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9 - Mass Effect 2: Shepard’s Resurrection and the Question of the Soul · Mythic Mind Games

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind Games, where we discuss
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: video games through the lens of the Christian humanities. I'm
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: doctor Andrew Snyder, and I'm glad that you're here. All right,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: welcome back to our short series on Mass Effect. As
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: we get into Mass Effect too. Today, we're going to
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: just continue going through the same kind of routine we've
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: been doing, where we'll just go around and talk about
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: whatever general thoughts you wanted through out there to get
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: it started. We'll follow those wherever it leads. I think
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: i'll start this time.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: So I just.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I'm about two thirds away through my second replay of
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: this game. I was open to finished it before this conversation,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: but there's other stuff to do. But in my estimation,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: this is probably the least philosophically heavy of the three.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Maybe some of you will disagree with me on that,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: but I feel pretty solid in that take where I
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: feel like that the first one really sets up obviously,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the lore sets up these themes of like you know,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Fate and destiny and Ai and you know, the major
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: elements of the series. And then I feel like in
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the third game we're gonna get into that on a
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: deeper level. In the second game, I feel like it's
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of breadth but not quite as much depth,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and so I feel like it's probably the most entertaining
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: for me. I like the large cast of characters and
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: all that that entails, but as far as the actual
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: main plot of the story, it's pretty thin, and so
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: that's sort of my initial thoughts here. It's fun, a
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: lot of breath. I feel like it's not quite as
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: heavy on an intellectual level, which isn't necessarily an insult
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: for a video game, but I'd be interested to see
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: what some of you think about that. I'll just go
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: around as to have to hear. Michael, you want to
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: lead off with some thoughts about this game.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I mean that's that's basically exactly correct. A mass effect too,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: is the Dirty Dozen and Sci Fi right. It's you
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: get together a group of complete misfits. Most of them
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: probably have a criminal record somewhere, right, but they're all specialists.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: You convince them all to do their job, you deal
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: with their personal demons along the way and some uh,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: and then send them on the suicide machione. You're right,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: it's it's a simpler game, but I think the the
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: breadth of the characters really really stands out, and I
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: think that's a reason why a lot of people list
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: listen Mass Effect to is their favorite. Is there's just
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: it has a really colorful cast of characters that are
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: just really entertaining to spend time around. Some excellent voice
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: acting too, you know, some characters like fine, who you
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: just you just hear that slightly processed gravelly voice, you know,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: and anytime you start talking about them. There's just some good,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: good characters here.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as I'm doing this round with a more of
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: a pluralistic kind of mentality, the spreading out to the
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: aliens and it that's second game in particular, I think
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: it requires a lot of playthroughs to character engagements. Yeah,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I think that's fair analysis, all right, Megan, tell us
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: some thoughts about this game.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Sure, I know it has often been said, maybe even
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: by me, that it's the best of the trilogy. I
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: think narratively, it has great pacing, the tightest storyline, satisfying
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: ending depending I guess some how you play your cards
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: throughout the throughout the game, but it doesn't suffer from
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: the conclusive catastrophe that Mass Effect three does, So I
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: understand why people like it so much. It is very fun,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: and I'm trying to think if I would say it
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: lacks depth or maybe relative to the other three, I
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: see why you say it. I do think that putting
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: your protagonists in the position of now working for a
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: terrorist humanity first organization does play a similar move that
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Kotor two does, which is call into question, Okay, you're
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: working for this previous group, but how tight are their ethics?
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Is this a valid secondary approach? Are these you know,
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: the other good guys and they just have a different
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: view or are they actually just you know, racist terrorists.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: I think there are some valuable questions that the game asks.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: I appreciate the varied personalities of the characters, and I
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: appreciate especially that Bayra at this time didn't compel you
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: to like every single person. I played through Vail Guard
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: when it came out just about after it came out
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: in this past what October November, and that was a
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: game from Bira that was suffering from These are your
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: friends and you're all just one big family. Know these people,
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: you are invited to dislike them because they have very
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: different personalities. So I understand why there's the comment of
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: maybe it lacks depth relative to the other two. But
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: there's there's some interesting narrati of stuff happening in the
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: second game that I really appreciate.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you definitely deal with the ideology versus pragmatism of
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: you know, is it okay to work with bad people
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: for good ends? And I mean, to be fair, I
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: think that within the game, at least more or less
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: up to the end. I mean, obviously, you know, the
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Elusive Man isn't necessarily a great guy, but you have
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: reason to think that maybe Cerberus as an organization isn't
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: entirely evil, Like, there are many decent people who are
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: working for Cerberus that that you engage with. And so
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I mean there, I think that there's room within this
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: game at least to justify, you know, working with this
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  Speaker 1: guy if this is what it's going to take to
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: save the galaxy. And yeah, I mean maybe we can
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: follow up on what we think about that on a
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: you know, on our own stage. I mean, we don't
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: need to get like hyper political, but I mean just
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: that that basic question of you know, is it okay
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: to form those kinds of alliances with people that you
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: don't miss Salian doors in order to accomplish some mutual
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: aim together. I think it's a question that's worth asking.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: On a very practical level, David, tell something about this game.
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I really liked Michael's Dirty Dozen analogy that that's
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: pretty good. But there are some really really interesting characters
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: on the team, like Fain that we mentioned, and Legion
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: and Grunt and even Jack to certain degree, even though
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: it's a little little stereotypical, little hot topic employee about her,
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: But there's some depth if you actually pursue your relationships
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: and the missions that you go on with the the
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: individual people there, loyalty missions. But yeah, on a just
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: a surface level, I liked the improvements to the combat,
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: you know, the you Andrew didn't really experience just how
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: weak the combat was in Mass effect one at launch.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: The Legacy edition fixed a lot of that. But the
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: addition of these clips that are basically heat disposable heat
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: syncs as an excuse to make guns suddenly have AMMO
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: and better cover fighting and things like that, I thought
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: We're interesting and it is more mission based, and you
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: literally have been brought back to life by this person
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: who you normally would not have aligned yourself with, which
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: which adds interesting tension and options for you during the game.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: So yeah, everybody always says it's their favorite. I guess
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: I'm not really the kind. I like to take the
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: three as a whole. You know, it was always meant
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: to be a trilogy, so I really see them all
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: as one for the most part. But yeah, it is
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: a really good, solid game and pretty straightforward and how
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: to work your way through it. But oh, I didn't
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: even mention Grunt. I think Grunt is a really interesting
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: character study as well, but we can talk more about
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: the characters later.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a fun character, and I do kind of
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: appreciate when they try to jokingly explain away the differences
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: in how things work, you know, across games. And just
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: just today I did the the Shadow Broker mission again
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: when Leara is doing the hack on the door and
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: you know, Shepherd's like, you know, it wasn't so much easier.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: We could have slap some momny gel on here. It's
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: kind of fight the way they try to work that in.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Ian tell us something about his game.
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: So I just played it for the first time. In
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: the last two weeks. You guys talked me into trying
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: to play the game so I could do the podcasts
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: and I had a good time. I did play it
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: completely on casual. I am not interested in achievements or
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: beating the game on insanity. I just wanted to get
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: a flavor for the game and what the ideas and
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: characters were. I still stand by I enjoyed the gameplay
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: ideas of the first game. I don't like AMMO. I
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: prefer the overheating mechanic, but I think the execution was
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: much more polished, so I'll give it that. The structure
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: of the game is both extremely satisfying and extremely frustrating.
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: It's extremely satisfying to meet this group of really broken characters.
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: And if you're playing mostly Paragon, I think I got
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: one bar of red and then full blue because I
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: was brewed to the elusive man in every conversation, is
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: why I got one bar of red. As a Paragon,
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: you basically help a bunch of people become better people
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: like you form a team, and I really enjoyed that
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: it had a lot of sort of firefly vibes, and
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: you form a crew that all works together, all different
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: functions and motivations and all their own missions, and you
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: keep getting interrupted by this incredibly boring zombie monster room
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: that I don't care about. The only motivation that made
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: any sense to me by the end of the mission
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: was revenge because they blew my ship at the beginning.
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: They didn't do a good job of making me care
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: that the Collectors are killing colonists, and the fact that
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: I'm working for the Elusive Man just makes me really grumpy.
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: And I said this last one, but I say it
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: even more for this game having played through it. The
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: Illusive Man isn't just evil, he's incredibly incompetent. He stabs
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: me in the back in the middle when I go
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: on the Collector vessel for no good reason, and then
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: he wants me to clearly collect dangerous technology for him
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: to use what I already know he's stabbing me in
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: the back. So he's just the most incomferent terrorists and
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: I resent being forced to work for that guy.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: No, to clarify, you don't care when humans die. That's
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: what I heard there.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: That is motivation and death lives.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: So you're actually on the side of the collectors. That's
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the issue.
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: No, the Collectors want to collect the death and the
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: Trurians too. I'm against the Collectors and they blew up
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: my ship.
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: But those colonists.
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: No, the colonists. Why should I care about them? I've
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: never talked to them. I've never had a relationship with them.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: This reals some interesting ethical questions. Yeah, you're okay with
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: genocide as long as you've never talked to them before.
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: Correct.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, you know you might have more in common at
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the Elusive Man than you once thought.
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: I'm confident though I won zero casualties.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Fair enough, I guess. Yeah, my first go round, I
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: did not have zero casualties. You know, I never looked
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: ahead at white leads to White, so I was definitely
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: surprised when I lost some people at the end. So
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I look forward to seeing some of them in the
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: third game this time around, Kit Trick, When you tell
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: us something about this game.
• 11:59
  Speaker 6: Well, i's who did you lose?
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: But no Tally and a couple others that I actually
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: can't remember it because I didn't really hang out with
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: them time around anyways.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, could that would be crushing?
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Crushing?
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Really did not see that coming.
• 12:18
  Speaker 6: I Yeah, that was my first time playing Mass Effect too,
• 12:22
  Speaker 6: was going through the suicide mission lost Tally.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was very intentionalbout making sure that Legion died.
• 12:30
  Speaker 6: See I for some reason at one point I keep
• 12:34
  Speaker 6: like pause, reload, this isn't gonna happen again. Also Legion
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: in this time then Legion died, so you know the
• 12:41
  Speaker 6: choices that you actually do get around at that point.
• 12:47
  Speaker 6: I'd say overall for this game, everything was an upgrade.
• 12:52
  Speaker 6: As I said before, I played it on the Xbox,
• 12:55
  Speaker 6: so the entire system was a delight. Except for one
• 13:04
  Speaker 6: thing that I noticed is from the first game to
• 13:07
  Speaker 6: this one is there's not enough. It just felt much
• 13:11
  Speaker 6: more bottlenecked. You're definitely this is definitely a rail game.
• 13:16
  Speaker 6: This is one where you go mission mission mission, and
• 13:20
  Speaker 6: everything seems smaller, even though you're in this whole new
• 13:25
  Speaker 6: place that is the tournament Terminus system, and you don't
• 13:29
  Speaker 6: have all the the niceties that you had in the
• 13:33
  Speaker 6: first game because everything else was a little more structured.
• 13:36
  Speaker 6: This is more outlaw base. So I think this one
• 13:41
  Speaker 6: that was the biggest culture shock to me for this
• 13:44
  Speaker 6: game was not being able to actually fully see everything.
• 13:48
  Speaker 6: Even when you're looking behind Shepherd's back. It just is
• 13:54
  Speaker 6: it seems like Shepherd's bigger and everything else just got smaller.
• 13:58
  Speaker 6: So that was a little bit of a downer for me,
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: and that I mean, the romances, the voice acting that
• 14:06
  Speaker 6: they put into it. The voice actors, how many of
• 14:10
  Speaker 6: them are from sci fi series already got three Trisha Helfer,
• 14:14
  Speaker 6: Carrie and Moss and who plays the CEO from Battle
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: Circle Actica, who plays Lieutenant Bailey, any Who's they're all
• 14:25
  Speaker 6: part of the sci fi world already, and just bringing
• 14:29
  Speaker 6: those in to make everything just really boosted it. Along
• 14:34
  Speaker 6: with the cinematic views. Everything they did inside the game
• 14:37
  Speaker 6: to make it look more like a movie was incredible.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that it does generally have a more
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: of a movie kind of feel in that, as you said,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: the scope seems to be a little bit smaller, more
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: of a you know, more of a real line that
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: there's It's a lot more kind of action based, more
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: more fast paced, I would say, whereas you know the
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: story it's a little bit more meandering atle bit more
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: slow in the first game, which you would expect in
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the first game first, you know, the beginning of any series.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: But I feel like even a third one as well,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: it's a lot more meandering, a lot more exploration involved,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: whereas this is more you're being pushed in these directions
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: though that I will say there's a lot of be
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: entering for the you know, scanning planets, and that is
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: so boring. Yes, I mean, I'm doing a lot of
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: this's go around because I want to make sure my
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: my ship is in top shape. Learned that lesson, but
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: it's just a boring little mini game that I was
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: glad to see go when I started the third game.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: Yet most people hated exploring these randomly generated planets with
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: the the make go or whatever it was in the
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: in the first one, and then they replaced it with
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: an odd mineral scanning mini game in this one. But
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: I do think that led to feeling a bit smaller
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: as well, because there were far fewer planets that you
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: actually land on and have anything.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: To do well, even the primary planets. You know, in
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Mass Effect one, you get down, you get out, there's
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: a vehicle section, so you see more of the context
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: of the interior locations that you visit. Simply just creates
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: a bigger feel and removing the vehicle sequences, you know,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: by and large restricts the world to what you were
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: exactly what you were saying over seperd shoulder, Well.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: What else be able to say?
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: Well, I I'd like to talk about the characters because
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: I think they're the heart of this game, and my
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: favorite has got to be Faine. I think he's such
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: an interesting character because he's this drill assassin and he
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: has this terminal disease from being rescued by the hand
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: r and spending too much time on the hen our
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: home world that damaged his lungs. But the fact that
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: he retains their old polytheistic religion and he you know,
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: he prays to different deities for different reasons depending on
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: what he's doing. And you can press him on how
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: do you reconcile your beliefs with you know, being a
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: gun for hire basically, and he said, well, in my religion,
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: your body is separate from your soul, and your body
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: is more of a tool, like a weapon that you're utilizing.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: But then the drill all have perfect recall of everything
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: that happened in their lives, and so he is haunted
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: by a perfect recollection of everyone whose life he's taken,
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: so he can't really faithfully live out the philosophy that
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: he claims to hold, so it makes for an interesting
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: aspect of his care.
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree. I think Than is definitely one of
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: the most complex of the world building and new characters
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: in the whole setup of your characterisation. I kind of wish.
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: I like that you get to talk to his son
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: as his loyalty mission, but I feel like it would
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: have been nice if his loyal mission had involved going
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: back to his home planet and dealing with Hannard drew
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: relations so you could actually see that. But I get
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: that would be pretty difficult to That would be a
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: big break in the gameplay style, but I think that
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: would have really built on a strength they had there.
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: My favorite character was Garris. I just liked getting to
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: use him again and really digging into that continued friendship
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: between him and Shepherd. I like the Turian culture. I
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: watched a couple of videos that said that the Tourias
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: are kind of based on Romans slash Japanese Empire sort
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: of structure, and I can definitely see that. As someone
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: who enjoys the more order based and rule following type things,
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: Garris's attempts to negotiate his culture and his desires was
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: very compelling to me.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: You know, I was just gonna say that yours seems
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: to be a general fan favorite. I actually find him
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: kind of boring. Personally, I don't know. Maybe maybe I've
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: an entertained Andrew. I mean, I guess that might have
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: something to do with it. I mean, based off what
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: David said about than this one, I would like to
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: export a little bit more. I just started paling around
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: with him. I haven't done his loyalty mission yet, but
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: he definitely interesting character. And I really appreciate when the
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: characters bring in not just different personalities, but that the
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: different kind of root philosophy and religious syste I mean,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: even based off you know what you were just saying
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: about how there's kind of this dissonance between the soul
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: and the body in the way that they pair out
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: their morality. I mean, it makes me think of the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: old heresy. Yeah right, it's some of the the old heresies.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, you know, there's certain certain forms of
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: narcissism which would not just say the body is evil,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: but basically the body is unimportant, therefore it doesn't matter
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: what you do with it, and so that that idea
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: is definitely pretty much rooted in certain primary world beliefs.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: And I wonder I would love to talk to some
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: of the BioWare writers about where who who are these people? Like,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: are these people who have actually, you know, really studied
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: religion and philosophy or or are they pulling out of
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: something secondary. I feel it could be really fascinating to
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: speak with one of them and I know that, Oh
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: who's who's that? That that main guy Drew, Yeah, that's
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: that's the one I've I've been tempted to shoot him
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: a message and see if I can get him on.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: I know he's done stuff like that before, but I
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: know that'd be a big reach, but well, who.
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: Knows, not that big a reach. He has been pretty
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: interactive with fans.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we'll see. It's something I've entertained at least,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Michael O. We can say before I cut you.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Off, I was gonna say about Garris is you know,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: I don't didn't much care for Garrison. The first one,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: he's just he's just the he's the cop that's frustrated
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: by the rules, you know, in the first mass effect,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: and you know, you get to know him more in
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: the second one, and then he's he's back. He's because
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: he's part of the core group that never leaves. Was
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: it just he and Tally that that that that are
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: across all three games? I understand why people really love
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: him by mass Factory, even though he's not one of
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: my personal fans favorites, but the fact that he's just
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: that constant presence, and you know, he's got that great
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: scene in the third one where they're up on one
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: of the bridges in the citadel where they're not supposed
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: to be and they're shooting cans, you know, and I
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: get it. I totally get it. He's not a favorite,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: but I definitely get it. My favorite from Asfect two
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: has probably got to be Morden Mordan Solace. Not from
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: a gameplay perspective, I don't I don't really think the
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: tech characters are all that interesting, even though they're useful.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: They're just not interesting from a gameplay perspective to me.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: But you know, from the he ties into some of
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: the core aspects of the setting, with the the the
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Krogan and the why did I suddenly forget what species
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Morten and someone helped.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: Me Solarian Hilarian.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: There we go with the the the way the Solarians
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: created the genophage to wreck the coreans uh reproductivity, and
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: the way that Morden over Mass Effect two and then
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: especially three deal with the the guilt of doing that.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: It makes for a very interesting character, especially because you know,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: for a while you don't see any kind of guilt.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: It's almost like a defiance, and then you peel off
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: that scab and then it's like, yes, this is actually,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: this is actually a big deal to him. So I've
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: just really enjoy the way the character ties to a
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: core piece of mythology in the series.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think he's definitely somebody who has I
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: think more of a character arctic than the others in that,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: you know, in his companion question and Mass Effect two,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, he's willing to kill his former
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: student who's trying to erase the genifage, whereas then he's gonna,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: you know, come all the way around in third game.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: All right, Megan, looks like you had something to say.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't decide. I really enjoyed Jack And actually,
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: in one of my replays as a male, I romanced her,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: and I think her arc fortunately or unfortunately, becomes a
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: little more pronounced and enjoyable if you romance her, because
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: you get to see the full vulnerability and softness that
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: she ends up developing over the course of the game.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: Although I enjoy that you have to refuse to sleep
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: with her in order to get to that point, and
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: so I do think there's a depth there. Some people
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: have said like, oh, you're just curing her by sleeping
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: with her, Like that's I don't think that's actually how
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: it plays out. It's a funny joke, but it's not real.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: But Samara, who is not a big fan favorite and
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: not even a favorite of mine, I do think, speaking
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: of these new philosophical systems that we get introduced to,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: she's a just a car. She's got this very rigid
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: ethical system that she operates on, got a judge dread personality.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: Well in job, really, I think I think that's really interesting.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: But I'm curious to know what people's least favorite characters are.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: And you can't say Jacob because everybody's least favorite, So
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: somebody besides Jacob.
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: I was gonna take Jacob as a better favorite.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Love to hear it.
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: Okay, the Loyalty mission. The Loyalty mission is very twisted
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: and like the first time, I just it's still is
• 25:35
  Speaker 6: haunting to me, even going back and playing the other ones,
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: but the first time hitting it up and being like, okay,
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: he's created his father's created this harem and is the
• 25:45
  Speaker 6: only one left and it's just playing it off. And
• 25:48
  Speaker 6: he goes there and you can let him be super
• 25:51
  Speaker 6: upset and his dad doesn't even know him. It's great.
• 25:54
  Speaker 6: I do really just like the way that whole thing
• 25:57
  Speaker 6: played out, even though it's abhorrent.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Jacob doesn't get a fair shot because Jacob is
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: filling a very important storytelling role and he feels the
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: same role that James Vega does in Mass Effect three,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: and that is the the onboarding character for people new
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: to the game. Starting at that point, there's more explanation
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: that comes about the world and what's going on through Jacob.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: In the early phases of Mass Effect two, like you
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: would learn, you learn more about the world and what's
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: going on from Jacob. It's the same way with James
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Vega in Mass Effect three that they don't really get
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: a fair shot because they have a specific role within
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: the narrative and it has to do it because it's
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: video game.
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: So it's a really good point.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: I don't know, James has a ton of personality and
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: Jacob has absolutely none.
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: Wait wait, I thought that we couldn't say Jacob.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: He was agreeing that he was the least favorite.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: I was assuming, Yes, I was. I was projecting onto
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: all of you that you were going to say he
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: was the least favorite, and obviously I was. Yeah, I
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: was speaking ill of him prematurely, but.
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: As a squad member. No, and only early on because
• 27:16
  Speaker 6: of the h Birama.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: But other than that, I really got to say, least
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: favorite is probably Samara. For me, I just I don't know,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: I just I just don't find her very.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: I think she's a little more interesting.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Maybe it's just because she's kind of annoying to
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: bring along and and she's just I don't know, maybe Samara.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: No, this is what I'm talking about though. In the VI,
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: when I made my first comment that the game doesn't
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: invite you to love absolutely everybody, and you can actively
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: be annoyed by people, I I thing I think is
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: very interesting. I didn't. I had a lot of disagreements
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: with him and oh my conversations Legion I think is
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: an abomination. I never liked him even was no conversation, Yes, exactly,
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: that's the problem. No, but I think the character is
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: really interesting. We haven't talked about Miranda. Nobody's U. Okay,
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: So I was the obvious love interest of the game.
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: For well, I'm a film player, so she wasn't a
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: love interest for me. But my actual least favorite was
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: Zaid And I know he's DLC, but I regret doing
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: his loyalty mission because I did not want those I
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: did not want those renegade points for letting all those
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: people burn to death. That was horrible. And he's a
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: really boring character. But he's DLCD, so he doesn't really count.
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: Although I will say one of my favorites was actually Consuming,
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: who's also DLC, and I thought she was really funny.
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: Of the main non DLC characters, I would say Miranda
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: is probably my least favorite, partly because, and this is
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: very shallow, but I loved evonstro Howsky in Chuck and
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: so seeing her with black hair is too weird. So
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: it was just very strange looking at Sarah, but black
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: hair also her character. I like the sister angle, but
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: I don't I don't feel I never got involved in
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: her character emotionally. She never really gets that emotional when
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: she talks about her father, her sister, and so she
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: just I would never want to take her anywhere. I
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: never liked to pick her for anything, So she's probably
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: my least favorite of the main character.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: The most interesting thing about Miranda is actually if she
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: was the love interest in the second game and if
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: you basically choose someone a different girl in the third game.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: And there's this scene. My wife on a when she
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: did a male Shepherd play through one time, saw the
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: scene and there's this really heartbreaking scene where Miranda is
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: like really just crushed by it. And it's very interesting
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: because it's a it's a very well acted humanizing moment
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: and you can see that she's just heartbroken over it.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: So after that scene, I liked her a whole lot more.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, Okay, that works. That that's that
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: helped humanize the Uh I'm so mad because I'm too
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: pretty and too perfect exactly.
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: So that's what I was gonna say. Yeah, I was
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: gonna say she was my least favorite character because she's
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: a video game character that is designed to be attractive
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: to men, and the end game backstory is that she's
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: genetically designed to be attractive to men, and I just
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: don't find that appealing at all. I Mean, Tally is
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: the only romance interest of any value, and that's also
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: so sweet. Yeah, Tali's Tolly is the only I don't
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: I feel like she's the most normal I was gonna
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: say human being. She's not a human being, but like
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: the most just normal person without any kind of really
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: weird issues or hang ups I think in the story
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: to me, and that's probably why I always found her
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: more normal.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: She's got too much little sister energy for me for that.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: But you know, and Garis has big brother vibes. You
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: got the two that are always with you. You got
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: the sister and the brother vibes.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: So yeah, in my very pro human first run, I
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: feel kind of bad and when Ashley Miranda, Ashley feel bad,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: mak her to cry. But you know, to go off
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: of what Ian said about Zayid, I mean, he very
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: much strikes me as a more shallow version of Candoras
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: that you know, he's just this kind of I don't know,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: very you know, militaristic mercenary type, but he's just there's
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: nothing really there but beyond that, I mean, I have
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: to say my least favorite is Legion. I appreciate what
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: they're trying to do, but at the same time they're
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: trying to give you this friendly gath well literally directly
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: quoting scripture. It's like, this is Legion, Like, how is
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: that supposed to be your friend?
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: He is?
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: That's making said he's abomination, like he is not something
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: that should exist, let alone be in close proximity to you.
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: It's just a metaphor because he has like over a
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: thousand you know, Gath platforms or Guth programs inside his platform,
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: where a normal Gath only has like a hundred, and
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: so he's like, yeah, that is an acceptable metaphor. I'll
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: take that name. But yeah, it is a demonic reference.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: I get that. But I've always loved Legion. I find
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: him fascinating. I love how if you press him on
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: why he's taken a piece of year old in seven
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: armor to repair himself, he just says there was a whole,
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: And then if you press him farther, he's like, no, no,
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: further data, Like he can't explain it. It's not a
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: logical choice that he made, and I think that makes
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: it a little bit more interesting. But also just from
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: an aesthetic level, I love the design of the Gath
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: and the way that all of his face parts move
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: around when we're talking to him. I think it's pretty cool.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: But yes, it's Ai.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Ai is bad.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: I get it, but I think he's a pretty cool character.
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: No, Ai is good. He'd use your friend.
• 33:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah, they go ahead?
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: No, no, go ahead?
• 33:34
  Speaker 6: Okay for a legion, I mean, is he a messiah figure?
• 33:40
  Speaker 6: Though in this is he a one that is trying
• 33:44
  Speaker 6: to I'm saying he sorry, but I'm gonna have to
• 33:49
  Speaker 6: get over that.
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: Is appropriate in this case.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: He uses plural most of the time. He does say
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: we most of the time. I think there are places
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: where the script screws up and he uses a singular,
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: but generally it's plural.
• 34:04
  Speaker 6: Right, And heways is Lesion a Messiah figure in the
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: way that I mean his loyalty mission is about heretics, right,
• 34:16
  Speaker 6: He's trying to bring about a overall change to his
• 34:23
  Speaker 6: death the ones that can actually follow and lead. And
• 34:28
  Speaker 6: one of the reasons he has the ends in armor
• 34:30
  Speaker 6: is because we as we talked last time, Shepherd is
• 34:33
  Speaker 6: a christ like figure in the resurrection part and then
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: being brought up to the throne room of the elusive Man,
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: which if you look at Revelation four, Revelation four six,
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: and before the throne was something like the sea of glass,
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: like the clearest crystal that is his throne room something.
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: Side note, you can also see an alien covenant at
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: the very beginning. It's just that is the image of
• 35:02
  Speaker 6: a god, not like that. Another moment with the Elusive Man,
• 35:06
  Speaker 6: you can see Halo in the omni screen behind him.
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: They shoot him low, and he just has this overall
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: deity to him. So when it comes to Legion being
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: the one that's trying to bring about his own people
• 35:24
  Speaker 6: more than Shepherd, but still trying to be Shepherd in
• 35:27
  Speaker 6: that way, I'd say that, Yeah, there's some sort of
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: Messiah complex in him.
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's good good observations.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: There, Messiah, I say, Antichrist.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: So yeah, well that might be a more conversation for
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Massivefect three as well. Yeah, which is significantly more interesting
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: if Legion is still alive. Andrew, just for reference that
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: those the the geth Corey and storyline is definitely more
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: interesting with Legion.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, some version of him does come back if you
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: kill him off.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm trying to remember the specifics I've only I
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: don't think i've ever played it like that, but I
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: know i've seen the clips of it. David shaking his
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: head down there.
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: I just realized that even in my renegade playthroughs. I've
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: never had Legion die. I hadn't seen what would happen
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: if that occurs. That's interesting.
• 36:25
  Speaker 6: I killed off everyone in my last playthrough. The speech
• 36:28
  Speaker 6: where he stands up there with two people on the sides,
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: and then he's only speaking to two people. Really weird.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Have you ever seen there's an ending where everyone dies,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: including Shepherd in Mass Effect too? You can if you
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: get everyone killed on the suicide mission. Shepherd misses the
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: jump at the end, and it's like he's like telling Joker,
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: like tell them they're coming whatever. Then Shepherd falls to
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: his death, and at the end, instead of Shepherd looking
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: out over space, it's like Joker over all of these coffins,
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: and then Jokers looking out like now it's Joker versus
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: the universe. You said something, Mandre, but I didn't hear it.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Did anyone there?
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: Good?
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: So, how would that ending import into the third game?
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: You can't.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: You can't.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: It's over game ends. Yeah, it cannot be imported. That's
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: definitely one to look up on YouTube and not spend
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: an entire game playing deliberately badly enough to engineer that
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: depressed ending.
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: So so I am curious there's So there's a lot
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: of very anti Legion guys here, which sad is me
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: because I think Legion's really cool, but no one's taking
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: my edbait, like why are you so anti Legion but
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: don't have anything to say about Edie.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: I'm anti ED as well, but the third game, Yeah,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: I was about to say, I'm not really anti ED
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: until the third one, you know. Okay again, So what
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: I said on the last podcast is, more often than
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: not artificial intelligence and sci fi doesn't when when when
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: it's asking that question of oh can a I be alive,
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: it's not really so much exploring what does it? How
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: does that happen? How would you know? Because no one
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: understands the breath of life? Right, So that's that's not
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: really something we can understand, but it's usually right, it's
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: usually more an exploration of human uh, human characteristics and
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: and what what what is it? What is it to
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: be human? And so you know, that's what the Ed's
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: story is is looking at some of those aspects of
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: humanity and it's you're right, it's just a lot more
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: pronounced in in three than it is two. So say
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: what what you got? What you got about Edi? Into
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: e Ian. What do you got since it's fresh for.
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: You, I think, I mean, I come at it from
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: a if it's truly AI, and it's not just an
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: l L M an l L I think is a parasite.
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: But if it's truly AI in that it has a
• 39:06
  Speaker 5: quantum or geometric leap from any kind of pure calculation
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: into having something that I would argue has the characteristics
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: of life, which means that it is a person, then
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: you have to judge it on its actions. And both
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: Edie and Legion act like people, which to me, I
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: think puts them in that sci fi exploring humanity rather
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: than this is how I would respond to Rock or chat,
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: GBT or any of the lms that we're currently dealing with.
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: I just think it's a different category of character, and
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: so I don't Maybe it also reflects the fact that
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: I read a ton of like I Robot and other
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: Asthma short stories, and he was really pro robot in
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: those books, and I kind of still have a a
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: nostalgia for friendly Robot characters from that period of my life.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: And I think it is okay, and for the for
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: the sake of science fiction or fantasy for that matter,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: it's okay to engage with fiction on its own terms,
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: even if you know, you don't say that we think
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: that that kind of AI is possible, that we're you know, discussing, Okay,
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: is this is this a sapient sentient creature? You know?
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: Is this is this a moral rational creature? You know,
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: even if we don't think that's the case in the
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: real world, it's it's perfectly okay to to play with
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: those ideas and accept them within fiction, within the terms
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: of that world. And in that case, yeah, I think
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: I think Legion is interesting. I don't. I don't. He's
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: not like one of my all time favorite robots or anything.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: But in the case of Legion, what makes him interesting
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: is he he is still very alien. You know when
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: he when when he starts talking about how there's uh,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: how many basically how many copies of the guest software
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: are running on this one platform, right that is you
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: that is that is not you know, C three p
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: O right there. You know, that is something that is
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: far more more alien in nature. But you know, within
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: the within the mass efect universes. Is interesting to see
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: how legions continual exposure to humans and other human like
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: aliens makes him more human over the course of it,
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: and you know, he begins to adopt more human mannerisms
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: and and and things like that. Yeah, that's that's always
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: That's always a fun that's always a fun part of
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: sci fi. You know. That's that's like, I mean, if
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: we want to, we we drag some C. S. Lewis
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: into it. It's like talking about how how pets, you know,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: how how I pets?
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: Is?
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: That is that in mere Christianity, the part about pets
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: becoming more becoming more human like is it for loves it.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: While It's been a while since I've read either of those,
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: but basically become more the the animals that have more
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: exposure to humans become more human like in their behavior
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: and emotions and the way that they the way that
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: they approach any sort of moral type situation.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: So now, but of course, the key difference there is
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: for for lewis there's never that leap from the animal
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: to the human, as much as as they may grow
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: I mean even I mean, yeah, I guess that's what
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: I'd say about that. And I agree with you that
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: we can accept the rules of a fictional world. I mean,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: you know, you're reading fantasy you know, we can accept
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: the right use of magic in certain context within this
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: world in a way that we wouldn't necessarily approve over
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: or seek out in the primary world. But I think
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: that it becomes more difficult to parse that out. We're
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: dealing with sci fi that's dealing with things that at
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: least running parallel to our current real world conversations. I
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: think that's when to become difficult, where philosophy and fantasy
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: or you know, fiction gets kind of blurred a little bit.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: You know, I can't help but to see the progression
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: of and I know we're focusing on two right now,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: but Edi in two to three and the relationship that
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: it forms with a joker like I can't help but
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: to think about like this new Grock companions that Elon
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: must have thrown out there, these semi pornographic things that like,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: obviously we see where this is headed, this trajectory that
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: we're headed in. We see what plays out in Mass
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Effect two with Edie. I mean that I can't help
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: but to make these real world connections and see like
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: how dangerous this is, especially coming from a story that's
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: obviously being very approving of this. You know, we'll talk
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: about this more we get to the third game, but
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: even still, like the Paragon, thing to do is to
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: totally affirm this relationship that Joker has with this AI.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: And obviously there is a philosophy here playing this game
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: that I think is at best dangerous in I mean,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: really it's just materialistic, that it's roots, it's nominalistic. Is
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: there really are no universal standards, it's just kind of
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: whatever is whatever, which I think is I mean, you know,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: maybe Michael can push me back on this, but I
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: think part and parcel of true sci fi where it's
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: driven by science, science itself, which is materialistic in nature, right,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: that that's what science is, which I don't think science
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: is bad, but when science becomes the basis for the
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: framework of I think that's where things become dangerous. And
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: I think that's where we get the warning that sci
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: fi has to offer us.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Right exactly. And when I say to when I say
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: to accept it within the premise of the world, I
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: don't necessarily mean that you walk out of it having
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: changed anything about you the way you viewed the prime world.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: But it's it's still you, it's still has there's some
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: value to engage with fiction as it presents itself and
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: then then you can judge it afterwards. But if you
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: but if you if you approach it and say, well,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: that's not that's not the way it is in the
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: real world, then then then you you you're refusing to
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: engage with with the work as it stands, and you
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: might be missing something that it has to say good
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: or bad in this case, which I think, you know,
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: I think most of us are going to rather disagree
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: with with you know, some of the ed type stuff
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that. Right, That's that's that's totally fine
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: that I think you should and I would hope that
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: a lot of people, maybe not everybody, but I hope
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: that a lot of people are playing question some of
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: those things. And that's you know, that is a utility.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: As you know, Andrew was talking about on Twitter today.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: This this this one of these chief functions of science
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: fiction is to warn. And that's absolutely the case. There's
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: a number of reasons how science fiction kind of ended
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: up in that that whole. One of them, I think
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: is in some ways that the luminaries that shaped the
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: genre in the past were you know, materialistic, very worldly men,
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: whereas you know, fantasy was inoculated by numerous deeply religious
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: men and deeply philosophical, deeply you know, thinking men like that.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: So fantasy took this inoculation that protected it from some
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: very bad ideas for a long time. It's obviously that
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: inoculation is wearing off tremendously right now. You know fantasies
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: and dire straits too. But you know, so that's that's
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: one reason that science fiction took this negative world path.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: But just the very nature of since most sci fi
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: looks forward, right, You're going to image in a world
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: in the future. It's a story. So you need something
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: to go wrong, you need some sort of conflict, so
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: you usually almost always are imagining the world going wrong
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: in the future.
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: So, by its very nature, even when written by a Christian,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: science fiction is usually cautionary, right, because it is the
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: future is wrong. Here's why you don't want to Here's
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: why you don't want to end up down this path.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that one of the best ways of
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: framing sci fi verse fantasy and nature is I mean C. S.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Lewis's his Ransom series, I mean, or even just that
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: hideous strength. You've got sci fi and Belbury, you've got
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: fantasy s A and AM's oh yeah, right, like that science,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: you know, I understood principally as the manipulation or the
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: mastering of nature. Right that, left to its own devices,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: is going to go wrong. You need that metaphysical structure
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: to guide the direction of science. And that's why I
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: would argue that sci fi inevitably moves into at its best,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: at least moves into a cationary direction, because you know,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: even if you have somebody who tries to create a
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: very inspiring, hopeful sci Fi tale, I would argue that
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: there's something wrong with that person that inevitably what the
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: presenting is going to be something macrobial to something dangerous,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: because science can't provide tay loss. And so if science
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: is framing the story like there's nowhere good, it can
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: go because science can't account for goodness. It's it's a tool.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: And so that's why I mean, I just I'm not
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: I'm basically I'm echoing much of what you said there,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: but I think that, yeah, sci fi by itself, it
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: tends towards the dystopian because it has to, because it
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: can't account for the good. But I'll stop talking now, and.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Well, and that's funny too that you say, at its best,
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: And what's funny is that even at its worst, it's
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: usually still provides that very same service as at some service,
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: as cautionary tale. It's like, you know, there there there's
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: an entire, sub entire subgenre genres of sci fi. It's
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: like you think about cyberpunk, right, cyberpunk there's it doesn't
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: exist for any reason. But to basically say that transhumanism
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: is a nightmare, and you know, corporatism is awful, and
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: any there's nothing about you know, there's nothing. What am
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: I trying to say, there's nothing uplifting? Yeah, well, no
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: uplifting because you could, I mean, I guess you could
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: in theory, you can tell some some story of rejection
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: of these these things within it. But it's always this, this,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: this nightmarish thing. So I mean you say, even at
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: its best, I say, even at its worst, it's usually
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: still presenting that same uh, that same framework. But that's interesting,
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: you say, uh, metaphysical physical or materialists and metaphysical. One
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: of the ways that I've always liked is differentiate between
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: the two. Is that that that's that science fiction is
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: usually uh Man's conflict and relationship with nature, and by
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: nature I mean reality versus whereas fantasy is usually man's
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: conflict in relationship with SuperNature, you know, which is very
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: very very similar to that dichotomy that you were saying
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: of materialist and metaphysical.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Right, or as Tolkien says that in when we enter
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: into fairy, it's actually fairy that's hypernatural, that reveals our
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: supernatural nature. And so it's actually a way of demonstrating
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: of revealing our agency and the significance of the decisions
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: that we make because we are ontologically separate from the
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: world that's around us. And that's why he calls it
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: the perils realm, because this is where you could lose
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: or find yourself.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: That reminds me, and that also this also reminds me
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: a little bit of I think it's something that Dorseton
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: Scott Card says, who who is you know, mostly sci
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: fi writer. He written some fantasy, but you know he's Mormon,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: so he is religious. He I think he says that
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: you can have as much talk about religion and sci
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: fi as as you want, but the second that you
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: confirm that there is any form of deity, you've you've
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: stepped into fantasy. You know, you can. You can talk
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: about you know, you can have aliens with all sorts
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: of gods and things like that. But the second you
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: confirm that any of those things are true and they
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: step into the story, you've crossed over into the realm
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: of fantasy, which again falls into the same framework we've
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: been talking about it.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: And that makes sense because they're not materialistic and science
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: deals with matter, which.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: You know, and and so from the Christian perspective of
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: dealing with sci fi, how does how do you?
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: How do you?
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: How do you deal with those things? Is you can write,
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: you can still write stories of people and faith and
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: things like that, but you cannot have it's it's it's
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: more walking. It would have to be story was of
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: walking in faith without sight, And the second that you
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: confirm that site, then you've crossed back over across the line,
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: back over into fantasy again.
• 52:03
  Speaker 6: In Revelation, the one thing that's called out is those
• 52:06
  Speaker 6: who have here ears, let them hear, And we're also
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: called those with eyes to see, let them see. But
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: at the end times, at where everything is in the
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: next when Christ returns, people are only called to say,
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: if you have ears to hear, let to hear. So
• 52:26
  Speaker 6: that's insightful.
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: So I'm wondering, where do you see these worldview questions
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: really popping out in Mass Effect to itself, or do.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: You I wonder, actually, I think to redeem Mass Effects
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: to status as the least philosophically a deep game, I
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: think maybe a little more implicitly, but the game seems
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: very I think it's interested, at least somewhat in the
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: question of what the human soul is, whether or not
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: there is a soul. You start the game by getting resurrected,
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: and do I think the game adequately deals with what
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: that means. Not really, but the question is there, and you,
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: also with Legion later on, start to have questions inviting
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: is he human? What does it mean to be human?
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: We've already talked about this a little bit more, but
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: I think more than you might anticipate or might see
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: on first pass of Mass Effect too. I do think
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: the game is invested a little bit and what it
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: means to be human, what it means to be sentient.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: Because you have this human first organization, why is that
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: a priority versus other aliens? What does it mean to
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: be a conscious being? Is your body tied in with
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: your soul? We talked about that with Thanes, So I
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: do think actually the question of the soul, what it means,
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: whether we have it and who has it, is actually
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: something that comes up repeatedly and mass effect too.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would just argue that in the way that
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: is answered, it comes up pretty definitively in materialistic terms,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: I would say, I mean, even the the Resurrection of Shepherd,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: it seems like they just I mean, they do they
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: just rebuild him, like yeah, it's.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: A handwave admittedly, yeah, but still yeah.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: But yet at the same time the game, you know,
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: there's always this one of those nightmare questions on sci
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: fi is when you go through the Star Trek teleporter,
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: are you still you on the other side or have
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: you died? And are you just a a reassembled at
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: molecular level copy a few right, That's always one of
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: the the nightmare. There's your light again, Andrew.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, something weird with this light.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: That's always one of the question the questions of sci fi,
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: you know, because what is the Star Trek transporter? Sending
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: your soul to the Star Trek doesn't tend to actually
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: ask that question, although it does usually have all sorts
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: of weird nightmare fuel with the teleporter, they know it's
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: a weird technology and has all sorts of horrifying implications.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: But with the case of mass effect, you have Shepherd
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: is very very dead. They have Shepherd rebuilt, and it
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: never does question is this a different Shepherd? Right, there's
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: never the game that's beyond the scope of the game.
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: The assumption is that this is Shepherd, which implies in
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: some level, I would say, the existence of a soul
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: because it's still Shepherd. There's there's not a well, we
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: made a clone of Shepherd, right, That's not That's not
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: what the game is saying. And so will I agree
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: that the the level of of thought that it's put
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: into it is certainly more than somehow Palpatine has returned.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: It's it's it still seems to imply that that there
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: is something more than just you know, a colone of Shepherd.
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: And you know what's striking me that I think is
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: really intriguing. I don't know what to make of it
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: quite yet, because I thought about it a lot. But
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: if you're renegade, unless you get this little perk, in
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: which case your whole scars are reconstructed. If you're renegade,
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: your body starts to break down visibly, especially in the face.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: What do we make of that? What is it about
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: being I don't renegade isn't quite evil, but it's the aggressive,
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: domineering kind of personality that says, no, you're starting to
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: break down. You're no longer integral and whole because of
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: what you're doing. There's there is some aspect of morality
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: that's interested and tied into the body and the spirit
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: simultaneously that says, Okay, you act this way, you perform
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: this way, your body's going to respond. I don't think
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: it's entirely materialistic, is what I'm saying by pointing out
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: the whole facial scarring renegade tissue.
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: I do think that's an interesting angle that they take,
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: and I'm sure it's partly just, hey, we got to
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: find out a way to make the character look different
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: if they go dark like in Kotor, But yeah, because
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: eventually your eyes are glowing red, and yeah, it's it's
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: pretty interesting look.
• 57:02
  Speaker 5: But I think the writers Mass Effect are very They're
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: definitely building on the foundation of Asthmav and Heinlein, who
• 57:13
  Speaker 5: pretty much rejected any kind of religion. Pretty consciously, but
• 57:17
  Speaker 5: they also clearly seem to be aware of contributions from
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: people like Paul Anderson and maybe even C. S. Lewis.
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: There's some kind of Louisian touches to some of the
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: characters and dialogues you have, because a lot of the
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: aliens have religion, and there's not a mocking of those
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: religions outside of maybe the r So I think that
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: there's a sense in Mass Effects that everyone is searching
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: for meaning beyond, and it's not just like a Cthulhu.
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: Oh all religion is actually tied back to the reapers,
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: so it's all an evil trick. Like I think that
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: there is more of a good faith effort by the
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: writers to allow room for belief. But I also think
• 58:09
  Speaker 5: it's clear that none of the writers were believers themselves,
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: at least not in a way that impacts the writing.
• 58:15
  Speaker 6: I can see, well, they can't escape it. I mean,
• 58:18
  Speaker 6: they do end up with the cyclical fashion which would
• 58:22
  Speaker 6: come from reincarnation, whereas everything is going to continue again,
• 58:26
  Speaker 6: but that's also a sci fi trope in other things.
• 58:29
  Speaker 6: But no, I think that from our last talk, it
• 58:33
  Speaker 6: just hit me more so that this is an apocalyptic tale.
• 58:37
  Speaker 6: This is the end of all things, and Shepherd's just
• 58:41
  Speaker 6: warning everyone they're coming, They're coming. This is the final
• 58:44
  Speaker 6: uh push for the Great Commission, if you will. But
• 58:49
  Speaker 6: especially in the third game, Yeah, it's very apocalyptic, right,
• 58:54
  Speaker 6: So this is the second game really just kind of
• 58:56
  Speaker 6: brings about like just putting the pieces together. And Ian,
• 59:01
  Speaker 6: I'm gonna try to get you over to the Colector's
• 59:03
  Speaker 6: side as an interesting villain because in Revelation nine six
• 59:12
  Speaker 6: and in those days, people will seek death and will
• 59:16
  Speaker 6: never find it. So the Collectors are the Prothian. They
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: were collected, they were kept alive for fifty thousand years
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: or so, and they will never actually find death of
• 59:29
  Speaker 6: themselves because they are under the influence and the overall
• 59:36
  Speaker 6: control of the wickedness of the Reapers themselves, Reapers, which
• 59:43
  Speaker 6: are technically celestial in a way. They're falling angels. They
• 59:48
  Speaker 6: live out beyond light, beyond everything else, and they've just
• 59:55
  Speaker 6: seek to consume. They've consumed the Prothian, they can assumed humans.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 6: That's what we see in the Final Thing where they're
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 6: trying to rebuild themselves in Man's image. They're actually bringing
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 6: about that whole thing. So they're trying to take back
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 6: what is part of creation. The writers can't escape what
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 6: is creation, even though they tried to push it further
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 6: and further away, they will always have to go back to,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 6: you know, the true myth.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 5: So I'm looking forward to playing the DLC where you
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: get an actual prothean on your team in Mass Fact three,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: because I think that's gonna maybe retroactively make me care
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 5: more about these boring crab people.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, hey, get him early and take him out with
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: Leara as much as you can, because it's pretty hilarious
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: a lot of the time.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: But Leara is like also my least.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, except she keeps saying what she believes
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: she's an expert in, and him actually being of the
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: race that she claims to be an expert in. He's
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: constantly correcting her, and it's pretty great.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: It's pretty fun.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: That sounds actually really lalious.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: Okay. I will generally come to Ian's defense that the
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Collectors in general are less interesting villain than the Reapers.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: It's the you know, it's the step down from you
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: step down from Cosmic horror to the the middle manager
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: that's been hired by the Cosmic Horror. Right. So, but again,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: so the narrative just doesn't really focused on them hardly
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: at all. You're right, they step in for those brief moments.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: It really is more about the the the characters. And
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: I'll even say this, Sovereign is not Sovereign. Harbinger is
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: significantly less cool than Sovereign, like in in every way
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: the Sovereign's aloofness, the the much more terrifying like like
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: digital processing of Sovereign's voice. Harbinger is just not as
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: not as cool. So I will definitely agree that mass
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: Effect to is a step down in the villain department
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: compared to one and three. So I'm gonna fully stand
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: with you in there. I'm not I don't I don't
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: hate them or anything, but it's just that's just not
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: where the focus of the game is on. That's that's
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: not the star at all.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: True.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 6: But they are corruption of what was Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 6: what they're trying to actually create. Sure as villains, I
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 6: mean they have wings, proteins don't have wings.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they're bug zombies. That's that's all they are.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know. They don't do it for me either, or.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: Just count crowd people. This is what I keeps saying.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: It is that the it's revealed that the the Reapers
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: aren't giant squid monsters, that that is a race from
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: a previous cycle that was like the best that they'd encountered,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: and so they took that form. I'm remembering that ride,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: aren't they. Yeah, And so that's why because Humanity forwarded
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: their attempt in the first game, they've taken an interest
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: in humanity and began to try to make a human Reaper.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: I think it's a I think it's a clever bit
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: of sci fi writing.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 7: And just like human superiority, right right, Finally the Reapers
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 7: get it, except that it's super easy to kill that thing. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 7: But I mean it is cinematically interesting when you're fighting
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 7: this thing when it emerges or when it wakes up,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 7: right when we are not really sure what's gonna happen.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 7: I mean, obviously playing the game, you know it's going
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 7: to wake up. But it is a good cinematic movement.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 7: Even though I definitely agree across the board that the
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 7: villains are just not as interesting this time around. I
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 7: mean that none of the collectors have any agency, so
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 7: you're not dealing with real characters. They're just blank fodder.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 7: And then Harbinger himself not that interesting. Overall, Again, I
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 7: enjoy this game. I think it's to me it's perhaps
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 7: the most fun, but it also feels the laziest to me.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think as a puzzle, like putting it together
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 5: in your head is really satisfying to get your crew,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: to get them loyal and then hit this mission. But like,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 5: what does it mean? It doesn't change anything in the
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: overall arc, right.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: But it is a great build of the tension when
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: you actually go through that relay not knowing what's going
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: to be on the other side. All of the sequence
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: of events from then on is just really gripping and interesting,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: and I think they did a great job with it.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 6: They were all different writers as well. They went through
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 6: production like big production challenges for this one. The head
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 6: writer moved one guy I guess broke a hand or
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 6: something in a skating accident and can only type with one.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 6: So like, there was a lot of different minds going through,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 6: especially at the last final mission that was a completely
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 6: different team that they had to pull in from. I
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 6: believe Dragon Age.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would like to quickly say that I want
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: to revise my statement. It's not the laziest, but I
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: would say it's the most inconsequential, and that's what knocks
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: it down for me. That's a better way forraming what
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to say.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: What's a hard spot to be in because you're not
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: introducing the stakes with the initial takeover that you have
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: as you know, the potential ending of Mass Effect one,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: and you're not having the absolute apocalyptic world ending scenario
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: of Mass Effect three. So what do you do in
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: the middle. And I think it did a great job,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: like I think, as much as you can do with
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: that kind of awkward pacing. Whereas its place in the
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: overall trilogy, the a prep game like we're preparing for
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: Game three. I think navigating that many any different interesting
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: characters with their own arcs and having good performances, good dialogue,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: improving on combat. I think Mass Effect two's place could
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: have been very forgettable otherwise, but I do think the
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: characters and I think that the story, the action packed,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: fast paced nature of the story really saved it. Because
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: you can have a game like Dragon Age two that
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: was very inconsequential and was a major flop, and this
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: was no dragon Age too. This was a great game
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: that a lot of people, myself included, really enjoyed. But
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: I think the story, in the characters' stories individually really
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: save it from what could have been a very mediocre
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: place in the trilogy.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: Well, narratively, mass Effect to You're right in a lot
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: of ways, it is a repeat of Mass Effect one
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: on some level. So think about it like this. The
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: Reapers are hyped as the villain. We cannot we cannot defeat.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: You know that that That is one thing that I think,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: and we'll talk about this with the ending, with the
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: ending of Mass Effect three, I'm sure. But one thing
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: that Mass Effect one and two are abundantly clear with
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: is that there is no conventional victory possible over the Reapers. Right,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: there is no way that the Galaxy wins a war
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: against the Reapers. It's a it's a it's a losing
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: battle no matter what. So Mass Effect one is a
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: desperate hail Mary to stop the Reaper's primary method of return. Right,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: Mass Effect two is basically Plan B. Plan Plan A
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: is gone south. So now we're gonna go with Plan B.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: We're gonna, we're gonna introduce, we're gonna basically, we're gonna
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: we're gonna manufacture a new reaper, right, it's it's still
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: just both game games one and two are kicking the
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: can down the road of we can't beat these guys,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: but we can at least stall them, and and even
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: so much as and we haven't talked about it that
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: every has everybody played the Arrival DLC for Mass Effect two? Yes, okay,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: so that's the one.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 6: Where they throw the asteroid into the mass effect relay.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so basically you know that it's a a a
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: kind of prologue to Mass Effect three? Almost is what
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: the Arrival DLC of Mass Effect two is?
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 5: Does it?
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: Does it take place after the end?
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 6: I don't know, technically came out afterwards?
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it came out like a full year after the
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: game was released.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: But you can't do it at any point.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: You can do it earlier, okay, and you get to
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: kill a lot of baetarians, but which it introduces, by
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: the way, like we haven't seen batarians before that? Well,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: I said, but isn't it the batarians? Yeah, we've seen
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: a few. We've seen them.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: Anyway, do we see him in this game?
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 6: In this one? They're mostly.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, the Arrival is almost a plan. See, it's
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: the plans. See, okay, here's here's the next method, but
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: it only kicks the can down a couple of months,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: and the insinuation at the end of at the end
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: of arrival is they're coming. This was the last this
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: was the last staw. It doesn't matter what you do,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: They'll be here soon, you know. So that that's that's
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: where mass effect two is. It's it's just that continuing
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: at kicking the can down the road to the point
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: of realizing there's nowhere else to go. We cannot delay
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: this any further. They're here, you know. Which is mass
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: effect three is they're here. That's my defense of its
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: place and the trilogy.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 6: And then the Patarians did show up and bring down
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 6: the sky DLC another asteroid.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: Okay, so that's what I was confusing it with.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's what you're thinking about.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah, okay, yeah, two asteroids, both involving Batarians.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: Look, it just so happens that throwing a whole lot
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: of massive things works really well in physics. So it's
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: a great solution to many problems. If you've got a space.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: Civilization, just just throw a rock at it, especially in
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: a game called mass effect. Right, it's not the whole point. Yeah.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, having only played the Legendary, I have no
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: idea what's DLC and what's not.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 6: But Overlord was the DLC arrival in the Shadow Broker
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 6: or got it?
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: And I do, Michael, I appreciate you sometimes bringing us
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: back around to how these characters play important story aspect,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: you know. And that's one of the things I like
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: about Legion is he gives or it gives a voice
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: to what we're just you know, malevolent cannon fodder. In
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: the first game, we can actually talk to them and
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: learn something a little bit about them, which I find interesting.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 5: David Legion uses they then pronouns personal privilege.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I will. I will grant them that pronoun
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: because it makes perfect sense.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: But you know, it's really funny. I was thinking about
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: when we were talking about religion and how basically Mass
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: Effect doesn't ever kick religion any of its religious characters
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: for being religious. You know. I was thinking about that
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: this was a game that appeared at the last possible
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: moment than it could have before, so many more things
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: would have gone wrong with it, and the pronoun thing
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: is what made me think that.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 5: Well, you can see it coming in three you can't
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 5: you can't hear it.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: But but what I mean, so many more things. What's
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: what's what's the date on through twenty twelve? Yeah, you know,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: once you hit fifteen and Obergefeld, it's it's the gloves
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: are off on everything, you know, entertainment wise. Right, So, and.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: To Andrew's point about how it's the paragon thing to
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: just be hey, hey, I love is love and we
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: we just you know, you've got to affirm it. It
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: keeps going more and more, and I you know, we
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: can blame BioWare, but also the fans have been ridiculous
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 4: in that capacity.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: I remember in Mass Effect Andromeda they introduced a character,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: a male character on your team, and there was a
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: public outcry that you could not be in a gay
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: relationship with this new alien, Like they were mad that
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: he was straight. So they had to patch it so
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: that you could have a gay relationship with this character.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: It's just absurd.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard to navigate these conversations to see where
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: the pressure is coming from. Are we dealing with numbers
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: or simply volume. I think that's that's difficult to navigate.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, I've been playing
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: the oblivion to type a body or something.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's really some very very savvy activist
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 5: groups that figured out a way to get access. I
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 5: mean they had a godsend and a couple of major
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 5: figures who immediately formed relationships with game devs, which meant
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 5: that there was a lot of creationive games that did
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 5: not have an audience.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like the most recent I haven't played it, Megan,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: I think you said you played it to the most
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: recent Dragon Age God.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've played it. I've played it, and I pre
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: ordered it, so I bought it full price and I
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: think it goes for like ninety nine cents now or
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: the problem I am part of the problem. No, I listen, listen.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: I love this that trilogy, and it's a different conversation.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I think what's striking and why I keep
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: harping on the characters being so excellent in this game
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: and how you can just dislike people that is very
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: much an impossible feature in Vailguard. You know, this is
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: what when did I Aspect to come out twenty twelve, No? Nine, ten, ten,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: We're now forty Execume out last year fourteen years or
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: removed from Mass Effect too and Vail Guard wants to
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: make similar moves. I don't know if we've played it.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: I don't want to spoil anything, but the end sequence
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: is similar to the end sequence of Mass Effect two
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: in that you have to be very strategic in your
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: companions where you're sending them off to. I'll put it
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: like that. You also have a big cast of people
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: and you're invested in their personal problems. Let's say so
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: if you zoom out. There's a lot of similarities between
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: Mass Effect two and Dragon Age Veil Guard. How it's executed.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: Between the two games, however, very different. You have actual
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: personalities and people. We have different religions and philosophies that
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: are not always palatable, and that is okay. You can
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: keep them as companions, but you can actively just dislike
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: people and it's not seen as a bug in your
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: experience versus Vail Guard. I think your achievement when you
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: get all of your companions is something like found family,
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: Like you have a found family amidst the chaos, like
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: I don't know these people, and I don't like they're
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: not even my found friends, like they're my found family.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: But it's hard to see where bio ware has gone
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: because BioWare has always prided itself on excellent character relationships
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: and dynamics and squad numbers all that, and I think
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: you need to have characters that you can dislike or
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: even hate in order for that to work. I think
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: there's this developing idea now that you should enjoy all
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: the characters because you just love them so much and
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: they're all just quirky and fun and interesting. But I
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: think you have to hate some of them in order
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: to love the others that you actually get to enjoy
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: and remember. Yeah, So I think that's my retroactive look
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: at Mass Effect too. Why I cherish it even more
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: is because it's executed storytelling on a character development level
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: that I'm not sure that BioWare is going to be
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: able to do it again, at least not with their current team.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: You know, you talk about not with their current team,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: and we talk about it happening, you know, these games
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: being made in the kind of the last window they
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: could have. And Ian talked about activists and you know
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: sometimes you hear talked about the uh, you know, tumblification
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: of entertainment, right, and we you know, those people that
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: aren't really part of that tumbler sphere use that very negatively,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: but it's a very real thing that happened starting around
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: twenty fifteen. You know Western animation companies, you know, you
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: start talking about your your Steven universes. In those places
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: they hired people from Tumblr. Massive amounts of talent was
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: hired out of Tumblr. It also happened in the video
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: game industry. And it also I've had someone confirmed to
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: me recently it also happened in Hollywood that they hired
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: a lot that Hollywood was mining Tumblr for talent in
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: this period. And so what you happened? What did you
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: have in Tumblr? You had these very hyper focused fandoms,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: very hyper focused on on LGBT stuff, very focused on shipping,
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: culture and things like that. So you wonder how what
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: happened to BioWare. Well that that's that's very a real
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: part of it is where the talent pool came. You know.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: One of the big one of the big indications over
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: the last decade that that BioWare has really been a
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: pill a shadow of its former self is how many
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: little indie studios were were always hyping former BioWare devs, Right,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: there were so many little indie games We're talking Oh
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: the former these three former BioWare devs, these three former
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: these how does everybody have former BioWare devs? Who's left
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: at BioWare? And what's what's turned out is basically nobody,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: you know, nobody's left there is there unfortunately, which is
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: how Vilguard happened, is you know, the talent. And that's
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: the same thing with Hollywood. Why is Hollywood? What it
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: is is the talent's gotten replaced with I don't want
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: to say Tumblr entirely because it's obviously not just that,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: but it's not not that either. You know, that's a
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: real tumblification, is a real thing that has happened, and
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: it shows, it really shows in some of these industries.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's definitely one thing that I've really enjoyed about
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: playing these mass effect games. You're not having played them before,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: so that they're they're fresh to me. Is it feels
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: like a game does maybe fifteen years ago, Like you
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: can see certain things, certain paths starting to be laid out,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: but we're definitely not there yet, Like it feels like
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: a different time. Whereas we'll talk Dragon Age in its
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: own right another time. For sure. I love Dragon Age.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: The first three games. I have not touched the fourth
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: I refuse to pay full price. I'll get on the
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: next team sale just so I can, you know, complete
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: it and talk about But I feel embarrassed having seen
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: trailers for that game, everything that comes out, it's so
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: just awful writing, and you know, not having played it personally,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: I can I can see you know what Megan's talking about.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: How we have just this philosophy of you know, superficial
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: tolerance that actually forbids real relationships because everything just gets
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: glossed over. You're not allowed to actually see people. You're
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: only allowed to see an object to affirm, you know,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: it's you're not actually engaging with a real person. And
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: so games have become so much less grounded and just
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: reality that you can't have effective storytelling, you can't have
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: effective relationships. It just feels like you're being fed propaganda,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: which obviously is what a certain corner of the market
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: has a taste for, in large part because they don't
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: necessarily know that there is anything else. I'm talking about
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: this in another context, but you know when I teach
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: my State University philosophy students that nearly all of them
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: come to my class thinking everything is just artificial. You know,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: everything's subjective, nothing is actually real. Everything is whatever you
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: view it as. And so let's just have these rosy
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: glasses on and that's what the world is. And Yeah,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: as soon as I start giving them hints that maybe
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: there's such a thing as reality and that you can
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: actually move places and some of those places might be
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: better than where you currently are, it's like they've never
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: even heard that before, because the entire life they've been
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: fed to this propaganda of just everything is nothing and
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: you know, it's all subjective, it's not real. But once
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: they start to get hint of that, it's actually refreshing
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: and they recognize this is exactly what they've wanted to know.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: They can actually aspire to something. And so it's so disappointing,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: not just from an entertainment angle, but it's saddening for
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: the condition of the modern human soul that we're so
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: out of touch with reality that we don't even know
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: when we're being fed at this superficial propaganda, despite the
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: fact that we all hunger for something more. And so
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: I look forward to getting more into that when we
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: get to Dragon Age. But I guess we can pull
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: back to master effect If anyone has anything else to
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: say about this game, well.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, we didn't really talk about Grunt at all.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 4: I do think his character is interesting, brings up questions
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 4: about what makes you who you are. You know, he's
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 4: bred in a tank. He hasn't been through the things
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 4: that a normal Krogan has been through, so they reject him,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 4: and he frankly rejects himself. He doesn't feel you know,
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 4: he has these urges, but he doesn't have the experience.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 4: And I just think, you know, as you do his
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 4: loyalty mission, you get the opportunity to help him gain
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: some of his own pride, of his race and all that.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 4: But I do I found that fascinating. And another thing
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 4: that this game made me think of back on Fane
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 4: and his memory is how the older I get, the
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 4: more I realized that the fading nature of our memories
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 4: is really a gift from God, because without you know,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: if we could remember everything perfectly the way than does,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 4: you'd never be able to get over grief or any
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 4: kind of difficult aspects in your life that you know,
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: the passage of time. You have to be able to
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 4: find a new normal in order to get past those
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: sorts of things. So, yeah, I don't really have more
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 4: to say than that, but it just it kind of
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 4: drives that point home that yeah, we sometimes I wish
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 4: I could remember things more clearly, but then I realize
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 4: it's actually often it's a blessing that we can't.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 6: Just be nice to articulate everything the way Than does
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 6: in his memories.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the other person we didn't talk about much was
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: actually Tally, and I was actually thinking about her somewhat
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: because of what Megan was saying with you know that
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: you don't have to like everybody in mass effect too,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: and and and a bunch of these crewmates are not
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: close to each other or Shepherd at all. There's not
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: this is this is not a found family game, right,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: And and I hate that we have that. We we
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: all roll our eyes at the term found family now,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: because you know, found family should be a redemptive thing
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: for people that have broken families, that they can still
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: find hope and and and love and a place in
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: this world. Right this should be this should be a
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: Christian trope, but it has been completely you know, flipped
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: onto this place you can reject your earthly family and
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: and and find something else. So I hate that but
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: that actually is what what Tally's trope is. But in
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: a in a way that lands very well because she
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: you know, we get to spend all this this time
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: at the at the the Quarrian feleet, which is kind
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: of this this one of the more interesting, you know,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: social settings of the Mass Effect universe, and ultimately she
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: has to leave it and she her name changes to
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: because their name is their name, their last name is
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: of the ship basically, so she was Tally zoravas Neema
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: and because she's basically kicked off of her ship, she
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: becomes Tally's Zora vas Normandy, you know, because the Normandy
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: is now her ship. So there is this this this
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: found family aspect to Tally's story where you know, Shepherd
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: is part of her family. His ship is her ship,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: and it's just it's nice, It's really I know why
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: Tally is just such a favor because she is just
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: such a sweet character. You know, she's just so likable,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: and she goes through a lot and she finds a
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: new home. So they could they used to be able
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: to write good fine found families. Where I was going
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: with that, Megan, what I what I was thinking about.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: I agree with Tally's story. Although I'm noticing now thinking
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 3: like there's a lot of absentee fathers in mass effect too,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: or daddy issues with you have or evil you have, Miranda,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: you have, Tolly, you have I don't know if you've
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 3: count grunts kind of creator Mike Jacob you have. Yeah,
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 3: And this is I don't know what that's about.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: Jack is familyless. Yeah. Uh, Samara is the the the mother.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: The mother and the father in some way, I guess.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: Right, but you know what I mean, you know what
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: I mean that she's the parent in this case with
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: with kids.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 3: With issues, Yeah, parents and children.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: Than is also a parent one.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's the bad father, right right, Yeah, that's true.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: Look, there's the thing, though, is that the lack of
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: parent is so common in fiction for so many reasons.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is a it's it's it's obviously not
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: a universal experience, but but everybody hits a point of
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 2: discovering that their parents are human, and so, you know,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: troubled relationships with parents is is is. It's not necessarily
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: a universal experience, but it's something that everybody can at
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: least identify with in the in the over a course
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: of a story. But also for purely practical reasons. It's
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: it's always a great source of drama. And if you
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 2: happen to have younger characters, I'm sorry, but no good parent.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: Let's their twelve year olds go on an adventure, So
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: there's a reason why the parents are.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 3: Dead, right, It's a good psychological mechanism, narrative mechanism to show, Okay,
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 3: you are now individuating and going off and discovering your
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: call and your adventure and who you are as an
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 3: individuated adult. So it's it's useful. It's just there's a lot.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: There is a lot of it's a lot of dead to.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 3: Be doing, yeah, or being absentee interesting.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 6: I just want to criticize every Pokemon game, every ten
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 6: year old.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 5: I did kind of want to comment on. We've talked
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 5: a lot about AI, but there's another technology that's really
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 5: prevalent this game that I feel like should have been
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 5: leaned on a bit harder, and that's a genetic engineering.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 5: Both Miranda and Rex their whole stories revolve around being
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 5: genetically engineered and the ethics of that, and I think
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 5: there should have been more questioning of whether tho's I mean,
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 5: there's a bit there's a little bit in grunt story,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 5: but no one ever questions if Miranda should be human,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 5: whereas I feel like more people probably should. And I
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 5: wish there had been some kind of interaction between Grunt
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 5: and Miranda because they have the same basic backstory of
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 5: evil dad slash crogan warlord creates perfect human slash Crogan.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Shepherd too is also a bit of a reconstruction.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 3: I don't know if we would count him or her
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: in that engineering in that yeah so, but yeah, you're right,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 3: the game isn't as suspicious as like I might want
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 3: it to be. Of Okay, so how much genetic engineering
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 3: do you get before you are no longer a crogan
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 3: or a human? Or maybe there? The game is, I
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 3: don't know, not really suspicious of like racial essentialism, but
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 3: like what does it mean to be the most perfect
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: of X thing? And we find that with Grunt and
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 3: with Miranda, it's getting away from the father figure that
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 3: wants the racial essentialism or wants the superhuman, the ubermensh
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 3: kind of figure to go do your masculinity proving grounds
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 3: quest or go.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 5: Be with your sister and have a normal person.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd be more a normal person exactly. Yeah. So,
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know if that reads to me as like
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 3: suspicion of the technology, I would.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: Say inherently, it feels like there's at least some level
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: of suspicion, even if a full exploration of it does
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: end up being outside the scope of the game is presented.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: But I would say there's at least a healthy level
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: of oh, it's implicit, sure, right, you don't ever get
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: a feel good story about, you know, the father engineering
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: the perfect daughter. That's not what's being presented, you know.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 5: I just think that with a lot of genetic engineering
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 5: in the news these days, in a similar right to
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 5: me as large llms and AI assistants, I feel like
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 5: Christians should be thinking about that as well, in terms
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 5: of the warnings that sci fi can provide us.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 2: Just say no to transhumanism, Just say no.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 5: I mean, I'm going to get the Internet in my
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 5: brain when I can, because that means I can read
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 5: while I'm walking.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 3: But well, I think IVF is also a very relevant
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 3: technology that a lot of people are actively suspicious of
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 3: and should be not enough. But we see that with
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 3: the jenif age as well, and that's a place where
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: we're really suspicious of what does it mean to manipulate
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: the whole genetic outcome of a species, not just of
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 3: an individual. So maybe because it's a species, that's why
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 3: we're like, oh, and that's bad, that's genocide. We don't
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 3: like it. That's why we're more overtly suspicious of it.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: But yeah, now that I'm thinking of it, I think
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 3: the game does critique genetic modification implicitly in some areas,
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: but definitely more forcefully with the genophage, which overall, I
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 3: don't think you can play the game and you're allowed
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 3: to have an opinion about the genof phage. It's not
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 3: it's bad. You know, you can kind of help implement
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 3: it as a pragmatic thing, or help sustain it as
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 3: a pragmatic decision in a third game. But I don't
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: think the game ever is ambivalent about the morality of
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 3: the genophage, which is a good thing. You know that
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 3: we're saying, hey, it's not good to wipe out civilizations,
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 3: is not good to stop people from giving birth. Declining
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 3: birth rates are bad, you know. That's again, should we
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 3: have a could we have a game that says that today?
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 3: I don't know, But we had it then I think
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: that's good. Yeah, there is a lot of suspicion there
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 3: with genetic modification birth rates, and I think that speaks
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 3: to IVF concerns today.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I don't think that the developers would
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: be willing to directly engage with that, obviously, but on
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: a principled level that you know, grunt Miranda, I mean,
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: obviously we're a Shepherd. I mean, anyone who kind of
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: falls into this category of being constructed in some way,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: shape or form, like we're meant to affirm their personhood
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: while the same time potentially questioning how it came about.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: I think that there's plenty of room for doing that,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: and I think there's plenty of room for doing that
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: with IVF that you know, somebody born to IVF like
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: they're a real person. But at the same time we
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: can question the practice.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 4: Right, And I don't think it's an accident that it
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 4: is not good guys who bring Shepherd back to life,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 4: you know, so that it's not really celebrated. It's just
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 4: Shepherd finds himself back alive and that's what he's got
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 4: to deal with. And I do feel like the sequence
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 4: shows like dead veins having life brought back to them,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 4: so he's not really quite the ship of Theseus that
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 4: somebody on Star Trek who's been transported is. But yeah,
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 4: it's still an ethical question of resurrections most fiction. I've
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 4: always fund it fascinating how much fiction avoids resurrection, Like
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 4: it's just almost an understood that when you're dead, you're gone,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: And I.
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 4: Don't think it's a respect for Christ's resurrection story, but
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 4: I do think it's interesting how much people shy away
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 4: from it, and reasonably so.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: Except for genres that are should be more shy of it,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: like comic books, true right, you know. My advice to
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: people writing stories is that if you feel you have
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: to bring a character back from the dead, it should
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: be only once in the entire setting, and it has
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: to mean something. You cannot do it again again because
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're, you're, you're, it has resurrection must mean something.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 2: If you make resurrection mean nothing, you are not writing
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: a true story. That's that's just all there is to it.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 4: It works in Dragon Ball Z because they they they
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 4: have it. They have a whole after life that's built
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 4: into the story, you know, and it becomes an interesting
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 4: plot element. But it does crivialize death.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: Right, But I was about to say, in that case,
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: when you when you systematize it, is it even resurrection?
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 4: In some cases someone just suddenly has a halo and
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 4: that's it.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: Well, we've been we've been going for an hour and
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: a half or so. I think that I mean pretty much.
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: I think anything that we have to discuss will be
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: directly relevant, if not more so for must effect three
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: at this point, and so I think we'll go ahead
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: and wrap it for now. Appreciate everyone here, and I'm
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: sure that I will see you while again next time
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: as we wrap it up, and I think we have
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of interesting things to talk about for mass
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: effect three. In fact, I'm very impressed with what we
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: came out with for mass effect two. So I don't know,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: maybe I need to review my initial opening statement here.
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, thanks again and I will see you
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: all next time. All right, thank you for listening. And
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: I should mention that if you notice that dropping the
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: sound quality of my outro here, it's because the cord
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: on my good microphone just broke and so I'll need
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: to replace that soon. But anyways, thank you for listening
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: to our conversation on mass effect two. Stick around here.
• 1:34:38
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• 1:34:41
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• 1:34:43
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• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: new episode over on the Mythic Mind Movies and Shows
• 1:34:49
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• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: Wars series, although the next thing that you'll get out
• 1:34:56
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• 1:35:00
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• 1:35:04
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• 1:35:07
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• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: Also as a reminder, starting at the beginning of August,
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: we have our course on Plato Stoicism until we have faces,
• 1:35:29
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  Speaker 1: or Yeah, there's that all right, So you'll you're here
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: here from us next on Monday over on Mythic Mind.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: Until then, Gospeed