A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 112: Telos: Citadel Station Pt. 01 (KOTOR II 03)

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

You can watch Austin play through this section of the game right here. With Peragus behind us, the Exile takes some time to chat with Kreia, Atton, and T3-M4 before heading to the nearest safe port: Citadel Station, a city orbiting the ruined planet of Telos. There, the group run into some cops, deal with an assassin, and finally focus on the three most important things in KOTOR: 1. Talking. 2. Shopping. 3. Minigames.  Support the show by going to Patreon.com/civilized! Show Notes Kreia & Atton Facts Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Chia Contreras (@a_cado_appears) Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, a Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakeney, joined by Alia Kampora, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners via patreon.com slash civilized. So head over there if you'd like to support the show and get access to all our Q&A episodes this week. Acab, the complimentary housing customer service of the team. Tilo's security forces may change your preconceptions. Another big surprise? The Jedi apparently used to send their washouts to work on a farm.

And Atten would like you to know that he doesn't like Crea, but, you know, he would. He would. He does say that. Why did he say that? Unbelievable. Can I say something? Can I say something real quick? Yeah.

Wild. Anyway. Yeah. So yeah, we've arrived on Tilo Station who the second you arrive there, they kind of have questions about why the gas station, their entire thing depends on, blew up behind you. Normal reasons. Then they're like, don't worry, we'll give you a cool little studio apartment while you're under arrest.

Yeah. Kind of a, I'll just say this. This concept is cool. I kind of love this Death Star and averse thing that is happening here. You sort of, so the gang are flying off to Telos and, you know, we discover that as a planet that is sort of like covered in this like Dyson sphere type superstructure because they're trying to restore the planet. Right. From a Sith bombardment, I guess terrorist isn't going to get this treatment. I feel like this must have been terrorists on the whiteboard at first, right?

because, like, think about how cool. That was my initial thought, because they're so similar names, too. Like, mm-hmm. And, like, we saw it get bombarded. It would have felt really cool to come back to Taurus, to terrorists, and be like, ooh, look, they're trying to fix it. But, like, it feels like one of those things where BioWare was like, no, we have plans for terrorists eventually.

We're going to make it a terrible zone in our MMO with nothing on it because of the orbital bombardment. But it kind of fits in still, right? Like, so much of this game immediately out the gate is in the, the shadow of Revan, in the shadow of the events of the previous game and in the Jedi Civil War and in the Mandalorian War before that. So even if it isn't terrorists, it's kind of terrorists. You know, you can imagine the same cutscene of the Sith ships that's going, peo, peo, pew, pew, and blowing up everything. I'm like, that's what must have happened down

there, you know. The other thing it, of course, calls to mind. The Thron trilogy, it's the no-gris stuff, right? It's, oh, look, here's a planet that's been destroyed. What do you do about it. And we get a little preview of what maybe could have happened there if Leia had gotten her dream of trying to repair that place. And it's, it turns out, uh, sometimes the IMF says we'll help you build a well if you sign over the oil rights to Chevron, you know, sorry to the Zirka corporation. It's very different. Yeah, they're very different thing. That's right. Um, I, I do like actually not returning

to Terrace and having a different although I could imagine a world where Telos is Terrace 2 I do like the idea that we're seeing the effects

of Revin and Malik's destruction beyond kind of our immediate scope of Kotort 1 Like going beyond Cotor 1, there are, like, Reverend Malik wasn't localized, their conflict wasn't localized to just those places. They had these, you know, domino effects around, you know. Darth Brandon was out there blowing up other planets. We didn't see him do it.

There are other guys, Darth Chet, Darth Damien, like all sorts of other darts out there, just blowing shit up. They're just off screen, yeah. But still the game struggles, I think partly with just it's both games. I don't even know how their budgets compared for contemporaries of their time. But like one thing this game struggles to do is create any sense of there actually being all this devastation from the war because it just doesn't visually depict that like stuff very well. And the graphics of this era don't do well with a lot. Like, everything is such regular slab polygonal shapes. So, like, a, like, a scarred and devastated planet is represented, you know,

first by, oh, we're aboard the space station that's rehabilitating the scarred and devastated planet. You know, we're not, we're not going down to, like, a ruined cityscape. Well, are you so sure about that? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

We may find ourselves on, on, I must say, terrace, on telos by the end of all of this, you know. I believe that. I do wish, I think that's probably my biggest wish from the two main areas, chapters we've done so far, is more communicating, more visual communication of being in a place that is, like, where is our physical location in space itself? Like, I think in the last planet on progress, my brain wasn't. necessarily clocking that I was going from the space station above Paragas down into where the minds, like I just, that, that movement of going up and down from whatever is outside.

And this is the thing, you were going into an asteroid that the base is built into. You weren't going to the planet Paragas ever. You're in an asteroid field. Okay, so again, communicating. I'm agreeing with you. I'm saying clearly, if that you left it feeling, then, yeah, definitely they didn't, they didn't communicate that shit well enough. No, definitely not. I feel like I have to put on my imagination cap when in the scene transitions a lot and just really put it in my mind's eye that I am, I am transitioning, I'm traveling, I am moving between spaces to really get it in my brain that I'm, I'm, yeah.

You know what this game needed is those classic loading screen where they just show you the concept art outright because it just has I just looked it up and it was like oh yeah here that's Paracas and you can kind of see it's an asteroid So I'm getting the credits of the Mandalorian

where you get like oh my god look how cool this could have looked Yeah exactly This would have been so useful You can I would have gotten it from when you walk outside and you can go see the asteroid stuff But it's so close up that it's hard to put it together, you know. And when you see the fuel line go out.

Right. Yeah. That is like when it connects to Darth Sexy's. What is his name? I don't know his name. Okay. Here's a question. So one, I did say his name last time by mistake and didn't notice it.

Two, your character says it in a conversation, can say it, in a conversation with Crea in this part of the game that we played. And your character just says it And I can't find Where you would have heard it Why they would be able to say it Yeah Because I can't find Crea telling you Who knows what the exile

Maybe the exile has like late in knowledge Interesting They can't quite Do you all know it? Does anyone here know his name Of the top of your heads? No Okay

I know you said it last time I did I shouldn't have I wouldn't mean to I said it and I wasn't supposed to say it And then I went off fuck And then someone told me later But then we all forgot

And you all forgot it. But, well, again, at this point, we can say what it is because there's a part of the conversation that we have with Kraya. I believe in this big opening thing, which we should talk about, which is before you even get to Sital Station, you can walk around the ship and talk to everybody, including Kraya. And you may, yo, what's up with that weird guy? What's up with sleeps with vibroblades? Except what you say is, she explains who the three Sith lords are. And when she describes one of them, you can be like. Like, ah, that's Darth Zion.

Is Darth Zion that one? And it's S-I-O-N. But obviously brings to mind S-C-I-O-N, the word that kind of means inheritor or, you know, like the descendant of a royal or noble line. But S-I-O-N is what he's called. And yeah, I don't know if they just drop the ball. This, it kind of reeks of, we have, you know, 12 months to make a big budget RPG for the main. one of the main villains to not have his name like said out loud before the player character says it but uh yeah yeah we should we should check in with with crea before we had to to teah uh telas because uh yeah

aton is like you should you should touch base like she's in a lot of pain she's really before he says eat fucker which is wild now now it all snaps into place oh craya she sucks when y'all And y'all said, when you were saying these things, I don't think so. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Hang on, that conversation only happened that way. I think so. I think that he's like having a pro-moviz.

He brocoded. I'm checking. I'm checking. Well, because if you're a girl, he's going to want to fuck you, right? Like, so he can't say that. I'm checking. Okay. Oh, no.

I do not recall this. Okay. You don't recall him saying this is, this is, this is, uh, I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm looking. He says at some point, I think this is in response to you being like, you know, you can be like, after you talk to her, you can go back to him. And he's like, so what happened to her? What's up with her? Is she still getting old?

And you can be like, so maybe this is what you did. Maybe you didn't go back and talk to him after talking to her. I did talk to him. So he says, you can say a much of stuff and you can be like, yeah, she's always, she's cryptic as always. And he says, what a surprise. Just so you, Jedi, know the whole cryptic routine isn't mysterious. It's just irritating. If you can really see the future, you should be at the Bazaq table.

And at that point, you can then come back and, you know, kind of, well, considering her age, I don't think she has much time left or whatever, right? And he goes, good point. How old do you think she is anyway? She may have been good looking once, but it takes some hard living to make creases like that. And then one of the things you can say, which Rob, I think maybe you and I said was good looking. that desperate. Alternatively, you could say, if she looks good to you, you must have taken a

blaster hit when I wasn't looking, which, okay, and Atten will say, hey, I just got out a prison. If we had a decent Navit computer, trust me, we'd be dropping out a hyperspace into the Narshadda Red sector right now. After spacing that old witch, of course, bro, you just said a second ago that you think she used to be hot. You are a villain. Now, the other thing you could say, which it seems like maybe.

maybe Natalie and Alley you did was Hard Living and Atten says Yeah her face looks like it was plowed by crazed Ord Mantell Farmers Don't tell me you were too distracted by her personality To notice or you could have said look Ease off the insults she's she was wounded Helping us escape remember I got the Ord Mantel

Farmer one I see so you said hard living But because the heart like She was good looking but it's been a lot of hard living Yes is a lot of like you know what You know what that is you're talking about like mid career Susan Sarandon, my friend. Like, this is, this is a young guy being like, obviously, you know, she's

little, but. Yeah. Before we get back to. It's just us, right? You see it. Dude. It's like, thanks, Atten. Thanks, buddy. He would be so lucky for mid-career Susan Sarandon to even look in his direction. Okay, but let's be fucking clear.

Doesn't he have? Craig had to look at his direction. Let's be real. Doesn't he have the energy of the 20-something, some like, power CEO 57 year old woman you know to be dating and you're like what the fuck is she doing with this complete imbecile he has a baby girl situation that is what i'm saying he's not braving him he's inevitable is is crea baby girl well we'll get we'll get this so either way he's like you got to check in on her yeah so you do and uh

Another signature Cotor 2, lengthy exposition. I would say a third of my playtime. Yes, that's right. In this next bite of the game was talking to Crea. Yeah. Yeah, the let's play we put up is three hours. The first hour is talking to Crayo. It's getting arrested.

It also takes forever because her line, like, she's so good at reading these lines that I'm like, I'm going to let this play. Other dialogue I'll skip. But Crea, it's like, no, let's just let's. let's see how she spins this soak it in oh she's spinning man i you know she is she's in all time what okay what's your fucking angle lady she's such a good version of our classic obiwan and yota are shooting luke skywalker like a missile at the emperor she's like instantly like how do i make this this idiot who stopped being a jenni be my sword again you know or be my sword now type situation. That was not a split. That was not a slip up

craya. I'm not like hiding some sort of deep craya thing that was just weird talking. Well, and so like, and it's also your chance to now get into someone who has a little better of an idea that what happened in the first game. Hey, so how did we get here? And you have your option of do you skip through the sort of the podd history of the Mandalorian Wars? But if you don't, at each turn, there is kind of meditation to like tip your hand about the exiles belief. about how it all unfolded was.

So it's kind of a chance for you to sort of determine what your exiles relationship to all this is. And you know the option of being like, I don't remember any of this. I'm a blank slate. You just play Cotor 2 that way. But you can also be a version of the exile who was like, I was a young idealistic Jedi

who I needed to do something with Mandalorians and the council wouldn't let us. So I followed Revin and the gang. Or you can be a little bit more like a rule follower. It seldom can explain how you ended up out there. but you know the versions of how the order split were you an acolyte of Revenant Malik who were the only ones who were willing to respond to the Mandalorian threat were you sort of a Jedi who towed the party line but God involved later and then you know it's also a chance

to get into so how did you end up being an exile and you can basically straight up say like I got super Sith coded or you can like do an ambivalent like I did things I'm not proud of. Yeah. Or you can be disillusioned with the Jedi Order. There's a lot of like shadings that you can put it. I don't know how I do not know whether that is just an opportunity for you to like to put down markers for your expression of the exile, but it makes no impact in the game. Or if this stuff is like a bit like in a lot of in third part of a trilogy when you have a choice about like what happened in the previous game.

Right. It fills in now which story branches were in. It doesn't make any big swings in terms of which we made our big one, which is, was Revin dark side or light side? And also was Revin a dude or a lady? Those are too big, which total branch of the game are we in from the first part of Paragus? Now what we're getting is dark side and light side points, which you can get a couple of times in this conversation.

Generally, it's about looking forward and what you will do and not looking back. So for instance, you were just talking about like the way that you can express yourself about what happened in the past. So regardless of whether you say, you know, about the Mandalorians until we destroyed them at Malacore 5, or even in that final battle, we almost lost the war, regardless of if you take this sort of aggressive approach or this almost mournful approach, that's nothing. That's no dark side, light side points. But where those start to come in are questions like when she's explaining that the Republic is so badly weakened by the Jedi civil war. And so when you say something like, then we must do what we can until it has a chance

to recover, that's light side points, whereas if the Republic is weak, it didn't deserve to win is dark side points. And then you also have one opportunity in this conversation to start to gain or lose influence with, I guess actually only gain influence with Crea, which is one of these great moments of illustrating. I talked in the last session about, or the last, you know, episode about how like the influence mechanics in this game work, you're gaining influence with characters. When you get enough influence with them, it opens up different dialogue trees and side quests and stuff like that. It does not tell you exactly what thing raised or lowered your influence. But if you did gain influence, it will say influence gained. Sometimes you're

going to have a conversation where it says influence gained, influence lost, because you can make different choices in the power. I had that. And in this case, the one thing that where you can gain influence from Crea is she says, I offer to train you to become strong again, to know the ways of the force and to hear the force sing within you as it once did. And if you say, I accept you as a teacher for now, that's nothing. No influence gain in either direction. If you say, I would welcome whatever aid you offer, you gain one light side point and eight influence with Crea. And if you say, if your training brings me power, then I will listen, you gain one dark side point and aid influence with Crea, which influence and light side side points are.

not the same thing. The relationship with a person is not the same thing with your relationship to the force. Regardless of what you say, she says, then our training shall begin. Whenever I travel with you, I shall impart what I can to you through my words and presence. You can also say, you can actually lose here, because you can say, I have no use for mentors, but a servant, yes, or a long-winded scow and my thoughts is enough, leave me be. Those both give you dark side points and influence loss. And she nevertheless is like, you know, If you say a servant, yes, she says, that is acceptable. Whenever I travel with you all in part what I can with you through my words and presence. And if you say, just leave me B, she says,

that's fine. She's very well. The choice is yours. When we travel, simply leave me behind and you shall be saved from my counsel. I cannot imagine leaving cray. I'm sure someone's done the leave craya on the ship run. The Crailus run of Cotor 2, but it seems bad to me, I think. I'm curious if there are any of the big things that stood out from this long conversation about Kraya or with Kraya about the past for any of y'all? Do we say the big thing, which is that like our force power supposedly is because of a link that we have to her? I think we mentioned a piece of this at the end of last episode when I was getting

annoyed by her giving me force acid. effect. Oh, did you turn that off, by the way? As a reminder, you can turn that off. They turned off force high. Yeah. Yeah, no, I remember this conversation

she goes into explaining a little bit of what her understanding is of the force connection or at least as much as she wants to tell you at this point. So I think you can open up by talking I think the conversation opens up by talking about how we both felt, you know, pain from her losing her hand. And then it goes into a conversation, like, what does that mean for us?

Are we, like, how bonded are we really? And she, you can say to her, like, what would have happened if I had died? And she says, you know, I do not know. I fear that the consequences would have been more extreme. And you, like, talk about what it might feel like if she died. And it feels, it's very undetermined, but she kind of talks around, you know, obviously we shouldn't test this thing. And there's also some, I mentioned. part of this briefly before, but this long dialogue is an opportunity for the game to

start sewing up kind of loose ends and quote-unquote plot holes around the force bond and they're also the Sith assassins being so weak. The force bond thing is they say very like clear like, oh, well, when we're both fighting, we're so locked in that it's okay. The Forespon, you don't get hurt when I get hurt in combat because we're so, we're like ready for it. And then the Sith assassin thing is, is I actually think very interesting because I think it starts to talk about some of them. Because they're level locked. Because they're level locked to you because they reflect the thing that she says is like these Sith assassins can sense the prey, since their prey through the force. It's like a hunger.

They feed and grow stronger when they are near. Like Warnskers. Like Vornskers. When they're near force sensitives, the stronger the prey is. the force, the deadlier they become. As long as you were cut off from it, you were able... But just by one tier. By what, yeah, you didn't have... Just one step down from their prey. Right, one attribute point, the lower. As long as you're able to... As long as you were cut off

from it, you were able to evade their sight. But after Paragas, I fear you will no longer be shielded from the eyes or the eyes of their masters. The stronger you grow, the more you... The more will come. So yes, obviously, that is in-game leveling stuff. I also think we're beginning to hear whose voice is that Ein Rand's voice calling powerful people gain enemies the powerful seem to

come under the threat of the parasitic those who would take their power for their own much to consider as we go forward it's not the only time we get Crea philosophy here right because the other big philosophical thing

that Crea lines out and it's not it is not the first time we've heard this in Star Wars but it's kind of the most it's kind of the most direct it's it's said which is like the force is the only thing that fucking matters buddy guns don't matter droids don't matter you know wars only matter so long as the force is involved with it she says the war the one true war has never been waged by droids or

warships or soldiers they are but crude matter obstacles against which we test ourselves The true war is raged in the hearts of all living things Against our own nature's light or dark That is what shapes and binds this galaxy Not these creations of man You are the battleground And if you fall The death of the Republic will be such a quiet thing

A whisper that shall herald the darkness to come And you don't get to come back and be like I think guns are actually important in war I think that speech was little better when Brad Pitt delivered it in Fight Club. I mean, but it's also Darth Vader saying the power of the space station means nothing in the face of the force, right? But it's said in a way that's like a lot more, you know, guns, germs, and steel is wrong.

You know, dialectical materialism is wrong. The world is filled with ideas. The force is what moves history, you know. It's also such a product of this particular era, like it's late Bush era. There's a point where she says a culture is teaching. and most importantly the nature of its people achieve definition and conflict they find themselves or find

themselves lacking. That is like straight out of wars of course that gives us meaning which was sort of like the like there was an embrace in the center and center right of this notion of armored military conflict was a chance to like see a nation's medal

and actually without it you know there could be a certain a national onwee could be lurking. And so it was good that the United States was in Iraq, for instance, because otherwise, these kids just be on their, playing their halos. That's right. We would just be playing our halos instead of going out to be John Spartan for real.

Yeah. Also, when here, Rob, is your classic. It's not yours. I know this is not a classics thing and not a you thing. But how many times does she say that the Republic and the Mandalorian kind of came to look like one another in through their conflict, which is I think we've talked about with the clones and the battle droids a lot

and the Sith and the Jedi. So it's all here. Yeah. It's, it's kind of a goofy, like there's parts of this that just have me cracking up. The like the Sith assassins are level locked to you.

You're going to find they're going to get a little harder. I liked it. I really liked it. You know, there is, there is, yeah, We'll continue to see how they

I bet at some point they get lightsabers Your bullshit lore reason for why there are Oh You go ahead You finish your thought because I just remembered something I have to pitch y'all for a future stuff But go ahead No please pitch

No hang on before you go in that then I have a line I want to talk about this Awesome did you bring up the shell Surrounding the Heart of Man You know I normally do But I don't think in this case I did Because another wild like This is like force you

supremacy, like, at its most pure distillation. The Republic was never what was important, ever. It was but a shell that surrounds the Jedi, just as the teachings of the Jedi are a shell surrounding the heart of man. This woman believes in nothing. I absolutely adore her. It's incredible. Like, one, the Republic, just a convenient meat shield around the Jedi to spare them governing,

which I kind of believe, I kind of buy into the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the The Jedi are the guardians of the Republic. And the Republic can do all the shit that doesn't matter to the Jedi. And the Jedi will buttress this, like, order to make sure it doesn't fall because it lets them, you know, meditate and shit. Like, like, forget to fight the SIF. The bit later where the two of you sit down to meditate rat and is like, I'm going to sleep, actually. They do a little TikTok video together. It's incredible.

They're drinking that $80 water bottle. You know they are. They're getting up at 4 a.m. to do sit-ups. But then also that the Jedi Code, and fuck it, maybe the Sith Code too.

It's all just shit. We wrap around our basis desires and who we are at the bottom and everything else. Sith Code, Jedi Code. It's a series of rationalizations for what force users

wanted to do in the first place. And, you know, like, oh, it's a strong cup of coffee. Yeah. It's pretty, I mean, and then obviously caught up in this is, of course, also the thing that we, the other part of this. Allie, you said one of the big things here is she, the bombs she drops is the way you can get

the force back is by hanging out with me. Our bond is going to bring you the force back. She also says the other part, which is, where did you, you know, she tells you where you lost the force from and kind of scold you if you try to say that that's not what happened. She says, if my suspicions are correct, perhaps the damage the Jedi Council did was not as permanent as they thought. It is not an easy thing to cut one off from the force. And you could be like, wait, the Jedi did this to me?

And she goes, what did you believe that you suddenly lost connection with the force without reason? Oh, yeah. I thought I was just really sad. I just thought I lost it. I thought I lost my aura. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Interesting.

So, yeah, Rob, again, to your point, like, here she is. The only thing that matters is the force. The only thing that matters to people who have access to the force, you know, is it any wonder she doesn't like Atten because he's such a like a vulgar human. You know what I mean? He's the most like bundle of id character we've seen in Cotor so far. Well, she kind of so. Methink the lady don't protest too much, though.

Because you're like, Atten's not so bad. And he's like, he's an imbecile. His potential eyes down, not up. But then the second you fall asleep, she's like, Let's talk. Let's talk with the exile. It's true. Let's stay up on light and whisper.

That's what happens in sleepovers. That's true. Yeah. Enemies become friends. If you're the first one to fall asleep, I promise you the other two are talking. If you've seen White Lotus, you know, a trio of besties.

There's always two besties. closer than the third bestie and you got to watch out for it. Yeah. Yeah, it's the, I think you're on the something there, Austin, with the like older CEO with a younger piece of shit. There's a little

bit of like, I like the contempt I have for this irredeemable, like late 20s, early 30s, piece of crap. Yeah, it's not that she likes him. It's that she likes getting to be this mad at somebody all the time. It's enjoyable for her. Um,

Another thing on the, like, all that matters is the force, the Jedi and the Sith. You know, she also outlines a difference between this set of Sith lords and Reverend Malik. And that difference is their disinterest in political matters, right? Right. This new set of Sith lords, she says, like, they are dedicated to one thing, finding and killing the Jedi. That's what the Sith have always been motivated by. She gives a two paragraph summary of the Tales of the Jedi books that we read. during Cotaur 1, which is like, yeah, thousands of years ago, there were some guys who stopped

being Jedi that became a dark Jedi. They connected with a place far away, and then they came back, and there was a bunch of war about it, and then that happened again. One of them turned into a pyramid. Sorry, Ziggurat. That's right. Third Ziggurat was here. Yeah, and yeah, that's the, you know, that's the big differentiator between, quote, unquote, the Sith, is that what they seek is the death of all Jedi. So, they're not trying to necessarily wipe out the Republic, but if the Republic dies along the way, so be it. I'm trying to figure Crea out.

Like, what, what are her, like, what does she believe? What is she? I, I, I, I'm trying to sort in my mind if she is, like, a determinist about the way in which the force, like, that the force is kind of, the, the wills and ways of the force is determined and we are like moving along a timeline of where the force moves between, you know, light and dark and that we're a part of this, you know, lifelong struggle that is outside of our, you know, immediate control. But then she talks, the way that she emphasizes how, much you yourself it are the a is the last anchor of the force for for the whole

gal of the light side of the force for the whole galaxy like without you the the world will be lost to darkness yeah is interesting it almost feels like yeah things we know about Craa. Let's keep let's let's let's note these I'm opening a new notepad file Notepad are we sure Jolie Bindo's wife is dead Oh my good

Please all right things we know about craya one Cryptic Two she wants you to live seemingly right She wants the exile she doesn't want to die She wants to live and she wants the exile to live Is that fair to say Part because they got this bond

Right. Yep. Okay. Bonded with the exile. Bonded with the exile. Or maybe she just wants you to think that. Okay, combined with the exile, question mark. Mysterious. Other things we know. Old. Old. Old. Hard living. Sion's former teacher. Uh-huh.

Mm-hmm. Gilf? I'll put gilf in quotes and then I'll quote it or I'll attribute it to act. She does have this, like, not saying Kate Blanchett is, is Guilf status, but she does have this, like, this, because I don't think she's all the way in Guilf. She's like, she's like, she's still milf. She's like, she's in the transitionary. I guess it's not, I guess, it's not, I guess, she could be a young Gil. That's what I'm saying.

Kate Blanchette is one of the most beautiful women on this planet. I would do anything to be in her presence. She's incredible to me. This is how Craya gets you, by the way. I see myself being susceptible to Crea because I've watched Caryl. Such dedication to a woman you've never even met. Is it so easy to turn your spirit? Crea is like, is every older lesbian woman that Cate Blanchette has played in the past 10 years.

Like she is, she is Lydia Tard to me. She is Carol She is like This was my theory by the way This was my working theory I said in chat In the Discord In our in our

podcast chat I was like I have a working theory On Crea My working theory Is that she's She's some She's she's she's She's Kate Blanchette

Somehow Okay She's gonna be played by Cape Blanche We're just gonna keep going back to that That is the Put Kate Blanchette on the on the board Austin. Okay, I put that number seven, Kate Lanchette. She's just in it. She's, she's a woman that is like, is impossible to please, but like. But imagine if you could. But desperate, but like wants your, the way that Atten keeps talking about how she wants your approval. She does. Is like psychological torture in like this incredible way. She's like, it, does she want my approval? Or does.

do I want, I know I want her approval, but if she wants mine, then what is, what is the dynamic here? Because she's my mentor and I am accepting her as my mentor. And she's also telling me a lot about the world, but she's also telling me that she's here to save me. That's, let's get that right. She's here to save me. But when we were on Piraugas, we were saving each other.

So she's saving me, we're saving each other I'm the last Jedi What's going on? Yeah, interesting She's not She's not like there are two Jedi left Me and you She seems to be above it all

You're it Yeah, she's giving what is And also if I die That might also be bad for you She is giving You know Joe Lee Bindo is like The Light and Dark side stuff is too simplified I'm going to go live on Kashika

about it. I lost my sick wife. Sick as in cool, not sick is in dying from sickness. And I have to go just be outside of the world. And she seems like she's saying light and dark. Those are, those are important. Those are real concepts, but they're kind of below me. And I've decided I want to run history. I want to be the one who decides what happens next in the history books, kind of the opposite position that Jolie had. Mm-hmm. Yeah. She's clearly, still in the in the matrix of

a thing of happenings like she is still placing herself in the event goings on matrix but as opposed to Jolie who is like who's on the fuck off planet so anyway

Ali I interrupted you it just occurred to me do we even have a sense yet of why she was even on the Eben Hawk while we were being like transported in custody question mark like she was rescuing well okay wait actually did any of you talk to t3 oh yes okay and that's something i want to answer the list okay kreya does not like droids she talks a lot of shit to t3 and i don't fuck with her it's not i don't need that tension yeah the fact that she end atten don't like droids is wild that's the one thing they can

bond over especially because t3 is so like beep beep boo yeah how could you not like T3 T3 so good He's helpful He will give you computer spikes If you ask for it And his best friend just died That's true

You can upgrade your weapons on the go with him You can do that Oh yeah I mean who of us could Forget the name of his best friend Who was of course You know who could ever forget 3 CFD

C3FD We do get a droid with the best name in Star Wars of the session, too, I should say, which is B4, I think B4D4, is that right? Yeah. Is that Guglii eyes? He kind of has Googly eyes. The Zirka?

The Zerka dried, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get some choice B4D4 in the next session. Can't wait. I also added here believes the force and ideas are the engines of history, right under H droids. I wrote that first, I didn't say it. Craifax. Thank you.

So, but wait, hang on, is there some implication that T3 knows what's up with, like, how Cray ended up on that ship? that we were getting out that T3. Well, there's a big... Did you talk to T3? I thought T3. I tried to, like, fix T3 and I didn't have a skill. Allie, it sounds like you talked to T3

and maybe got a little update. Yeah, but I don't recall what you're referencing. I think I repaired T3 once, and I just remembered, like, talking T3 was like coming home again, you know? Like, what we were talking about didn't matter. The fact that we were able to lock in with each other and just be friends again.

So none of you got... Made me feel warm. None of you got the hollow message out of T3 then. No. No. Oh, I see. Mm-mm. Damn it.

You should repair that repair up yet. You should get T3 repaired. Because he's carrying a message from someone we know. Oh. No. Which what? Not really. But it is a gentleman.

No, I'm mixing this up of when you see Carth in the last episode who's just there. And I was like, is it a message from the carth? No, it's just the... It's a message from Bastel. So you should get your repair up. We'll talk about it once you do. Second thing here then, did you all get info from Crea on the three Sith lords? Because you can be like, hey, who are they?

And I think it maybe only had this conversation with her in the hotel room or in the studio apartment. I don't know if I had this with her on the Evan Hawk or not. But you can get it here. So I think this is important enough for me to read outlast. And y'all should just talk to her as soon as you can because I think it's probably worth us thinking about this game, Cotor to the Sith lords and knowing as soon as we can, which is now who the Sith lords are. Does that sound good? Okay. Yeah.

You can say, uh, where, here we go. Okay. Do you know anything about the Sith who pursue us? And if you don't have enough influence with her, which by now you easily can, I have it at this point. She says, nothing more than we already know. And anything else I know would be useless. There is danger in such knowledge, even if I were certain of the ones who hunt you. If you do have enough, she says, I know of them, yes, and how much like beasts they had become.

Combined, united against the Jedi, they command legions of Sith. But above these legions, there are three who must be stopped as long as any one of them lives than we and all life. are doomed. One bathes in pain, feeds on it for sustenance. The other has ceased being a living being, so consumed by hunger that he has forgotten his own flesh. And the last is a creature of betrayals. For without such things, there is no hope. And you can say, you can be like, well, what's up with them? You can say, the one who bathes in pain, cyan? Which is where I was like, Oh, shit. Do you know his name already? I missed that. And she says, yes, of pain he has learned much. Of knowledge of teaching, he knows nothing. Like the others, he was spawned by the horrors of the

Mandalorian Wars. He exists solely to spread his pain to all Jedi everywhere. So, horrors of the Mandalorian Wars, like you as part of the Mandalorian Wars, of knowledge of teaching, he knows nothing, which we already know that she was his teacher. So, again kind of carrying mentor who's mad at her old student energy bad grad mentor and he just slowly spread his pain everywhere the second one uh is who is the betrayer and she says even now she is difficult to see she must remain hidden for now until the time is right if not then all our efforts will be for nothing in this you must trust me if she is exposed too soon then this war will be over before it has begun.

Betrayer, hidden, can't be revealed too soon. Three, and the one consumed by hunger. The less said of that one, the better. Even a stray thought may draw him, and it is possible that he cannot be defeated. He is one who has learned the greatest of the Sith teachings, and it enslaved him. Until you are ready, we must not seek him out. and so we have one where you gotta not think about him or else he might notice, which is pretty bad.

Sheave doesn't even have it like that. Sheave doesn't know if you're thinking about him. That's a crazy power. Damn, Darth Candyman. Darth Candyman is here. And so yeah, we know Darth Sion's name. We don't know the other ones at this point, but we do know that it's hunger, pain, and betrayal.

Those are the three sort of... And they're not Malik and Revin. As far as we know. Well, Malik's dead. because we killed him with mines by running him around in circles as he stepped on mines or threw grenades at him, as you may recall. Right, right, right, right. And Revin, I'll just tell you this bit from the T3 thing.

We don't have to go through the whole thing. Reven's gone. Revin left. Reven went somewhere. Reven disappeared. Okay. You got a little bit for the T3. We've heard that so far.

Yeah, we know that Revin, like, disappeared into the, into history. We can talk more about it. Didn't Atten say that on the first planet? Maybe. No one's seen Revin since the war. Blah, blah, blah. You did a little more from T3 that suggests that Revin like went somewhere on a mission. And I have to tell you that in 2004 when this game came out, that was the most intriguing thing a person had ever said out loud in any form of media. All my friends and I could talk about was like, where did Revin go? Where did he go? What's Revin doing? Is Revan okay? Can I go where Revan is? So getting that little knowledge drop was big. Questions Bastille is asking, too. Quite literally, Rob, like I said. I really thought we had something. Like, I imprinted my personality on him when he was, when he was in his coma.

Like, what's going on? What the fuck? I forgot how bad Bastel it kind of is. I forgot. I forgot that she was kind of also master manipulator, you know? Oh. She's so terrible. Well.

God. And then her fucking turn. the dark side. It's bad. The all-black Bastila did not have it like that. Any other Kraya or Atten on the ship stuff? Sorry, this is the thing that comes up with

I've heard this often said about like listening to Bomani Jones podcast. One of the combines I've heard a few people talk about with John Morant is that the thing that's really like cringy about him is he's not a bad

kid, but he's trying to act like a bad kid. Right. Someone who's like fundamentally kind of soft and sheltered trying to act like hard. And that's Bastille's Sith term. She doesn't have it like that. She doesn't have the, you, you met her mom. You know what I mean? You know who both raised her and then who raised her in the Jedi.

You can't be a convincing treasure hunter when your parents were two flavors of hippie, basically. Put the gun away. Put the gun away, ja. Ja. Come on, buddy. we know you're not like that we know yeah it's okay you're a good boy yeah you're good kid you just like come on it's fine i know you don't want a basketball i know you don't want people to treat

you the way they they treat tatum or haliburton they want you they want you to seem hard you're not it's okay this is actually the most little brother thing you could do it is quite honest but yeah that that is her when when she's like in her in her feelings being like i'm a bad girl now Don't look at me, Revin You'd hate to see what's become of me It's so goofy Final other thing here Did anybody open the door in the ship

Yes, this is what I wanted to Wanted to call this out Who else put the The vocabulator in HK In the HK unit Did So yeah, you find HK 47 That looks like HK 47

It's the right color it's not the kind of silver, chrome, black HK50 that we fall, which also means that the person banging on the door before must have been that HK unit, question mark. Remember in the tutorial someone's banging on that door? So maybe that was HK. And yes, you get a quest here. But I thought they broke out. But they must nodded.

That must have been a little switcheroo where you thought you were looking at HK 50, but really 47 was in there the whole time. Or maybe not. Maybe we'll find out something different. I don't quite remember the detail on this, so I can be wrong. But I do know. We now have a quest, which is we could get the parts to fix HK. They're spread across the galaxy.

You can go get them from different places. Which also brings me back to something else, which is after we finish Tilos, which is not quite yet, because we have, I don't know how we're cutting up the next one quite yet. We'll have to talk about it a little bit at the end of this. But the... But a thing that Cotor 2 does, and I think Cotor 1 may have done this too, is it locks in the NPCs of areas when you first go to the planet. So, like, think about in the previous game, if we'd gone to Dantuin, you know, I guess you actually go right to Dantuin after Terrace, but if you go to, what's the, what's

the water planet called? Manon. If you go to Manon first, then the enemies are like level. 10 or whatever, but if you go to Corribon first, they're level 10 there. And the way it works is it kind of locks it in in such a way that it's like, oh, they'll be level 10 even if you then leave and come back, because that's like when they get generated. At least that's my understanding. And people can tell us if I'm wrong about that, but I do, I saw some people talking about this earlier, and I think that that's correct. And I want to float, and we don't need to decide this yet,

because we have a little bit of extra, we have, you know, we have to record another session first before we get there. But there's one planet that I think is really good to do early, but it's kind of hard. And it specifically has the, it's one of the places where I think the content restoration mod added way too much combat. I think we were blessedly not had, we didn't have to do it all, basically, for this section. And then two, there's a lot of combat where you're playing a solo character and maybe not even your own character, sometimes not even your own character.

Sometimes it's like new party member. It's like you're just playing as them, which Cotaur one did a little bit of, but this does like in some bigger chunks. And I was thinking we could maybe go to that planet, the hard planet, Narcadah, just to like check in and then bounce and go to a different planet next and actually do the other planet. But it would lock in the Narcadah stuff at lower level. And I was going to float that. We can think about it. We can get some responses from fans to see if they think that that will fuck us over in a way I haven't considered. Like maybe we won't get enough XP when we get to Narshada.

That's totally possible. But I'm very aware of putting a lot of combat in front of y'all in a row in a planet right after what we get through for the rest of this, you know. So just want to float that. We can talk about it again. But if people are listening and who've done that and can tell me if that's like a disastrous plan, let me know. I've been thinking we do jump to Narcadah and then go to Andoran and then finish Andoran

and go, well, get through Andoran minus the stuff. you can't complete the first time you go there and then go back to Narshadal. Please let me know if that makes sense, listeners, before I commit to that pathway. Okay. I guess we'll see. We'll see. Last thing on the ship, do you talk to Atten about your lightsaber? Yep.

What'd you say? Natalie's been confused. Did you not talk to Aydne about your life? No, I did. Okay, okay. I think you have to, actually. I thought I did. Yeah.

What did you tell one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was a two-hander guy. And then he was like, well, what happened to it? And I was like, I don't remember. But of course, you'd sort of tell that the ex-halla remembers exactly if he's pretending. That's course. I love that you get this conversation.

I love that Atten is like, so tell me. So tell me about your lightsaber. What color was it? What type was it? I said I said I was double-bladed and I said that it was a Viridian blade when the Jedi Order

had never seen before because I'm so unique and special and I'm one of a kind that's cool yeah Allie what color was yours no I keep getting these because like I know the

I get game mechanics enough to know the purpose of this conversation to be like, this is a lightsaber you're going to get later. But I'm trying to roleplay as someone who does not want to rejoin the Jenna. Yeah, totally. So I was just like, don't ask me about my lightsaber. And that basically was it. Yeah, okay. I told him I had an orange one. I think that's been very funny here is you could be like, both the blade and the crystal were unique.

and you have a yeah unique how and he'd be like it was blue like the other Jedi guardians have bro that's not unique you said your definition of it was not like the Jedi you said it was you said it was the same as the other Jedi actually I know but there's like a different blue

like the shade I yeah right mine was just a little different right of course I love that he also has more to say if you say it's double-bladed lightsaber if you go it was a single held he goes huh figures it wasn't red was it but we go double-bladed he goes Hmm I hear the twin blades are harder to master

But they can make enemies stampede over each other Running for cover A lot of Jedi in the Mandalorian Wars Use double-bladed lightsabers A more aggressive blade gives you more slaughter per swing Hey you didn't go red did you Calm down What is this guy's deal

What is his fucking deal? I don't get him because he's like I'm so sensitive But I'm also one of the most Crass people you will ever meet and I'm also a fucking nerd about random Jedi stuff and like randomly know

one. Yeah. Yeah. Strangely sensitive. Uh-huh. Is he like the kids in war in the pocket? Is he like the kids? Oh, I see.

Explain what that means or non-Gundum listening audience. Yeah. Okay, so it's a Gundam show where there's a war going on and the kids are really super into the war even though it's bad. You don't want to have that happening at your house. Oh, like Gundham fans.

Yeah. I mean, Rob, literally, they're, like, Gundam, they, like, make Gundam models, and they talk about how sick it is when the Gundams, like, when they sneak on their little base, and you should not be doing that, you're seven. Me when I'm building my Gundam models, the same as his rules, me, when I'm being drafted to find the Gundam War. Actually, it's so pretty cool, though. We should. We should. We should. It's so good. Watch the space. It's watch the space. If we initially watch the space with Gundam, it's over for me. It's up. All right, at in fact, number one, shithead.

Number two, strangely empathetic. Three. Yeah, like, I just feel like I imagine him, like, reading, like, battle reports or, like, he seems like a Jedi fanboy. Kind of a nerd about Jedi. Like that dude in the menu. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Oh, is that a Paco, Jack? But he's. But he's. also trying to be like nonchalant but he's like

not at all like putting on nonchalant yeah I like that I like that and what the hell is he in prison for allegedly horny allegedly horny he does have that energy of like

what was he in prison yeah this is how guys talk we man I'm super horny that lady over there it's like he's like pretending to be a bro and his and like thinks I'm what do you think of those bizongas

okay yeah that's that's cool dude uh-huh seems like he's emulating a certain sort of masculinity he's not really like that and I mean like that in both ways he's not like that you know

all right he were not him At in facts yeah he is not him I, every time I think about, like, could you imagine having this conversation about Carth Onassis on the third episode of our Cotor coverage? Again, there's lots of problems with this game. We, again, we, you know, blessedly did not have a lot of combat in this section, so,

and it still has issues. It really still has, like, pacing issues and all sorts of other shit. But I think the companions are just more interesting, you know? I just think that that's, to me, the heart of why I like to play these games is, Like, who are these weirdos? And I like the weirdos in Cotor 1, but I didn't have no fact list about Carth, you know? Outside of like he... Name a Carth fact.

Patton looks like he has something on his mind. Hey, Jedi. I found this protocol drawing who can give you a purity test. It's really fun. It'll give you a score at the end. You just tell it was the stuff you've done with other people. I got a 52. What do you think your score would be?

you think you like that motherfucker any other stuff on the Evan Hawk did anybody find the hidden compartment you get anything cool from there in the there's like the there's a side room in the Evan Hawk that has like a wall panel you can access I couldn't select it with my controller

I had to click on it with a mouse to open it which is very weird but that could just be my weird like screen capture set up so but Natalie you found it oh wait you're saying that had like things inside oh yeah there's a secret compartment console no the compartment it's like uh it's like uh no i know you mentioned that there was a secret compartment on the ship but i couldn't find it i was running around looking for it it's in like the cargo room got it got it got it i was very compelled by the security cameras

before I went to go talk to Kraya I like did a security camera sweep and seeing Krea kneeling in the security camera I have a screenshot of it So do I? We'll compare our screen I will compare them. It's so haunting but it's also kind of baby girl like now that I'm looking at it with after this conversation it's kind of giving

When I first thought, I was like, wow, she's so, she's so... You're I posted it for you. It's an excerpt for my left button. Match and print screen. Uh-huh. I've taken a screeching of her, kneeling. I've written meditating, crossing off, and rough horror farming. She knows people are watching on secure.

I have to meditate. It's all the cool as shit. Ah, this will sway the exile to my side. They only need see how determined I look. oh my god she's great i would do anything for crea that's my fucking problem that's the idea yeah all right so you get to tell to telos and immediately the cops are like we have some questions about that gas station planet you left exploding behind you but they're actually really cool about it they're like we don't know what's going on we're we're going to keep you

in custody and then we'll give you an apartment at some point if you need to stay longer. You need to give us all your stuff. You can do a few options of conversation and like, hey,

go fuck yourselves. You're still going. You're still going to the slammer. And while you're in there, you're in the little like tubes. You're in the force, the force cells.

Yep. And then Batu Rant. Just bought. Oh, if there is a Batu Ram, Batu Ram. Batu Ram.

It was like Batu Rand. No. We already have a Rand. Baton Rand. Yeah, Batu Rem shows up. The world's stupidest assassin. But like very high and mighty opinion of himself. Like very, I think I'm Admiral Thrawn type thing.

Yes. Only a genius could have snuck into this mall security room where these people are being kept. I cleverly stole this rent-a-cop's identity in uniform to penetrate their citizens. to tell. It's important that Agent 47 doesn't have a monologue button in the hitman game because he'd be a herb if he did, you know? Atten is even like, let me guess. You're just going to hit the button that says, kill everyone in the cells.

He's like, oh, I could do that. I could. But I won't. Instead, he lets you all out and you like kung fu him to death. He lets us out for me. Cray was sitting on a ton of levels that weren't committed. So he lets us out. I'm like, hang on one second.

Craig is Super Saiyan. Boy. Boy, so she gets out of the cell. Immediately knows how to choke someone. Oh. He just gets, like, smoked. Batu Ram.

And of course, you learn it's not even Batu Ram. It's a guy pretending to be a guy named Batu Ram. It gets owned. Just. And we learn, of course. That's absolutely. Absolutely incredible. Like HK50, he again is another guy who's trying to get you for the exchange,

which seems to be we are on the hit list, you know? They're sending their bets after us. And like John Wick, we are killing all comers. And immediately cops show up and are like, hey, what's all this then? Is that Bantu Rem? Wait, no, that's not, that's not him. He's on, he's on vacation. Well, anyway, only a mastermind.

People with real juice, they're the only ones who could have gotten through our security and gotten this assassin here. Anyway, we're going to set you up a nice little condo over in the residential wing. We have to keep you. We're having pound your ship and your gear. But that'll all be, that'll all be returned to you as soon as we clear you of these charges. So come on to come on this little condo. you know i think it is it is very funny how much these cops suck not in the way that video game cops often do where they are like authoritarian jackbooted you know what i mean like thugs they're

just inept they're just not good at this this is like faulty towers yeah like it really is oh geez like wow assassin got in here again uh anyway please except my humblest apologies we'd love to set you up in complimentary, uh, three bed. The, the, the, maybe this is a point to, to mention this because I think this is, three bed one room, by the way. Oh yeah, one room. You can get that, I've been looking recently, you can get that a green point for about $3,000. I think it's a little cramped. Um, uh, there's a, there's a, there's a, you have access to a basement also if you want to go put your stuff down there. It's kind of nice. Um, this might be a place where, you know, for me, showing,

the cops who suck in this way does reek, not positive. It feels like another place where the lead designer of this game's libertarianism, or I guess I don't actually know. I should not say Chris Avalon is libertarian. Libertarian themes show up again and again in Avalon's work. I don't know what his political leanings actually are definitively. I have not done the research into reading his old form posts or whatever, but I do know what pops up in his work again and again.

And I also know what allegations he has against him, which people, which we should talk about in a second, actually. For people who don't know, Avalon is the lead designer of this game. He was also a designer on Fallout 2, and then the lead designer on Plainscape Torment, which is widely considered to be the best game in it genre, which is the computer RPG, or like the classic CRPG version of what BioWare would then kind of bring to the console with Cotaur, and then with Dragon Age and Mass Effect, those games, that genre of like, of kind of computer RPG going back to the Gold Box stuff, D&D games, the original Balthersgate games,

Icewindale, Plainscape Torment, Plainscape is kind of considered the best one of those. And then he was the lead designer on this and a senior designer on New Vegas. So, you know, someone who has a resume that goes up and down some of the most popular games in Western RPGs. He is also someone who in 20, Rob, do you know the top of your head when these allegations, the misconduct allegation, 2020. In 2020, there were sexual misconduct allegations against him. There were lawsuits. He then, of course, filed a liable suit against the people who brought those. accusations against him, and that suit was settled with them paying him a seven-figure payment,

which I think we historically know that that does not mean that you need to come down one way or the other on how you feel about those allegations, but that is how it is reported. And so I think it's probably worth saying that, like, I think that he hangs over this game and all of those other games like New Vegas and Plainscape in a big way. He didn't solo write this game. There's a big design team. But his work is, you know, he's key to what this is. And I think that his political interests are all over this game.

And I say that partly because the mid-2000s was a weird time politically, especially if you weren't there and are only reading about it now. There was a strange burgeoning alliance between what was a reemergency. progressive wing of the Democratic, you know, party sort of, and a frustrated libertarian wing of, I wouldn't even call them. Yeah. I think about this a lot. I was on anti-war.com, like, almost every day during the early 2000s, because I was actually a really good place to, like, learn a lot of, like, just what was happening in Afghanistan

and Iraq, et cetera. But if you're on anti-war.com, you start to get this sense that, like, some weird shit cropped up there sometimes like and the word of com was run by a weird like right wing libertarian I think adjacent blogger Justin Romando but like

you had the V1 point O version of Glenn Greenwald writing on salon in that era and then you had like paleo cons you know like oh fuck gave the gave the disastrous convention speech in 92

Buchanan, Pap Buchanan, who was basically like an America first isolationist. And libertarianism, like, was a major part of, like, a major part of the anti-war discourse in part because what is more government overreach than the Bush administration and these wars?

And you had, so a lot of those ideas to be mainstreamed and most successfully by like Ron Paul in that era where people are like oh here's kind of this kooky grandpa who is a libertarian but also he just yeah he doesn't believe the government should exist but also he doesn't believe

the government should be bombing people around the world that's cool uh hey why does he have connections to a place like uh vda what is v dare and that is like the 2000s of this bizarre place because you have the hangover from the 90s like backlash against Clinton's campaigns

in Yugoslavia and then you have, like, a nascent libertarian movement that's the government should exist. Yes, you do have a radical, like, and a reemerger's like a radical anti-war left. And all these people are, like, they think there's a common cause and they're all sitting at the same table. Yep. Now, how all that shook out. And a bunch of those people went full fash. That's right.

Yes. Yeah. You know, the, the, I think, it is, it is a sort of morbid fascination. I think that I have when you look at people who were publicly very aligned with the libertarianism of that era, like Penn Gillette, who now are like, and I don't want to give him, I'm not even want to wash his hands for him, but he is like broken with libertarianism finally to some degree. I actually, as of a few years ago, but was like doing a lot of work for the libertarian movement by being like, look, this is common sense stuff.

The government shouldn't stop. Their magazine was reason. That's right. Exactly. The government shouldn't be bombing people and it shouldn't be trying to like put people in prison for weed. And so I think there were a lot of folks at the time who were deeply moved by those social causes who did not, who did not sense a rot at the core of the thing. Because the anti-war stuff muted a lot of libertarians historical grievance against integration. That's right. like suddenly libertarians are like fuck the war like we and and and fuck the surveillance state all that stuff but if you scratched beneath the surface of like what they were leading with then you're you do not have far to journey before you're like you know what the government really shouldn't have done

was allow segregation in private businesses that's right yeah you get to an anti-reconstruction philosophy very quickly you get to a very um town should be allowed to have sundown laws Very quickly. And that's the strain that I think then bubbles back up through the Tea Party and kind of takes over and, you know, is ascendant effectively in some ways now. In this game, I don't think it's that brand of libertarianism. But you do get the slacker cynicism of that era of libertarianism when, ironically enough, when you ask Atten about Pazak. he's like, do you want to play by Senate rules? Oh, what are Senate rules?

Oh, it's, what is it? What is it he says here? That's where we waste a lot of time trading cards and trying to beat each other, but at the end, nobody wins, everybody loses, and nobody accomplishes anything. The government, right? Which is, by the way, how America, like,

prevented acknowledging that we were in, like, a cold civil war for, like, 15, 20 years. Because, like, yeah, we all hate the government. And it's like, Well, no, like, a third of that government is still trying to, like, help people and do things. Like, they're not successful. Maybe not the right things, but, like, there's a good faith effort. But let's all just pretend that the government just collectively vaguely sucks.

And we don't have to say, like, who is making it suck? Yeah. Probably the libertarians, given they don't believe in it. Turns out. And I think that the stuff here that comes through, that is the thing that makes me end up, being fascinated with like science fiction and fantasy work by libertarians, especially this era of libertarians and before,

is that they often, they're concerned with the same things I'm concerned with. Power and overreach and authority and rulemaking and the way policies actually, you know, kick out into real life. We just come to very different outcomes about what that analysis, where that analysis cashes out,

you know, or where those policies might cash out. But I do think it's what part. of what leads you to having, for instance, the ineffective police who stop you as soon as you show up and then put you in a jail, put you in force field cages, and then let an assassin in to kill you, to attempt to kill you. It's like they are not now. It also maybe catches out to them, them saying, but we're all on the same side here.

You look clear. We're going to set you up with a condo, you know, we're going to set you up the right way. Even though we fucked up in this kind of inept way, we're good about it. it fundamentally. We're just, we're part of the neighborhood. And I think that that's something again that we need to pay attention to throughout this. And I think, you know, I wouldn't say that Kraya is an objectivist one to one. I wouldn't say that Kraya is a libertarian. But she has the energy. But she has the energy. She does. And she is huge, you know, a lady on the, the libertarian form energy. The like huge debate me bro energy, right? Like that is.

she is constantly trying to explain to you some part of the world that you don't. And as we will continue to see, it's often more, she is more invested in your capacity to argue or pick a side than in the side itself. Remember earlier I said the thing that she wanted was for you to say, you'll let me teach, you know, you can teach me. But it didn't matter if you framed that as in the light side or dark side way. What matters to her is process and, like, this notion of doing the work, the critical work of committing yourself to the cause, you know, of committing yourself, not to the cause of, not to the cause of saving the galaxy, but the cause of learning and righteousness in knowledge or something.

Big ideas, man. And I think that that's going to be one of the things that moves this game for us. So, yeah. And I think the other thing that we're going to keep coming back to, and maybe we'll talk about one, another instance right now, is like, what is the place of women? in this game. Crea, of course, one of the most

well-written characters I've ever seen. We're also about to run into a woman in peril number one with one of these side quests.

And you get to the condo and then you do the classic thing you do this is where it's the most like terrorists. You leave your condo and then break into a bunch of other condos.

You might get yelled at. My favorite part about my favorite part about entering this condo was every time you go to take a nap, somebody calls you on the phone. Oh my God, I forgot about the phone call.

I forgot about this. You do your little, you do your little TikTok video, like meditation routine. Like every night at nine at night, my gilf and I make sure we, like, we put our phones away and we meditate together for three hours. And then we get the room completely dark

can we just sleep. And then... And then we fast in the morning. That's right. Yeah. And then the phone goes, boodoo boop. Bo do boop.

And it's a Miry Allen junior executive from Zirka. Oh my God. Who's like, hey, if a bunch of like

pathetic a thorians show up, sorry, no, first it's, the historians want to meet you. That's right. This is important. The historians in your area want to meet. Mm-hmm.

And the cops are your concierge service We have an a Thorian representative down here Who would love to chat to you Do you want us to let them in? And do you can? Sure? Yeah. Yeah.

And they go clomp, clomp, clump, clump. And choff, and chalf. And they have great voices. I love the authorians so much. I love them. I can't wait to help them. And he's like, so the planetary reconstruction is not going well. We're here.

We just love reconstructing the planet. But Zerka showed up and they've kind of taken over station security and they're making impossible for us to function. And as you know, we athorians are a passive people and we could not do anything to stop this. And it's like so true. So try to know. I know how Star Wars is.

The passive authoritarian mind doesn't. doesn't know what to make of the the proactive aggression of the arch-capitalist military contractor. They are what they call themselves like, we're ecologists and agricultural engineers by nature, or even just as we're known as that. Yeah, we're just, that's all we care about is making, is making the planet Telos better. We're just here to repair it after the war, you know? We got some republic funding. And again, here's the politics stuff coming in.

We got some republic funding, but it's kind of getting expensive. And the station got bigger, and it turns out the security forces from like the official government ones aren't funded well enough to be everywhere. And so we brought in Zirka to, or Zirka went to the Republican and said, oh, we'll handle the security that we believe in this so much. And now they police two thirds of Citadel Station, private police, private. security came in and said, we'll do that. And then because of that, quote, Zorka has integrated themselves into the Talosian political system and economy. They are currently

pressing to be awarded our planet restoration contracts. Their efforts hinder our cause greatly and will have terrible consequences for the planet's restoration. That's sick. This is sick. The idea that like, okay, after the war, the republic said, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll let the athorians go repair telos. Go ahead and do your ecology stuff. And then it turns out that that, like, took a lot of money in time and effort, and then the Republic didn't, was unable or unwilling to give them the resources they needed. And so Zirka swoops in to become, to, you know, at a better deal, become the police for this place as a way of gaining political power so then they could take the resource contracts out from under or take the restoration contracts out from under the authorians. It's just more interesting to me than they're running the shop on Kishik and getting slaves. You know what I mean?

Like that, not that that doesn't also happen, you know, that's also a model of something. But now they're PMCs. Again, this is like late Bush era where it's like, Zirka before is just like the company store, like the Pullmans. Right. And now they're Blackwater. Yeah. They're Blackwater Halliburton. Right.

And they used to be kind of like, yeah, they used to be like the Dutch East India. company, and now they are, like you said, they're Blackwater, they're Chevron, they're Halliburton, they are integrated in the government and in the, in the kind of politics of the world in a way that just was not the way we thought about this stuff in the first game. No, certainly not, and, but their, their conception of themselves is, is certainly, uh, yeah, because she calls you, what is her name? Does anybody remember what her name was? Sheena, her name, well, no. So I, I, I be, B4D4 calls you first. Right. B4D4 calls you first, right. And she, and is like, I have, I have Jaina Lorso on the line for you. And, uh, when you talk to her, she's like, don't listen to those, those, like, loser ethoreans.

She makes like an accusation. Yeah. She's like, they're, they're playing at being. like, you know, down on their, down on their luck and that they're just being taken advantage of or that, that, that, that, you know, the exchange just keeps bullying them and that we're the worst and blah, blah, blah. And you can just keep saying like, he didn't say shit like that. He never said that. She's just, I bet you had told you about the massacres.

What? Yeah. It's wild. She's like, uh, yeah, I bet he tried to guilt you into this. I bet he's trying to, I bet he tried to say that he could help you with your problems with the exchange. It did not, that did not happen, ma'am. Ma'am, he did not say any of that shit that you were saying. Nope.

So funny. I like, that sort of character writing is not, it's so rare in a video game that a character just is wrong. Do you know what I mean? Like, they'll lie to you or they will be, they will be tragically incorrect in a way that ruins their lives. lives, but it's rare that someone, like, she calls thinking she has her read on the Athorian camp, and it's just fucking wrong. And you're just like, uh, nah, none of that was right. And it's, it's not even like the point of her calling you.

Like she launches into this whole tirade again of how, how losery the, the athorians are, and just all of their games, all their mind games they're playing with you. And then you're just like, none of that actually happened, girl. And she's like, oh, well, anyway, I didn't want to waste time talking about a Thorians. I actually called you because I think you're a powerful person. And I want to align with you. And here's a job. Here's a job offer.

If you help us, you'll be helped. Just come by the office. You know. I think her creed against the a thorians she goes on to explain she says you could ask her like what how are the athorians in the way of what you're trying to do like how are they getting how are they getting in your way and she says their plans for the restoration of telos are aimless and meandering restore the sacred natural beauty of telos they say just what does that mean how does that apply to natural resource development and consumption, the proper planning of urban sectors, resorts and tourism? It doesn't. The Thorians are spending billions of republic credits on a plan with no defined profit.

If it continues, they'll drive to the republic into irreparable debt and have nothing to show for it but a few meadows and a weather generator the size of a small continent. I love that she's like, but what about the all-inclusive resorts? But what about the Pena Colada plan? There's no Pena Collada's in the Athorians plan for Tilos. And what about the adults-only pools? The plan won't be fit to glamp on. She's kind of giving Minister Tua a little.

She is so minister to a vibe. She is. She's so terrible. I love her. The weather generated the size of a small continent one is pretty funny, though. Like, the one thing I'll say here is, it sounds like this planet basically got glassed. It's bad. They're consuming the resources of a planet that was accidentally set on fire because of all its gas.

You're just feeding it in this, like, planet reconstruction to reestablish something resembling a biome. Was it the original biome? Possibly not. we will see presumably none of you follow it up with them because I think we said not to do these

these things quite yet the next episode will go through the whole Zerka and Athorian or Authority it's the choice that you'll make here

I'll say I'm curious if anyone has I was just going to say I'm curious if anyone has decided which one they're going to go with at this point in some ways

that might be a larger conversation I know Rob I know I know you're going to see Jan I know you're going to see I would love if Rob went to see Jan Because she's so mean I think Rob should see Jan I would love for someone

To go dark side in this playthru And I know it's a little early Oh we think that's dark side I have some thoughts maybe Because we skip part of this right Which is sorry Being supportive of a young girl boss Trying to make

Trying to advance a career To change things from the inside Oh she is trying to chance It's dark side Smash that Smash that ceiling girl. Moza did make a different offer, by the way.

I forgot that we kind of blew past this. He was like, hey, by the way, my boy, the head of the Thorian things, Choto Habat, he's like a powerful priest. He's a spiritual healer. He sent something upon your arrival, a disturbance, an echo in the force. Chodo felt you might be able to aid us. He bid me tell you that if you could help Tilos, it may be possible for him. him to heal you.

I'm not buying that sort of cold read bullshit. And you know who else isn't doing that? Crea. Crea says, perhaps Chota Hobat should turn his eyes to his own people if they truly suffer so. Physician heal myself, says Crea. And I love that Moses like, hey, yo, I'm just, I'm just the messenger. I don't know anything about this.

Yeah, I'm a scientist. He's like, forgive me. I'm unclear as to Chodo's message and I might have related it incorrectly. It's so funny. It's so fun. I want to go to them. I want to go to, I don't know if he's a real priest, a real healer, but I'm down for some, like, chakras alignment.

I think I can just take the tiniest little sip of the dark side with the Zerka thing, but I don't think it's like it'll make me dark side. You can handle it. It's going to be like a, it'll be the simplest little, like, just a bit of dew on a leaf. and you're so thirsty. Okay, Rob, but you have to promise me that before the next episode you watch about 10 to 15 minutes

for my next let's play. And I haven't seen the Zerka stuff. So I don't know, there might be something equally funny and goofy, but there is a 10 to 15 minute thing towards the end of the authoritarian thing that is so good. And it'll take you 10 minutes to watch it.

So I'll send that to you ahead of time. I will say it doesn't bode well that in the Zirka office, in the call that Jana gives you, there are two statues of people bowed in supplication um but not like a respectful bow it is like uh i guess to me it's like giving slave uh it is like pharaoh's like pharaoh's like uh beer bearers that's into the in the pyramid cleopatra steps on 30 of these guys on her way out to the to the pool you know that's business stuff

you're right my bad you know God forbid a woman decorate I love that we got a Mary Allen those are actually local sculptors that made them so I see handcrafted yeah oh I suppose it bothers you that they're obviously the figures of men

who are who are bound in supplication oh my god did you all get did you have to pray about getting to rebuild your lightsaber I did yeah what she said was she's like a psychologist, male Jedi, are obsessed with their lightsabers? Yeah, uh-huh.

She does say that. She does say it. Wait, what does she said to me? What did she say to me? She said, uh... I got it. She says, uh, indeed. You say, I want to build a lightsaber, which is like such a funny thing.

Hi, hi, Craig. It's me the exile. I was, I want to build a lightsaber. And she says, indeed. a Jedi tool and a Sith weapon and why do you need such a thing? And you can be like, I'm trying to defend you or like, I feel naked without it or it represents power. This is also, by the way, my favorite example of the writing for the dark side being bad. You could say it represents power and it can help me slaughter enemies quicker, faster. If it just said it represents power,

that's great. That's perfect. It's still in the kind of big, bold, Star Wars morality thing where it represents power. It's not a thing a real person maybe would ever say. But like, maybe they would. I'd take it all back. I've met a lot of people. They would.

But like, and it helps me slaughter enemies quicker. You don't have to go that far. I also feel like it telegraphs a, or it exemplifies a lack of trust in the player in the audience, that the, the scenario I imagine is that if you leave it just as, it represents power. The fear is that the player chooses that. And then when they get the dark side points,

they're mad because they didn't think that was the dark side one. Yes. And not mad in a cool way, like mad because they feel like it wasn't. But it's served. That's not what I mean. I meant power good. Power's good.

Power's good. I want to be powerful so I can protect people. Yeah. I'm actually talking to. Which is unfortunate. I was talking to Kevin Snow, who is a narrative designer who's great. I love Kevin. And they were saying that playing this game in Cotor 1 made them actually think about

the directness of this in relation to the way that these are games coming to a new audience, a console game audience who has not played a lot of games at this point where they are making moral decisions about their characters. The bulk of those games are PC games in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s before this came out. And so there's a degree to which Kevin's analysis was like, and shout us to Kevin, was like, oh, to some degree this reads like, we don't trust the audience. And we need to teach the audience that they are making decisions about who their character is because they haven't done that yet. Whereas like, we have now lived for through 25 years

of console games having those sorts of choices, right? But like, there's a very, they literally had not played games that give you that space. Even other big RPGs, you know, if you came up in the console, on the console, in the Nintendo through, you know, this comes out in the original Xbox, through that era, you're playing a lot of Japanese RPGs, which are pre-scripted things that do have dialogue choices sometimes, but generally the biggest examples of the ones, the ones that hit the biggest, the widest audience share, tend to be linear stories. The Western RPGs that came to those to those consoles were also fairly direct things they were they were dungeon crawlers that were being ported from PCs and similar things they were not the they

were not like Ultima which ends up having this whole system of morality involved um I think some of those Ultima games did come over but they did not hit the way that they hit for PC right and so there is a a novelty for the for the player nevertheless playing it in 2025 please just like it represents power perfect you know anyway she says then listen to me there is much weight much craving attached to such a tiny thing of light a lightsaber any weapon only achieves its worth in how it's wielded in the effort the struggle of one who holds it such a weapon does not make a gyre sith and at times makes them much much less than they are unless you're a guy in which between those two statements she says for the male

it seems to have inordinate importance but we shall leave such male preoccupations are philosophers and cultural historians what funny is this is not what she tells aton while you're asleep mm-hmm atten asks after this too and so to you it's like a lightsaber is not a Jedi make to Atten take the greatest Jedi night strip away the force and what remains they rely on it depend on it more than they know she like if they're just down I was saying she's done with the force but she's pretty clear like give them a blaster

give them that's right they can't do shit but they're usually like their child they're nothing they're they're they're their infants if you if you take away their Jedi abilities

I'm like but I've got the blast my feet Crea will always say say different things and different people sometimes different things even to you

I was talking to our artist for the cover art of AMCA Zizi the other day. Zizi says, Kraya, if you order Diet Coke, a pointless act of self-flagellation. A diet Coke. Treats are not meant to be healthy. They are meant to be treats.

Would you sing a lyricless song? Would you eat a yogen fruit baked without any fruit cake, baked without any fruit? You are lying to yourself. You have no self-control. You think you can trick your impulses into making you feel whole. Craya if you order Coke Zero Always the new fangled thing

Are you too good for Diet Coke Too proud for the simplest traditions What difference does it make Does it taste more like the real thing You should have ordered that then Do you enjoy the fact that it goes flat faster perhaps Have you grown so cruel that you wish to see The life drain out of even the smallest confection

Order the Diet Coke next time Unless you have truly given up on knowing who you were. That's one of the best. It's so... Because that is one that lives just, like, rent free in my head. Like, every time Kraya is speaking, I'm thinking

about that post. It's so good. It's so perfect. All time. Anyway. Well, that's pretty much the episode. Because we've stayed out of the Zirka and the authoritarian offices. But you could go to the

cop shop. You could go to the cop shop. And again, customer service through the roof. You don't, they put you in the, in that condo. And when they go, okay, cool, you can walk around. They do not bring you your shit back. It's in five lockers that you have to open up and just like, over them up because they can't, these things have mass inventory capacity. So you know other people's shit is in there too?

Because I did not have two blaster pistols. I got two blaster. Those were not my blaster pistols. Those are mine now. Those are mine now. You get like a handful of extra things in there. I also just love your character just rocking a Gimori and Axe. Like, just hanging around.

This is my, this is my Gmorian axe. The cops just hold on to, though. Yeah. That's, yeah. Oh, this is my axe. Yeah. You get bounties there. You can get bounties there.

So the head of security is like, boy, things are not going well since Piraugas got blown up. We kind of need all the gas from Piraugas. So I think the station is going. Unless Maybe somebody could Find a new source of gas contracts Nix, I was like, you got it, chief I can do that

Also, you can't do some other bounties Yeah, here are some other bounties, yes Yeah, you get some long-term quests here The gas one will be a long, A fuel one will be a long-term one Some of these bounties you can start to do here, I believe But we'll spiral forward What happened

where that assassin come from? He came from Narcadah. He came from Narcada. I actually got dark side points because I went down to the docking bay three and the Zirka dude was like I can't tell you anything about this. And it's like, well, tell me a little bit.

And he's like, no, I'm not allowed to comment on Zirka employees. Like, ah, you admit that it's a Zirka employee. And it's like, oh shit. Look, I really can't talk about this. And then there was just like a, come on, man, or kick your ass. And then it was like dark side point

But he did give me the info Well there you go Did it work? You know? Who could say? Who'd say if it's darker light side? The tiny's little sip of the dark side Mm-hmm

Is it a little sip? Can you Crea would shrink from that? I don't think so It begins with such so small a thing You can also get The other two bounties are About a I want to see just like a pair of criminals

I forget what their deal is The Rhodian and the Devaronian That's right who you can get you'll be able to do the first part of that in the next section for sure because they're in one of the places we've not gone to yet on this station and then there is like find out more information about this guy um named what is it butono batono yeah uh who is like a former security guy or a security guy who's gone missing and so like less a bounty in the bring him in he's wanted more a bounty as in

hey like where did you go so we'll investigate those and then you go to the bar and so we don't know fully what's going on Zirka but there's a couple things one dude is like I work for crime lord glupp shito that's right

Lorsz slutsk slusk it's something like that Lopeck Lusk. Okay, well, look. No, yeah, you know your best.

That was pretty close. Yeah, so Slusk's top lieutenant is there, and he's like, don't you know who I am? Literally, I don't. I was like, I look like someone gives a shit. And then he leaves in a huff. And then. Scared away by the sexiest character you've ever seen. Ooh.

I'm looking at her. What is her name? Her name. Lorax. I don't think it's Lorax. It's not Lorax. Lerxa. Luxa. Luxa. L-U-X-A.

And she's like, we'll talk later, basically. First of all, she's breasting boobily is the first thing you do about her. She's pink. Her whole body is pink, right? Her whole body is pink. She's got reddish hair and like a little like kind of pixie, long pixie cut. She's got the thigh highs on with the slides, it almost looks like. But I'm going to have to get a closer look at some point.

Hopefully I get the chance. She is Eltron. She is Eltron. Wow, Allie. Who? I know my Star Wars 6th. lady races. And I know about the Zeltrod who are like pink

skinned red-haired ladies who like have mass empathy powers. Wait. Oh my God. They're the Asari? Yeah, kind of. Yeah. They possess limited telepathic abilities used to

project emotions onto others as well as allowing them to read and even feel the emotions of others. Some Zeltrons were hired by the exchange for this ability. Because of their telepathic ability, positive emotions such as happiness, love, and pleasure, became very important to them, while negative ones, such as anger, fear, or depression were shunned. Unlike in human culture, where we love anger, fear, and depression.

I love that mass effect, they use this backstory to explain why, uh, why the Asari were strippers everywhere? That, they did do that. They did do that. Oh, because they so, they're just dialed in to what people like. So, it turns out everyone like dancing. According to Wikipedia, the Zeltrons gave off pheromones that made people like them and had a calming effect. Oh, like Prince Isle. Was he a Zeltron? Why wouldn't you want to be around Zeltrons? Yeah.

And especially in the club where it might be nice to have a calming effect. They also had a second liver, which allowed them to enjoy a larger number of alcoholic beverages to drink pour. No way. A whole party or a whole species of party girl. It's on legends. They don't have that anymore. They took away the Zeltron's second liver. No.

They left party girls back. I want to be a Zeltron. They should put Zeltron. Zeltrons would love Brat Summer. They would have loved what they would have. Yeah. Can you imagine just the entire species like we can't drink like we used to. Just canonically I can't.

I can't anymore. Yeah. I feel that. They were dry life day. appeared in the 1970s Star Wars comic 1977's Star Wars 70

that's wild well like one of the earliest legends things like original EU things who anyway yeah one of the very first things when you're creating a world is you got to figure out the sexy lady race that's right duh that's just that's just

you've done the whole like evil right light good, evil, a little bit of a family drama situation, all that. Now what about the sexy women? Who's going to be the sexy, the race of women who breast boobly? They created much of the technology used in the pleasure domes in the world of holographic entertainment. Listen, get you a girl?

So you're telling me that they're also innovators, inventors, uh, uh, uh, uh, Just entrepreneurs. Women of tech and science. That's right. Yeah. So long as you're horny about it. And it's good. Incredible.

She's reclaiming the corset. Second by second. I mean, she's great play. I will say, because if you talk to her first, she's like, hey, let me buy you a drink. And you're like, cool, who are you? And she's like, if you have to ask, you don't need to know. I'll talk to you later. Enjoy the drink or whatever.

Like, damn, girl, okay. Yeah. I just think that it's fun. The costuming misses for a few reasons. But I do think it's like, I'm there trying to be like, because we know the show, this, this, this game from the beginning is like, we do love a shaped rear end. Oh, yeah. But here, it's like, it's giving wedgey keeps happening. Oh, poor Loxa.

It's like, oh no, oh no, it's, Loxa's making a break for it again. God. I already feel like the canteena here is just people who are bored putting on airs, which I think is just bars anyway. But like the way that this place is like designed where you have the apartments and then you have a bunch of, like, offices attached to the apartments.

And then you can take a shuttle to either go to the police station or to the bar. They're in the same unit. And they're right next to each other. Yeah, yeah. They are side by side. They are the same neighborhood. The cop is not taking the shuttle to shut down whatever could happen. In fact, you get jumped out front.

Where were the police then? Oh, they were there. You don't get jumped. You're right. They were shaking down the... The TSF guy joined into the battle and started shooting the Zercomerks. Wow.

That's not happened for me. Just like plinking away. Oh, good for him. Thanks, buddy. You got some Zerkenberg's trying to shake down was it a Celestin? Yeah. Yeah.

I got some light side points. I'm sorry. But then I was like, you can give me money. Celestine guy. That's cool. So I didn't get any dark side points. More light side points for being like, keep the money because I needed the money.

because Pazak hadn't been going well. I see. And neither had the swoop racing. I see. You learn about the jump button? It took me a while. Playing this mouse and keyboard was not easy. Oh, God, I bet.

You get through it eventually and get your 500 credits or whatever? No. That's it. It's nothing. You pay 100 for the race. That's how we get you. Well, you save before you do it. I have a hack.

Yeah. I have a hack. You save when you do it. Yeah. What do you mean? No wonder you had money from. Sorry. Allie earlier was like, oh, I can't buy anything. I was like, early, you were like, I can't pay for the, I can't pay this guy off to get this lady.

I can't pay for the lady who could only be paid for. Okay, that's fair. You're right. I'm role playing as a guy who's good at swoop racing. And so I fail at it, I have to load because I've been role playing badly. Every time I launch this game, it launches a different size. I don't like you do it. You don't have to, what do you?

You just hit escape. No, I know, no, I know. I'm at the moment, man. I understand. I understand. I'm sorry. I'll let you live. The thing that, the thing that I figured out is that if you at least place, so I play,

so the first time I managed to persuade him to let me, you know, skip the fee. And then if you play, so I place second, and then he's like, all right, it's $100, and you can say, shit what do you say it's uh let me look at the option are you basically just like hey i'm good at this just let me roll yeah you can it's the second option there's one that's like i'm trying to pull it up hold on um entertainment hold on it's not there i know where you're looking it's not in the entertainment thing it's a different thing unfortunately god damn it that's why i just trying to get us to get to the thing to what it is um Okay, hold on. I'm going to your play-through then, and I'm going to when you do it.

I didn't do this because I just loaded my save. You say, I think I found it, you can say, that's a little steep. There'll be more than enough wagering to cover that. Is that what it is? No, it's not that. What are you saying? Let's see. You can say, there's another option that's like, it's not goodbye, but it's whatever else is there that's not. I thought, I'm going to pay you $100 or 100 credits or whatever. And he'll be like, oh, you're right. Just, you know, write it again or whatever. You can go again.

And you can skip as a, he'll realize that you placed second. I see, I see. It causes him to realize that you place. You can say, like, I'm already a champion or something. I forget what it is. But you say something and he's like, just get back on the track kid or something. Gotcha. I forget.

But anyway, it's a way to save money. Or you can just save scum. Because that is in the game. You can do that. You should let yourself do it. Don't let anyone tell you you can't save stuff. Yeah, if anyone's trying to give you like Dark Souls 1 era, get good shit for Cotor 2, that person's not your friend. That person's not your friend.

You can cut them out of your life. You'll do all right. I only lost $1,000 not winning the Pizak match to save that lady. Okay. What you need to do next time is you need to FaceTime Austin This is what I did I face time Austin and I made

You Discord called me FaceTime is actually so much more funny though Let you get your phone out Imagine me FaceTiming you out of nowhere And being like I'm playing pizzog Oh my God is Natalie okay Natalie never FaceTime me

I hope everything's okay Do you open The woman who The Pizzoch woman you should set up Yes, yes. So one of the, if you went around the various apartments, you can run into the worst guy ever who is like, hey, are you here to kill me? He's like a Tim Robinson character. I don't know how to describe him.

He's like, he's like, ah, are you. Did you not? Oh my God, you got to find him and you need to kill him. You can't kill him, unfortunately. Well, maybe there's a way. Maybe I missed. Maybe Rob will find a way. You find this guy who's like, listen, I had a wife. I loved her.

Great start. But I also, I love gambling. I love gambling so much. That's how so many tragedies begin. I'm in so much debt. So basically, I bet my wife and I lost. So can you please go get my wife back for me? The indecent proposal?

Yeah. Yes, and add it to the letterbox, because I guess I got to watch that for the reference. Yeah, I'm surprised you haven't in immortality research. I'm surprised that didn't come up as a potential. It's not like one of the movies in that game, but it's like, you know, a classic of the genre. Yeah. You know? It's probably in the immortality letter box, I will say.

Yeah. Yeah, this is almost certainly there. I might have watched it, and I'm forgetting now. But, you know, this happens to me. So you can be like, all right. And he's like, you got to go talk to this guy. He has my wife. I sold her into slavery to pay off my gambling debts.

I just love gambling so much. And you're like, all right, I'm going to go see what's up. Sounds like you like a steak back so you can bet your wife again. It sure does sound like that. Doesn't it? Doesn't it sound like that? So you can go back to You can go to the canteena

And there's a guy in there Named Hara H-A-R-R-A Yes Yes Hara Is this the dude who's off to the

Right of the dancers Who's like ideal And exclusive merchandise That's him You're like well what kind He's like I can't tell you Maybe you be happy with the brothers Who we should also briefly talk about

After Mm-hmm Mm-hmm So you talk to him and you're like, listen, let me persuade you to, I know about the girl. I know about the girl. And he's like, ah, yeah, yeah, I have this girl. I don't really want to give her up, but I'll do it for, oh, you can ask him, like, can I pay you? And he says, I'll do it for like 2,000 credits, which is an exorbitant amount of money at

this point in the game. If you're me, if you're like me at this point of the game, you've got maybe three-ish-k. I had like three-ish-k at this point. I wasn't, I wasn't killing it in the, in the races. Pazoc is not my forte. You know, I'm trying my best, but. You cannot make good money at the Pazok here either for what it's worth. There's like a woman you can play Pazok against for like 40 credits or something. That's not worth your time. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So you, uh, you, you, you talk to him. Um, and, uh, you could also, also say, hey, you, you, you can persuade, persuade him to lower it down to like 1,500. But that was still a bit too rich for, for me. So, you heard from Natalie. A person's life. Not worth 1,500 credit. This is, this is, this is like Quigod. This is like Quigod mission debriefing. So I talk about 1500. But. I might need to buy, like, droid parts or...

Droid parts don't win war. As Kray has been over this. It's about experience points, except that that also raises the XP level of other guys who want to kill you, so you got to be careful. Wait, you had 3K, and now you're like 2K for some ladies' freedom? I don't know about that. But shit is so expensive. I went to the twins, the fucking Mario Bros. shop and there are two brothers who own

yeah yes it's literally Mario Luigi situation it is kind of an adidas pool of situation there's go fuck yourself dingus yeah eat shit nerd there are two two bros who have

shops in the same storefront yeah booked in the same storefront and they hate each other but they sell different things and they hate each other and I did forget to make us install a mod Here's where I have to admit. I've made my first mod mistake.

Thankfully, it's a mod that we forgot to install, and it's too late, and don't worry about it. There's a mod to make it. So when this game shipped originally, there were two guys, and these two guys, and they both sold stuff, and one of them could eventually sell really good stuff if you did some side quests, which we could do next time. The other one didn't have that stuff because he goes by the straight and arrow, unlike his shithead. brother who like deals in the black market and smuggling and stuff. The CRM just made both of them have sick stuff out the gate, which is why, and it rolls it for each, we each have different shops. So like my guy, one of the, my guy has like the Matukai adept robe, which gives plus two

decks, plus two constitution and plus two strength. I can't afford it. Yeah, and how much is that? It's four grand. Okay, so that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. It's expensive. It's expensive out here.

I have to go back and get this. Maybe I did get it. Anyway. Also, do I like the idea on principle of having to pay a man for a woman? No, I don't. So what did I do instead? I won her back in a game of Pazok that Austin helped me win. That did happen.

That's ally ship. That's right. Yes, that's actually, that's... I support women. That's freeing women. I'm smashing my own glass ceiling. Over here. Austin is but the hammer.

That's right. I just, I aimed you like a missile, right? You played the game. I gave you some tips. I didn't make any final decisions. You, it was heavily directed by. I explained the process. I explained how to play.

I have 10 easy tips to win for Zop. Allie. Everyone should take this course. I'm happy to give it. Anyone on this call can call me at any time to be like, can you help me win Pazok? And we won't win in the first game, but we might win on the second or third, you know?

Yeah, please. I feel at this point, like, a toll-free number should be, like, scrolling across the bottom of Boston screen, like that VHS, like blue, like a simple check of money order to... 1-800, Pazok. That's 1-800.

And you're wearing, like, a green visor? God, I have the... What's that guy with all the dollar sign? all over his suit, you know what I'm talking about? I can teach you how to get free money from the government. You know what I'm talking? Do you all not remember that guy? Damn. Free money from the government. What is his

name? This isn't the million dollar man who had this tower? Oh, yeah. We've done a club. We did do it. Doesn't he have like the question marks? They're not. He looks like the riddler. The riddler. I know it sounds like the riddard. Well, no, because he's like, buy my book and then I'm going to tell you how to get money. Y'all never dealt with this guy.

I've not dealt with. I've never dealt with him, to be clear. A suit question. What's his name? So people can at least look him up. Question marks. Matthew Lesko. He's like, he was all over the TV in the 2000s. And he'd be like, you know, spend, you know, you can buy my book to learn how to get free money from the government. Anyway. All about people ended up in jail because this guy. almost certainly how to get governed grants for the whole family that's not how that's not how grants work

free legal help free stuff for busy moms free money and help for women entrepreneurs see hang on sorry I was familiar with your game it lists over 5,000 sources for grants loans and venture capital and management technical assistance and marketing help

especially for women Anyway, that's me. I'm not but for Pazok. They call me Mr. Pizak. So go on. The fount up thing about the situation, though, is that, like, you could either give him $2,000 or you can play him in a game of Pazok. And he's like, yeah, but you should put up $1,000 for it. So I've won.

I lost once. And if I lose again, could I just be like, okay, I gave you $2,000. What you have to say before you play? I'm not, I'm sorry. I'm not letting you. any NPC to get a thousand credits off me. That's just not happening. We're re-racking.

We're racking back up, buddy. I was in the zone. I was trying to save a woman. The zone? You're trying to see a woman's down. You can reload. I'm with Allie. I'm with Allie.

I'm with Allie. I would be so locked in. I would be so locked in like that. I would do that. Well, it's a life simulator. You know, you're walking around.

You're not thinking about saving. It's like you're walker, oh, look at that cool spaceship that they're flying right out, fucking off the balcony without a window on it, which is the wild, this place needs OSHA so bad. The hallways just open into space? What are we doing? It's, you just see spaceships whooshing by you. It's pretty cool.

It's actually pretty cool. It reminds me of the space station from that one good episode of the Book of Boba Fett where it's the secretly an episode of the Mandalorian. Just like, he's on that cool ring, ring city or whatever. It's great. That's cool. You can win. So does this lady just go back to her husband?

Ah, funny story. Oh, well, this is where it gets really good. You can take her. So then he's like, what do you like, I guess she's, she's, she's up to you, whatever you want to do with her. And you can be like, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to have her. She's, let's see,

what you say specifically. I put it another way, but yeah. Sure. Yeah, you say, Doughton Hett

gives her to you and says, very well. I am sad to see her go, but it is true that it is always best to avoid becoming attached to anything.

That's later. Are you a Jedi? That's when you bring her back to the husband. Because even before that, when you get her from from hurrah or hera you can be like

stay here and dance for me I'll come around to get my to get my pay to get my my fees from you regularly the ex-lil can say that you can turn her into a money-making venture that is correct

it's crucial to remember these are not real people uh-huh $2,000 is so how many times can you come back for earnings you're playing you're playing against dotenhet you're playing oh is harava against don't and is hara yes hara's the husband okay you're right don't and hey yeah yeah i was like i okay yeah so when you when you if you choose to replace doten het um if you if you if you choose to assume the the role of romana's uh

you will gain dark side points but every time you talk to her she'll give you like a hundred credits or something um or it's a hundred times your character level according to this walkthrough which obviously i did not do because i'm not fucking evil and crazy so i decided to take her back to her deadbeat husband but upon taking her back to her deadbeat husband And he's like, oh, oh, I'm so glad my wife is back. And you could be like, actually, it's my choice to set her free. And she's like, oh, thank. At first she's like, I guess this is my fate to be back with my dog shit husband

who sold me into slavery. Yes, exactly. And you can be like, no, actually, I'm setting. you free and she's like woohoo and she just runs out of the room she's like I'm out of here and hurrah at that point is like wow I guess that's my luck like I guess that's when he says what's it called um um do I vest yourself of attachments yes no Houghton says that oh right because His whole thing is, well, that's the thing that's interesting about Hara is he is like, or Doughton, Doughton Hett, the guy who has her first, he, like, cares about experiences. He's like, he's kind of like too good for money.

He's like, yeah, I guess I could sell her. But what I really want is excitement, which is how you can get him to bet her in a card game to begin with. Rob, you're making a face that is appropriate to the situation, is what I would say. but yeah that is that is uh horror ends up chasing after her to be like um oh i'm sorry like come back i can't he's like i don't know whether i should have i should thank you for freeing her or if i should hit you like i wish you would i wish you would i wish you would hit me the game won't let me do nothing to you i wish you would hit me because i know what happens when that happens so And you could also just, like, get a flat payment, I think, also where you're like, all right, you can go, but first you have to pay me and get, like, 500 credits for her.

I'm not saying you should do that, Allie, where I'm just saying where the places money could come from, you know. You should probably just figure it, though, I think. I'll find it somewhere. The thing is, it's like, what? I mean, okay, you don't have to keep dancing, but, like, why not just, like, open a basket robins or something and I'll still come through? the gang invents micro loans you know i don't know she don't have money for a baskin robbins well what if i like you know invested it a little bit that i came around she gave me a hundred dollars so what's the exile doing these days indenture yeah but also broke doing it

I mean, it's a win-win. Jesus Christ. Well, yeah. Apparently there is also a way that you can get the exchange to put pressure on Doughton Head to free her. I did not know that. I did not walk down that path. But apparently, Hara can be like, well, maybe the exchange could put some pressure on him. And you could go through Luxa to do that.

But that is not what I did. I have no idea what that vibe, what that would even be like. So, yeah. Well, the other thing there is just shopping, shopping cards, super racing, upgrades. This is also a point where you can do a lot of upgrades. This game loves crafting. And you can also, I guess it's worth saying, you can take stuff you're not using and break it down at the craft. crafting stations. So once you start getting like really good duplicate stuff, if you want to,

you can break it down. You can also obviously sell stuff for money. But, but yeah, there's lots of, if you want to go down that path, that's available. It's funny because I think of this game is being before the big crafting boom in games, but they really went all in on it here in a way that I think is kind of like funny. I don't know that it's good, but it's one that makes perfect sense for like, how do you make a sequel to Kotor? What do you improve on? on and the answer, one of the answers on a whiteboard somewhere is like, uh, remember how you could like, is put crystals and things, whatever you could do more of that, put more things and other things to upgrade them. So, but yeah, I think that's kind of, I also want, I want to call

out, uh, like two, two other guys in the canteen. Oh, yes, please. I forgot about this guy. There's one guy who's just, he's a circa worker and, uh, you. is just smashed. He's just super drunk and you can be like, tell me everything about Jaina. And he's like, oh yeah, I'll tell you all about her. She sucks, she's my boss. And sometime soon she's gonna screw everything up

and then I'll get to be, I'll take her job. And you can be like, how so? How do you think she's gonna mess up? And then he's like, she's got our hands in too many dirty little, whoa. I think I've had too many drinks I shouldn't be talking to you Just forget it

That guy needs a second liver Yes he does He should talk to he should talk to pink What's her name? Luxa over there Yeah And apparently Like basically he also talks about How it was really easy for Zirka to get in here

Because the Republic is like In in desperate ruin and is broke, so they just, like, really need to, you know, get with the program of restoring all these planets and Circa's reaping the benefits of the Republican disarray. Actually, sorry, they're not broke, actually. They're free, they're spending freely

and without much... without much regard for where they're spending their credits, but they seem to just be in, like, a lot of disorganization. And then the other two guys in the canteena, you can, like, over, you can walk into a cutscene of two guys, one being an on a man from Anderon. Oh, right, I forgot about these two. And a guy from the Republic, and they're arguing,

and the guy from Anderon is, like, talking about, this day where Talia sold Anderan to the Republic. And Anderon is where a lot of the plant life is coming from for this restoration project, if I'm not mistaken. Like there's some deal where a lot of Anderonian resources are being brought to Telos. and he says something to the Republic guy at one point he says because we accepted the Republic's aid we should be indentured to them forever and he this guy's like yeah basically I don't know

he's like you're ungrateful you're ungrateful the Republic saved on Dron and you're just like grateful for it so I like that there's a little bit of a dispute going on here about, you know, how helpful the Republic really is in administering aid. Sounds like not very much. Sounds like a no-gris situation, kind of. And Anderan was the place, was one of the main planets in those comics we read. And also Anderon is, of course, where Saw Guerrera is from in the future. And, and, And it is one of those places that we, that Star Wars likes to frame there being war and, like, constantly going between different hands of control. This is, this is the planet where.

Say again? And plants. And plants. And the, uh, do you remember the, the other thing about it? It's moon, the beast moon of Duxon from the comics. I remember the, I feel like I should remember this. I don't know. Oh.

Andoran has a moon And the moon sometimes once long time ago Oh wait shit yes I do remember the beast moon That the beast riders came Or whatever the beasts jumped over Right exactly So Anderon I will say One of the places we may end up going very soon

So I'm trying to go there Intersecting with some of the comics we read To Duxon To Duxan and Anderan those are the two That's the Anderon's the planet And Duxon is the beast moon Oh, that shit was so cool.

Yeah. That's the thing I would love to see more of. I don't remember if, I don't remember enough about the fashion in this game, but I do remember us reading those comics being like, I wish there was more of this in Cotaur. I wish there was more weird, like, fantasy stuff in the fashion. And it would be sick if we got there. That would be great. Last thing I'll say here is the kintina band sucks. Oh, damn.

Like, by the standards of, like this is nice. You heard it here This is bad It ain't the jizz I know Yeah it turns it turns out like I don't know like two or three Biff guys who can sort of play instruments does not a sweet Jiz band make Who are you really gonna tour out to on or to Tilos? Tito to Citadel station the planet's all busted

Wait until the planet when the planet gets repaired then the good jiz performers will show up you know Well, not without any of those resorts Yeah, so. Wow. You're making a good program. Sounds like you know where you need a start, Rob. This whole place is just like a rest stop. Yeah, that's actually right.

With like some offices in it. Yeah. Like, it's, it, I feel bad for everybody who's there. It's like a reverse oil rig. So at this point, I think we have another choice to make. in terms of how much we want to play. There is, for my money, we are approaching one of the most interesting things in this game, or one of the first big moments of like, ah, there is something happening here.

But the question is how much longer we end up staying on Citadel Station first. There is like stuff to do at Citadel Station. We haven't started any of the main plot lines, right? But it's, I'm a little torn basically as to whether or not we should finish the civilization or if we should finish civilization and then also the next little bit, which brings us down to the planet of Telos. That next little bit is, I think, one to two hours. And I, it's tough because my recording for the next section of the game is like three hours. But I am like, I am really doing some Austin Walker bullshit during that recording, including walking down a whole plot line that I then rewind. I do like 30 to 40 minutes of a side quest and then go,

I don't want to do that, actually. I'm going to reload. So I'm going to leave in the let's play. So really the question is like, how much time do we have for the next to how many hours of gameplay do we want for the next section? Three more hours will definitely let us get off of Citadel Station and onto Telos. Because I guess the thing that we kind of moved past here is our ship is gone. We didn't say that out loud, I think.

Yeah, the cops let it get stolen from impound. Again, these cops, suck. And they're like the exchange might have it. Yes. We think there might be an exchange front here on the station at the shop called the Bumani Exchange. Huh?

Might be. With a goon outside. So your only option right now is to kill that guy? That is at this point. Why the one did I put so many charisma points in so I persuade people and I just got to fucking try exile?

once you start down the one of either the Zirka or the authoritarian path you'll have some other options there eventually so you can tell me but T3 is still on the ship right that is right right

and Atton thinks he stole it that's right I'll be he's out there laughing at us right now droids are stupid but I'll bet they're really mean they think we're dipshits and they're out there joyriding like Ferris Bueller's day off in Evan Hawk And T3 is just like, ha ha, ha,

Atten, you suck. Eat it. I think to be safe, we should just say, we'll finish Citadel Station, and we'll land on Tilos and meet a new NPC and new companion right away. Oh, and we'll call it there. Is that lady? Which lady?

Oh, we skipped this, too. We forgot the lady. Let me explain the lady. There was a mysterious lady. After the cops arrest you, you get a security feed. And who's this? 80s music video lady sort of like

creeping through the scene but not doing anything? Stark white hair. Yeah. Who knows? So yeah, I think let's be safe and say we'll play through the rest of Citadel station

will land on Telos. I need y'all to tell me how long that takes you and you feel you have more in you because then there's another couple of hours after that that includes some really dope stuff and I think will be

more interesting than just talking about the Zirka and Thorian stuff, though there's some very cool, funny stuff in that stuff also. So let me know. But for now, we'll plan on just getting to land on Tilos, meeting the character, and then calling it there, in the same way that we got to off of Paragas and called it after the kind of forced cut scene at the end of that. All right. And if we change our minds, we'll post about it on blue sky.

If we're all like, oh, we blew through that in an hour, let's keep going. Then we'll post about it. With that, we've reached the end of another episode of a more civilized age. Our show is produced by Gia Contreras and supported by our listeners at patreon.com slash civilized. Until next time, please rate, interview us on your podcast platform of choice. And please refrain from betting one spouse. And to keep, you might think you're on a heater. Let me tell you.

If you're down to betting your spouse, you are not. You are not. It's not all going to come back. We're going to be.