00;00;00;12 - 00;00;18;19 Phil I think I found one on the side of the road when I was still teaching high school in Savannah and it worked and I became kind of obsessed with it briefly and I would write letters on it. I think I made a point of writing letters to people just so I could have an excuse to use the typewriter, because I was very. 00;00;18;29 - 00;00;20;08 Speaker 2 Very eager to be. 00;00;21;02 - 00;00;22;25 Phil That kind of writer, I suppose. 00;00;23;03 - 00;00;23;16 Speaker 2 Right. 00;00;24;25 - 00;00;26;12 Speaker 3 Oh, man. Yeah. 00;00;27;00 - 00;00;27;28 Speaker 2 Typewriters, huh? 00;00;28;06 - 00;00;53;15 Phil Yeah. Yeah, I that's a that's a that's a time in my life that, you know, some people, I'm sure, will look back on their time wearing a top hat in public or or like growing their hipster beard or something and being like, oh, god, I was insufferable, insufferable back in those days. And and I'm no different, except it has more to do with the typewriter than. 00;00;53;15 - 00;00;54;29 Phil Than anything else, so. 00;00;55;08 - 00;01;06;28 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. Try to forget about it. You know who else is insufferable? Who's that? Hey there, everybody. Welcome back to Pixelate. My name is Kevin with Michael. 00;01;07;13 - 00;01;10;15 Speaker 3 With me is Phil. Do you. Did you mean the. 00;01;10;15 - 00;01;11;24 Phil Show is insufferable? 00;01;11;25 - 00;01;12;11 Speaker 3 What was that? 00;01;12;20 - 00;01;20;21 Speaker 2 I don't know. I don't. I'm not entirely sure that one came from, but just. 00;01;20;21 - 00;01;22;22 Phil Stumbled into a marvelous cellphone. 00;01;22;22 - 00;01;34;21 Speaker 2 That's a marvelous cell phone. But today we're finishing up Halo, the Rubicon Protocol. Yes. Proof this book. 00;01;35;02 - 00;01;35;25 Phil It's not. 00;01;36;00 - 00;01;40;13 Speaker 2 There's a lot, but there's a lot of juice in this book, I'll say that. 00;01;40;23 - 00;01;41;13 Phil Yeah, it's. 00;01;41;13 - 00;01;44;27 Speaker 2 It's got a lot of it's got a lot of puts. 00;01;45;20 - 00;01;49;06 Phil This this book's got the juice. There's no question this. 00;01;49;06 - 00;01;50;16 Speaker 2 And it's worth the squeeze. 00;01;50;20 - 00;02;15;04 Phil Big time. Big time. And I'm kind of I'm so frustrated that it's this book, you know, because this is our first as we pointed out in the first episode of this book, this is our first review, the copy book we've ever gotten where where the publisher contacted us and said, would you would you be interested in it? Do you want it? 00;02;15;06 - 00;02;46;02 Phil And we said, absolutely. And we made a point of saying, you know, full disclosure, this is not a book we bought. This is a book that was offered to us in the same way we would if we were reviewing a game or something like that. And now, based on having read the entire book, I'm so frustrated that it is as good as it is because it makes me feel like people are going to hear this and go, Oh, well, yeah, that's all it takes, guys. 00;02;46;02 - 00;02;55;12 Phil You just they give you a free book and and and you're just going to give them a glowing review. Is that what it is like? No, it's actually God damn it. 00;02;55;12 - 00;03;01;12 Speaker 3 It's really good. I think it's a good book. Why would you listen to me? You should. You should. 00;03;01;23 - 00;03;05;04 Speaker 2 It makes it. And it made me want to play Halo Infinite. 00;03;05;11 - 00;03;19;24 Phil Saying, Oh, my God. I wrote that in my notes. I'm so glad you said that. Absolutely. Because and we're going to get into it. But there are so many things at the end that you're like, I wonder if they tie this up in the game. I bet they do. 00;03;19;25 - 00;03;20;07 Speaker 2 Yeah. 00;03;20;17 - 00;03;30;02 Phil I'm very intrigued. And yeah, suddenly I want to like skip all the other ones in between that I haven't played just so I can play with Infinite. Right. Find out what happens. 00;03;30;14 - 00;03;50;27 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when we left off, it was chapter 28 that we had just finished 27 and we're into Chapter 28. And basically. So Phil, actually, if you could give us a rundown of what happens in the last episode leading into Chapter 28. 00;03;51;21 - 00;04;15;16 Phil Leading over. Hold on. Yeah, let me let me pull this guy out because because 28, one of the things we actually ended up vaguely discussing over the phone today was their text is that 28 ended up being one of the longest chapters in the book. And we've got up to it and I'm really glad we did because it was some really, really heavy shit. 00;04;16;03 - 00;04;55;27 Phil Basically what we've been dealing with up until now is at this point, months have gone by. You know, these people are in full survival mode. We've got young Lucas, young, young, sweet, sweet Lucas. Lucas Sorry, baby. Lucas. He has been captured by the banished. They have unearthed this ungodly force, this alien presence that nobody recognizes. That is basically some level of an annihilator that has promised to undo everything they hold dear, everything that they know, which the banished are good with. 00;04;56;03 - 00;05;24;27 Phil And for whatever reason, Lucas is a necessary part of the puzzle that they they require him to connect to this creature, which is called. What was the name of one of the Harbinger? The Harbinger, yes. So Lucas is rotting in a cell, slowly losing his mind. His Spartan friends have come by to try and rescue him, but he is basically hooked up there forever. 00;05;25;17 - 00;05;51;21 Phil Basically, they've shackled him in a way that he has implied could kill him or them or everybody. But no matter what happens, they should not be trying to break him out. And at this point, right when we get into Tate, Lucas has been left with a plan, basically a recording device. Which one of the Spartans left it with him? 00;05;51;21 - 00;05;51;29 Phil It was a. 00;05;51;29 - 00;05;55;21 Speaker 2 Disco Van Kovacs left him with a recording device. 00;05;55;21 - 00;06;24;00 Phil Exactly. And said basically your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use this, set it somewhere in the process of your imprisonment. And we need to find out as much as we possibly can about this harbinger creature. And we promise we will try to come back and save you. So we actually ended up stopping this at exactly the right point, because it is the height of the desperation of this whole team. 00;06;24;00 - 00;06;55;00 Phil People are are just surviving. Our team of misfits like bad News Bears style unmask people like, you know, barbers and, you know, you know, retail assistants and stuff. Right? Right. They trained to turn into this scrappy little assassin team where they're just going in and fucking shit up everywhere they can. They're starving to death. They are dealing with PTSD, they are running out of supplies, they're running out of hope. 00;06;55;12 - 00;07;10;00 Phil And now we have our first in with this, basically the MacGuffin for the banished. Like what they're aiming for, what they're going for. And and that's where we leave off. Like everyone's at the height of desperation here. 00;07;10;02 - 00;07;24;11 Speaker 2 Yeah. So when we pick up stone has been basically the heat has been on for stone for a few days I think. I think the author actually uses the word the heat. 00;07;24;27 - 00;07;26;22 Speaker 3 Yeah, that's it. 00;07;27;01 - 00;08;07;18 Speaker 2 Because Stone basically made a distraction so that coven could escape from her little interaction with Lucas. And so Stone's been just running from the banished for for a few days now, and she decides to go into the excavation site that the banished have underneath the mortal reverie. And it's it's a massive forerunner to sites that they find. And so she finds her way in and she she finds there's a stasis pod that she finds, which I think is supposed to be the Harbinger stasis pod. 00;08;07;18 - 00;08;18;29 Speaker 2 Yeah yeah. That that they use Lucas to open she finds it, she finds it empty. She's like, well I hope whatever was in here is not is this isn't I hope this is old or whatever. 00;08;18;29 - 00;08;19;05 Speaker 3 Yeah. 00;08;19;23 - 00;08;23;15 Phil Please let this not be relevant to my current situation. 00;08;23;15 - 00;08;27;28 Speaker 2 I really hope this is Stone says. I hope this isn't relevant to the plot move. Right. 00;08;27;28 - 00;08;30;27 Phil But please, please let this be window dressing. 00;08;30;27 - 00;08;32;18 Speaker 3 Oh please. She's. 00;08;34;09 - 00;08;59;04 Speaker 2 She continues on. But before she goes any deeper, she shoots off a message to Koven, saying what she's doing, where she is and all that stuff. And so we have a lot of her basically going deeper and deeper into this forerunner base and she runs into these first. The first thing she finds are like the like the signs of a struggle. 00;08;59;16 - 00;09;19;28 Speaker 2 Some dead bodies of of banished people. And then she finds a she runs into this alien race and they got like two legs or two arms. Four legs, and they're just kind of floating around on jetpacks. Yeah, and they're just watching her. 00;09;20;07 - 00;09;23;25 Phil Right? Yeah. They don't seem very threatened by her at all. 00;09;23;25 - 00;09;48;04 Speaker 2 They're not. They're not threatened, but they're but they're armed with banished weapons. So clearly they had taken the weapons from the banished excavation team that they had killed. So she's just seeing them. And at some point, she, you know, puts her hand on her gun and realized that she's just going to have to make a break for it at some point. 00;09;48;16 - 00;10;16;20 Speaker 2 Yeah. So she runs starts running down a hallway and they start fire. As soon as she starts running, they start firing on her. Yeah. And she runs down this hallway and escapes into this, like, smaller alcove area and as soon as she gets into, like, an area that isn't as open air, because these four runner rooms are like the the world, the the word that is used often is like it was like like a cathedral, you know, has gigantic vaulted ceilings and all that stuff. 00;10;16;20 - 00;10;22;27 Speaker 2 So as soon as she gets into like a more enclosed space, these jetpack aliens are like they're they they give up. 00;10;23;17 - 00;10;41;15 Phil Yeah, they, they, they, they seem only to be going after half heartedly. It's almost like they are just not threatened by her. She runs and they start shooting after her basically because like, well, she's running. Should we shoot her? That kind of feels like a thing to do. Let's shoot. Yeah, let's. Let's give it a shot. Oh, well, there's no room. 00;10;41;26 - 00;10;42;19 Phil We can't use our. 00;10;44;00 - 00;10;47;05 Speaker 2 Jetpacks in there. 00;10;47;05 - 00;10;49;29 Phil Let us know if you. If you're coming back, let us know. We'll give it another try. 00;10;50;07 - 00;10;50;18 Speaker 3 Yeah. 00;10;51;02 - 00;11;20;23 Speaker 2 So she as she gets deeper into the forerunner excavate the excavation site, she sees of another group of banished soldiers, and among them are two in particular that have been named GURIAN And Jega. Jega, Jega is the elite blood sport. Uh, is a blood sport. 00;11;20;25 - 00;11;36;06 Phil It's blood a blood sport. But it's the it's like a it's it's it's this team of of like it's covenant and old Spartans, like, who have who've, uh, dissented, like of, who've seceded from the Union. 00;11;36;06 - 00;12;19;23 Speaker 2 CSC Yeah, they're very yeah, they're tough as nails. Yeah. Uh, and so Goran is one of them, Jega is another one. They wear black and red armor. They're, they're, they're tough to deal with. So she sees what they're up to. Jega and Goran are using a woman, a female human hostage, to interact with all the forerunner stuff. They're using her hand and they get this computer going and the computer gives them, uh, a data stream that will allow them to take control of Zeta Halo's defensive capabilities. 00;12;20;14 - 00;12;39;05 Speaker 2 And she when she sees that happen, she her her role right at this moment becomes crystal clear. They can't they're they cannot be allowed to have that. And so what happens is Jega and Goran just kill the woman that they had with them like we don't need her anymore. 00;12;39;17 - 00;12;41;18 Phil And pretty soon. 00;12;42;19 - 00;12;58;28 Speaker 2 Stoga goes in and basically she takes it from the data card that they had. She goes in, she takes from and it just turns into this. Pages long brawl between Jager, Stone and Goran. 00;12;59;07 - 00;13;02;23 Phil And it's like this ultra violent game of keep away. 00;13;03;07 - 00;13;04;11 Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. 00;13;04;29 - 00;13;21;11 Speaker 2 At one point, Goran, she throws Jager off of it, off the edge and gory. Then Goran hits her with a phantom and pins her against the wall. You just like it's her with you, Brock? 00;13;21;11 - 00;13;22;12 Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. He just. 00;13;22;12 - 00;13;23;19 Phil Rolls a truck into. 00;13;23;20 - 00;13;23;27 Speaker 3 Her. 00;13;24;26 - 00;13;29;03 Phil Because that's how you deal with Spartans. I mean, it's effective. I can't argue against it. 00;13;29;09 - 00;13;30;00 Speaker 3 And then. 00;13;30;19 - 00;14;00;04 Speaker 2 She, she, like, climbs onto the hood and she beats she punches him until he, like, falls out of the Phantom and, you know, eventually she has an opening to just run. So she she runs. She runs. And as she's running, she is killing the shit out of so many banished soldiers. There's like, she runs into a room and there's, like, some grunts, and she just like, she just, like, punches one. 00;14;00;04 - 00;14;03;04 Speaker 2 And it hits the wall and it splatters. Yeah. 00;14;04;12 - 00;14;29;20 Phil It's it's kind of crazy because we've been dealing it's it's it's terrific because, you know, for all of the the dealing with PTSD and the dark side of war as hell and everything like that, you cannot accuse Kelley Gaye of trying to reinvent the general violent joy of a Halo game, because there's plenty of that. And this is this chapter is a prime example. 00;14;29;20 - 00;14;30;04 Phil It's just. 00;14;30;04 - 00;14;30;23 Speaker 2 Prime. 00;14;30;23 - 00;14;34;16 Phil Example. Oh, my God, it's insane. And it's Blood Star, by the way. The Blood. 00;14;34;16 - 00;14;58;25 Speaker 2 Star. Okay, Blood Star. So they part of Stone's plan is that she says she has the chip in her Spartan armor and her eye. Yuko is copying it basically to her her armor and but also trying to corrupt the data on the original chip. 00;14;59;01 - 00;14;59;29 Phil Yeah, exactly. 00;15;00;25 - 00;15;34;00 Speaker 2 So she's fighting. She's she's she's like killing grunts and then she's killing elites and, um, she fights her way through almost basically every banished soldier that is, that is left in this excavation. And she's not that far from the exit at this point. And she says, we're like, All right, well, let's just get and then her eye pops in trying to get her attention. 00;15;34;00 - 00;15;53;13 Speaker 2 But it's too late as she is stabbed through the back by a, uh, a plasma blade. Yeah, and it's Jager who did not die clearly from being thrown off the ledge. Right? He got. He got. He got better. 00;15;54;23 - 00;15;55;08 Speaker 3 Got better. 00;15;56;21 - 00;16;21;09 Speaker 2 He climbed his way up and, uh, uh, Jager and Goran take the data chip back from her. And that is a wrap on, uh, Bonita Stone. Uh, she just, you know, she falls and it's. It's as she lets the darkness take her. Yeah, it's, it is such, such a. 00;16;22;04 - 00;16;41;10 Phil It it's a fucking bummer. It's such a bummer because she's like the first Spartan we met in the book, you know, like. Yeah, she is. Yeah. So, and I kept and I did, I did the thing that you shouldn't do where I was like, Oh, I mean, they're going to bring her back like, like that's because it was a little vague for a second there at the end. 00;16;41;11 - 00;16;46;26 Phil Yeah. I mean she'll know it's this is it first stone. She's she's. 00;16;46;26 - 00;16;47;16 Speaker 2 She's dead. 00;16;47;20 - 00;17;01;11 Phil But she does have a wonderful moment at the end where because they've taken the chip from her and they corrupted it. Corrupted it. Exactly. So she's able to die knowing that she fucked them over pretty good. Yeah. 00;17;01;25 - 00;17;18;12 Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. And yeah, it's a good moment and it's, it's and I know I'm not doing it justice. In just recapping Chapter 28, chapter 28 is really long. 00;17;18;12 - 00;17;19;19 Phil Yeah, it's a this. 00;17;19;29 - 00;17;21;23 Speaker 2 Is a very long chapter. 00;17;21;23 - 00;17;22;29 Phil Maybe the lowest in the book. 00;17;22;29 - 00;17;42;01 Speaker 2 Yeah, I think it is the longest in the book and it's 100% just uh, uh, Spartan Stone in this forerunner, an excavation site and fighting for her life to try to, like, stop them from getting control of the defense and stuff. 00;17;42;03 - 00;18;07;28 Phil Yeah. And we've talked about in the past with these action filled books and everything, it's not it's not, it's not our in our interest to give you a play by play on every fist thrown or bullet fired. But you can take it from us that that if you know that scene alone to me is worth the price of admission, especially with the context of knowing who she is and having gone through so much with her. 00;18;08;29 - 00;18;13;14 Phil This is a heart. You texted me and you said you needed a little break after you. 00;18;13;14 - 00;18;13;25 Speaker 3 Read this. 00;18;13;25 - 00;18;15;00 Speaker 2 Chapter. I read chapter. 00;18;15;00 - 00;18;16;05 Phil 29 and I. 00;18;16;05 - 00;18;16;27 Speaker 2 Need a moment. 00;18;16;27 - 00;18;47;05 Phil Absolutely. And I don't blame you. I went and had a lunch break, like I finished that chapter and I was like, well, Daddy's going to have a sandwich and try to process his emotions because. And so I ate my feelings and I got on with it. But yeah, it's, it is, it is a long, gloriously spread out chapter just filled with annihilation and, and fuck it, gory and macho bullshit nearly ruining everything for him again. 00;18;47;05 - 00;19;04;26 Phil Yeah. There's that, that moment where, like, she's in a fight with glory and this other not a grunt, a brute, I think. And he basically interrupts the fight because the brute has the upper hand on stone and it's about to take her down. But glory like knocks the brute out of the way because he's like, No, you. 00;19;04;26 - 00;19;05;26 Speaker 2 Can't have my killer. 00;19;06;02 - 00;19;11;17 Phil That's my kill. It's like, you could have had her out of your hair, you stupid idiot. Like, it's just. 00;19;11;17 - 00;19;11;29 Speaker 2 Gorgeous. 00;19;12;06 - 00;19;15;11 Phil These are the same gory and we knew from way back when. 00;19;15;16 - 00;19;24;26 Speaker 2 Yeah, it's not like if you thought he's learned anything in the past. I don't know. Absolutely not. Whatever it is. Five months he hasn't. No. 00;19;25;10 - 00;19;29;02 Speaker 3 No, not a thing. Which is good news. 00;19;29;02 - 00;19;30;06 Phil For for humanity, I. 00;19;30;06 - 00;19;30;21 Speaker 3 Suppose. 00;19;33;16 - 00;19;44;24 Speaker 2 So. Same day this is happening at the same day. Same time. We have a brief chapter 29 cuts back to Lucas. Luke is not doing well. 00;19;45;16 - 00;19;45;26 Speaker 3 Yeah. 00;19;46;08 - 00;20;08;07 Speaker 2 He's he kind of gets roughed up by the banished on their way over to see Harbinger and then he gets thrown into the room with Harbinger and she feeds him and like she has a lot of food and like a she she just has a big spread, a nice red and he's eating and then she's like, That's enough. 00;20;08;18 - 00;20;09;26 Speaker 2 I have things to tell you. 00;20;10;09 - 00;20;23;27 Phil Yeah, but she like, she's kind of like trying to commiserate with him. Like, you know, we have a lot in common like these. You've been fucked over. I've been fucked over like so now I'm going to unpeel your brain like. 00;20;24;05 - 00;20;26;25 Speaker 2 So now let's get on with the mind flaying. 00;20;26;25 - 00;20;42;21 Phil Right, exactly. Good Lord. Some serious elephant shit. It's. It's it's weird. It's. She's a fascinating and very spooky character. Yeah. I don't know if there's any indication that the harbingers of she or not she is. 00;20;42;24 - 00;20;43;05 Speaker 2 She is a. 00;20;43;05 - 00;20;44;05 Phil She. She is a she. 00;20;44;05 - 00;21;15;07 Speaker 2 Okay. Yeah. Yeah. According according to the I think in the book. Okay. So day 137, chapter 30, Murphy is pissed. Yeah. He has a this is a great moment where he basically he, he forgets that coven could end his life in a second. Oh yeah. He's just like, what the fuck is going on, Coven? You haven't been. You've been like, you haven't been saying anything to us for the past few days. 00;21;15;15 - 00;21;23;16 Speaker 2 He, like, pushes her like, yeah, he at one point, he, like, grabs her armor and like, pulls. She's like, he's like, talk to me. 00;21;23;25 - 00;21;24;08 Speaker 3 Right. 00;21;24;19 - 00;21;47;24 Phil It's crazy because it's a great. They had a moment in the first third of the book where at some point they're joking about because all the rules have gone out the window and everything's gone to shit. And one of them calls one of the superior officers an asshole or something like that, and they're all laughing and and he says, Hey, you know, you can get thrown in the brig for calling your your commanding officer an asshole. 00;21;47;24 - 00;22;03;19 Phil Ha ha ha. Because right then it doesn't matter anymore. And this is kind of like a no holds barred, fully serious version of that, where it's like, I don't give a shit that you're a Spartan. I don't care that you're you outrank me. I don't give a shit. You owe me answers. It's a very human moment. 00;22;03;19 - 00;22;27;08 Speaker 2 It's great. Yeah. And Koven finally admits to everything like, All right, well, we found Lucas. We tried to get him out, we couldn't get him out. And Stone has been like Mia since then. But I know where she is. And this everybody is like, I'm not mad, but I'm disappointed, right? 00;22;27;08 - 00;22;29;14 Speaker 3 That's exactly what it is like. 00;22;29;14 - 00;22;37;13 Phil Oh, we get it. But this is kind of fucked up. And your father and I are going to have to talk about this. 00;22;37;13 - 00;22;55;19 Speaker 2 So they they get they go off to they're like, ah, we're going to go, we're going to go and we're going to go get stoned. So they go to the excavation site and there's a really nice moment where the the boat crew shows off how efficient they are at killing a brute. 00;22;55;19 - 00;23;05;16 Phil Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's fun, isn't it? We get a serious play by play on how they're going. They just immediately, quietly take out. 00;23;05;16 - 00;23;26;25 Speaker 2 A knife that is sounds it's like the the the five of them just like basically run up to this brute and like one stabs him in the stomach, two of them like slices, like Achilles tendons and that and then and then Bender like stabs him in the throat or something like that. Yeah. It's like it is a maze. 00;23;27;08 - 00;23;27;24 Speaker 3 It is. 00;23;29;05 - 00;23;32;12 Phil It's like, imagine being taken down by a dozen cats. 00;23;32;22 - 00;23;34;00 Speaker 3 Like fall asleep. 00;23;35;15 - 00;23;46;10 Phil Terrifyingly, silently. Like that is the impression I got for this one. It's it's great. It's a great. We just it's it's just a terrific it's not doesn't take up a lot of space. 00;23;46;10 - 00;23;46;25 Speaker 3 It's just a. 00;23;46;25 - 00;23;48;06 Speaker 2 Great scene, but it's a great. 00;23;48;06 - 00;24;05;09 Phil Moment. And it shows you how far these people have come. Like this dude was, like, making you your protein shake, like, six months ago, and now he's assassinating brutes in the jungle. Like, it's crazy. 00;24;05;09 - 00;24;40;01 Speaker 2 So they continue. They continue on into the thing, and they find a lot of the things that Stone had seen. And then they find stone. They see her, her armor, the like. I recognize that light blue Neil. Their armor anywhere. And, you know, they go up, she's she's gone and they have like a moment and then Koven takes the chip out and starts like because she the helmet basically has a full log of everything that happens. 00;24;40;01 - 00;24;58;17 Speaker 2 Right. So she takes chip out and like watches how, how it went down and then the banished show up on their heels and they just have to run and they are just running. Run and run and run and run and run and run and they find it's been they run for hours. 00;24;58;18 - 00;24;58;29 Phil Yeah. 00;25;00;06 - 00;25;18;17 Speaker 2 Until they're just like out of breath, they're tired. The banished probably aren't coming anymore. And then suddenly a sub monitor validity shows up and she's and she's like, oh, this is great. Reclaimers are here. 00;25;18;26 - 00;25;19;12 Speaker 3 Fuck yeah. 00;25;19;12 - 00;25;28;05 Phil Fucking I fucking love her. And they like, like substitute good guy. Yeah. Yep. As far as I'm concerned, just. 00;25;28;06 - 00;25;30;18 Speaker 3 Because her I. 00;25;31;03 - 00;25;46;28 Speaker 2 Forget if it ever happens in this, this particular moment where they're like, oh, oh, no, verity virginity is just a sub monitor. If I were the monitor, the banished would be dead already, right? Yeah. 00;25;46;28 - 00;25;54;27 Phil Completely loathes the banished right off the bat. It's a great introduction. 00;25;54;27 - 00;25;57;25 Speaker 3 It's fantastic. 00;25;57;25 - 00;26;09;07 Speaker 2 And it's like she has so much personality. You almost forget that she is just a floating metal sphere with. With like a green eye yet or something like that. Yeah. 00;26;10;28 - 00;26;17;27 Phil It's great. It's great. It's like a less smart ass version of who's that stupid little robot in the borderlands games. 00;26;18;24 - 00;26;21;18 Speaker 2 Mm. I forget. 00;26;21;18 - 00;26;23;07 Phil But you know what I'm talking about, like. 00;26;23;07 - 00;26;27;20 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, but also like a like a, like a good guy version, right? 00;26;27;20 - 00;26;28;00 Phil Right. 00;26;28;01 - 00;26;35;02 Speaker 2 Yeah. Just like, segue from, from the first halo. Uh, the monitor from from Halo one. 00;26;35;02 - 00;26;40;18 Phil Yeah. It's that kind of. They always have spark. Yeah, they always have terrific. Like personalities. 00;26;40;25 - 00;26;48;09 Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, because they've been there for tens of thousands of years. Right. And they kind of lose, lose their minds a little bit. 00;26;48;13 - 00;26;55;15 Phil Pretty, pretty bored at that point too, like, oh, thank God. 00;26;55;15 - 00;27;32;21 Speaker 2 So they talk about how they are in there, basically in this hub type building, they need to get to the conservatory. Um, but even if the covenant gets in that covenant, even if the banished get to the conservatory, they don't have the data ship because, and the boat crew does because they have a corrupted version. And since Stone copied it to her, uh, personal chip, they actually have the information that they need to take control. 00;27;33;00 - 00;28;10;11 Speaker 2 Yeah. So we jump over to Horvath now? Mm. Yes. And Horvath is basically playing Castlevania to Simon's quests. It's just weird. It's like he's looking at this map that the dying only agent gave him, and he's like, it's like walk across the hard water or swamp or something like that, bad localization. And it's like, so bad localization. 00;28;10;22 - 00;28;10;28 Speaker 3 Yeah. 00;28;11;02 - 00;28;34;01 Speaker 2 It's like he's like looking and it's basically a swamp. It's basically a it's kind of like a tar pit that he has to walk through. And his lfi his, his eye is like, well, if you go in there, you can't stop moving. Like, as soon as you stop moving, you sink. But if you run too fast, you'll sink. 00;28;34;13 - 00;28;40;09 Phil Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If he's like he's like, go, go, go, go and search drugs. Like, don't. 00;28;40;09 - 00;28;50;12 Speaker 3 Run, go quickly. Move, don't run and get a medium harness you. 00;28;50;12 - 00;28;58;13 Phil If your heart rate goes too high, you will also sink. Stop holding your breath. It will also make you think it's. 00;28;58;22 - 00;29;01;26 Speaker 2 It's and this if you get sad you will also. 00;29;02;08 - 00;29;08;01 Speaker 3 See to know it's such a good. 00;29;08;01 - 00;29;24;25 Phil Comparison. The savage squares, like all that was missing, was him to, like, hold a crystal above his head and kneel by the legs inexplicably playing it is a weird. Yeah, he's he's it's it's it's like a quick insert of, like, resident evil style puzzles into. 00;29;24;26 - 00;29;28;06 Speaker 3 Halo for some reason. It's so. 00;29;28;06 - 00;29;29;03 Phil Weird. I love it. 00;29;29;03 - 00;29;38;21 Speaker 2 It's just it's great. So. Horvath By the way, if you listen to the audio version, Horvath has a Spanish accent. 00;29;39;10 - 00;29;40;02 Phil Oh, he does. 00;29;40;02 - 00;29;44;03 Speaker 2 It's not Thomas Horvath. It's Thomas Horvath. 00;29;44;08 - 00;29;46;05 Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. And love it. 00;29;47;07 - 00;30;18;01 Speaker 2 So he continues across the carpets to until he gets to like a platform that's kind of camouflaged within. It's like a black glass platform that you wouldn't be able to see otherwise. And he just kind of stands on it. And it it's an elevator, it's a lift. And it just it he goes straight down 800 meters. Yeah. Um, so in that lowers him and now he is in the hub. 00;30;18;14 - 00;30;40;03 Speaker 2 And so when he gets down there, his sensors actually start picking up like, I'm getting some, I'm getting a Spartan and some humans and he runs into Koven and the boat crew and it's like these are the first human beings that Horvath has seen since day two. 00;30;40;03 - 00;30;54;20 Phil Yeah, yeah. Four months, four months. And they point that out to they're like, wait, day two. What the fuck? Like he has been, he has gone full native at this point. It is it is crazy. 00;30;54;25 - 00;31;31;25 Speaker 2 It is amazing though that this is and I if if we ever got to talk to Kelly Gay I am just curious about the how the days are listed because this is happening on day 143 when the previous chapter for the boat crew was day 137. Yeah, so six days have passed. I guess it's like six days have passed of the, the boat crew just walking through the hub. 00;31;32;13 - 00;31;32;24 Speaker 3 Yeah. 00;31;32;25 - 00;31;35;22 Phil Because it your point it doesn't go backwards at any point. 00;31;35;24 - 00;31;37;08 Speaker 2 No it doesn't. It's always forward. 00;31;37;15 - 00;31;50;07 Phil So. Yeah. So you have to assume this all links but there's, there's a, you know, a more dedicated Halo fan might sit down with this and actually like give us a timeline with all the different characters and clusters of characters. Yeah. 00;31;50;11 - 00;32;04;18 Speaker 2 And I assume, I assume that just means that the hub they're walking through the hub and the, the conservatory is just a really long, long distance away. Like they're physically walking to it. It's a right. It takes a while to get there. 00;32;04;26 - 00;32;19;11 Phil And I suppose you could argue that there would be moments too that like they just spent like 12 hours running, you know, so they might set up a little camp for a sure thing like that and yeah, sleep it off and get their energy back. So maybe there's something to that. 00;32;19;16 - 00;32;43;11 Speaker 2 Yeah. And validity is like you, you humans are walking super slow. We got to get a move on. But they, they end up, they end up. So they have this reunion of sorts. They the Horvath has the realization that this boat crew that he's talking to is the boat crew that he was talking to on day two when everything went to shit. 00;32;44;27 - 00;32;48;08 Phil And he's putting he's putting faces to names now. He's like, yes. 00;32;48;21 - 00;33;15;13 Speaker 2 Exactly. And they had they there's a chapter 32 now. They give Horvath a full rundown. He's like, here's everything that happened. And it's kind of almost like a good recap at that moment for the audience of like all the main characters that are left are in one spot. Now, here is everybody knows everything that like is important now. 00;33;15;13 - 00;33;44;21 Speaker 2 Yeah, there's no there's no gaps in knowledge. Everybody everybody has now interacted with everybody. Yeah. Um, so they talk about how like, all right, they start coming up with a plan. How do we get a message out to the U.N. to see and validity is like, oh, you know, that's that communication style that you're talking about. We have these beacon towers that can do that. 00;33;44;21 - 00;33;50;17 Speaker 2 I just need to get the monitor Pires permission and that will be no problem. 00;33;50;17 - 00;33;58;06 Phil Now be easy. Pires is real laid back. Dude. 00;33;58;06 - 00;34;05;16 Speaker 2 So a few days later, now it's chapter 33. Lucas is having a complete breakdown. 00;34;05;24 - 00;34;06;04 Speaker 3 Oh. 00;34;07;23 - 00;34;09;14 Phil Look, he's just snapped. 00;34;09;26 - 00;34;10;25 Speaker 3 You know, Corboy. 00;34;11;25 - 00;34;15;11 Speaker 2 Having lunches with Eldridge beings, apparently, he's not good for one. 00;34;15;11 - 00;34;16;20 Speaker 3 Person. I'm not. 00;34;16;26 - 00;34;24;16 Phil I don't care how much delicious, squishy, exotic fruit you get to eat over lunch. You know, a lobotomies, a lobotomy. 00;34;24;16 - 00;34;52;25 Speaker 2 So. But is his mystery cell mate in the next cell over to kind of talk him through it? And Lucas tries to tell the guy what is happening in these meetings with Harbinger. But every time he tries to say it instead of saying words, he says numbers. Yeah. And he cannot he cannot say anything about the the meetings that he has with Harbinger. 00;34;52;25 - 00;34;57;13 Speaker 2 He like it's in his head. The information is in his head. He just can't recount it. 00;34;57;20 - 00;35;13;11 Phil And that fact and that fact almost as much as what is actually happening to him at the hands of the harbinger, causes such a strain on his brain, like the inability to speak what's in your head really, really fucks with him. Yes, it's really sad. 00;35;13;21 - 00;35;30;05 Speaker 2 Yeah, it is. Yeah. Um, so we're another couple of days later, we're at day 149, the crew finally reaches the conservatory. Now the banished are outside of the conservatory, but they have to break in because they are out of humans. 00;35;30;14 - 00;35;33;02 Speaker 3 Mm hmm. Yeah. 00;35;34;26 - 00;35;53;05 Speaker 2 So they have to just use one of their excavation lasers to just get into the the building. So that's going to take them a little bit. And even then, the actual building is designed as a maze. So if you don't know where you are going, you won't get to where you need to go, right? 00;35;53;24 - 00;35;55;12 Phil Yeah. You need a guide to get you. 00;35;55;12 - 00;35;59;22 Speaker 2 You need a guide. So validity is like, yeah, we're we're fine. Things will be fine. 00;36;00;17 - 00;36;02;23 Phil The band is just trying to cheat and not just, like, go. 00;36;02;23 - 00;36;06;24 Speaker 2 Straight through this big old laser and they're just going to cut a hole straight through. 00;36;06;24 - 00;36;11;12 Phil It's a it's a very it's a very awkward style. Yeah. Strategy. Yeah. 00;36;11;12 - 00;36;12;29 Speaker 2 It's a red. Makes it go faster. 00;36;13;00 - 00;36;18;28 Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 00;36;19;24 - 00;36;30;08 Speaker 2 So they they get to pyre. So basically it's pyre is like a monitor who has really gotten into yoga and breathing meditation. 00;36;30;08 - 00;36;36;23 Phil It's Pires, the Big Turtle and Neverending Story, just like Nothing Matters. 00;36;36;25 - 00;36;46;07 Speaker 2 And all the other sub monitors are like in meditation as well, being forced to like meditate because Piper's like, now we're just all going to chill, bro. 00;36;46;16 - 00;36;47;22 Phil I'm just, we're all just waiting. 00;36;48;00 - 00;36;53;23 Speaker 2 And vanities like, no, we got to get rid of the banished powers. Like, Yeah, it'll be fine. 00;36;53;23 - 00;37;03;18 Phil Pyre is a is a true like both sides are bad style guys. Yes. He's like, look, these people have come, they've gone, we've healed to everything. 00;37;03;18 - 00;37;09;17 Speaker 3 Turn, turn, turn. You know, like just a centrist hippie. 00;37;09;17 - 00;37;12;01 Phil It's it's he's insufferable. He really. 00;37;12;01 - 00;37;27;06 Speaker 2 Is. And then validity mentions, oh, by the way, the Harbinger got out. And then Piper vampire like puts on like puts on a suit and tie. Yeah. And, and like breaks out the money clip and it's all down to business, you know. 00;37;27;06 - 00;37;29;15 Speaker 3 Right. Yeah. He's Yeah. 00;37;29;26 - 00;37;38;00 Phil Suddenly it's 1982 and there's money to be made and yeah, he's, he's, he's yeah, he's just ready. 00;37;38;01 - 00;37;38;24 Speaker 3 He just, he's just. 00;37;38;24 - 00;37;59;03 Speaker 2 Gordon Gekko. Is the fuck out of the next scene? Yeah. You know, he tells the rest of the submariners what to do. He's like, Ah, right. This is what you're going to need. We got these beacons. Here's a security override code for the beacons, because all the all of the banished have taken control over them. So we'll we'll send you to one of them. 00;38;00;18 - 00;38;19;27 Speaker 2 Verde, you got to stay here. We got work to do. And Freddie is like, No, I got to help my friends. And he inspires like, nope, you got to stay here. We got a lot to a lot of work to do for the Harbinger. You find, folks, you go down the hallway, you make a right. There will be a there will be a teleporter platform waiting for you to get to that beacon. 00;38;20;08 - 00;38;20;15 Speaker 3 Yeah. 00;38;21;10 - 00;38;31;13 Phil Yeah. It's like he's like, I'm going to I'm going to scroll down a map on a napkin for you, and you should be fine. We've got MapQuest down here. We're pretty advanced. You'll fine. 00;38;32;21 - 00;38;32;25 Speaker 3 The. 00;38;33;24 - 00;38;40;01 Speaker 2 It's going to be. And, uh, but unfortunately, the Spartan helmets only run on Waze, so. 00;38;40;02 - 00;38;47;13 Phil Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at least you know, when, when there's going to be a cop, like, doing speed trap. So that's good. So. 00;38;48;04 - 00;38;59;01 Speaker 2 So this is the other part that I was confused about. So it jumps from 100 day 149 to day 154. It's like, did it take them five days to get to the translocation room? 00;38;59;14 - 00;39;23;25 Phil Yeah. I don't know. Like you do get an intense sense of size in with that place. So I guess. Yeah. Prob possibly. Yeah, but yeah it isn't, it isn't. And I appreciate the brevity. I appreciate skipping like 20 pages of like and then they stopped and made camp and then they went and did this and then they like, like, yeah, good. 00;39;23;25 - 00;39;28;24 Phil Get to it. But I, I think a passing notification of, like. 00;39;28;25 - 00;39;30;05 Speaker 2 Of like it took days. 00;39;30;09 - 00;39;34;24 Phil Yeah. That, that would be fine by me, but yeah, it's a little that is a little unclear. 00;39;35;02 - 00;39;52;01 Speaker 2 They get to the, the, the translocation terminal and teleport to the tower that they're going to try to use. Everybody is vomiting. Yeah they land except Bender. And Bender is referred to as one of those annoying people who are unaffected by trance. 00;39;52;04 - 00;39;52;17 Speaker 3 Okay. 00;39;54;12 - 00;39;56;06 Phil Yeah, I know that old chestnut. 00;39;57;26 - 00;40;06;11 Speaker 2 Well, it's like people who don't get a affected by, like, seasickness or what, you know, it benders just like that's fine. 00;40;06;21 - 00;40;10;17 Phil People who claim that they don't get hangovers, that whole thing. 00;40;10;17 - 00;40;36;05 Speaker 2 So they organize an attack on the beacon to take the beacon from the banished. And it's Murphy Bender and Koven who have to get in there and you know they, they fight their way in and they get to the comms platform and now, now that it's like in and the message is ready to go, they have to hold it until it actually sends. 00;40;36;11 - 00;41;00;02 Speaker 2 And now reinforcements from the banished are starting to arrive and they're trying to retake the comms platform, or at the very least just destroy it so that the message can't be sent out. And there's a lot of fighting back and forth. At one point, though, an elite, uh, is aiming, drawing down on the comms platform, ready to shoot it. 00;41;00;13 - 00;41;23;17 Speaker 2 And Murphy knows basically there's only one thing left to do. And Murphy doesn't have any guns at this point. He's out of ammo. He jumps in any and takes the plasma bolt that the elite was aiming for the comms platform. And he just takes it. Yeah, and he doesn't. Murphy doesn't have any armor. 00;41;24;04 - 00;41;24;20 Speaker 3 Nope. 00;41;25;08 - 00;41;52;01 Speaker 2 Nope. Um, and, yes, so they, they basically, you know, the coven and Bender get to him and Murphy dies knowing that the message has sent out. And, and he gave it just enough time for it to send out. And he just has these fading memories of his childhood as as he dies. 00;41;52;05 - 00;42;17;28 Phil This and this is this is another great moment to take a quick coffee break and stare into the mirror and consider the fragility of life and the fact that you're just a piece of sand in the desert in this great big universe. This actually was the one that really broke my heart. Yeah. Gay wrote really, really well his final moments. 00;42;17;28 - 00;42;51;03 Phil Like he died knowing he'd done good, that he that he'd saved them and done everything they could. And in those final moments of, like, remembering his childhood and fall in Lexington and just like, it's really evocative writing, it's well done. And it is heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. It is it is heartbreaking because he's he's another one of those characters that I've just you just I grin every time they mention Murphy so but but she did right by him like this is this is a good sendoff. 00;42;51;12 - 00;42;52;19 Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a great sendoff. 00;42;52;20 - 00;42;58;21 Phil Pretty much all of these characters have been good. Send offs when they die. It's not waste. Yeah, it's really well done. 00;42;58;21 - 00;43;08;29 Speaker 2 And yeah, yeah, Murphy is. And Murphy is more or less the, the heart of the book, you know. 00;43;09;00 - 00;43;10;22 Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00;43;10;23 - 00;43;24;19 Phil Because for a human like all of the, for a, for an unmodified human anyway. Yeah. All of the Spartans loved the guy, they all had experience with him, you know, he was a legend among them, like he was a Spartan without being a Spartan in one. 00;43;24;19 - 00;43;54;17 Speaker 2 Right, right. He was the he was the Pelican Pilot that always got them to where they needed to go, you know. Yeah. So he dies outside now. Chapter 36. Goran has arrived and he's brought reinforcements. And Jager is there too. But Jager is not directly involved. And Horvath is like, All right, here we go. This bullet cam is killed by a Wraith. 00;43;54;17 - 00;44;21;00 Speaker 2 Basically, Wraith does a strafing run and kills Cam and really fucks up Demick. But Demick, meanwhile, like she is, you know, shell shocked. She's pale, but she sees Horvath is fighting with Goran and she manages to get a grenade and walk over to like Horvath and get his attention and be like, You're going to need this. 00;44;21;06 - 00;44;21;14 Speaker 3 Yeah. 00;44;21;27 - 00;44;25;13 Phil Yeah, I brung you grenade. 00;44;25;21 - 00;44;27;00 Speaker 2 I run you sandwich. 00;44;27;06 - 00;44;28;06 Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly. 00;44;29;15 - 00;44;44;20 Speaker 2 Well, actually, she was talking about sandwiches earlier in that chapter or in the previous chapter, it was like a it was like a explosion sandwich or something. And basically, it's like two pieces of of a bomb and there's like around a grenade. 00;44;45;11 - 00;44;57;05 Phil Yeah, yeah. It's like it's like, get you brick. Brick up around a grenade or something. Yeah. And doesn't and doesn't know. That's later. That's later. We'll get to another sandwich for Corabeth I think. Later. 00;44;58;13 - 00;44;58;21 Speaker 3 Okay. 00;44;59;19 - 00;45;02;25 Phil Talk about that's that's later though. 00;45;03;01 - 00;45;37;08 Speaker 2 I forgot I didn't write it down, but I didn't know what you're talking about. So Horvath uses that grenade to take out the and shield. And earlier in the chapter, Bender had given Horvath a plasma knife. And it was like attached to his to his wrists. And Goring is like choking Horvath at this point. And Horvath just takes the knife and jams it right through gory ends like side in armor and cooks him from the inside out. 00;45;37;08 - 00;45;53;03 Speaker 2 And yeah, that's a that's a wrap on Gorey and by Gorey. And unfortunately, the two of them tumbled down onto a translocation pad and get zapped away somewhere. So they're like they're like, where? Where do you go with great. 00;45;54;03 - 00;45;57;09 Speaker 3 Would you spit it? I know. 00;45;59;16 - 00;46;05;06 Speaker 2 It's now day 155 Lucas is uh. 00;46;06;02 - 00;46;14;24 Phil Oh he's gone full Lovecraftian mad man. I stared into the Necronomicon for too long. Yeah, yeah. He's gone to bye bye town. 00;46;14;28 - 00;46;47;28 Speaker 2 He's going to bye bye town. The Harbinger is telling him how humanity and her species used to both be enemies of the forerunners. Yeah. And how the forerunners forgave humanity. And, like, let humanity become the replacement for the forerunners. Yeah, but. But her species didn't like. Like we didn't get forgiven. But now we're back and it's like, oh, that's. 00;46;47;28 - 00;46;48;19 Speaker 2 That's creepy. 00;46;48;26 - 00;46;52;07 Phil It's a very Cain and Abel kind of thing, right? Yeah. 00;46;52;12 - 00;47;08;08 Speaker 2 And it makes you think like, oh, I guess there must have been. It's like we're they're like ancient humans who are much further technologically advanced. Yeah, yeah. Is, is kind of what they're they're hinting at. Maybe humans leap from Earth originally. 00;47;08;19 - 00;47;14;10 Phil Yeah, I always love that kind of thing. Like the, the future dark ages that are. 00;47;14;10 - 00;47;40;21 Speaker 2 Still it's like it's it's like Battlestar Galactica. Yeah, yeah. Except where where it says spoilers for a 20 year old show at this point. But Battlestar Galactica it ends with them landing on earth. And you realize that they're landing on Earth millions of years ago. And they are like the they see the original human population or something like that. 00;47;41;02 - 00;47;43;11 Speaker 3 Yeah, I. 00;47;44;01 - 00;47;45;15 Phil Don't think about it too hard, but. 00;47;45;16 - 00;47;54;05 Speaker 2 Don't think about it too hard. But yeah. And Starbuck was an angel. Don't think about it too hard. 00;47;54;29 - 00;47;56;05 Speaker 3 Just to just. 00;47;56;08 - 00;47;59;09 Phil Go with us on this one. I just go with it. We're going to get to a point. 00;47;59;09 - 00;48;04;21 Speaker 3 This this just trust us on this one. 00;48;04;21 - 00;48;10;21 Speaker 2 And then they wake up and present that just you know what, you just got to watch the last episode of BSG yourself. 00;48;11;02 - 00;48;13;02 Speaker 3 Yeah, just and just. 00;48;13;02 - 00;48;15;11 Phil And you know what? Just enjoy it. Just enjoy. 00;48;15;16 - 00;48;32;15 Speaker 2 You know, it's it's a great show. It has a lot of good moments. Who cares if the final episode was like the show was humming on like weirdness level of seven out of ten and then the final episode went to like it was just like a spike up to 11 with. 00;48;33;28 - 00;48;38;05 Phil The final episode. It's just the writing staff going, Oh, fuck it. Like, We're done, right? 00;48;38;05 - 00;48;39;08 Speaker 3 Okay, whatever. 00;48;40;11 - 00;48;41;18 Phil It's over, I'm out. 00;48;41;26 - 00;49;09;24 Speaker 2 It's over. So a few days later, uh, we see Coven, we catch up with Coven, Bender and Dimmock and they, at the end of the battle, were rescued by validity. Validity comes out shooting lasers and cutting people in half and just takes them somewhere and drops them off and they're like, okay, well, we did it. Yeah. 00;49;10;10 - 00;49;13;05 Phil That's this is it. We're okay, we're done. 00;49;13;05 - 00;49;43;17 Speaker 2 And then they're like, Um, well, I guess there's only one thing left to do and that's to go save Lucas. And have you seen those means where it's like, if this thing was made 2007, the film was made in 27 and it has that what is it in evidence and song or something like that at the end? Oh, what I've done by Linkin Park. 00;49;43;17 - 00;49;48;20 Speaker 3 Okay, so it was the Halloween theme at first and this. 00;49;50;03 - 00;50;12;14 Speaker 2 So if it was if it was, if this was in 2007, if this book was in 2007, it would be. Well, I guess there's only one thing left to do. And it like camera pans behind them and off in the distance you can see the tower where they know Lucas is being kept. You're like, We got to rescue Lucas. 00;50;12;25 - 00;50;13;08 Speaker 2 Uh. 00;50;13;26 - 00;50;23;24 Speaker 3 You know? Well, yeah, it's like Halo. The Rubicon Protocol logo rocking looks good. Like, yes. 00;50;23;24 - 00;50;31;13 Phil You're absolutely right. That's. That's exactly what this is. It's it's like, how about one more? Oh, right. Oh, yes. 00;50;31;15 - 00;50;36;02 Speaker 2 The credits roll like, yeah, yeah. Cover and Bender and Dimock are not in great shape. 00;50;36;17 - 00;50;39;15 Speaker 3 No, I know it is. I know. 00;50;39;15 - 00;50;42;21 Speaker 2 What their plan is coming now, even in her armor anymore. 00;50;42;21 - 00;50;43;10 Speaker 3 Though, the. 00;50;43;10 - 00;51;02;20 Speaker 2 Chapter starts with them, like wrestling to get her out. And it's just like. They're just like she's just, like, sitting there in her, like, black, you know, tech suit, whatever. And they're like, What the fuck do we do with this? It's like 600 kilograms of armor. We can carry it around right? 00;51;02;20 - 00;51;30;28 Phil It's yeah, they are literally the worst they've ever been. And they're like, But now we're going to save our buddy from a god alien. That sounds. Yeah, we've got this. I've got six bullets, a half finished roll of Tums and the script to Good Will Hunting. Let's, let's we can fucking MacGyver the shit out of this. 00;51;31;15 - 00;51;42;15 Speaker 2 Yeah. And then Bender goes you like apples and then Koven says well how do you like them apples? Yeah. 00;51;42;15 - 00;51;43;08 Speaker 3 Whoa. 00;51;46;02 - 00;51;51;22 Speaker 3 Hey, why don't. 00;51;51;22 - 00;51;54;29 Phil People pay us straight these scripts, Kevin? I will never understand. 00;51;54;29 - 00;52;21;28 Speaker 2 Never. I'll never know. Chapter 39. Last chapter. Uh, Horvath. After this great chapter. Great way to close out the book. Horvath is somewhere he is he's like he's in, like the the halo equivalent of the Arctic. He spends a little bit passed out in a coma when he wakes up, he he throws Gordon's body off of a cliff because. 00;52;21;28 - 00;52;22;13 Speaker 2 Fuck him. 00;52;22;22 - 00;52;28;24 Speaker 3 Yeah, fuck you. And then he. 00;52;29;24 - 00;52;38;22 Speaker 2 He walks around and he finds like a crashed shuttle from the from the infinity. And there's, like, water and memories in there and. 00;52;39;13 - 00;52;44;16 Speaker 3 What have you ever. He's just sad, which it's so good. And it's. 00;52;44;16 - 00;52;49;13 Speaker 2 Just like he opens it up and it's just like unidentifiable meat between two. 00;52;49;13 - 00;52;50;09 Speaker 3 Slices of. 00;52;50;17 - 00;52;51;28 Speaker 2 Thin slices of bread. 00;52;52;01 - 00;53;11;22 Phil It's so good because, you know, it's been a looked at as the 88 movies. They were never good. I've heard that there are a lot better nowadays than they used to be, but I wouldn't put it past like space Army to be like, Yes, yes, undersea sandwich. 00;53;13;18 - 00;53;17;02 Speaker 2 This is a sandwich flavor memory, right? 00;53;17;02 - 00;53;17;13 Speaker 3 Just. 00;53;18;03 - 00;53;24;25 Phil Just the good old fashioned nostalgia of sandwich. Please enjoy sandwich. 00;53;25;04 - 00;53;35;24 Speaker 2 Colonel, my says sandwich soup. 00;53;35;24 - 00;53;36;09 Speaker 3 Yeah. 00;53;37;25 - 00;53;51;16 Speaker 2 And he he basically just starts like, well, I'm here and he just starts broadcasting a message out saying, you know, any U.S. personnel could use a hand. 00;53;52;10 - 00;53;52;18 Speaker 3 Yeah. 00;53;53;04 - 00;53;55;04 Phil I'm here to be alive. 00;53;55;04 - 00;53;59;19 Speaker 2 I appear to be alive and still in the ninja guidance snow level. 00;54;00;05 - 00;54;05;06 Phil Right? Yeah, pretty much. And the Eagles are a pain in the deck. 00;54;05;06 - 00;54;11;06 Speaker 2 They're pain in the dick, master chief, if you're alive, you could really use your right now, buddy. 00;54;11;06 - 00;54;15;04 Phil And this is only like the second or third time that Master Chief has even mentioned. 00;54;15;04 - 00;54;34;13 Speaker 2 Yeah, he's not. He's they just talk about, they say blue team a few times and master chief, who I assume is the head of in charge of blue team and he Horvath is the book ends with Horvath sitting alone in the Arctic and then would. 00;54;35;03 - 00;54;36;01 Speaker 3 And then yeah. 00;54;38;09 - 00;54;44;03 Speaker 2 And that's and that's the end of Halo the Rubicon protocol. 00;54;44;10 - 00;54;45;00 Phil Hell yeah. 00;54;46;03 - 00;54;50;18 Speaker 2 So. So what do you think? What do you think? 00;54;51;06 - 00;54;55;10 Phil This might be one of the best books we've read on this show. Yeah, I mean, it might. 00;54;55;10 - 00;54;58;25 Speaker 2 It might beginning to end. Not a week moment in there. 00;54;59;04 - 00;55;22;15 Phil No, it is tight. There is no padding in this. It does a good job of incorporating the game aspects. Like you could tell when there was like a drop off point of like, that's probably going to be in the game. That's probably going to factor in to the game, right? Like Horvath, if Horvath has got to be like one of the first people you meet somewhere, there's a side mission with him or something. 00;55;22;15 - 00;55;51;22 Phil I have to believe that that it's just integrated into the game and to the game world really well. It does its own thing. She she explores the horrors of war and everything like that without forgetting that we are into Halo because we want war. We want that space opera. Sure. Yeah. Anything. Please give us some cool, crunchy stuff to think over. 00;55;51;22 - 00;56;13;02 Phil That's fine. That's great, in fact. But, you know, we don't want a pacifist run on Halo either. No, although I think that would be fascinating and would be in the hands of the right writer. Yeah, it might honestly be the best book we've read so far. I don't know. It's not fair to compare because it's just it brings something different than other books would do. 00;56;13;02 - 00;56;17;06 Phil But I don't have a hell of a lot of notes for this book. 00;56;17;06 - 00;56;19;02 Speaker 2 No, it's fucking good. 00;56;19;05 - 00;56;21;15 Phil It's pretty tight. Yeah, I really. Yeah. 00;56;22;04 - 00;56;45;11 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. No, I, I agree with literally everything you said it is, it's good. I can kind of see where like, okay, yeah. These are probably all like a lot of this stuff that they mention but they never really focus on or when they drop off, like, so, like, all right, I, I haven't played infinite. I'm probably going to go play infinite now. 00;56;45;11 - 00;56;47;19 Phil I think I'm going to play it now. Yes. Um. 00;56;48;02 - 00;56;57;22 Speaker 2 But like. All right, well, Horvath and these characters, I assume, are involved at some point, either side quest or main quest for infinite what we'll assume. 00;56;57;22 - 00;57;00;19 Phil And then you see an open world game, right? 00;57;00;27 - 00;57;28;08 Speaker 2 Yeah, it's an open world game as opposed to previous Halo titles, which were pretty much linear, you know, shooters. This is a it's an open world halo game. But yeah, it's, it's a really damned good book and I enjoy, I enjoyed every minute of it. Yeah. 00;57;28;20 - 00;57;30;09 Phil So, so, so. 00;57;30;11 - 00;57;36;06 Speaker 2 Which I mean it's hilarious coming off of one of the or least favorite books. 00;57;36;06 - 00;57;37;01 Phil Seriously. 00;57;37;01 - 00;58;03;10 Speaker 2 Yeah. Into this one. Yeah. It's as I would say, such a stunning like to me. I think it's like also because I don't think to me I don't think writing is a you either have it or you don't type of thing. I think it's a skill that you learn and I think clearly. Kelley Gay has been putting in the chops. 00;58;03;10 - 00;58;30;09 Speaker 2 She's been putting in the work. You know, I don't know. I've looked at some of her previous work, just the shame in it. Simon and Schuster, this is I think she's published. She's had 11 books. Yeah. By way of Simon and Schuster. I don't know. I assume that there might be more. 00;58;30;09 - 00;59;05;29 Phil Yeah, she's got some serious chops on her. It's kind of like it. It's funny because it it feels just it's just it's a well-written book period. And so you're automatically going to compare it to the last thing you read, especially if the last thing you read was kind of unimpressive. But there are times where it felt like the quality of the book was responding directly to a lot of our criticisms of Silver Eyes, for example, the right like character development, making us care about these characters. 00;59;06;05 - 00;59;35;03 Phil She had a huge goddamn cast. Yeah, there's an enormous group of people. The book's about the same length. This might even be a little shorter, right, than the finance book. And she managed to get a get us to a point where we cared about all of these characters in a pretty quick amount of time. We had multiple characters, had much larger arcs, but everybody had a personality, everybody had their moment. 00;59;35;11 - 01;00;03;03 Phil And you gave a shit and and you had to, frankly, because the stuff she asked us to feel emotion on, you know, when you when you're talking about PTSD and and war and violence and the things that she expected us to she wanted to draw some hefty emotions out of us. And that's a big ask if you are not developing your characters well and. 01;00;03;06 - 01;00;07;16 Phil Right. And she did it. She did. She's a she's just a fucking good writer. 01;00;07;16 - 01;00;25;23 Speaker 2 She's a good writer. I kind of want to go back and check out maybe not her other Halo books, but you know, some of the other books that she's written. Yeah, Charlie the Charlie Madigan books. She was in it. She had a she's in a short story collection called Carney Punk. 01;00;27;24 - 01;00;36;08 Speaker 2 Yeah. She also wrote a Halo Short Story. There was a Halo short story collection called Fractures. Want to. 01;00;36;08 - 01;00;36;18 Phil Say. 01;00;36;26 - 01;00;42;13 Speaker 2 Yeah, that she she had a story in so. 01;00;42;28 - 01;00;58;27 Phil She's she's got chops on I really would love to read more stuff. We're going to have to go back to the chronological order. I think, of the Halo books for our next one. Yeah, but it kind of makes me go, all right, let's maybe we pop through those a lot faster so we can get to the Kelly Gay stuff again. 01;00;59;03 - 01;01;01;20 Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just. 01;01;02;01 - 01;01;04;13 Speaker 2 Well, we'll jump through. I mean, there's like a million of them, so. 01;01;04;13 - 01;01;05;19 Phil Yeah, that's the trouble. 01;01;06;01 - 01;01;21;12 Speaker 2 That's. Therein lies the trouble. So yeah, that wraps it up for, for Halo, the Rubicon Protocol. I guess that leaves me only one question. Phil, what's that? What are you playing? 01;01;21;29 - 01;01;25;00 Phil Oh, please call to the lab. 01;01;25;00 - 01;01;26;05 Speaker 3 That's all. Good play. 01;01;26;05 - 01;01;29;25 Speaker 2 David Blaine, are you done? You got to be close to. Done. 01;01;29;29 - 01;01;53;21 Phil Yeah, almost done with it. I've done the thing that I always do where I. I just. I focused so hard on the home base stuff and my cold that when I finally went, oh, right. I got like, you know, I literally couldn't do anything more unless I unlocked the resources and that sort of thing that you unlock by doing the different levels. 01;01;53;25 - 01;02;05;17 Phil Right. And so when I finally did that, I just burned through the bosses and it was like, oh yeah. 01;02;05;20 - 01;02;06;18 Speaker 3 Little of over levels. 01;02;07;00 - 01;02;16;17 Phil Yeah, yeah. Just side by side quests. Side quests. So I'm probably got another few hours in it before I'm done, but I adore this game. 01;02;16;17 - 01;02;18;09 Speaker 2 How many bishops have you beaten? 01;02;19;03 - 01;02;20;08 Phil I'm down to the last one. 01;02;20;18 - 01;02;20;28 Speaker 2 Okay. 01;02;21;19 - 01;02;41;15 Phil Not the fifth one, but the fourth one. Yeah, the fourth one. Yeah, yeah. I'm in the spider land right now. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, it is. It is really. It's, it's easily a my game of the year list. It's, it's, it's what I want in this kind of game. Nothing's changed about it. Sure. I'm in this weird position though, where I'm seeing the writing on the wall. 01;02;41;15 - 01;03;01;01 Phil I'm seeing, you know, because I've maxed out all my research trees, you I've done all that stuff. And my only complaint about it is that I wish there was more for me to do. Yeah, you know, it's. But it's not a short game. I think it's probably going to round out in about 20 hours for me. Mm hmm. 01;03;01;14 - 01;03;29;07 Phil By the time I finished 20, 21 something, and from what I've seen, that's mostly other people's experience as well. And yeah, I it's a great that's a great length for a $25 indie strategy action game. It's it's a I think it's just the right length for that. But I'm enjoy seeing it so much and that the, the civilization fanatic in me is kind of like, God, there's got to be more tiers to unlock need more. 01;03;29;07 - 01;03;48;04 Phil So I'm I'm just going to wrap this up. I'm going to play something else and I'm going to quietly hope that they release a really kick ass DLC, doubles it up again so I can get right back into it because nice 100% this thing because I'm nice I'm just enjoying the world so damn. 01;03;48;06 - 01;03;49;24 Speaker 2 Yeah so yeah. It's a cute little game. 01;03;49;25 - 01;03;50;20 Phil Yeah, yeah. I'm really. 01;03;50;22 - 01;03;51;25 Speaker 2 Good. Good. What about. 01;03;51;25 - 01;03;52;23 Phil You? What do you plan? 01;03;53;14 - 01;03;56;06 Speaker 2 So I beat singularity. 01;03;57;20 - 01;03;58;21 Phil Which not that to work. 01;03;58;29 - 01;04;01;05 Speaker 2 Yeah, I got it to work. Yeah, I would say. 01;04;01;05 - 01;04;03;20 Phil You hold ass in that one. How long did it take you to beat? 01;04;04;01 - 01;04;52;04 Speaker 2 It's about it's on good old games and I don't have that open right now, but it takes about 7 hours. Okay. I think to to get all the way through it. Yeah, it's it's it is. I was talking to James about it and the thing he said is it punches above its weight. And I agree with that. It definitely punches above its weight for what it is, which is like yeah it's a short game is published by Activision made by Raven Software it has a lot of BioShock vibes, but it does some really fun, neat stuff with you have a you've a your power gantlet thing is basically like controls time. 01;04;52;20 - 01;05;03;27 Speaker 2 So you'll go and you'll get to like an area with like a collapsed set of stairs and you can use the thing to rewind time and like the stairs will come back together. 01;05;04;15 - 01;05;09;03 Phil Oh, nice. In the Blair Witch video game with. 01;05;09;03 - 01;05;10;21 Speaker 2 Oh, okay. Yeah okay. 01;05;10;22 - 01;05;12;07 Phil Yeah that's a that's a really neat mechanic. 01;05;12;16 - 01;05;21;11 Speaker 2 They and then you can like enemies you could age them so you can like you you shooting enemy it's like terrifying because you hit that guy and he's like. 01;05;22;14 - 01;05;22;21 Speaker 3 Yeah. 01;05;23;05 - 01;05;55;06 Speaker 2 And he, like, turns into a skeleton and collapses or it's horrifying. Or you could hit him with it twice, like, really quickly. And they turn into a horrible mutant that with, like, with like, melting flesh and like, they're like no eyes and they just attack anything that's nearby. So you have, if you have it like a pack of, like, soldiers that you're fighting off against, you turn one of them into this mutant thing, and it'll start like killing all the soldiers around them. 01;05;55;14 - 01;05;57;21 Phil Oh, my God, that's insane. 01;05;57;21 - 01;06;37;23 Speaker 2 It's got some really interesting moments. So, yeah, singularity beat it. It's. It's it's a fun game. I'll be talking about that at length on bullet time with my thoughts lighter at some points. What else? I, I was playing what's it? Nightmare of Decay, which is I talked about that the other day. I ran into a little bit of a, like a soft lock only because there is like an enemy where I, I think I used up too much ammo earlier in the game. 01;06;37;23 - 01;06;41;24 Speaker 2 And now there's an enemy where it's like, Oh, I just don't have enough ammo to. 01;06;42;00 - 01;06;43;16 Phil You literally cannot kill him. 01;06;44;01 - 01;06;55;04 Speaker 2 No, I literally just don't have enough ammo to deal with this, like, boss type character. So I'm like, I'm like, okay, well, that's, that's that that very resident evil of it. 01;06;55;22 - 01;06;57;22 Speaker 3 I mean, yeah, yeah. 01;06;58;05 - 01;06;59;21 Phil Credit where credit's due on that one. 01;06;59;21 - 01;07;13;06 Speaker 2 I guess I could, I could probably just like re restart the game, but I don't know, maybe I'll get, get back around to it. So to get my resident evil like fix, I started playing Tormented Souls. 01;07;13;12 - 01;07;15;29 Phil Yes, I was looking into this one. 01;07;16;07 - 01;07;42;02 Speaker 2 Super duper resident, Evil E, it's like it's Resident Evil One, you know, it's original fixed camera, resident evil style. It's it's great. So far, the only thing that gives me pause and I haven't been like super paying attention to the story. Like, I've just been kind of playing around. But there's a lot of story that's told in like journal entries and things like that. 01;07;42;23 - 01;07;54;15 Speaker 2 So basically it takes place in a old hospital. So it's a hospital that used to be a that it was a mansion that got converted into a hospital. Of course. 01;07;54;16 - 01;07;56;19 Phil They're not even trying to hide what they're doing here. 01;07;56;28 - 01;08;00;07 Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, sure. 01;08;00;07 - 01;08;36;01 Speaker 2 The only thing that gives me give me pause about it is that it's like, you know, the enemies are like these. They're like monsters, but they're not. They're very much people who are like, you know, it's a dude that has his legs chopped off that's coming after you. Or it's like dudes in wheelchairs or like, it's like it's, it's a type of horror that I've become more aware of that makes me a little bit uncomfortable when it's like it's ugliness and disability are the thing that are scary about the enemies. 01;08;36;15 - 01;09;06;13 Speaker 2 And that's it's not necessarily a great when you, when you think about it a lot in terms of like gameplay and puzzle solving and all that stuff. Yeah, it's, it's great. I mean in terms of an on that front, but that's my only concern with like giving it my full hearty 100% recommendation. It's not like you're blasting away monsters. 01;09;06;13 - 01;09;23;12 Speaker 2 It's like, oh, they turn like people with disabilities into monsters in the game. You know, they have like knives in their hands and they're like they're monstrous looking. But at the same time, it's like. 01;09;24;25 - 01;09;25;07 Speaker 3 Okay. 01;09;25;28 - 01;09;32;17 Phil Yeah yeah. So I can understand that. That's tough. That's a tough one. 01;09;32;21 - 01;10;01;19 Speaker 2 It's, it's, it's a judgment call. But if you, if you don't dig on that kind of stuff, if you if you have, if you have particular issues with like ableism in horror and it's depiction and all that stuff, you know, I would say, yeah, just steer away from tormented souls because. I think it has it could probably reinforce some some of those negative stereotypes that you're not 100% you might not be 100% fond of. 01;10;01;19 - 01;10;24;29 Speaker 2 And I'm not fond them. And I didn't really realize it until I was into the game. Like, Oh, this is kind of what it's going to be, isn't it? But at the same time, you know I'm just kind of stomaching it and getting through the game because, you know, a lot of it is still really good. And that's the problem is when you have these issues, you know, where it's like the rest of it is really good. 01;10;25;24 - 01;10;38;01 Phil Well, yeah, it's a totally valid criticism. Yeah. And, and despite what despite what some people would tell you, you can enjoy a game and still have serious misgivings. 01;10;38;01 - 01;10;38;06 Speaker 2 Yeah. 01;10;38;06 - 01;10;52;08 Phil Criticisms form absolutely. You know, you can enjoy the gameplay and have a problem with the way they handle certain topics. That's totally valid. So yeah, it's a shame that it had to get marred like that, but it sounds like an interesting. 01;10;52;08 - 01;11;22;24 Speaker 2 Yeah. And it doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like it's even necessary in terms of like why? I don't know. It seems like it could have easily gone a different direction. Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention to the story and it's like totally justified within the story. But you know, there's so many journal entries and the writing is like the fine and it's like, I'm not, I'm not super to read the journal entry, right? 01;11;22;24 - 01;11;30;04 Phil Yeah. That's tough with these indie games. Like they don't always have the best writer writers. Yeah. Yeah. 01;11;30;04 - 01;11;55;07 Speaker 2 And going back to why I am on this, on this, talking about stuff like that, going back to singularity, the main, main thing about it is that it has no closed captioning options really zero. So even when you have your audio, when an audio log is playing, you just like play it and walk away because it also has spatial sound. 01;11;55;22 - 01;12;23;19 Speaker 2 So as soon as you walk away from it, you can't hear it, that's why. So yeah, that's, uh. Yeah, accessibility in video games is very important. It's just wild that a 2010 game did not have any captions closed captioning because I feel like that was I feel like 2010 is a little that's a weird time to not have a to have a game with no captions. 01;12;23;23 - 01;12;35;27 Phil Yeah I think it was still pretty ubiquitous back then. Like yeah it's a, it's a, it's a punchline thing these days that, you know, everybody keeps closed captioning on their, on their, you know, games. 01;12;35;27 - 01;12;39;23 Speaker 2 Their mood, their games, their movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01;12;39;23 - 01;12;46;07 Phil But it was definitely going on back then too. Yeah. So that's an interesting choice. 01;12;46;15 - 01;12;53;26 Speaker 2 Weird choice. But so yeah, that's what I have been playing. 01;12;54;23 - 01;13;16;21 Phil I'm going to I've got, I've got a, I've got such a and I got to get back on what you were talking about with just devouring this backlog. I got to get in on that. Yeah, same with my books. I was I was doing really good there for a while that I was like refusing to let myself buy a new book or a new game until I played like ten of them or something like that. 01;13;16;21 - 01;13;24;09 Speaker 2 And then and then you went and then you went to that thing where you were volunteering and you bought like 40 books for a dollar. 01;13;26;00 - 01;13;26;17 Speaker 3 Every I'd. 01;13;26;17 - 01;13;41;15 Phil Say literally was like, Hey, you spend your money on what you need is what you want to spend your money on. I just clear and I know that it was a used book thing and they were like a dollar apiece, but we have only got so much room in this house, Phillip. And I'm like, I know. 01;13;41;15 - 01;13;44;28 Speaker 3 I'm sorry. I'll cut back on it. You're right. 01;13;45;02 - 01;13;52;28 Speaker 2 So it's. Yeah so 20, 22, the year of the backlog, honestly, 2023 could be the year the backlog. 01;13;52;28 - 01;14;11;00 Phil And so I think that's I think that's a very noble goal. Like I think if you give yourself a little grace for new releases that, that you're really pumped about. But I think that would be a good goal like treat 2020, like the year of the backlog. Just clear out your steam as best as you can. 01;14;11;05 - 01;14;31;22 Speaker 2 Exactly. I want to just move everything over because I have a little I have a little label like a beaten label label for for all my steam games, little category for a collection that I put them into when I've beaten the game just to it's like it's in a place and I could really like look at all the games I've been fun. 01;14;31;22 - 01;14;33;08 Phil I love that. Yeah. 01;14;33;19 - 01;14;39;17 Speaker 2 Yeah. But yeah, that'll do it for tonight's episode. 01;14;39;20 - 01;14;40;27 Phil Oh yeah. 01;14;40;27 - 01;15;08;26 Speaker 2 If you want to help us out, you could go to Spotify or you could go to Apple Podcasts, or you could go to good pods and you can rate us five stars on any of those platforms. Really helps us out. If you're feeling really spunky, go ahead and write. Write a review, put some words into a little digital paper there and write it up and write us five stars. 01;15;08;26 - 01;15;09;17 Speaker 2 And it'll help. 01;15;09;25 - 01;15;10;14 Speaker 3 It'll help us. 01;15;12;07 - 01;15;35;13 Speaker 2 Otherwise you can follow us on Twitter, Instagram at Pixelate Pod. You can also go to our website at Pixelate Pod dot com. From there you can see the transcripts of each episode as well as get links to our discord and our steam page where we will be posting reviews of the things that we talk about in the What Are You Playing segment. 01;15;36;20 - 01;15;51;22 Speaker 2 So that wraps it up for tonight's episode thank you so much for listening, everybody and have a good night. By.