The Road to PARTIZAN 07: Beam Saber Pt. 2
Transcriber: Kass (kass#2668)
--00:00:00--
[Jack De Quidt’s ‘HOURGLASS. SUNRISE. CRYSTALLINE.’ plays]
AUSTIN [as Rye]: The Divine Space. An ostentatious name for something damn near invisible. Look at you. I mean, Is there even a you in there? You’re so quiet. So spread out. It must be… strange to see so much, and to be seen so rarely? And it is that particular feature that makes you unique. Of all the things like you, you’re the one most like us.
And by us, I do mean real people, but I also mean—I especially mean—Orion. We’re a good fit, don’t you think? Committed. Hard workin’. We don’t ask for much, and when we need something, you know we take it.
But most of all, we bring people together and we get the hell out the way. We don’t need to be the painting on the wall. We can be the canvas. We can be the little plaque that explains the painting. Hell, we can be the gallery.
And all of this is why I hate that old debate: Did the Principality conquer us? Did we conquer us? Who cares. Backstory don’t matter. The only thing that does is ensuring that Stel Orion is so ubiquitous that it’s like we’re not there at all.
[‘HOURGLASS. SUNRISE. CRYSTALLINE.’ finishes playing]
AUSTIN: Alright. [reading] ‘On a 6, you start in a controlled position. The GM will then craft a scene to reflect the position.’ So, um, you see - y’all calculate out what the firing pattern is – or the firing like, arcs are of these orbital cannons. You hang over the city. It’s a big, beautiful, green agricultural world that you can see has also, y’know, been scarred as you’re coming in, y’know, through the clouds, through a bunch of war. The planet has been split kind of between these different factions. And as you come in over the – over the land, you start to see what the condition is on the ground. And so I’m gonna start filling in some gaps for you as you get closer. You have to go pretty low, which means some of the western side stuff isn’t really clear yet. But what you can see pretty quickly, and what kind of pops up on your scanners as your space trucks come in, is that the Divine Collaborative holds some farmland and industrial space in the north-east. OriCom, I’ve already said this, holds this farmland in the – sorry, in the south-east. They hold the farmland to the north-east, the Divine Collaborative does. And then the OriCom also holds these docks and industrial spaces here in the south-east of the city, and the Divine Collaborative has maintained control of it in the north-east. There’s a kind of urban residential apartment buildings and local little shops and stuff like that in the north-east. Um, and what you don’t see anywhere as you come in low is the body – or the – the Divine Regolion – sorry, Rogalian, who is absent until you kind of come over the walls and you see that its body has been turned into a corpse right in the middle of these open-air markets. And presumably, you believe, the Principality then holds the western half of this city, which includes this commercial district in the north-west and probably these docks here in the south-west. So, it’s kind of split in half, and the thing that’s splitting it in half is this giant, forty-storey tall walking flamethrower that has been laid out in the middle of this open-air market. I think it still spews fire up. Like, geysers in the middle of this city. Um, where do y’all take your ship? Where do you land your ships, your space trucks?
[pause]
ALI: [whispers] In the river! [laughs]
AUSTIN: Yeah, that’s fine. [Jack laughs]
ALI: Right next to it?
KEITH: Yeah.
ART: In the river?
AUSTIN: In the river?
ALI: Did we define them as, y’know, only ground, gas-taking machines? No, they can go under the water.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] No, we didn’t! We definitely didn’t. We definitely did not. They can go under the water. [Ali laughs].
JACK: Are we like, submerging them, or are we…?
KEITH: I think that we should definitely submerge them.
ALI: Yeah! Who’s gonna look in there?
AUSTIN: Alright! I’m just gonna put two here, but you – you -
KEITH: I mean a fish – a fisherman would maybe look in there. [Jack chuckles]
ALI: Well…
AUSTIN: Yeah, but like, there’s a war going on. I don’t think that fisherman is fucking around with this river at this point.
ART: Like – hmm, okay. [Ali laughs] A lot of things detect things in water.
AUSTIN: You’ve pulled up, you’re in the river, um, and now, like, you’re here. You’re in a controlled position. The Divine is to the north, the OriCom is to the south. What are you – what are you doing here? You have your mission. I’m gonna colour in one of these trucks to make it the important one, so that it’s – I’m gonna tint it green. That’s the truck that has the box that is like, the truck cargo-sized box that you need to get to Better Brighter HQ. [Jack sighs]
KEITH: How big – how big is this box?
AUSTIN: It’s as big as like an eighteen-wheeler truck, like, cargo. It’s probably like –
KEITH: Wow, that’s big.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s gigantic.
KEITH: How do we carry that?
AUSTIN: Okay, y’all have mechs is the thing to note.
ART: Yeah, we have mechs.
ALI: Yeah.
KEITH: Yeah…
AUSTIN: Also, these are trucks that can move and fly and do stuff. Maybe you could protect it as it, like, drives there.
ART: Yeah, our flying submarine trucks. [Ali and Austin laugh]
AUSTIN: Um, yeah.
JACK: Okay –
KEITH: I didn’t – I didn’t realise the box was so big. I thought we were just gonna be able to carry it, so now parking it in the river seems like less of a good idea.
JACK: [laughs] Well –
KEITH: If – ‘cause we need to fly it to the [Ali laughs] Better Brighter HQ. [laughs]
ALI: Well, um… that’s, uh, considerable foresight, [AUSTIN: Uh-huh.] but I think that, um, the river –
KEITH: Good name. [Ali laughs]
ART: Considerable Foresight was my father’s name.
AUSTIN: Great. Great name.
ALI: [still laughing] The river probably sees a lot of imports and exports regularly that [AUSTIN: True!] a box of that size can go on without notice.
AUSTIN: I will say, in this moment, when there is open warfare happening, everyone is looking for everything. [Ali laughs] Like, we are not in – [ALI: Yeah.] this is not a cold war state where I’m like, ‘ah, yes, things have settled.’ There is the body of a Divine that you probably knew, Pigeon, in the middle of this place that’s been destroyed recently over the last couple of days.
KEITH: Spitting out fire.
AUSTIN: Spitting out fire still. Bleeding fire.
KEITH: Alright, I’m getting in my mech then.
AUSTIN: Alright. Who else is getting in – is everyone ready for launch?
ART: Yeah.
ALI: Yeah.
JACK: I think so.
KEITH (as David): [crosstalk] [muttering quietly] Fucking, a box. Protecting a box. I feel like an idiot.
AUSTIN: Uh-huh. Great.
ALI: Is there like a shore team and a ground team here? Like, what’s the long-picture plan? What’s our pathway here?
JACK: I feel like we should consider our secondary – actually, let’s just have this in character.
AUSTIN: Yeah. You’re in a war room inside one of these space trucks.
JACK (as Smack): So you’re an Excerpt, huh?
AUSTIN: Uh, Candidate.
JACK: Oh, god. [laughs]
AUSTIN: Yeah. Mm-hm. [Ali laughs]
JACK: I didn’t even know that they were called that!
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK (as Smack): So you’re a Candidate, huh?
ALI (as Pigeon): Uh, yeah.
JACK (as Smack): Wow. Wow! What’s that like?
ALI (as Pigeon): [sighs] Oh, you know. Um…
KEITH (as David): No. [Ali laughs]
JACK (as Smack): Shh. Shhh.
ALI (as Pigeon): Kind of – mm, mm. Oh, no.
JACK (as Smack): No, not you. My brother, I was just – shh.
ALI (as Pigeon): He can – you don’t have to shush.
KEITH (as David): Shh.
ALI (as Pigeon): It’s – [laughs] Am I shushed now? Do you want me to stop?
KEITH (as David): I don’t know. I’m sorry.
ALI (as Pigeon): Okay, no, no, no. No, no, no.
JACK (as Smack): We’re just all very excited.
ALI (as Pigeon): Oh… Why?
ART (as Memphis): Memphis Longhand thought this was gonna be an important strategy meeting. [Ali laughs]
JACK (as Smack): Well they sent us a Candidate. And, y’know, you folks don’t come out unless it’s, y’know, really important.
ALI (as Pigeon): Yeah! This is important.
KEITH (as David): I mean, you’re the most famous and important person on the ship.
ALI (as Pigeon): We’re all important.
[short pause]
JACK (as Smack): So [Ali laughs] – so, the way I see it, and you might have some suggestions here, and you’re more than welcome to, y’know – if you’ve got an idea, then just go right ahead, but I feel like we should split up, and I feel like we should – one group should target these – these orbital cannons, while the other kind of begins to make their way towards Better Brighter. Because if we can get another Divine in, that seems like it’d be pretty core to our strategy.
ALI (as Pigeon): Mmmm…
KEITH (as David): I dunno, I think the orbital cannons are a problem and that it’s better if we stick together away from the cannons.
AUSTIN: As a reminder: as described to you, you have a side objective which is if you take out two of the three cannons, you’ll get extra support while defending the Better Brighter – the Bittenbach device. That is a specific objective that Kehj noted for you. You can decide to not do that, because it is risky. I’m not saying it’s not risky. But there is a material reason for why you might consider trying to take them out.
KEITH: Mm-hm.
[pause]
ALI (as Pigeon): Um… So, the solutions here are either stay together or split up and take out the cannons?
AUSTIN: Two people go for the cannons and two people try to deliver the box, is what it sounds like the two – the arguments here are we all just try to run the box right into Better Brighter, or we send some people to take out these cannons.
ALI: Ah, um -
KEITH (as David): I think regardless we should stick together. If we want to take out the cannons, we should all go together to take out the cannons first.
ALI (as Pigeon): Well… [sighs] With Harmonious we can act in concert without physical closeness.
ART (as Memphis): Wonderful. Memphis Longhand will go take out the cannons, and not have any amateurs in Memphis Longhand’s way.
KEITH (as David): [under his breath] Oh my God…
ALI (as Pigeon): Oh. How long have you been with the force?
ART: Um… How long has it been? [Ali laughs]
AUSTIN: How long has it been? It’s been a couple of months since we saw – since Lunar Leson disappeared. So, were you with the force for a long time before that, or was that the beginning? [laughs]
ART (as Memphis): Five months.
AUSTIN: Okay.
ALI (as Pigeon): So, you would not want any six month – [laughs] so six months and above is who you’re willing to work with?
AUSTIN: Hmm!
ART (as Memphis): Memphis Longhand didn’t step in a mech for the first time when Memphis Longhand showed up here. Memphis Longhand’s been flying mechs since – since he – since Memphis Longhand was in diapers.
AUSTIN: I think you can say ‘he’, right?
KEITH (as David): You can say ‘he’!
AUSTIN: You can say ‘he’! [Ali laughs]
KEITH (as David): Yeah, ‘he’ is good.
ART (as Memphis): I can say ‘he’ – I can say any – Memphis Longhand can say any words.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH (as David): You can – hey, you can say ‘I’.
ART (as Memphis): [crosstalk] Memphis Longhand knows all the words.
ALI (as Pigeon): [laughs] Um, that’s…
KEITH (as David): Memphis Longhand can say ‘I’.
ALI: [???] [00:11:18]
ART (as Memphis): Memphis Longhand can say all sorts of words! Memphis Longhand chooses Memphis Longhand’s words exceptionally carefully to best articulate Memphis Longhand’s point.
AUSTIN: Mmmm.
ALI (as Pigeon): Well, that’s very impressive, and I’ll take your feelings into account. In that case, would you and me like to go take out the cannons while the two of you can stay together and perhaps start with the box?
KEITH (as David): I’ll take the box. That’s the job. The job is the box, I’ll take the box.
AUSTIN: David’s on box duty. Memphis Longhand’s on orbital cannons. And Ms. Pigeon, which one – which group are you going with?
ALI: Pigeon suggested going to cannons with Memphis.
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK (as Smack): Y’know, my brother and I would be happy to take the box knowing that we had the support of a Candidate. And a sports star.
KEITH (as David): For the record, I’ll take the box regardless of the Candidate and sports star, ‘cause that’s the job.
AUSTIN: Just to be clear: Smack, are you saying we would be – ‘we will do it if y’all do it with us,’ or are you saying, ‘I’m comfortable with this’?
JACK: We’ll say it – we’ll say it if the support that we are getting from you is you are going after the orbital cannons.
AUSTIN: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, well it sounds like that’s the play. Um, alright. The klaxons are sounding. Everyone’s getting into their mechs. We don’t have call signs here, because I think our names are already so good, but, y’know, [Ali laughs] if we play this game again, we’re gonna need some call signs. I am curious if people know what they say when they launch? I don’t know if people have put some thought into that. Because you’ve gotta say something. [Jack laughs]
ALI: Mmm.
JACK: I think I just say – I just, like, cigar, aviators, pulling down the visor of the helmet or whatever, [AUSTIN: Yeah.] and just saying,
JACK (as Smack): Let’s get this done.
AUSTIN: [laughs] And then you launch, great.
KEITH (as David): David, buckling up! [Austin and Jack laugh]
AUSTIN: ‘Being very safe! Following all the protocols!’ Pigeon? Pigeon and Harmonious?
ALI: Yeah, I think that as I am figuring out a target, I say ‘point.’ and then as the mech launches I say ‘catch.’
AUSTIN: Love it. Love it.
JACK: Wow…
AUSTIN: I think – okay, wait. Can Harmonious say ‘point’?
ALI: [laughs] Sure.
AUSTIN: And then you respond. It’s like a call and response thing.
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: It’s like, ‘du-du-du-du-du-du. Point’.
ALI (as Pigeon): Catch.
AUSTIN: And then you launch. Perfect. Hey, Memphis Longhand?
ART: Uh-huh?
AUSTIN: Is this like, your music is starting to play? [Jack laughs]
ART: No, I think it’s – I think Memphis Longhand hits a button on the dash [AUSTIN: Uh-huh.] and then the music starts to play. And you remember – do you remember, uh, Sammy Sosa?
AUSTIN: Yeah. Uh-huh. I recall.
ART: You remember Sammy Sosa would like – after he hit a home run, when that – that whole year where, y’know, when he was hitting all those home runs?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: And he had that like, elaborate self-home run thing?
AUSTIN: I don’t remember this.
ART: Sammy Sosa had this, like – this home run ritual. Hold on, let me see if I can find it.
[pause]
AUSTIN: While Art is doing that, everyone else needs to decide two things. One of them is a little more temporary than the other, but this is a one-shot, so it’s fine. You need to decide your load for both yourself, which is pretty temporary – light, medium, or heavy – and you also, at this point, need to decide your load for your mech, whether it’s light, medium, or heavy. And that is a more permanent decision. Light mechs are like 35-feet tall.
--00:15:00--
AUSTIN: They have 3 cargo load, which you’ll be able to fill out as we play, the same way it always works in Forged in the Dark games. So you don’t have to choose which things you’re choosing yet. And being light – like, we often play where it’s like, ‘ah, it’s time for military shit. Just go heavy load because who cares if we get seen’. With mechs, being heavy, like, gives you a lot of space and a lot of versatility, but I will more often hold that against you, because you’ll be a big, slow stompy mech versus a quick, agile one or one in the middle. And likewise, being in a light mech with that few spaces, will be a thing that you can tell me. Like, ‘hey, don’t I get a – could I get a benefit? Can I get a better position because I’m a light mech, or greater effect because I’m a light mech’? And there will be times when being a heavy mech definitely gives you better effect, but that’ll be things like destroying buildings and punching things, not, like, dodging or moving quickly down the streets, y’know? So, everyone should take a look towards the bottom of their sheet. There’s a section, under items. Next to items is your character load. Mark one of those, and then underneath the first set of items will be your mech’s – your vehicle’s load. And select one of those. Um… Did you find your Sammy Sosa thing?
ART: No, I’m starting to be worried though that I, like, made it up.
KEITH: Wait, is it – so, I – I tried to look, and I couldn’t figure it out. Was it – is it the little jump and the hands in the air? ‘Cause I saw two GIFs of him doing that.
ART: No, there was like – hold on, he does it with Mark McGwire.
AUSTIN: Uh-huh. I think you’re gonna have a hard time finding… Because the two – they were in the home run race together, and I bet you’re just gonna find a bunch of things with that.
ART: Mmmm.
KEITH: Where is, uh – where’s the load stuff that we’re choosing? I didn’t – I don’t –
AUSTIN: On the [Ali takes a breath] – go ahead, Ali. Go ahead.
ALI: It’s, um – it’s, if you scroll down underneath all of your moves, it’s allies, items, vehicle, gear, like –
KEITH: Got it. Yeah.
ALI: And then -
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] I’ve already marked 5 for you, but if you want to change that, you can totally change that.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: And then your personal load is up to the right. Your, like – what you as a pilot are carrying is up to the right.
ALI: Yeah.
ART: Okay. If it’s not at the end of this video I’m gonna give up.
AUSTIN: Okay.
ART: Mark McGwire hitting .62, which was against the Cubs. So like, Sammy Sosa comes out and they have a moment.
JACK: Um, I’m gonna pick a medium on my mech.
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: And I think just medium on my load as well.
AUSTIN: Okay. Cool.
JACK: I don’t picture Smack as necessarily a particularly – bringing a lot with him, but also I don’t picture him as a super lightweight character.
AUSTIN: Right.
JACK: Although I wanna be clear. Generally, the bigger the mech the – the biggest mech possible in any situation.
AUSTIN: Oh yeah, wow. I’m surprised you didn’t go with heavy here. I know your – your tastes.
JACK: Well, it’s because you literally just said – you said, ‘Jack, if you pick heavy, I’m gonna make your life difficult.’
AUSTIN: Totally, totally, totally. But now what I’m gonna do is make you wish you had one more load.
JACK: [laughs] God. I just started playing Anthem today, [AUSTIN: Yeah.] and as soon as they let me be the heavy – the heavy person, I –
AUSTIN: That’s a pretty good – that Colossus – the heavy mech in that is pretty fucking good in terms of feeling big, because all the other character you’re with are tiny compared to you.
JACK: Yeah. I was playing it and my dad walked into the room, and he looked at the television and he said, ‘that is a noisy method of transportation.’ [Austin, Jack, and Keith laugh] To the Colossus mech.
AUSTIN: That’s good. That’s good.
JACK: Which I feel is – yeah, that’s what I want.
KEITH: So much information in such a short sentence.
AUSTIN: Oh, yeah. I – okay, that thing. Art, you wanna describe it?
ART: Yeah, he has some weird like, tapping ritual, where he would like –
AUSTIN: He like, hits his – he just hits his chest to be like ‘I’m tough’, and kisses his fingers and points up to God, right?
ART: I feel like there’s a third thing. Or when I was a kid, I thought it was more elaborate than it was in real life.
KEITH: Where – I don’t see where you saw this?
JACK: I mean, this is your opportunity to make it more elaborate, right?
AUSTIN: I gotta give –
ART: Well, I want it to be very elaborate so I could have a jumping-off point.
AUSTIN: Right, but in fact it’s not that elaborate, which has given you some problems.
ART: Mm-hm.
AUSTIN: There’s a GIF here that – is this it? Is the GIF that I just posted? He like, kisses his fingers and –
ART: [crosstalk] Posted where?
AUSTIN: In our group chat. In our – in Patreon chat.
KEITH: Oh, I’ve seen this.
AUSTIN: He kisses it, he touches his chest, then he kisses it again, and then he does, like, a peace symbol.
ART: Yeah, it’s like that, but I also thought he pointed up.
AUSTIN: I also thought that.
ART: I thought there was an up point.
AUSTIN: Yeah, I don’t see it – I don’t see it. This has been a lot of time dedicated to Sammy Sosa. We’re the people most talking about Sammy Sosa in this year of our Lord.
ART: Is he okay?
AUSTIN: I… who could say? There’s also this version that Thomas Whitney in the chat just posted where he just kisses, points up, and then flips his hat a little bit. Like, touches – touches his helmet. Anyway.
ART: Alright. I think the point is Memphis Longhand has like, an eight-step version of this that he just – that Memphis Longhand does by himself [AUSTIN: Okay] in the cockpit while the bars of the theme song are playing.
AUSTIN: Gotcha. Good. Okay. [laughs] Perfect. And then you launch. Um, you know what it is.
ART: You do know what it is.
AUSTIN: Oh, here’s an important question. So Feiry in the chat asks, ‘does Memphis Longhand kiss his mech’? I have a question, which is: do you do this with the mech?
ART: Mm-hm. The mech definitely does the same thing.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Like, does the mech – the mech does it.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay. Good, good, good. So as we move out to start, I wanna go over quirks really quick, and then – and then, just so you know how this – and moves – how mechs are different in this game. Because we’ve done mechs in Scum and Villainy before, where I just kind of hacked them in as, like - they’re vehicles. We’re just gonna use the vehicle things. But mechs are a little bit different in this game, because they’re a little bit different. One is you’re gonna be using these, uh – the mech skills: Battle, Destroy, Manoeuvre, Bombard, Manipulate, Scan. You certainly can use your other abilities if you’re doing that sort of thing. Like, if you’re Commanding someone from in your mech, that’s a thing you could still do. But to do stuff with your mech, you’ll be using your mech skills. They each have quirks. You can ask me questions about the quirks I’ve written for these characters, because I wrote them all. Art, the Queenside Castle has a bunch of things that are just sportsy things. Quirks are, again, kind of positive and negative. I’ve given it 5ft-long cleats, [ART: Great.] I think it has like an AI that is just a playbook. So it’s like, running plays, and certainly there’s a degree of improvisation, but, like, you have the ‘charge down the street and put your shoulder down’ play. You have the covering fire play, right? [ART: Mm-hm.] I think it has what I’ve called home-run pneumatics, where it like – it charges up. It’s like, the Big O is the mech I have in mind here, but there’s lots of mechs that have pneumatic punches and things like that, where it has to, like, really charge up. It has to like, almost get into the three-point stance and build that momentum before it fires it.
ART: Sure, and then points, right? Points first?
AUSTIN: And then it – uh-huh. Yeah, totally. You know that. And then it has wide shoulders, is also the – because it has – it’s big. It’s a big athlete mech.
So for instance – those are the quirks. Quirks are things you’ll be able to spend to help – or, not to help, but to - sorry, to – or is it also to help? It’s to resist for sure. Does it also - do you also spend them to help, or do you spend your stress to help? I’m trying to remember here. Ba-ba-ba, here we go. [reading] ‘Spending quirks. Using quirks. A pilot can push their vehicle for each of the following benefits - a +1 to any action roll.’ So you can exhaust a quirk to just get a +1 to action rolls. So you can be like, ‘alright, I’m gonna use my wide shoulders to get a +1 to this roll.’ [reading] ‘Improved effect with a vehicle action’. So you can be like, ‘I don’t want limited effect. I want standard effect, or I want great effect, so I’m gonna spend my wide shoulders.’ [reading] ‘Or to take a vehicle action when the vehicle has level 3 damage.’ So if your vehicle’s hurt really bad, you can be like, ‘that’s alright, my playbook AI can like, still operate this play, even though it’s hurt really bad’. [reading] ‘A quirk can only be exhausted for pushing when one or more of its descriptors would be advantageous. When you exhaust a quirk, mark the box next to it. When a vehicle’s quirks have all been exhausted- four quirks in most cases- its pilot can either send the vehicle limping home quietly or try to push it past its limits’. We’ll read more about that if it happens. Um, de-de-de… And then… I do just wanna make sure that it’s… yes.
Also, the other time that quirks get spent is if you are leading a group action with a quirk – or, in vehicles – everyone in the group rolls – the pilot leading the group exhausts a quirk, and that – if they fail the roll, to help, instead of like doing stress. Like normally, that’s about stress, but when you’re in vehicles, stress ends up being about – or quirks end up doing the job that quirks – sorry. Quirks end up doing the job that stress normally does. Likewise, when you resist things inside of your mech, or your vehicle if you’re in a different vehicle, you use quirks instead of – instead of rolling, you subtract the number of… I’m just gonna double check this. This is the stuff that’s like, we’re only gonna get it by doing it and remembering it. Yes.
[reading] ‘Unlike when a pilot resists, no dice are rolled for vehicles that resist outcomes or consequences. Instead, a vehicle resisting a consequence must exhaust four quirks minus the attribute rating being used to a minimum of one. For example, if a vehicle has at least 1 point in Manoeuvre in battle, its Expertise rating is 2, so resisting with expertise would require exhausting two quirks.’ So if I’m like ‘yeah, rockets shoot you’, and you’re like ‘no, no, no, no, I’m going to use Expertise to prevent my machine from being damaged, and my Expertise is 3,’ then you would exhaust one quirk. Alright. So. Where do we start? Let’s start with team Talk. Where are you – where are you starting at with this box? Where on this map are you trying to get the truck to begin with, before you pull the box out of the box?
KEITH: I like this alley between the, uh – the body of the Divine and the Divine Collaborate-held urban residential.
AUSTIN: Do you wanna mark it for me?
KEITH: There’s sort of like –
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Yeah.
KEITH: - up through there?
AUSTIN: Okay. So, you have them pull up the truck here. I think this is still pretty safe. You know, you’re able to pull up, and it pops up out of – we see the truck, the space truck, pull up out of the water and kind of park in this little alleyway. Do you – are you gonna drive the truck all the way there? Are you gonna pick up the box yourselves? What’s the play here?
KEITH: I – I think escorting the truck and keep us free to do whatever we need to in these mechs.
AUSTIN: Totally. I can get with that. As you pull up, you, like – up into here – your scanners begin to beep and pick up an enemy unit that you hadn’t seen previously. Up ahead in front of Better Brighter HQ is a - map layer, there we go – a unit of enemy mechs. These are Hallows, which means they are a mercenary unit. They are not blessed by the Divine Courage the way that some other smaller mechs are. They are just like – they are also called Hounds inside of the Principality. They are – it’s a Hound group, it’s a mercenary group, that is currently using a gigantic, like, plasma drill to try to break in a closed gate at Better Brighter HQ.
[pause]
AUSTIN: So, let me fill that in really quick so you can see that there is a – boop, there we go. Wait, is this on the wrong - ? It’s on the wrong thing. Bop! There we go. The door is closed, but they have, I would say, a total of – it’s two mechs and then this big plasma drill. [KEITH: Okay.] And I am going to make a clock up here that is the Principality siege team. It’s a four-step clock. You have to beat that four-set clock to clear them out and get any further in. And also, y’know, there might be other mechs nearby also, but those are the ones that you see as you begin to pull up. What is your opening move here? What is your opening gambit against this group?
KEITH (as David): Smack, do you have a gambit? Do you have an opening gambit?
[Jack sighs]
[pause]
KEITH: (as David): What are the weapons that you have?
AUSTIN: That’s a good question. So, Smack, you took medium size, right? Medium load?
JACK: Yes.
AUSTIN: So that means you have five slots to play with. Everyone has everything that’s under where that load is. You can always pull from that set of things. So that’s things like, you could say that ‘I have 2 armour,’ or ‘I have an armour, I have a melee weapon or two, a rack of missiles or rockets, a machinegun, a heavy cannon, et cetera.’ There’s a huge list of things you can pull from here. Everyone has that same set of things for vehicles. Then there’s the handful of things right under where it says vehicle gear. [JACK: Mmm.] And for you, Smack, you could put points into ‘a fine melee weapon,’ which is ‘a finely-crafted melee weapon that is balanced for your vehicle’; a ‘fine heavy melee weapon,’ which ‘can strike with greater reach or force’; a ‘scary weapon or tool,’ an ‘unusual weapon or tool that has increased effect when used for intimidation but standard effect for dealing damage,’ and a ‘tangle gun’ [Jack laughs] that ‘launches some kind of round that impedes or removes the mobility of a struck target.’
JACK: Aw, damn. Okay. Okay.
AUSTIN: Um, so you can – you can –
JACK: I mean, I can spec my mech out here, like straight away, TBH.
AUSTIN: Yeah, if you want to you can do that. I’m gonna say you should do it as you –
JACK: As I go?
AUSTIN: As you go, for two reasons.
JACK: Okay, I wanna make sure I – mm.
AUSTIN: One – one, because it’s better for you, the player, and I am a fan of the player and I’m rooting for you. [Jack laughs] Two, because each time you get to describe a new compartment opening on your mech and you pulling some bullshit out.
JACK: Aw, geez. Okay, alright, so I think – okay. [Austin laughs] I think I’d like to start by – alright.
AUSTIN: Also, what’s your mech look like? I know that it’s called the Blue-Of-Heaven –
JACK: [crosstalk] It’s big and blue.
AUSTIN: - and I know that I’ve written that its vehicle manufacturer model is a Yes! Power CRCC, which is a Close-Range Combat Chassis, but.
JACK: Yes.
AUSTIN: Yeah, and I know that it’s big and blue. I’ve also written that down, along with flexible joints, aggressive stance, and backup reactors as your quirks.
JACK: So this is a, uh, like a Rook model.
--00:30:00--
A base Rook model that has been presumably Yes! Power bought from the descendants of, um – what’s the manufacturing company that made [???] [00:29:59]?
AUSTIN: It was Minerva, and I can tell you who makes the descendants of the Rooks now, because [JACK: Yeah.] – uh, because – wait, did I not write it over here under Envoy?
JACK: Did they buy the license?
AUSTIN: Where the fuck did I put it? Yeah, Pallas Heavy Industry makes it.
JACK: Pallas.
AUSTIN: P-A-L-L-A-S. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JACK: Okay, cool.
AUSTIN: Like Athena’s epithet.
JACK: Yeah, so a large, blue mech with its cockpit in the kind of upper chest. Huge heavy arms, a very wide stance. Um, and I think – I mean…
JACK (as Smack): Hey, David?
KEITH (as David): Yes?
JACK (as Smack): We’re fighting these guys, right?
KEITH (as David): Oh, yes. [Austin laughs]
JACK (as Smack): This is not a stealth play, is it, David?
KEITH (as David): No, no.
JACK (as Smack): Alright, give me just one moment.
KEITH (as David): Okay.
JACK: And I think that compartments on my shoulders slide open, [AUSTIN: Love it.] essentially giving me, like, epaulets?
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: Is the – the lids -
KEITH: Sorry, can you – what?
JACK: Epaulets [eh-pell-ets]?
KEITH: What is that?
JACK: Epaulets? Am I describing this right?
KEITH: Oh.
AUSTIN: That’s – that said, I know what you mean. I would probably say epaulets [eh-paul-ets], but I guess that’s wrong.
KEITH: Talking about shoulder armour.
JACK: But like specifically, kind of like, pauldron-y.
AUSTIN: Yeah, pauldron is not a bad word.
KEITH: Pauldrons are what I was – what I’m thinking of.
AUSTIN: Epaulets are like cloth, right? Or, -
JACK: And these are, like, literally if you imagine two horizontal lids sliding outwards, [AUSTIN: Love it.] y’know, giving itself these shoulder pads.
AUSTIN: Oh, I see what you’re saying. It’s like, as they open up, they hang.
JACK: Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
AUSTIN: That’s the key element that you’re talking about here.
KEITH: Oh! Oh, yeah, yeah okay. I know exactly these are.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: And, um, little tiny launchers rise from these things, and this is a ‘scary weapon or tool.’
AUSTIN: Mmm. Mm-hm.
JACK: Because what is going to happen is, uh, it’s gonna basically shoot reflective shrapnel, very light reflective shrapnel, into the air above me - into the air above me.
KEITH: Lightly reflective, or lightweight?
JACK: Lightweight and reflective. Like glass almost, I guess? Like glass shrapnel.
KEITH: Like bits of mirror?
JACK: Yeah. And then upward projecting onto that is going to be an image of my own mech.
AUSTIN: Oh, that’s good.
JACK: So it’s as though there’s an explosion and the sky ripples, and the mech that you have seen standing in front of you is now just gigantic.
AUSTIN: That’s so good.
JACK: And this is a weapon. It, Y’know – it has its biggest – it has increased effect when trying to scare, but standard effect when dealing damage because the thing that happens after the image has been produced is that it flies at the target, and it’s just shrapnel.
AUSTIN: [softly, impressed] Aw, fuck me up. Right.
JACK: But its main purpose is ‘Jesus Christ, what is that’?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: It’s just a – just awful – just the sound of breaking glass – just a tremendous explosion.
AUSTIN: So, here you – it sounds like what you’re doing is you’re attacking them in this moment. This is an attack, but it’s also an attack meant to frighten them , right?
JACK: Yeah. Like, I think what I’m thinking is if I can drive one of them them off – if I can just make one of them go like, ‘well, fuck this,’ then we can take the others.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Right, right, right. Totally. Alright, so by default this is a – this sounds like a - given the range that you’re describing, this is a Bombard.
JACK: Okay.
AUSTIN: Which is ‘you’re using vehicle weapons – vehicular weapons – designed to attack targets beyond human sight.’ They’re like further away than what you would be able to see with just your regular eyes. You’re using, y’know, a combination of cameras and other stuff, sensors, to make this shot happen.
JACK: Right.
AUSTIN: You designate a long-range missile targets, et cetera. Um, so, uh… To do this, yeah, it would be 1d6 by default, because that is what you have in Bombard.
JACK: In Bombard?
AUSTIN: Yes.
JACK: Okay.
AUSTIN: I want to give you your options before you roll here. Before you do your full roll here. So let me continue to read here. Um… Yeah, I guess like really what it comes down to is do you want to spend – if you want to spend a quirk, you get an extra die here. Or, if someone wants to help you, you get extra dice here. I believe that that’s it. If Austin in the chat – Austin, Austin Ramsay – can remind me if there’s a third thing, please feel free, but I’m pretty sure that is the thing that you can do here to get a bonus. Unless you have another bonus. Like, you have a bonus here for taking an additional damage to a frightened – or, an additional die to a frightened target.
[Austin Ramsay (in the chat): @Friends at the Table devil’s bargain]
JACK: Yes.
AUSTIN: Yeah, a Devil’s Bargain. I could also offer you a Devil’s Bargain, which here I don’t want to do yet. I’m gonna sit on my Devil’s Bargain options for a little bit.
JACK: Okay. Yeah, fair’s fair.
AUSTIN: For now, anyway, yeah.
JACK: Um, I’m happy to accept help, but I’m also happy to have this engagement roll be like… There’s – the ways in which this can go wrong or can go not quite as well are as interesting to me as a success, so…
AUSTIN: Yeah. Oh, that’s true. Austin Ramsay says, ‘remember that assisting provides more than just extra dice.’ Yes, that is actually true. I should read that also. ‘Teamwork,’ here we go. ‘When you assist, decide how the pilot helps with their action. Take stress equal to the number of ticks in your connection clock with them, then select that many unique benefits from the following.’ So, in other words, for instance: David, if you were helping here, you have three ticks in connections, so you would get to pick three benefits from helping – from spending – you’d spend three stress, but you would get ‘they take 1d,’ ‘they have improved effect,’ ‘they have improved position,’ ‘they ignore level 3 armour’, ‘they ignore level 3 damage’. You can take any three of those. It would cost you three stress because ‘the stronger’ – this is quoting – [JACK: Right.] ‘the stronger the connection you have with the pilot, the more stressful it is to assist them when they’re in need and the harder you work to aid them. If more than one pilot wants to assist, consider that the character might be leading a group action,’ et cetera. Which fucking rules, by the way? The like, the stronger the connection you have with them, the more stressful it is to assist them, is great. I love it so much.
But you’re already at 2 stress, David, so I understand if you’re like, ‘actually, I’m good for this opening volley’.
KEITH: Yeah. I do love the things that I could do to help, but let’s let – let’s let –
AUSTIN: There will be opportunities, right?
KEITH: Y’know, I’m the older brother. I let Smack take the first shot.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: If it goes bad, then I guess maybe I should take the first shot next time. [Jack laughs]
AUSTIN: Here’s a question: do we think this is a group that is already frightened? Oh, this is only when you command a frightened target, so it doesn’t matter. Alright, cool. Give me your Bombard then, unless you wanna burn a quirk?
JACK: Is it just 1d6?
AUSTIN: 1d6.
JACK: No, I’m happy to, um –
AUSTIN: Leave it up to the dice. Alright.
JACK: Yeah.
[pause]
AUSTIN: Oh, this is risky standard. I should’ve said that to you. Risky standard. That’s a 1. Are you good with sticking with this, given that I said it was risky standard?
JACK: [laughs] Um…
AUSTIN: Would you have said something different if I had said a different thing?
JACK: I think if I’m being honest, I probably wouldn’t have, [AUSTIN: Yeah.] but I have also just rolled a 1.
AUSTIN: I know. Let’s be honest.
JACK: Yeah, no, no. Let’s be honest about this. No, I think – I think if you had said ‘this is risky standard,’ I would’ve been like, ‘okay.’
AUSTIN: You would have been like, ‘yeah, of course it is. That’s what this is. That’s what happens here.’ Um, alright, so I’m gonna put consequences -
KEITH: [???] couple of things, it’s not just that you fail right away.
AUSTIN: No, totally. That’s not how it goes. So, let’s see. Um. Okay, I know exactly what’s gonna happen. So I think, y’know, at a 1 the actual thing that happens is you see them start to break off, and then a shape kind of moves across your view screen super quickly. It’s like a jet flew over past, but the jet was made out of flags. Just a banner flying in the sky at incredibly fast speeds. And it’s gone. You lose sight of it. But you see them turn, as if this thing has shook them, and then they stand fast for a moment and one of them drops a, like, device down to the ground like a grenade that explodes and produces a, um – like a brief, uh – it’s actually like a mechanical, like physical shield. Like they drop it to the ground, and it – not sprouts, but almost geysers up a very brief drone shield around them. Like a collection of shrapnel that has little – little, like, jets on the bottom of it, that protect them from the incoming shrapnel that you’re fighting. And it’s as if – you can put the clock together here – they’ve become a little more courageous.
JACK: Hmm.
AUSTIN: And here’s the worst thing is, I’m actually gonna start a second clock.
JACK: Oh, great.
AUSTIN: And that is the actual consequence, which is – it’s a six-step clock- and this is the breach the gate clock. And I am going to tick that clock – when you failed this roll – I’m gonna tick that clock twice. So that’s now at two. They are a four-step clock, so you just need to get four ticks on them to deal with them. But boy, you better do that before they get to six. [Jack laughs]
KEITH: I mean, Jack can resist these consequences, right?
AUSTIN: That is true! Jack can absolutely decide to resist these consequences [JACK: Hmm.] if that’s a thing that they wanna do.
JACK: Which will incur stress?
AUSTIN: No. So, that wouldn’t – this is –
JACK: [crosstalk] No, no, so this is with my quirk.
AUSTIN: So this is the thing. Yeah. See, this is what’s neat. So, traditionally you’d resist consequences with stress, but you are in a giant walking robot, and so instead you are going to leverage the strengths and quirks of your mech. So…
JACK: Because everyone knows machines don’t feel stress.
AUSTIN: [laughing softly] Never! Never, ever, ever. So, here we go. [reading] ‘Unlike when a pilot resists’ – uh, oh – ‘a pilot resisting consequences,’ blah blah blah – ‘but unlike when a pilot resists, no dice are rolled for vehicles that resist consequences. Instead, a vehicle resisting a consequence must exhaust 4 quirks minus the attribute being used, to a minimum of 1.’ So, ‘for example, if a vehicle has at least one point in Manoeuvre and Battle, it’s Expertise is 2, so resisting with Expertise would require exhausting 2 quirks’. The thing – you can’t resist missing, right? You can’t resist – you can’t make it so that you do scare them away. But you could prevent them still from beginning to breach this gate, from the plasma cutter – plasma siege thing – cutting into this thing. That’s a – that is a thing you could resist still.
JACK: Yeah.
AUSTIN: I mean, the clock still exists, ‘cause this is the thing they’re doing, but you could prevent their progress on that. And to do that, I would say that that resistance is… Is it Acuity, or is that Expertise? I need to – I don’t think it’s Expertise, ‘cause I think Expertise is – let’s see. [reading] ‘Acuity resists consequences for a machine being hacked or disoriented. Expertise resists consequences from a machine being damaged or strained’. Um, it’s not really either of those. I guess – I guess it’s closer to disoriented in the idea of, like, Acuity is what would prevent you from missing. Maybe you’re like, ‘oh, I’m gonna redirect the rest of these’, maybe? [JACK: Mm.] You tell me how you’d resist them making progress.
JACK: I think I’d try and rush them.
AUSTIN: Oh, so you would be like, ‘alright, I’m gonna fucking just charge in and prevent this thing from doing the damage.’
JACK: I think that’s the Smack Talk way, right?
AUSTIN: Yeah, okay.
JACK: Is that, like, you try your first horror move, [AUSTIN: Yeah.] it goes, [unenthusiastic noises] [Keith laughs] y’know, and then you just sort of go like, ‘well, [laughs] okay, alright.’
AUSTIN: Then yeah, I’m gonna say that is an Expertise thing. ‘Cause that feels in line with Battle, Destroy, Manoeuvre, right?
JACK: Yes. Yeah.
AUSTIN: Um, and with ‘I’m just gonna fucking charge in.’
JACK: And so how many quirks am I exhausting here?
AUSTIN: So, you will exhaust 4 minus the attribute rating being used. Your Expertise is 3, so you only have to exhaust one of these.
JACK: Oh, gosh, okay.
AUSTIN: And tell me how you do it using whatever you’re doing.
JACK: Uh, so… [laughs] Okay. I think I’m exhausting ‘big and blue.’
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: Because I think what happens is, y’know, one of the pilots of these siege mechs [AUSTIN: Yeah.] turns and looks up at the – at the, um - the gigantic thing in the sky, and then is kind of – what’s the word – bolstered [AUSTIN: Yeah.] by the shield. And is just like, ‘yeah, okay’. Turns back to the thing and there’s just – the anime is just like [Austin laughs] the screen a full frame of the colour blue. And we just get a slow-mo shot of Smack Talk and the Blue-of-the-Heavens arriving fist out, ready to go.
AUSTIN: God. Love it so much. And so I think at that point the group can’t, like, manoeuvre the siege weapon to begin the cutting again. So yeah, I will un-
JACK: ‘Cause I’m just trying to hit them!
AUSTIN: Yeah, they’re like ‘ah, shit, okay! Ah, hoo.’ [Jack laughs] Alright. David, are you staying back with the truck?
KEITH: Staying back as in not deciding to engage?
AUSTIN: Staying back as in staying at range.
KEITH: Um, hmm… Interesting question, ‘cause I was going to go up close because Smack was not, but now [AUSTIN: But now…] we’ve switched, so do I go up close? I haven’t looked at my potential things.
AUSTIN: You think - maybe you think about that and about what you wanna do here, and then while you’re figuring that out we’ll switch over to orbital cannon team. What are y’all doing?
[pause]
ALI: Hmmmm… Well, Memphis has -
ART: Creeping up on some cannons. [Ali laughs] Sorry.
ALI: How do you wanna take this? So - I mean the one that is within the Courage building is gonna be the most…
AUSTIN: That’s a good call.
ALI: Uh, the most… fortified, I think is what I wanna say?
AUSTIN: Yes. Good word.
ART: Yeah.
ALI: [laughs] Is there – is there any information that can be gathered in terms of, like, if we take one out, do the others react, yada yada?
--00:45:00--
AUSTIN: It sounds like you’re making a gather information roll, to me.
ALI: That’s what it sounds like.
AUSTIN: It does sound like that. [Ali laughs] Um, how are you gathering that information? How are you and Pigeon – or, Pigeon and Harmonious – trying to gather that information? Or is this a flashback where you gathered this information previously, somehow?
ALI: Yeah, I mean it feels like it could be a flashback. I do have 2 in Scan, which I don’t know would help me here.
AUSTIN: Yeah, I mean I think that could totally be a thing you’re doing now with Scan. What’s Scan say? Let’s read Scan. ‘When you Scan, you discern the truth around you through your vehicle. You might identify the model of approaching vehicles, you might spot the heat signature of an active generator, you could try to judge a building’s stress points.’ Yeah, I think you could do this. I think you could probably do this. Are you up in the air scanning down, basically?
ALI: Yeah, that makes sense to me.
AUSTIN: Um, cool. What does – in your mind, what does Harmonious look like?
ALI: So, I thought about this for a long time, ‘cause [laughs] [AUSTIN: Yeah.] before we started recording I was thinking of it as really - having a lot of really smooth surfaces, [AUSTIN: Cool. Yeah.] but looking kind of weird. Like, y’know, sometimes when you see a piece of jewellery that looks like a bean, and it’s like, ‘Why did you do that’?
AUSTIN: Why did you make a bean?
ALI: Right, what are you doing? [Austin laughs] But I have a – since then, I have a very better touchstone now that this is a bird mech, which is the Elmeth. Which if anybody here - [laughs]
AUSTIN: Oh, hell yes.
ALI: If anyone here wants to google at home the MAN-08 Elmeth from Mobile Suit Gundam. It’s such a bizarre-looking thing.
AUSTIN: I fucking love it. [sighs]
ALI: It’s so good. It’s like this vaguely, like mono-eyed mech-
KEITH: [crosstalk] What is it called?
AUSTIN: The Elmeth? E-L-M-E-T-H.
ALI: It’s this mono-eyed kind of, like, very – I don’t even know! So, it’s like, the way that I’ve imagined it…
AUSTIN: It looks like a helmet!
KEITH: It looks like a bug.
AUSTIN: A bug or a helmet. Yeah, totally.
KEITH: It looks like a cool beetle.
ART: It looks like an angry bird.
ALI: Right, so it does look like an angry bird and that’s kind of what I was going for.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Yeah, uh-huh. It does look like an angry bird.
ALI: I was thinking a bit more – ‘cause it has kind of the, um, the Kingdom Come kind of situation going on where it’s kind of a spaceship with a thing underneath it.
AUSTIN: Right.
ALI: The Elmeth does, at least. But I think that Harmonious is like, um, as if it was just the top part, and the, like, curved sides were an extendable wingspan. Like those stuff could, like, move.
AUSTIN: Like those things could move and open up a little. Totally.
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Feel free to change your quirks to represent this, by the way, please. [Ali laughs] Because I don’t know anymore that ‘paper-thin wings’, ‘quiet engine’ make sense anymore.
ALI: Okay, fair.
AUSTIN: You tell me what those are. But for now, Let’s start with the Scan. I like the idea of doing a Scan here. It’ll be 2d6 again [ALI: Sure.] unless you’d like to push yourself with a quirk, or unless, uh, Memphis is helping you.
[pause]
AUSTIN: Sounds like Memphis is not helping you. [Ali laughs]
ART: I don’t know – I’m trying to think, like, what that would look like?
AUSTIN: Um, good question. I mean, you could Scan too, you could help by scanning. But what you would have to do is doing, uh… this is where I keep stumbling over. Is helping also quirk-based or is it still stress-based when you’re in mechs? Let’s see. It’s just stress-based still, right? It seems like it’s still stress-based. Yes.
ALI: Yeah, I mean if we don’t wanna spend stress here, I could just do this.
AUSTIN: This is totally up to you. I think this is controlled standard, is what this is.
ALI: Okay, yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay, assist is always stress. Thank you, Austin in the chat. [Ali chuckles]
ALI: Okay. I’m just gonna roll.
AUSTIN: Yo – oh, I was like, ‘yo, it’s a 6!’, and then I was like, ‘oh, you don’t add those together, you look at the highest one. Right.’ [Ali laughs] Right, so this is a 4. That’s not a bad roll, though. That’s a good roll. That’s what you want right there. On a controlled – that’s not what you want, you want a 6. I’m a liar.
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So, I said that it was a – I said that you had controlled standard, right?
ALI: Mm-hm.
AUSTIN: So I think I’m gonna give you the standard. What’s gonna happen here is you’re gonna move from controlled into risky. Which again you could resist, if you wanted to resist that, by spending a quirk. But as you’re up and scanning – as you’re flying through the air and scanning down – what you notice is actually the – maybe this is useful to you, maybe it isn’t – the, um – Courage, the one that’s in the middle of this kind of, like – imagining this as being a sort of government centre, like a city hall plus the courts are all in this weird D-shaped building. I guess for people listening and not watching, at the far west of the city, right up against the city wall, is this giant – imagine a very angular D, including the big circle in the middle – the big hole in the middle - that has a courtyard. Inside of that courtyard is a giant orbital cannon. And I imagine the building around it, which is where Courage is based – was last seen – is, like, city hall plus court system plus police, y’know, city services are all in there. You see, from your scan, that that has a connection to the nearest – to the nearest one outside the city wall. Both of them are actually on the same power – on the same power substation, which is, um, over here. And so, you could just destroy that power substation I just added, this kind of blue thing [ALI: Oh.], and that would take them both out, with the note that your rules of engagement were ‘don’t destroy any power supply stuff.’ But you could do it and immediately take two of them out.
ALI: Could we deactivate it?
AUSTIN: Instead of destroying it? Yes, but you would then need to reactivate it when it’s time to – which could work!. I’m not gonna take this off the table! [Ali laughs] If you turn it off long enough for the Divine Collaborate to drop in their Divines, then – and then turn it back on – that would work.
ALI: But then it would be back on.
AUSTIN: But you would already have the benefit, right? The benefit was –
ALI: Okay, yeah.
AUSTIN: The benefit was that they would drop in people to help you defend Better Brighter while you’re activating whatever this weapon is, basically, right?
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: So yeah, that’s not a bad call. I’m not gonna take that away from you. That’s a good idea.
ALI: [laughs] Okay.
AUSTIN: I’m now gonna change your colour from this purple to the Elmeth’s greenish…
ALI: Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. [laughs]
AUSTIN: Or as close as I can get inside of this set of predefined colours inside of Roll20. I wish they had better colours in here, or that I knew all of how hex colours worked.
ALI: Mmm.
AUSTIN: So I’m gonna move you up because you were flying. I’m gonna put you over the water here. Memphis, where are you at on this map? You’re the red.
ART: Um… Probably just, like, a little – just the same general area over here.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah. So you’re like across, then? I’m gonna have you – you’re hiding up against these buildings, and you see that there is, in this part of the map, a group of Hollows – or Hallows – which are the kind of devoted mechs that have been blessed by Courage. And they are on patrol, explicitly defending this thing that they know is a weakness. Actually, it’s not a 6 clock. That’s a – sorry, it’s not an 8 clock, it’s a 6 clock. And those are, like, humanoid mechs that are – you would say that they’re Riggers, right? That’s what your character would say. And I think that they are – they have a degree of regality to them. They wear capes. Some of them have big, physical swords that can light up and glow. They have – y’know, a lot of them have ranged weapons, but it’s a lot of like - this specific division has a bunch of big, heavy rifles, that are slower single-shot rifles. They don’t have to reload after every shot. They’re not muskets, right? But they are kind of like designated marksman rifle style things. That’s, like, the division that’s here. And you can see a lot of them are actually placed up on top of these buildings, looking out. And you kind of emerged from the water and have snuck into a little hiding spot here.
Keith, are you still gone or are you back now?
[pause]
AUSTIN: Alright, Keith is still gone. [Ali laughs] Memphis Longhand and – do the two of you communicate about this substation?
ALI: Oh, yeah.
ART (as Memphis): Alright. We got some – we got some riggers up here on the roof. They definitely won’t shoot those cannons toward the city. Um… How about Memphis Longhand creates some diversion, runs some interference, and gives you a chance to go do what you got to do with those cannons.
ALI (as Pigeon): That would be very helpful, Memphis. That’s a good idea.
ART (as Memphis): Wonderful. Let’s go to work.
AUSTIN: Alright. What do you? How do you go to work?
ART: Um - oh, you had me on heavy, and I had Memphis on coming down to medium.
AUSTIN: No, you can do whatever you want. Totally.
ART: Cool. I think I am going to take – I think I’m gonna take the fine hollow projector, -
AUSTIN: Okay. Which says –
ART: And the chaff countermeasures.
AUSTIN: Okay. Remember, you can wait to deploy it – to pick these – until you need them.
ART: Mm-hm. But what I’m going to do [AUSTIN: (tired) Okay.] is a disco ball and a chaff grenade..
AUSTIN: Okay, great. Okay. [laughs] Great. What’s that look like?
ART: Y’know, you set off the chaff countermeasures, then you fire the hollow projector at the chaff as, like, a –
AUSTIN: Uh-huh. Oh my god.
ART: As like a distorting and multiplying effect.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: Making it look like there are just several different versions of the Queenside Castle [AUSTIN: Love it.] executing the same manoeuvres over the whole, like, couple blocks.
AUSTIN: I… [sighs] I think I’m going to give you this as Manipulate.
ART: Okay?
AUSTIN: Like, it’s written as if it’s hands. [reading] ‘when you manipulate, you deftly move things with your vehicle. You might remove a primed warhead from a missile, you might pick up a baby in its carriage. You could reattach a damaged arm, but’ – this says modify. I think that means engineering; the moves have changed since this sheet was written, ‘engineering may be better.’ But I think what you’re describing is basically like careful manipulation of tools that you have. Of the hollow projector and the countermeasures are that. It’s not Bombard, right? Like, it’s –
ART: I mean, what I’m describing is third quarter.
AUSTIN: Is what? Say again?
ART: Is the third quarter.
AUSTIN: Right. Yeah. [Keith laughs] God. Alright, give me the fucking roll. So it’s 2d6, and again you could burn stuff to help. You could burn stuff to – to, uh – you could burn quirks to help yourself, or you can get help from – from, um, Pigeon.
ART: I’m willing to roll with this.
AUSTIN: Alright, give me 2d6. I’m going to say again: risky standard. You’re in a risky position because they picked up – aw, that’s a 6! Look at you! [laughs] They call me Mr Six.
AUSTIN: Finesse would be if a pilot was doing it. You’re not doing this as a pilot. You’re only looking at your vehicle actions when you’re in vehicles, unless you are doing something with your human body specifically. So, yeah. Nice – good fucking work on a 6. I’m gonna – I’m gonna mark them as – what was it, two steps of a clock with a 6? Let’s see. I’m pretty sure it does. Let’s look at effect really quick. Yeah, [reading] ‘typical amount: 2’. You don’t have - these aren’t fine or whatever, are they? Maybe they are. It’s a fine hollow projector, isn’t it?
ART: Damn fine hollow projector.
AUSTIN: So that’s a – [laughs] okay, it’s a damn fine hollow projector. [Keith laughs] They are, like – they are distracted and to the point that I actually think that some of their signals are completely overwhelmed. Like, I’ve drawn them as being a very – with my words – as being very, like, stuck up in their design, and I think that extends to their sensor suite. And they are just overwhelmed by this remarkable display of… of fucking nonsense. So, yeah. So, nice work. So yeah, I think we see that, and then we see – I’m guessing, you tell me Pigeon. Do you move closer at that point?
ALI: Yeah, I think so.
AUSTIN: Alright.
ALI: At the opportunity.
AUSTIN: Alright, cool. I’m gonna move you, like, to that place, and you can set down there. If you’re gonna deactivate this, though, I think that means getting out and going to, like, Interfacing with it or Engineering with it, or something like that. So…
ALI: Yeah, sure. I have a light load and a fine cover identity, so I’m fine.
AUSTIN: Great. I love it! What’s your cover identity?
ALI: [laughs] I don’t know! I just have it in italics, so we’ll figure it out when I need it.
AUSTIN: So we’ll fucking figure it out. Great! Oh, that’s really funny. Okay, good. Alright, so we see you – we see, like, your cockpit open, and we see the silhouette of you and maybe you’re in a cover identity. Maybe you’re not. We’ll see. Let’s hop back over to David and Smack. What are you...? [laughs]
KEITH: Hello.
AUSTIN: What are y’all up to? David, we’ll come back to you. You’re in this alleyway. Your brother has charged into these siege units and taken out – or, not taken any of them out yet, but has halted their progress.
KEITH: Um, I spent most of that time trying to decide if I was going to, like, stay back.
AUSTIN: Mm-hm.
KEITH: But I don’t know. I’m just not a stay back kinda mech.
AUSTIN: Yeah, I gotcha. You’re a box. You’re boxy.
KEITH: I’m a box, but I’m a weird box.
AUSTIN: Yeah. You have three Manoeuvre, so that’s a fucking manoeuvrable box.
KEITH: Yeah. And I think that means I’m going to try to get up close [AUSTIN: Mm-hm.] as fast as I possibly can, which is very fast.
AUSTIN: Okay. What is the – what is the goal you want to have happen for that? Like, what do you want to do when you get there?
KEITH: I want to – I want to smash my box body into another mech.
AUSTIN: Alright. That is Battle, then. Or – or, you can tell me what your result is. I would say Battle at this point is risky standard, if you want to use Battle.
KEITH: I was trying to figure out – okay, okay, I see. I, uh…
[pause]
--01:00:00--
KEITH: Yeah, I’m doing Battle, I think.
AUSTIN: Yeah, that’s what it seems like. [reading] ‘When you Battle, you engage in vehicular close-quarters combat. You might lash out with your scoop arm. You might fire your Gatling gun in a dog fight. You could perform a pit manoeuvre, but Manoeuvre might be better’ if you’re doing a pit manoeuvre, which is like – stop somebody else.
KEITH: Mm-hm.
AUSTIN: Are you using anything special to do this? Are you just going to do the thing as is?
KEITH: Yeah, I actually have a couple things.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: I have a fine mobility suit.
AUSTIN: Ooh, okay.
KEITH: Which is two load here.
AUSTIN: Okay. Or ‘suite’, I think. So it’s like a couple of different things.
KEITH: Oh, ‘suite.’ Yes, it’s a couple of different things.
AUSTIN: Yeah. So what it is? What are the things that let you move in cool ways, and how do they deploy from this boxy-ass mech you got?
KEITH: So, I’m – I’m thinking – so one of these, okay – so one of the other tools is called a ‘grapnel anchor tool,’ [AUSTIN: Yes.] but under ‘fine mobility suite’ it also says, ‘an excellent grapple system.’ And so I’m -
AUSTIN: Yeah, I think those can do similar things. Like, you can have a better version of that as part of your suite.
KEITH: So I’m just thinking of, like – what if – using my big box mech body as, like, the ammo to a slingshot.
AUSTIN: Oh, that’s so good.
KEITH: And hooking on to the corners of some buildings and, like, these – they’re not – it’s not like a rubber band, it’s like a mechanical cable that like – that like, basically retracts itself [AUSTIN: Yeah.] at a super high speed [AUSTIN: Yeah.] and launches me at one of these other mechs.
AUSTIN: Love it.
KEITH: And the good news is that I also have destruction tools.
AUSTIN: So once you get there, you’re going to start digging in, basically?
KEITH: Well, the destruction tools are not just for buildings. They are also for vehicles and other large objects.
AUSTIN: Oh, great.
KEITH: I am going to Destruction a mech.
AUSTIN: Alright, so let me – what’s this say? Yeah, ‘tools for scrapping other vehicles and other large objects.’
KEITH: [crosstalk] I’m like a cannonball, or like a wrecking ball.
AUSTIN: Yeah. So, I’m gonna be honest: I think this might be – alright, I think there’s two ways to do this. There is risky standard, which you can choose to say ‘yes, I wanna do risky standard. I have ‘‘fine mobility suite’’.’ This is the type of thing I do all the time’. It also sounds like a lot, to me, so I wanna read a rule really quick here that I like a lot, which is that ‘you as the player’ – let me just find it. Where is it? I thought I put it here somewhere. Um, chu-chu-chu. [Pause] If I recall right, the player can decide to go – to say, ‘hey, what if I did desperate to go up to great effect.’ I believe that it’s a rule in here, unless it’s in a previous edition, in which case I’m wrong. Yeah, here it is. [reading] ‘After an actor’s’ – an action’s – so if you’re gonna do this with… I think if you’re gonna do this with Battle, it’s risky standard. What I’ll say is you could also do it with Manoeuvre and it would be desperate standard – or – mmmm. God.
Thank you: ‘player principles,’ says Austin Ramsay. I think it’s in two different places. [reading] ‘After an action’s position and effect are determined, the pilot may choose to improve their effect at the cost of their position or vice-versa if it makes sense in the fiction. They could take the risky position standard effect action and change it to desperate position great effect action if they want a more dangerous and effective path. The same applies to moving from a controlled position to a risky position. Position can even be lowered from controlled to desperate so that effect can be improved from limited to great. Remember that effect cannot be better than great’.
I think my options for you here are just actually– despite, actually, what I just said – risky standard for Battle, or desperate great for Manoeuvre. Like, if you’re just gonna fucking go for it, it’s really risky to just like ‘I’m just gonna throw myself at this thing.’ [KEITH: Yeah.] Manoeuvre would focus on the bowling ball aspect – or the wrecking ball aspect – whereas Battle would focus on the ‘I’m landing on them and then destruction tooling them’. Um…
KEITH: Let’s go Manoeuvre! Let’s do it.
AUSTIN: Alright, desperate great. Let’s do it! Are you gonna spend anything, quirk-wise, to get a bonus to this roll?
KEITH: And I can just spend one to add one die?
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] You can spend – you can – to add one die, yeah. Or you could –
KEITH: Yeah, I think this is – this is exactly what ‘hard to handle’ is.
AUSTIN: Oh, yeah, abso-fucking-lutely, yeah. [laughs]
KEITH: This is – yeah. ‘Hard to handle’ is – the good side of ‘hard to handle’ is, um, this - it’s hard to handle for them, too.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Uh-huh. Perfect.
AUSTIN (as enemy pilot): I mean, what the fuck do we do with this thing? It’s a box! [Keith laughs]
AUSTIN: Alright, give me – give me 4d6.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: That’s a 5. Somehow you got two 1s in that roll. That would have been extremely bad if you had not pulled that 5 out, thankfully.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Alright, so a mixed success on a desperate roll. Um, so I think you get in there, you’re - you’re gonna get your great effect here. And so I’m gonna advance the siege unit tick by 3. But they – the other one at this point is like, um… Gonna use this opportunity to slowly start to reposition the – he’s like turned on the siege cannon, and is going to actually slam it into your brother. So, the consequence here, on this mixed success –
KEITH: Oh, real quick.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: I do have something that I need to ask about before we cement what just happened.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: I do have something called ‘advance prototype.’
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: [reading] ‘When declaring vehicle gear, you can state that it’s experimental.’
AUSTIN: Yes.
KEITH: ‘That gear has its load reduced by 1, to a minimum of 0. When you push your vehicle’, which I think is what I just I did –
AUSTIN: You did, yeah.
KEITH: ‘You take increased effect and +1d.’
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: 6. 4d6. I can only have one experimental item at a time.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Did you want to have done that for a fine mobility suite?
KEITH: [crosstalk] Can I have declared that for a fine mobility suite?
AUSTIN: Here’s what I’ll say: take 1 stress and I’ll let you do it as a weird flashback.
KEITH: Okay. Alright.
AUSTIN: Which means you get one more die roll here. So go ahead and give me one more d6.
KEITH: Yes. Yeah. So I have one more chance to turn this into a 6.
AUSTIN: Into a full 6.
KEITH: Alright.
AUSTIN: I like to gamble. I love the gambling here. What is the – is the flashback just like, you installing this gear, basically? The, like, advanced prototype – like ‘oh, we don’t need to’ – Y’know, is it, uh –
KEITH: Yeah. Well, the visual of it is great because you – it’s like when we were playing dusk to midnight, pretty much the only action that we had time for me to take was fixing up my mech.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: Trying to figure out how to make it a mech that I didn’t hate.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: [laughs] And so we can watch me doing that. We can also get a look at one of my other quirks, ‘overcharged wiring.’
AUSTIN: Right. Right.
KEITH: But yeah, yeah, I think that’s what it is. I think it’s like –
AUSTIN: Alright, give me your d6. Let’s see how it goes. 5d6, like a fucking Forged in the Dark roll. Never see it. Alright, that’s a 3.
KEITH: A 3, okay.
AUSTIN: But it’s still good. I still like it. [KEITH: Yeah.] So make sure that it, in fact, does not count to any of your load, we should note. So do that.
KEITH: It still counts as 1.
AUSTIN: Oh yeah, it still counts as 1. So I’m gonna just – I’m just gonna draw a circle in there instead of an ‘X’.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: But yeah, hey, that’s a cool experimental item to have. And yeah, so – I mean, here’s the thing: the gate breaching tool is turned in on your brother’s Blue-Of-Heaven mech, and you will – that will take, um… Sorry, Smack will take the level 1 damage ‘singed’ if it’s not resisted. In fact, I don’t even know if it was an active decision to turn it so much as –
JACK: [laughs] You got hit. They got hit.
AUSTIN: - you fucking bowling-balled into it [Keith laughs] and it spun around and is going to singe David’s Blue-of-Heaven.
KEITH: I’m resisting it in order to keep [AUSTIN: Right.] Smack from getting hit.
AUSTIN: Yeah. I believe Smack could also choose to resist this, since it’s damaged being done to him, but. But yeah.
KEITH: Um, no I won’t – I won’t resist it. I probably don’t even notice.
AUSTIN: [laughs] Okay. Smack, do you resist it?
KEITH: I mean, I’m in cannonball mode.
AUSTIN: No, I get you. I get you. Smack, how about you?
JACK: No, I’m, um – well, we are the Talk brothers. [Austin laughs] This siege crew has had a truly wild four seconds. [Austin and Keith laugh] Which is just like, um –
AUSTIN: Oh, boy.
JACK: A gigantic blue mech attacking them and them being like, just beginning to be like ‘oh shit, we’re being attacked by that’.
AUSTIN: Mm-hm.
JACK: And then a second mech. ‘Is that a box’? [Keith laughs] So I think – I think Smack is kind of just in it, [AUSTIN: I think -] as well, and is gonna get –
AUSTIN: No, go ahead. Yeah, and I just getting singed. Austin in the chat says, ‘level 1 damage for desperate consequences!’ with an exclamation point. I think I’m being scolded here, because by the rules I should be giving a level 3 damage [Jack laughs] for a desperate consequence. But I’m giving it to someone who didn’t – who didn’t – or level 3 harm.
KEITH: Wasn’t even in the attack.
AUSTIN: But wasn’t part of the attack, and was hurting a brother, so I’m trying to go light. You know what I mean?
JACK: You were hurting a brother, so that’s gonna be a – [laughs]
AUSTIN: You were hurting a brother, so that’s gonna be – exactly.
KEITH: That’s an emotional 2, plus the physical 1.
AUSTIN: And it wasn’t a hard failure, right? Like, it was a – hmm. Maybe I should –
KEITH: It was a 5. It was a 5!
AUSTIN: See, people say – people say I go hard on my players, but this is – the truth is coming out. Other GMs in the chat know that I’m here for fun. I trust in my players. I’m trying to have a good time.
JACK: I’ll bargain for you with it with a really cool visual call-back.
AUSTIN: Sure.
JACK: If you don’t put me up to 3.
AUSTIN: [curious] Okay.
KEITH: Well I – Austin says, ‘not scolded, just interested.’ So there you go.
AUSTIN: That’s fair, that’s fair.
JACK: So I think we get the single screen of blue that we had in the attack, except it’s just paint blistering.
AUSTIN: Oh, that’s really good. Yeah.
JACK: And, y’know, the paint just kind of just like, cracks up the whole frame.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Yeah. Okay. Let’s stay with you for a second here. What do you do in the Blue-of-Heaven, Smack, as your mech gets singed?
JACK: Hey, you wanna see my fine heavy melee weapon?
AUSTIN: I really do.
JACK: Um… I’ve been thinking about this.
AUSTIN: Uh-huh?
JACK: I think my mech’s right arm – it’s just got a big mech hand, y’know?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: And I make a fist, and then [chuckles] at my mech’s wrist, I guess?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: It just swings ninety degrees and shifts upwards and locks itself, so that I essentially have a hammer for an arm now.
AUSTIN: God. Great.
JACK: And the hammer head is my fist and wrist turned sideways. This isn’t like a body horror thing. There’s just very clear joints that it has swung and locked.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: Oh yeah, I just - We’ve done Twilight Mirage. We’ve had some mechs do really horrible things with their bodies. This is just like, ‘damn, the hammer emerged’. This is -
KEITH: Although I wish I’d thought of that when we were playing Twilight Mirage, ‘cause I could have said that Gig’s eye doesn’t count as body horror because it’s not part of his body. [laughs]
JACK: [laughs] It’s a robot.
AUSTIN: Yeah, turns out that doesn’t actually work, though. Still body horror.
JACK: Now, you might be wondering what makes this a heavy melee weapon –
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Yeah, I was curious.
JACK: - and it’s the rocket. It’s the jet engine on the wrist.
AUSTIN: Ah. Okay! [laughs] Which produces more velocity, which is felt as greater mass.
JACK: Yes.
AUSTIN: Great. Um, fucking –
KEITH: Oh, is this like the Reinhardt hammer from Overwatch?
JACK: Yeah, and I think one of the robots in Pacific Ram has jet-mounted [AUSTIN: Yeah.] – jet-mounted punches or jet-propelled punches.
AUSTIN: Fuck yes, indeed.
KEITH: That was a pretty cool movie.
AUSTIN: Yeah. So, quickly I wanna note that the bowling ball did totally fucking work. [Jack laughs softly] You’ve knocked out one of these completely. I imagine this being very squat. Again, also very boxy mechs, grey and blue, that now you’re close up against them – or near them – against them, if you turned into a box-like bowling ball, actually, you’ve noticed that these mercenaries have definitely put their mechs together through a collection of spare parts. And, like, they’ve not been sent – not that they’ve been sent out here to die, necessarily, but they aren’t equipped to deal with y’all.
JACK: Right. [laughs]
AUSTIN: Go ahead. It sounds like you are giving me an attack of some sort. What are you rolling for it?
JACK: Aw, geez. Let me see.
AUSTIN: Seems like a Battle?
JACK: Yeah… I could make an argument for Wreck, but that’s more –
AUSTIN: No. You can’t, because that’s what you would be doing if you were a human.
JACK: Oh, right! Yes, I’m sorry, I have to be in these vehicle actions.
AUSTIN: Yes. Yeah.
JACK: Yes, this is Battle. This is just me, like, having charged into the fray, [AUSTIN: Yeah.] being burned by my own brother. I’m just gonna lash out with the hammer.
AUSTIN: [sighs] Alright, um -
KEITH: Physically and emotionally. [Jack laughs]
AUSTIN: Physically and emotionally. Here’s a great thing, is you get less effect because of your mech being singed, but also you have Robot Fighter, that says ‘you know the weak points of the inanimate, and you get increased effect in combat versus machines.’ So those cancel out, plus it’s a fine heavy melee weapon. This is risky great.
JACK: Hey, Austin?
AUSTIN: Yeah?
JACK: You wanna know what the weak point of a mech is?
AUSTIN: Yeah, what’s the weak point of a mech?
JACK: The fucking pilot.
AUSTIN: [shouts] Oh my God! [Ali laughs]
KEITH: Oh my god.
AUSTIN: Jesus Christ.
KEITH: That’s a – [laughs] I mean, so – wait, I –
AUSTIN: Maybe we shouldn’t do a season about mechs.
ART: Yikes!
AUSTIN: Give me – yeah…
ALI: Are they wrong?
KEITH: Maybe Jack should be the Ace so that [Austin laughs] – ‘cause the Ace has a move called ‘Meat is Cheap, Save the Metal’.
AUSTIN: That is true. You do have that move. Yo, you don’t even fucking know. I know about what Jack’s character is gonna be in Season 6. This is the fucking – this is the prologue. Just wait! [Jack laughs] Um, this is a battle.
KEITH: Yikes. Is Jack playing the antagonist?
AUSTIN: Jack is playing a –
JACK: Oh, funny - funny, funny question. [Austin laughs]
AUSTIN: Lord. Alright. Give me a Battle roll. 2d6, unless you wanna burn a quirk here, or get help from your bro.
--01:15:00--
JACK: Um…
ART: Your brother, a useless sack of meat apparently, I don’t know. [Ali and Austin laugh] I don’t know what we’re doing here anymore. It feels like we took a turn.
JACK: Yeah, no, I’ll do 2d6.
AUSTIN: Alright, give me 2d6, risky great. I love that you roll risky great and you have a reduced effect. God damn.
JACK: Yeah. Mechs are good.
AUSTIN: Yeah… That’s a 6. Unsurprising. We don’t – here, I’m in control of framing what this looks like – ugh, I’m not, ‘cause you got a 6. What’s this look like?
JACK: What were you gonna say?
AUSTIN: I was gonna say we don’t have to focus on what happens. That we get the shot from behind the enemy mech, such that we just get the visual of your arm coming down vertically, cutting the sky in two, and then the mech stops. And we know what happened.
KEITH: [crosstalk] I don’t think – I don’t think we can say ‘the weak point on a mech is the pilot’ and then not- and then, like, close the curtains.
AUSTIN: Listen. What I’m gonna say is, I would not feel comfortable describing viscera on this podcast.
KEITH: Fair.
AUSTIN: I’m describing what this looks like. I’m gonna draw a line there and pull the – and literally pull the curtain. Jack, if you want to artfully describe this, please.
JACK: Yeah, no, I have a description. It’s three shots.
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: It’s, uh… Inside the cockpit, Smack’s jaw closing on a cigar. It’s outside the cockpit, that shot you described of the hammer coming down scene. [AUSTIN: Yeah.] And then it’s just a wide shot of, like, birds taking off suddenly in flight.
AUSTIN: Great. Good. Love it. Y’all have secured the gate here. Um, let me – that’s not how you do it, you do it like this. It’s weird for me to use these very pretty die, or, um, what do you call it?
KEITH: Clocks?
AUSTIN: Clocks, instead of my normal super ugly ones. [laughs] So you’ve secured the gate, and the truck can pull up, and they’ll open the gate for you. I’m not going to make you roll for that. So I’m just gonna put y’all in there, if that’s okay by you?
JACK: Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
AUSTIN: Boom. Alright. Hey.
KEITH: [crosstalk] Hello.
AUSTIN: Um. Meanwhile, over here. We just finished your side, Keith, what are you – you can’t – don’t -
KEITH: No, I’m saying hello ‘cause you put our circles in there.
AUSTIN: Okay. Yeah, you’re very close together. You’re hanging out. Mechs are just, y’know, leaning up against each other.
KEITH: Mm-hm. Well, I’m a box: a very good leaning surface.
AUSTIN: [laughs] True. Let’s talk about Pigeon. You’ve landed. You’re at a big power substation. What are you doing?
ALI: Um, yeah, so I’m getting out of my mech. I guess – I guess I, like – my mech is so weird and big that I probably land it on top of a building.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Sure. Boop.
ALI: And I think that I’m – oh.
AUSTIN: No, you’re good. I said ‘boop.’ I moved it, that’s all.
ALI: [laughs] Oh, okay. I think that I’m wearing just a flight suit.
AUSTIN: Okay.
ALI: I think that it’s, like, y’know those – y’know those gloves that have, like, metal sowed into the fingerprints, so you can use screens and stuff?
AUSTIN: Totally.
ALI: I think it’s just a black flight suit like that, but like on joints and on her hands and on specific parts of the mech it has that, like, sown in, [AUSTIN: Okay.] so she can hook up to her [???] [1:18:25]] better. And I think she pulls out, like, a full – one of those capes to just cover her.
AUSTIN: Oh, hell yeah.
ALI: It’s like, ‘okay, I’m not in a flight suit any more. I’m just a person in a cape’.
AUSTIN: Right. Okay. That’s all. [Ali laughs] ‘You can trust me.’ Fucking listen, the Divine Principality has people in capes all the time.
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So, y’know.
ALI: I don’t -
AUSTIN: As you climb down the ladder, you do spot that there are some armed guards patrolling the area here.
ALI: Yeah. Um, can I get a sense of where… Hmm. Do I get a sense of, like, where the best place to sneak in would be?
AUSTIN: Um, I think that would be covered in a roll, right?
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: There’s a couple of ways you could do that. You could give me a Survey, to try to find a pathway in without being spotted. You can try giving me a Prowl, to just kind of go by your gut and sneak in. Um, but that’s up to you.
ALI: You know what? Actually, I’m gonna roll Study to try and figure out what the guards are doing.
AUSTIN: Okay.
ALI: ‘Cause I have Consort and Command, which are my highest.
AUSTIN: Sure. I’ll say that Study is better at – you can use Study, but it’s gonna give you a limited effect. It’s gonna be controlled limited.
ALI: Oh, ‘cause it’s more… Okay.
AUSTIN: It’s more looking over details or interrogating someone, and reading their statements for truth. You could spend an hour here and maybe that would be like Studying, you know what I mean?
ALI: [laughs] Okay, fair.
AUSTIN: Survey is like, ‘alright, where the fuck do I go’? And Survey would give you a greater effect. I will let you do it with Study, but it will be controlled limited.
ALI: Okay, and then what is the consequence of doing something that I don’t have any points in?
AUSTIN: You’d be rolling zero dice, and rolling 2d6 and taking the lower one. You can also push yourself [ALI: Okay.] to get better than that, though. You could also try to get help here from Memphis, somehow.
ALI: Yeah. Memphis, [laughs] do you have a good view of where I am?
ART: Um, I mean, we’re not close, but you could -
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] You could be. Tell me what you want to do here.
ART: I mean, I’m saying you’ve got all this – you’ve got all this, uh… You’re all about synergy, and -
AUSTIN: Yes. Uh-huh.
ART: And you’re finesse in these ways, right?
ALI: Yeah.
ART: I mean, I can fly this thing with my eyes closed. You could use my scanners.
AUSTIN: Oh, yeah. That’s good.
ALI: Oh… Yeah! Okay, yeah, that works.
AUSTIN: Alright, so then – so then, to do that – what is your – let me see here. You have, what, 1 with Pigeon?
ART: Yes.
AUSTIN: Alright, so that means you can spend 1 stress to give her either… de-de-de…
ART: Where’s my stress?
AUSTIN: Stress is in the top left. [pause] ‘Teamwork,’ here we go, yeah. To take – you can give her +1d, you can give her improved effect, you can give her better position – she already has controlled position, so not that one – you could let her ignore a level 3 harm or a level 3 damage – you don’t really need either of those. +1d, improved effect… I guess my question is what are you trying to do, Ali? Are you going to do Study, or are you gonna do – like, maybe Study would work then, right? Because if Study right now is controlled limited, with his help you could make it controlled – you could make it controlled standard. Or you could get a +1d on something else.
ALI: Yeah, I think I’m gonna go with Study to kind of observe the guards that are there now to find an opening to kind of force my way in.
AUSTIN: Sounds good. Is this just, like – by having this other perspective, you can actually do some dope Candidate-style, like, quick study stuff? [Ali laughs] Like, the equivalent of speed reading but for patrol routes and understanding how teams work and stuff like that?
ALI: Yeah, totally. I think that I – outside of the mech, that I can communicate with Harmonious and the other mechs via a little Tamagotchi, basically? [laughs]
AUSTIN: Love it. Oh, what a good character. Perfect.
ALI: [still laughing] I can kind of just pull that out and see Memphis’ cameras.
AUSTIN: Cool. Alright. So Memphis, you took that one stress?
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Alright. That means go ahead and – unless - are you also going to push yourself here, or are you just gonna roll 1d? Pigeon.
ALI: If it’s a Study, would that be 2d6? An extra die?
AUSTIN: Isn’t your study – your study is only 1, though.
ALI: Right. Okay.
AUSTIN: So right now it’s a 1. If you pushed yourself it would become 2, yeah.
ALI: Oh, okay. Yeah, let me do that, then.
AUSTIN: Alright, sounds good.
ALI: [quietly] Okay.
AUSTIN: Okay, so take one extra dice.
ALI: It’s a 4 again.
AUSTIN: Ugh, a 4 again. Alright, so… I think that you –
ALI: But the assist doesn’t…?
AUSTIN: No, the assist is what made it standard effect. So –
ALI: Oh, oh, oh. Right, okay.
AUSTIN: Right. Which is fine, right?
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So, I think what happens is you manage to – take a look here, and think. Um… I actually think it… Oh, you know what I can do here? Here’s what I can do. [Ali laughs] Alright, so the… You find a route in, but the route in is gonna force you to climb over some barbed wire and doing that cuts you. So consequence number one is you’re gonna take the level 1 harm ‘scraped,’ which will reduce future effect unless you spend stress to get around that. Two - and this is maybe a worse thing – you move to a risky position, and the reason you do is because – and you just hear the fluttering of flags above you. Because Courage has arrived. And now everyone here is in a risky position. You look up, and you see the shape of – it’s – like, it’s hard to find if there is a core here. You may remember, like, ages ago when I described Territory Jazz as being a person at the centre of a bunch of military drones that create a suit. Like, a physical suit made out of kind of circular drones. This is that, except instead of circular drones it is a bunch of flags that, like, tie themselves in knots to become incredibly dense and strong, and otherwise open up wide to become distracting and hard to understand where the centre is. It almost looks like, um – it looks like, ah, weird performance art or something as it blows around in the sky. You almost can’t tell it’s a person, but suddenly you know that you are being scanned.
And so those are the two consequences: you’ve moved to a risky position and also, in trying to get inside here, the path that you’ve taken – the path that you have to take – is one in which you get cut and take ‘scraped.’ Do you want to resist either of those?
ALI: Um… Yeah? [laughs]
AUSTIN: Okay.
ALI: Um, sure. So, this – I would resist one or the other?
AUSTIN: You could resist both, but it would require two different resist rolls.
ALI: Okay. And the two consequences are I get scraped -
AUSTIN: Yeah, which would give you a level 1 harm.
ALI: Which is bad.
AUSTIN: And then the second one is you would move to a risky position as Courage notes where you are.
ALI: Okay, um… I mean [???] [1:26:00]
AUSTIN: Doesn’t see you, but, like, sees your ship, y’know? Sees the Harmonious, right? Or scans and recognises that you’re nearby, basically. Like, I’m not taking away the fact that you’ve managed to evade the guards, [ALI: Okay.] but – but yes. That would be the - that is part of the consequence, is that Courage is here and active.
ALI: And if I resisted that, it wouldn’t be like ‘oh, Courage isn’t here anymore, right’? Like, it wouldn’t be that.
AUSTIN: Courage would still be here, [ALI: Okay.] but would be – you would tell me how you’re resisting it, but you’d still be in a controlled position. That is the thing that you would still be in.
ALI: Okay, cool. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t, like, pulling consequences away from other people.
AUSTIN: Yeah, totally. You’re good.
ALI: I guess I’ll just resist the getting cut, then.
AUSTIN: Okay. Um, what’s that? I think that that is… Hmmmm… Let me read really quick. I think it’s probably Prowess. My gut says Prowess, but I’ll double check. Yeah, [reading] ‘Prowess: resist consequences from bodily harm or exertion.’ So, yes. So that would be you roll 1 dice, and the highest result – 6 minus the highest result – is how much stress you get.
ALI: Oh. [short pause] So, 3.
AUSTIN: So, 3. Take 3 stress, and you don’t get hurt.
ALI: Cool. Up to 4 stress.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Hey, Memphis, how’s it going – how’s it going out there? Sorry, what did you say?
ALI: I said I’m up to 4 stress.
AUSTIN: Okay. Memphis, how’s it going out there with those Hallows and now with Courage flying around also?
ART: Um… Like, what would Memphis say, or what’s true?
AUSTIN: [laughs] What would Memphis say?
ART (as Memphis): Things are going great out here!
AUSTIN: Great!
ART (as Memphis): Memphis longhand can’t be stopped by any of these fools! [Keith laughs]
AUSTIN: What’s true?
ART: Okay, y’know how, like, in football they’ll use a lot of like, ‘oh, it was a war! It was a real battle. They’… Y’know?
AUSTIN: Yeah. Uh-huh?
ART: It doesn’t mean that, like, NFL players are all literally soldiers.
AUSTIN: It doesn’t mean that, no.
ART: And if you, like, actually put them in a war, [AUSTIN: Yeah.] you probably wouldn’t expect them to do very well.
AUSTIN: No.
ART: That’s where – we’re in that, kind of.
AUSTIN: Gotcha.
ART: I can - Memphis can definitely handle these – like, evading these… uh, Hallows?
AUSTIN: Uh-huh.
ART: But Memphis can’t fight a Divine.
AUSTIN: No. [to himself] That’s a bad image. Turns out there’s no images just of, like, a bunch of flags balled up together and floating around on the internet easy to find. [Ali laughs] So, yeah. So, given that that’s what your situation is, where do you wanna focus first?
ART: Um…
KEITH: What do you mean, bundled? Like, in a ball?
AUSTIN: Yeah. Like, partially rolled in a ball, partially loose, tied up, literally knotted in different places, and theoretically there’s a pilot in there somewhere.
[pause]
ART: It’s still ‘mess with the Hallows,’ I think.
AUSTIN: Okay.
ART: I’m just trying to think if, like – what it looks – like, what it really looks like.
[pause, sounds of rapid typing]
ART: Alright… I think Memphis tries to, like… Y’know, Memphis is still trying to, like, use the physicality of the mech.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: Y’know, this isn’t a fantastic weapon platform. It’s a – it’s a well-built machine.
AUSTIN: Is this the machine you used in the commercials?
ART: I mean, sometimes the commercials have, like – there’s a show version.
AUSTIN: Gotcha.
ART: But this is the one for games.
AUSTIN: Gotcha.
KEITH: There’s three commercials and you have to collect each version. [Austin laughs]
ALI: Mmmm.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Collectible ads. Love it. Print.
ART: So I think it’s, like, an attempt to tousle. It’s, like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna – that Hugh Jackman movie.
--01:30:00--
AUSTIN: Which one?
KEITH: Wolverine.
ART: The one where he’s a –
AUSTIN: Les Mis.
ART: Les Mis.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Gotcha. [laughs] Um, that sounds like a Battle to me. So, 1d6, and again you can spend a quirk to get a boost here.
ART: Um.
AUSTIN: Or save it to resist.
ART: I’ll spend a quirk. I’ll spend ‘5-foot cleats.’
AUSTIN: Great.
ART: I’m gonna kick someone with some 5-foot cleats.
AUSTIN: Hell yeah. Here’s a question: can I offer a devil’s bargain if you’re also already getting, uh… a quirk boost?
ART: Only if I can decide not to use the quirk if I like your Devil’s Bargain more. [Jack laughs]
AUSTIN: I mean, I will also offer you the devil’s bargain, which is Courage notices you.
ART: Man, who doesn’t notice me? [Keith laughs]
AUSTIN: So, is that a yes?
ART: Yeah, why not?
AUSTIN: Courage noticing you – here’s what I’m gonna say. I think Courage noticing you means that the next move that you make will be started at a desperate position. I’m gonna lay it out there for you before you say yes.
ART: I mean… Who cares? [Keith snickers]
AUSTIN: Great! I love it.
ART: We’re all dying, Melissa. [Austin and Keith laughs]
AUSTIN: Aw, I love it. Fucking hell yes! God, play your characters like a runaway train.
ART: [crosstalk] I wanna see what that looks like more than I want Memphis to live through this one-shot. I mean, -
AUSTIN: Totally. So wait, are you gonna spend those cleats also, so you’re rolling three dice here? Or are you just gonna do 2d6 risky standard.
ART: No, I’m gonna do the cleats too!
AUSTIN: Hell yeah, 3d6 let’s get it!
ART: If – if Courage is gonna notice me, -
AUSTIN: Yeah, fucking it better be –
ART: I want it to notice something real cool happening.
AUSTIN: Yeah. [Ali laughs] Give me 3d6.
ART: One of these really has to roll high.
AUSTIN: It has to.
ART: I just wanna, like, before I hit –
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] I know, I’m with you. [laughs]
ART: If I’m rolling 3d6 and it’s like 1-1-3, it’s really like that’s– that’s the universe doing me wrong.
AUSTIN: Alright. 4-5-5. Y’know? 4-5-5 is fine.
ART: [softly] I can live with that.
AUSTIN: You can live with that, right? That’s liveable. Um, I guess depending on the consequences. I mean I guess this is just pretty clear right away. It’s – you tell me what destroying these Hallows looks like. ‘Cause that happens.
ART: I mean, I break some cleats off in them.
AUSTIN: Hell yeah.
ART: I kick ‘em, [AUSTIN: Yeah.] I punch ‘em, [AUSTIN: Uh-huh] I, y’know, I tackle ‘em.
AUSTIN: Yes. I didn’t explicitly say this, –
ART: [crosstalk] There’s one of those shots where, like, -
AUSTIN: But given what you’re doing, I’m absolutely raising this to a great effect, which is gonna knock them out. So, boom. Y’know, you cleat ‘em. Good.
ART: I, like, snowboard one of them. [Austin sighs in awe] Where, like, I kick them in the back, and ride them down a downward sloping street.
AUSTIN: Love it.
ART: There isn’t a topography on this map, so I can’t tell you which street it is –
AUSTIN: Oh, but you do. Vrooom.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: One of them lands in the fucking lake.
ART: Uh-huh.
AUSTIN: Love it.
ART: This is like what if – this is like a Ninja Turtle. Like a Michael Bay Ninja Turtle scene.
AUSTIN: Totally, totally. And I think at the end of that happening, you’re like – you do the thing, right? You do the Sammy Sosa, [ART: Yeah. Uh-huh.] because you’ve succeeded. And when you reach your hand up to be like, ‘God,’ a god reaches down. And wraps a piece of cloth, as strong as any metal you’ve ever touched, around your wrist and breaks your hand off.
ART: Yo, this is symbolic! [Austin and Keith laugh]
AUSTIN: The consequence here is the arrival of Courage, obviously, who I will bring here. On the token layer here is a twelve-step clock. And the – what’s a good thing – what’s a good level 2 damage for a hand getting cut off? Other than, ‘welcome to Friends at the Table, motherfucker. Hands ‘aint safe’! [Ali and Jack laugh]
ART: This is a momentous moment. I don’t think a character I’ve controlled has ever lost a hand before.
JACK: Welcome!
AUSTIN: Welcome! Wow…
ALI: Oh, welcome.
KEITH: I’m in the both hands club right now.
ALI: Wow…
AUSTIN: You’re in the both hands club still? Wow, look at you.
KEITH: I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t have tipped my hands. [Ali, Austin, and Jack laugh]
AUSTIN: Oh, boy. What’s a good – what’s a good…?
JACK: Um…
ART: ‘Alright.’ [Austin groans] Because I’m left-handed.
AUSTIN: [laughs] Uh-huh, yeah? Good! ‘All-right’, good. Love it! Do you -
ART: Thank you, Arrested Development, from whom I stole that joke from.
AUSTIN: You stole that joke from. Do you wanna resist that?
[pause]
ART: Um, yeah. I don’t wanna, yeah.
AUSTIN: To resist – again, to resist inside of a mech is, uh – it is – is it the number? Boy, I just did this and I’ve already lost it. This is what happens until I get a system.
KEITH: It’s the – it is all four quirks minus how many points you have in that, um, genre.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] It is the number of quirks minus – yes.
KEITH: What are they called?
AUSTIN: Genre. We’re gonna call them genre from now on. Attribute. It’s Expertise, which, y’know? Lucky for fucking – for Memphis, you got a 3 in Expertise, so this only costs you one quirk to resist.
ART: Okay, and it will be the home-run pneumatics.
AUSTIN: How does this work?
ART: Like, I’m using – [AUSTIN: Yeah] It’s like - I’m like, pulling it back.
AUSTIN: Yeah, totally.
ART: And it pulls back so hard it doesn’t work anymore.
AUSTIN: Alright. And we’re gonna do one more thing here, which is a voice you recognise comes in through the – like, as you are pulling back, you – one, do you say anything? Does Memphis say anything? I guess you did. You said ‘this was supposed to be symbolic,’ right? Which is -
ART: Yeah.
ART (as Memphis): Hands off, motherfucker!
ART: Is if I’m getting a second one.
AUSTIN: Right, great. You hear the voice of Lunar Leson say,
AUSTIN (as Lunar): [shocked] Memphis?
AUSTIN: And – as she pulls Courage’s – as you pull away from Courage’s grip. She is piloting – she is the Elect of Courage.
KEITH: Did you do that effect, or was that a coincidence?
AUSTIN: Which effect?
KEITH: When you said ‘Memphis’ as Lunar Leson, [AUSTIN: Yeah?] your voice sounded doubled to me.
AUSTIN: Oh, wow, that’s great. I didn’t do that. I don’t think people -
JACK: [crosstalk] Wow. I didn’t get that. [Ali laughs]
KEITH: It was great. It was so good.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] I wish that had fucking happened. Yeah, totally.
KEITH: I can reproduce it and show you exactly what it sounded like, if you wanna you use it.
AUSTIN: Great. Send that to us afterwards.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: We’re now gonna cut back. Y’know what? Let’s go back really quick. Let’s get one more roll in really quick. Which is, Pigeon, you’re at the device. I’m gonna need you to roll something to turn off this fucking device so that Divines can drop in.
ALI: [laughs] Sure. Uh-huh.
AUSTIN: What’s it look like? I think it’s just like – again, the touchstones for season 6 are very much like Battletech, 60s and 70s scifi, hard sci-fi – big, clunky machines. The rule again is, like, no touchscreens that can do more than one thing. If there’s a touchscreen, it does one thing. If there’s a screen that has to do a bunch of different things, it has a bunch of dials and buttons to hit, [ALI: Mm-hmm.] and swivels and all sorts of inputs we don’t use anymore. So I think you find one of those. Y’know, it’s like a computer in an old anime, which is just, like, ‘oh, it’s the room.’ You’re in the computer room. [Ali laughs]
KEITH: I’m excited to eventually get to my newspaper from – from the start. Season 6 can have my newspaper at some point.
AUSTIN: Oh, me too. Can’t wait. What are you, uh – what do you do?
ALI: That’s a good question, because… I have no skills for anything. [laughs]
AUSTIN: Yeah, I was worried about that. You have neither Interface, the computer skill, nor Engineer, the, uh, engineering skill, right? [Ali groans] It’s true. Um, mm!
ALI: Can I…?
AUSTIN: There’s a thing you could do here! Go ahead, you tell me what you think.
ALI: Oh. [laughs] I was gonna ask if I could use Harmonious to have it be, like, a Command in some way? If I could communicate with everything that way? But, no.
AUSTIN: So, it is not a living creature or being.
ALI: No? No, yeah.
AUSTIN: This is not the Twilight Mirage. Not everything is a sapient, or sentient, or post-sentient being.
ALI: Right.
AUSTIN: What you could do – what I think could be true, though, is you get here and there are people here. It’s the middle of the day.
ALI: Oh, yeah. [laughs]
AUSTIN: People are working, right?
ALI: Uh-huh. So I could do that.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ALI: Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I made a very specific choice when I made my load, which is it’s a light load and I only carry a flashlight and a rifle.
AUSTIN: Great. Love it.
ALI: [laughs] So yeah, what’s the setup here? Who’s working? What’s going on?
AUSTIN: So I think there’s probably, y’know, a handful - a crowd here, there’s three or four people here. Rudolf is in control.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: Rudolf Constance. Who is the, like – the chief engineer of this place. And he sees you come in with a rifle and a flashlight, and like,
AUSTIN (as Rudolf): Okay! I – no, no, no, no, no! No problem here! [Ali laughs] I got no problem with you! Please don’t shoot us!
ALI: Okay, I don’t. Who do I – [laughs] who do I work for? I’m in a war. This is –
AUSTIN: You’re in a war. You’re on the side of OriCom and the Divine Collaborate.
ALI: Okay. So, if I was like,
ALI (as Pigeon): This is Divine Collaborate business.
AUSTIN: Yeah. I think –
ALI (as Pigeon): Turn all the power off right now.
AUSTIN: That’s a Command, is what I would say, for sure.
ALI: Uh-huh. Yeah. [laughs]
AUSTIN: So, I mean, there’s two things here. One: you could just roll Command, which is 2d6. [ALI: Mm-hm.] I think this is – I think you are in control of this situation. I think it’s controlled standard. But you could also spend 2 stress immediately to compel an unaffiliated crowd to perform an action, if you wanted to, and just have them do it. This is up to you, because that’s the sure thing, because you have Rally. Rally says ‘spend 2 stress to do the following.’ So that’s just a thing you could just decide to do. But, it would be giving you 2 stress. The alternative is to roll Command, which is 2d6, and hope you get that success.
ALI: Right. And I’ve been rolling 2 all day and just getting 4s.
AUSTIN: Yeah, it’s true.
ALI: Um, yeah, y’know what? I think that I’m gonna do Rally, on the, um… On the command that they turn it off for a specific amount of time.
AUSTIN: Yeah. I like that a lot. What - how do you say it to them?
ALI: Um. [laughs] Um, I don’t know! I think I have my flashlight in my cloak pocket, and I have my rifle in my hands, and I’ve successfully snuck into this place, um, and…
AUSTIN: Alright.
ALI: No, I’m trying to think of what I would say.
AUSTIN: Oh, like a phrase, yeah.
ALI: Yeah.
ALI (as Pigeon): Everyone! No one needs to get hurt here, but I do need you to follow my instructions. This is Divine Consort business, and I need you to shut down the power to this facility immediately.
AUSTIN: Their hands are up, and he, like, looks around, and he’s like,
AUSTIN (as Rudolph): Alright, you heard her.
AUSTIN: And they all get to business. They get to work.
ALI: Ooh.
AUSTIN: So there’s 2 stress. I’m gonna deactivate these red orbital cannons. I’m just gonna make them grey, like a blue, which mean, like - I’m gonna make them a green, like a soft green, instead of a bright red. Also, Thomas Whitney in the chat made me realise I was letting you off light, Art. Because you resisted that, but I think it resists down to a level 1 harm. It doesn’t resist all the way down to no harm.
ART: Alright. I mean, whatever.
AUSTIN: Yeah, I know. Listen, you gave me the go-ahead at this point.
ART: Yeah, it’s whatever you say.
AUSTIN: Um, so I think that it’s ‘damaged servos,’ is what it is.
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: So. So, yeah. That’s a thing that happens to robots. Their servos get damaged.
ART: Servos are so fragile.
AUSTIN: So fragile! Especially when you have the quirk ‘fragile servos.’
ART: Yeah. Oof.
AUSTIN: So I think that that’s, the – suddenly there is, like, sound from above as some Divine stuff starts to drop in. I think it’s a bunch of smaller mechs first, and then one larger one. Let’s see. What do we think it is? What’s the Divine that dropped in? I had a list before that I wanted to pull from.
[pause]
AUSTIN: That’s it. It’s the Divine Ice Cream. You got it.
ALI: Ooooh. Tasty.
ART: Do you think there is a Divine out there that’s, like, Flavour?
AUSTIN: Oh, definitely, right?
ALI: Oooooh.
ART: Defying all convention, that Candidate is always called Fieri.
AUSTIN: [laughs] It is the Divine – and again, we’re using adjectives for the Divine Collaborate group instead of nouns – it is the Divine Persevering, uh, arrives, and lands outside of Better Brighter HQ. So, Talk brothers: y’all have company as a new Divine lands in front of you. What’s the Divine Persevering look like? Any thoughts? It could be whatever we want it to look like.
JACK: Kinda –
ART: I want it to look really weathered. Like it’s been hit with waves for a long time.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Ooooh. Yeah. Yeah.
JACK: Yeah, what if it’s, um – what if it has actually been hit by waves? What if it’s water – not water-damaged, but like water wracked, almost?
AUSTIN: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ART: So it’s surfaces are all, like, flat and smooth, like a skipping stone.
AUSTIN: Ooh, I like that a lot. And it’s, like – it has kind of oblong, weathered, almost like skipping stones as its arms and legs. I actually think – what if it has three – it almost has a droideka-style three-leg structure?
ART: Mmmm.
AUSTIN: Um, y’know, a – what’s the real name for droidekas?
JACK: Tripod?
--01:45:00--
AUSTIN: Well, -
KEITH: A destroyer droid, you mean?
AUSTIN: A destroyer droid, yeah. Sorry, I was using the official –
KEITH: I mean, droideka’s the official name.
AUSTIN: Yeah, but I meant the way that, like, non-nerds would call it.
KEITH: That regular people would know about?
AUSTIN: Yeah, regular people. Yeah. So, yes. Yeah. A tripod, but it’s actually curved outwards –
KEITH: They say droideka in Phantom Menace.
AUSTIN: Alright, good, I’m glad they do. [coughs] But they are, like, smooth pebbles all through the body. But it does do the droideka thing of unfolding, you know what I mean? Or like, opening itself up to reveal these smooth-out surfaces.
KEITH: Does it have the shield?
AUSTIN: It does not have the – uh, it is Persevering, right?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: No, I think what it does – I think it produces – I think that it – I have to remind myself that the fucking perennial waves have hit, which means that I can’t do Twilight Mirage magic bullshit. I was gonna just have it basically be an earth-bender. Like, ‘oh yeah, it makes a shield out of fucking random earth all around it,’ which it does not do.
JACK: Are we in a perennial wave right now, then?
KEITH: Well, it could have a gravity well that…
AUSTIN: No, I don’t know that it can. I think gravity wells are, like, ship-sized stuff now.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: So the perennial wave, from a previous Live at the Table game, hits – is something that is just in the universe now. And there are kind of high tide and low tide moments, [JACK: Mm.] where tech – like, advanced technology – so, advanced technology passed a certain point. Twilight Mirage-era tech just doesn’t work the way it used to. It just doesn’t work, period. It’s just, like, it’s busted. No more super, super, super powerful near-magic technology, or post-Mirage technology even, right? But even COUNTER / Weight tech, sometimes, is on the fritz, because there’s too high of a concentration of perennial waves, right?
JACK: Yeah.
AUSTIN: They are Minovsky particles from Gundam, or they are – there are just, like, radar interference. They are like the buzz that makes things such that you have to fucking slap your radio sometimes to make it work, right? Or, just, for the next six hours – or the next six months – this tech is just gonna, like, be bad.
ART: I’m so mad.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Why?
ART: That no matter whatever happens to us in the future of Friends at the Table, that no one will ever have the budget to make the shit we talk about. [Ali, Jack, and Keith laugh]
AUSTIN: I know. I know, I know.
ART: Or like, anything someone does with this is just gonna be like – is gonna look like fucking tin cans.
ALI: [crosstalk] No…
KEITH: [crosstalk] Hey, y’know, cartoons – cartoons are expensive but it’s basically as easy to draw one thing as another thing, right? That’s the way to do it.
AUSTIN: Is this – are you trying -
ALI: We’ll get there.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Are you just trying to trick Netflix? [Ali laughs]
KEITH: Yeah, we dare you.
ART: Yeah Netflix, you don’t have enough money to make this show!
AUSTIN: [laughs] You wouldn’t want to anyway!
KEITH: Yeah.
ART: I heard you spent 25 million dollars getting Roma an Oscar, but you don’t have this kind of scratch. [Jack laughs]
AUSTIN: God. Ugh.
KEITH: How much did they pay that idiot to make his dumb book?
AUSTIN: I don’t even know who you mean, but yeah.
ART: I don’t know who you’re talking about, but a lot.
KEITH: Hillbilly Elegy. I’m talking about Hillbilly Elegy.
AUSTIN: Okay. Um, Austin Ramsay says ‘Bluff City would be a rad as fuck anthology Netflix show.’ You have no idea yet. You don’t even fucking know yet! Just wait!
ALI: [crosstalk] [???] [1:47:50]
JACK: We haven’t even started spending the money on Bluff City yet, in terms of that show’s budget.
AUSTIN: We haven’t. We truly haven’t.
JACK: And we’ve already done some truly wild stuff in Bluff City, but.
ART: We saved all our money for the finale. [Ali laughs]
AUSTIN: Just fucking wait. Yeah, it’s – ugh!
JACK: Yeah, I was reading about – I was reading about a – to talk about the Perennial wave again, [AUSTIN: Yeah.] I was reading about - I can’t remember what creature it was – it was some – it was to do with some kind of sea creature who has a kind of a membrane in it or a liquid in it or something that enables it to communicate in some specific way. And I was reading a scientific breakdown of it, and it was just like ‘this membrane inside the creature, which we do not understand, enables it to do X.’ And it was very cool to see scientists just be like, ‘yeah, we dunno. It lets it do a thing’. And is the Perennial Wave like that in an extent, where it’s just like?
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah. We don’t fucking know.
JACK: We know it comes from Perennial, but like.
AUSTIN: And I bet you a lot of people don’t even really know what means, right?
JACK: Yeah. Sure.
AUSTIN: I think in general – I think I talked about this briefly in a past episode but, like, people live on their planets in this world.
JACK: Mm-hm.
AUSTIN: They don’t go from planet to planet. There are people who go from planet to planet, but the vast majority of people live in their home. Like, in the same way that here we live in our country, right? Yes, some people do travel the world, and some people travel more often than others, and some parts of the world are such that it’s easier to move from country to country. The world of the Divine Principality, especially as we get into Season 6, as their hold becomes – as their grip becomes tighter and tighter – is one in which people know their place, and are put in their place, and are kept in their place, and the more that they stay on their one fucking planet, the easier it is. Which means to some degree, a group like the Divine Principality isn’t even encouraged to find wide-ranging solutions to something like the Perennial Wave. People on a backwater planet can’t rise up against me? Good. I don’t want them to figure out how mechs work.
JACK: It’s almost that, like, Victorian or Georgian novel thing – and I guess Victorian and Georgian real-life thing – where it’s like, you have to get in a carriage to go to Birmingham. [AUSTIN: Right. Right.] And, like, okay, that’s gonna be a trip.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] You can’t just decide to go. Like, someone has to be doing that for you.
JACK: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Or if you can do it, it means you’re of means in some way, or in service, right?
JACK: And even if you are of means, or in service, an eight hour carriage ride through England is gonna be the same regardless.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah.
JACK: There’s no way for you to just go like, ‘I just want to make that short and comfortable.’ [laughs]
[a squeaking noise comes from Art’s room]
AUSTIN: [laughs] Right, yes. Alright, [ART: Sorry.] so Persevering arrives – [to Art] no worries.
JACK: How does the city react to a hostile Divine dropping so shortly after the arrival of the flamethrower Divine, which they killed?
AUSTIN: Well, I think that’s a great question. Um, and I think we immediately see two things happen: Perseverance – and it’s the same thing. And in this way, we get the Divine Collaborate as the bright reflection of the Divine Principality. The Divine Collaborate, seeing the arrival of their Divine, surges. And Talks, all around you, the Divine Collaborate’s forces begin springing into action and performing – or producing – a wall of infantry, and small arms, and small mechanised cavalry all around the Better Brighter HQ. They don’t even really know what’s gonna happen in there, but they are there to defend you, and to help you. And that is like - they attach themselves to Persevering’s Division very quickly. And the pilot of Persevering, who is probably another bird name – what’s a good Persevering bird? What’s the oldest bird? Is that a condor? Are condors old?
JACK: What, do you mean how do they live? Not the original bird? [Keith laughs]
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: The OG bird?
AUSTIN: [laughs] What’s the first bird? The oldest bird.
KEITH: The albatross, I believe, is the oldest by age.
ALI: Oooh.
AUSTIN: Oh, it is. Sixty-six. Look at you, albatross!
JACK: Oh my god.
AUSTIN: That’s old as shit. That’s older than me! The oldest living bird.
ART: Don’t parrots live to like a hundred?
AUSTIN: Maybe.
ALI: Oh, parrots are so old.
KEITH: No, that’s turtles.
AUSTIN: It is turtles. Turtles aren’t birds, though, so.
ART: Isn’t it also parrots?
ALI: Parrots live -
KEITH: Parrots live a really long time, but they do not live to be a hundred.
ALI: But they live to be, like, seventy or eighty.
KEITH: I don’t think that they live to be seventy or eighty! The oldest bird is sixty-six!
AUSTIN: Did you know that the oldest bird is a Divine?
KEITH: What’s that?
AUSTIN: The oldest bird in the world is an albatross named Wisdom.
ALI: Oh…
KEITH: Oh, wow.
AUSTIN: Yeah. [reading] ‘Wisdom’s continued contribution to the fragile albatross population is remarkable and important. Her health’ – she had a baby at sixty-six.
[someone (Keith?) whistles]
ART: A kakapo lives to ninety-five years.
AUSTIN: We’re not gonna have that conversation. I’m not saying that word. You can’t make me!
KEITH: Okay, this is the oldest confirmed wild bird in the world.
AUSTIN: Oh. Okay, what’s that?
KEITH: Oh, no. Wisdom. Wisdom is. Wisdom is the oldest surviving wild bird.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Oh, I see, I see, I see. You’re saying other – right. Thaao, an Andean condor, died at the age of eighty. I guess that one’s dead, so. Anyway, I think her name is Albatross. And she, like, rallies people to her. And that is how the Divine side is – the Divine Collaborate side is working. The Principality side starts to break, until Courage flies in the air, and leads them forward, and surges them towards you. At this point, and at recognising, Memphis, that you were the one in that mech, and recognising that it’s your mech, Lunar – Lunar Leson, who has now been elected and probably has a different name that you don’t know, and that I’m gonna come up with yet because I’m not ready to commit -
ART: I heard it’s kakapo.
AUSTIN: [laughs] God damnit! It’s not!
KEITH: I do – by the way, I do want to apologise to Art, because there is a blue and gold Macaw that is 114 years old that Winston Churchill owned.
ALI: Oh…
AUSTIN: I hate it.
KEITH: Yeah. Jerk parrot.
AUSTIN: Courage isn’t -
ART: [crosstalk] His name’s Imperialism, it’s weird. [Austin laughs]
KEITH: Apparently – this is probably apocryphal – but this article says that the parrot would say all the swears that Winston Churchill liked.
AUSTIN: I bet that’s true. I bet that’s true.
KEITH: Too convenient.
AUSTIN: Mm. I see what you’re saying, I see what you’re saying. Courage leads the remaining Principality forces towards the Better Brighter HQ and is beginning to attack, and in fact [laughs softly] there’s a thing. Here’s the thing. I mean, at this moment – one, Memphis. Do you communicate to the Talks who this is?
ART: Oh, yeah. Uh-huh.
AUSTIN: What do you say?
[pause]
ART: Um, I think it’s just,
ART (as Memphis): It’s Lunar. It’s Lunar in there.
JACK (as Smack): Oh my god.
AUSTIN: Good response. So, there’s another rule that I really love in this game. Can I tell you about it?
JACK: Uh-oh.
KEITH: No. [Ali and Jack laugh]
ALI: Yeah, no, please.
AUSTIN: Okay. So that just means I can tell you the thing that happens instead [Ali and Keith cackle] without having to – without giving any explanation? ‘Cause I can do that. That’s fine.
KEITH: Let’s do it in that order, anyway.
AUSTIN: Okay!
KEITH: Let’s hear about it first, and then the rule.
AUSTIN: Sure. So, I said that y’all were in a controlled position. Right, Talks?
KEITH: Mm-hm.
AUSTIN: So, I am going to – two things are going to happen. Another classic us thing. One is this is a six – well, I guess, actually, I have to do a couple of things at first. Because one, you mentioned to get the – the, what do you call it? – bus in here, the truck in here, and the boxes all loaded up. So I’m gonna add this – this is a good clock for you. This clock is the secret weapon clock, and I’m going to – you can see these name tags, right? You can see that this says ‘secret weapon’?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Thank god. And I’m gonna advance this by one, because it’s been a little while since you succeeded, and I am a fan of y’all, so it’s gonna click up to one. Nice work.
JACK: [laughs] Additionally!
AUSTIN: Yes. Also, second thing that’s gonna happen is that – let’s see. One, you are gonna move into a risky position as Courage lands on the back parapet of the citadel in which the Better Brighter HQ is in. And move you into a risky position, so that’s one. Just is gonna do that. That happened. I guess you could roll – you could decide to resist that. Do either you want to resist that?
KEITH: I’m trying to think of how to resist a Divine’s presence -
AUSTIN: Good question.
KEITH: - changing the nature of our position.
AUSTIN: That’s a good question.
JACK: We could – we could make it difficult for it to land?
AUSTIN: True.
KEITH: I – David’s – I don’t think David’s pestering the Divine without knowing more first, so I don’t think that I would do that.
AUSTIN: Do you wanna learn more?
KEITH: Yeah. Let’s do that.
AUSTIN: Take the level 2 harm ‘pierced’.
[Ali gasps]
AUSTIN: Or try to resist it.
KEITH: By trying to learn more?
AUSTIN: No, no, no. I’m saying – that was me being an asshole, and saying ‘this is a way in which I will show you more.’ In fact, and I can do that. If you’d like me to explain the rule, I can do that too. [Ali laughs]
KEITH: Okay, let’s explain the rule first, ‘cause now I’m confused.
AUSTIN: [reading] ‘Pilots have very intense lives, which lead to very intense encounters with other people, [KEITH: Same.] and sometimes these interactions lead to an antagonistic connection. An antagonistic connection. There’s a person out there that they just can’t stand, and the feeling is mutual. This is a pilot’s rival, who exists to present a challenge whenever they are onscreen. When a rival becomes part of a mission, they will always be an obstacle to the pilots, and overcoming them is represented by an eight-tick progress click. Rivals, no matter how friendly, are never to be taken lightly.’
I have made this a 12-step, because it’s a rival in a Divine. Rivals, no matter how – bla bla bla. If the fiction demands it, they may have even more than one clock to represent multiple obstacles to be removed before the rival can be tackled directly. In addition to being persistent opponents, rivals are very dangerous both during missions and between them. A number of times per mission equal to the number of pilots on the mission – so in our case, four – a rival can inflict a consequence at any time. Before a pilot acts on a result of a 6, after a fortune roll: at any time. The severity of the consequence is the same as the pilot’s current position, and must be appropriate to the fiction. So, that is what has happened. Two consequences. Two of the four that Lunar Leson can give as your rival were just spent. One, pushing you from controlled to risky, and then two: doing a level 2 harm, ‘pierced,’ to a mech. You’re able to resist that second one still. If you’d like to resist, you absolutely can.
KEITH: I’m going to resist my harm.
AUSTIN: Okay. [Ali laughs] Rivals fucking rule.
KEITH: What is the – what is the nature of the harm?
AUSTIN: Uh, rivals – uh, sorry – Courage has formed this like long, piercing cloth harpoon that she shoots at you, and that just impales you, basically.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: So you can resist that.
KEITH: Okay. Yeah, I’m gonna try and shift out of the way.
AUSTIN: Yeah, so that would be an Acuity, I believe. Or, no, an Expertise. An Expertise. So that’s 2. So that means you need to mark two quirks to resist. So which two do you mark, and what’s that look like for us?
KEITH: [sighs] Okay, so does using – hmm.
AUSTIN: And I’ll also let you – if you – I’ll do – in this moment, I’m gonna let you fully resist this harm. This harm that you’ll be able to completely dodge out of the way if you burn two quirks.
KEITH: Okay. Um… Two quirks, huh?
--02:00:00--
AUSTIN: Yup.
KEITH: Okay. Wait, hold on. So here’s another quick question before I resist this.
AUSTIN: Yes.
KEITH: What is the – can you reexplain the load rule for absorbing – for destroying gear.
AUSTIN: Yes, I actually can do that. So one, you can just – you could also spend points right now on armour, right? You still have 3 – no, 4 – slots left, right? So you can start spending load on armour instead, at which point armour reduces damage that’s incoming. [reading] ‘When a pilot or vehicle suffers consequences, they can reduce the impact by spending an appropriate armour.’ Armour takes up – in a mech, you can take armour as many times as you want, basically. So, -
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: Or wait, not as many times as you. As many times as you want to spend load on it.
KEITH: As you can. Right.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it does take – it costs 2 per armour, basically. The other thing you can do is - and this is rad as shit too – you can junk. You can choose to turn any piece of gear you have into armour by junking it and destroying it, basically.
KEITH: So actually, having gear and it getting destroyed is more effective than having armour.
AUSTIN: Except that, here’s the big difference, is that in the long run you then have to repair that junked slot, which you have to – in our one-shot, it doesn’t fucking make a difference, [KEITH: Yeah.] but junked slots aren’t available until you spend material points in downtime to repair it, basically.
KEITH: [crosstalk] Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
AUSTIN: You would much rather spend armour, I believe, unless I’m wrong about how I’m reading this, but I’m pretty sure that that’s – yeah. [reading] ‘Once an armour is spent, it can’t be used again until the beginning of the next mission.’ If you spend points on armour, you don’t have to, like, then spend points on downtime currency to repair the armour. It just gets repaired, because it’s just armour.
KEITH: Yeah. Um, I’m gonna do the quirks.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: I’m gonna get rid of – I’m gonna choose quirks.
AUSTIN: Okay, cool. Which ones are you getting rid of?
KEITH: ‘Overcharged wiring.’
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: I think that it works as it’s supposed to, right?
AUSTIN: Mm-hm.
KEITH: It’s like I – y’know, like, I worked on my mech so I could get some extra juice out of it, and it gave it to me when I needed it, and then it burned out. Like, I need to replace those wires or something. [coughs]
AUSTIN: Totally. And then?
KEITH: And, uh, let’s see. I’m also gonna do ‘common parts.’ Same reasoning. Like it’s, like, that’s the, like, those wires I can get those anywhere.
AUSTIN: Gotcha.
KEITH: Those are not specialty. I didn’t do anything that’s fancy. It’s just, like, -
AUSTIN: You went to Home Depot, basically.
KEITH: Yeah, yeah. Maybe I stripped the wires down, so they’re thinner, [AUSTIN: Mmm.] so that they, like, give off more heat but are also more effective.
AUSTIN: Sounds good.
KEITH: That’s not how wires work, but –
AUSTIN: It isn’t, but it is in this! Boom, done! Cool. Alright, so then, yeah, you dodge out of the way. Don’t take that damage. At this point both Pigeon and Memphis, you can be making your way back. You’re not there yet, but I’m just gonna pop you in the middle here, if that’s fine?
ART: Uh, can I, like?
AUSTIN: Yeah?
ART: Can I destroy those guns? They’re powered down, but can I fly through ‘em or something, using my shoulder-wide shoulders?
AUSTIN: Yeah, if you want to just, like – you want to permanently take out the guns at this point because they’re shut down?
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah, totally. Give me a, um – give me a – I think that that’s a Destroy, is what that is. And it’s a controlled great. You can just fucking crush ‘em. And if you’re gonna spend shoulders, that’ll give you an extra die. So it’s 1d6 with controlled great. And I can –
ART: I don’t want to spend shoulders. I think I just want to use them.
AUSTIN: Oh, fictionally do that, yeah. Go ahead and give me a 1d6 then.
[pause]
AUSTIN: Alright, that’s a 4. So I’m gonna say you do a limited response here, or a limited, uh, outcome, instead of a great outcome – uh, effect. And you’ve taken out this one, but you haven’t taken all three of them out yet.
ART: Alright.
AUSTIN: But hey, listen, it’s out out. It’s not gonna come back, y’know? So I’m just gonna make it black. It’s dead. Cool.
ALI: Can I?
AUSTIN: Yes?
ALI: Can I try to assist for the other two?
AUSTIN: Totally. I’m gonna say the core of this action at this point is probably in Better Brighter, and given our time crunch we should probably start focusing there.
ALI: Yeah. Okay.
AUSTIN: Like, Memphis, I’m happy to say that you continue down this path, and continue to take them out as the rest are dealing with Courage and holding this out so that a bigger defence force can come in, if that’s a thing you want.
ART: Yeah, that is my idea. ‘Cause we’re gonna have to restore the power on our way out [AUSTIN: Yes.] because we were told to do that, so I just wanna make sure this is done.
ALI: Oh, that they’re down down, yeah.
AUSTIN: Oh, sorry, that power being out does actually slow down things here, yeah. So – so yeah, that’s a good point. Is there a – did you communicate with the crew at the power station like, when to turn it back on?
ALI: Um, yeah. That was part of that roll, [AUSTIN: Yeah.] so I maybe gave them a 45-minute window?
AUSTIN: Okay, cool.
ALI: Or like, send them a signal, or – I don’t know.
ALI: Cool. So, as a note, because of that, this weapon is gonna charge a little slower. They need that power if they want to turn it on faster.
ALI: Okay.
ART: And I’ll be around at a dramatic moment to pop with Courage. [Ali laughs]
AUSTIN: Right, totally. So, what’s happening with Courage at this point?
KEITH: Um, does – did I resist that for both of us, or?
AUSTIN: That was just you getting hit.
KEITH: Just me?
AUSTIN: That was just you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
KEITH: Oh, that was just me? Okay.
AUSTIN: But you’re all in a risky position at this point.
KEITH: Got it. I have something that I want to try.
AUSTIN: Sure.
KEITH: I want to use my mobility suite in a new way.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: Before, I launched those cables and they, like, hyper attract to sling me forward. Um, but what happens if I just shoot it right at Persevering?
AUSTIN: If you shoot what at?
KEITH: The cables that super retract.
AUSTIN: What is your end – what are you aiming to do here?
KEITH: Instead of using something to launch me at something, I just want to – I want to launch us at each other.
AUSTIN: Oh, you meant Courage, not Perseverance.
KEITH: Oh, Courage, right. Yeah, sorry.
AUSTIN: I was like, ‘why are you trying to hurt your bud’? [Ali laughs]
KEITH: Yeah, wrong one. Courage.
AUSTIN: I mean I think it’d be a very similar situation, right? You’re still – it’d still be about, like, creating –
KEITH: But it’s not – it’s technically not using it as a mobility thing, so I was just making sure we’re cool with that.
AUSTIN: I still think it’s pretty –
KEITH: No, I want to do something different.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: I just did that. Smack, do you have anything?
JACK: I want to get inside.
AUSTIN: Mmm.
JACK: Smack Talk loves to fight. Smack Talk will fight anything. [Keith laughs]
AUSTIN: Famous last words.
JACK: But not a Divine.
AUSTIN: Oh, okay. So you’re like, ‘I’m fleeing’?
JACK: I’m fleeing in. I’m fleeing – essentially, I’m picturing the Divine kind of perched [AUSTIN: Yeah.] on the compound.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: And I know we need to get the weapon in.
AUSTIN: It’s in. In between – while they were dealing with the first of these – or turning off the power – you managed to load the thing up and begin to charge it. So you – you’ve done that bit. [Jack sighs]
KEITH: I –
AUSTIN: This isn’t explicitly ‘no alibis’, but I’m telling you that that part of this mission is done. Now, what you need to do -
KEITH: [crosstalk] I have a – I have a thing.
AUSTIN: - is prevent Courage from destroying that weapon.
JACK: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
KEITH: I have a thing.
AUSTIN: Yeah?
JACK: What’s your thing, brother? [laughs]
KEITH: My thing is called ‘reflex adjustment and guidance engine.’
AUSTIN: Oh, you do have that, don’t you? I forgot that that’s a thing you could have.
KEITH: Yes. I will read the thing.
AUSTIN: Yeah, please.
KEITH: ‘An intermit [???] [2:07:42] rage. An interface system that when activated greatly enhances the pilot’s abilities at the cost of their survival instincts for several minutes. This may improve your position and effect in manoeuvring. You also suffer the consequences ‘death wish’ and ‘possibly hallucinations,’ -
AUSTIN: ‘Possibility hallucinations.’
KEITH: Which is a good name.
JACK: [laughing] Oh my god.
AUSTIN: Which is even wilder.
KEITH: Oh, uh – I think this screen disappeared.
JACK: Wait, possibly what hallucinations?
AUSTIN: Possibility hallucinations.
KEITH: Possibility hallucinations.
JACK: Oh.
KEITH: [reading] ‘Which can be resisted as normal. The modified position and effect and any unresisted consequences last until the end of the next scene.’
AUSTIN: Yeah. Uh-huh?
KEITH: I have that – there’s no load for that. I just have it.
AUSTIN: No, that’s a freebie. That’s just for fun.
KEITH: They give – they just give that to you!
AUSTIN: Uh-huh. So do you activate this thing?
KEITH: Yes. It’s – I don’t know if I’ve done it before.
AUSTIN: Did you know it was in here? Until just now?
KEITH: Y’know, let’s say –
AUSTIN: Is it something that – is it something that, like –
KEITH: I didn’t. Keith didn’t.
AUSTIN: [laughs] No.
KEITH: Maybe I saw the button that said ‘rage’ and I looked up in a little guide what it did, [AUSTIN: Yeah.] and it just said, ‘greatly enhances pilots abilities.’
AUSTIN: Yep. Great.
KEITH: And I just say,
KEITH (as David): Oh, perfect! [laughs]
AUSTIN: Great. Good.
KEITH: And I press the button, or I flip the switch. I have to break a little glass thing to get that, I don’t know. [Austin, Jack, and Keith laugh]
AUSTIN: Oh, god it’d be -
JACK: Oh, no, I know it is. You break a glass thing, and inside is, like, a vial of liquid which you then pour into another thing.
AUSTIN: Perfect.
KEITH: Oh, yeah.
AUSTIN: God…
KEITH: And – so it’s an interface system.
AUSTIN: It is.
KEITH: I assume I have to – I assume that the, um… I’m trying to think of how this affects me and gives me – oh, when I pour it into another thing there’s a gas that comes out.
AUSTIN: Oh! Wow, yeah!
KEITH: And that’s how it interfaces! It goes into your body through your lungs!
AUSTIN: That’s amazing, yeah.
KEITH: And it’s a drug. [Austin laughs] And it’s just some dumb corporate speak. Like, ‘no, it’s an interfacing tool.’ [laughs]
AUSTIN: Oh my god, it’s so good. Good bless OriCom.
JACK: This is great because this is like – this is like [laughs] this is extremely Season 6 aesthetics [AUSTIN: Uh-huh.] after Twilight Mirage’s weird, semi-magical stuff, and COUNTER / Weight’s ‘it’s a corporation.’ We’re back to just, like, ‘yeah, they put a drug inside, but you do have to break some glass and pour a little vial into another thing to make it work’.
AUSTIN: God. Alright, so –
KEITH: Oh, I’m gonna add one word to – to the little, um – to the little pamphlet that I had to read.
AUSTIN: Please. Yeah.
KEITH: It actually says ‘WARNING: [Austin laughs] an interface system that when activated greatly enhances the pilot’s abilities.’
AUSTIN: Oh, yeah, fuck it, yeah, totally.
KEITH (as Smack): A warning? Okay.
AUSTIN: So you’re gonna take 2 harm from this, because it said so. Or two different level 1 harms, ‘death wish’ and ‘possibility hallucinations,’ which are to you the person, not to your mech.
KEITH: Got it.
AUSTIN: Do you want to resist those?
KEITH: Um, no.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: What does – does possibility hallucinations do anything?
JACK: What is a crab singer?
AUSTIN: [laughs] So my read on it is you see other possibilities in front of you constantly. Right? It’s like – you’re like, doing -
KEITH: Yes. Yeah, okay. That’s what I thought. I’ve had those.
AUSTIN: Great, perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Um, great. I love it, I love it.
JACK: I have a move that I can do in concert here.
AUSTIN: Great. I can’t wait. What is it?
JACK: Um, [laughs] so I think that there are definitely some relationships where you see your sibling taking a highly dangerous risk, [AUSTIN: Yeah.] and think to yourself ‘brother, no.’
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: ‘Brother, why did you do that’?
AUSTIN: ‘Why did you do that, brother’?
JACK: ‘Brother, why did you pour that vial’? Instead, what happens is… Oh, God, okay. [Austin groans] I’m gonna use my last slot.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: Which is a tangle gun.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: My left fist explodes, not like an explosion, but in terms of the metal parts of it rapidly expand -
AUSTIN: Yeah. Uh-huh.
JACK: - to form something that looks kind of like the head of a watering can?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: And it just jets, like, glue – like hot, um – like acidic sort of, like – it’s bad. It’s like, what are those police immobiliser trap things?
KEITH: [quickly] I don’t know anything about cops.
AUSTIN: Great. [Keith cackles]
JACK: That sounds like what a cop would say!
AUSTIN: It does sound like something a cop would say. No, I know what you mean though.
JACK: It’s like immobilising liquid or something?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: And I think you just see it, like, bearing down on the Divine. And we just get an in-cockpit shot of Smack Talk calling up his brother on the intercom, and he just goes,
JACK (as Smack): Fuck ‘em up, David.
AUSTIN: Great. Good. Thank you! So that is a - it sounds like you’re doing – are you helping here, or are you doing Bombard?
JACK: I essentially want to immobilise the Divine so that my dangerous brother -
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Then that’s -
KEITH: [crosstalk] That’s helping, right?
AUSTIN: I think that’s Battle. I think you’re actually, like – or it’s actually a setup action is maybe what you’re actually doing.
JACK: Oh, yeah, that’s what it is.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Uh-huh.
KEITH: Yeah, we both knew about that, and that’s what we’re doing.
AUSTIN: [reading] ‘When you make a setup action, you are weakening an obstacle or empowering an ally. With a success, any squad mate that follows through have improved position or effect.’ You choose the – you choose the thing.
KEITH: So I have double improved position. Is that even possible?
AUSTIN: Well, you have double – I think this will be double improved – yeah it would be double improved position.
KEITH: I mean – okay, I have improved position and improved effect now.
AUSTIN: And improved effect. Wait, we have to see this roll. This is a Battle roll.
KEITH: Right, right, right, right.
AUSTIN: This is definitely a Battle roll.
KEITH (as David): Please do a good job, brother.
AUSTIN: 2d6. Are you gonna spend any of your quirks?
JACK: Oh yeah, 100% I’m gonna spend some quirks.
AUSTIN: Okay.
JACK: Here are some quirks that I’m gonna spend. [laughs] ‘Aggressive stance.’
AUSTIN: Mm-hm. 3d6.
JACK: There’s different kinds of aggression, and this one involves getting very close. This is basically point-blank immobilisation.
AUSTIN: God…
KEITH: This is a fun accent thing. I thought you said, ‘aggressive stunts.’ S-T-U-N-T-S.
AUSTIN: [laughs] Also that.
JACK: Aggressive - [laughs] aggressive stunts.
KEITH: Which is also – that’s also a good one.
JACK: And I think I’m gonna spend another one.
AUSTIN: Mm-hm.
JACK: Which is ‘backup reactors,’ because –
AUSTIN: Can you spend two at once?
JACK: Oh, can I spend two?
AUSTIN: Let’s see.
JACK: If not, then I won’t. But if yes, then I will. That’s my decision making.
AUSTIN: It doesn’t explicitly say you can’t.
JACK: Austin?
KEITH: That’s good enough for me!
AUSTIN: I’m gonna say yes for now, and if we’re wrong, too bad, we’ll fix it. Actual play. Hurry up and roll the dice before the person who made the game tells us otherwise. 4d6!
--02:15:00--
JACK: [laughs] Okay. Roll 4d6…
AUSTIN: That’s a 5.
KEITH: Listen, there’s only one Austin on this call and it’s not the one that wrote the rules to this game.
AUSTIN: Hell yeah! 5 is not a full success. So… chu-chu-chu… Fuck. Oh, boy. This was risky. I’d said that previously. You are gonna - you manage to do this, but you get in very close to do this.
JACK: Mmm.
AUSTIN: And you are going to get bear-hugged. You are going to get ‘squeezed’ level 1 damage here. Or level 2 damage, rather. That is, like, beginning to break your thin – as you’re immobilising her, she’s immobilising you. And I think she just straight-up says, um,
AUSTIN (as Lunar): Smack, you haven’t seen what I’ve seen. You should leave.
AUSTIN: And – also she’s wearing a dope mask now, 100%. It’s golden. [Ali laughs] And she, like has red laser-eye, like, cyclops eye type things – it’s like a full mask. Like, it’s a full helm, basically.
JACK: Wow.
AUSTIN: And her hair is cut short, now. So yeah, that’s a level 2 harm. Do you wanna resist it?
JACK: Um, yes.
AUSTIN: Okay. That will burn your last quirk to do that.
JACK: Yes. This is ‘flexible joints.’
AUSTIN: Flexible joints, yeah. Uh-huh.
JACK: Yeah.
AUSTIN: I think it probably resists down to a level 1. I don’t think you get to get all the way out of this.
JACK: Well, so I think what happens is – she’s - what does she say? She hasn’t seen what I’ve seen?
AUSTIN: She tells - you haven’t seen what I’ve seen, basically. Yeah.
JACK: Flee now?
AUSTIN: Flee now, yeah.
JACK: And I think Smack Talk just says,
JACK (as Smack): Fuck off. Let go.
AUSTIN: [laughs] And you’re like du-du-du, ‘oh no, fuck.’ Alright. So, here’s the moment. [reading] ‘You’ve now exhausted your last quirk. You can either send your vehicle limping home quietly, or you can start pushing it past its limits. If you send it home, it refreshes all its quirks. It’s removed from the scene. You’re not removed from the scene, but it is, and it gains a breakdown tick, which – and the final quirk exhausted has one of its descriptors worsened’. Which means those ‘flexible joints’ become, like, ‘rusted joints’, right? Or ‘damaged joints’.
JACK: Right, right, right. ‘Small-and-blue’. [Ali, Austin and Keith laugh]
AUSTIN: Small-and-blue, exactly.
AUSTIN: [reading] ‘The pilot doesn’t have to leave the scene or the mission. The vehicle becomes available again at the appropriate time, presumably after its been refuelled and polished. Or you can choose to push your vehicle past its limits and take a dire action. If you take a dire action, you can ignore any damage penalties to the vehicle. You cannot exhaust quirks to take the action, nor can you resist the consequences. If you get a 6 while making that roll, you can keep playing. Otherwise, you cannot take any more action. That is its last action.’
JACK: My mech, or me?
AUSTIN: Your mech, your mech, your mech, your mech.
JACK: So I basically have one shot. It’s like –
AUSTIN: Well, if you get a 6 you potentially get to take another action after that. If a 5 or lower is rolled they choose to take - or they choose to take no further action, then it’s its last action. On a result of less than 6, they suffer consequences as normal.
JACK: Okay.
AUSTIN: So, yeah. Geez.
JACK: Aw, geez.
AUSTIN: You don’t have to do this yet, because, because, because – remember, you’re still just setting up. David is taking a fucking swing with the rage system rolling. What are you doing? And yeah, you have increased effect and increased position. You have controlled great here.
KEITH: Yeah. So, I -
AUSTIN: I’m also gonna advance this secret weapon clock, because of that success, ‘cause you’re holding her down for time. And also because our time is running out.
KEITH: I think that I want to do is make sure that I’m – I’m taking the best – I’m doing the most effective thing I possibly can.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: I cannot waste - I’m seeing all the different things that I can do. They’re in front of me, and I’m watching them happen.
AUSTIN: Possibility hallucinations popping off.
ALI: Um…
KEITH: And –
AUSTIN: What’s up?
KEITH: And –
AUSTIN: Pigeon, what were you saying?
ALI: Oh, I was gonna say if you wanted Harmonious to help you choose what the most effective thing is?
AUSTIN: Oh, that’s good.
KEITH: Okay, yeah.
ALI: [reading] ‘Two times per mission you can assist a teammate without paying stress.’
AUSTIN: Love it. Love it. [Ali laughs] So is that just Harmonious comes into effect and cuts through the bad options?
ALI: Yeah, I think so.
AUSTIN: That’s so good. Do you have a visual for that in mind –
ALI: [crosstalk] [laughs] But yeah, Keith do what you wanna do – [???] [2:19:27]
AUSTIN: Sorry, go ahead.
ALI: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I want Keith to decide first, and then I guess we decide what’s happening?
AUSTIN: Yeah, totally.
KEITH: I – so what – where is, um – what’s the other Divine called?
AUSTIN: Courage, or Persevering?
KEITH: Persevering. Where is Persevering right now?
AUSTIN: It’s the little blue – it’s the blue one here.
KEITH: The blue one.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: I – so I kinda wanna, like, um… I want, I want – it’s a box.
AUSTIN: Yeah. It’s a box. Got –
KEITH: And part of that it’s a box is that [AUSTIN: Uh-huh.] the ways that it moves are very surprising because a box is not usually what a mech is shaped like. It’s very hard to tell the way that it’s going to move.
AUSTIN: Mm-hm!
KEITH: I think that what I’m trying to do is move Courage into Persevering. Like, giving it – picking it up and placing it into, basically, the arms of Persevering.
AUSTIN: You’re giving yourself to Persevering? Wait.
KEITH: No, no. I’m giving Courage to Persevering.
AUSTIN: Oh, so you’re just grabbing Courage and throwing it to Persevering.
KEITH: Yeah, yeah. It’s sort of like – so when I as at parties at my friend’s when I was at high school, my drunk friends would try to teach me karate, ‘cause they’re black belts. And they would end up hurting me mostly, but one of the things I do remember is how very easy it is to move someone’s body when they’re moving in that direction already. And so I guess I want to bait Courage and just put – turn them around and push them.
AUSTIN: I like this. My one thing is I think it’s actually hard to do because your brother just immobilised Courage with this goo.
KEITH: Oh yeah, yeah, with the goo.
AUSTIN: Yeah…
JACK (as Smack): I’ve helped you, my brother. [Austin and Ali laugh]
KEITH: Okay, the exact opposite thing. The exact opposite thing.
AUSTIN: Uh-huh.
KEITH: What part is immobilised? The feet?
AUSTIN: I think a lot of it.
KEITH: A lot of it?
AUSTIN: I think it’s been buried in this, like -
JACK: Right.
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN – quick – quick, y’know, quick concrete. Quick-crete.
KEITH: Alright. What if I just – I flip over it and grab – and pull it to the ground. Just flat onto the ground.
AUSTIN: Ooh, as if to break at the legs.
KEITH: Right.
AUSTIN: Like shatter – yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
KEITH: Yes. [Jack laughs] It’s the exact opposite thing.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
KEITH: It is just – it is a very blunt – one single motion, uh, up and back and down and broken.
AUSTIN: Okay, so that’s 1d6. Do you wanna take – do you wanna spend ‘it’s a box’ and have this be it’s a box and boxes fucking fall, and that gives you some extra weight to make it a 2d6.
KEITH: I have an argument that this is Manoeuvre.
AUSTIN: It’s – I think that if it’s Manoeuvre the effect is lower.
KEITH: It’s – the effect is normal instead of great?
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] Is just standard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
KEITH: Standard instead of great?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ALI: Well, wouldn’t it go up to great with my assist, right?
AUSTIN: No, your assist – or your assist could – oh, sorry, yeah. So it could be 2 Battle, or it can be – or it can be a higher effect. But Manoeuvre would be standard – so yeah, I guess you could up to great with that. Sure. I just think that it’s a –
KEITH: Okay.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Based on just the math of this –
KEITH: It does say – here’s the thing, here’s the thing. The – one of the fun things about this system is, like, using things that you’re not supposed to use [AUSTIN: Totally.] that only kind of work but for less effect, [AUSTIN: Yeah.] and Manoeuvre says ‘gently nudge another vehicle into a specific position.’
AUSTIN: Yeah. To me, that’s like –
KEITH: And it’s truly stretching ‘gently nudge,’ -
AUSTIN: That’s why I feel like it starts at limited, do you know what I mean?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: The argument you’re making is actually about Destroy, right? Because it’s -
KEITH: Well it starts limited, but I already have increased effect. So it starts at standard regardless.
AUSTIN: I’m saying – yeah, and I’m saying it’s only there because – it’s at standard because of your rage. [KEITH: Right.] Otherwise it would be at limited. Y’know?
KEITH: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
AUSTIN: I’ll give it to you. We’re in the final act. The math is right. You start at limited, rage pushes it up to standard, Harmonious pushes it up to great. So yeah, 3d6. Math don’t lie. [Ali laughs quietly]
KEITH: Alright.
AUSTIN: You’re not also then pushing yourself with quirks?
KEITH: I can push myself, yeah. I mean, totally willing – I’m doing ‘it’s a box.’
AUSTIN: Alright, so then 4d6.
KEITH: Yeah. Yeah. [Ali laughs] And I have a fun move for that if it gets there.
AUSTIN: [crosstalk] If it goes bad, yeah, uh-huh. I saw. [clears throat]
KEITH: Uh-huh. That’s what I was setting up at the start when I said it’s a box.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought so. But go ahead and give me the 4d6.
KEITH: A couple of big rolls.
AUSTIN: Oh yeah.
KEITH: 6!
AUSTIN: There’s a 6! Woof, so a 6 with a – a 6 on controlled great is an extremely good success, is the words that I will say. [softly] Uh, where did I put? Did I close them? I did.
KEITH: [sighs] I was like – in my head, I was like ‘it’s gonna be four 1s.’
AUSTIN: No, I know, right? That’s how it almost always feels. I’m just making sure there’s not, like, secretly a way this goes even higher.
KEITH: There’s something inherently terrifying about the dice not being cumulative.
AUSTIN: No, yeah, totally, totally, totally.
ALI: Mm-hm.
AUSTIN: [softly, to himself] I did want that. I wanted… Yeah, great effect is 3. So, I’m actually gonna give you - here’s – this is – I think this basically works. The things that happen here are you advance this step by 3. [Keith: Yeah.] In this moment, Memphis, you finish taking out the second one of these, um - these turrets – or, cannons – which means that they can start – they can turn on the power again, and the Divines can continue to drop in safely, because the one remaining turret, like, what the fuck ever – or cannon. David, you like shatter Courage at the knees. Like, all of that cloth has firmed up, and you can see where the knees are at this point, and it shatters. And Lunar is like,
AUSTIN (as Lunar): I have to go.
AUSTIN: And, like, begins to flutter away as best she can, held down by the weight of the concrete and the fact that you’ve damaged her mech severely. And, with that great success, you’re advancing the secret weapon clock by 3 also. And she’s fleeing, a things rival are known to do and will continue to do. It’s very rare that you just ace one out, right? And the weapon is deployed. And Principality – or, not Principality – y’know, I suspect what we get is a shot of Kirst Bittenbach, y’know, overseeing the connection of whatever this thing is – this, like, strange-looking spherical device that kind of lights up and begins to spin – it’s a sphere with a bunch of different lights on it – and we get a close-up of what it’s real name is, which is the EDICT. And the EDICT is a long descendant of something else that had to do with words being spoken. Another piece of device that had to do with communicating with Divines. The EDICT is the Electronic Divine Interface and Control Technology. And as Courage tries to fly away, the device turns on, and Courage slowly falls to ground as the EDICT, which can control Divines, comes online. And out on the streets, the members of the OriCom begin to celebrate. And then at first so do the Divine Collaborate. And then suddenly, Persevering rolls up into a ball, because Persevering is also controlled.
The EDICT works on all sorts of Divines. Maybe not every one, because as we’ve talked about, a Divine doesn’t necessarily have the same code as every other Divine, but there is a through line through a number of them – a great number of them. And I think at the same time Regolian – or Rogalian, the flamethrower mech in the middle of the open-air markets – shuts down completely, finally. And maybe what you come to realise – and I don’t even know that you realise it in this moment – this is a battle won for you. Maybe it’s in the newspaper the next day. Do you want to tell me what your newspaper looks like, Smack? Or, uh, David?
KEITH: Yeah, so it is a touch screen. It’s like a panel, and the way that you get the new daily newspaper is that you have like a credit card swipe on your wall or on your front door, [AUSTIN: Mm-hm] and you take a chip and swipe through and that’s how you change the paper from one day to the next.
AUSTIN: [laughs] So fucking good. I love it. Yeah, I think it’s a victory for you all. Lunar Leson escapes, and the next day you see it in the newspaper. A treaty was signed, and not just a treaty: a burgeoning alliance was formed between the Divine Principality and the Orion Combine. With this weapon the Diaspora will be – or the Divine Collaborate – won’t stand a chance. And all of the corporations of OriCom are happy to go along with this, because they realise what having access to the rest of the galaxy might look like for their bottom line. This is the moment that OriCom and all of Orion once again betrayed the descendants of the Automated Diaspora and sent them fleeing into the stars.
[pause]
[someone sighs]
AUSTIN: How do y’all feel?
ART: Whoever that was: great sigh.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Uh-huh. Great sigh.
KEITH: In, uh… In dusk to midnight at the very end I had bumped my feeling about the war up from 1 to 2 because I – [AUSTIN: [laughs] Uh-huh?] when I went out to fight that skirmish on my own and I was looking at the map and was really upset. Just furious with the idea that the Divine Principality would need more space to control.
AUSTIN: Uh-huh.
KEITH: I feel the exact same way now in the reverse.
AUSTIN: In reverse. Yeah. Because that’s –
JACK: This is great.
--02:30:00--
AUSTIN: [laughs] Is it?
JACK: No, this is great news. I feel like OriCom and Yes! Power have always had an eye for victory.
KEITH: And, yes, Yes! Power. [laughs]
AUSTIN: Have always what?
JACK: Had an eye for victory.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: And I think they’re capable of making decisions that will get us there.
AUSTIN: [tired] Yeah. And they did. And also maybe this explains a little bit about why the Divine Principality was so easily pushing down into the rest of OriCom territory without any resistance.
JACK: ‘Cause they knew?
AUSTIN: And why that Yes! Power ship managed to punch through all of those defences and get in close with y’all.
JACK: Jesus. Also, knowing OriCom, [AUSTIN: Oh, yeah.] they were probably talking about this in boardrooms four weeks ago, right?
AUSTIN: Oh, yeah! Four months ago, right? This was probably, like, plan number two, um, was ‘oh, we should figure out how to team up with these guys.’
JACK: ‘With the invading army! What if we’re actually on their side’?
AUSTIN: Yeah. [laughs] ‘What if we’re the baddies’? But, like, in an excited way.
JACK: Hey, listeners? In case you forgot, OriCom sucks.
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah.
KEITH: It’s hard to forget, but I get it.
AUSTIN: And I think there’s good news here, which is – I don’t want to play a game in which the Divine Principality and OriCom go and smash all of the good Divines we love. And I think the Divines are smart for that – are smart about this – which is that they kind of pull away, and decide that like – and I think I mean literally the Divines here, and we’ll probably see this at some point – somewhere out there, a new society of Divines forms and says ‘oh, fuck. Like, all those years ago, when we were terrified that one day humans would go and come for us – this might be the beginning of that. What do we do’? [KEITH: Oh, it -] And they begin to work over that question.
KEITH: And then think, like, now – but then, think of – like, Season 12, you’ve got a fucking entire portion of this map is just, all of them are just Divines. They were built – Divines building Divines, and now –
AUSTIN: Keith, can I tell you a secret?
KEITH: Yeah?
AUSTIN: That’s already on the Season 6 map. I’m setting that up now.
KEITH: Oh my God. Great.
AUSTIN: Uh-huh. Yeah. I don’t know that it will come up in Season 6. But like, oh, yeah, that’s what the Divines are off doing. Is being Divines. Not all of them. But the ones who are like, ‘hey, fuck this,’ and who are from the descendants of the Diaspora, for sure. But yeah, I think this is –
KEITH: I’m sure it’s like – I’m sure it’s like 50%, like, reading about the Sith and how, like, the problem with the Sith is that they keep killing each other, because, uh – [laughs]
AUSTIN: Right. [laughs]
KEITH: Because they all just wanna take control.
AUSTIN: Maybe, it’s –
KEITH: It’s half that. I think it’s half that, and it happens, but then it’s also, like [AUSTIN: Yeah.] it probably does stabilise, and now it’s just the – they’re just the strongest faction.
AUSTIN: And also don’t fucking wanna take over the world! That’s the big difference.
KEITH: Yeah, well, I guess it depends who wins.
AUSTIN: Well, I – sure. Sure, sure, sure. We already have one big empire to deal with in Season 6 that has the word ‘Divine’ in it.
KEITH: Yeah. No, not in Season 6 – I’m not talking Season – I’m -
AUSTIN: Oh, you’re saying well in the future. Sure, sure, sure. Um, I mean here’s the other thing -
KEITH: [crosstalk] Yeah, yeah, yeah. At some point in, millennia upon millennia, one of these arms is all Divines.
[Jack De Quidt’s ‘HOURGLASS. SUNSHINE. CRYSTALLINE.’ plays]
AUSTIN: Uh-huh. I think we get a great montage of the newspaper being swiped again and again as things unfold, though, right? Which is like, we get, y’know, ‘peace’! And then we get, y’know, ‘strategic alliance signed with the Divine Principality,’ and then we get, y’know, ‘House Bittenbach,’ and then we get Stel, which is the name of the great house – Stel Orion. And the Orion – once the Orion Conglomerate, then the Orion Combine, now Stel Orion, the highest of honours among the Divine Principality. And finally, the Orion have Divines too.
[‘HOURGLASS. SUNSHINE. CRYSTALLINE.’ finishes playing]