did anyone hear the button that I made during the Tin Can stream with Jack?
Austin: No, I didn't.
Janine: Yes.
Dre: No.
Keith’s Soundboard: Friends at the—
Keith: Oh, it’s fucked up. I fucked it up. [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: It’s fucked up.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Keith’s Soundboard: Friendsatthetable.cash!
Keith: I ruined it. I'm supposed to be able to hit it a bunch of times.
Keith’s Soundboard: Friendsatthetable.cash!
Austin: You're supposed to be able to be like fr— fr— fr— fr— fr— Friends at the Table dot—
Ali: Wow.
Keith: Yeah, that’s what it was before. I must have pressed the wrong button at some point.
Sylvia: Oh, that’s good!
Keith’s Soundboard: Friends at—
Keith: I'll fix it.
Austin: Fix it. Fix it. You gotta go fix it. [Ali laughs]
Keith: I'll fix it. Yeah.
Austin: Maybe we all take a break, and Keith will fix it, and then…
Keith: No, it’ll take one second to fix it.
Austin: Okay, that’s good. Janine Hawkins.
Janine: Hi. [Sylvia laughs] I’m at @bleatingheart on places. Uh…uh…did we talk about merch yet? We have new merch?
Austin: Mm-mm!
Ali: Yeah, we— yeah.
Janine: Yeah.
Ali: Let’s say something to all the people who want to see a video of Dre. [Sylvia and Ali laugh]
Janine: If you buy $100 worth of merch before this recording is over—you can't, sorry— [Ali laughs] then you get stickers, but if you buy $100 worth of merch after this recording, because that promotion ends tonight on December 3, you can get a video of Dre crying— no. [Ali laughs]
Austin: No. But there is a video of Dre hidden in the world.
Ali: Uh huh.
Dre: Secret.
Janine: Yeah, there is a secret…there is a secret…I was going to say “drideo.” [Ali laughs]
Sylvia: Whoa. Curséd energy tonight, huh?
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Secret drideo.
Janine: I had, like, a 15 minute nap, and it’s, like…
Ali: Oh.
Janine: I'm all over the place.
Dre: [announcer voice] Secret Drideo!
Keith’s Soundboard: Frie— frie— frie— friendsatthetable.cash!
Austin: There it is! [laughter, someone claps]
Sylvia: Oh fuck yeah!
Austin: That fucking rules.
Janine: There we go.
Sylvia: Oh my god.
Janine: There is a secret Dre video connected to the shop in some way that you can find out about, or you can ask someone who already knows and…
Austin: It has 51 views right now. That’s no views.
Dre: That’s none.
Austin: Could you be 52? Probably not. That’ll probably be today.
Keith: Oh, I'll say this.
Dre: But you could be 52.
Austin: If they…
Keith: People were getting mail yesterday, because a couple hours ago, that was 41.
Austin: Oh, yeah, no.
Janine: Mm.
Austin: I've seen people with the merch.
Ali: Mm.
Austin: The merch is out. People have seen the new merchandise.
Ali: The merch is out.
Austin: People have seen the Twilight Mirage t-shirt. You already should have listened to, Ali, your big announcement, so we don't have to go over [Ali: Hi.] it bit by bit, right? But.
Ali: But go to friendsatthetable.shop right now.
Austin: That’s right.
Ali: Right now.
Sylvia: Right now.
Austin: Right now.
Janine: Unless you're listening to this in a browser for some reason. Then open a tab, and then go to friendsatthetable.shop.
Austin: Right, and then go to— yeah, mm-hmm. And Sylvi Bullet.
Janine: And then hit enter, and then…
Sylvia: [laughs quietly] I'm Sylvi. Hi. You can find me everywhere on the internet at @SYLVIBULLET.
Janine: Everywhere?
Sylvia: Yeah, every— I mean, like, most places. Like, the places I'd be.
Austin: Yeah, the places you'd be.
Dre: Yeah.
Janine: FarmersOnly?
Sylvia: Not a place I'd be. I'm not a farmer. [Ali laughs]
Janine: Okay.
Austin: Yeah, that’s right.
Dre: Not yet.
Austin: Well, but FarmersOnly is not only for farmers.
Sylvia: I know, but I'm just not— that’s not my—
Janine: It’s for farmers and…
Sylvia: That’s not my target demographic.
Austin: Yeah, I got you.
Dre: Sure. You're just like Michelle Branch, Sylvi. [Sylvia laughs quietly]
Ali: Hmm?
Austin: Huh?
Sylvia: Sure?
Dre: Because you're everywhere to me.
Austin: You're everywhere.
Sylvia: You should go to the TikTok, @friends_table, or twitch.tv/friendsatthetable and follow them.
Austin: Oh.
Sylvia: Those are the promos I'm gonna do here.
Austin: Do we want to mention the new Monday Twitch stream category?
Sylvia: Oh, Multiplayer Mondays?
Austin: [announcer voice] Multiplayer Mondays.
Janine: Mu— mu— Multiplayer mo— mo— Mondays.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Mu— mu— mu— mu— mu. Mu— mu— mu— Multiplayer. Multiplayer. Multiball.
Keith: Damn, I was so unprepared for that.
Dre: Multipass.
Austin: Yeah, you weren't ready for— yeah, multipass, that’s right. Multipass Mondays, we just rewatch Fifth Element over and over again. [Dre laughs] Multiplayer Mondays, it’s here. Playing some multiplayer games on Mondays.
Austin: Today, we’re continuing our game of Armour Astir [Dre: Yeah.] by Briar Sovereign. Our goals, as always, are to portray a world entrenched in conflict, to let the players make a difference, to connect the magic and the mundane, and to play to find out what happens. Hey, speaking of players making a difference, look at this map real quick.
Dre: Ooh.
Austin: See anything different?
Ali: Oh, I'm not even on Roll20.
Austin: Oh boy. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Whoa, hey, that’s a symbol.
Ali: You sounded so disappointed.
Austin: There’s a lot— there’s a couple things that happened here.
Sylvia: Yeah, wait.
Keith: Okay, so I see the— I see the Millennium Break.
Austin: Yeah, over the Paint Shop. Nice job.
Keith: Yeah, over the Paint Shop.
Austin: That’s indirectly tied to Eclectic getting that stuff.
Ali: Ooh.
Keith: Sick.
Austin: But there’s another big thing that’s different.
Sylvia: Is that— is it the big— is it the lines here, or have I just never noticed those?
Austin: It is the lines there.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: Those are new. Those used to be red. They used to be red all the way around, because [Keith: Oh.] Stel Nideo used to run the Bontive Valley. And go ahead and— over on the sheets, if you want to click over to the old pillars page…
Ali: Don't need to do that.
Keith: The ol' pillars page.
Dre: [voice] Pillars page.
Austin: Authority division. Oh, look at this. Bontive Valley has fallen, folks.
Dre: Oh.
Ali: Wahoo! [Dre laughs]
Keith: Holy shit.
Austin: After a really hard fight.
Dre: Yeah, Mario came and got them all. [Keith and Ali laugh]
Austin: Mario helped out. Mario’s here.
Ali: It literally happened exactly like that. A guy in overalls showed up and said, “We have to get this together,” and… [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: The classic Mario line. [Ali laughs]
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: [voice] Come one, guys. We gotta get this together. What are we doing here?
Keith: Uh oh, who’s showing up now? [Waliugi voice] Wah! [Ali and Austin laugh]
Austin: I don't know who that is.
Keith: That’s Waluigi.
Austin: Oh, it’s Waluigi.
Sylvia: Stel Wah-lumnar.
Austin: No, I knew who it was.
Sylvia: Thank you.
Austin: Yes, I knew.
Sylvia: Bye.
Austin: Bye, bye, bye. And listen. [Ali laughs] Here’s a thing. Here’s a thing. Do you know what I think happens when you control the Bontive Valley, which provides, you know, is the bread basket of the planet Palisade and also I should say probably the plant-based, like, oils— I don't know, there’s robot people. They would probably also benefit from this. It’s not just food, right? It’s all sorts of plant-based shit. It’s all sorts of shit that grows.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: So like, you know.
Ali: Olive oil, man.
Austin: Olive oil and—
Janine: Free baguette and olive oil at every table.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Everything—
Janine: Dip dip.
Austin: Anything that you might need that might grow.
Keith: Wow.
Dre: Wow.
Austin: And when you control the trains? is I think that you untick tapped from three factions. I think that that is respecting the fiction.
Ali: Ooh.
Austin: I think that if you pull off capturing both of those things in a one-two punch, you're able to distribute from the stores of the Bontive Valley and get things back up. I mean, it still leaves you with a bunch of tapped factions, [Austin and Ali laugh] but I think that that’s fair. I think that that’s respecting the fiction, and so let’s start here. And in fact, I think in general where I'd like to spend a lot of time today is the Bontive Valley, because I want to know what the vibe is like having— you know, as a recap, like, the Bontive Valley has been the front for this war for as long as there has been the war, effectively. You know, Grey Pool* and Jade Kill have been pushing in. They took Carhaix. They lost Carhaix. They took it back, and finally they've taken the whole thing. Eversin was the first place we ever saw on Palisade. It’s where the first scenes of the Wagon Wheel game were.
So like, it’s been the center of this for this whole time, and I'd really love for a lot of our downtime to be in or around the Bontive Valley. I suspect there’s probably a big party, a big feast in Eversin. Anybody you need to see who’s in the Cause can be in the Bontive Valley today. This is, like, huge win, you know? You've won— you know, you haven't won the whole war yet, but this is the biggest single thing, you know? Phrygian looking down from above. This one’s for you, you know?
Keith: Damn.
Dre: Damn.
Austin: The big wire in the sky, you know? [Keith and Ali laugh] We got the W. We finally got the W that you wanted us to get. And so, yeah, that’s, I think, the sort of energy in the air today.
Sylvia: They’re throwing the Branched Man Annual Barbecue.
Austin: That’s right. Wow. [Ali laughs] So, that’s probably the biggest piece of news coming out of the conflict turn. Is there anything else especially important to talk about?
Janine: They’re really close to reviving Motion, huh?
Austin: They sure are.
Dre: That’s bad.
Austin: One tick away, which I could just do, but I'm playing kind, in a way, here. [Ali laughs]
Sylvia: Thank you.
Ali: Sure. Appreciate that.
Austin: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Importantly, the Whitestar Fleet showed up. That’s what kind of happened here. Lucia Whitestar landed with a fleet and tried to fight everybody everywhere, and that did not go well for her.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: She— you were there for that, weren't you, Ali?
Ali: Not for that part, no.
Austin: Oh, you just set the stage. You didn't do the actual war scene? Yeah, you were.
Keith: Uh, what, did they have you come and flip a coin and then go?
Austin: Yeah, no, no. [Ali laughs] Ali was there for, like, a whole thing.
Keith: Oh, okay.
Austin: You were there for this, Ali. Weren't you? Am I making this up?
Ali: No, I think the Lucia stuff was after me, because I only dealt with the Bontive Valley.
Austin: That’s the Lucia stuff.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: Right? Was it not? Am I wrong?
Ali: I think you're wrong.
Dre: Damn.
Austin: I guess that would have been the Divine Crusade, you're right. You're right.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Oh, you're right.
Ali: That was Crusade and, um…
Austin: You're right. And Jade Kill and—
Ali: And Rose River, which…
Austin: Oh yeah, it was Rose River. You're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ali: Another thing to say about Rose River is that they are now agents and have a new outcome?
Austin: They are.
Dre: Oh.
Austin: Yes, they've switched from being scholars, [Ali laughs] which were people who, as a reminder, scholars would, like, give you bonuses on your roll before you start a mission, basically, your, um…what is the name of that thing that you already have before?
Dre: Plan and Prepare?
Austin: Yeah, Plan and Prepare, I want to say. It was either Plan and Prepare or the other one, the one that’s like, you actually— yeah, I think it was Plan and Prepare. I think it was Plan and Prepare. And at this point, I think you have all the bonuses you can get on Plan and Prepare via Brnine?
Ali: Mine, yeah.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: My Born Leader.
Austin: Your Born Leader, exactly. You already get confidence and advantage or whatever it is. And so there was— Brnine talked a Divine into being more violent.
Dre: Sick!
Austin: So, nice job.
Ali: Normal stuff.
Austin: Normal stuff. Now they're—
Ali: I spoke to the Divine’s— I was talking to Veronique, mostly.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Fealty was there, but…
Austin: Fealty was there, yeah.
Ali: I wasn't strongarming the Divine.
Austin: Now they oppose with assassination and subterfuge. They can disrupt the Authority, removing 1d3 grip on a faction or pillar, which they then did, and then the thing that happened—right, Ali, this is the bit that you weren't there for—was that Jade Kill managed to pull of the coup and get that done and knock that thing out, and then the third scene there was about Connadine getting the fuck off the planet and making a deal with Motion. So, you know.
Dre: Ugh.
Austin: Or not with Motion, sorry. Not with Motion, my bad. With, uh, the other one that’s super evil. [snapping thoughtfully] Uh, the Divine comma Arbitrage.
Sylvia: Ah, yeah.
Austin: That is, it turns out, why Connadine was betraying Stel Kesh was has decided to hop on team Arbitrage, who is clearly a sort of third party in all of this, so that’s the—
Ali: Arbitrage, known as Motion’s oomfie?
Austin: Uh, no, because Arbitrage— [Sylvia laughs]
Dre: Uh.
Austin: I mean, there’s a little over— there’s an overlap there. Arbitrage definitely… Arbitrage definitely playing the angles, right?
Ali: Sure.
Austin: Because Arbitrage…
Ali: Well, they haven't met yet. We'll see what happens when she comes back.
Austin: Right. Arbitrage, Mustard’s oomfie.
Sylvia: Don't say when! [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah, you could still stop it. It’s true.
Sylvia: If!
Austin: You could still stop it. Y'all got some info to play with.
Sylvia: If!
Austin: So, where do we want to start? Sorry, I should reiterate a thing that kind of got blown over here, which is now that the spies are not— like, now that Kesh is not a bunch of spies on this planet and they are, instead, a bunch of military people, there’s, like, a big command ship up in space and they’re, like, sending down attack fleets just everywhere.
Dre: Oh.
Austin: And then the last thing there was very much the— Millennium Break came to the aid of the Crown of Glass. The people in the Crown of Glass were being attacked by Lucia, and some local Millennium Break folks kind of saved the day there, knocked Lucia’s forces there out. You may recall me messaging a bunch of y'all and going like, “Would you leave a military base in the Crown of Glass if you had earned one, so to speak?”
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: If you had, like…
Ali: Mm.
Austin: You know, would you leave people there? But the way that Jack ended up, I think, playing that, it was less outside Millennium Break forces come in and much more people from Millennium Break who are hanging out in the Crown of Glass because it’s the biggest— at that point, the biggest non-Principality city on the planet, like, stood up for the other people in the Crown of Glass.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: While Clementine stayed behind in the glass castle, you know, and fucking…
Keith: The glasstle.
Dre: [sarcastic] What?
Austin: Kept making monsters, you know?
Ali: Yeah, we had that whole scene of Cori shopping for movies in the Crown of Glass, right?
Austin: Yep. Yep.
Ali: Like, people are out and about there.
Austin: Yep. There are horrors out and about there now too, we learned.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: So.
Ali: Yeah, why not?
Dre: Mm.
Austin: I think we described it as—
Ali: Oh, there’s horrors all over this planet.
Austin: Damn right.
Dre: Yeah. [Ali laughs quietly]
Austin: But we described as being—
Janine: Horrors gotta buy DVDs too. [Austin laughs quietly]
Ali: Yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah, we saw Cori do it. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Aw.
Keith: Horrors want to see Jump 22! No. 20…
Austin: 22 Jump Street.
Dre: 22 Jump Street?
Keith: 22 Jump Street, yeah. [Dre laughs]
Austin: Jump 22.
Sylvia: Jump 22 is a Palisade one now.
Ali: Yeah, honestly. [laughs]
Austin: I'd see Jump 22.
Keith: That’s the— yeah, that is the future 22 Jump Street.
Austin: There we go.
Keith: The sequel to 21 Jump Street is Jump 22, the sequel to Jump 21.
Austin: The sequel to Jump 21.
Ali: This is an off movie night downtime. We do it every other downtime. Last week was a— okay. I'm just saying.
Austin: I don't— you tell me. [Ali laughs]
Keith: I don't remember the last time we—
Sylvia: No, that’s fine. We don't have to do movie night.
Keith: I don't think that we did one last time.
Austin: This is a Bontive Valley downtime, and if y'all want to [Sylvia: Yeah.] sneak a movie night in, I think that’s fine.
Ali: This is true. Yeah. No, no, no. I'm just saying, based on the schedule, last week was— and now— that was for myself. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stop the conversation. [laughs]
Sylvia: No worries!
Austin: You're good.
Keith: What was the movie last time? I don't remember that.
Ali: Well, Brnine watched a bunch of DVDs on the hospital bed.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Right.
Keith: Oh, okay.
Dre: Little solo-dolo movie night.
Austin: Speaking of a hospital bed…
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Uh, everyone’s fucked up.
Keith: I'm fine.
Dre: Eh, I'm fine.
Ali: Oh, I'm clearing my Risks.
Austin: No, you're not fine.
Keith: Oh, yes, I'm Cracked.
Austin: You have two Perils. [Sylvia laughs]
Keith: And Tracked.
Sylvia: Cracked and Tracked.
Keith: But I'm fine.
Austin: And Cori has two Perils. [Dre laughs]
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: And Brnine has a Peril, and Figure has a Peril.
Dre: Eh, it’s just one.
Austin: And Thisbe’s fine.
Keith: Doesn't even hurt.
Janine: Yeah, I'm fine. I had Risks, so I got rid of them.
Austin: Yeah, those clear. But a lot of Perils out there.
Ali: Before we talk tokens, I think you said at the beginning of this we could just clear three tapped factions?
Austin: Yeah, so which ones do you want to clear, or do you untap? Who gets the—
Keith: Um, the obvious ones, I think.
Austin: [sarcastic] Okay, the obvious ones.
Janine: [sarcastic] Oh, yeah, okay, done. Next.
Austin: This gets the benefit from the military action in the Bontive Valley. Is it just the three groups that did it? Do they—
Ali: Yeah, that would be Blue Channel, Jade Kill, and Rose River, right?
Austin: That would be— I don't think Blue Channel was part of the Bontive Valley part of it, right?
Ali: [whispering] I was there. [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: Were you there? [Ali laughs] You talked to—
Ali: No. No.
Austin: Okay.
Ali: That is how I got tapped, though.
Austin: You did.
Ali: I tapped myself, yeah.
Austin: You did tap yourself there. That’s true. I was thinking it was Jade Kill, Grey Pool, and Rose River, but that’s two of the same three, so.
Keith: I mean, I like that three.
Ali: Okay, yeah.
Dre: Sure.
Ali: I'm fine with untapping myself.
Austin: You could also pick stuff that’s, like, yeah, whatever you think is the best outcomes. Y'all tell me, and tell me what it looks like a little bit, you know?
Keith: So, the factions that were there. You said it was Jade Kill, Rose River, and…?
Austin: Grey Pond, who was also part of this big, yeah, assault.
Keith: Grey Pond. Um, and—
Austin: And then the Blue Channel by way of Brnine, right?
Keith: Right.
Austin: Who, like, did convince the Rose River to, like, get involved in this different way to kind of stop being the kind of, like— they weren't ever pacifists or anything, right? But they were definitely like a support group that was not—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: A lot of that conversation went around the idea that, like, hey, it’s dangerous to put Fealty into the battlefield, you know? The Bontive Valley was hurt in this process. It could have been hurt way more, but most of that scene was about anticipating ways that the fight could go bad, not just in terms of losing it, but in terms of having harm done to the Bontive Valley and how do we make sure that doesn't happen in a destructive way, you know? And so, yeah, those are the four groups, and I would say Grey Pond least, but they have been in the Bontive Valley on and on since the beginning of the game, right?
Keith: Yeah. It does sort of mesh with their outcome [Austin: Mm-hmm.] of untapping two factions that them being involved would help lead to us untapping three factions.
Austin: Right. Sure. Totally.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: That’s what they do. They are the logistics supplier people, right?
Ali: Yeah.
Keith: And you said that is, like, what we're doing or why this is happening is that, like, the Bontive Valley is the resource zone.
Austin: Yeah. Yeah, the Bontive Valley is a—
Keith: And so…
Austin: I guess, as a reminder, I'll just read from the pillars thing. Blessed by the departed Divine Bounty, the valley provides the Bilats with fruit that never rots and hyper-nutritional grain.
Keith: [whispering] Senzu beans.
Austin: Bounty was a Divine dating back from the Twilight Mirage. It was an Axiom that turned into a Divine, you may recall. And before the game started, before— like, just before the Road to PALISADE game Wagon Wheel, Bounty, like, sacrificed itself to fill the Bontive Valley with, like, ever— it had always been there in such a way that it was able to provide, but with the invasion coming, I think it kind of just, like, seeped itself into the world in such a way. At least that’s how I remember us talking about it. I had also thought about it being like— I think it’s also the body of it is up in Chimera's Lantern, so it’s kind of like it’s gone up there to die, effectively, but at least now the Principality doesn't have access to it, right? So. And it did bless this place in that way, so that is the vibe.
Keith: And this isn't, like, the normal scene of, like, how do you go and help, since this is the Bontive Valley thing, this is—
Austin: No, I think there’s a feast. I think this is party time.
Keith: You think there’s a big— this is party time?
Dre: Oh, yeah.
Austin: Y'all won a huge thing. This is the biggest victory I think we've seen this season, in terms of taking territory on Palisade. Obviously, shutting down the Stellar Combustor is like, it’s hard to beat at that point, but for the day-to-day operations of the war? Like, you have the food now. You know?
Keith: Okay. Well, I wasn't sure, because I was thinking of, like, you know, watching the train going and delivering food and people unloading boxes and, like, filling— but if we want to do a party, that sounds more fun.
Austin: Yeah, I think that’s cool. I would love for there to be a big party. I think that this is a big party. I think that, like, the Cause’s council is like, “We should celebrate this.”
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: We have all gone fucking through it, you know, in the last couple of weeks or last couple of months. We deserve a big win here.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Like, we deserve to celebrate a big win here. And the other thing is that that lets us get whoever we want to on screen, you know?
Keith: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: Whoever wants to be at the parade or at the feast or whatever that looks like can be there, right?
Keith: Hmm.
Austin: And that can look like whatever we want it to, but I think that that’s, like, the gist of a type of scene I would love to see on screen, you know? But like, Ali, I know you'd mentioned wanting to do a Brnine talks to August Righteousness scene.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Like, August will be here, you know? If you want to—
Ali: Right, right, right.
Austin: You know, if someone wants to do some stuff with the Twill. Like, here’s the other thing the Bontive Valley does: it gives the Twill a place where they can go live the way they've lived historically, because there is that space for them here.
Dre: Hell yeah.
Austin: It’s not the space that they used to have, which they would like back, which is just to the north of, like— or, no, it’s to the south. It’s Greenfield here. It’s near where Lone Marble HQ is. That’s where they're from, but there are some in the Bontive Valley, and there always had been some in the Bontive Valley. They met with people in the Bontive Valley when the Bontive Valley first started, you know, millennia ago, and so, you know, there definitely are some folks who are like, “Oh, you know, we'll relocate there. We think that that’s a place where we— our style of life is in line with the way the Bontive Valley functions, and we can do some stuff there.” If people want— you know, any other extended character scenes, this is a good place for it, I think. But also, if what you want to do is, like, rush to the infirmary, that’s also fine. [Ali laughs]
Keith: Yeah, it might be—
Austin: But as always, I don't have a plan for this downtime.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: I just have tokens, you know?
Keith: It might be easier to party if I'm not Cracked.
Sylvia: Mm-hmm. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Well, I don't know, bro. [Keith laughs quietly]
Sylvia: Depends.
Dre: Yeah, what kind of party you want to have? [laughs]
Keith: Um, I guess not the kind— you know, no one wants to spill punch into…
Dre: Into and through your body.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvia: Fair enough.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Ali: Mm.
Keith: Yeah. Unless you're Onionhead from Ghostbusters.
Austin: Right.
Dre: Mm.
Sylvia: Calling up your friend and being like, “Yeah, I got punched at the party, but not how you think.” [laughter]
Janine: Eh, it could be a fun activity. Just turn yourself into a living punch bong. [Keith and Sylvia laugh]
Ali: Mm…
Keith: That seem—
Dre: Huh.
Sylvia: Mm…
Keith: This is why— I'm not playing Phrygian anymore!
Austin: Uh huh. Thank you.
Janine: All right, fine, fine. Just, Phrygian was fun at parties, I don't know.
Keith: Phrygian is the character that wants to be the party. And then no one wanted to— no one would want to drink— if I did that with Phrygian, everyone would be like, “I'm not drinking that punch.” [Ali laughs]
Dre: I'm not partying inside of you.
Keith: Yeah. [someone snorts] So, what is the…the hospital downtime move? Infirmary and Hangar?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: Correct.
Keith: I think that’s just definitely where I'm gonna start. This is a scene, so this would be my scene.
Austin: It would be.
Keith: Okay. But I also— and we just get one scene?
Austin: Yes.
Keith: We get two— okay. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah, one scene, unless you have a special thing that gives you more than one scene.
Keith: Okay.
Dre: You used to get more with Phrygian, right?
Keith: No, I got extra—
Austin: Phrygian has a lot of tokens.
Ali: Extra tokens, yeah.
Dre: Mm.
Keith: Yes, and Eclectic still gets an extra token, so my downtime is essentially the same as it was with Phrygian. The—
Austin: Cori has an extra scene, if what she does is spend it on [Keith: Right.] giving a sermon.
Dre: Mm.
Keith: Yeah. That’s okay. I'll blow my scene on Infirmary/Hangar. I'll have my tokens. That’s fine. “The leading player clears a Peril of mechanical or physical origin from a character or construct or swaps an Astir part for another you already have. They frame a short scene around this.” Okay. Um…let’s see. Where have we done…where does Eclectic go to get uncracked?
Austin: Uh, there’s the medic onboard. There’s Saffron Sunset, right?
Keith: Okay. I wasn't sure if Saffron was doing robots.
Austin: Saffron is a robot.
Keith: Well, robot doctors don't [Austin: Yeah, okay.] need to specialize in robot repair.
Austin: This is true, but I think that we've— Saffron helped Phrygian, at one point. I know Phrygian is not a robot, but like, you know?
Keith: Right, yeah. Yeah.
Ali: Saffron’s also, like, three robots.
Austin: Right, Saffron is, like, six robots, I believe.
Keith: Or like eight robots?
Austin: Five—
Sylvia: Also, like, presumably, we're not gonna, like, have a doctor on board that can't help Thisbe either?
Austin: Correct. Yes. [Ali laughs]
Sylvia: Right?
Keith: Well, I don't know. Maybe Thisbe goes to a robot doctor or an engineer or—
Dre: A roctor.
Keith: Yeah, a roctor.
Austin: It used to be Brnine, right?
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Didn't Brnine used to do some repairs, back in the day?
Ali: I think there was a famous surgery scene.
Austin: Uh huh. [Sylvia laughs]
Dre: Hmm.
Keith: How’d that go?
Dre: Hmm.
Ali: It went fantastically. [Sylvia laughs]
Keith: Oh, okay, because I think I maybe had a surgery scene that also went pretty good.
Austin: Yeah, you did. Yeah. [Ali laughs] Ah, right.
Sylvia: Oh my god! [Keith laughs loudly] Fuck!
Austin: It went great. It went great. It was perfect.
Sylvia: Ohhh. What a season.
Austin: Saffron Septet, of course, because she has six bodies.
Keith: Ah, okay.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Septet. So, yeah, do you want to go do that? You want to knock that out?
Keith: Yeah, I would love to knock that out.
Austin: I don't know that we have to zoom in super close on this. This is, like, literally physical— I guess the Tracked is interesting, right?
Keith: Mm-hmm.
Austin: How do you untrack? How do you get— how do you shake— how do you fully shake Resonance at this point? I'm not saying you can't do it. I just want to know what that process is like.
Keith: [sighs] There’s no physical— maybe I go into, like, a Faraday cage.
Austin: Oh, that’s fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dre: Oh.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: You have to, like, spend the…
Keith: You just have to, like, spend half an hour in there until, like, the red outline around me disappears or something.
Austin: [laughs quietly] Right, until the debuff clears.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Just gotta wait it out. Yeah. That’s fun.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: All right, so yeah, what’s that say? That move says, uh… “The leading player clears a Peril of mechanical or physical origin from a character or construct or swaps an Astir part out for another you already have.”
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: “They frame a short scene around this, either alone or with invited characters. During the scene, anyone may spend a token to choose one: clear a Peril or swap a part as above; help someone you have gravity with, advancing it; start or advance a long term project — describe what your work looks like; take their Altar and rush out ahead — you'll lead a sortie with defy and advantage.” And that’s the gist of it. So, you're definitely doing it, so you're clearing one. Are you also spending a token to clear another one?
Keith: I'm actually— yeah, I'm gonna actually spend two tokens here.
Austin: Long term project is the third?
Keith: Long term project, yeah.
Austin: That’s what I figured, yeah. Let’s wrap back around to that, [Keith: Yeah.] after we deal with everyone else who wants to spend tokens here.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Who else is spending tokens during this montage of y'all getting fixed up and the sort of line forming out of Saffron’s door?
Sylvia: None of my Perils are physical, so I…
Austin: Saffron can do some, uh, the talking cure.
Dre: Therapy? [laughs]
Austin: Yeah, we've seen this.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah, we have seen that.
Austin: That was that big scene with Phrygian. I don't know that you…
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I don't know that maybe Cori doesn't necessarilyy go to Saffron for that, but.
Sylvia: I was thinking of, um…we can get to it later. I was thinking of trying to use the downtime scene I get from my playbook to address some of these.
Austin: Ooh, that’s fun. Yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: That makes sense to me.
Dre: I'll spend a token to clear my Concussed.
Austin: Okay. Good idea.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Keith: We also, uh, just so I don't forget: we have an unaddressed cop here.
Austin: We do have an unaddressed cop here. [Ali laughs]
Sylvia: Right!
Austin: Let’s come back to that in a second. Let’s finish up token expenditure, [Keith: Yeah.] and then we should talk about Murph. Murph?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Is it Murch? Murch.
Ali: Murch.
Austin: Murch.
Keith: Murch. Murch, yeah. [Sylvia laughs]
Ali: Yeah.
Keith: And this probably doesn't count as a scene. I think we were just done at the end. We were going for so long last time.
Austin: We were going for so fucking long.
Keith: We're like, “We'll get to this scene at the start of the downtime.”
Austin: Yeah. Really quick, though: Cori, if you want to, you can spend one of your tokens on Dreaming, which I think is not a— it is a psychological one, but…
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Uh, I don't know. You tell me.
Sylvia: That’s—
Austin: You tell me. You do whatever you want.
Sylvia: Mm…
Austin: I don't, eh, who cares.
Sylvia: No, no, no. I'm listening. I think that one— that one was the one I was a little more confused on how to deal with, so.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: Her going into some sort of, like, brain degausser or whatever…
Austin: Yeah, but I do think even that is about— is it more— yeah, I guess that’s the thing. What is it that we say that you're still— you have the Dreaming peril?
Sylvia: Because the Dreaming— I believe the context was getting hooked more into the [Austin: Yeah.] Dust-related, like, hallucination.
Austin: The fantasy zone. Yeah.
Sylvia: And so, like, I could see there being, like, lingering effects from that.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: Like, there’s still, like, Dust in her system, basically.
Austin: Yeah. I could imagine, like, you're still having those sorts of, like, slippages into one of those other realities, where you're just like—
Sylvia: Especially because she’s jumped through two of them.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: I think she’s the only person who did that, right?
Dre: Oh, yeah.
Austin: I think that that’s true. Right? And so, like, [Sylvia: Yeah.] you keep having thoughts about— as if you're in one of the ones. And like, not even big thoughts. Not even, like, the dad stuff, just small stuff about, like, [Sylvia: Yeah.] plans you had on Thursday. [laughs quietly] You know what I mean? Or like…
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Oh, the milk— I have to get new milk.
Sylvia: I'm having chemical flashbacks to the Dust experience now.
Austin: [laughs quietly] Exactly. So yeah, so maybe that is a— an aspect of that is about some sort of meds to help you, [Sylvia: Yeah.] you know, flush those other feelings out, those other memories out.
Sylvia: Sounds good.
Austin: But it’s up to you if you want to wait until…
Sylvia: No, I do like that. I like that a lot, actually, because I like, like, putting it on screen that there was a physical toll from the exposure to Dust.
Austin: Yeah. Yeah, you get the little, you know, pharmacy, the little pill bottle, orange pill bottle, and, you know, take one of these— one in the morning, take one at night, take it with food, you know? [Ali laughs quietly]
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin (as Saffron): Here it is. [pointedly] Use the whole thing. Don't stop taking these.
Sylvia (as Cori): I know the drill.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: This is not the first time [Austin chuckles] I've had to do something like this.
Austin: Uh huh. All right, any other Peril clearers here?
Janine: I don't need to clear a Peril, but I want to spend a token to advance a long term project.
Austin: This makes sense. Brnine, do you want to spend your Peril, so we can just clear those and be done with those, and then we can talk about long term projects?
Ali: I don't know. I don't know. Oh, if I do it, I'll do it later, so just, yeah, do this, and then…
Austin: Okay.
Ali: We'll see where my token…
Austin: I'll hold the door open, so if, in an hour, [Ali: Yeah, yeah.] you decide you want to retroactively spend it, that’s fine. [Ali laughs]
Austin: All right, long term projects. We have Eclectic’s. We have Thisbe’s. Are there any other long term projects that want to advance here? [brief pause] Okay. Who wants to go first? And/or, do we want to talk about the cop onboard?
Keith: Um, hey, I think that we can do mine in a row.
Austin: Okay.
Keith: For when— I don't want to go first, or I don't mind going first or second, but I think mine sort of pair together well.
Austin: Let’s advance the Thisbe one, because I suspect we're not finishing that clock anytime soon, right? Or not anytime soon. It’s at three of eight.
Keith: I'm at— uh…
Austin: Whereas you're at four of six, right?
Keith: Oh, okay. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, yeah.
Austin: So I think we have a lot more to go on “Siri, how do communicate Divines?” [Keith laughs quietly] What’s your work on this look like, Thisbe?
Siri: Okay, I found this on the web for “How do you communicate Divines?”
Dre: Oh no! [Keith laughs]
Janine: What does she say?
Siri: By the way, I have a quick request. [Ali laughs] You don't need to say Siri before you ask—
Sylvia: Holy fuck.
Janine: This is helpful. I should get an extra tick for this. [Ali and Sylvia laugh]
Austin: She thought we said “divides.”
Sylvia: Oh.
Austin: Which is interesting.
Keith: How do you communicate with divides?
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: Damn.
Sylvia: That’s still relevant. What’d she say?
Austin: She just did a Google search.
Dre: [sarcastic] You know, like what we have in America today.
Austin: [scoffs] Oh my god. Shut up.
Janine: Mm… [Dre laughs]
Austin: Yeah. She just did a Google search. It was not helpful.
Janine: Damn.
Austin: Sorry. [laughs quietly] She’s not to be trusted.
Janine: Yeah, evidently.
Dre: Wow.
Sylvia: True.
Janine: I think the… [laughs quietly] I think the thing here is that I think Thisbe was a little fascinated by the fact that the Dust did anything to her.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Because if you had asked her, she would be like, “Well, no, this is probably not, like…surely that’s a biological, some sort of hallucinogen, blah blah blah.”
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Janine: And I think sort of… [sighs] What we do know about, you know, these beings…
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Janine: At this point, I think, made her be like, “Oh, I need to research. I need to, like— I need to know what this is.” There’s something here that’s, like, I need to understand it, because maybe it will help.
Austin: Sure.
Janine: So I think she’s just, like, fully has a jar of Dust, if that’s possible to have.
Austin: Oh, you're, like, doing…you’re doing, like…
Janine: Science.
Austin: Science. Yeah, no, you could have gotten it from, like, [Dre: Hell yeah.] the air filters on the ship, right?
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Like, because—
Janine: Or even, like, I imagine— I wonder if Thisbe even, her own system has, like, a particulate filter.
Austin: Oh, probably. Yeah, almost certainly.
Janine: Like, to keep the internals clean in, like, sand and shit.
Austin: Yeah. It was dusty down there.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: You probably needed to do a real deep clean, actually, to get all that working right. Yeah.
Janine: Get the pipe cleaners, Brnine. [Austin and Ali laugh quietly]
Austin: So, yeah.
Ali: I'm on my way. [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: Are you, like…what’s the result of this finding?
Janine: I don't know. Do you? [laughs]
Austin: I actually have a thing, maybe.
Janine: You tell me what the Dust is.
Austin: Well. You know, it’s— a thing to think about is it’s from a Divine [Janine: Mm-hmm.] that’s from the same era as the Twilight Mirage, [Janine: Mm-hmm.] but it’s not from the Twilight Mirage, and I actually think it’s similar to the Twilight Mirage, in that the Dust itself is a medium in the same way that the Mirage was, right? And so part of what was happening there is you don't— it isn't a biological— it is a physical thing, but it’s this thing that’s like, in the same way that everyone in the Mirage could see all of the, like, augmented reality stuff, whether you were a human or a cyborg or a robot or any type of synthetic, the Mirage was the sort of universal, like, the USB, right?
Janine: Oh, it’s like, uh…like conductivity. It’s like Breath of the Wild when you have those puzzles where you have to drop the sword between the nodes to make the thing jump.
Austin: To make the electricity jump, right, exactly.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Or you drop it into the water, and the whole water becomes electric, because it’s carrying a charge.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: The Dust is like a water, right? It carries the conductivity or it carries the charge that is consciousness.
Janine: Hmm, interesting.
Austin: Which you have. You're conscious, right?
Janine: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Austin: You have a conscious experience. It’s seated in something different than what Brnine or, you know, Figure has, although all of you are kind of different brands of weirdos, at this point, you know? [Sylvia laughs]
Keith: Mm.
Austin: So, there’s—
Sylvia: That’s just Friends at the Table.
Austin: That’s Friends at the Table.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: So. But yeah, nevertheless, there’s something in it that will shape itself to fit into whatever your type of consciousness is, right? And as you know, maybe— I don't know if y'all have talked about— have you talked about any of what happened? But regardless, you and Brnine got to share the same dream, [Janine: Mm-hmm.] which means, like, not only did it affect you, it was able to link you to an organic mind also.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: So, you know? There are ways. So, go ahead and advance that to four. Four of eight.
Austin: Eclectic?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: What are you doing to advance your— I'm guessing you are advancing your Motion Weird Factories?
Keith: Yes. So, I have a case. I have, like, a briefcase or a videotape or—
Austin: You had— your briefcase was all of the intel around the Bilateral Intelligence Service, which you used.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: When you turn it in, they hit all of the BIS safehouses and stuff, and that’s why the Paint Shop is crossed off, right?
Keith: Okay.
Austin: That’s why the Paint Shop fell. Then, the extra data disc that you got advanced the clock by one.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: And that is…that was a special thing that Connadine just gave to you directly, [Keith: Yeah.] out of a distaste for Motion.
Keith: Right.
Austin: Which you've not looked at, right?
Keith: No.
Austin: But that already— by getting it, it advanced it by one already. I will tell you that that was, like, a collection of, like, all of what Connadine’s knowledge about the thing was, and so, yeah, you could spend this token to, like, take all this information and start to, like, piece it together and look for a weakness or whatever, right?
Keith: Yeah, that’s what I'm hoping for, yeah.
Austin: Okay. Are you doing this with Murch?
Keith: Yeah, I think so. I think that this is— I think that we're in, you know, I would like Murch to not, you know, rat me out. I mean, I know that I succeeded on that roll that made— that like—
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: To convince them to, like, take us out.
Austin: But that’s a real in the midst of the thing [Keith: Right.] versus a long term, hey, can this person— can Murchy “Murch” Saltburn be trusted? Is the question.
Keith: Yeah. Is this a potential ally, maybe? Is this person going to just go home and not rat us out? Are they now, like, realizing how what they did looks? They've now been gone for who knows how long?
Austin: Oh my god, right. Uh, Ali?
Keith: Like. [laughs quietly]
Austin: Sorry, Brnine?
Ali: Mm-hmm?
Austin: Has Asepsis verified the integrity of Murch?
Ali: [laughs] I don't think so. We've seen situations where Brnine has been like, “Yeah, we're gonna let this person be on board. You know, this is just a thing that we're gonna go through together,” but I think the alarm is going off a little bit.
Keith: What?
Austin: Can we zoom in on this a little bit?
Ali: [laughs] I think Murch has to come around. Murch is coming in as a complicated character.
Austin: Right, no, and I'm saying let’s see it happen. I want to see this. Murch is on the fucking gangplank coming in, and Asepsis alarms are going off.
Keith: Whoa!
Ali: Well, it’s not like a— [laughs] it’s not like an all hands on deck, there’s an evil person on board.
Austin: It is. Asepsis is going—
Sylvia (as Cori): Intruder!
Austin: Yeah, is yelling intruder.
Keith: Asepsis has no chill. [Dre and Ali laugh]
Austin: Yes. Well, like, and already—
Sylvia: Neither does Cori.
Austin: Is on high alert because of being put on high alert by you because of the Integrity stuff that came during the faction turn.
Ali: Right. Sure.
Austin: Right?
Ali: Sure, sure, sure.
Austin: So.
Ali: Sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Ali (as Brnine): [laughs awkwardly] Hi. Give me just a second.
Keith: The other thing is that Eclectic doesn't know about Asepsis, right?
Austin: I feel like we've had this conversation. I don't remember what our outcome was.
Keith: Ah, fuck.
Ali: No, Eclectic probably knows. We probably just didn't do the scene, because we've done the— but like, Brnine had that, like, NDA scene [Austin scoffs] when Asepsis— uh, when Septet came on.
Austin: Right, uh huh.
Ali: And I'm sure Eclectic went through the same sort of thing.
Sylvia: I also feel like it came up.
Keith: No, I snuck on.
Sylvia: It came up when Eclectic snuck on. Like…
Austin: Yeah, it came up when Eclectic snuck on. It had to have.
Ali: Oh, god. [laughs quietly]
Austin: Right?
Sylvia: We definitely had some talk about Asepsis, like, not raising the alarm.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that’s right.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: I think that that’s correct. I think— I feel like we had to have, right? [typing]
Sylvia: Yeah, no, I'm like, I'm 100% positive about this.
Austin: Okay.
Sylvia: Because I think someone made a joke about Asepsis, like, losing its edge.
Austin: Right. Of course.
Ali: Or, yeah, I think Figure was mad that, like, somebody said that we had a Divine on board just, like, to a stranger? [laughs quietly]
Austin: Mm-hmm, sure.
Ali: Was part of that first Eclectic scene too, so.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Oh, I sort of remember that, yeah.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. Then, yeah, I mean, this is the classic, uh, Brnine, the rating on Murch is, like, in the deep negatives. You're getting all the intel about Murch being, you know, basically a private cop, you know? A security agent in Baseline-C. You get, like, the whole family tree. You get, like, the debts that she owes. [Ali laughs quietly] You get, like, all of the things that make her a risky proposition to have on board.
Ali: Is this— this is Murch and Eclectic coming on together, or is this, like…
Austin: Yeah. Yeah, which, by the way, means Eclectic gets, like, a score drop also.
Ali: Okay, sure. [laughs]
Keith: What?
Ali: Then I think that this is probably a Brnine meets them on the ramp sort of situation.
Austin: Yeah, I think that’s right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ali (as Brnine): [brightly] Hi, Eclectic. Can I talk to you for a second? [Sylvia laughs]
Keith (as Eclectic): Uh, sure.
Ali (as Brnine): Can we just go out onto the field a little bit? Nice to meet you, by the way.
Austin (as Murch): Hi. You're Apostolosian. There aren't—
Ali (as Brnine): Uh huh.
Austin (as Murch): [hushed] Are you with, um, Apostolos?
Ali (as Brnine): Could I talk to Eclectic alone for a second?
Austin (as Murch): Sure, I'll just, um…do you have a place I can put my stuff down and take a seat?
Ali (as Brnine): Uh—
Austin (as Murch): I got the car. Can I just drive the car up?
Ali (as Brnine): Oh, actually, you go into your car.
Austin (as Murch): Uh huh.
Ali (as Brnine): And then, I'll give you a signal when you can drive up.
Austin (as Murch): Okay. I'm Murch.
Ali (as Brnine): Oh, nice to meet you.
Austin (as Murch): Murchy, but you can call me Murch.
Ali (as Brnine): Nice to meet you, Murch.
Austin (as Murch): Your name is…?
Ali (as Brnine): I'll be with you in a second. [Sylvia laughs]
Austin (as Murch): All right, I'm gonna…okay.
Austin: Heads in. Sits down. [Sylvia laughs] Begins to page through the Alise Breka novel.
Ali (as Brnine): [sighs] What’s going on?
Keith (as Eclectic): Uh…got some intel.
Ali (as Brnine): Uh huh.
Keith: I slap the case.
Ali (as Brnine): [bright demeanor falling] Great. Um, who is that?
Keith (as Eclectic): What’s with the alarms?
Ali (as Brnine): This is a Millennium Break ship.
Keith (as Eclectic): Yeah.
Ali (as Brnine): That is wanted.
Austin: It’s a cop car.
Ali (as Brnine): And I was just on TV.
Austin: It’s a cop car? Sitting in a field? [Ali laughs]
Keith: Yeah.
Ali (as Brnine): I was just on TV for the combustor stuff.
Keith (as Eclectic): Right.
Ali (as Brnine): And kind of no one’s even supposed to know that I'm here.
Keith (as Eclectic): Right.
Ali (as Brnine): Much less our ship.
Keith (as Eclectic): Yeah. Well, I know where. I know where it is, because I came from here.
Ali (as Brnine): Do you know who that woman is?
Keith (as Eclectic): Uh, no. No, she helped me escape from, uh, [Sylvia gasps] one of those cities.
Ali (as Brnine): A— and you drove that car to my ship?
Keith (as Eclectic): [scoffingly] Uh, yeah, it was really far.
Ali (as Brnine): [laughs in disbelief] You don't think that they put GPSs in their cop cars?
Keith (as Eclectic): Of course they do.
[pause, Sylvia laughs]
Ali (as Brnine): Eclectic. I understand…I understand the work that you did with Leap was really important, but we have different…
Ali: Oh, I don't want to say standards. [Austin scoffs]
(as Brnine): We have different, um…
Dre (as Figure): Operating procedures.
Ali (as Brnine): [laughs awkwardly] Thanks, Figure. Figure, yeah, um…hi, Figure.
Dre (as Figure): Hey, I heard the alarm. Is everything okay? [Austin, Sylvia, and Ali laugh]
Ali (as Brnine): Sort of.
Austin: She begins to drive up now. Seeing Figure, she begins to pull up.
Dre (as Figure): Whoa, hey!
Austin: And waves.
Sylvia: I am…
Austin: And like, sticks her head out the car, and goes,
(as Murch): Is that the signal?
Ali (as Brnine): No.
Sylvia: I'm gonna go stand in front of the car. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Yeah, me too.
Austin (as Murch): Hi!
Sylvia: Arms crossed.
Dre (as Figure): Hey, can you turn that off?
Austin: Turns off the radio. [Ali laughs]
(as Murch): Um, what’s up?
Keith (as Eclectic): I think they meant turn off the alarm.
Dre (as Figure): [sternly] No. Uh, can you get out of the car, please? [aghast laughter]
Ali: Oh, god. No, Figure.
Austin: Wh— brain is—
Keith: Oh, god. Uh, sorry, who are the cops here? [Austin laughs]
Sylvia: Yeah, wait a minute! [Ali laughs]
Austin: I think her brain— she goes:
(as Murch): Oh, right away, officer— uh, wh—
Sylvia: Jesus!
Austin: And, like, does get out of the car, a little confused.
Keith: Very susceptible.
Sylvia: Ugh…
Keith: Murch is very susceptible.
Austin: Yeah. Very impressionable, clearly.
Sylvia: I did not mean for this to turn into a traffic stop. [Ali laughs] I just wanted to be annoying to Murch. [Dre laughs]
Austin: Well, she’s standing outside of the car.
(as Murch): I'm really confused, because that person said—the Apostolosian—said I should get in the car, but now you're telling me to get out of the car. They said I should drive up when I saw the signal. I thought that there was a signal, and so I drove up. I'm getting a lot of mixed messages here, and…
Ali (as Brnine): Um, well, this is Figure, my— my hangar manager, who says that there isn't any room for your car on the ship, unfortunately. [quiet laughter]
Keith (as Eclectic): [quietly] Hangar manager?
Dre (as Figure): That is what I just said, yes.
Ali (as Brnine): Mm-hmm.
Austin (as Murch): And your name, again, is—
Keith (as Eclectic): No, it’s not. No one said that. [Ali laughs quietly]
Austin (as Murch): Eclectic, is everything okay?
Austin: And she, like, starts to back around the car, like, slowly around it, to kind of, like, make sure she’s on the same plane as you are.
Dre: Sure. I'm gonna get in the car. [Sylvia laughs]
Ali: Wha—?!
Austin (as Murch): That’s my car! You get out of my car! [Ali laughs]
Janine: Oh my god.
Austin: She reaches for her gun.
Sylvia: What are we doing?!
Austin: She’s pointing a gun at you.
Keith (as Eclectic): You people are all being clowns.
Sylvia (as Cori): We don't…hey, let’s chill out everybody.
Austin (as Murch): I'm extremely chill!
Sylvia (as Cori): You have a gun.
Austin (as Murch): Someone’s in my car. That’s a weapon.
Keith (as Eclectic): Yeah, Figure’s trying to steal her car.
Dre (as Figure): No, I'm trying to make sure—
Sylvia (as Cori): Get out of the car.
Dre (as Figure): —that they're not fucking tracking the location of a Millennium Break operation post.
Sylvia (as Cori): [cross] Could you step out of the car, please, sir?
Austin (as Murch): [cross] A Millennium Break operation post?!
Sylvia: Jesus fucking christ!
Ali: Oh my god. [sighs]
Keith: Op-suck, more like.
Sylvia: That wasn't in character, by the way. [Ali laughs] I'm just looking at Brnine.
Austin: What are you doing in there, Figure?
Dre: Um, I'm trying to figure out how to turn everything off. [Dre, Austin, and Sylvia laugh]
Austin: You're able to shut down the car, but if it’s being tracked, it’s being tracked in this other way, right?
Dre: Sure. Yeah.
Austin: You could do some sort of roll to try to de-whatever it, but.
Keith (as Eclectic): Can't this ship move and become invisible at any time?
Ali (as Brnine): [sighs]
Keith (as Eclectic): I don't see what the big deal is. You know, blow up the car if you have to.
Dre (as Figure): Who does this person work for?
Keith (as Eclectic): What’s that?
Dre (as Figure): Who does this person work for?
Keith (as Eclectic): Uh…
Austin (as Murch): I'm right here.
Dre (as Figure): Who do you work for?
Austin (as Murch): Lock and Cross Security. We run the security in all the Baseline cities plus two of the five districts of City City. [Figure sighs] Not “we”. I don't do it. I'm—
Dre (as Figure): No, yeah.
Austin (as Murch): I'm just a cop. I'm just a…I’m just a patrol officer.
Keith (as Eclectic): Yeah. She helped me escape from the city with this.
Keith: And I smack the case again, the aluminum thing.
Dre (as Figure): Did she know who you work for and who she was helping you to escape to?
Keith (as Eclectic): Uh, yeah, I told her [pointedly] about Leap. [Figure sighs]
Austin (as Murch): Leap is kind of amazing.
Keith (as Eclectic): Mm.
Sylvia (as Cori): He’s pretty cool.
Austin (as Murch): You know Leap?
Austin: Gun down.
Sylvia (as Cori): No, I…I’ve read the book. [Ali laughs]
Austin (as Murch): Oh.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: Gun back sort of up.
Keith (as Eclectic): Some of you know Leap.
Keith: I sort of half point around, realizing that I think only Brnine knows Leap.
Ali (as Brnine): Um, ma’am. Murch, I apologize. [Sylvia laughs]
Austin (as Murch): Ma’am’s fine.
Ali (as Brnine): Uh huh. I— [Dre laughs]
Austin (as Murch): Miss.
Ali (as Brnine): Right.
Austin (as Murch): Not missy, though. Someone called me missy once, and that’s not good.
Ali (as Brnine): I'll keep that in mind. I understand this introduction was a little startling. Since Eclectic invited you here, uh, if the two of you would like to go inside, you can, but my friend Figure here is just going to drive your vehicle away from my ship, and, uh, you know, I think that there will be other people here in the—
Ali: [laughs] There’s about to be a party, apparently, according to the lore, and I don't know how to say that in character.
Austin: Well, that can be a different place. It doesn't have to be in the place your ship is currently.
Ali: Uh huh. Sure. Well, I'm trying to get into, like, a “we can get you set up somewhere.”
Austin: Right, I see.
Ali: Like, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.
Austin: Mm, I see.
Ali: [laughs] With a very polite way of saying that.
Austin: I see, I see, I see.
Keith (as Eclectic): This ship has so many people on it all the time. This is the most insane introduction anyone’s ever gotten.
Janine (as Thisbe): This might also be—
Dre: You brought a fucking cop to a terrorist cell! [Dre and Ali laugh]
Keith: Barely a cop! I was a cop! [Austin laughs]
Dre: If you brought someone from the LAPD to, like, a Black Panther hangout… [laughs quietly]
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Dre: Like, you don't think they would freak out? And vice versa?
Keith: I think the cops were well aware of where the Black Panther hangouts were. [Austin laughs]
Dre: Oh, okay.
Sylvia: Yes.
Dre: Fair. [Ali laughs] In a world where COINTELPRO has yet to be started. [laughs]
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine (as Thisbe): This might be perceived as an abduction.
Austin: Is Thisbe here?
Janine: Yes.
Austin: Okay.
Janine: I think Thisbe’s here in an abrupt way, [laughs quietly] to be honest, a way that is weird, because she’s large and you usually kind of hear her coming.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: But I think there was enough of a—
Dre: We were yelling at each other a lot.
Janine: There was enough of a commotion and stuff that yeah, I think Thisbe…I think Thisbe showed up.
(as Thisbe): We need to have a better dialogue, because she will not understand if we simply send her car away and take her.
Keith (as Eclectic): I think that’s a good point. I think everyone here is being very weird. The stuff in this case could deliver the Bontive Valley to Millennium Break, and frankly, what happens to this ship is relatively unimportant to me.
Austin (as Asepsis): [rapidly decreasing in pitch] Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.
Ali (as Brnine): Duly noted, Eclectic. We'll talk later.
Austin: Uh, all right.
Janine: We still didn't talk to her.
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine: About—
Austin: Anything.
Janine: That can't be the end of it. It’s not…it’s not about Eclectic at this moment. It’s about this person who, I guess, maybe doesn't understand that they will be a criminal now? Like, there’s a lot of…you know?
Keith: Yes, that is what this scene was supposed to be, before it became about the alarm.
Janine: All right, fuck it.
Austin: Somebody—
Janine: Thisbe—
Austin: Sorry, somebody has a thing that says, “Verify the integrity of anyone you let on the ship.” That’s real. It’s a Divine. It’s serious about that. It has always been serious about that. Also, it’s a cop, so I do think that integrity is grading on a curve.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: Thisbe, what were you going to say?
Ali: Also, I mean, even without Asepsis, I think being like, “Why did you bring this person here without talking to anyone about it?” is, like, fair.
Dre: Yeah.
Ali: But I am willing to, like—
Keith: No one here is my boss.
Ali: Well, sure. Uh, well. [laughs quietly] But, like, this is a Murch-Eclectic scene, right? So Brnine being like, “Hey, you can go in the ship, but we can't have this— you know.” It’s not like Figure’s— Figure isn't driving, like, a mile away, but like, is in the car, fictionally, [Austin: Mm-hmm.] and like, driving it away from the ramp. But yeah.
Dre: [quietly] Drive it over a cliff.
Janine: I mean, she didn't even really agree to that yet, but.
Austin: No, she didn't.
Ali: Okay. Well, then.
Austin: She has not agreed to that yet.
Ali: Okay.
Janine: We're jumping so far ahead.
Austin: She would like Figure to get out of the car.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Yeah, the last thing she has said is, “Please get out of my car,” and she pointed a gun at Figure [Ali: Okay.] and then got distracted by the mention of Exeter Leap, and then got undistracted when it became clear that only Eclectic knows Exeter Leap.
Keith: Oh, and Figure does. No, wait.
Sylvia: Mm…
Keith: I can't remember the timeline.
Austin: No, Figure does not.
Keith: No, Figure does not.
Janine: Brnine does. No, wait.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Thisbe does but wasn't there when that happened.
Austin: Right, correct.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, Brnine does too. Brnine does too.
Keith: During this, during Thisbe’s talk about being kidnapped, I say— I whisper— I lean over, and I'm like:
(as Eclectic): [hushed] Uh, Thisbe also knew Leap.
Austin (as Murch): [intrigued] Oh. [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: Gun lowers more.
Janine: Yeah, I think Thisbe recognizes that everyone got extremely tilted because of alarms and cops and all very understandable reasons, but I think she sort of pushes forward and then, like, crouches. You know that, like, crouch where you're on your feet and your butt’s sort of, like, below your knees, and your arms are on your legs. That sort of, like, [Austin: Mm-hmm.] hanging out on the street corner crouch?
Austin: Yeah, uh huh. Always do it.
Janine: I think she does that to get, like, lower.
Austin: To Murch.
Janine: To be eye-to-eye with Murch, [laughs] as if she is a child, I guess.
Austin: Murch, like, leans back.
Sylvia: Oh my god.
Austin: A little intimidated by this?
Janine: She’s getting— is it better if she stands up straight and is super tall and towers over you? No.
Austin: No, but it’s like a big robot lady.
Janine: Uh huh. Well, Thisbe does that. So you understand— [clears throat]
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Janine (as Thisbe): So you understand the situation, you have helped a member of Millennium Break to escape during a priority mission, and I cannot speak to the structure of your organization, but most organizations I do not think would tolerate that, whether or not you were knowing as a participant. We, on our part—understandably, I believe you would agree—are concerned about the presence of law enforcement, given recent events. However, it would be unfair of us to simply strand you here, and it would be equally unfair of us to simply take you away from here. Do you understand the situation?
Austin (as Murch): [uncertainly] Yeah. Are you pirates?
Janine (as Thisbe): Some of us could be considered pirates. I would not consider myself a pirate.
Austin (as Murch): What are you, then?
Janine (as Thisbe): I am an agricultural robot.
Austin (as Murch): Oh, you're a farmer.
Keith (as Eclectic): Uh, they’re trying to take over the planet.
Austin (as Murch): They’re… [shocked] They’re what?
Ali (as Brnine): [quietly] Huh?
Keith (as Eclectic): Yeah, right?
Janine: Me?
Dre (as Figure): No?
Keith (as Eclectic): That’s what Millennium Break does.
Janine: Oh.
Dre: Leaning out the car window.
(as Figure): No! [Ali laughs]
Austin (as Murch): The plan— you're trying to take over the planet, Eclectic?
Keith (as Eclectic): Yeah.
Austin (as Murch): I thought you were, like, a pirate friend.
Keith (as Eclectic): Well…
Austin (as Murch): Like a pirate agent.
Keith (as Eclectic): Yeah, it’s sort of a little bit of both.
Ali (as Brnine): We're trying to get rid of the Principality on Palisade.
Keith (as Eclectic): Right.
Ali (as Brnine): No one’s taking it over.
Keith (as Eclectic): Well.
Janine (as Thisbe): It is not about us supplanting them. It is about removing them.
Keith (as Eclectic): That’s semantics to me.
Janine (as Thisbe): It’s not. [Ali laughs] If you combine red and blue, you get purple.
Ali: Hunting in the— [laughs]
Janine (as Thisbe): If you take away the blue, you get red. You don't get green.
Keith (as Eclectic): Planets aren't colors.
Ali: Oh, Hunting in the private chat.
Austin: Yeah. Uh huh.
Austin (as Hunting): Hey, is everything going okay out there?
Ali: [laughs] No, he— please. He’s, like, on the comms channel or something, fucking subtweeting Eclectic.
Austin: Oh, listening in? Oh, oh. I see.
Ali: I'm not having another character in this scene.
Austin: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ali: But the idea of, like, “Oh, them taking it over isn't different from them liberating it,” is what he is laughing at.
Austin: Uh huh. Yeah. Like, as the person from here especially?
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: Yes, 100%. Yeah. Though Eclectic is also from here, right? So, maybe Eclectic just [Keith: Yeah.] disagrees on this. I don't know.
Keith (as Eclectic): Look, if you want to liberate a planet in a way that it can't be taken over again, you have to take it over.
Austin: Eclectic feels differently than Hunting, so, yeah. The…at this point, I think she’s like:
(as Murch): All right, I'll…can I have my car back? And I'll just leave.
Keith (as Eclectic): You don't want to stay? It’s cool here.
Austin (as Murch): That has not been my impression so far.
Keith (as Eclectic): Yeah.
Austin (as Murch): I kind of expected it to be more, like, jolly.
Keith (as Eclectic): Jolly.
Austin (as Murch): I thought it would be, like, jolly and sexy.
Janine (as Thisbe): [cross] People want to kill us.
Keith (as Eclectic): [cross] I don't know if it’s sexy.
Austin (as Murch): Well, yeah, because, I mean, that I expected. I thought it would be, like, adventurous.
Dre (as Figure): It can be.
Keith (as Eclectic): Hmm.
Austin (as Murch): No, this is…if I wanted to deal with security stops, I would have just stayed at Baseline-C. It seems like you just do what I do but in the field.
Keith (as Eclectic): [sternly] Hmm. And they should think on that. [Ali laughs quietly]
Dre (as Figure): [quietly] That doesn't mean anything.
Janine (as Thisbe): What will you do when you go back?
Austin (as Murch): [uncertainly] I'll tell them that…he put a gun to my head and made me.
Keith (as Eclectic): Mm…
Ali (as Brnine): Again—
Keith (as Eclectic): They might fire you for that or also arrest you.
Ali (as Brnine): [sighs] Again, if you want to go onto the ship, if you'd like to speak to Eclectic about whatever you have to speak to Eclectic about, you're welcome to, and there will be other Millennium Break members in the area soon to talk about something more long term. I'm sorry that this is—
Janine (as Thisbe): Perhaps if we could introduce her to our sexiest crew member.
Ali (as Brnine): Nice to meet you, Murch.
Austin: Wow. [Sylvia, Ali, and Keith laugh]
Austin (as Murch): Oh, no, I meant, like, um…like, book cover sexy, you know?
Ali (as Brnine): Uh huh.
Austin (as Murch): Hair and wires in the solar wind.
Janine: Haven't we all been—
Sylvia (as Cori): Where’s Midnite? [Sylvia laughs]
Janine: Have we all been on book covers in the fiction?
Austin: I think it’s all happening. I don't know that— I don't know that, uh…
Janine: Okay.
Austin: Yeah, probably you have, right?
Keith: Oh.
Austin: I think—
Dre: Who is the sexiest member of Millennium Break?
Ali: It’s definitely Midnite.
Austin: I think she mostly reads the pirate ones is what’s becoming clear, right?
Janine: Mm. [Ali laughs quietly]
Keith: I could say— I mean, this’ll— I'll say.
(as Eclectic): They've all got Breka books, pretty much.
Austin (as Murch): They all got Breka books?
Keith (as Eclectic): They all got Breka books
Austin (as Murch): Mm.
Keith (as Eclectic): Maybe you should branch out from the pirate ones.
Sylvia (as Cori): Yeah, do you only read the pirate ones?
Austin (as Murch): Those are the ones that have the best covers.
Keith (as Eclectic): Those are the ones that have the best stories and characters.
Austin (as Murch): Yeah.
Sylvia (as Cori): Captain, we can't let her on the ship. [Dre laughs quietly]
Ali (as Brnine): [sighs, quietly] I know, Cori.
Austin (as Murch): Um, I guess I'll come on board for now, but don't— if you ruin that car, I'm really in trouble. [quietly] I still have to finish paying the loan on it.
Dre (as Figure): Wait, you—
Sylvia (as Cori): [cross] They make you pay for it?
Dre (as Figure): [cross] They make you pay for it?
Austin (as Murch): Yeah, of course. What?
Dre (as Figure): But don't you have to have it to, like, do your work for them?
Austin (as Murch): Yeah, uh, so does a rideshare driver.
Dre (as Figure): That’s very different.
Austin (as Murch): No, it’s the same. I have to buy everything.
Janine (as Thisbe): But also it sucks still. That’s also still bad.
Sylvia (as Cori): That also is terrible. What?
Keith (as Eclectic): Lock and Key or whatever they’re called, they’re just, uh, they’re rideshare cops, basically.
Austin (as Murch): And rideshare soldiers, but I'm not one of those.
Keith (as Eclectic): And rideshare soldiers.
Austin (as Murch): I'm just one of the police.
Keith (as Eclectic): Yeah.
Janine (as Thisbe): What happens if you die before the car is paid off?
Austin (as Murch): Family has to finish paying it off.
Dre (as Figure): Ugh!
Keith (as Eclectic): Well, unless you pay a higher— you can pay a higher premium for it to not be transferable.
Austin (as Murch): Right. But I can't afford that premium.
Keith (as Eclectic): But it’s, like, triple. You know, technically, with interest, I owe, like, four or five times what my car was worth.
Austin (as Murch): That’s…
Sylvia: Look of sheer horror on Cori’s face.
Keith (as Eclectic): I've got it in a garage somewhere.
Austin (as Murch): But I wouldn't even have gotten this job without the loan, so they were really kind of, you know, doing me a solid.
Keith (as Eclectic): You can just— but now, if you come on board, you're basically saying, “I will never have to pay off that debt ever, because if they find me, they'll arrest me.” But otherwise, you're free.
Austin (as Murch): [groans]
Dre (as Figure): This is the first thing Eclectic has said today that I agree with.
Austin (as Murch): Yeah, but then my family’s gonna have to pay the loan.
Keith (as Eclectic): Uh…
Janine (as Thisbe): You could work off the loan for us, and we’d pay off your loan.
Austin (as Murch): Do you pay?
Janine (as Thisbe): I don't know. [Austin laughs] Perhaps we could. [Sylvia laughs quietly]
Ali (as Brnine): We do pay. Just, go sit down.
Austin (as Murch): Okay. [Ali laughs]
Keith (as Eclectic): That’s a great question. Do you pay? [Janine laughs]
Sylvia (as Cori): We pay?
Ali (as Brnine): Everyone here gets paid.
Keith (as Eclectic): I haven't gotten paid.
Janine: I feel like Thisbe has a bank account she just doesn't know she has, and there’s, like, a million dollars in it. [Ali and Austin laugh]
Ali: No, you're— Thisbe’s spending it all on, like, Etsy, like, $300 fucking houseplants and shit, isn't she?
Janine: No! She’s growing them from seeds.
Ali: Okay.
Janine: She’s not gonna [Ali: All right.] pay someone for a plant and just trust it doesn't come with fungus gnats. [Austin laughs]
Ali: Okay, first of all, they charge you for the seeds too, over on Etsy. [laughs] And second of all, there are ways to quarantine it when you bring it inside.
Austin: Mm, mm, mm-hmm.
Janine: Ugh.
Keith: Plant Etsy is confusing.
Ali: Just Google— yeah, fucking, the…if people have money, they'll spend it, is all I will say about hobbyists. [laughs quietly]
Austin: That’s true. Yeah.
Ali: In this moment.
Keith (as Eclectic): You know, I highly recommend that we all go back inside and take a look at the briefcase.
Keith: And I slap it again.
Austin: Uh huh. Briefcase, we know what’s in there. We…
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: You know, we don't have to do that scene, but yes.
Keith: Nope.
Austin: All right. We all go inside. Figure, do you leave the car here? You drive it a little bit away?
Dre: Yeah, sure, I'll leave it here.
Austin: And walk back?
Dre: I'm not gonna fuck this person’s family over with their car loan. [laughs]
Austin: Yeah. All right.
Austin: So, sometime later…and Brnine, you tell Asepsis to chill the fuck out.
Ali: I feel like that conversation was…it’s not fully making them integral, but it was a recruitment scene, question mark, right? Like…
Austin: Uh, sort of, yeah. I think Asepsis will be happy— I think what Asepsis says is, like, you know, there’s a countdown clock gets added to the Murch profile [Ali laughs quietly] that’s like, it’s like a six day ship pass is assigned, but like, after that six day pass…
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Asepsis does not want Murch to be back on that ship, you know?
Ali: Yeah. But, I mean, the most positive reading of that scene is Murch arriving as, like, a stranger, and then to a Millennium Break potential.
Austin: Yes, uh huh. Sure, yes.
Ali: Slash recruit, you know?
Austin: Right, we go to the career fair later and see who’s willing to take Murch on.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: Uh huh. There are pirates, right? You know?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Could wind up with Carmine Bight. They’re pirates.
Ali: Right.
Austin: I don't know that— I don't know that she’s cut out for that, but you know, we'll see.
Janine: It sounds kind of like she wants to date someone from Carmine Bight but then be, like, Violet Cove or something. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah, that’s probably right, actually.
Janine: That’s just my read. I don't know. [laughs quietly]
Ali: Right.
Austin: Yeah, uh huh.
Ali: Also, I didn't want to write her out of Eclectic’s life, right?
Austin: Right.
Ali: Like, that was not fair, so.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally.
Austin: So, you spend your token on looking through the Motion stuff, presumably.
Keith: Yeah. Yeah.
Austin: Here’s what you find with this is that there are 20 of these Motion power plants across the planet.
Keith: That’s a lot.
Austin: And the thing that happens— tell me about how this move works, again? Can you read me the move?
Keith: Yeah. Um…
Austin: Because something happens when it fills, right?
Keith: “Vigilant and weary, you have a knack for uncovering shady backroom deals and shady conspiracy. You have a six segment investigation clock. Write a mystery about Authority activities you're investigating. When you Read the Room or Dispel Uncertainties, you may lower the result of the roll by one level in exchange for discovering a detail about your investigation, adding a tick to it. When your investigation clock completes, remove three ticks from Authority schemes you're aware of. You may then start a new investigation clock or redefine your current one as you dig deeper.”
Austin: Gotcha. All right. So, this raises it to five.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: And yeah, so you know that there’s these 20 things, and you start to get the impression that Connadine believed that there was a way to slow this process down.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Connadine did not have, like, a knock it out, you know, thing.
Keith: Mm-hmm.
Austin: But that there was some sort of…something about there being these 20 things up at once is what’s helping it, right? And maybe there’s a point at which, if you can even temporarily knock them down, turn them off, whatever, enough of them, the whole thing slows down to such a— like, basically that Connadine’s theory is that having 20 up at once is actually an exponential thing, right?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: It’s not just linear. It’s not just that, you know, 20 is 5 more than 15 in the way that 6 is 5 more than 1 or whatever, right?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: It’s that the, you know, it’s an exponential growth each way, and so—
Keith: You're saying that knocking just one down would be a huge—
Austin: It would not be enough to just knock one down, no. Connadine—
Keith: No, no, I'm saying, of the 20, so like, the most valuable one to knock down would be the first one, [Austin: No.] because it’s exponential.
Austin: No.
Keith: No?
Austin: It’s not exponential linear— it is not exponential from a particular one. Connadine’s theory is you don't need to knock down all 20 to make it— to slow it down.
Keith: Okay. Gotcha.
Austin: You don't need to knock down 10 necessarily, but there's a number, and Connadine [Keith: Right.] doesn't know what that number is, but there is a number, and that would at least give you more time.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: And I have that number written down.
Keith: Now, there’s a…you know, there’s a sort of— mechanically, removed from fiction…
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: Something that could happen is the next time I Read the Room, whatever the result I get, as long as it’s not a failure— and it would be very hard for me to fail a Read the Room roll.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: I could—
Austin: I mean, you could even do it on a— right, right, right. You could do it on a 7 to 9.
Keith: Yeah, I could do it today.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well—
Keith: Yeah, so, on a 7— yeah, on a 7 to 9 [Austin: Yes.] on a Read the Room, I could downgrade that, still get a question, because I have the thing that gives me plus one questions, [Austin: Right.] and then add a tick to my thing, completing it.
Austin: Yep.
Keith: And then take Motion from three ticks down to…
Austin: To zero.
Keith: To none.
Austin: Yeah. Totally.
Ali: Ooh.
Austin: You would have to—
Keith: Now, with that—
Austin: You'd have to tell me how you do it, you know? Like, as always, you have to follow the fiction.
Keith: Right.
Austin: So it’s like, what is it that you found out that does that? You know? And how did you find it out?
Keith: Right, that’s the thing that sounds like it would be really hard to do from a Read the Room roll.
Austin: Right. At least a Read the Room roll from the Blue Channel.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Doing that from inside of a Motion factory makes perfect sense.
Keith: Right.
Austin: Right?
Keith: Yeah. Although I'm concerned about it finishing before I have a chance to do it.
Austin: Mm-hmm. Again, if I wanted to finish it, I could finish it this second.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: I can spend— in fact, what I'm gonna actually do right now is, while we're in the middle of this sequence, is I am going to spend one of my five tokens to advance a different clock. I'm going to advance the Take Something That Isn't Theirs clock for Art, as Stel Nideo succeeds at taking something new. I don't know what it is. That’s an Art decision to make, not a me decision, but it hits. [Keith sighs] So, I'll message that channel right now.
Keith: Yeah, maybe if I can think of something. There’s, like…but then there's not— there used to be, but now there's not very many Authority clocks going on right now.
Austin: Not right now. And there’s that ALERT one. You don't know what that is.
Keith: They’re done, done, done, done, done.
Austin: And that’s not an Authority clock either. That’s a different one.
Keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We already talked about the ALERT.
Austin: It’s not a Bilateral, yeah. Exactly.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, they have completed most of their big things.
Keith: Um…yeah, okay. I guess I'm good with that for now, because I'm, you know, I don't really have anything that would make sense for looking at pieces of paper, and even reducing it by one seems like not really fair.
Austin: Even reducing— wait, sorry, reducing what by one?
Keith: Reducing— like, if I were to somehow figure out a Read the Room at some point, and then—
Austin: I think— no. I think if you spent another token, what we could say is, hey, you figure out what that number is somehow, and then is there a hit? Is there a strike? Is there a way to temporarily deactivate those things?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: You know what I mean? And that ends up being a different thing, but also, it feels like what we've kind of set up is: what’s the next mission? You know what I mean?
Keith: Yeah. Yeah.
Austin: So, to some degree. I don't know. I don't have a plan for what the next sortie is. Hoping to find it during this downtime, you know?
Keith: Yeah. I would like to do a Motion thing. There’s also, we had—
Austin: It seems time to, in many ways, right?
Keith: Yeah. We also had the— there was some energy behind our fake Gur Sevraq idea.
Austin: Totally. Yep.
Keith: Investigating Temple of the Threshold.
Austin: Mm-hmm. But for now, at least, let’s say that that’s the…that’s the thing it is?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: We’re done that scene. Okay. And you spent two tokens. You spent a token on…
Keith: Yes, I did spend two. Yeah.
Austin: Which was the long term project and then one Peril?
Keith: Healing a second Peril.
Austin: Right, because you led the scene.
Keith: So, scene was…
Austin: Right, right, right. Yes.
Keith: Yeah. I led the scene, yeah.
Austin: So you have a token left. Okay, cool. Got it.
Ali: Okay. Looking at the moves here, I think that I might spend a token as part of the Infirmary stuff to click the How to Communicate With Divines? clock.
Austin: Okay.
Ali: To have a meeting about Integrity.
Austin: Oh, okay.
Ali: With at least Cori and Thisbe, but like, honestly, anybody who would show up. I think Brnine would invite Eclectic because of being a Delegate. I think they would invite Figure because of Perennial stuff, probably. And Cori, obviously, is…
Sylvia: Mm-hmm.
Ali: You know. [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Ali: Divine in her own way.
Sylvia: Aw. [laughs quietly]
Ali: And then Thisbe is thinking through this stuff. Hi.
Austin: Where’s the meeting? What’s the vibe?
Ali: Um, I think that this is probably the next morning, probably—
Austin: The next morning of after…after…
Ali: Well, this is, like, during the downtime, so it’s a morning, I guess.
Austin: It’s a morning. Got it.
Ali: It’s not the next morning after the Murch stuff. And it’s probably, like, Brnine pulling everybody into, like, a half circle into the, like, hangar, or maybe it is, like, in the medbay, in the infirmary, but like, in a sort of an open room.
(as Brnine): Hello, everyone. Thanks for making time out of your day for this. I, uh, just wanted to kind of get everybody’s opinions on something, because there’s an addition to the Blue Channel that affects all of us, I think.
Sylvia (as Cori): [complaining] We're not letting Murch stay, are we?
Ali (as Brnine): I, um…
Keith (as Eclectic): Maybe! [Cori sighs]
Ali (as Brnine): I…she’s gonna— if she goes through Millennium Break, and then Millennium Break approves her and she’s assigned here, then she’ll be assigned here.
Sylvia: Crossing my arms and pouting.
Keith (as Eclectic): If this is how you treat potential recruits, I don't know how this organization’s gonna last.
Sylvia: This is purely because of her taste in Alise Breka novels, from Cori, FYI. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Mm-hmm. [chuckles]
Sylvia: Nobody knows that, but out of character, I should mention it.
Janine (as Thisbe): She is more of a liability for us outside of the organization than inside of it.
Ali (as Brnine): That’s true, Thisbe.
Keith (as Eclectic): Hear, hear.
Ali (as Brnine): No, Murch seems engaged and willing to help, and that is great, and Eclectic will— I've spoken to you about some of the details there, where there was some friction, but otherwise, I feel like that’s been ironed out. No, we're not here to talk about Murch. We're here to talk about, um, something that I came back with after, um, the stuff with the Princept, and that is the Divine Integrity.
Sylvia (as Cori): What— you want to talk about it, or you brought it with you?
Ali (as Brnine): Well, it’s…it’s been there. You were all there. Well, I guess you weren't all there, but I had it with me when it came back, and it’s just been under sort of observation since, and I think we're kind of at a crossroads here, because, um, obviously it’s powerful. Obviously it’s an asset. It’s been…you know, its, um, effect on Apostolosian culture and its military can't be understated. So, um, I don't think that we keep it here, but where do we think it could be used best within Millennium Break? Or, um…I know you're all aware of Asepsis, and, um…I don't know. Maybe there’s some potential there, but I, you know.
Keith (as Eclectic): I have a question.
Ali (as Brnine): Please.
Keith (as Eclectic): And maybe this is a stupid question.
Ali (as Brnine): No.
Keith (as Eclectic): How many Divines do you have?
Ali (as Brnine): [laughs quietly] There’s the two.
Keith (as Eclectic): Just two.
Ali (as Brnine): I, um…well, Asepsis is sort of a rare case, because it’s just a piece of it, you know? But has been, uh, very well resourced within the Blue Channel, I think you'll come to see, the more time you spend here. Whereas, I think Integrity was more sort of a pirate thing. [laughs awkwardly]
Keith (as Eclectic): [thoughtfully] Hmm. Pirate thing.
Ali (as Brnine): I was just able to take it, and I did, and now I'm sort of responsible for what happens next.
Janine (as Thisbe): Why shouldn't it stay?
Ali (as Brnine): [sighs] Well, uh, that’s a great question. I think that if you look in the history of Divines, there’s some benefit to, uh, distance, depending on type. Uh, and, you know, the sort of boon that we get from Asepsis could be used with another leader. But I am sort of curious about keeping it. [nervous sigh]
Keith (as Eclectic): What does it do?
Ali (as Brnine): Integrity?
Keith (as Eclectic): Yeah.
Ali (as Brnine): [nervous sigh] Um… [Sylvia and Ali laugh]
Ali: What is Brnine’s understanding of what Integrity does? Um…
Austin: I don't know. You tell me. What— we haven't seen you study it or anything, right?
Ali: Sure, but like, culturally. What’s the propaganda say? That the Princept has used it…
Austin: [scoffs] No, no, no, no, no. No one knows about Integrity and the Princept. [Dre laughs] The Princept is—
Ali: Oh, okay, no.
Austin: The Princept is the Elect of Commitment. No one knows [Ali: Oh.] that part of the reason that Dahlia had been able to pilot Commitment as a solo person was that actually they also had Integrity with them, that they had Integrity, you know.
Ali: Oh, I didn't realize that was, like, a secret thing.
Austin: Oh yeah.
Ali: That was, like, a government secret. Okay.
Austin: That’s a high level government secret.
Ali: Then—
Keith: But is this something that you could have figured out, though?
Austin: What?
Keith: That that’s what was happening, upon seeing it?
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. That’s, yeah, totally, but that doesn't mean that you—
Keith: Okay.
Austin: But in other words, there’s no propaganda about, like…
Ali: Right, there’s no, like, you know…
Austin: Integrity—
Keith: Right.
Ali: Right.
Austin: You know, Integrity, defending the blah blah blah. Like, there’s no…
Keith: Right.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: So it’s actually more useful—
Sylvia: It was originally…it was originally Apostolosian Divine, though, right?
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: Like, back in COUNTER/Weight? So I would imagine—
Austin: Uh, no. It was not originally that. It was originally an Autonomous Diaspora Divine [Sylvia: Okay.] that Sokrates found and then wore famously.
Sylvia: Right, okay.
Austin: But before that, it was just a Diaspora Divine.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: But Sokrates claims it and takes it from—
Ali: Right.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: —a Diasporan group that they destroy and then wears it. There is history in Apostolos of Integrity; ancient, ancient, ancient history with it.
Sylvia: Yeah, I was wondering if that was, like, where it stopped.
Austin: And then the last thing that we saw with it before Dahlia had it was that there was an Apostolosian character who was carrying it and trying to protect it and keep it from falling into the Divine Principality’s hands. They didn't want it to fall into the Divine Principality’s hands, and then it did. And then, Dahlia, offscreen, ends up claiming it and wearing it, right?
Ali: So, I mean, but it would make sense for Brnine’s perspective to be, like, this is a historical artifact that has been missing since X.
Austin: Right. I mean, as like a quick super reminder of the COUNTER/Weight stuff, Sokrates wore it when they formed the Golden Demarchy. The Golden Demarchy eventually gets— which was the non-imperialist version of the Apostolosian Empire, right? Sokrates shows up and does this big reformation of the Apostolosian Empire and says, “You know what? We accept all comers. We are the future of the galaxy. We are not trying to be the empire that we once were. We're getting rid of all the Apostolosian, like, stuff, the imperial symbols and stuff.” So, Integrity, like, does show up in the history books as part of this Golden Demarchy thing, but it’s not a…that was not, like, a long-lasting period of Apostolosian history. It weighs heavy for us, because our camera was there, right?
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: But it was 50,000 years ago, [Keith: Yeah.] and it was not…and, you know, between now and then, I think it’s probably fair to say that it bounced around inside of the Apostolosian, you know, Empire in such a way that they didn't want the Demarchy to get— or they didn't want the Principality to get it before the Principality— before PARTIZAN, right? So.
Keith: So the real most important thing that we know is probably what Brnine could have observed that it was doing while up there.
Austin: Which is attaches to someone’s spine, gives them a degree of combat and tactical brilliance [Ali: Mm-hmm.] and, you know, advantage. Classic Divine shit, you know?
Ali: Right. But I did— mm. How before PARTIZAN was the stuff that you were just talking about?
Austin: The COUNTER/Weight stuff?
Ali: No, not— the Dahlia getting it, because Brnine and Dahlia are similar in age, question mark?
Austin: Dahlia would never have— you never— it wasn't public.
Ali: Okay, no, no, no.
Austin: Right?
Ali: No, I'm just saying, if Brnine went to, like, a military college, basically.
Austin: It was lost since the Road to PARTIZAN game it was in.
Ali: Okay. Okay.
Dre: Mm.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Which was thousands of years ago, right?
Sylvia: Damn.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: So it was a government secret for thousands of years, basically.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: The only reason that Dahlia found out was that, by a stroke of weird luck, Dahlia ended up being raised by Apostolosians despite being from Kesh and then was like, “Holy this, the Princept knows that Integrity just exists in this lockbox, basically. I'm taking it for me.” It did not have a public face in any way for thousands of years, not since whenever that PARTIZAN, the For the Queen PARTIZAN game was, whatever— so, hundreds— that was in the first half of the Perfect Millennium, so that would have been 500, 600 years ago, something like that, you know? So, quite a long time ago.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: And that was before there was a Stel Apostolos, importantly, so, you know, it was not a— it was still the Apostolosian Empire.
Ali: Right, right. Okay, okay, yeah.
Austin: So there just isn't the public thing here.
Ali: Okay, yeah.
Austin: It’s just what you would have learned in the last month or whatever.
Ali: Okay. Um…
(as Brnine): It’s hard to have an understanding of what it does, per se, because it’s sort of just like a…been just like a legend so far. When I saw it on Dahlia, they were kind of wearing it in a way that was [quietly] impressive, and you know, I feel like it—
Keith (as Eclectic): I'm sorry, in a way that was what?
Ali (as Brnine): Sort of impressive.
Keith (as Eclectic): Okay. [Ali laughs] Were they wearing it, or was it wearing them?
Keith: I squint my eyes.
Ali (as Brnine): Part of the conflict. And Asepsis, you know, Asepsis is kind of a strange design, but, um…I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I don't have— maybe, Cori, you could speak to this a little bit more, because I don't really know…it’s not like I've had a conversation with a Divine, and I don't know how much Asepsis would gain from communication in that way. I wouldn't do it on my own and have this sort of volatile outcome without considering the rest of you, and that’s why we're here.
Keith (as Eclectic): I think it sounds evil. You should blow it up.
Sylvia (as Cori): What—
Janine (as Thisbe): Could I have it?
Sylvia (as Cori): [intrigued] Oh.
Keith (as Eclectic): Hmm.
Ali (as Brnine): You just want it?
Janine (as Thisbe): Yes.
Ali: [laughs quietly] Sorry, I'm laughing out of character.
Austin: Mm. [Sylvia laughs] Oh, why?
Ali: That’s an important distinction. [laughs]
Austin: Yeah, uh huh.
Janine: Thisbe’s looking at Brnine intensely.
Ali (as Brnine): I mean, I don't have any objection, but what would you do with it?
Janine (as Thisbe): I would like to have it.
Ali (as Brnine): Right.
Keith (as Eclectic): Like, as an ornament?
Dre (as Figure): I can think of very few people or organizations I would trust more to have something like this than Thisbe, for the record.
Sylvia (as Cori): Yeah, it doesn't sound like a bad idea to me.
Ali (as Brnine): Sure.
Sylvia (as Cori): It could also help us, like, study— we're trying to figure out how Divines communicate, and having two on board could be really useful for that.
Ali (as Brnine): Sure.
Keith (as Eclectic): Everyone is capable of having bad ideas. [Ali laughs quietly] Divines are a big deal.
Sylvia (as Cori): Yeah, I know.
Sylvia: Pointedly looking at Eclectic. [Sylvia and Dre laugh]
Dre: Looking. Yeah, uh huh.
Keith (as Eclectic): I don't think any good can come from having any Divines on board.
Janine (as Thisbe): We will have a Divine on board regardless of what we do with this one.
Keith (as Eclectic): Right, that’s part of the issue.
Ali (as Brnine): Well, Thisbe—
Austin: Eclectic, very clear, not one of the Delegates who is interested in reviving the Divines of old, huh? [Ali laughs quietly]
Keith: No.
Ali (as Brnine): Well, Thisbe, I have it contained right now, and I think, uh, I would—
Ali: Supervise is such a bad word here.
(as Brnine): I would want to be there for the first times you interact with it, but I…I mean, if you're that curious or if you would like it, I don't know that— I don't have any objections. Sure.
Janine (as Thisbe): Good. Thank you.
Austin: All right, is this happening? You just gonna bring Thisbe upstairs and be like, “All right, here it is”? [Ali and Janine laugh]
Ali: Just wheel the little fish tank to Thisbe’s little…
Dre: Slap ‘er on. [Janine laughs]
Ali: I mean, Thisbe can go pick it up, right?
Austin: That’s what I'm asking, yeah.
Ali: Yeah. I have to figure out what my downtime scene is gonna be, then. But this is as fine an outcome as any.
Janine: [laughs] Sorry for the replanning necessary.
Ali: [laughs] It’s fine.
Austin: Wait, was this not— what was your— oh, because your scene was going to be going to give it to somebody else.
Ali: Right.
Austin: I gotcha.
Ali: Well, I was gonna be like, “What does the team want to do with it?” and then if it was like, “Get rid of it,” I was gonna give it to…
Austin: Right.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I gotcha.
Ali: August, but.
Austin: Yeah. I mean, I think this is a— definitely it ticks that clock, which I think I just did already.
Ali: Yeah, I spent my token to do that.
Austin: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: But Thisbe, what do you do with it?
Janine: [laughs quietly] Um, so, this is a complicated question, right?
Austin: Also, wait. Just frame me this scene of you just being seen it, because you haven't seen what it’s been doing, right?
Janine: True. What’s it been doing?
Austin: Brnine, do you let Thisbe in? Is Thisbe alone in the room? Do you let just Thisbe—?
Ali: Yeah, let’s do this in character.
Austin: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Ali: Because Thisbe walks into Brnine’s room with the little bunkbed situation with Asepsis, and the bottom bunk is sort of like a little open area with a little rug and a little playpen for the Asepsis drones. [Austin takes amused breath] There’s that plant that Thisbe gave Brnine in PARTIZAN that’s, like, gorgeous and full and healthy—
Janine: Aww.
Austin: Okay.
Ali: —and has been trimmed down [Sylvia: Aww.] in such a way that it— no, you do that to plants. You cut it in a very specific way to make it grow more.
Janine: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: Yeah, no. It’s, that’s…
Sylvia: No, that was a, like…
Janine: We were all like, “Aww, cute.”
Sylvia: That’s a nice “aww,” not…
Janine: Not like, “Aw, you cut the plant, you monster.”
Sylvia: Yeah.
Keith: Ugh!
Sylvia: No, yeah. It was like…
Keith: Ugh!
Ali: Uh huh.
Sylvia: Aww, friendship. I love it.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly that.
Ali: Right. Uh huh.
Austin: Yes.
Ali (as Brnine): Well, so, here it is. I don't know if you want to leave it here or bring it down to the hangar.
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali (as Brnine): But it’s been doing this sort of, um…you can see that hand there.
Austin: Oh, it’s more than a hand now, remember?
Ali: Sure, and it’s a scepter. Integrity itself is shaped like a scepter, right?
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: And then, gripped onto it, is like an inky black mechanical Commitment-esque… [laughs]
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Arm up to, like, the shoulder? How far are we?
Austin: No, the face. Part of the face is there now, the last time we checked in on it. Part of the Princept’s face has regrown.
Dre: Sick.
Austin: It seems to be growing itself a Princept, because it misses the one that was killed. It misses having a person. It misses having an Elect or a Candidate or— it’s never had an Excerpt before, as far as we know, but it misses having a person.
Janine: Interesting. Interesting. Interesting.
Austin: Uh huh.
Dre: [sighs] Even Divines are part of the loneliness epidemic.
Austin: Oh yeah, big time. But it’s like a— in my mind, it is like a sort of black— or I described it as being inky, but I actually thing it’s actually fairly dry and, like, calcified. It’s almost like petrified— like a petrified person, you know what I mean? But black with these, like, white streaks through it, the way that Commitment was. But yeah, it’s slowly growing this person. What would happen if it finished? You know, play to find out what happens.
Ali (as Brnine): So, here it is.
Austin: Which I guess that’s a clock that was advancing, technically, right? We just— I hadn't added it to the permanent thing.
Ali: Oh, yeah, that was on— that was part of the dream clock.
Austin: The dream.
Ali: I thought it was doing that because Integrity was also in the dream world.
Austin: No, it was not. That was just happening.
Ali: That’s when that came up.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ali: Yeah. Okay. I wonder how Integrity did in the dream world, but okay.
Austin: Integrity was not in the dream, thankfully. That’s the thing.
Ali: Oh, right, right, right. Okay.
Austin: Integrity was in the ship the whole time and in your, like, air-gapped protection cube.
Ali: Okay, right.
Austin: So yeah, I think it’s safe.
Ali: Okay.
(as Brnine): Yeah, aside from having…you know, obviously, just be careful about opening this.
Janine (as Thisbe): Can you open it?
Ali (as Brnine): Right now?
Janine (as Thisbe): Yes.
Ali (as Brnine): Here?
Janine (as Thisbe): Is there a reason not to?
Ali (as Brnine): Well, I mean, it’s not like it’s gonna bite or anything, I just thought…
Janine (as Thisbe): You carried it here by hand, didn't you?
Ali (as Brnine): Well, it just seems like it’s a big deal, right?
Janine (as Thisbe): I suppose.
Ali (as Brnine): No, you're right. I'm being weird. I'm being weird about this. Let me open it. [Janine and Ali laugh]
Austin: All right.
Janine: Thisbe waits patiently.
Austin: You know, as you open it, air begins to rush into the place, and it’s, you know, you can see it slowly crystalizing a new person into being, as I keep, you know, kind of gesturing at, right?
Janine: Thisbe has, uh…Thisbe approaches, I think. [laughs quietly] Two things happen.
Austin: Ah.
Sylvia: Oh.
Janine: I think she reaches in to take the scepter but also has, in her other hand, a little— kind of like a makeup compact of, like, loose powder sort of thing.
Austin: Uh huh?
Janine: But it’s Dust, and she uses a fan to put a little puff of the Dust in the air between her and the scepter.
Austin: Interesting. I mean, it’s…what is the thing that you're trying to have happen?
Janine: She’s trying to talk to it.
Austin: It…you know, let me think about how Integrity’s going to communicate to you. I think this is, like, important and also not a thing I expected today, so let me…
Janine: [laughs] Sorry. It did all just kind of happen all at once.
Austin: No, it’s good. I'm not mad at it. The thing that I'm trying to remember is if Integrity has historically communicated in words or if it has communicated in, like, affect, you know what I mean? If it has talked to its users or if it has been just a sense, you know what I mean?
Janine: Mm.
Austin: Not that it couldn't have changed today, obviously.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: But I think that the— so, let’s start with affect, and if it shifts, it shifts. You know, the thing that it makes you feel is a desire to pick it up, and that’s communicated to you, but it’s also felt, right? You can resist that desire. It’s not mind control. Do you know what I mean?
Janine: I do already have that desire, though. [laughs quietly]
Austin: Right, totally. Right? And it would like— it wants that, and it wants more than that, right? It…it wants you to hold it in and as yourself. As your hand hovers in the Dust with Integrity, it’s a little like holding your hand over an organ you forgot you were supposed to have. You— which, for Thisbe— I'm describing this for a person.
Janine: Yeah, I was gonna say, I'm not supposed to have any of those, but yeah, I know what you mean.
Austin: But you're supposed to have sensation. You're supposed to have sensors.
Janine: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: You're supposed to have the ability to calculate things in certain ways. You're supposed to have tools.
Janine: Mm-hmm.
Austin: And it feels like this is one that has been missing from you the whole time, while also being somehow…you know, the thing about Integrity has always been that it’s not that it— it’s not manipulative in this way. It does literally dig a space out for itself in you, and so it isn't— it produces an absence that you wish it would fill, right? And that has always been the way Integrity gets talked about on the show, and I think that that’s still true for it. And the thing that I think has been revealed is the reverse is also true for it, right? We've always talked about Integrity as being this thing that is, you know, it gets its claws into you to support you, but what we hadn't really known is how badly it wants to hold someone up at the same time, right?
It is a very— it is a Divine that breeds confidence in the person who holds it, or who wears it normally, right? Because it’s rare that it ever gets to stay a scepter. It’s a scepter that becomes a spine, historically, and that’s what this would be. Integrating yourself with it is integrating yourself with it. It is not…Integrity is not a thing you remove easily. In many ways, it’s the inverse of your relationship with Mow. You never really get into Mow, right?
Janine: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Mow is a different thing than you. Integrity does not work that way, and it will not work that way. I think Dust is interesting— introducing Dust is interesting, because normally, you wouldn't even get to begin to feel any of this until you were touching it directly, at which point it really has its claws in you, you know? But because you've introduced Dust here, you're able to feel all this at just enough remove that the choice remains your own.
Janine: Thisbe takes the scepter.
Austin: How does it integrate immediately into Thisbe’s body? Historically, this has been a big spinal thing, but that’s because the spine is important to a person, you know? To the way that we think about, you know, humanoid figures, we think about the spine. But that’s not the only thing that’s important, and if we want to visualize that a different way, then we totally could.
Janine: I do have a different idea. I'm really quickly doing some research. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Sure.
Janine: On what this might look like. Uh…
Austin: Do we want to, like, pull the curtain down, and the next time we see Thisbe, we see Thisbe looking different?
Janine: Mm, I—
Austin: Or do you think you're quick on the—
Janine: I kind of think that we want to, like, get it.
Austin: Okay.
Janine: You know?
Austin: I didn't know how much research you wanted to do.
Janine: Um… [laughs quietly] Yeah, no, I think I'm just good. I think what it is instead of a spine is that it sort of replaces her horns.
Austin: Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.
Janine: Instead of the tight watch spring—
Austin: Oh, wait, I have a question. Sorry.
Janine: Yeah?
Austin: How did you disconnect it from the hand that’s holding it? Did you rip it away?
Janine: I'm gonna be honest, I kind of, in my mind, was kind of picturing it crumbling to dust.
Austin: Okay.
Janine: Like, ash or something.
Austin: Yeah. So, the second that you're pulling it, [Janine: Yeah.] it’s letting this thing crumble to dust. That’s fine.
Janine: Yeah. So yeah, I think it, instead of being a spine, takes the form of new horns. Instead of the sort of, like, bouncy big [Austin: Right.] watch spring horns that Thisbe’s always had, it sort of melds into…I’m not sure what color. I'm kind of feeling like gold, maybe black. I may have to think over that a little more.
Austin: It’s been gold historically, but…
Janine: Yeah, that’s why I'm thinking, like…
Austin: You can do whatever you want.
Janine: I feel like it should be—
Austin: I do think that that’s probably right.
Janine: It should be gold. And I have— I specifically have a photo that I might change my mind on if I want these particular horns, but it’s this photo called “A ram with nice horns” stock photography from Dreamstime. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Oh. Okay.
Janine: And I'm just gonna link this.
Dre: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Janine: Because I think these are indeed nice horns. They're very beautiful.
Austin: Oh, those are good horns.
Ali: Ooh.
Austin: Those are fun.
Sylvia: Nice horns.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Hell yeah. Shoutouts to…
Janine: I think they’re kind of in the spirit of her previous ones but are more solid, you know?
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: Yeah, they’re definitely more solid. And then, I think, you know, this isn't the spinal cord, but like, can there be a patch of the gold on your head on the back still? Like, they go into your head like normal, but then they, like, there’s like a…
Janine: Connect to the back?
Austin: They connect at the back, exactly what I'm thinking of.
Janine: Yeah. I had also seen this, like, ram’s horn headband tiara prop thing, which is too, like, goofy and cartoonish—
Austin: Oh, sure.
Janine: But it did make me think of, like, if there was a simple sort of, like, gold band that comes to just sort of a V point at the nape, you know?
Austin: Yeah, sure. That’s fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Janine: Something like that.
Austin: That makes sense. Yeah.
Janine: Very elegant.
Austin: That suggests a sort of, you know, it’s not just that your horns turned colors. It’s also that there is some sort of—
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: You know, an enveloping is happening here in some way.
Janine: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Yeah. Uh, we'll have to figure out what this means mechanically.
Janine: [laughs] Yeah.
Austin: Because it means something mechanically.
Janine: Uh huh.
Austin: I don't know if it’s moves you take, if it’s a playbook decision. We have lots of stuff we should talk about.
Janine: It is at least a hook change, for sure.
Austin: Oh, I imagine.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: You had some loose hooks, because everybody got their…
Janine: They’re all loose, yeah.
Austin: Their hooks loosed, so we'll have to get some Integrity stuff. Exciting. Advance that clock.
Ali (as Brnine): You look cool.
Austin: Is that what Brnine says? Brnine said, “You look cool”? [Sylvia laughs]
Janine: Is that what Brnine says when that happens?
Ali: Eh.
(as Brnine): Does it hurt? Are you all right?
Janine (as Thisbe): I'm fine. It’s strange. My head is somewhat heavier.
Ali (as Brnine): Huh.
Janine (as Thisbe): But it doesn't bother me.
Ali (as Brnine): Yeah, well, we can…um, I…yeah. Well, keep me in the loop, I guess.
Janine: [laughs] Is Brnine just cool with that? With that happening? [Ali laughs] Is that just fine?
Ali: I…
Keith: This seems like the exact sort of thing Brnine would be just fine with, to me.
Austin: Uh huh. [Janine laughs]
Ali: Yeah. Brnine loves Thisbe. Brnine rides with Thisbe.
Janine: Uh huh.
Austin: That’s right. That’s true.
Keith: And rides with doing weird shit with Divines.
Ali: Right, yeah, exactly.
Austin: What is the first thought that you have that you wouldn't have had without this, now that Integrity is in your ear and in your mind, Thisbe?
Janine: Um…hmm.
Austin: And I mean this— actually, sorry. Let me say this this way.
Janine: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Janine, what is the first thought that Thisbe has? Because this is a Janine authorship question, not a thing Thisbe is deciding, right? This is explicitly a, like, what— and maybe this is gonna be what your hook ends up being, so maybe this is a, like, go think about this. But like, as always, let’s not no-sell this. This is a big deal [Janine laughs] to integrate yourself with Integrity.
Janine: Mm-hmm.
Austin: A Divine that we have seen historically create people who want to change the world in big ways.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: So, let’s think about what that looks like, is what I want to say.
Janine: And I am also somewhat breaking the promise that I made back in PARTIZAN—
Austin: You sure did.
Janine: Which was Thisbe will never be Divine.
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: Ooh.
Janine: Truly, I did not go into— I did not— like, two hours ago, [Austin: Uh huh.] this was not in my head. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine: But the moment presented, and I was like, “You know what?”
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Yep.
Ali: That’s why I wanted to talk to the party. Not to linger on this any longer, but is there an Asepsis reaction to Thisbe right away, or…?
Austin: God, there has to be, right?
Ali: Should I start a clock?
Austin: I think that the— should you start a clock. I think that—
Janine: Am I losing social credit? [Dre laughs]
Austin: You're definitely losing a little social credit. You're combining the social credit account with Integrity. I think that Integrity’s numbers go up because of joining you, who Asepsis trusts quite a bit, but yours go down and maybe more, right?
Janine: Mm-hmm.
Austin: I think Asepsis is probably just largely confused. This is a classic “Asepsis doesn't actually understand the world” moment, because Asepsis had categorized you, and that category was supposed to stay the same, and that category was not someone who would become an Elect or a Candidate or an Excerpt or any sort of Divine. You were never supposed to touch a Divine, right?
Keith: Two hours ago, this also wasn't in Asepsis’s mind. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Right. Correct. Exactly this, right?
Janine: Free will’s a hell of a thing.
Austin: Yeah. Uh huh.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: And this is a thing that Asepsis just doesn't keep up with, especially for a robot, right?
Janine: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Asepsis was, like, the purity god for the Columnar, you know?
Ali: Right. Yeah, and I think that we didn't touch on that in the scene very much, and maybe—[clatters] sorry—Brnine and Thisbe would talk about it more privately, or I could do another— maybe I do a clock about this, but I think that, like, does Brnine know about Gumption?
Austin: Yes. Or no, not in the— Brnine knows the thing about Gumption that’s true, which is that—
Ali: Right.
Austin: Brnine knows the effect of— Brnine knows that Divines can't really die forever.
Ali: Right.
Austin: I don't know that anyone—
Ali: Well, does it know the lineage of Asepsis in that— like, would somebody be like, “Oh, Asepsis was this marvel of technology,” because it used this Gumption thing to be the thing that it is, right?
Austin: Mm…
Keith: I thought it was— I thought that all of the Divines—
Austin: All of the Divines.
Ali: Okay.
Keith: Or all of the post that time period Divines do the same thing.
Austin: Yeah, all of the Divines of this era are tied to Gumption in that way. That’s not a specific Asepsis thing.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: All of them can be rebuilt in this exact way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: And so that’s just a truth about…that’s just a scary truth about Divines. [Ali laughs] Which is why— this is why the Chimera's Lantern exists, right? This is why the Chimeric Cadent is like, “There needs to be a place where a thing can die for real. I need to maintain [Ali: Mm-hmm.] this place where Divines can evade being forcibly resurrected and put back in service,” you know?
Ali: Okay. Yeah, I thought there was, like, some deeper lineage there, [Austin: No.] in terms of, like, Asepsis being created for the purpose that it was? But maybe I'm just off.
Austin: I would believe you. We do a lot in this story, and there’s a lot that I forget about.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: But I don't actually think…
Ali: Okay, yeah.
Austin: I don't see anything in my notes immediately, you know?
Ali: Okay, yeah. Yeah, the reason I say that is I think some of Brnine’s perception of Asepsis is, like, and the reason I play Brnine sort of the way that I do, is that they already think that what the creation of Asepsis and, like, the way that it was used is already, like, heretical.
Austin: Right.
Ali: So like, the idea of, like, “Oh, why would Millennium Break have this Divine?” was just like, you guys had a Divine, and you were fucking up anyway. Like, this is a compassion to it. This is…this is giving it this other life.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Ali: That, like…that’s why…I guess Brnine thinks of Asepsis as this Divine without community, in that way.
Austin: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Ali: Or, you know. So. Who knows?
Austin: It has a community now, and— [Ali laughs] well, I think its relationship to community has changed dramatically. I think it thinks it had a community before, and its job was to keep that community nice and pure.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: And now, its job is to keep that community nice and safe, which is different but still freighted, you know?
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: And I think that you've shifted the adjective it searches for, it fights for, but it is still a “society must be defended”-ass Divine, like that is still the vibe that it has.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: It happens to be your society, so. You know? That’s kind of the thing.
Ali: Right.
Austin: Anyway. The social is predicated on its exclusions, as they say.
Ali: Yes.
Austin: That’s a scene, I suppose. [Ali laughs]
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I think, when you pass Hunting in the corridors the next time, Hunting just goes:
Austin (as Hunting): Wow! [Janine laughs] Those look great!
You know?
Janine (as Thisbe): Thank you.
Soundboard: [car honks twice]
Austin: I honk for Thisbe. [Sylvia, Keith, Janine, and Ali laugh]
Sylvia: Guy passing by, “Sick horns! [Dre and Ali laugh] Hey! Hey, looks great!”
Austin: Yeah, that was— that’s Murch doing donuts just outside the ship. [Janine laughs] All right. Next scene. Whose scene was that? That was— Ali, that was your scene.
Ali: No, that was Keith doing an Infirmary scene.
Austin: Right, and that was still just you playing a token? [Dre laughs]
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: To long term project.
Ali: No, yeah, that was me spending a token [Austin: Okay.] to advance Thisbe’s Divines clock.
Austin: Right, okay, which is now a six out of eight.
Janine: Hell yeah. [laughs quietly]
Austin: So like, hey, you're able to— you can talk to this one. [Ali laughs]
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: And again, I think that learning that Dust is a sort of, like, a medium that prevents the immediate giving into the Divine is, you know, it kind of, like…it is both a conduit for but also a sort of safe buffer from immediate Divine interaction, right? Is kind of interesting.
Janine: Mm-hmm.
Austin: So we've done one scene, everybody! [Janine laughs]
Ali: Whoo!
Austin: Who’s up?
Sylvia: Uh…hey, what’s everybody’s Audacity file read for the time? Uh, two hours? Oh, cool. [Ali and Janine laugh]
Austin: Yeah, uh huh.
Janine: Ooh. [sighs]
Austin: Who’s up?
Sylvia: It’s fine.
Keith: Hey, I think that that was a productive scene.
Austin: Oh, yeah.
Sylvia: It was a good scene.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Absolutely.
Sylvia: Yeah, no.
Austin: And some of these might be quick.
Keith: Yeah, we used a lot of tokens on that one scene, so.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: We did. We did.
Sylvia: I'm kind of, like, still figuring out who I want to talk to about my stuff, because that is the scene I'm angling for, [Austin: Yeah.] is like, talking about how Cori got, like, mind blasted with all this stuff, [Austin: Mm-hmm.] and it still is in her memory.
Austin: Yeah. Oh, I need to— really quick, I need to let you know that I removed a leverage hold from you— not from you, but from the collection that Elle had when Elle showed up. But when you interfere with Elle’s need, which is to ensure that her true master wins out on Palisade, which you did by casting the Consecrate Ground at the end of last time, [Sylvia: Yeah.] preventing her from being able to claim the train brain, Filigree. You interfered with Arbitrage’s plan, so that produces another hold, so she’s back up to one hold, which, you know, [Ali: Ooh.] good to remind myself of that. Figure, currently, the Witch in Glass has zero on you, but I also have to— we have to rework what the Witch in Glass’s need is, because it is not to ensure the wheel turns anymore, right?
Dre: Oh, yeah.
Austin: That is not what Clem is all about at this point, so. Would still like you to be a useful and obedient tool, but that seems a little out of reach at this point, right?
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: So maybe I'll do a rewrite of those between downtime recording sessions, because we'll probably stop in the next hour or so.
Dre: Hmm.
Austin: Do you have thoughts on who you could do that scene with?
Sylvia: Yeah, I'm trying to—
Austin: Who are your gravity clocks with?
Sylvia: My gravity clocks are with Thisbe, Brnine, and Figure.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: [sighs] I'm torn between Brnine and Figure on this, and maybe it just becomes a thing of Cori going to the two people who are now her surrogate parents, I guess, on the ship. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: And being like, “Hey, what’s up with God?”
Ali: Please.
Sylvia: But I don't actually— I'm not actually framing it that way.
Austin: Yeah, because this is the—
Sylvia: The reason—
Austin: This is the move that lets you use Social Space/Private Quarters, which does let you clear [Sylvia: Yeah.] a Peril of emotional or social origin, right?
Sylvia: Yes, and I think that is the only, like, mechanically true way I could probably clear In Denial.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: And both of them also have, uh, experience with Divines.
Austin: Mm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: Directly, in some way. Figure with Perennial and Brnine with so many, apparently.
Austin: Apparently. [Ali snorts] Yeah, I think either of them would be a good idea.
Sylvia: Yeah, do…
Austin: You don't know Partial really, right?
Sylvia: Um…no. That could be fun, though.
Austin: Mm-hmm. I would start with gravity clock people first. I think that that’s important.
Sylvia: I thought so too.
Austin: You know?
Sylvia: I feel like that— because, like, other stuff that you can…
Austin: Partially because your gravity clock advances when you do this.
Sylvia: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say.
Austin: When you discuss your faith with someone or learn something about how they personally relate to faith and spirituality, advance a gravity clock with them. So, between that and the Social Space thing, it would advance twice, you know? Right?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Or, no, does it only advance— it’s a choice.
Sylvia: I think it advances…wait, hold on. Am I reading this wrong?
Austin: You're either doing clearing a Peril or advancing gravity.
Sylvia: Yeah, okay.
Austin: But it would do both for you because of the other thing we just discussed, so.
Sylvia: And also people— I mean, I think we've spent most of our tokens, but people could spend tokens to advance clocks here as well.
Austin: That's true. That’s true.
Sylvia: Um…
Austin: Can we just read your hook— your clocks really quick?
Sylvia: Oh, sure. With Thisbe, it’s the mean one. Sorry, Thisbe. “Thisbe is afraid to get their hands dirty. Kind of ironic for a farming robot.” I think just factually untrue, at this point. [Ali laughs]
Janine: Yeah, I was gonna say. Does that one still hold water? I don't know.
Sylvia: No, literally no. Like, it’s fine. Whatever.
Austin: Well, that’s a classic thing, right? Because remember, the thing here is, like, it’s never been true. It’s a thing that Cori believes is true.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Right? Importantly.
Ali: Yeah, because Thisbe doesn't kill enough civilians.
Sylvia: Yeah, because Thisbe doesn't have unaddressed rage problems like she does. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Uh huh, uh huh, exactly. Yeah.
Sylvia: Okay. Captain Brnine, my gravity clock with them is: “I can always rely on the Captain when I need them.” And with Figure, it’s: “Figure means well, but I can tell he sees me as just a kid.” And when I read all those, I was like, oh yeah, she would go to Brnine about this.
Austin: Mm. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: If that’s good with you, Ali.
Ali: Please.
Sylvia: I know you just did a scene.
Ali: No, no, no. Hi. Hello.
Sylvia: Okay, cool. How would she start this conversation?
Dre: Did you see Thisbe’s new horns? [Ali laughs]
Sylvia: Oh my god. I think it’s just— it’s meeker than that. It’s like:
(as Cori): Hey, you're not busy right now, are you?
Ali (as Brnine): No, Cori. What’s up?
Sylvia (as Cori): Uh…I mean… [sighs] It’s, like, probably nothing. Um…but the Dust stuff kinda, um…jacked up my head a little bit, and I'm just having trouble making sense of it all.
Ali (as Brnine): Oh, you had one of those visions, right?
Sylvia (as Cori): I had a lot of them.
Ali (as Brnine): Oh.
Sylvia (as Cori): At one point…I guess we didn't tell you this. Figure pulled me into theirs, at one point, and then everything changed in a different way, and I basically had to deal with having three sets of memories at once, and there’s a lot of stuff that I learned in the Figure one that’s kind of been…okay.
Sylvia: And she’s, like, looking, like, very distressed thinking about this, because that— to refresh people, because it’s been at least one episode since that— I don't know how long the conflict turn’s gonna end up being, but it could be two. Who knows? Cori saw her dad, like, betray them in that world.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: Whereas in her Dust hallucination, he was, like, a war hero, basically, like, revered for stuff, and in this one, it was like…
Ali: He was still alive, importantly.
Sylvia: He was still alive. He was still alive, very importantly, and he sided with, um…
Ali: The Principality. He was like a talking head for them.
Sylvia: The Principality, yeah, but I wasn't sure if more stuff about that was revealed or if it was just that he sided with the Principality.
Austin: I think he sided with…I don't remember if he sided with the Bilats or with the…I think—
Sylvia: Okay. No worries.
Austin: I forget which, but yeah.
Ali (as Brnine): Cori.
Sylvia: There's just like a— she— oh, no, go ahead. Go ahead.
Ali: I was gonna say:
Ali (as Brnine): Cori, sit down.
Sylvia: She does. She’s fidgeting with her hands a lot.
(as Cori): Okay, so, this could have just been…I don't know, maybe it was like this because Figure just didn't like my dad, you know? That’s just how things could be, but in that world, he betrayed us all, and it, um…made a little too much sense? Does that…? Do you…?
Ali (as Brnine): Well, sure. Sure, but it— Cori, it wasn't real.
Sylvia (as Cori): But, like…
Ali (as Brnine): No, but it wasn't, and it’s scary, and it feels weird, but it wasn't real.
Sylvia (as Cori): Yeah. [sighs] I guess. It’s just…okay, this…hmm. This sounds weirder than I mean it. I just…since I joined up with the crew, I have had multiple I guess you'd call them visions, now, where I see both historical events from the perspective of my Divine.
Sylvia: And she’s, like… [Ali laughs] She’s, like, moving a lot in the chair while speaking.
Austin: Aw.
Sylvia (as Cori): [speaking quickly] And, uh, I mean, that made sense in the same way that this made sense, and I'm just, there was something happened to Devotion a really long time ago, and like, does my— did my dad know about it? Is that what the Dust is trying to—? I'm just— it, uh, it did a lot, and I…yeah.
Sylvia: And she just sort of, like, deflates in her seat.
Ali: [laughs] I think Brnine sort of, like, reaches across and puts their hand over Cori’s, and says…
Sylvia: Aw.
Ali (as Brnine): Listen. Listen. It’s okay. I didn't…that Devotion stuff sounds kind of intense, and I'm sorry you're going through that. You've had historical visions?
Sylvia (as Cori): Uh, remember when you found me passed out in the archive?
Ali (as Brnine): Yeah. Uh huh.
Sylvia (as Cori): That was the first one.
Ali (as Brnine): Oh. Right.
Sylvia (as Cori): Yeah, and sometimes it communicates to me similarly to how Devotion normally would, but I can tell it’s…it’s like it’s…it’s like the same body speaking with a different voice?
Ali (as Brnine): Huh. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um… [Ali laughs]
Sylvia (as Cori): I just— [sighs] I guess the big thing that I've been kind of scared of is that my entire life has been kind of built on bullshit.
Ali (as Brnine): [laughs briefly] Sorry.
Sylvia (as Cori): No, it’s fine. I don't say that that often.
Ali (as Brnine): No, no. Cori.
Sylvia (as Cori): But, well, like, if in another world my dad betrays me, that makes that completely built on a foundation of, like, lies. And in this one, if Devotion is also not what I thought it was, it’s like, what have I been— what have I been fighting— I mean, I know what I've been fighting for, but like, who have I been fighting for, I guess. I'm kinda scared, Captain.
Austin: Brnine, didn't you overhear Cori’s— [Ali laughs quietly] maybe it hits you in this moment.
Ali: Right, yes.
Austin: That you remember what Cori’s father [Ali: Uh huh.] talked about once, about some of this. You know?
Ali: Yeah. I think that I have that abandoned—
Austin: Not that you'll speak to that, but I just…
Ali: Right. Well, I have a pretty much ignored clock.
Austin: What’s Up With the Devotees? Four of six. [Ali laughs] You just gave that one up, huh?
Ali: Right. Well. I just, it wasn't the focus.
Sylvia: We got busy, you know? Things happened.
Ali: It was like a clock that you just sort of gave me for free. [laughs] It’s like, it’s just been there, you know?
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: It was a complimentary party clock that I received.
Sylvia: [laughs] It was a party favor?
Ali: Yeah. [laughs]
Keith: Brnine’s trying to regift this clock. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Everybody gets a clock. Uh huh.
Ali (as Brnine): Cori, no, I…this is gonna sound insensitive, but it’s because I'm being honest to you. Everybody’s lives is built on bullshit, and I think that the sooner you come to realize that, the better off you are.
Sylvia (as Cori): Huh.
Ali (as Brnine): Which, I— it sucks for you right now, and I don't want to take that away, right? But yeah, maybe your dad was a piece of shit, right? Like. [Ali laughs] But…but…
Sylvia: [laughs quietly] Clenches her fist a little, instinctively. [Ali laughs] It’s just like, it’s still hard.
Austin: When Phrygian says it, everyone gets mad!
Sylvia: Yeah. [Ali and Dre laugh]
Ali (as Brnine): But, you know, you're right that you…you have a choice of what you're fighting for.
Keith: It’s important that Phrygian said it before, so that Brnine could say it more freely now.
Ali: Uh huh. [laughs]
Austin: Mm. Yeah, that’s how it works, isn't it?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: You know?
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvia: You know.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvia (as Cori): Yeah, that…that’s a lot—
Sylvia: You hit her with a lot, and she’s kind of like… [Ali laughs] “Oh shit.”
(as Cori): Yeah. Uh…thank you. No, that does make— thank you.
Ali (as Brnine): No.
Sylvia: She gets up.
Ali (as Brnine): No, Th—
Ali: [mumbles, laughs] I almost called you Thisbe.
Austin: Ooh!
Ali (as Brnine): Cori.
Sylvia: It’s okay. [Ali laughs] That’s usually the person you're trying to be like, “Wait, no, we're cool!”
Ali (as Brnine): You don't have to go. It’s fine.
Sylvia (as Cori): I…
Ali (as Brnine): I wanted to check in with you anyway, because things got really, um…intense after the shit with your dad, and I wanted to make sure that you were okay, so I guess you're still thinking about it.
Sylvia (as Cori): I…
Ali (as Brnine): That wasn't that long ago.
Sylvia (as Cori): I don't think the answer to that question is yeah, [Ali laughs quietly] but it’s not gonna, like, I don't know. I don't think it’s gonna affect the way things operate around here.
Sylvia: She said, lying. That last bit was me. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Ali (as Brnine): Cori. Cori. Cori, your dad dying doesn't have to affect the way things operate around here. It, like, just happened.
Sylvia (as Cori): [quietly] Yeah. Yeah, I guess it did, huh?
Ali (as Brnine): Yeah.
Sylvia (as Cori): You kinda forget about how recent things are when there’s— the sun almost explodes, huh?
Ali (as Brnine): Yeah, it was a shitty time for the sun to almost be exploding, I agree.
Keith: How many days ago was that? [Ali laughs]
Austin: It’s been…
Ali: Like, 20.
Sylvia: In my mind—
Austin: It’s been…
Sylvia: Yeah, it’s, like, three weeks in my brain, but like, if we want to…
Austin: It’s been weeks. It’s been weeks now, if not a little bit longer than that. I think it’s probably fair to say it’s been a month. Let’s call it that.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: That’s probably right. You know, we get abstract here, because missions seem to take hours but then come out over the course of a listening month, but I think with the downtimes and the faction turns, that has been— that helps spread that out quite a bit, you know?
Sylvia: Mm-hmm.
Keith: Yeah. Yeah, for us, that was— it’s the beginning of December now, and that was, what, July, that we were recording it?
Austin: Nightmare to think about that, right?
Dre: Oof.
Austin: I think that’s probably it.
Ali: Mm-hmm. [laughs] It’s true, though! Released in September!
Austin: It released in September. Yeah. And then there’s been two faction games since then and a mission? And this is the second downtime since then, so yeah, I think it’s probably been over a month.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: Those faction turns are meant to be zoom out. Hey, this stuff develops over weeks, you know?
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia (as Cori): Thank you for listening. I'm…
Sylvia: [laughs quietly] She’s gonna say something— okay, this sounds like a non-sequitur, but it’s because of the whole having three memories thing.
Ali: Uh huh.
Sylvia: Where she’s like:
(as Cori): I'm glad you're not dead, Captain. [Sylvia and Austin laugh quietly]
Ali (as Brnine): Same.
Sylvia (as Cori): Sorry, the Figure one.
Ali (as Brnine): No, same.
Sylvia (as Cori): Yeah, no, that was…
Ali (as Brnine): No, no, no. It’s all good.
Sylvia (as Cori): I mean, I would hope so. You're good too, right?
Ali (as Brnine): In mine, I was just drunk.
Sylvia (as Cori): Wait, really? [Ali laughs]
Ali (as Brnine): Yeah, I was— I mean, I guess it was like a while, and I guess Gucci had just gotten married, but then I was talking to Thisbe—
Sylvia (as Cori): Oof. Oh, I'm sorry. [Ali and Keith laugh]
Ali (as Brnine): But yeah, I went out with Thisbe. That’s what I did.
Sylvia (as Cori): [surprised] Oh. [Austin laughs] Got over that quick.
Ali (as Brnine): No! [laughter] We were drinking, Cori! [more laughter]
Austin: Me and the robot? [Ali laughs]
Sylvia (as Cori): …Okay. [Ali laughs] I…
Ali (as Brnine): Don't be gross, Cori.
Sylvia (as Cori): I'm not being gross! [Ali laughs]
Austin: Wow, it would be gross? Damn.
Dre: Wow.
Sylvia (as Cori): Wow, why would that be gross, Captain?
Ali (as Brnine): [laughs] Because intimacy is gross, okay?
Austin: Oh, okay. Well, now, yeah, okay. Yeah, that… [Ali laughs]
Sylvia (as Cori): Oh, wait, hey, now we can agree on some stuff. Yeah, in my ones, I was just, uh, fighting— [laughs] doing violence with a girl I have complicated feelings about, [Ali and Austin laugh] and also in the other one I killed her, so. Yeah, I feel you.
Ali: [laughs] I think that’s scene. Is that scene?
Sylvia: I think that is scene. [Ali laughs]
Austin: That’s probably scene.
Sylvia: I think it— yeah.
Austin: All right.
Sylvia: I'm gonna go play DDR. [Ali laughs]
Austin: So, just to be clear for everybody, that is a Social Space/Private Quarters.
Sylvia: Yes.
Austin: You get to advance your— you get to heal that Peril. Both of you advance that clock, because your trigger for the clock advance is discussing your faith with someone, Cori, and gravity clocks advance from both sides at the same time, so that should go up to three.
Sylvia: Wow, I could have really been power gaming this.
Austin: You could've. All you had to do is talk about—
Sylvia: By taking a token every time I do that. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Uh huh, 100%.
Sylvia: Unfortunately, I decided to do the religious crisis paradigm instead of the true believer type one.
Austin: Yeah, exactly. 100%. And then, anybody else—
Keith: What, you're saying that the power gaming was just taking all the things that the sheet says you can take when you do the thing?
Austin: Well, playing a different type of character.
Sylvia: Well, like, playing a different way and taking a token every time I do that and being way more preachy than I have been.
Keith: Oh, okay, okay.
Sylvia: There have been multiple downtime scenes where I'm like, this just doesn't feel appropriate for the character to be doing right now.
Austin: Yeah, you could be— I mean, that’s a thing that I think no one has done yet, also, is you can fail a downtime scene on purpose in order to get— in order to hand out more tokens is another thing that I think no one has done ever.
Sylvia: Oh shit.
Ali: Wait, what?
Austin: Yeah, it’s all in this book.
Sylvia: Yeah, I didn't really realize that was a thing.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: Look, there's a lot of stuff in the book.
Ali: Uh huh.
Austin: There is. You can choose to…let me find the exact writeup here.
Keith: I know you can give someone your token.
Austin: Yeah. You can…here it is.
Sylvia: Oh, yeah. It’s here.
Austin: “Additionally, you may choose to frame your scene as a failure and not take the benefit described. If you do so, you may choose another player to gain an extra token for this downtime. First, though, everyone should take a moment to check in,” which we have been doing nonstop while playing, but.
Keith: Oh.
Ali: We should have done that a billion times before this. [laughs]
Austin: What, the failed scenes?
Ali: Just nonstop.
Keith: Well, so, the…so, basically, it’s like, you can give someone your token, [Austin: No.] but if you need— well.
Austin: You can give someone—
Keith: But you can.
Sylvia: You can give someone a token in exchange for a scene.
Austin: For a scene.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: You don't lose a token. You lose your scene.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Keith: No, it’s both. You can do both. It’s just, if you have a token, you can let someone use that token for free.
Sylvia: Oh, you're saying, like, a separate rule.
Austin: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: And so this is a mechanic by which you can do that but with a scene.
Austin: With a scene.
Keith: If you need your token for something else.
Austin: Correct, yes. Yes.
Keith: Yeah.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Actually, can I say a thing that we're gonna all forget but was, like, one of the best notes I've seen?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: You know, people give us notes. People post stuff on the hashtags and stuff, and sometimes it’s [Keith: Yeah.] really, like, “Why aren't you doing this thing right?” and it’s like, because I'm spinning 18 plates. And sometimes it’s like, “Hey, there’s this thing about this game that I think you might not be getting, and here’s the way that it might be beneficial to think about this.” And this was, like, blew my mind open in a way that’s like, I probably understood this the first time I read the book and have since just, like, mechanized it in a way that’s ruined it for me. Okay, let’s say you get a 7 to 9, and I say, “Okay, you have to take a Risk.”
Keith: I read this.
Austin: It’s a great post, right?
Keith: I know what you're talking about. Yeah, it’s a great post. Yeah.
Austin: I forget who posted it. I'm sorry I don't have it up in front of me. But like—
Keith: I know. I was gonna bring this up, and then it just hasn't come up.
Austin: It hasn't come up. The way we talk about that is like, it’s a lot like Technoir, where we talk about, like, oh, what’s the negative adjective you take to do this?
Keith: Mm-hmm.
Austin: And we should be really keeping it in the fiction. What risky thing do you do to achieve the end you want? What is the risk you literally take to get the thing you want? Instead of coming at it the other way, which is like, “Okay, this person does something negative to you. Now, let’s mechanize that into a risk.” Let’s start the other way, [Ali: Mm-hmm.] and say, “Hey, yeah, you can do it, but you do something risky to get it done. What’s the risky thing you do, and how do we write that down?” And so, thing to think about as we go forward. Really great— I forget— apologies to whoever made that post, but really great post. Keith, I'm glad you also saw it.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Really good example of, like, oh yeah, I liked being told this, you know? Anyway. Next scene?
Ali: Uh, yeah.
Dre: I mean, I have my scene, but…
Austin: Oh, no, let’s do yours. Let’s do yours.
Dre: Okay. Let’s do it.
Austin: Because getting that scene…that scene’s in my brain. You know, some version of that scene is in my brain, you know? If it’s the thing I think that you have to do.
Dre: Yeah.
Keith: That post was from 13 days ago from Sylvia on Cohost.
Austin: Oh, okay.
Keith: I don’t know if that — don’t know if I —
Austin: Different Sylvia. Not our Sylvia.
Keith: Different Sylvia.
Sylvia: Not me!
Austin: Yeah, okay.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Shoutouts to Sylvia.
Sylvia: Also shoutout to me.
Austin: Also shoutout to you.
Dre: Yeah!
Ali: Shoutouts.
Austin: It’s true. [Sylvia laughs]
Keith: [reading post] Most of the time, the interaction goes, “here's what happens to you; you choose an adjective to describe that.” The risk mostly feels like a result that is inflicted on the character, but as I understand the system and its flavor, the potential risks lies in asking “What risk do you take?” — framing it as an action of the character. Basically a modification of the ever-present “What do you do?”
Austin: Exactly.
Keith: Uh, they give an example.
Austin: I mean, it’s—
Keith: Anyway, “emphasizing this would also make the contrast to perils, which are fundamentally done to a character, more clear.”
Austin: Yes. Yes, 100%.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Now, do I wish I had, like, you know, grokked that 33 episodes ago? Yes, but that’s how it goes. Or however many episodes there actually are, [Sylvia: Eh.] but good to think about going forward.
Dre: That’s actual play.
Austin: That’s actual play, baby.
Keith: Yeah. The distinction we've been more drawing is, like, what’s something that you can shake off?
Austin: Correct. Yes.
Keith: Instead of, yeah.
Austin: That is the way we've been playing, which is also fine, to be clear.
Keith: Yeah, I think that’s also fine.
Austin: It really is, like, the deep Technoir brain in us, which, you know, we have returned to, as people know.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: [laughing] On the night of Henry Kissinger’s death, we returned to playing Technoir.
Sylvia: Fucking incredible timing on that.
Keith: That was amazing. That was so much fun.
Sylvia: I was so happy that I saw y'all were recording.
Austin: And if you are listening to this and want to hear us respond in live detail to the death of Henry Kissinger: friendsatthetable.cash. A single dollar will give you access [Dre laughs] to the Clapcasts, including this one.
Dre: So, where can I find Partial Palisade right now?
Austin: Uh, yeah, what’s Partial been doing?
Dre: I was thinking of this as being private quarters, but I like this much more as, like, somewhere during the festivities.
Austin: Oh, so we're gonna kick it into festivities mode.
Dre: Yeah!
Austin: Yeah! I think festivities here are happening…sorry, I know where it is.
Keith: Did you say festivities Mow?
Austin: Festivities Mow.
Keith: Is that the…
Austin: Festivities mode. I think this is early in the morning. Festivities are kicking off in the, like, parade way, you know what I mean? Or the like, hey, the festivities are really gonna kick off around, like, 1:00, and it’s like, 8:00, 9:00. And Palisade is at Eversin. That’s where, like, the— not the biggest party but like— eh, maybe it’s the biggest party. No, the biggest party is probably up in Carhaix. But Palisade, Partial Palisade is Eversin, and Partial Palisade has on basketball shorts and is shooting around. We have finally come back [Sylvia: Let’s go!] to the basketball court on Eversin. Just, you know, just working some drills, you know? Just, like, getting the jump shot down.
Dre: Oh, man. Does Figure know how to play basketball?
Sylvia: This is the most important question we've asked this night.
Austin: This is true.
Keith: Well, you, presumably, knew a gym teacher.
Austin: Right, this is true. Yeah.
Dre: That’s true.
Austin: I could imagine Figure being part of, like, a, you know, like a…
Keith: Secret anti-basketball sect.
Dre: No.
Janine: Intramural? Intramural team?
Austin: Intramural or like a…
Keith: Oh, so the opposite thing.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: You know, you go shoot around at the J. You go shoot around at the Y. You know what I mean?
Janine: A public pro-basketball sect.
Dre: Oh, yeah. Figure plays old man at the Y basketball.
Austin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dre: Like, has no dribble whatsoever.
Austin: Yeah, this is exactly what I'm thinking.
Dre: But like, wide open in the corner? Nails it every time.
Austin: Nails it. Yeah. Exactly.
Dre: Worst jump shot form you have ever seen.
Austin: Ball goes in.
Dre: Barely gets any lift.
Austin: Ball goes in.
Dre: But it goes in, yeah.
Keith: They’re not dribbling at the Y?
Austin: No, but they're not, like, dribbling at the Y, you know what I mean?
Dre: Yeah.
Keith: Sure.
Sylvia: Is it like when—
Austin: They’re playing basketball.
Sylvia: It’s like black and white footage of— when Figure plays.
Austin: Yes.
Sylvia: It’s like black and white NBA footage. [Dre laughs]
Austin: Yes. They are playing basketball. They ain’t hooping, you know what I mean? So. I think Partial Palisade’s out here hooping. [Austin and Dre laugh] I think Partial Palisade has some moves.
Sylvia: He’s about to break Figure’s ankle.
Austin: [laughs] Yes, 100%!
Keith: [laughs] Chiiii-cago.
Austin: God.
Ali: We know the origin of the enthusiasm, question mark? for basketball on Palisade.
Austin: The basketball enthusiasm? Yeah. Wagon Wheel. Go listen.
Ali: No, I mean from Pal— the guy Palisade.
Austin: Oh. Oh! I see.
Ali: Is super into it. [laughs]
Austin: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was him. He was like, “Yeah.”
Ali: “Have y'all heard about basketball?”
Austin: “Have you heard about this? ‘Cause this is it.”
Dre: Oh, god. Austin, I have a great idea.
Austin: Please.
Dre: And we need to just get to it through play.
Austin: Okay. I believe in you.
Dre: So, yeah, Partial Palisade’s hooping.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Dre: I think Figure walks on the court and just kind of says:
(as Figure): Huh. I did not expect to find you here. I don't know who I expected to find here, but it wasn't you.
Austin (as Partial Palisade): Oh, you just heard me shooting.
Austin: And like, dribble, dribble, shoot! Net! Oof!
Sylvia: Swish!
Austin: Yeah, absolutely. He goes over and grabs the ball, and, you know, passes it out to you, and is like:
(as Partial): Check up.
Dre (as Figure): [taken aback] Oh. Um…okay.
Austin (as Partial): Is this not a thing you do?
Dre (as Figure): [sighs] It’s a thing I haven't done in a long time. Can we, uh…can we start off with, like, a game of…
Dre: What do they call HORSE in PALISADE?
Austin: DUCK.
Dre (as Figure): Can we start off with a game of DUCK?
Austin: Yeah, uh huh. Yeah. [Dre laughs]
Sylvia: Really good joke.
Dre: Thanks.
Sylvia: Really good.
Austin (as Partial): Absolutely. [rubs hands together]
Keith: That’s great.
Austin (as Partial): You got the ball.
Dre (as Figure): [sighs] Okay. Sure.
Dre: Just starts off with a basic free throw line shot.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Dre: I'm gonna roll a d2?
Austin: Oh, sure. In or out.
Dre: 1 it goes in, 2 it misses?
Austin: Yeah, sure. Ooh.
Dre: Miss.
Austin: Yeah.
(as Partial): Warming up.
Dre (as Figure): Yeah. Told you it’s been a while.
Austin: Grabs the ball.
(as Partial): So we talking, or are we just shooting?
Dre (as Figure): [sighs] Um, well, since I got you here, what do— you know about Divines, right?
Austin (as Partial): [scoffs]
Austin: Kind of makes eye contact with you, from the same place you were about to shoot, and does the same shot you did, and it goes in. And goes like:
(as Partial): I mean, I am one, or was. Close enough.
Dre (as Figure): [sighs] Yeah, that’s kind of what I was banking on. Sorry, no pun intended.
Austin: Passes it back to you. Yeah.
Dre (as Figure): [sighs] What can you tell me about Perennial? Ugh!
Dre: It looks better, but it still just rims out at the last second.
Austin: Yeah. Dribbles it back to, like—
Dre (as Figure): Eh, that’s D for me.
Austin (as Partial): That’s a D for you.
Austin: Dribbles it back out and then I think just does, like, you know, a running layup. Real simple, keeping it simple. But I don't know if your knees can handle that layup, so we'll see.
Dre: [quietly] Wow.
Austin: Passes you the ball back and is like:
(as Partial): Phew. Well, I know what y'all believe about Perennial, which is interesting, because to my memory, Perennial was not the Adversary so much as the outsider, never part of the Fleet, always just flittering around. Uh, I don't think she was really even with the Collaborate, the other big Divine group. You know, this is going back back, different era. You gotta understand, when we were with the Divine Fleet, we weren't the only Divines in the galaxy. They were everywhere. We built the Fleet, because we thought it was the most sustainable, the most…the longest lasting, most just version of a relationship between Divines and different types of people. We thought the world was…we would have— if we had let ourselves go to war, we would have died or they would have died or both, and instead, we found unity. But we were not the only Divines in the world, and others took a different path, and she wasn't really part of either camp. She just sort of showed up one day. I don't know from where. So now, I wake up, and she’s the center of the goddamn galaxy. It’s a surprise.
Dre: The dribble approach is kind of shaky, but the layup goes in.
Austin (as Partial): [impressed] All right.
Dre (as Figure): Told you, it’s been a minute.
Austin (as Partial): Mm. All right. [rubs hands together]
Austin: Dribbles it out. Shoots a three. Off the rim.
(as Partial): Your ball.
Dre (as Figure): So, back then, what did she want?
Austin (as Partial): Oh, she was, uh…
Dre: Takes the three from the same spot and swishes it.
Austin (as Partial): Ooh! She wanted to learn everything. We, uh…we had a policy, as part of trying to make sure people could join the Fleet, Divines could join the Fleet, which was that we had no…we had little knowledge we wouldn't share. We wouldn't share information about our people. We wouldn't share private information, but when it came to knowledge about the galaxy and math and the way of the world…and she consumed that information voraciously, for a Divine even, which was confusing, because most Divines come knowing the world. They’re built in it and of it. It’s like she came from somewhere else. Big galaxy, so. And then I lost track.
Austin: Takes the ball and goes to duplicate the shot that you have now actually made…and bricks again, so a D for Palisade.
(as Partial): [sighs] Sorry, thinking about time. Didn't ever join the Fleet. We left the Fleet to start Palisade, to start all this, and as far as I can tell, Perennial never hooked up with anyone in the Twilight Mirage. She never became part of all of that. She just kind of floated somewhere else. And then the Divine Clash happens, is my understanding from your history textbooks, and she betrays the Divine Principality, supposedly. And, uh, you know.
Kind of gestures up in the sky, referencing the Perennial Wave and, you know, her home in the center of the galaxy.
(as Partial): Why’s she on your mind?
Gives you the ball back.
Dre (as Figure): Oh. [sighs] Okay, hold on. Let me focus for a second.
Dre: Sets up at the elbow.
Austin: Mm, mm-hmm.
Dre: Back to the basket, and just does, like, a very bad, like, shimmy fadeaway. But it’s cash!
Austin: Damn! [Dre laughs]
(as Partial): Damn, with the fade—! [Sylvia laughs]
Takes the ball.
(as Partial): I gotta hit the fadeaway?
Dre (as Figure): Yeah.
Austin (as Partial): [exhales] I thought that was just style points. All right. I'm waiting for an answer before I shoot.
Dre (as Figure): Yeah, sure. [sighs] I guess…what’s the best way to put this? To break free of Clem, I had to replace that chain with something else. So it’s not a chain, but I'm connected to Perennial in a way that I don't fully understand.
Austin (as Partial): Not a chain, but you're bound in some way? [Figure sighs] You're connected, you're…
Dre (as Figure): It feels more like I'm, like, a port on the river?
Austin (as Partial): You haven't tried talking to her?
Austin: Fadeaway, bounce, bounce, in.
Dre: Mm. Just like Kawhi did.
Austin: Just like Kawhi did. [Dre laughs]
Dre (as Figure): [sighs] She hasn't reached out to me. There’s a—
Austin (as Partial): You're living, ain’t you?
Dre (as Figure): Yeah. It’s been very busy around here. I don't know if you've noticed.
Austin (as Partial): No, I mean, how can you say she hasn't reached out to you? Look at you.
Dre (as Figure): Oh.
Austin (as Partial): Covered in purple.
Dre (as Figure): Yeah. All right, no, that’s fair. How do you— how do you go about doing that?
Austin (as Partial): Well, I have to admit I've never been on the other side of it. But…
Dre (as Figure): Is there, like, etiquette?
Austin (as Partial): [amused breath]
Keith: Don't want to be rude. [laughs]
Austin: Yeah.
(as Partial): There’s, um…there’s the etiquette you make with one another, in my experience. I had a number of Elects in the time of the Fleet, and I had my preferences, and I had my foibles, but everyone had a different way about ‘em, and there were things that I would excuse from one that I wouldn't from another and things I would encourage from some that I would despise, find presumptuous from others. You feel it out, at least with me.
Dre: Corner three, clanks off.
Austin (as Partial): Oof. All right, all right. [rubs hands together]
Austin: Dribble, dribble. Dribble, dribble.
(as Partial): [exhales]
Dribble, dribble. [Sylvia laughs] Kind of waiting for you here, before shooting.
Dre (as Figure): I don't know— I don't even know what to say. How do you say, “Thanks for saving my life, but also, are you just as evil as the person you saved me from?”
Austin (as Partial): Hmm.
Dre (as Figure): How do you say, “What do you want with me?” [brief pause] Ah, I don't want to ask that. That’s fucked up. I just spent…I just spent a long time and energy getting away from someone who that’s the only question I cared about getting the answer to.
Austin (as Partial): What’s the actual question you have for her, then?
Dre (as Figure): [sighs] I keep hearing people talk about the wheel.
Austin (as Partial): The wheel. Like the, uh, the torture device?
Dre (as Figure): No. Maybe. I don't think so.
Sylvia: [laughs quietly] Me as fuck.
Dre (as Figure): The thing— [sighs] Okay, also, when this happened, there’s also now a ghost who shows up sometimes?
Austin: Partial Palisade doesn't have eyebrows, but like, does have a way of lighting up his eyes in a way that’s like raising your eyebrows.
Dre: Yeah, sure. [laughs]
Austin: Like, they’re normally yellow, but they glow, like, a little orange, you know?
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin (as Partial): Huh?
Dre (as Figure): Do you know who Gur Sevraq is?
Austin (as Partial): [scoffs] The preacher in the temple?
Dre (as Figure): Yeah.
Austin (as Partial): Eh, as far as I can tell, they’re alive and well, unfortunately.
Dre (as Figure): No. Not the real one.
Austin (as Partial): The real one isn't alive and—? It’s another Principality scam.
Dre (as Figure): Yeah.
Austin (as Partial): Yeah. But you think you got the real one in there.
Dre (as Figure): From…from his writings that I've read, yeah. But he’s all mixed up. But one of the few things he's said, that he’s told me, that has made any sort of sense…she wants to stop the wheel from turning.
Austin: Takes the shot. Swish.
(as Partial): Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.
Dre (as Figure): It…sure. But if I want it to make sense, depends on what the wheel is.
Dre: Swish.
Austin (as Partial): Do you…right. What’s the wheel you wouldn't want to stop spinning?
Dre (as Figure): I mean, like, life in general? Happiness, joy? Self determination?
Austin (as Partial): Yeah, I mean, if she wanted those to stop, don't you think that would have been done?
Dre (as Figure): That's also the assumption I'm working under, but…
Austin (as Partial): So let’s say it’s not those. God, she worked with Clem for how long, Witch in Glass, and before that—
Dre (as Figure): Too long.
Austin (as Partial): If raw damage was the output intended…
Dre (as Figure): Yeah.
Austin (as Partial): Let me try something. [rubs hands together]
Austin: Grabs it. [Dre laughs] Runs up, windmill dunk, clank! off the back. Too much reach.
(as Partial): Ooh.
Dre (as Figure): [relieved sigh] I'm really glad you— I don't even have to try doing that.
Austin (as Partial): You don't even have to try it. I mean, if I were you, I would try it! But you don't have to try it.
Dre (as Figure): This feels like a metaphor.
Dre: Holy shit! [laughs]
Austin: Damn!
Dre: Dribbles back to the three point line. Looks to shoot it. Kind of looks at [Austin: Yeah.] Partial Palisade.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Dre (as Figure): This is— [sighs] Fuck it.
Dre: Still very, like, poorly dribbling, because now they’re also running.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Dre: But somehow, someway, windmill dunk.
Austin: Windmill dunk. [Sylvia laughs]
Dre (as Figure): I would have never thought to have tried that in my life.
Austin (as Partial): You know, sometimes you gotta break the wheel. [Ali snorts] Is that the— maybe that’s what she’s trying to say. Try some new shit.
Dre (as Figure): [sighs] I should probably go ask her. [Partial exhales] But we can— we should finish here first.
Austin (as Partial): Yeah, mm-hmm. If this was one-on-one, this wouldn't even be a game. I just want to make sure we're clear.
Dre (as Figure): Wow!
Austin (as Partial): Yeah. All right, let me try it.
Austin: And we get the dribble up, and then we cut away before we see if he can land the dunk that you hit, that now he does have to hit. All right, that advances that clock, presumably. I'm guessing? Which— that was Social Space/Private Quarters, right?
Dre: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: Okay. So yeah, are you advancing that clock, or are you clearing a Peril?
Dre: Yeah, so I'm advancing the gravity clock, [Austin: Yes.] and then I'm gonna spend my other token to rewrite a hook.
Austin: Ooh, interesting. What’s the hook you're rewriting?
Dre: I'm gonna rewrite my hook that is “The only way to escape the Witch is to endanger others.”
Austin: That makes sense. Wait, no, you don't need to spend a token. Do you? Because isn't it a— it’s a loose hook right now.
Dre: Oh, it is a loose hook.
Austin: You can rewrite loose hooks whenever you want.
Dre: Oh.
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: Are they— because they were loosened from the time in the Dust.
Austin: From the dream. Yeah, uh huh. From the Dust, yeah.
Dre: So they’re still…okay.
Austin: They’re still loose, yep.
Dre: Okay, well.
Austin: Loosened everybody’s hooks who were part of the thing, yeah.
Ali: What’s the process for strengthening them?
Austin: If you hit a thing on confidence or desperation, you can strengthen or loosen a hook, I believe? Or it might be confidence strengthens, and then if you— the other one, desperation, it loosens one?
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: I'll double check, but it’s that. So what are you changing it to?
Dre: Oh, something about Perennial. I'm not quite sure of the wording yet.
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: And I'm wondering if do I need to then also, like, talk to Perennial before I write that hook.
Austin: You might need to, or you might need to reach out in some special way, you know?
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, when you act in desperation and succeed, you can deepen a hook.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Austin: When you act in confidence and fail, you can loosen a hook.
Ali: Cool. Thanks.
Austin: Yeah. I mean, do you just want to spend a token here to do that? Not a whole scene maybe, but this sort of, like reach out? Because we've not really heard Perennial—
Dre: Yeah, sure. Let’s do it.
Austin: —as a talking figure since, uh, I think since the first Armour Astir game. I don't even think in the Tower game with Clem was she really a speaking god. So what does reaching out with her feel like or do?
Dre: Boy. Hmm. I know the move doesn't work this way.
Austin: Uh huh.
Dre: But the way I'm picturing it is it’s like Figure is trying to do a reverse Abyssal Summons.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Dre: Which is the move that they have used to, like, teleport people.
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: But basically Figure is trying to wrest themselves free of their place and time.
Austin: Well, this I'm gonna need a roll for. [Ali laughs]
Dre: Sure. That’s fine.
Austin: This is a Weave Magic. It says that, right? It says, “When you Weave Magic,” so.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: What’s your— Channel’s plus 3. That’s not bad. So, that is— and you have advantage, because—
Dre: Oh, of course.
Austin: Because of Gur not being here.
Ali: Aw.
Austin: 5 plus 3 plus 3 is 11.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: So, you succeed at this. Sorry, 5 plus 3— the third plus 3 is not the other die. It’s the, you know what I mean.
Dre: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. So, what you reach out— what’s the visual? What are you doing to do this?
Dre: I can't remember…
Austin: With Brnine, it just sort of happened. You were reaching out. You were compelled to reach, but here, this seems like a different, more practiced, more—
Dre: Sure.
Austin: You know. You didn't know what you were doing when you did it with Brnine.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Or with Cori. With Cori, you did it…
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: How did you do it with Cori? I don't remember.
Dre: I think the one with Cori was kind of more of just, like…like, the emotional desperation.
Austin: Right. Right.
Dre: I think this—
Austin: Is that what this ends up being too?
Dre: No.
Austin: Okay.
Dre: So, I talked before about how, like, I made that comparison to— I forget the name of the concrete, but like, the type of concrete where it’s like, it’s got fiber in it, right?
Austin: Mm, mm-hmm.
Dre: That’s how Figure’s Russian sage is, so like, where Figure has those, like, gaps and cracks, the Russian sage is kind of working through like fiber.
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: I think Figure is journaling, [Austin: Ooh.] and they are journaling about their confusion, their fear, and their excitement about what this connection means.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Dre: And as they are doing so, I think that sage kind of, like, expands and also smooths out across their body.
Austin: Ooh, interesting.
Dre: And I— and suddenly what Figure is writing is no longer what Figure has in their mind.
Austin: Mm. They’re writing from Perennial’s perspective? Or are they writing— are they drawing? Are they…?
Dre: I think they’re drawing.
Austin: Okay.
Dre: What is…is there, like, a token or a symbol or something that they could be drawing?
Austin: Great question. Um…they’re drawing something that it takes you all night to, like, to put together, I think. God, do I really not have the map of the galaxy on this thing? Maybe I don't. On this Roll20. Clicking through everything we've seen, and I don't think I do, because I don't think it would have come up yet. All right, let me make a new thing really quick. [typing] Boom, let me drop this in here. You are seeing— this is not a token. What you're seeing is…you’re looking down on a galaxy, on the galaxy, on our galaxy, from a perspective that you've never been to before. You are looking down on it from— can you see this here? From D, which is the area formerly known as Caelestia Nullius, the place where the Nobel were from and where Autonomy Itself is from.
It’s, again, imagine you're looking down at all of the stars, you know, floating in this cycle, you know, in this— I mean, in this wheel, right? this galactic wheel. And it is a— and this is the sketch you're drawing, right? It’s like you're painting a picture of the galaxy, and the sketch that you're drawing is imbued with an emotional weight which is like drawing a picture from the tallest building in your hometown before you leave it forever, and you get the sense— I mean, I think that this is— you wake up knowing this. You finish this. You come to, knowing another time, another place. Not the Nobel’s, you know, that arm of the galaxy. In some other version of the world, Perennial left there and came to here and became the Perennial we know, left a culture behind, left a people behind, is desperate to get back but can't ever, will never return.
In drawing it— you know, a thing I do sometimes is you know that I'm not a map person generally, but you know, I've also been known to draw maps, right? You know, you think about this Chimera’s Cadent thing, right? And for me, making this very goofy Chimera’s Cadent map was as important as mapping out the actual dungeon stuff, as important as statting out the enemies you would fight and what their abilities were, as important as thinking about who the Chimeric Cadent was. That practice of putting together— picking the brush to make this weird glow of this goofy lantern-shaped moon was an emotional process for preparing for running this story, and I think that this drawing of the galaxy from a position that is above it looking down on it from her original home is…embedded in it is all of the emotional knowledge that you need to understand what’s happened here, and what’s happened here is this:
Perennial comes from a time that we already saw some of back in the Road to PARTIZAN, a time when this other Divine culture, the Divine Collaborate was betrayed by Orion—by, at that point, Oricom—was driven to the ends of the galaxy, driven to this end, to what, again, we have come to call Caelestia Nullia. And from there, with all of the power they had remaining, they did something we have never done in this game and that I will probably never do again. I mean, we’ll see. They sent her back in time to as far back as they could, which was just before all the Twilight Mirage stuff happened, and she had a mission, and that mission was the thing we saw in the Armour Astir game in the Road to PARTIZAN, which was to find a way to stop the— to get enough power to stop the Divine Principality from becoming as powerful as it could potentially be, which is where the Perennial Wave stuff comes from. And so she left that timeline, effectively, and will never get back there.
And I think that, like, as you draw— what you finish with is a drawing again and again and again and again and again. You've drawn this a bunch of times, or maybe there’s a second drawing. That’s the one drawing. The rest of the book is filled with sketches from the center of the galaxy looking outward, right? Where she came to rest with the help of Teasel Mode and the rest of the— of Horizon who had been, like, the, you know, deep predecessors to what eventually partially becomes Millennium Break, deep descendants of a sort of revolutionary aspect of the Rapid Evening. You might recall this is the— again, the Armour Astir game we played in the Road to PARTIZAN.
And from there, she saw the galaxy and tried to influence it. Gur Sevraq was not lying when he said that this isn't real but it has happened too. Again and again and again and again, she has used all of the power in the galaxy that she can muster to try to keep the Principality from doing the thing it does, from repeating the one shape we know: the shape of empire. And she’s gotten close, but she hasn't done it. And she tried it in direct ways, and she tried it in indirect ways, and things always fell back to it. There are things she can't do. She can't hurt Divines directly. This is why Perennial is weak, Perennial powers are weak in this system against Divines. It’s why the Perennial Wave did not knock Divines out.
It is overwhelming to have all of this fed into you at once. You know? Gur Sevraq is the way that they are now for many reasons. And she’s getting tired. She has turned back the clock countless times, and it keeps breaking. And so she started investing in very wild plans, plans like Clementine Kesh. Fuck it. Let’s see what happens. Someone picked this up recently. Someone noted something that I was very happy with, in, again, one of the official hashtags. Not the “official” hashtags, but in one of the hashtags, someone noted that the— I think it was the Road to PALISADE episode 20 intro, you can hear Gur Sevraq falling from Fort Icebreaker over and over again, living through it again and again and again and again, because that’s the perspective Gur has gotten, has gotten Perennial’s perspective of the repeating, the inescapability of it.
And, you know, for most of us, if we had to live through our own lives 10 times and be like, “Well, I'll just change this,” and then like, fundamentally, when the thing you're trying to change is not, like, what college did you go to, but whether, like, imperialism still exists, it’s maddening, and it’s tiring, and it costs. She can't do it again. She can't turn it back. There’s no more resetting the clock. This is the chance she has. And you reached out, and she reached back.
[“Nothing is Stationary” by Jack de Quidt plays]