The Road to PARTIZAN 10: Microscope Pt. 2
AUSTIN (as Cymbidum): A message from Cymbidium, elect of the divine Past, to Mourningbride, Apostate Verse, Betrayer of Stel Nideo, Initiate of the Sable Court, and former Elect… and Ruiner… of the divine Courage.
Mourningbride… Cousin… to send you any words at all is, in some corners of Divinity, heresy. To send you these words specifically, well… perhaps that I risk doing so speaks to the fever this wretched library has given me.
[Jack De Quidt’s ‘HOURGLASS. SUNRISE. CRYSTALLINE.’ plays]
I do not mean that as an empty turn of phrase. These halls, their shelves and screens and speakers all blaring; they’ve made me delirious, sick. It is a disorienting place. all overflowing with accounts. Not history, accounts. History, Past tells me, is the thing we’ve built with what we have available.
And this is what has led to my dichotomous sickness, cousin: First, the clear understanding that what we were taught in the Garden was not untouched reflection of reality, but was shaped, and in turn, we were shaped too.
Second, the realization that I was formed such that now, even with every account in front of me, every speech, every march, every factory, every faith, every fight, every fallen child, and every rising star, there are still histories I can’t quite build. A vision of our past that does not render Divinity as glorious inevitability, but... ackh.
I do not know if it is, as I have been accused, a simple limit of my imagination… or if I have neglected the final lesson of our Cultivation, and suffered a loss of control. Or… if it is simply a failure in my courage. Which is why I turn to you, cousin. I seek your council as one who has walked this particular, terrible path. I trust your judgment, and your discretion.
I will see you soon.
[‘HOURGLASS. SUNRISE. CRYSTALLINE.’ finishes playing]
Transcribed by Ril @kaorukeihi
AUSTIN: Welcome to Friends at the Table, an actual play podcast focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends. I am your host, Austin Walker, and I am sending you a message from… the future past? I’m adding this in to the original recording of our Microscope game which we recorded months ago and that we’ll get to in just a minute.
AUSTIN: I’ve got a couple of announcements here today. First is that we have some new kind of winter/holiday themed merch that is available to you at FriendsAtTheTable.shop. They’re really ool, we’ve worked with the artist Lily Pfaff—you can find her on Twitter @spatterdocs—to create a Bluff City Zoo line of apparel. If you only listen to the main, um, feed of the show, you might be confused as to why we might be selling merchandise as if it were from a fictional zoo. Wll, that tells me you should really go to FriendsAtTheTable.cash, and listen to our Bluff City games, because as the shirt says, this Zoo is a winner!
AUSTIN: There’s a lot of drama and comedy that has happened with this zoo over the last couple of years, and so we thought that maybe giving it a shirt of its own with a bunch of animal and maybe a hotdog inside of a snow globe was a good idea. And so, there is a couple T-shirts, a straight cut and a fitted cut, along with a kind of crew neck sweatshirt available. The- I wanna say that the straight cut tees go up to 6X, the fitted tees go up to 4X, the sweatshirts go up to 5X. We always try to be really inclusive on sizes as best as we can. There’s also a great Bluff City Zoo Snowfari- I should have said, this is a- it’s a Snowfari because we thought of the corniest thing a bad zoo could come up with, and it’s the word “Snowfari”. Um, the Bluff City Zoo tote bag, also available, $18. I think all the prices are really reasonable, and I think that it is some of our most fun merch, I really love the idea of kind of diegetic merchandise because I’m a worldbuilding nerd, and so… You know, this is why we leave blank spaces—so we can fill them in with T-shirts with puns all over them. So, go check that out at FriendsAtTheTable.shop.
AUSTIN: The other half of the announcement is that we’re gonna have one more week of The Road to PARTIZAN after this, which will be a sort of summary episode, a recap episode. This is actually also taken from our Patreon feed. Jack, Dre, and I did a sort of a readthrough the entire Microscope timeline, and, kind of, really fun, because Jack was only there for some of the games, Dre was only there for some of the games, and so there’s a sort of coming together of like “Oh hey, here’s what- Here is the big picture in the end.” And that was really fun. That’ll be about an hour, and so that’ll be the last game in The Road to PARTIZAN.
AUSTIN: And then the week after that will be PARTIZAN Episode 00. So that’ll be on December, 19. 19th or 20th, depending on what your time zone is, probably. Um, that’ll come out, and that’ll be PARTIZAN 00. So, look forward to that. You know, we thought about trying to rush it out, and put out the kind of worldbuilding summary as like a quick standalone, or even attach to the end of this. But we would rather spend that extra week making sure that first few episodes of this, of PARTIZAN are, like, as good as they can be, making sure that the music is on point, making sure that we don’t have any pickups we need to do, we’ve time to do that. I’d rather do that, you know- at- at our own pace rather than rush it out. I think that the quality will be- will reflect that, and also, you know, we’re still getting it out in 2019 somehow. We, uh- We, definitely- Hopefully it will be a lot of stuff for you to listen to out the gate, so that there will be a- stuff for you to listen to if you’re traveling for holidays, or for end of the year, anything like that.
AUSTIN: So, I hope you’re looking forward to that. I guess if you’re listening to this, the final full game episode of The Road to PARTIZAN, then you probably are looking forward to it.
AUSTIN: I’ll also note really quick that there’ve been- If you, like, finish listening to this like “I need to know more about this world, I wanna know what’s up with all the different Stels, I wanna know what their architecture is like, I wanna know what type of mechs they got.” Then you should really really really consider joining our the Patreon, FriendsAtTheTable.cash, because I have done, at this point, by the time this goes live, six, and there’ll be one more coming, seven worldbuilding episodes from the series called Drawing Maps. Those are standalone podcasts with a bunch of notes that I’ve taken, and kind of like made outline for about each Stel as I’ve built them as factions with a bunch of squads in the- in Austin Ramsay’s Beam Saber game. And kind of like break down what building a faction in that game means. And then also just like a lot of worldbuilding, a lot of me being like “Oh, I had this breakthrough about the way I can organize these things aesthetically!”, “Oh, here’s…” Again, what the architecture is like, here is what I’m trying to evoke. You know, things like philosophical or political touchstones, and kind of big picture ideas that influenced the direction of all these different aspects of the world, but maybe won’t make direct appearance in the season. But it was just kind of important for me to know what they are as a storyteller and a worldbuilder. All that stuff is in the Drawing Maps episodes, I go into depth on every single Stel and the kind of the bigger background stuff. And coming up after this episode there will be a really good Drawing Maps episode—I think, I have to record it still—but I’ve written a bunch on the timeline of PARTIZAN, on the way the calendars work, the ways years work—which is a weird thing when you have a kind of galaxy-wide space empire—along with what would be the debut of what the kind of world map looks like, both for Partizan specifically which is what matters to us week to week, but also the kind of like state of the galaxy at large, just so you can see it. Because I think- I think… You know, a lot of people have already brought up to me that they want to do a home game set in a different part of the galaxy, or they’re just curious, like what is going on over here? And so we also have a really great map for those things. I will let you check those out yourself, but I just— It is extremely, extremely good, I’m very excited for people to see this… For people to see this stuff, it’s a bit of a surprise, so make sure to check that out.
AUSTIN: Alright, with that said, I’m going to throw to probably myself introducing the next term of Microscope.
Originally transcribed by: Cy @vlasdygoth
AUSTIN: How's it going?
DRE: Trying to figure out what this focus is gonna be.
AUSTIN: Good question! Could be anything. I mean I guess it couldn't be anything because we've said…
DRE: [cross] Right.
AUSTIN: No, to like, outside stuff here. Um… I'm trying to find those rules again on picking the focus, here we go. "Play can jump backwards and forwards in time, all across history. To keep everyone playing the same game, the lens picks a focus, unifying a theme— a unifying theme that ties the story together, at least until the next lens picks a new one. The focus can be anything, a person, a place, a thing, an institution, an event, a period, a concept, anything you want! The lens can do something that already came up in play—" Excuse me, "Already came up in play, or— make up something new on the spot. If you're making something new, you'll usually declare a focus, then make a period, event, or scene to show what you're talking about. For instance, the new focus is going to be… the sinking of the Gabriel Dora. It's a luxury liner that goes down mysteriously, so first I'm making a new event where the ship sinks in the north Atlantic with no known survivors. Write down each focus, and who chose it on a card so that as history unfolds, you can look back and see how you explored it. If a new lens is interested in previous focus, they can pick the same focus again, or pick a related focus that looks at things from a different angle."
AUSTIN: [cont'd] "For instance, the old focus was President Galviston, patriarch of the Lone Star Republic. During play we found out that he died in office, eaten away by an illness. The new lens wants to explore that, so she makes the new focus the last days of Galvis— Galviston's presidency. Picking the focus is powerful, and lets you set the direction of the game. Don't hesitate to make up a focus, even if you don't have a clear idea why it's interesting. Those details will emerge as you play. [DRE laughs] When in doubt, pick a small, concrete focus, like a particular person or an instant rather than a broad or vague one. The narrower the focus, the more detailed and personal the history will be to play." I'm also gonna make a list down here that is what all the focuses have been. Or may— I'll put it up here. Focuses so far, maybe. You know? Focuses… One. Religion. Austin. Two. … cool. So Dre, what are you thinking here, for a focus?
DRE: Hmm. Well… I'm trying to remember… where we specifically left off at the end of the For The Queen game? Because—
AUSTIN: We didn't figure it out. So. Yeah. We, do you want me to tell you that?
DRE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Alright, so, we left off with the uh, arriv— so. By default, the way the game is written, For The Queen is supposed to end when the queen is attacked. Here, one second. Uh… You go through all the cards and then eventually you hit the card that is like, "The queen is attacked!" As a quick reminder, some of like the… the… uh. …The things that were going on with that? There were four characters who were a retinue for the Apokine who was going to, uh, negotiate with the, with the, then the Princept of, of the Divine Principality. Stuff that was up in the air. Stuff that was in play. One, I was playing a character named Modus Maria, who was a Branched, who was there to be like a guard? As part of an alliance with the, with Apostolos. I was also clearly there because I knew that the Divine Integrity was on board. And was suspicious of what the Apokine was going to do with Integrity. I don't offhand remember the other character names?
SYLVIA: Mine was Orbit Shard?
AUSTIN: Orbit Shard, who was a loyal soldier to the, to the Apokine?
SYLVIA: [cross] Yeah.
AUSTIN: Who had gained prominence specifically because you were the sole survivor of a battle that the Apokine ordered that was a bad order, I remember that. And you also were um… you were the one who was given Integrity in a box to protect, do you remember that?
SYLVIA: Yeah, I believe the cliffhanger we left it on was whether or not I'd talk to it.
AUSTIN: Right. We, we did do that, that actually… y'know, whether or not you did that was definitely, I think, a core question at the end? Dre was playing Eudora, who was a political prisoner, or, who was supposedly a political prisoner, but actually was a stand-in for a political prisoner who had died in custody as a child, right?
DRE: Yes.
AUSTIN: Like a hostage. And then… Janine was playing like, a soldier/parental figure for the… for the, the Apokine? Someone who helped raise the Apokine? And that— her name was cool. What was it? Um, fuck, I forget what her name was. Something Gennadiy.
KEITH: Cool Gennadiy.
AUSTIN: That's it. Cool Gennadiy.
DRE: Mhm! Nailed it.
AUSTIN: There we go, Antigone! Antigone Gennadiy. Great name. Who saved the, the… the Apokine's life once. We ended that game by… hitting the card that was the Queen is under attack, or in our case, the Apokine is under attack. "The Apokine is under attack, do you defend them?" And so what I said at that point was, we could answer that question then, or what we could do is uh, zoom in the same way we did after playing Dusk to Midnight, and start playing uh… Beam Saber.
AUSTIN: We decided not to play Beam Saber, and so here is where we are, we don't know what happens here. The thing that we'd last seen was that the Apokine and the whole crew had basically arrived at a false mirage? There was like a… um. A fake Twilight Mirage with like a bunch of asteroids inside of a different man-made nebula? That had a bunch of palaces on it? And that was where the Princept and like, all of the leaders, or like representatives of all the different major Stels had, had sent, so that they could be there for the negotiations? And I, what I was gonna do is run, basically a downtime episode of Beam Saber that was like, about downtime life for the crew as the negotiations were happening?
AUSTIN: And so yeah, like I think that was where it was going. We kind of just arrived for, to, where the negotiations would be. And there's more and more and more, I can't read through all of this, but we kind of go on to set the stage a lot? So I don't think the attack happens. I think where we leave it is very much like… here we go. Like, will there be, will there be a, basically, will the Apokine sell out the Apostolosians? Or the Apostolosian autonomy in order to keep them safe? The kind of story we had told was, the Apokine has seen lots of their people die. Like, lots of their people die in this war that they cannot win. As far as they can tell, like, um. And so I think that is where we kind of left it. Do you wanna make Apostolos the, the… lens? Or the focus, rather?
DRE: Yes, I think so.
AUSTIN: Okay. So lens number two, is Apostolos. And that's Dre. Alright. Um, so, now you create either a scene, an event, a period, or a two nested things. What would you like to do?
DRE: Hm… I think an event.
AUSTIN: Okay. I'm gonna make this Apokine travels event uh, light because it succeeded? They, we didn't get killed on the way there?
DRE: Right.
AUSTIN: So that part of it at least is safe. What happens after this, we don't know.
DRE: And so you said the kinda core question for the Apokine was whether they sold out or not basically because, in doing so maybe selling out would like, provide them more safety or more resources, or?
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah, I mean I think the, the very specific thing in my mind that I don't know. What I do know is, I think there is a Stel Apostolos or maybe we name it something different? But there is, one of the five Stels is the territory that Apostolos had, and then also this entire arm that is green. Did I move y'all? Yeah. The question for me is, is that a volun— is this another, OriCom situation where, y'know. The Apokine delivers… Integrity to the Divine Principality as a gift, and buys the like, safety and freedom of the Apostolosian people. Is this like, a great sin? That was gonna hang over Apostolos for, you know, a while. Or is it like, you know what, fuck y'all, imma blow you up, I'm gonna try to cut the head off of this snake, and whatever happens happens, but in the long run, Apostolos does become, does get conquered and becomes a minor Stel— or maybe it's not Stel Apostolos, maybe it's the Stel of whoever conquers Apostolos instead, you know what I mean, like?
DRE: Right.
AUSTIN: I don't know, we can figure that out, but, but, what is definitely true is that their territory and the rest of that… arm will be, will come under Divine Principality control.
DRE: Sure.
AUSTIN: But we can figure that out.
DRE: [cross] Um… I mean I think the, the event card I put down here is that option of… the Apokine saying fuck y'all.
AUSTIN: Okay.
DRE: And going down in a blaze of glory.
AUSTIN: Okay. What's that look like? So… The Apokine attempts to assassinate or successfully assassinates? What, what is it?
DRE: Hmm. Let's say attempts.
AUSTIN: Okay. And fails? Or…
DRE: Yeah, I don't think it succeeds.
AUSTIN: Okay. And that is, is that the Princept? Is that the leader of… of the Divine Principality?
DRE: Mhm.
AUSTIN: And is that using Integrity?
DRE: I'm trying to remember what that— I'm trying to remember how Integrity works, so what that would look like.
AUSTIN: I mean, it would look like— or, or it could've been using… it could've been um. Sylvia's[1] character, Orbit Shard, was who was given Integrity? Y'know? The way we saw Integrity in COUNTER/weight was like, it went into your body— it was like… [sighs] Remind me, Sylvia?
SYLVIA: It was like—
AUSTIN: [cross] Like a spine and wings?
SYLVIA: Yeah, it basically, I think the way we described it was that it sort of connected onto the um… spine and then sort of formed armor similar to like a…
AUSTIN: Right. Yes.
SYLVIA: I think Warframe and Kamen Rider were my two touchstones at the time?
[Keith laughs]
AUSTIN: Classic!
SYLVIA: Yeah! Y'know.
DRE: This is starting to sound more familiar! [laughs]
AUSTIN: Uh huh. We've been making this show for a long time.
KEITH: Yeah.
DRE: Mhm!
KEITH: I do like that it— the, the thing that Integrity does is integrate into you, that is a fun play on…
AUSTIN: Yeah. Yeah, the Guyver— Jack Morton in the chat mentions, mentions the Guyver suit, yes Guyver was another touchstone for sure. So, Dre. Bad news it doesn't go well? Or is this… how is this, light or dark?
DRE: The idea that just came to me is what if, you know, the Apokine attempts to assassinate the Princept four different kinds with each character.
AUSTIN: Wait say that—
DRE: From that game.
AUSTIN: Oh, like over the course of that… stay, you mean? Or.
DRE: [cross] Yeah.
AUSTIN: Wow. I like that. So—
DRE: And maybe like, Eudora is the first because that's very easy to be like, well.
AUSTIN: Mhm.
DRE: Y'know… I. I can't remember if Eudora was she or they, it's…
AUSTIN: It's been a minute, yeah. But.
DRE: ...blanking in my head right now. But you know, if the Apokine is like, well, y'know, Eudora was really just a political prisoner, Eudora's not really a true family member of mine—
AUSTIN: [cross] Right.
DRE: And then probably like, Sylvia's character using Integrity is probably like the last hurrah.
AUSTIN: [cross] Right. Right.
DRE: The most obvious thing that the Apokine can no longer deflect from
AUSTIN: Yeah. So using all four members of, of their retinue… does, does the Apokine die from this? Like, do they… or are they captured? Like, what's the…
DRE: Yeah, I think at that point they're captured.
AUSTIN: Okay. Like, in, so— I guess we'll find out— it, that's, we'll find out what this means, we shouldn't answer more than that. Alright! Is there a nested scene here, or is that just it?
DRE: No, I think that's good.
AUSTIN: Okay. So now we continue. Again, going to the… left, I believe. Ah… yep. So Keith, you're up next. The focus is Apostolos.
KEITH: Apostolos, great. Um.
AUSTIN: It was they/them for Eudora, yes.
DRE: [cross] Yeah.
AUSTIN: Because they were Apostolosian, that makes sense, yeah of course.
KEITH: Oh, the, I don't know if you can fix this, Austin, but it says "sparked by the resin heart" is on… in between— there we go.
AUSTIN: Yeah, I got it, I got it, yeah, thank you.
KEITH: Um. … Jeez. Where— I'm looking for, god this map is so big.
AUSTIN: It's very big.
KEITH: Where did we put the thing that Dre just did? Where did that go?
AUSTIN: Underneath "War Against the Branched." At the very— in between Apokine travels and Apokine, it's— it's right here.
KEITH: Okay yeah okay, great. Um…
AUSTIN: Move this over there…
KEITH: Um… I wanna, I wanna add a scene onto, onto that?
AUSTIN: Sure! What is— Is it a dictated scene, or a played scene?
KEITH: It's a played scene, so I—
AUSTIN: [cross] Okay.
KEITH: I need, I'm figuring out exactly how to phrase my question. Um…
AUSTIN: Back…
KEITH: Let's see. Um. [pause] The thing, the thing that I wanna get out of this is, um. Like, what, uh. Oh okay, here, here's the, here's the name of the scene … How— ah, god I don't— okay, here's, here's what I wanna do, so let's, let's see if we can figure out… how to say it.
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah, we can start there and then figure out— yeah, totally.
KEITH: I, I wanna ask a question that gets us from uh… the um. The Apokine is, is essentially is, Dre you said captured, or?
DRE: [cross] Captured.
KEITH: Is that the word that we used, captured?
DRE: Yeah.
KEITH: I wanna know how we get from there to—that territory still exists.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Totally. Okay! Okay. That sounds good. Um, so. So the question is like…
KEITH: How does— how does the Apokine's capture secure the…
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah.
KEITH: Safety of the Stel? Of that—
AUSTIN: Or the… The safety, or the—
KEITH: [cross] Of the Apostolosian people.
AUSTIN: Oh, well I mean—
KEITH: I mean it's, the war ends, right? That's the like, that. Isn't that where we landed?
AUSTIN: I'm ask— I guess that happened, does the war end? Or does, or is this just an opportunity to slam them harder? You have the authority here. You can say, you can ask the leading question that is like, like… what does the Apokine agree to that protects their people? Or like, um. Or… Because you could also, you could also ask the scene that's like, how, say like, how does… the Divine Principality pay back the Apokine for their treachery, you know what I mean?
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: Or, you could also just ask the question here, how does the Divine Principality secure… the, the territory of Apostolos after these assassination attempts.
KEITH: Okay, here's the, I think this is the, this is the question, what is the debt that the Apostolosians owe…
AUSTIN: [cross] Okay.
KEITH: The Divine Principality.
AUSTIN: Who is in this scene? Or who— who, what characters do you want in this scene, is the way that this, that goes.
KEITH: Um …
AUSTIN: Like, is this the Apokine, is this… the Princept—
KEITH: [cross] Yeah, I think it's the—
AUSTIN: And members of… like, royalty?
KEITH: I think it's, yeah, I think it's um… The, jeez, what is it, the, the High Clef, is that what it is? It's the High Clef?
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah, yeah it was— it used to be the High Clef, now it's—
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: The way I've been imagining it is, the Princept is like, when… the Princept is the head of, of Stel Kesh. That is like, the Prince, right?
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: Gender neutral term, whether you are, are a man, a woman, genderqueer, gnc like, whatever… y'know, nonbinary, whatever you are, Princept is the title. Whether you're agender, whatever. But Princept, so that's the head of the, of, that is like, the technical head of state. There are times in history where there was a Regent who gets like, an adjective plus the word regent as the, as their title. So we know that Aram Nideo, the first Nideo that we saw, became the Resolute Regent. And, and during his reign, he was the real leader. Not the, and he was also the head of Asterism right, like, he was both of those things. And he was originally High Clef of the Divine Free States, I don't know that the Clef, like the musical terminology continues on through to the Divine Principality, but basically it just like— it's the Princept and then the heads of the different um, Stels. Which at this point, we know are at least Nideo, and… and, uh, Kesh. And then I guess we, we, we don't know if the fourth Stel is already in place here, but we also know the Ori— Stel Orion is also here.
KEITH: Um. Okay, how about, so there's… four of us.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: Um. How— I think it's gotta be… um. I think it's gotta be, uh, the… whatever, whatever the two, I guess yeah okay, so it would be the uh, the Princept, it would be whoever is the biggest regent of the time.
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: And then it would probably be the, the Apokine and then um.
AUSTIN: Like, the Orion?
KEITH: [cross] Someone else from Apostolos.
AUSTIN: Oh, okay, so it's like, two, okay I gotcha, so it's like, the two highest leaders of, of… oh there isn't anybody else from Apostolos! That's the thing that Dre just established, that Dre—
KEITH: [cross] Oh, right, okay.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah, the Apokine used all of their people.
KEITH: Okay, alright.
AUSTIN: And got killed deep in enemy territory.
KEITH: Well then it would be, it would be uh, the Apokine, and then, the Princept and two regents, then.
AUSTIN: Yeah so it's like— or like, the Princept, the head of hou— of Stel…
KEITH: I was thinking that it was gonna be like, the prisoner and then one person who technically has some footing?
AUSTIN: [cross] Right.
KEITH: To not… agree to things?
AUSTIN: [cross] Right, no, I— we just—
KEITH: [cross] But whatever! Fuck it.
AUSTIN: There just isn't that person around, unfortunately.
KEITH: Yeah. Yep.
AUSTIN: Because, because Dre made the very cool decision of like, all four of them were secretly assassins. So. Yeah. I would say that that is, House— or Stel Nideo, Stel Kesh, and Stel Orion's leaders, plus the Princept. Or, or, sorry, plus… Stel Orion, Stel Nideo, the Princept, who is also the head of Stel Kesh, and then the Apokine. So, those are the four.
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: So, those are the required characters. I guess it does say, max two each? But, I'm gonna throw that rule out the window. Uh, choose characters.
KEITH: Max two people per scene?
AUSTIN: No no, max— you as the, as the scene maker can only require— or ban two characters per scene.
KEITH: Oh, okay, got it.
AUSTIN: So you could, you really, you could only be like, the Princept and the… um. The uh… the Apokine, or whatever, right?
KEITH: [cross] Right, Okay.
AUSTIN: Which makes sense, 'cause you, you shouldn't be able to say, no, Sylvia you have to be in this scene no matter what, y'know?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: And if you were able to say four characters are required, then that makes sense. Um, we now pick… characters. We go around in a circle.
AUSTIN: Uh, and that is… Set the stage, where is this set, actually? What is— is this just like, in a palace, is this in a, interrogation room, what's it look like?
KEITH: I think it's in the prison, it's like—
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: Whatever facility they have constructed to hold…
AUSTIN: In this fake Twilight Mirage asteroid base palace thing, okay.
KEITH: Right. Yeah.
AUSTIN: Um, so, each player picks a character to play in the scene, the person to the right of the player making the scene— so this is Dre, based on my list at the bottom, Dre, you pick first. Who do you wanna play in this scene?
DRE: Alright, so who are the named people we have? The Apokine, the—
AUSTIN: The Apokine, the Princept, the head of the current like, entire Divine Principality, and then the head of House Kesh— or Stel, or sorry, Stel Nideo, so whoever the current, shitty Stel Nideo person is— [Dre laughs] or maybe they're good right now! Who knows. And then the head of Stel Orion.
DRE: Uhm… I'll do the head of Stel Orion.
AUSTIN: Okay, cool. Um, which, we don't really know much about, in terms of— we talked a little bit about them as like, mercantile? I thought about them a lot as like the Hanseatic League? In history? Like, or any kind of merchant republic? They… I mean, what we know from the map is… they've done well for themselves.
KEITH: Yeah!
AUSTIN: They've expanded a lot, I think that they're like, very mining coalition-y? Lots of like, raw material gaining, um lots of um, merchant families, I think they probably have a fucked up system of like… you know, selling your future servitude in order to like, get your— move your family up in ranking and shit like that, y'know? So that's—
KEITH: Like an indentured servant thing?
AUSTIN: But not just like an indentured servant, but like, an indentured servant— servitudeness for the future, y'know? There's a lot of like, the same way that you would— think about the way parents talk about like, getting their kids into good high schools, or getting their kids into a good college? Like, that but like, oh yeah I, I like— before this baby was even born, I signed them up to join up with… minor house whatever's y'know, uh, resource coalition, y'know? And like, what you mean is you've signed them up for a lifetime of labor. Cool.
KEITH: Well you don't like— well, y'know. If you uh. [sarcastic] If you don't start them early in a resource house—
AUSTIN: [cross] Right. Of course!
KEITH: Then, what future could they have!
DRE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Exactly. Alright, so Dre, you are at the head of that. Then, the person to the right is me, I will be… the Princept. Sylvia.
SYLVIA: Who's, who's available, then?
AUSTIN: The head of House Nideo, or the… or the Apokine.
SYLVIA: Uh… I think I'm gonna go with… the head of House Nideo.
KEITH: Ugh.
AUSTIN: Okay. That means, yeah Keith, you get pushed into a—
SYLVIA: [laughs] I think we were both kinda like… ooh, not that one!
AUSTIN: Uh huh!
KEITH: I don't know how to play the Apokine...
AUSTIN: Well.
SYLVIA: [whispering] Me neither!
AUSTIN: No one does! Um … God, there's, there is like another version of this scene where the Apokine doesn't even get to speak?
KEITH: We could do that!
[laughter]
AUSTIN: That's terrifying, that's like maybe the best— so, here's a question, Keith—
KEITH: [cross] Yeah.
AUSTIN: Is the Fourth House established then, do you wanna play the voice of the Fourth House?
KEITH: Um… the Fourth House is established—
AUSTIN: [cross] Or the Fourth Stel.
KEITH: I don't wanna play—
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: The Fourth Stel is established, I don't wanna play them.
AUSTIN: Um… I'm happy to trade. Do you want me to—
SYLVIA: [cross] Did you— did you really wanna be your Nideo guy again?
KEITH: No, no, I can do it.
SYLVIA: [cross] Okay.
KEITH: We don't know— how— do we know much about this Apokine? Is this—
AUSTIN: [cross] The Apokine barely spoke— this was one of the things— did you see the art for the Apokine when we did this? One second.
KEITH: Um, I don't think so.
DRE: Oh god, which card were they?
AUSTIN: God. The, the, oh my god which card were they?
DRE: Oh, yeah, okay, yep, uh huh! Yeah, okay, yeah.
AUSTIN: I have to find it. Did you find it?
KEITH: [cross] Oh jeez, is it this? Is it this like very, with the, with the like, the armor dress?
DRE: No.
AUSTIN: Wait, no.
KEITH: No?
DRE: Hold on I got it, I got it.
AUSTIN: Okay. It's what Dre just put in the chat. In, in—
KEITH: This is what I saw.
AUSTIN: Oh no, that's sick, that's like, that's like old school Apokine.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: It's the one above it that looks like a Sith lord?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Uh huh!
KEITH: Jeez. Apokine's a Sith lord now?
AUSTIN: This one is.
DRE: Maybe.
AUSTIN: Maybe. I mean, you can see why I was curious if maybe they were gonna betray their people! But instead, they turned out to be a lord of assassins, which, you know, fair.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: So, they barely spoke, they like, whispered sometimes.
KEITH: They whispered, okay.
AUSTIN: [cross] They were evasive, they were elusive, gaining their, their trust was like, rare. As Katie says, they are the hottest— they are the hottest queen in the For the Queen game.
KEITH: Alright, I'll give it a shot.
AUSTIN: Okay. Um. Y'know, I think this is like, as theatrical as you can imagine. The floodlight hits the Princept who is like, standing up on a, sitting behind a, a… a tall… like, not a pedestal, what do you call it, like a lectern but like a giant one? Looking down. And is like…
AUSTIN (as THE PRINCEPT): So-called Apokine. Did you think we didn't know what you were doing? An answer.
KEITH (as THE APOKINE): I didn't consider either way.
SYLVIA (as NIDEO): How like Apostolos to do that.
AUSTIN (as THE PRINCEPT): What do you suppose we should do with your people, Apokine?
KEITH (as THE APOKINE): [sighs] Send another one to kill the Precept.[2]
THE PRINCEPT: You can send as many as you wish. We will kill them all. Until there are none left.
DRE (as ORION): Seems to be a waste of a… determined group of people.
AUSTIN (as THE PRINCEPT): Always looking for hard workers, eh Orion?
DRE (as ORION): Just opportunities.
AUSTIN (as THE PRINCEPT): Oh, they have a noble warrior's spirit, I suppose. And they're close to the Branched. I'll give you that.
SYLVIA (as NIDEO): Are we really entertaining this right now? I— the whole time, I thought we were joking about this whole Apostolos thing. And now after this, we're still considering it?
AUSTIN (as THE PRINCEPT): [sighs] Apokine, how much do the lives of your people mean to you?
KEITH (as THE APOKINE): Any answer I could give would be a mistake, and any move you could make would be a mistake.
SYLVIA (as NIDEO): Oh, they're fun.
AUSTIN (as THE PRINCEPT): They're so fun!
DRE (as ORION): Princept, you're always asking the wrong question. It doesn't matter what their people mean to them, or at least it won't in…
DRE: I think— he checks his watch—
DRE (as ORION): I don't know, like, ten minutes?
AUSTIN (as THE PRINCEPT): [chuckles] Of course, of course.
DRE (as ORION): It's what— it's how much their people matter to us.
SYLVIA (as NIDEO): Speak for yourself, I've already got the answer to that question.
[Austin laughs]
SYLVIA: And— I need to say, the representative for House Nideo uh, has their feet up on the table that they're sitting at?
[laughter]
AUSTIN: Oh my god!
SYLVIA: And is eating like— little berries or a snack or something like that.
AUSTIN: Ugh! Fuck off! God.
DRE: … You get hungy.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Uh huh!
KEITH: The Apokine also has some of the berries.
AUSTIN: [laughing] Okay, great! We feed— we feed our guests, you know?
SYLVIA: Oh, of course!
AUSTIN (as THE PRINCEPT): What do you suspect we should do then, Orion? If you're so willing to offer a hand to these people.
DRE (as ORION): Oh, I mean… We interrogated four of supposedly their closest associates and almost none of them knew… who the Apokine really was, what they looked like… It's… It's a pretty seemingly easy situation for just… A charismatic enough person to just slide in and… make sure that we steer Apostolos on a more beneficial path for all of us.
AUSTIN (as THE PRINCEPT): Oh… Oh Apokine, all of the… the shadows, and… the long black cloth and the face mask… You thought you were intimidating us! You're giving us an opportunity, Orion is right … We'll send someone back in your stead. And guide the Apostolosians… under our wing. And… soon enough, we won't even need our people there. They'll willingly die for us. They'll be us. Everything will be us.
SYLVIA (as NIDEO): Ah, this is why I leave the ideas up to you two. Let me know when you need me to sign an order, alright? [laughter] Ready to mobilize the soonest you need me.
AUSTIN (as THE PRINCEPT): As always, appreciated, Nideo.
AUSTIN: [laughs] Oh, we got a contempt in the chat!
SYLVIA: As it should be.
AUSTIN: Uh huh! No, I think that's an answer, right?
DRE: Yeah. Uh— can I, can I slide in one last thing to this scene?
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah, please! Of course.
DRE: I think the Oricon… uh, Orion I guess is what we're calling…?
AUSTIN: Yeah, it's Stel Orion, so it's, it's, yeah. God.
DRE: Yeah. Um… I think he laughs and… puts out a handshake to, to the other three members and says—
DRE (as ORION): This is what I appreciate about our, our group meetings. They're just, always so based on a mutual progression.
AUSTIN: [laughs] Great! Good!
SYLVIA: [cross] God.
AUSTIN: Love it. Progression. Um, so, is the debt here like, one of… like, a knowing loyalty, or like, um, what's— not manipulated but like um… there's another word I'm looking for. …
DRE: Hm…
AUSTIN: Like, it's basically loyalty on the back of duplicity, is really what I'm saying.
DRE: Yeah. Right.
AUSTIN: Is that accurate? You think it's fair?
KEITH: That seems like what's happening.
AUSTIN: Man… Um, I'm gonna actually break this into two different things. The material action here, which is like… Divine Princi— also, I love that we've already gotten to. Uh. A royal conspiracy that replaces one head of state with another? That's disguised to corrupt the, the lineage of, of, of a nation's power. [slowly, typing] "Divine Principality sends… A fake Apokine back to, to uh, lead Apostolos and turn it into a Stel." And so, then like, the… the thing that they're owed, basically, or the thing that they— the thing that, the debt is like, loyalty built on a lie. On a lie. On the lie of returning their Apokine.
KEITH: I— I guess the way that I would, I would phrase it is that the debt that they felt they were owed was um. Control of their entire territory without a transition period.
AUSTIN: The debt that the Apostolosians— Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah yeah.
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: Totally. Yeah, I see, I was misreading your question, that makes perfect sense. So yeah. … Yeah. There's no like, soft… there's no like, over the next five generations, we'll slowly integrate you.
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: This is overnight, and is as like manipulative and shitty as possible.
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: Totally.
KEITH: Some uh. Some, some, some people that run pirate radio shows probably—
AUSTIN: Oh, definitely.
KEITH: [laughing] Probably figured it out!
AUSTIN: I'm gonna go ahead and say this is a dark scene? That seems right?
DRE: Yeah! Fair!
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Also, going back real quick, does that, was the "Logos refuses to acknowledge" bright or dark?
KEITH: Um.
DRE: Oh, um…
AUSTIN: I know it was fun! But I don't know if it was dark or light.
SYLVIA: I could see there being a case for light with Logos not working…
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah.
SYLVIA: With the Stels?
DRE: Yeah…
KEITH: I, yeah, I just don't, I don't have a good enough grasp on the Prophet, but all the other stuff has been white, essentially.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: Except that the, the talks were, were… dark.
AUSTIN: The talks went bad, right, right, we know that they didn't integrate…
KEITH: [cross] Yeah.
AUSTIN: Nicely, or they didn't, yeah. Um, another note here real quick is… we, right now let's call it Stel Apostolos, on my map, but like it could be called whatever the fuck. We can decide if it is Stel Apokine, or Stel something else down the road.
KEITH: I think it worked— the puppet thing works best if they don't change the name.
AUSTIN: If they just leave it Apostolos. Yeah, a hundred percent.
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: Yeah, absolutely. Cool! Alright, so that was Keith. Sylvia.
SYLVIA: Alright… um… Could I do like a quick like, narrated scene?
AUSTIN: Yeah, totally, that's a dictated scene, yeah. Where do you want?
SYLVIA: A dictated scene, yeah. Well, so, the one big question relating to Apostolos and this like… sort of thing we've been setting up with them for me is like, what happened to Integrity or like, did the Stels get their hands on Integrity?
AUSTIN: [cross] Good— yes, good call. Yeah.
SYLVIA: So if, just really quickly dictating maybe that final assassination attempt that involved it.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
SYLVIA: So, the way I'm seeing this happening is… I imagine security had been pumped up after the first three assassination attempts?
AUSTIN: Oh, definitely.
SYLVIA: But… not quite enough for a Divine crashing through the wall?
AUSTIN: What is the— what is the question here, is it what happened to Integrity?
SYLVIA: Yes. The question is what happened to Integrity.
AUSTIN: [sarcastic] Am I right, 2019?
KEITH: [cross] [sarcastic] What ever happened to integrity?
AUSTIN: What ever— what ever happened to integ— when I was a kid, you went to church and you did your chores! What ever happened—
KEITH: New rule!
AUSTIN: New rule!!
KEITH: New rule, can't we just have some integrity back?
AUSTIN: In Washington?
SYLVIA: [cross] We used to have Bob Hope, Johnny Cash and Divine Integrity! And now we don’t have any of ‘em.
[Austin laughs]
KEITH: [cross] Used to be able to talk to each other!
DRE: God.
AUSTIN: Dre in the chat was saying goodnight to someone, presumably, but maybe he was saying it to us.
DRE: [cross] [jokingly] No, it was to all of you. Nope. Yep!
[laughter]
AUSTIN: So what happens? Tell me about this scene.
SYLVIA: So, I'm not gonna— as much as I'd love to just talk about an action scene at you guys for twenty minutes?
AUSTIN: Gimme the highlights, y'know?
SYLVIA: The highlights— okay, big highlight because I, since we played that game I've been thinking about how Integrity would interact with Orbit?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
SYLVIA: Who has like, a bunch of cyberware.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
SYLVIA: And the way I see it, is it basically forms musculature around that cyberware?
AUSTIN: [cross] Yooo, sick.
SYLVIA: And so, because of that, like, there is… this like, … basically, because of that like, uh, Orbit is able to sort of like, there's like a rush to this where it's like feeling back how he[3] was [they were] when [they were] like an ace pilot, almost? And so, this whole, it's basically a… very unorganized attack because of this? 'Cause [they] kinda let [themself] get out of hand and starts having fun with it. And I think what ends up happening is that there is this… Um. Like, guard for the Princept, basically that Orbit wasn't prepared for, they just weren't prepared for it at all.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
SYLVIA: And they are… What happens, basically, is there is no sign of them left after the weapons are fired, but there's no sign of Integrity, either.
AUSTIN: So it just vanishes.
SYLVIA: It has… disappeared. They weren't able to recover it?
AUSTIN: Okay.
SYLVIA: But they weren't able to… like, verify that it was dead, either.
AUSTIN: Okay.
SYLVIA: They are kind of operating under the assumption that it has been wiped from existence, essentially. Y'know?
AUSTIN: Mhm.
SYLVIA: Like, like what if lasers were coming out of— like, what if there was a flamethrower but lasers? Like, four of those basically got Integrity.
AUSTIN: Okay.
SYLVIA: And so I think the answer is just, Integrity was lost, which again works great for our sort of boomer meme that we're making?
AUSTIN: Question mark, question— our what, say again?
SYLVIA: Our boomer meme—
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah, uh huh!
SYLVIA: With "What happened to integrity" being the top text, and "Integrity is missing" being the bottom text. But I just think that—
AUSTIN: So, so just to be clear, that means not necessarily destroyed.
SYLVIA: No. But, gone.
AUSTIN: This is the end of the movie, it falls off the side of the cliff, who knows where it is.
SYLVIA: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Black or white dot?
SYLVIA: Um. I think because this is like, basically a defender of Apostolos has vanished completely, I'm gonna go with dark on this?
AUSTIN: Fair. Sounds good.
SYLVIA: [cross] It's actually coinciding with what we just did?
AUSTIN: Sounds good.
KEITH: I like that the first scene line that you made was a little bit crooked, and all of them are copied from that first one so every—
AUSTIN: I know, it's so funny, right? [Dre laughs] It works, y'know?
KEITH: It does! It has a nice look.
AUSTIN: Alright. Uh, that's your, that is your turn. My turn?
SYLVIA: Uh, yeah.
AUSTIN: Is… um. After all this stuff, still in the same long 'War Against the Branched' stuff… I'm gonna add another uh, event? Which is… it's gonna pay off a thing that we set up in that, in Keith's scene, I think? Oh, no, you know what it's gonna be? Hm. I'm adding something finally to this far right thing, the 'Acceptance of a Constant State of Conflict.' And it is… let's think. Uh… Stel Apostolos… I know what it is. It is that the Princept, um, replaces— oh, no, I got it. It's better! It's better, it's better, it's better. It's better. Alright. It is, and I have no idea—
KEITH: Better than before.
AUSTIN: Better than before. It is… [typing] uh, the Apokine, um, rescues, uh, the Princept from Stel, the child Princept, the baby Princept— no, the child. I want them to remember. The child Princept from Stel Nideo in a stunning raid.
KEITH: Wait, wait.
AUSTIN: Uh huh!
KEITH: The Apokine rescues the child Princept— okay, from Stel Nideo…
AUSTIN: [cross] Nideo, yeah. Uh, so, I'll paint you a—
KEITH: [cross] So Stel Nideo was trying to raid…
AUSTIN: Had kidnapped, had kidnapped…
KEITH: Kidnapped.
AUSTIN: The Princept.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: The Princept… who had been— I'll clarify this, who had been kidnapped, by Stel Nideo, comma, in a stunning raid. So at some point, a future Apokine, leader of Stel Apostolos, in some, at some point in time, the… Princept had been kidnapped by house— by Stel Nideo. As a way of keeping uh, control over the… the, the Divine Principality, and like giving them more authority, right? Like, a force— forced them to, to— forced Nideo— I guess forced Kesh to take a step down and let the, let whoever was in charge of Nideo again be like, the Regent, right? It kind of like bookends when Aram Nideo did this as the first Resolute Regent. The Princept is always from Kesh, correct Riley, yes. The Princept is, is a… um. What do you call it— title. Not genetic, um…
KEITH: Hereditary?
AUSTIN: Hereditary title, yeah. Princept is Hereditary. Has been for… tens of thousands of years! Or maybe it hadn't somewhere, somewhere in there.
KEITH: [cross] Does Kesh have a, have a Regent also?
AUSTIN: No. Kesh is— the Regent is—
KEITH: [cross] Just a Princept.
AUSTIN: A Regent is only the person who is in charge of everything when the Princept is not in charge, basically? Do you know what I mean?
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: You could think of that as like the… the… I mean historically, a regent is someone who is like oh yeah, the king is a baby still! So I'm gonna be the one in charge, and I'm gonna like push forward my shit, but sometimes, the Regent… is y'know, manipulating things behind the scenes so that they can continue to be the person in charge. Or you can also think about moments where like, you think about the Tokugawa Shogunate, like, minimizes the, the authority of the Japanese Emperor and moves things towards the Shogunate state, where it's, it's kind of a military leadership of Japan after the warring states period. That like, reduces the, the authority of the emperor until it's next to nothing, until that changes years later. So in this case, the Princept is being kidnapped so that the Stel— so that Stel Nideo, the Nideo family can become the leaders again, uh, and it's like outright, in a way that it has not been in a long time. I think that's part of it, um, and we get… we get the Apokine, the leader of Stel Apostolos like, paying back in a really weird way, the old debt, um, of being— I doubt this person even knows! I think think this person has no idea what the history has been between when they were added as a Stel and now. Or maybe they do, maybe they, maybe it's even more tragic if they do, and it's like but we're fuckin' here now. Y'know?
KEITH: Wait, you're saying the, the, Apokine—
AUSTIN: Yeah. I don't think—
KEITH: Is now, like… from— is now an Apostolosian.
AUSTIN: [cross] Oh absolutely— is absolutely an Apostolosian and there's probably been a bunch! This is, there's probably been hundreds of years between that last scene and now, right?
KEITH: Right, and so, so the Apostolosians— someone becomes the Apokine and then they're like, hey, just so you know, you're not in charge.
AUSTIN: Or no, I think they are in charge!
KEITH: [cross] They are in charge? Okay.
AUSTIN: Again, I think the long term plan for that trio was not, let's always have someone be in charge. It was once we take control and convince people that they are part of the Divine Principality, they should defend the Divine Principality, they agree to that. This scene to me started at this idea—
KEITH: [cross] Right.
AUSTIN: This, this moment, this event started with like, oh the first time an Apostolosian— a real Apostolosian is in charge! But I think it's way less interesting than like, this moment of action that shows that they genuinely are loyal. The Apostolosians, this Apostolosian Apokine at least, is genuinely loyal to the Divine Principality. Even as they might fight for— y'know, better rights, or more resources, or whatever the fuck happens in the long run, they are still involved. They are… y'know, this Apokine was not like, and we're gonna shut off the roads to the rest of the season six! Like, we're gonna like disappear from this, we're leaving the Divine Principality to be our own shit, um, I think that they are like actually, in this moment, I am positioned to storm Stel Nideo, and uh, and take ov— and save the, the child Princept, which… okay. Can I add one more thing?
KEITH: No!
[Dre laughs]
AUSTIN: Rescues the child Princept— [laughs] Yeah, thank you. Uh, who had been kidnapped by Stel Nideo, uh, and… um. Announces that they will raise the child themselves. So. That's actually a much bigger turn, right?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Is like— Actually, they are making a play at broader leadership? Which, that'll go great, I'm sure. Um. I wanna make this a light scene? Not because like, it's cool that there's internal conflict, but because it's gonna be— it's one of those scenes where, when you see like, the cool team that the Apokine leads, of mechs? It's, it's one of those scenes where like, even though the movie wants you to know it's a bad thing that's happening, it just, they make it, they animate it where it's real dope looking? And you're like, fuck, that looks so dope.
KEITH: It's cool robots.
AUSTIN: It's a cool— wow, cool robots! And that is my turn. Um… Apostolos is not— someone says, "has Apostolos assimilated into Stel Nideo," no, Apostolos is Stel Apostolos. It is their own fuckin' shit. It's why I like doing this live, 'cause there is like a nice version of looking and being like, wait a second! Blah blah blah. No, Apo— I don't think the Apokine has Integrity. Someone asked if Apokine had Integrity— I think it has lowercase— they have lowercase i integrity. Um, alright!
KEITH: Oh, so they have… they don't have the Divine Integrity.
AUSTIN: No, they just are, they are, they have integrity.
KEITH: But they do have integrity the quality.
AUSTIN: Yes. Which means, maybe they actually think they're like— yeah, you know what? I don't trust, I can't send this Prince, the Princept, Princept back to House Kesh where they're vulnerable, I— I will raise the Princept behind Apostolosian territory, where they will be safe.
KEITH: Hm. I wonder, I wonder what that does to the relationship between Stel—
AUSTIN: [cross] All— ?
KEITH: Apostolos and Stel Kesh in the long run.
AUSTIN: Totally! Who knows! They swear that they will give them back. They say when they are of age, "When the young Princept is of age, I promise on my integrity, and on the integrity of my ancestors that I will, that I will return your Princept to you." And that is my scene. Back to you, Dre, for the final scene in this focus.
DRE: Oh boy. That went fast. Um…
AUSTIN: Yeah, see, like when you don't do— this game can fuckin' move if you're moving, y'know?
DRE: [cross] Yeah…
AUSTIN: Gonna slide this whole section over, one second. [whooshing sound]
DRE: Well, okay. Well, no, this is easy.
AUSTIN: Yeah?
DRE: Um… uh, I'm gonna do an event card.
AUSTIN: Okay.
DRE: The uh, the child Princept chooses to become the next Apokine.
AUSTIN: Oh! What's good! So they stay, they choose to! Uh, alright!
KEITH: That's pretty cool.
AUSTIN: That's pretty cool!
KEITH: That's pretty cool.
AUSTIN: Fuck, that fucks up a lot!
DRE: [cross] Uh huh!
AUSTIN: What's that do to House Kesh?
[Dre makes 'I don't know' sound]
[Keith laughs]
AUSTIN: Well, tell me!
KEITH: Yeah! [jokingly] Whatever!
DRE: Hey does this uh—
KEITH: [cross] I mean, the Princept sure doesn't know!
DRE: Does this— does this child Princept, have they learned the true history of Apokine, I don't know!
AUSTIN: You tell me!
DRE: [cross] Who knows!
AUSTIN: It's your— its your scene! It's your event! I guess we'll figure it out.
DRE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Is this a— this is— the current Apokine is willing to name them their heir?
DRE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Is this the first time we've seen a non-Apostolosian become Apokine?
KEITH: Well technically, no, because—
AUSTIN: [laughing] Oh, right, yeah, of course technically no! Right! Moments ago!
KEITH: Right. [Dre laughs] Is this the first time that the Apostolosians have seen a non—
AUSTIN: Yes, that's exactly, yeah.
KEITH: Yeah.
DRE: Yeah…
AUSTIN: Uh, also, I bet, you know what, I bet the trio of fuckin' shitty people that we saw before has some Ap— Apostolosian in their employ who sent— that they weren't gonna send back just like, a non-Apostolosian, like in terms of species.
KEITH: Right. Well, but, that's what the shadow thing was, like nobody knew who the Apokine was anyway.
AUSTIN: [cross] True. True. True. That's fair.
DRE: [cross] Yeah.
AUSTIN: Um, no, I love this, is this light or dark, Dre? And what's this—
DRE: Uh, I think it's probably dark.
AUSTIN: Okay. What's this look like? [Dre sighs] Frame it for me a little bit. Is this—
DRE: No, I think it is dark because I think that child Princept does know?
AUSTIN: Okay.
DRE: Like, the true history? And they reveal it as part of becoming Apokine?
AUSTIN: Oooh.
DRE: And I think that is—
AUSTIN: Yo!
DRE: One of the first big like, shots towards this acceptance of a state of constant conflict.
AUSTIN: Which is like, this is a deep wound that y'all didn't know, so wait— does the Princept do that out of justice? Or is that out of… like… is this a speech that they give? Is this a…
DRE: I don't think it's out of justice, I think it's out of a um… like… they, they are the heir to House Nideo— or Stel Nideo.
AUSTIN: Or Stel Kesh, you mean?
DRE: Stel Kesh, yes.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
DRE: But they've also really liked being in uh, Stel Apos— Oh gosh.
AUSTIN: Apostolos, yeah.
DRE: Apostolos, there we go.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
DRE: Um, so why not both?
AUSTIN: So is that the play? Is the Princept's play like, I'm going to unite these two houses?
DRE: Mhm. Yeah.
AUSTIN: But we don't know how that goes.
DRE: Yeah, 'cause it's their birthright.
AUSTIN: Wow. Incredible. Okay! So wait, were they— do they happen to be connected by, by lineage to the fake Apokine?
DRE: No.
AUSTIN: Okay. So they're just like, my birthright in the general sense.
DRE: Yeah. And I think they probably do like a huge speech where it's like um, you know, I'm the first true Apokine in years because only I can tell you the truth and…
AUSTIN: Right, right right. Do— and do people buy this?
DRE: Oh, yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay.
DRE: They fuckin' love it!
KEITH: So, so, so the— so. The… um. The Princept… is for some reason, is able to become the new Apokine, I guess 'cause they are royalty and they were raised on Apostolos.
AUSTIN: [cross] And the previous— yeah.
KEITH: But the birthright is that they can still be the Princept of Kesh.
AUSTIN: Right.
DRE: Mhm. Yes.
KEITH: Like, they, there's no one else that it could be, it's a hereditary thing.
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: So you don't lose it, okay, I get it.
AUSTIN: Right. [typing] Apostolosians… um… vows to lead Kesh and Apostolos. Love it. Love these moves, Dre. Love what you're puttin' down. And you don't— there's no sub-scene in that. That's just that event.
DRE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay! Uh, so. That's another round! That's another full round we've just done.
KEITH: [cross] Damn.
AUSTIN: As a, as a— I know, like, that one kinda blew by. Um, as the focus, after the focus is finished, we examine legacies. Player to the right of the current lens picks something that appeared during this last focus, and makes it a legacy. In this case that is me, I'm to your right, uh, Dre. you picked— you picked Apostolos, right, you were the lens?
DRE: Mhm, yeah.
AUSTIN: Um, alright, so what do I want to make a legacy here? There is so much. Um… Um. [pause] I think my legacy is the state of the houses in the final thing? Um… or the state of the Stels? In the final period. Which we kind of just started dipping into. Um, and then again per the rules, I can then make a short, a scene or a period I believe, right? Same player creates an event or dictated scene, not a period, an event or a dictated scene. Um, so here's what we got. We got part of this already. We got the Apokine rescues the Princept, and then the Princept becomes Apokine but also claims leadership of the house, of House Kesh, right? Um, of Stel Kesh. I'm going to introduce another event to the acceptance of the state of constant conflict, which is… Uh… What's it called again when there's… That's not what I meant when I wrote 'second pope,' what is it when there's like, two popes?
[Dre laughs]
KEITH: Antipope.
SYLVIA: Antipope?
AUSTIN: No, but I thought the antipope was specifically what you called… Does someone say 'I'm the antipope'?
KEITH: [cross] Antipope is anybody who declares themself the pope that isn't the actual pope. Is the antipope.
AUSTIN: Is an antipope. So anyone—
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So if you were, if you were really the pope, and I was like no, I'm the pope, I am an antipope?
KEITH: Yes. Yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay, so then we get the first anti— maybe not the first, but we get an Antiprincept here, right? Uh… Which is… um. [typing] After the child… Princept declares loyalty to, or declares… their status as Apokine, an Antiprincept… TBD…
[Keith laughs]
AUSTIN: [cont'd] Takes de facto leadership of Stel Kesh. With—
KEITH: And is that, is that mostly allowed to happen because the… we have a, we have a, um. Precept[4]--
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: In absentia?
AUSTIN: No, yeah, and, and frankly I think that there is a degree of weird racism here. Um, you know, I think that we're gonna have to deal with like, in season six there is going to be… marginalization is going to be at the forefront, even though it's not going to be a scene— or a show that we like linger in the grodiest like, most scary, most heinous parts of that? But I do think there's a racial component here. I do think that there are people who are just like… oh, the Princept like, went Apostolosian. In the grossest way. And that must mean that there was something defective about them already. They weren't really the Princept. I think maybe that is it, right? There is like, um, the Antiprincept doesn't just take de facto leadership but like, claims that the child was a fake?
KEITH: Was, was never the real Princept.
AUSTIN: Was never the real Princept.
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: Which is a lie. Which is—
KEITH: Which is also, which is exactly what antipopes say too.
AUSTIN: Right, exactly, of course, right?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: But then that was like— oh! Oooh! Oooh! Ooh! [Dre laughs] Do they spin the entire shit around? Do they say— [sighs] "I found out something terrible. Years ago, the Apostolosians pursued a terrible plot where—" [Keith laughs] "They arrived at a meeting claiming to negotiate peace…"
SYLVIA: [cross] Oh my god…
AUSTIN: "And instead, they installed a— using their Apostolosian technology, they installed a false Princept for years! And if you trace back my lineage—"
DRE: [cross] [laughing] God…
AUSTIN: "You'll see that I was— my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother was cousins to the real Princept! And so, I carry divine blood in my veins."
KEITH: What a piece of shit.
AUSTIN: It's all— it's all bad! [Keith laughs] Remember at the beginning of this when we were like oh yeah, it's like Crusader Kings when you uh, you can declare war, you just have to manufacture a fuckin' reason?
KEITH: Yeah, you— all you have to say is yeah, you've gotta, you have to park a spy somewhere long enough where the spy convinces people you have a claim to the throne!
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah yeah, exactly!
KEITH: For some reason.
AUSTIN: Uh huh!
KEITH: You could even, there's, like, there's even a mechanic where it's like, you have a weak claim.
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: And it's like whatever! Still a war!
AUSTIN: Still a fuckin' war! [laughs] So the Antiprincept um, manufactures a claim that the child was, was a fake, uh, and an Apostolosian ploy, tied to… an Apostolosian ploy, uh, and takes de facto leadership of Stel Kesh, with great support. The fuckin' dra— so this is, one of the reasons why I wanna focus in on these people is that they all suck, one. Two, like, let them fight. Y'know? I cannot wait for the point at which in season six a lot of this starts to fucking burn down? But like, I'm really, I really do enjoy the backstabbing and the like, poli— the politicking between groups, none of which we have to think are the good guys! And, and for me the, the point of season six is going to be like, how do you, caught up in a world that is fucking garbage, try to… find a space to eke out something like a good life, or find out ways to resist that— resist something so much bigger than you. So. I'm so down. [laughs] Alex Goddard in the chat says "Pusha voice: you are faking a child!"
[laughter]
KEITH: God, imagine if Drake was parading around a kid that was not his! [laughter] Oh my god! That— honestly, that would be wilder.
AUSTIN: That would be wilder! And also—
DRE: But also the most Drake thing possible.
AUSTIN: But also the most Drake thing— and also, Drake was like, yeah, this is a prince, this is my son, Prince, who's a prince!
SYLVIA: So we've finally got a facecast for one of those guys from the interrogation scene, then.
AUSTIN: [laughs] It's Drake! Ohhh my god. Alright! So that is my legacy shit. Um—
KEITH: The other— the other Precept[5] didn't sell as many drugs as he said!
[laughter]
AUSTIN: Um, uh, so that's my legacy—
DRE: The fourth stel, Stel O.V.O.
AUSTIN: Stel O.V.O. We— speaking of the fourth stel, uh, Keith. It is your turn.
KEITH: Austin, can I do? Can I-
AUSTIN: Yes, what’s up?
KEITH: Um, I was wondering, with the, as the lens.
AUSTIN: Yes.
KEITH: Um, you can do a nested thing—
AUSTIN: [cross] Yes.
KEITH: The nests were— either. Um… a period and an event, or an event and a scene—
AUSTIN: Correct.
KEITH: You cannot do a period and a scene, even if they're in the same row.
AUSTIN: Correct.
KEITH: Got it.
AUSTIN: Well, because you couldn't possibly do that.
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: Because a period is— a period is a new period, which means there shouldn't be an event there, under it yet.
KEITH: Except that there is one.
AUSTIN: This, the Ech0 game one, you're saying.
KEITH: Right. Yeah.
AUSTIN: Uh, yeah, if you wanna, if you wanna do that, I'll let you do that. You wanna revist that Ech0 game?
KEITH: I'm just saying we've like, we have, we have nothing for this one.
AUSTIN: No, we'll, and also, the thing to know is that scene, or this event, "The War is Past and Largely Forgotten," could easily go under "The Schism and Reformation of Asterism," or somewhere else, you know what I mean? But I guess, maybe it can't, because of what is around it now that I look at it, it's a lot of war in every direction, huh?
KEITH: It would have to be the first thing in "The Schism and Reformation of Asterism."
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah.
KEITH: And then that, yeah, it feels like the wars have already started 'cause it's only two away from…
AUSTIN: But again—
KEITH: Everyone is—
AUSTIN: This can be, there can be so many years betw—
KEITH: [cross] Hundreds of years, yeah.
AUSTIN: Hundreds of years between these things.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Like, I—
KEITH: The book specifically says centuries.
AUSTIN: It does, it literally says centuries.
KEITH: Um, yeah, and it—
AUSTIN: [cross] But it's up to you.
KEITH: I think it also says that like, whole civilizations can rise and fall in, in the span of one like, turn.
AUSTIN: Totally. A hundred percent.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: What is your— do you know what your focus is gonna be?
KEITH: Well, I've got a— I just, I feel like I have to do my stuff.
AUSTIN: I agree with you.
KEITH: My robots.
AUSTIN: I'm one thousand percent with you. I wanna hear—
KEITH: And by I feel like I have to, I also want to do that?
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah, yeah yeah.
KEITH: I just don't know where best they fit.
AUSTIN: I think that's— I think that's the right space, I kind of do think that this is the right space, um. If—
KEITH: Aliens, aliens, aliens, the focus.
AUSTIN: Right, the focus is aliens, aliens— okay, sorry. I'll fix— I wrote Stel Four, but my bad.
KEITH: And it's uh— Y'know, and it's a very principality, or Divine Principality idea of aliens, 'cause they were already there.
AUSTIN: [Austin laughs] Absolutely! So is this a period, here?
KEITH: Yes. Yeah.
AUSTIN: What is the period, basically?
KEITH: I think it is— I think it is… um… uh. … It's a period, it's the, it's the Divine Principality is, I guess you would say, because if this is the, "War is Past And Largely Forgotten" column—
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: I guess it would be the Courting of… um. This region. The Courting of the…
AUSTIN: Of what would become the fourth Stel.
KEITH: Right. The… shit.
AUSTIN: I can tell you what the real name is, if that's a thing we need to do.
KEITH: The real name of the Stel?
AUSTIN: Of the galaxy. Of the part of the galaxy.
KEITH: Of the galaxy? No, no, I was, I was, the name that I pitched yesterday to you.
AUSTIN: [cross] Oh, yes.
KEITH: The Columnar Tabulary.
AUSTIN: The Columnar Tabulary.
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: The Courting of the Columnar Tabulary.
KEITH: Yeah. Courting is maybe— that's too many 'k' sounds.
AUSTIN: No, I love it. No.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: Columnar Tabulary. Is that right?
KEITH: [cross] Yeah.
AUSTIN: There on the chat— or on the thing in front of you?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay. Which means… okay, so again, uh, when you describe a period, you can describe the period. So what does this period mean, the broadest sense. Like, you can talk to me about, about what that is. "Decide when it is." We've done that, "describe it, give the other players a grand summary of what's happening during this time, or what things are like. Describe how it is different from other periods around it as appropriate."
KEITH: Well, it's the only period that, that does not have much violent conflict in it.
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: Which is why it's the "courting" and not "the conquering."
AUSTIN: Right. Is that because… coming off of the Divine Clash, they're like, alright. We don't need to fuckin'... get into another war?
KEITH: Yeah, and I also think it's because you've, it is a region of largely… uh. Of largely um… artificial life? Or, or…
AUSTIN: Like synthetic.
KEITH: Synthetic life, yeah. Synthetic life. And that has been… throughout every sci fi season we've done, those… like, synthetic life have been machines of war, and I think that they just seem… they just seem tough because they're made of metal.
AUSTIN: [laughs] And people are like, yee-ikes!
KEITH: Yeah! Yeah!
AUSTIN: How much of this is also— how much of this is, you know, one of the things that we just saw from Stel Orion, from you know, the CEO, or probably not the CEO, what is the— who is the leader of, like, a middle, middle ages… like, trade republic called? What is the head of the Trade Federation called? [laughs] Whatever, that leader of Stel Orion was like very utilitarian about it was like, well, what can we get from Apostolos? I'm curious how much of this is like, Stel Orion's influence— Stel Orion plus the new Divines that get captured at the end of the Divine Clash being like, listen— we don't need to just stomp on everybody. We can bring people in.
KEITH: Did you need to know the name of the leader of the Trade Federation?
AUSTIN: [cross] Yes, of course I did.
KEITH: Because it's Viceroy.
AUSTIN: Oh! Yeah. That's not bad.
KEITH: No.
AUSTIN: Love, love a good Viceroy!
KEITH: They only say it a couple times in Empire— or in uh…
AUSTIN: [cross] Is it— is it, does its— does his name start with a G?
KEITH: ...Phantom Menace. Um…
AUSTIN: Viceroy G— something? Gung—
KEITH: I, I don't know.
AUSTIN: Star Wars—
KEITH: Uh, Nute Gunray!
AUSTIN: Nute Gunray! Is it Nute with a G?
KEITH: Uh, no.
AUSTIN: [cross] Dammit.
KEITH: N-u-t-e, g-u-n-r-a-y, Nute Gunray.
AUSTIN: Shoulda put an extra G on the front!
KEITH: Yeah. Um. Yeah, Gnute Gunray. I should remember that name. That's not true, I shouldn't remember anything about this shit.
AUSTIN: No, this all fuckin' sucks, it's all terrible, I love it.
KEITH: [laughs] It's— although, to be fair, I, I do, Phantom Menace has some fun stuff to remember in there.
AUSTIN: It does! It totally does. I guess, actually, does the, does the, sorry this is unrelated to your shit.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: Does, does Stel Orion basically have like… A… Bureaucra— not even bureaucratic in the way we think about bureaucracy on Friends at the Table, but like, I imagine Stel Orion is like, a ton of minor houses, basically? Sort of like Ferelden in Dragon Age, or um… Again, like, you think about the Hanseatic League, or, or other sorts of like, Republics of—
KEITH: You mean is it full of like duchies and stuff?
AUSTIN: Yeah, of like a billion— I mean like, we know that all of season six is filled with a bunch of duchies, but Orion specifically just, a ton of minor houses, a ton of minor— like, merchant families, a ton of like, of, of… like, they all send a representative? I mean like, obviously someone becomes like, the first representative among them all to go represent stuff in, in situations like what we saw with the negotiation with the Apokine? Hm, the "negotiation." [Keith laughs] With the Apokine. But, but, is it a situation where it's like, there's a bunch of delegates, and it's like, part of the, this is stuff we can talk about off mic, this doesn't need to be here, but I'm just thinking about ways to differentiate, one of the things I really wanna do in season six is super differentiate the, the factions in big, bold, almost cartoonish ways?
AUSTIN: Where it's like, okay, the, y'know, House Nideo is, is the one that has like, the tightest relationship with the church and with faith, and has a sort of like, uh, a very… religious overtone to it, then like House Orion is obviously like, the mercantile family, but like, or uh. Uh, Stel. But I do like the idea of there just being just like, dozens and dozens of much more powerful minor houses that are a little— even inside of uh, a… a… Balkanized like, structure of an entire nation are even further separated like that? We can talk about this off mic. This is not a thing that we need to nail down now. Really, what we need to talk about is the courting of the Columnar Tabulary. What is the Columnar Tabulary, and what does that courting look like at that period level?
KEITH: Um, the Columnar Tabulary is a… I guess, presently independent region of synthetic life. [Austin laughs] They operate very much like um… they operate very much like a Stel already? They have like, uh, y'know, a series of smaller houses that uh, are, like, almost feudally constructed, and then they've got like, the, here's the guy that tells the duchies what they can and can't do.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: Sometimes.
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: And so I mostly think it's an easy sell, um… I had, I had something else but I lost my train of thought. Um. Especially in like a, in like a non-warring period, it's like… it really is like an offer of like, how uh… um. Y'know, how do we, how do we sweeten this pot for you?
AUSTIN: Yeah, so is that what it is, this is a bunch of just like, missions that are like… people being sent in to be like hey, here's stuff that we have that you don't have, heres stuff that you have that we don't have, let's do some trades.
KEITH: [cross] Yeah.
AUSTIN: Let's protect you from outside forces…
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Cool. Another, two more questions, one is this light or dark?
KEITH: Um. Dark!
AUSTIN: Okay. Because it's again, the assimilation of another culture.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: And a very— and a very big one.
KEITH: A very big one.
AUSTIN: Two. Is the… what was I gonna ask, I was gonna ask another, I was gonna ask another thing, but we've been going for a while, so I'm starting to get sleepy.
KEITH: Yeah. Is it about the, is it about um… the subculture in there? Is that the…
AUSTIN: Yeah, that's, that was kind of my bigger question was like, I know you wanted to do a scene, but I was curious if you wanted to introduce that subculture as part of the period or something like that, or if that was just an event.
KEITH: Yeah, I think, I actually think instead of doing a scene, I wanna do an event.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: And, um. The, the event is um. The… I don't have a word for this. So inside, inside the Columnar Tabulary is a semi-autonomous region of those cyborgs that we talked about earlier.
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: That I am at least temporarily calling the Equiaxed?
AUSTIN: Can you spell that for me?
KEITH: E-Q-U-I-A-X-E-D.
AUSTIN: Which means… "having approximately equal dimensions in all directions."
KEITH: Yes. And it's—
AUSTIN: [cross] "Used especially of a crystal grain in metal."
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: The Equiaxed. E-quiaxed.
KEITH: If you were to look at the grain structure of an, of an... Ingot?
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: You would see, uh, columnar grains of this metal on all sides, surrounding this area of equiaxed grains.
AUSTIN: Got you. I see this here.
KEITH: And that is essentially what you have in, um, the Columnar Tabulary, you have—
AUSTIN: [cross] So you could almost just like— yeah, go ahead, keep talking.
KEITH: Oh, just this, just this area of something else inside, arranged differently.
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: But surrounded.
AUSTIN: In other words, everything around it is similar, and then inside there's this different… uh, there's this different area that is also different in shape. If you do a search for "equiaxed" or "grain structure of ing— of ingot," like, on Wikipedia—
KEITH: [cross] Yeah.
AUSTIN: There's an image, and it's almost like, imagine like a bunch of pebbles at the very middle there's a bunch of pebbles. That are like, really close to each other, is like kind of the way I would describe it, like a, like a square of pebbles. And then as if there was like, looks almost like branches coming off of them in every direction? It's like— well, they're not like the branches! They're like… pebbles.
KEITH: The pebbles.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Um, and so that is also—
KEITH: [cross] If you had pebbles and branches, they're like the pebbles.
AUSTIN: They're like the pebbles!
KEITH: Right. [laughs]
AUSTIN: So that is the Equiaxed. Um. So what is the actual event here, regarding the Equiaxed?
KEITH: They're— they are losing their semi-autonomous nature.
AUSTIN: Oh, okay.
KEITH: They have, yeah. For um… uh… For a, I assume a very, very long time it's just been like, we're just leaving this area alone?
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: The um, the thing that I was uh, talking about with a friend and then looking into when I had my first season six idea—
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: Was um, the, uh, the Basque region of mostly Spain and also France?
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: Which survived as a semi-autonomous region, um, up through like, the Roman conquering of that entire re— like it was just like, they just kind of left it alone, mostly because there wasn't anything that interested them there, it was like, grassy mountains with, with, without much like, um, without a lot of resources that they thought they needed?
AUSTIN: Mhm.
KEITH: And y'know, survived the, uh… the, I guess, the destruction of all the different languages of that region too. They uh, Basque is like the only non… uh, it's the only language isolate in all of Europe?
AUSTIN: Oh wow, I didn't realize that.
KEITH: And there's no, yeah, there's no relation to any other language in the whole world. Uh. And I, and I, and I am imagining the Equiaxed pretty much… not exactly the same as that, obviously, but, similarly just like, yeah, we just left this area alone for some reason, and then when they became the Stel, it was like oh, no, you have to… you have to be in charge of your whole area, you can't—
AUSTIN: [cross] Right.
KEITH: Just have this other… country inside of you.
AUSTIN: Right, like, I mean is this specifically, when I look at the big map, where we get to eventually, is this… like, um, the… the… someone being like, we can't let what happened to Stel Kesh happen to Stel Four. Where, where Stel Kesh is locked off from so many things, Stel Kesh is just this tiny little area, because the Twilight Mirage blocks it from connecting to like, the rest of the galaxy on one side, and the Golden Branch stops them on the other side. And so like, no. We cannot have like, a thing where our fuckin' Stel is divided in two, that will be bad, we need to move stuff between those two places.
KEITH: Yeah, like, what if they decide to try and take over?
AUSTIN: Right, totally.
KEITH: And it's like, well they never have before?
AUSTIN: Right. So.
KEITH: But, you know. But. But I see your point I guess yeah, we'll do it, we'll, you know, we'll take 'em over.
AUSTIN: So is that a, do they… what, how do they do that? How do they lose their status? Their semi— sorry, semi-autonomous status, I wrote nature, I meant status.
KEITH: Um… We talked a little bit about this in DMs on, on Discord, uh, and… and I think uh, I mean part of it is like, like, oh, you, we, you know, you have your local community and government, and you, we're actually replacing that with what we have, like you're— maybe divided up between two different duchy— like, surrounding duchies?
AUSTIN: So they're like, they're like gerrymandered, basically?
KEITH: Yeah, they get— yeah, partially gerrymandered, um. We talked about that, this is like, this is, this is the, the cyborg culture, the rest of the—
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah, yeah yeah.
KEITH: The rest of the uh, Stel now, is um. Just wholly synthetic, for the most part? We talked about um… emphasizing not doing that anymore.
AUSTIN: Right, so that's part of it is like, laws are put into place to keep them…
KEITH: [cross] Right.
AUSTIN: To slowly make them fully synthetic, instead of this blend?
KEITH: Right, yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay. And freedom… to… so I'm gonna write, the Equiaxed, a culture of synthetic beings who blend their bodies with organic matter, lose their semi-autonomous status, and freedom to uh… to be cyborgs. Cy-brogs, is what I wrote! There we go, cyborgs, boom. Also, do they call themselves the Equiaxed, or does somebody else call them that.
KEITH: Um, I think they call themselves— they call themselves that.
AUSTIN: [cross] Okay, cool.
KEITH: The Equiaxed region, yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay. Oh, so it is the region, they don't— they are not the Equiaxed, the region is the Equiaxed region?
KEITH: It is both.
AUSTIN: Okay. Gotcha, cool. Alright. Cool. So then… Sylvia. You go next.
SYLVIA: Yeah, so… I guess I just have a couple quick questions about the… uh, Columnar Tab— Tabulary?
KEITH: Yeah.
SYLVIA: Y'know, words are. Easy. Um, the big one is like, so, language-wise, they communicate with like, non-synthetics the same way, right? Or…
KEITH: [cross] Yeah.
SYLVIA: Like, they have language and stuff like that, okay.
KEITH: Mhm.
SYLVIA: I just wanted to make sure. Um, I think… Hm… I, I don't know if this is like, like someone feel free to veto this if we don't want to um, but I was thinking that a… group within another Stel, and this would be an event, starts… like, trying to… both like, study the technology of them, and also emulate in some ways the way that they like, make themselves?
AUSTIN: Right.
SYLVIA: And I think this is more just the founding of like, a… sort of like, scientific institution that…
AUSTIN: I'm down with this.
SYLVIA: Does this type of stuff?
AUSTIN: You know I like my, my bad scientific institutions.
SYLVIA: [cross] I mean if you want, I got a—
KEITH: [cross] So this is a—
SYLVIA: Oh, go ahead?
KEITH: This is a scientific institution that is like, studying and implementing cyborg technology while it is also being prevented… uh, for the Equiaxed to do the same thing that they have—
SYLVIA: [cross] Yes.
KEITH: Okay. Great, yeah.
AUSTIN: [cross] Perfect, perfect, terrible people. Yeah.
KEITH: [cross] Not great— great in a very different way than—
SYLVIA: [cross] Yep!
KEITH: The normal way that great is used.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
SYLVIA: Um, if you do want a name for the founder, I've, I have a good—
AUSTIN: [cross] Oh, I do. Give, give— please.
SYLVIA: I have a good name I've been sitting on all day, it's Titus Waning? T-I-T-U-S, Waning.
AUSTIN: Uh huh. W-A-N-I-N-G?
SYLVIA: Yep.
AUSTIN: Waning forms uh, an institute.
SYLVIA: Yeah, um…
AUSTIN: The Equiaxed… uh, and… their cyborg nature.
SYLVIA: And that's a dark scene. That's dark.
AUSTIN: Oh, oh yeah? Word?
[Keith laughs]
SYLVIA: Who'da thunk!
AUSTIN: Is it, is it the Waning Institute?
SYLVIA: It, I was trying to think of a second person to be involved with it so it could be like, the Waning-Blank institute?
AUSTIN: Right.
SYLVIA: Because I think that sounds cooler? But for now we could just have it be the Waning Institute.
AUSTIN: Yeah, we could always get a partner later.
KEITH: VeeKlaus in the chat said uh, "This Basque language is super interesting." The structure of it is very, very cool, I recommend people look up like, syntax, um, like, verbatim translations of Basque language, 'cause it's fascinating.
AUSTIN: 'Cause it's just so distinct from the rest of European language presumably.
KEITH: It is so distinct, yeah, just like, like uh, even if you look at languages that have nothing to do with uh, nothing to do with like, like, Indo-European languages, like, even Chinese does like, subject-verb-object, but Basque is like totally removed from the constraints of that.
AUSTIN: [cross] Wild… So, is that also true for the Equiaxed? I know someone said we, do they communicate the same way before, but I am curious, is there also that language component?
KEITH: Well, part of my, part of my um… part of the influence was reading about the Basque region during um, like, the… the… um. Jesus Christ. Franco dictatorship?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: Yeah. Which, part of it was outlawing the use of the language in public?
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: And um… but I don't know that— I don't know that language is a part of it.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: I don't know that like, I think that…
AUSTIN: You have the stuff with the cyborg stuff instead, which kind of—
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: Not that they are equivalent, but like, similarly—
KEITH: [cross] No, yeah.
AUSTIN: A cultural… cultural phenomenon and a key part of what makes them them is being policed.
KEITH: Right. Yes.
AUSTIN: And in fact, now that Sylvia is here also, is being stolen and taken from— literally appropriated, policed and appropriated, love it.
KEITH: Yes. Yeah.
AUSTIN: Alright.
KEITH: [laughing, sarcastic] Thanks, Sylvia.
SYLVIA: The phrasing of "now that Sylvia is here," uh…[laughter] Does make me feel a little worried, but y'know.
AUSTIN: Let the record state! [laughs] Yeah. So good. Do you have any more to give us on this, on this, this moment. I like this moment, this moment's interesting. I'm so torn, I have two things that I don't know which one to do. [sighs]
SYLVIA: I— oh, you, are you asking for more stuff on my thing?
AUSTIN: [cross] No.
SYLVIA: Oh, okay, sorry.
AUSTIN: Unless you have more. If you have more, I'm curious.
SYLVIA: No, I, I don't— the only thing is that I can see this branching off into like, other sort of like…
AUSTIN: Oh yeah.
SYLVIA: Sketchy science stuff for… whatever Stel they work for. We can figure that out later.
KEITH: Hey, I mean that is one of our uh, our, not our lenses, our um…
AUSTIN: Our legacies.
KEITH: Lega— palettes.
AUSTIN: Palettes, yeah. I've gone back, by the way, and just made it "the Equiaxed Prophet, Kan'tel Logos speaks to God and performs miracles," just to make sure that that was clear. Since it's been a minute since we did that one, I wanted to make sure that we reminded ourselves that that is, that that is where Kan'tel Logos was from.
AUSTIN: And I'm doing that because— I was gonna have like the Courting of the Columnar Tabulary be like, wrap up, or sorry not wrap up, but include the creation of Kan'tel Logos? But instead, I'm gonna do a scene. I have a question. Which is… um. All the way back over to the Perennial Wave. And that question is how did… the Columnar Tabulary react to the Perennial Wave, or how was it, how… hm. How do I wanna answer— ask this question … Yeah, how was the Columnar… Tabulary um… Impacted by the Perennial Wave?
KEITH: I'm gonna need— I know, I know about the Perennial, I might need more specifics on… the Perennial Wave.
AUSTIN: Sure.
KEITH: For this one.
AUSTIN: Sure.
KEITH: I know— I knew enough to get by? [laughs]
AUSTIN: Oh, okay, I see, I see, I see. The good news is, there's a, there is a really great transcript for the first half of the Armor Astir game, the bad news is the second one is still in progress, which means I cannot just go to it and quote, unfortunately. But, what I remember… And chat can correct me if I'm wrong, 'cause it's been since January since we did this…
AUSTIN: [cont'd] The Perennial Wave… basically knocked out the uh, again, It knocked out all the like, super science stuff, right? It, it knocked out AR for instance, right? Like, so you think about Twilight Mirage. You think about the way in which there was like, augmented reality everywhere, even COUNTER/weight had augmented reality, where you think about something like September in, in COUNTER/weight. But you think about the entire Divine Fleet where like, everyone is blending the… the… uh, real and the, or not the real but, but, virtual and physical, right? Completely blending in a way that was like… almost disorienting for us as players at times. Um. Perennial Wave knocks that out, right? I think it doesn't just knock it out but like, I was just talking to Janine about this and, and, earlier someone, someone mentioned that there was like a cool thing about… god I don't even remember where it is here, some shit about, some shit about, about the Prophet or about… something and how Janine would key in on that, but we were just talking about how um, what… ways in which… there can still be something similar to um, I'll just say the thing. That I'm thinking specifically.
AUSTIN: So, Perennial Wave knocks out AR? It knocks out like uh, that style of like, oh there's like, neon shit all around you, or you can just like, access your email wherever. But I don't think it knocks it out in the sense that… it's gone? I think it's just hidden. And maybe that's how I'm gonna start this scene, which is like, um. I, people can play whoever they want here, you could just be like, a robot? That you have? A name for? Or you don't need to be in this scene at all,but I think I'm gonna play as a robot named… uh… 1234 Treefall. And, Treefall uh, is like, working at a, or not working what, what goes on in the Columnar Tabulary during this, this period of fables, this time of fables? Um. Ah…. I think it's just in like a super dense population center? Um. I'm imagining these like, big sweeping, like, towers that are connected by kind of like, archways that are like, I'm just gonna draw on the map really— or on the screen really quick? Sort of like, huge towers, that's up and then like, down and up and around? Well that— I, I hate not being able to see the lines that we're drawing! It's bad!
KEITH: Is that a new thing?
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah, that's a new thing.
KEITH: Did— was it always like that?
AUSTIN: It was not always like that.
KEITH: Jeez. That, it really sucked for the um, for the last bit of—
AUSTIN: [cross] For— yeah.
KEITH: Hieron.
AUSTIN: Yeah, totally. Um, so, I've kind of drawn a crown here? Maybe that's it, maybe their cities are like crowns, like, ro— they're like, imagine this goes around in a circle? And at this period the Columnar Tabulary, they were like this, this crown uh… situation, right? Where like, there's literally a circle that has these towers and then in the middle is like, agriculture, is farms, is lakes and stuff, but everyone lives in these giant towers that are connected by these like, um, almost like U's, y'know, u-shaped things. Bridges between the two towers. And, or the, between every tower. And so I'm playing Treefall, who is there, um, and I kind of want to be there when the AR goes off, when, when the Perennial Wave shakes everything loose. Other stuff Keith, just like, what was the Perennial Wave, probably no lasers! Like, no, no like mech-scale lasers. I think we're gonna be back in the world of kinetic weapons, unless there's a Divine that gives you something special.
KEITH: Oh, okay. Well, the good thing about robots is that they are kinetic.
AUSTIN: They are kinetic, totally. But I think like, in terms of like, always, no, no Mesh, right? No wi-fi.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: No like, wired shit only. Again, think about Star Wars, think about like, splicing means getting a droid to put a thing into a slot, y'know? Um, lots of very physical technologies, moving away from, from non-physical ones. Uh, does anyone else wanna paint— or should, maybe I should just do this as a dictated scene. Maybe that's what I'll actually do. I don't need to actually play this out. But I, I do want you to— I do wanna paint the picture of Treefall, 1234 Treefall, who's living in this crown city, who is a uh… a messenger, who delivers messages between these two cities— between the different towers in this crown city. And is like, on the bridge between the two, and sees all the lights just like, shudder and go out, and then y'know, realizes of course, there aren't lights there at all, it's all like, post-processing 3D like, fake light that is being projected inside of AR, um, and loses that. And… y'know, in this scene, there is, the thing I was trying to get at before is, I don't think the AR is gone? But we get another shot of them like, in the, the now-empty crown? And it's as if it's haunted by past… AR stuff. The Perennial Wave, for Keith, literally put out little like, nanobots throughout the entire galaxy? It spread through the galaxy in a wave, so like sometimes they're a higher density, and sometimes they're lower density, it's like high tide and low tide for the Perennial Wave? So sometimes you go out there and you're like, fuck, I, my radar's totally fucked like, the Perennial Wave is way too high today. And when that happens—
KEITH: Wait, is this that Gundam thing— [laughs]
AUSTIN: It's Minovsky Particles, yeah yeah yeah.
KEITH: Okay!
AUSTIN: A hundred percent. But it's also— but it's also like, a way in which we can sneak a certain sort of medieval style of magic back in? Where it is not Twilight Mirage, I'm summoning stuff from the ether, where like Even Gardner just has like, a Twilight Mirage shield or whatever the fuck! Right? Um, but it is, on a certain night, when the Perennial Wave is high, y'know, you look out into the fields where there used to be uh… y'know, a VR laser— an AR laser tag thing, and you can just straight up see the Perennial Wave like, the, the nanomachines of the Perennial Wave taking the form of laser tag targets. And they're physical. They're there, like, it's as if when the Perennial Wave is high, they like, the world gets haunted in places. Um, and, so. We'll have fun with that this year, is what I will say. But it is not like, reliable, no one's a wizard the way that, that like, Signet and Tender had wild-ass powers that they could rely on all the time? Um, it's much less reliable and also, absolutely heretical and forbidden. Y'know?
AUSTIN: So that is, so I think what we get is a scene of… of the Columnar Tabulary needing to recreate their entire culture, basically, by moving away from AR, by moving away from mass communication and long-distance. And I think what we end up getting is like, this is part of why we get the um… the, the uh, Equiaxed is smaller communities get built. And there's divergence, and one of the things the Equiaxed specifically do, and I think this is 1234 Treefall becomes one of the first Equiaxed, um. Is like, wait a second. What if, what's not affected by the, the Perennial Wave? Plants! What if— or like, cells? What if I just got some like, cool cells that let me resist rust, or something. I don't know, Keith, they're your species. What's a cool thing that they do?
KEITH: Um, well, I mean I can totally guarantee that skin doesn't rust, so. You nailed it on that one.
AUSTIN: Got it in one.
KEITH: Um, well, so, I think part of, part of the idea for me, which um, I actually was looking back though what we were talking about, about this, and after… after I mentioned this is when you brought up the Perennial Wave in regards to them for the first time, which was um… like, uh…. Like, intro— introducing not, random— introducing like, variability into…
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: Synthetic life? Where there normally is not that? And I think that that makes a lot of sense with the absence of uh… of, y'know, ma— technology so technology that it's magic-y is like, well, we have to have uh, y'know. The, we have to have some sort of variability or, or it—
AUSTIN: [cross] Right.
KEITH: Things just aren't going to work. So. I think part of it is that. Um… um, but like uh, yeah, I mean that's something that I've been, that I've been, I guess not thinking hard enough about because I don't have an example off the top of my head—
AUSTIN: [cross] Eh, it's fine.
KEITH: But, um, something that I have thought, the words to the question, which is like, y'know, we have a long history in sci-fi of people being, of, y'know, of flesh people becoming cyborgs, because the… the machine offers something that a person thinks that they need.
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: And so, the exact same thing would be true of a robot that did that—
AUSTIN: [cross] Totally!
KEITH: With biomatter, because there's something that the flesh, or muscle, musculature, or blood gives you that you think that you need.
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah. Love it. People wanna know where they get the skin. And, y'know. Around.
DRE: Places.
KEITH: Yeah, you can grow skin.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: But yeah, Austin said plants, totally, yeah. Plants are biomatter. You can—
SYLVIA: We all grow skin everyday, if you really think about it.
DRE: [cross] Yeah!
KEITH: [cross] We all grow skin every day.
SYLVIA: It's not that weird, you guys!
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Ah, yeah, someone notes— someone says what about the Mirage, the Mirage is safe, the Mirage is protected from the Perennial Wave by the Mirage. Most places are not inside of the Mirage. Thankfully, the people inside of the Mirage are not, themselves, imperialists! Unfortunately, they also don't seem ready to like, rush out to fight people outside. Y'know? They're not like… it's like the double-edged sword of wanting to like, create your utopia on the mountain. Um… Uh, Dre. It is your turn.
DRE: Okay. Uh, I am… I'm gonna make an event card.
AUSTIN: Okay.
DRE: Underneath Titus Waning forms the Waning Institute.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
DRE: Uh, a computing glitch results in an autonomous trash drone accidentally beginning a journey from the Waning Institute to the coordinates of— 33550336.8128.496, a desolate moon orbiting a nondescript gas giant.
AUSTIN: Can you send me those coordinates, please?
DRE: Yep!
KEITH: I've— I, I remembered something that I have about the Equiaxed, which is um. Without… with the Perennial Wave, the set like, the sensors on a robot are not as reliable as like, physical touch and eardrums!
AUSTIN: [cross] Right. Sure.
KEITH: And anything like that, like, I think that's a big thing is like, like oh yeah, we, it would be great if we had eardrums.
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: Like, literally like the inverse of like, like, ocular implants is like, oh I need real eyes. I need, y'know, flesh eyes, 'cause I can't see when the Perennial Wave is high.
AUSTIN: Right. Right! Um, the, you probably can't see it anyway. It's not a—
KEITH: No, no, I can't see, I— like—
AUSTIN: You're saying a special—
KEITH: I can't see anything because I have like…
AUSTIN: [cross] Right,
KEITH: These technology eyes.
AUSTIN: Oh, I see!
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Because the Perennial Wave is high today. Dre, are these real coordinates to some shit that I have to look up?
DRE: Well, the numbers have a like, very small meaning, but they're not real coordinates.
AUSTIN: Okay. Alright!
DRE: It's not gonna be like, something awful, don't worry.
AUSTIN: Alright, good. I appreciate it. Um. Is this a light or a dark scene? And what's it look like? What's the trash drone look like?
DRE: Uh, it's a light scene.
AUSTIN: Okay. Could you give me a little bit more, what is the, what is, I mean I know what this is. I think.
DRE: Yeah. I mean, yeah.
AUSTIN: This is, this is Logos, right?
DRE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
DRE: Or at least something that turns into Logos, I don't know.
AUSTIN: Right, right. Sure. Sure. … uh, but what's it— what do they leave on, do they leave on like a, do they leave on like a ship? Are they a ship, at this point? What's the deal?
DRE: Oh, I like the idea that they are a ship.
AUSTIN: You said drone, so like, is it just literally a big trash hauler?
DRE: Mhm! Yeah!
AUSTIN: Like, just a, we get like a shot of a screen blinking as like, the wrong, like they're supposed to go to 33560336? Or whatever? And instead it's this one? Someone spills coffee on a machine, someone, y'know. Uh, a, a, uh, there's a hanging chad. [laughs] Sorry, I laughed at the word hanging chad, no one even knows what that means anymore! [Dre sighs] Better times.
DRE: Hm.
AUSTIN: Uh huh. I guess not. … Uh, cool! That is Dre. We're back to you, Keith.
KEITH: Really?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: Feel like I just went.
AUSTIN: No, we all did a thing.
SYLVIA: Quick round!
AUSTIN: We all did a thing. You now get to do another thing, nested if you want. But not necessarily.
KEITH: Um… [pause] God, there is so much here.
AUSTIN: Uh huh!
KEITH: [laughs] There is so much.
AUSTIN: There really is.
KEITH: Turns out thousands and thousands of years will give you a lot of little bullet points.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
KEITH: Some good, some bad, mostly bad! Um…
KEITH: I don't wanna do too much with the Tabulary right now, which I, I think I decided that it would be like— or my leaning is that um. The Stel would be Stel Columnar?
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: [cross] But I'm open to either.
AUSTIN: [cross] So is that the thing you wanna do? Is…
KEITH: No, no, well, I don't know, I mostly wanna leave it be for now, because we have a whole season to do?
AUSTIN: Totally, but I mean the thing of just like, does it— it becomes a Stel at some point?
KEITH: Oh, yeah, we don't have that?
AUSTIN: No.
KEITH: Jeez. Okay, yeah, yeah, I guess we would— I guess I'll do, I'll have an event here.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: I'll have an event, it's a dark event.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: Um. Uh, I think it would have to, it has to— I think it has to come earlier in the column, um… between "War is Past" and uh, "Cultures of Synthetic Beings"?
AUSTIN: Say that one more time, sorry.
KEITH: Oh, I just think it would have to come—
AUSTIN: [cross] Between…
KEITH: It would have to come between the first and second event here. But if we don't care about the order, then.
AUSTIN: Uh, you think it's that early? You think it's before— oh, yeah, I guess it would be, yeah.
KEITH: Yeah, it would have to be before--
AUSTIN: I see.
KEITH: Before they lose their semi-autonomous status and freedom to be cyborgs.
AUSTIN: Probably between— yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. Between those two.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: There we go, slide these down… and so what is that event?
KEITH: Um… I think that… uh…. Hm. Where are we with Divines right now, is it, is there a— is there a world where uh, um, the Divine Principality presents a Divine as a gift?
AUSTIN: Totally.
KEITH: As a, as a gift for the joining, before they've decided to be joined—
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah.
KEITH: They send a Divine, saying here is a gift for your joining of the— into the Divine Principality!
AUSTIN: Absolutely.
KEITH: And they accept it, and they're like, yeah, I, yeah, okay, we'll take this giant magic robot.
AUSTIN: What's— what's the Divine? Which Divine do they get?
KEITH: Uh… [sighs] What haven't we done? There's already a Unity, so that's out.
AUSTIN: There is Unity.
KEITH: Well I guess, well, what's Unity up to?
AUSTIN: Uh… let me look at the map here, uh, I think just finished uh, subjugating the Hypha.
KEITH: [sarcastic] Um, wow, that's a great, what a good gift!
AUSTIN: [laughs] The ones— here's the ones that we know are around, right now. Unity. Who is like a, flying knight with moons orbiting it and people live in the moons? Um, Valour, which we don't know anything about, but was named. Knowledge and Strength, those are the ones that were all named in the Twilight Mirage ending. Empyrean. Not giving that one away. Uh…. Why do I— I guess we… I don't know that I said this one out loud, so I'm gonna not mention it. Uh… I think Honor, we know is around? Um, and then we, we know that Past is around. Um. I think eventually there will be a Present and a Future, but I would think that those are probably a set. Um, so not, not those. Uh, so yeah, we could do, we could do Unity. Or you could do anything else, you could do— what's a thing that the robots, the Columnar Tabulary might think, that one's a good one! Again, with the note that they were— that in the minds of the Divine Principality, Divines are meant to reflect something true and good about the state. Not aspirational, reflective. Y'know?
KEITH: Um… Re— [sighs] We're on nouns for Divines, right? That's where we're at?
AUSTIN: We're on nouns, we're pretty broad, with the note of the thing I just said, which is like, they're back to being qualities. So they're a little bit more focused— unless they're, unless they're grandfathered in, you know what I mean?
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: Jack Morton says "the Divine Progression," I think we have to keep that in our back pocket, y'know?
KEITH: Um. Maybe we can put a pin in this and I'll have one by the next round.
AUSTIN: [cross] Okay. So it's a gift, the gift is a Divine. They gift them a Divine. We don't even need to do this— we don't even need to have it exactly tonight, y'know?
KEITH: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
AUSTIN: But.
KEITH: But if I think of a good one, I'll say, I'll say so.
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah, please. So. The Principality… gifts, I'll put that in quotes, a Divine to the Columnar, who accept it, and become… uh, Stel Columnar.
KEITH: Commitment? Is that something?
AUSTIN: Ooh, I like that. I like Commitment. What's that, what's Commitment like?
KEITH: What is Commitment like, what is Commitment like, or what is Commitment like?
AUSTIN: What is it— heh, what is, describe for me the Divine Commitment.
[Dre laughs]
KEITH: [sighs] Um… Hm. Let's see.
AUSTIN: Also, dark, I'm guessing?
KEITH: Dark, yeah, is there a, is there a dark black for— that we can use for? Um… Any Divines piloted by two people?
AUSTIN: Ever? Sure.
KEITH: [cross] Yeah? Well, I mean—
AUSTIN: [cross] If you want this one to be.
KEITH: On screen.
AUSTIN: Uh… Nothing comes to mind.
KEITH: This one— this one's—
AUSTIN: [cross] This one is.
KEITH: This one is.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: Um. Uh. I think… I, yeah, so I, I think that this one has two Elects, am I— ?
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah, an Elect is what we've decided, yeah.
KEITH: Two Elects. I think one from, um—
AUSTIN: [cross] Oh, that's good.
KEITH: One from, let's say… Let's say Orion, 'cause they're neighbors.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Yeah.
KEITH: One from Orion, and one from… uh, Stel Columnar.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: And uh… I think that, um the good thing about this Divine is that it's really easy to pilot, because both, both Elects experience complete ego loss inside the Divine.
AUSTIN: Really? So they—
KEITH: Well, to fully focus on the…
AUSTIN: Interesting, okay.
KEITH: The, yeah. The um… what's the word. The, their commitment to piloting the Divine.
AUSTIN: The Divine, yeah, okay, cool. So, Commitment…
KEITH: As to Commitment's personality, who knows.
AUSTIN: Who knows!
KEITH: But that's the, that is the function.
AUSTIN: Cool. I love that. Uh… Alright. Well. That is an entire round again. Someone to the right should choose a legacy. Uh, I believe it's to the right, is that right?
SYLVIA: Uh, yeah it is. I think?
AUSTIN: Yes. Player to the right.
SYLVIA: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So, Dre chooses a legacy.
DRE: Hm…
AUSTIN: And then can make a scene related to that legacy. Or not a scene, an event or a, an event or a dictated scene.
DRE: And it's something that was created from the last focus.
AUSTIN: Uh, yeah, something that popped up in this last focus.
DRE: Right. Um… Man, we have so many cards now.
KEITH: Um, I, I should specify that when I said ego loss, I meant specifically ego death. The… not like, not just like, you don't have an ego.
AUSTIN: Yeah, no, I— [laughs] Yeah, I got you.
KEITH: [cross] Okay.
DRE: [cross] They're having a real rough trip.
KEITH: People in the chat were like I'm not, I don't know what that means, so I was…
AUSTIN: Oh, okay, okay. Uh, is that only when they're piloting, or is it permanent?
KEITH: It's, well, it at least starts off only when they're piloting.
AUSTIN: Got it, great! Uh…
DRE: Which uh… gosh, which era was that under, Keith?
KEITH: That was under the uh, the… courting. The Courting of the Columnar Tabulary.
AUSTIN: Uh, hello, we would like you to join us, here's a big robot! Uh, and we put two people in there, and when we open the cockpit, none come out. There are bodies! They have not— they have lost their selfhood!
KEITH: And it's just so you know, this is a real honor.
AUSTIN: [laughing] This is— you should be thrilled.
DRE: Uh, let's see. Okay, I know what I want to do… Just not sure who I want to… do it to.
AUSTIN: Love the phrasing. Love it.
DRE: Yeah. So, I think that the… uh, Divine Commitment reappears… shortly—
AUSTIN: [cross] So is that the legacy?
DRE: Shortly after uh, the new Apokine uh…
AUSTIN: Oh, shit.
DRE: Declares that they are going to lead Kesh and Apostolos.
AUSTIN: Uh huh! And what happens? Oh just— it reappears?
DRE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: You're saying so, it vanished at some point?
DRE: Mhm.
AUSTIN: Uh, okay!
DRE: Oh, uh, and the Apokine uh, decides that uh, they can pilot Commitment solo, because they have the birthrights of two people.
AUSTIN: Of two people. Fuck off!
SYLVIA: [cross] Oh my god.
AUSTIN: Is this a— is this a dictated scene, then? More than a, an event?
DRE: Oh boy…
AUSTIN: It doesn't matter, I mean, I'm just asking… For purp— does, it truly doesn't matter! Because I'm just gonna write it differently depending, it's fine! So this is, this is… uh, the new Apokine… uh, this is, sorry, the Divine Commitment, uh, appea— reappears?
DRE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Appears... reappears, I'll put reappears… under the control of the new Apokine, who believes, or who can pilot it?
DRE: I— Keith, what do you think would happen?
AUSTIN: I mean, this is so close to the current moment?
DRE: Right.
AUSTIN: That we should maybe not answer if it's… [???] or not?
DRE: [cross] Maybe we'll leave it with believe.
AUSTIN: So just under the control of the, yeah yeah yeah. The new Apo— or just, who pilots it by themself. Right? That way…
DRE: Okay. Yeah.
AUSTIN: We don't know how it goes, we can talk about that. In the game we're gonna play. Uh, dark scene?
DRE: Oh, yeah!
AUSTIN: What's it look like? Is it a person, Keith? Commitment?
KEITH: [sighs] No. No.
AUSTIN: Okay!
KEITH: Um… uh…
AUSTIN: Not, not humanoid. Is it a…
KEITH: Not, it's not humanoid. How did we feel about like, liquid metal?
AUSTIN: Like a big, like a big… like a lot of it?
KEITH: Like imagine if someone like uh, threw a bucket of water in space.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: But it was, it was metal and two people were inside of it um…
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah, okay. Does it form other shapes? Does it?
KEITH: Who have lost all sense of self.
AUSTIN: Yeah uh huh! They are themselves this liquid metal at this point.
KEITH: Right. Um…
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: What was your question?
AUSTIN: That was all, what did it look like, what's it do, what's its deal? But I think that's part of it for sure. We'll figure out the rest.
KEITH: We'll figure out the rest.
AUSTIN: Uh huh! Great.
KEITH: It's black, it looks like ink. It's like, it looks very inky.
AUSTIN: Ooh.
KEITH: That's the…
AUSTIN: Love it.
SYLVIA: Squid ink pasta, back for revenge.
AUSTIN: Finally.
KEITH: Yeah. It looks like a metal signature.
AUSTIN: Uh huh! Um, here's a question, Dre, do the Columnar, does Stel Columnar, are they like, that's ours!
DRE: Oh, shit… Um… Probably depends on if they want it back or not! [laughs]
AUSTIN: I— yeah, I'm asking you what is, is that? How does it…
DRE: I almost want to, I don't, I almost feel, I almost don't wanna answer that—
AUSTIN: [cross] Okay.
DRE: 'Cause I want Keith to answer that?
KEITH: What was the question?
AUSTIN: The— when, when it reappears, when they, when the Divine Commitment reappears under the control of the new Apokine…
KEITH: Oh, does— yeah.
AUSTIN: Is Stel Columnar like, that's our shit!
KEITH: That's ours!
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: How did it get to you, it's in the name that it was supposed to stay with us!
AUSTIN: [laughs] Right! Um, it's called the Divine Commitment!
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Is not pleased, okay!
KEITH: One of those selfless pilots is supposed to be us!
AUSTIN: Right! And instead, it's two people— it's one person, not two, and it's not even a person from Orion! Love it. Great. Um, cool! Uh, and then, the person to the left. Uh, so it was Dre's thing… where are we at? Uh, Sylvia.
SYLVIA: Yeah! Um…
AUSTIN: Are you ready to go, do you wanna do one here?
SYLVIA: I gotta be honest, it is getting pretty late?
AUSTIN: Are you— me too. I, I could eat food.
SYLVIA: Yeah, my stomach's feeling all kinds of jacked up.
AUSTIN: Same. So, let's, let's— can we just do, how about this, how about we do a pass, which is like… does anyone have anything they wanna add here? I think we have a lot of fuckin' dope shit here.
DRE: Yeah! [laughs]
KEITH: Yeah.
SYLVIA: [cross] Yeah, I can't think of anything.
AUSTIN: I— I would be happy to end this here. Um, like—
KEITH: It's only like, two thirds bad!
AUSTIN: Yeah… and even the good stuff is kind of bad, for what it's worth, like?
SYLVIA: To be fair, y'know, we're setting up a whole season!
AUSTIN: Yeah!
SYLVIA: We need plenty of bad stuff to deal with.
AUSTIN: [cross] We do! We super do! And so now we have like, clear conflict between— I guess this is my question, right now what do we have? We have… a history that has been a lot of assimilated and conquered cultures, manipulated cultures, it's all bad.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: We have a religious schism, I guess we didn't really clean that up? But we gestured at it, right? Eventually there is a reform of Asterism, right? So I'm gonna add an event here. And just write this, which is like, um. To limit Logos' reach and power… uh, Nideo uh, Pique Nideo… puts into place uh, reforms allowing for, is there a name for this new faith?
DRE: Hmm…
AUSTIN: It's fine. [typing] Uh, allowing for, uh… for their uh… faith, for aspects of their faith to be incorporated.
AUSTIN: Actually, I think it's not this, it's not just reforms. I actually think um, I'm gonna— I don't think it's Nideo at all. I think uh… Actually, I think it is. Nideo orchestrates the creation… of a… Of a competing version of Asterism. That like, incorporates… Logos' words, or like, beliefs? Um, and so it's like… Nideo basically creates a second church to oppose his own church. But it's still his church, it's again, it's Asterism again, right? As long as it's all us, it's okay if we're divided! What's really scary is the idea that you would not even want to be part of us. Um, and so that is the reformation, right? That is how they, they get through this. Which means… We can play on that in the future. Uh, other stuff that we have.
AUSTIN: So, Apokine, the new Apokine is in Aposto— is in Stel Apostolos and is… uh, also claims to be the leader of, of Stel Kesh. Stel Kesh has a new leader in place, um, we don't know what the fuck is up with Stel Nideo, Stel Nideo has previously kidnapped the Princept, uh, does not currently have the Princept, very curious what's going on there. Um… And then Stel Orion is like, the biggest question mark here, but also I kind of think in some ways the biggest known quantity because we've talked about them a lot as being a big, y'know, merchant league. Mercantile league. So, I feel like we have a pretty good understanding of what a lot of this state— the states are here, right? Um… I think we're in a good place?
[Jack De Quidt’s ‘HOURGLASS. SUNRISE. CRYSTALLINE.’ plays]
[‘HOURGLASS. SUNRISE. CRYSTALLINE.’ finishes playing]
[1] The name in the audio recording is no longer in use.
[2] Princept.
[3] Orbit uses they/them pronouns, corrections are marked with brackets.
[4] Princept.
[5] Princept.
