Twenty-One Loops - Star Master Log: The Glue (w/ Brian)

Star Master Log

Oct 6

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Brian joins Jeff to talk about episode 32, Twenty-One Loops, the one where the rest of the crew starts treating death as a formality and Thorne is the only one still keeping score. They get into why he's sitting on two separate secrets from Felix right now, and Brian makes his case for Thorne as the reluctant Malcolm Reynolds of the Scapegoat. Then Brian tries to sell Jeff on competitive Pokemon, and it does not go well.

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[00:00:03] Brian: Access approved.
[00:00:05] Star Master Jeff: Hey everyone, Star Master Jeff here, and welcome back to the Star Master Log. Today I'm joined by Brian, who plays Thorne. We're talking episode 32, called 21 Loops. If you haven't listened yet, go do that first, because what follows is a spoiler conversation. Brian, welcome. Yeah, hello. Thank you. Hello. This is your second time back. Yeah. Star Master log style.
[00:00:28] Brian: Star Master interview. And we're talking about episode 32. It was a good one. Good episode.
[00:00:34] Star Master Jeff: What makes it so good, smart guy?
[00:00:36] Brian: Okay, so to start with, my favorite thing that's happening in this arc is Felix going insane. He has got to get Voss back. He's obsessed with her at this point for all of his myriad of weird reasons. And he melted those people. Him melting those people on purpose ahead of time really sets the tone for the rest of the final arc. Because it was like there's a whole part where Robert like backs the goat in and he's trying to hit the acceptable loss on the way. It's like a little bit of a joke, like screw you, Strake. And Haleyy says something like, I'm glad I don't want anyone complaining about melting people if you guys are going to waste time back in the car. And I was like, what the hell? No, stop fucking melting people. Because all three of them were so blasé about it. And Thorne the whole time is like, what if we just talk to those scientists? Have you guys considered maybe we talk to the scientists? They did not want to do that.
[00:01:36] Star Master Jeff: In that moment where they were like, Ren was like, in the last episode, he's like, I keep getting melted. Please stop. That's number one for you. Go stop me from being melted. And then in this one, to actually reach the controls where you can stop them from being melted. And Felix is like, fuck these guys. And he just melts them because he sees them as like... Like part of the kidnapping apparatus around getting Dr. Voss and keeping her. I can kind of see that. But in that moment when he did that and you and him had words or rather Thorne and Felix had words, it kind of got intense. And I was like, are Brian and Scott fighting for real? I was like, might have to break them up.
[00:02:18] Brian: I don't know if Scott and I have ever actually fought about something ever. So. It was fine, but it was great. It was the right kind of drama because for the most part, you expect everyone's going to be level-headed. We have a lot of time to think outside of character to just be like, what do I want to do? What makes sense? You know, what's intelligent? You don't always get knee-jerk reactions unless they're silly. Like, oh, I shoot him in the face or something like that. That happens all the time, but... A lot of times you think better about doing the more sinister or twisted things in the game. And he was just like, no, you know what? This makes sense for Felix. So I'm going to go with it. And I love that kind of drama that you can actually play with the kind where out of character, we don't have a strong feeling. It's an interesting narrative, no matter where this goes. But I love when the characters can argue in a healthy way that actually moves the narrative forward and doesn't just bring it to a halt where we just can't agree like to take a left or a right. That's stupid. But these kinds of things, it creates this kind of tension between the characters, makes them feel more alive.
[00:03:19] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, I think everyone in the group has a different way of kind of approaching that. And I think you and Scott are very similar in that way where you're like, what's the thing my character would do? And then you go as hard into that as possible. You don't you don't like kind of lead it with a I don't think this, but I'm a fucking murderer right now.
[00:03:39] Brian: So I murder not just murder, but like subpar decision making in general. You and I have played in plenty of games where one of my characters for a game that you were running gets into a horrible situation just because I keep making the decision as though I was under the stress that that person was under. Like, well, it makes sense that he would just start shooting his superior officer at this point. That's a true story, by the way. I feel like it creates sort of, I don't know, I don't want to have a character or I don't go into a game with the expectation that my character is going to be successful at anything. especially since I stopped playing only like heroic fantasy. Once I started playing more gritty systems, I was like, you know what? These people are going to die. Why wouldn't they in a situation like this? The fact that they get through should be like a miraculous. It shouldn't be a foregone conclusion. So.
[00:04:29] Star Master Jeff: So in that same scene of Felix gassing, I feel like that was a pivotal scene and everything was kind of leading up to it. Felix gasses them, which was crazy. I obviously didn't see that coming. But in that same scene, Thorne finds the photo that he thinks proves that Saren and Strake are in some way connected because they share a face. And also Robert finds a data chip, which Thorne later finds out has all the files for Project Redwing on it. Both of those directly tie into Felix's plot lines.
[00:05:02] Brian: Yeah, pretty directly.
[00:05:03] Star Master Jeff: But Thorne doesn't tell him. What's holding Thorne back and why doesn't he tell him in the first place?
[00:05:09] Brian: I mean, the most obvious reason is Felix is really unstable at this point. Everybody in the crew, and Thorne is the only one that I think is an exception, is treating these loops like they're not real. Like, oh, we finished a loop and we're back where we started. So none of that was real. You know, I think somebody says to Froggy that there's no consequences. And look what happens because of that to poor Reginald. Consequences. Yeah, exactly. So I didn't want to talk about anything like that until we were out of these loops because of what they might do. Felix especially, but any of them really, it was at the point where it was like, okay, until we get Voss and like this sort of calms down, even if we don't get Voss, whatever happens, but until we're flying away from this and finally catching our breath, then I might be like, hey, so I found this thing, you know, because I didn't think there was any way to have a rational conversation with Felix until he was either dead or Voss was safe, one or the other. So.
[00:06:13] Star Master Jeff: So why do you think everyone else is treating the loops like they don't matter? Or another way to put it is treating the loops like there will always be another loop.
[00:06:21] Brian: Yeah, that actually, that comes up, especially when we unfortunately killed Froggy, because we had a good loop too right after that. And the conversation at the table was, What if we do it this time and then Froggy's dead? And, you know, some people on the crew might not have had a problem with that. Other people may have had more of a problem with that. But in general, like, so Haleyy and Robert are desensitized. That's my main thing. Like, oh, we're going, we're killing these people. I've killed so many people. What difference does it make? And then for Felix, I mean, it's probably a dehumanizing angle that we could take. I mean, it's just cultists and... corpo guys, none of us like that kind of person, we have plenty of reason to think that everybody on this station is pure evil, um, but it's not just that, there's the element of like what's happening to us and then it's suddenly gone, you know, few of us died a number of times within the loops and then had to just come back to normal at the end, and it was probably just like, you know, this feels fake now, like it feels like there aren't going to be any consequences even though mentally there are. I mean, I think Felix said something like when he got his head cut off, he was like, it's not a good way to go. You know, you can still remember the trauma of that situation. And I don't think that even out of character that we were thinking about it this way, but like for the characters themselves, that they had the time to be like, how does this make me feel? They were just like, forget it. I don't care if I die. I'll just try again. But for me, that was never the way I was thinking of it. I was thinking of it from the get-go as one linear set of time, and that's why I kept being like, why are you guys just letting these scientists die? Even if they are evil, we need to get information out of them first. We have grilled and then murdered so many people, and you guys are skipping the grilling this time. At this point, it's bordering on torture because you're doing it over and over again for a laugh. So in character, Thorne's getting really frustrated that basically his crew has gone psycho on him at the most pivotal moment.
[00:08:34] Star Master Jeff: So as a captain, what does he do next? Because I think over the course of season one, he didn't really know who these people were. And either they started to reveal their true selves to him or they've been slowly going insane and more murderous, as they go. But now he's left with a conundrum. He can't unsee the things that he's seen them do throughout the season, especially in this penultimate episode. Moving into the next episode, season two and beyond, is Thorne going to manage them differently? Or does he just have to accept that he has a wild crew and he can't really control them?
[00:09:12] Brian: I think the last thing that you just said is true, for sure. There's no chance that no matter what Thorne does, that he's going to be able to control all three of them all the time. No way. But there's probably some element of maybe we need training together. I don't think anything is going to directly happen, but I suspect that the way that Thorne treats all of the crew is to find their soft spots and try to defend their soft spots and play them to their strengths. Like, oh, here's a wall. Haleyy, go punch it down. Oh, there's a guy far away. Robert, take out your bionic eyes. Oh, Felix, we need to hack through this thing. Please do it. And then when it comes to the things that they're not good at, Thorne's like, oh, Haleyy, you're not doing well. Tell me if things are messing up in your head. Or, hey, Robert, what do I need to give you to make you most effective on this? Or, Felix, let's talk through your issues. Let's figure out what we need to do. So he's kind of like that. The crews, I try to protect them, but at the same time, push them to do the things that they're good at so that they don't have to worry about the things that they're not good at. And I think it's going to be more of distracting them with what they're good at so that they don't have a chance to go psycho.
[00:10:29] Star Master Jeff: I think it's really interesting to have these conversations when you've been gaming for like 20 years, because we're all in our upper 30s, lower 40s. And you're a manager. You've been doing it for a long time. Yeah. You've always had a very high emotional intelligence, and I think that that's grown through management as well, like how to handle people, how to get them to work in a way that's most effective for them.
[00:10:56] Brian: Yeah.
[00:10:56] Star Master Jeff: Just the way that you talk, it's very much... employee centric. So it's very interesting, because I, you know, if I were to talk to you 20 years ago, and ask you these same questions, you would have very different answers. And it's not just maturity, but it's also you've been doing a real world job that's sort of similar to Captain Thorne's for a very long time now. And you're taking those real world lessons into your acting, which also kind of makes you more persuasive to the other players as well. So that's my like outside take on that. But having said that, what is your take on how your job and your journey across your entire career and how it's influenced your acting on this podcast?
[00:11:38] Brian: So I do kind of think of the rest of the crew as the employees of Scapegoat Syndicate LLC. That is a thing that in one episode we canonized as a true entity. So it is kind of like, yeah, they are kind of employees that need management. I hadn't really explicitly thought of it that way, but I definitely see it. For me, over time, I mean, you've known me for a while. I'm kind of like a people person. I'm more introverted, for sure, than your average extrovert. But I like people. I like talking to people. And I've always had the ability to quickly form bonds. So I do that outside of games with people, and then when I start playing games with them, I'm able to bond at the table with people quickly, and then therefore our characters can either bond or at least find a way to gel quickly, even if what that is is hating each other. But as long as me and the other person at the table are on the same page, it's still fun and amusing, and it moves the narrative along. So over the years, I mean, I started as just a regular... intern level engineer. And then the more that I started interfacing with customers and co-workers and management and that sort of thing, they were like, oh, you know, this guy. And I feel like when people talk to me, they're like, oh, this guy's good with his words. So when I play a character who's good with their words, I feel like it's easier for me to think about it in that way. I actually really, really don't play face men almost ever. Very rarely do I like to play the charisma-based character because it feels like you have to kind of force yourself into the spotlight too much. And I prefer to actually push other people into the spotlight. Not even that I like to sit back, but I like to physically, you know, you go, it's your turn to act in this scene. And you might notice that in sessions where I'll be like, oh, Haleyy, what would you do here? Or Robert, this seems like a thing for you. You know, like I was saying before about trying to play people to their strengths. When I can tell that a certain person should be maybe interacting with this, I like to put that out there. So I just think that in my career, I've spent a lot of time talking to a lot of different people and bonding with a lot of people. And I've gotten to the point where if you knew me in high school, which I know you didn't, I was not like this. I did not have very many friends. I did not get along with people. I was very quiet, even more introverted. But the more I spent time in the workforce, the more it was like, you know what? I don't, I'm not afraid of every random person as much anymore. And I see them more as someone who's, I see every person in the world as someone who's suffering in their own way. I just can't not see them as having their own struggles, even if I've only seen that person for five seconds. All I can do is think about how is that person potentially struggling? And so I give a lot of grace because of it. You know, I'm always saying, you know, I don't like to get mad at people on the road. I don't like to get mad at people at work. I always consider everybody gets the benefit of the doubt, maybe even to my own detriment. I give people too much benefit of the doubt. But all of that to say, working with people all the time and then playing a role where your job is managing people, there are a lot of things that can carry over. Like telling people, even like as an acting exercise when we're in character, saying from my character to yours, here's what I think you're good at and here's where I think you could improve. It's like, it's the corniest type of manager speak. But it actually is sometimes like, hey, isn't this a thing you should be doing? For our crew, you know, aren't you the muscle person? Aren't you the brains person? Aren't you the tech person? Whatever. So maybe there's a little bit of that.
[00:15:37] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, I think it's an interesting way to look at it because... You're right. You would not be a good bard. Because what you're doing as Captain Thorne is not what a bard does because you're not actually always the face person.
[00:15:50] Brian: Yeah. I'm not a look at me kind of guy.
[00:15:53] Star Master Jeff: But as the captain, you're not playing the face role as would be traditionally seen as from like a bard's point of view, because you're sort of their boss. So when you get into a situation, you're doing exactly what you said about pushing people into the spotlight. A captain isn't necessarily the person who picks up the comms and starts talking to the blogarians about what's going on. The captain is the person who says, we're in a situation, which person on my crew should be the person to do X, Y, Z. And depending on the situation, maybe Haleyy's picking up the comms. So I think you've played that very well. And I think you said that very well.
[00:16:32] Brian: I almost prefer it that way. I don't want to be the one who has to do everything, nor do I want a single person to be able to handle anything. A lot of times in this hobby, people who are great at being imaginative and coming up with cool scenarios and cool lines and, you know, thinking about how their character would interact with a given situation, are also maybe just a little slow to say it, or they're, you know, too caught up in the, should it be me? And so I just like to be like, you know what, you haven't said anything in a while, or, you know, I think this plays to your character, so you should do it. And I do that no matter what, but when my character is actually the captain of this crew, at first, I was very hesitant to take that role, because like I said, I don't like to play leaders and face men and that kind of thing, but I was like, you know what, the way I'm gonna play Thorne is sort of as like a leader who just pushes at the crew in front of him. I mean, I always said my default position is using Haleyy as a human shield, you know? So I stay in the back and I let them do most of it. I don't care that I never land a shot in combat.
[00:17:34] Star Master Jeff: That's not my job. Just to back up a little bit. I think I said I wouldn't be that good at playing a bard. What I meant to say was, I don't think you'd be as comfortable playing a bard because I think you would struggle to like do that spotlight, like constantly take it and be like, step aside young friends and let me take it. Like, I don't think you would do that to the degree that a bard normally would. Like if you think about like the Dungeons and Dragons movie.
[00:17:59] Brian: Yeah.
[00:18:00] Star Master Jeff: The bard is literally the main character because he won't shut up. That's why they do it from his point of view. So I think that you're playing really to your strengths by being the type of captain that you are, which I think is a Malcolm Reynolds type of captain where he doesn't want to use a bunch of words and he ain't so good with those fancy words anyway. And I think that you often find yourself in that situation where you're like, these are people I can bond with or these are people that I know I can kind of go in and, like, this is a crowd I can work. But then other times knowing this is a Robert situation or a situation we have to keep Robert away from. And I think that that's a very valuable skill.
[00:18:39] Brian: I think Malcolm Reynolds is my guiding captain when I think about who's Thorne the most like. But I think even if Thorne knew who these pop culture characters were, he would not consider himself a Malcolm Reynolds because he doesn't think he's cool enough to be a Malcolm Reynolds. I figured Thorne was a lot dweebier when I first designed the character. I thought of him as a real dork, kind of like a... not pompous, but like he was a rich kid, he's just, you know, he didn't know any better, he's been in jail all this time because he was too cocky. But we started getting into more of this, like, we should play into his charisma. And so I was like, all right, well, what captain has his sort of style? And I do think of Firefly a lot as the sort, uh, because I think it's the show that's the most like what we're doing. And so I just think about, you know, what would Mal do. And I don't always do exactly that, but I do try to think of Thorne as trying to emulate that sort of person.
[00:19:40] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, I think it's a great comparison because Malcolm Reynolds has a lot of charisma, but he's always actively working against himself. So if he was just nicer or wasn't acting like everything he had to do was constantly like a problem, which is also kind of what Thorne does, where he's like, come on, guys, what are you doing? Like... He could use a little bit more honey to capture them flies, but instead he always comes out of the gate like, don't do that or why are you doing that or let's change this up in a way that's not going to make you guys be dumb, right? Yeah, and I think he approaches soft conversation softly, but in the thick of it, I think that all goes out the window and he'll be like, we're gonna have words. And that's what Malcolm Reynolds does too. Yeah, and so you have that charisma, but it's like a strong charisma instead of necessarily like a soft, let's talk about it, type of charisma.
[00:20:30] Brian: The other thing Mal would do is he would finish the mission and say, yeah, we're talking about this later. And then wait till we're back on the ship to be like, what the hell was that? And I think that that's important, especially just for a narrative.
[00:20:42] Star Master Jeff: So Thorne decides that he's going to stay behind at Saren's terminal, and Robert, Haleyy, and Felix go off to get Voss, which then makes Felix try to unplug Voss, which then resets the whole loop. Sure does. Why does Thorne decide to be the one that's staying behind to hit the dead man switch and not order someone else to do that?
[00:21:01] Brian: So it's kind of Thorne's style to take the crap work, actually. I think... There's a little bit of self-deprecating perspective where he considers himself the one in the crew with no skills. Despite the fact that he was the one who's the captain, he's the one that everyone looks to, like, what should we do? From his own perspective, he's nothing without the crew. Like, Felix is the one who deals with all of the computer stuff, and Robert's the one who deals with all of the flying, and Haleyy's the one who deals with all of the defense stuff. So it's like he's there to just keep things smooth. And so getting down and rescuing people and dealing with the Unhallowed and the listeners, it just felt like he would slow them down. But there was... And like sort of one thing I was worried about and that Thorne was probably worried about as well, which was if I'm not there, who's going to ask the right questions to those scientists? But they were melted. So that's why he was like, you know what, I'll just stay here.
[00:22:07] Star Master Jeff: Also, Thorne is not very good at fighting, and he was leaving himself kind of open to that.
[00:22:14] Brian: That's why I said I would stay with Iso. Iso didn't want to be alone. Thorne doesn't want to be alone either. But the two of them together, her shotgun plus his, you know, brain, I guess, means we can almost defend ourselves.
[00:22:27] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, so what you said kind of made me think Thorne thinks that he has to take some shit work because other people have more important things to do. Like Thorne's like tagging along in his own mind, even though he's the captain. Yeah, they're all specialized. Think back to episode one, all the way up to episode 32 now having concluded. What if Thorne just didn't exist? Do you think they even would have made it this far?
[00:22:51] Brian: There are a couple things that came up that I feel like Thorne was instrumental in smoothing over. Would they have come up with another solution? Very possibly. There was the time that we were on the switching station, Causeway 3, where we had to kind of fake our way through the security system. I honestly didn't see another way through that that wasn't just bullshitting. And that's definitely the thing that Thorne is the strongest at. But it's hard to feel like bullshitting is a skill when you're looking at yourself and you're looking at the people around you. You're like, well, I can see that Felix is good with computers and I can see that Robert is good with guns. Being good at bullshitting is like a weird soft skill that doesn't necessarily count. There's nothing that I can think of where Thorne took out an instrumental enemy or... If he hadn't been there to hit the thing at the right time, things might have been a wash or anything like that. I really think, and Thorne probably does too, that most of these situations, they could have gotten by without him, except maybe for the fact that having an additional body is its own value. 'Cause there were, there are things that happened to, uh, maybe there's some cohesion that wouldn't have existed without Thorne. I don't think that Felix could tolerate Robert. And I don't think that Robert could tolerate Froggy. And I'm not sure that Haleyy could mediate Robert and Felix very well. So that kind of thing is where I think, okay, maybe that's where Thorne is. Like, would there even be a crew? Would there have been an episode 10, uh, or after one or two things, they'd have met in each other's throat. And Robert is never that far from shooting someone in the face. He is not afraid to say that he's going to shoot you in the face. And then he'll do it. He did it to Froggy. He almost did it to Felix. Who knows whose face he would shoot if somebody wasn't there to be like, Robert, calm down.
[00:24:49] Star Master Jeff: And I think you're kind of selling Thorne short a little bit because I want to flip it on its head. Think about the other three members of the crew. Could you lift one of them out of the group and still have arrived all the way from episode one to episode 32?
[00:25:03] Brian: It's hard to say. I think that each of them having, like, our melee combatant, our guns combatant, and our computers guy. I mean, that's... that is a strong core. And the guns guy is also the pilot. Those three make up for a very strong warrior, wizard, rogue type of party. But I also think that that's the bare minimum. So it would still be rough, especially when it comes to space combat. There's so much going on. Just having more bodies is actually really important. You do need someone to sometimes just run around and say, like, I'll go fix things over there. When we were early on in the game, I was putting level zero in a lot of different skills just so that I could do that kind of stuff, like fix and heal things. Because it was important that, like, sure, Haleyy has some points in heal, but not if she's the one who's down. And sure, Felix is good at fixing, but he can't be fixing the engines and fixing a hull breach at the same time, stuff like that. So being that, like, person who fills the gaps is definitely important while they maintain the core.
[00:26:15] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. Thorne fills the gaps, but he's the glue.
[00:26:21] Brian: Yeah.
[00:26:22] Star Master Jeff: And that's what glue does. It fills gaps.
[00:26:24] Brian: Yeah, exactly. And in the early times, there was a little bit of backstory that we wanted to explore of, like, how did everybody know each other at all beforehand? Both Doja and Scott came to me originally and were like, here's how I want to have already known Thorne. And so just by having that conversation, they were already... telling me that their characters would be willing to listen to what my character said. And so that's why I'm able to be like, Felix chill, or Robert chill, in a way that they would not listen to anyone else telling them to chill, but for some reason they'll listen to Thorne. It's because we came into this with them wanting to be collaborative in that way.
[00:27:07] Star Master Jeff: Which, to clarify, we kept the piece where Felix and Thorne had worked together previously while Thorne was on prison release, but Thorne had never run into Robert before.
[00:27:19] Brian: No, I don't think in the real canon that they had met before the original thing on Mistretta IV. Yeah.
[00:27:26] Star Master Jeff: Okay, let's get to the speed round. Oh yeah, Camiri 4, not Mistretta 4.
[00:27:30] Brian: Mistretta 4 was where Voss is from. It's important to know your facts.
[00:27:33] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, you got to know these locations, man. And you remember them. Oh wait, that's actually, I'll ask you a couple questions. Okay. Well, actually, go ahead and name every planet that you've been to.
[00:27:43] Brian: Okay. So we started on Camiri 4, which was not a planet. It was a space station. Correct. From there, I'm pretty sure we went from there directly to Wafisa. I don't think there's a thing in between. Yeah, yeah, yeah. After Wafisa, we were at Scrapjack's, which again is a space station, not a planet. Yeah. After Scrapjack's was, I want to say Sibylen, but that feels long. It was a long arc, wasn't it?
[00:28:11] Star Master Jeff: You guys were on, there were three arcs on Sibylen. Yeah, that's why. Yeah, there was the exosite arc, the auction arc, and the Spigot arc.
[00:28:18] Brian: Oh, and then Spigot too. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yep. So then, yeah, I mean, that was that. And now we're back in space going to Prometheon Station. But you can't forget, you know, Polyphn is the planet on which Thorne's backstory took place. That's like the main hub. Polyphn, I think of as our Coruscant, kind of.
[00:28:38] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, and I loved running that episode on Polyphn. I have a real soft spot for Polyphn. It will appear in season two. We're going to do some real work on Polyphn because I want to visit it.
[00:28:52] Brian: Is Polyphn the setting of, what's it called? Story that you published. Was it Net 421 or something like that? Net 432.
[00:29:03] Star Master Jeff: 432.
[00:29:03] Brian: That is a nameless...
[00:29:07] Star Master Jeff: It's a nameless city, you know, potentially on Earth, assumably. Okay. But... Then when I was designing Polyphn, it all got mixed up in my head, and I kind of combined the two. And it's funny because I just did an interview on a podcast called Alternate Futures, and he asked me about Net 432. And I think I touched on that then, too, where I was like, yeah, I love that setting so much and didn't get to explore it. So when I was doing Polyphn, I kind of just infused it with all of that same, like, Net 432 Asian influence, Blade Runner-like, all the stuff I watched. Yeah, all the stuff I like, watched growing up, like where everything is like super dystopian, but it's like the, like, bleeding neon feel. It's always kind of raining. There's like a smog and everyone's always... everyone's in like, uh, their own personal neo-noir constantly. Two ramen shops per capita. Yeah. There's always a thumping nightclub and two ramen shops nearby. It's always raining.
[00:30:11] Brian: Yeah, I know what you mean. And every single person has a monologue going in their head.
[00:30:15] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, they're all like, her hair was like fire.
[00:30:18] Brian: I went back to the office that night to get some more information.
[00:30:23] Star Master Jeff: They're all doing their own mystery in their head. They're all like a Gabriel Knight type of character.
[00:30:29] Brian: For anyone that has played that Sierra classic. Well, anyway, I was thinking of Kano, that's why I brought it up, because Kano was sort of like a literal crossover from that story, because he was the same religion that was mentioned in your short story. So yeah, see, I know these things. I'm not like Steph, I don't take the notes, I just memorize things the first time I hear them.
[00:30:52] Star Master Jeff: It's crazy that you remembered it. Yeah, Shintex. It's the Japanese religion of Shinto, which is believing that all animals have a soul. I think it might be everything has a soul, but I think it might be all animals. It's kind of mixed up in my head now. I did that research a long time ago. Shintex is more about... robots also having a soul, yeah, and believing that maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but treating AI androids with respect because they are as human as humans. And that's what Kano believed before he was brutally murdered at the end of the Polyphn episode. Unfortunate because we were bros. Yeah, well, that's that's what a backstory is. Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's do some speed round here. Speed round. Does Thorne trust Strake in this situation? Or does he trust that Strake could be useful in the time loop? Or is there nothing that could possibly happen that makes him trust Strake ever?
[00:31:53] Brian: Definitely does not trust Strake at all. Does think that he could be useful. It's a matter of which one of us can take advantage of the other.
[00:32:00] Star Master Jeff: And I obviously asked that because Strake left a note for you. And then you left another note back. I left him a note too. Yeah, let's be unlikely allies. And I was like, okay, a little romance blossoming.
[00:32:10] Brian: I have no expectation that he's going to play nice, nor do I intend to.
[00:32:14] Star Master Jeff: Is Sabien's death, I suppose multiple deaths, ever satisfying for Thorne? Or is it just like another body?
[00:32:20] Brian: No, honestly, it's regrettable every time. Thorne's not, I jokingly said this to you one time, like, don't want me in with the rest of the psychopaths. Like, I need them and they need to have that killing instinct to do what they do. But Thorne does not have that killing instinct.
[00:32:37] Star Master Jeff: I think Felix will kill when someone gets in his way. I think Robert is an opportunity killer. And I think Haleyy is a serial killer who plans out ahead of time and lies in wait. And I don't think Thorne is a murderer at all. I think he's pretty much only done self-defense or when he, you know, when he truly believes that his life is in danger. Okay, that was a speed round question that went too long. We got to go faster. Thorne's favorite color? Green. Faster. Okay, Thorne's favorite number? Faster.
[00:33:09] Brian: 16.
[00:33:10] Star Master Jeff: Okay, single digit only, please. I don't know what kind of show you think this is. Pass. Okay, I'll say seven. Um, you're keeping two secrets from Felix right now. We went over that earlier. When he finally finds out, I don't know if you ever tell him or he finds out some other way. But when he does finally find out, how do you think he's going to react that you kept him in the dark for so long? He'll be mad, but he'll get over it. Really? You don't think that's the end of it? Because we just went over how he's a killer.
[00:33:39] Brian: Yeah, I mean, he's gonna be mad. And there's no doubt in my mind that he'll be mad. But he'll be getting what he wanted, which is, you know, the information and a lead toward revenge. So that'll probably satiate him. Anything that he's mad at Thorne about, he'll take out on his real enemies. I am confident.
[00:33:59] Star Master Jeff: Would Thorne ever go back home?
[00:34:01] Brian: Yeah, I hope so. The hardest part is finding the right acceptance and figuring out what happened with his family. Like he was set up potentially by his own family. So originally he thought he couldn't go back because of the shame that he brought. And now it feels like he doesn't want to go back because he doesn't know what he's getting himself into. But his ultimate goal is to retake the family empire and move back to Zephyrus.
[00:34:25] Star Master Jeff: What is Thorne most afraid of going into the next session, the finale?
[00:34:30] Brian: That there's no way out of this time loop is a big one, for sure. That whatever Voss was talking about is going to come through. And if it's some sort of eldritch monster that consumes the universe, things like that, for sure. And also, what is Strake up to? The fact that he would go so far as to be like, I need your help, means that's fueling Thorne's fear that there's no way out.
[00:34:56] Star Master Jeff: Oh, and I actually have one last, I just randomly thought of this one. I've never asked anyone this and I should start asking this. There were aliens in this sector at one point. They've left a lot of stuff behind. What do you think they look like?
[00:35:08] Brian: I assume they're grays. Big bulbous size and gray heads and they're slender and tall. They probably say like "meep orc" or something like that.
[00:35:18] Star Master Jeff: And you're basing that on me being super uncreative? Yeah.
[00:35:25] Brian: So in Stars Without Number, there's basically two kinds of aliens that you'll hear about. There's the "like" and the "others." And the "like" are essentially like the humanoid formed aliens, aliens that have comprehensible goals and societies and structures, even if they're not humanoid. It's easy for a human to understand what they're about. And then the "others" are beyond that, like sentient clouds or rock formations or things that don't have any sort of oral communication. Honestly, I think that that's the most likely kind of alien life that was out there. And the reason that the humans struggle so much to find and use their technology is because they were so unlike us. So it's almost hard to imagine anything from... you know, a human with googly eyes all the way up to, you know, a whole star system where the gamma radiation from the star reflecting off of the gases of the other planets create some sort of sentient cloud of energy.
[00:36:30] Star Master Jeff: Who knows? So legally, we can't use those in the podcast. The whole setting portion of the book is kind of like locked down, copyright-wise.
[00:36:38] Brian: Oh, well, everyone forget you heard that.
[00:36:41] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, we can have it. We can say it out into the ether as long as we're not making money. Oh, we actually, we make a couple dollars on Patreon every month or two.
[00:36:49] Brian: Everyone cover your ears. Forget that I said that.
[00:36:52] Star Master Jeff: I buy a Big Mac every month and I'm like, I'm rolling in the dough.
[00:36:55] Brian: Sine Nomine Publishing is coming for us.
[00:36:58] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, Kevin's got his bead on us right now. I'm sure he listens to this and he's just rubbing his hands like lawsuit city.
[00:37:05] Brian: One day they're going to say the wrong thing. It's going to be all mine.
[00:37:08] Star Master Jeff: So you get to be the second, I guess I would say, victim of a new segment called Sell Me On It. And I asked you previously to bring in something that you love from outside the game that you have to sell to me, convince me that it's worth my time, that I'd love it too, that I should give it a real college try. And I'll try to be an honest skeptic about it. And I'll give a real verdict on the end, whether I have been swayed and will give it a try or not. Steph brought baseball scorecards last time.
[00:37:40] Brian: Baseball scorecards. Nice. Okay. Well, today I'm here to sell you on the satisfaction and the amusing, interesting complexity that is a VGC Pokemon battle. Video game, card, video game competition. But yes, okay, so I'm sure everyone's heard of Lokipon before, the unbelievably popular game that everyone's heard of with cards, and there was probably a whole media franchise. Well, believe it or not, it's inspired by a real life thing that you may or may not have heard of called Pokemon. No, we're gonna get sued again. Yeah. Anyway, so the games, like them or hate them, have been around since forever. But there's a whole competitive battling scene that exists as well. And while the games are almost like brain dead easy to just play through, the complexity that exists in the systems is actually like extremely interesting. I can't get enough of the theory crafting and just like the team construction. And but like at its core, Pokemon is a JRPG, which, what's a more classic and beloved type of genre of video games than that? But, you know, instead of having your six party members and you have to pick three or four of them, there's 150, or in this day and age, a thousand and something.
[00:39:08] Star Master Jeff: Is this a video game or is this a card game? It's a video game that we're talking about. Oh, okay. I was thinking cards this whole time.
[00:39:14] Brian: So the cards exist too. I'm not here to sell you on that because I have my own thoughts about the card game separate from the video game. They have their pros and cons. Today we're talking about the video game.
[00:39:24] Star Master Jeff: This is playing Pokemon the video game, but just doing the battles against other humans.
[00:39:31] Brian: Yes. So Champions is a free-to-play game that you could download right now, and you could go in, and there's a system where once every 24 hours, you get a random Pokemon.
[00:39:41] Star Master Jeff: And I don't have to like catch them outside or anything. Right.
[00:39:44] Brian: No, it's just like a gotcha poll. So here's what's good about it, though. You've heard of Pokemon. You've played the game probably at least once. Yes. But you're thinking to yourself, what about this could be interesting or complex enough for a 30 or 40 year old man to actually care enough to bring it to a segment and talk about it? The important part is the complexity. So I already said that originally there were 150. Now there's 1000 and something. So my God, I'm getting overwhelmed. Yeah, it can be overwhelming. That is true. But your options are quite varied. I mean, Pokemon has 18 different types. There's each of the Pokemon has its own stats separated across six different statistics. I think it's HP, attack, defense, special attack, special defense and speed. They have base statistics of those, and then you can train each of those statistics up to a certain level, depending on if you want this guy to be especially strong or especially fast, whatever. Everything has a moveset of four different moves. Everything has an ability, like a passive effect that they can have as well. So the species of Pokemon determines what moves it can have, what passive effects it can have, and what its base stats are.
[00:40:49] Star Master Jeff: So give me your closing statement. Why should I do this?
[00:40:52] Brian: And then I'll give you my judgment. So my closing statement is this. JRPGs are awesome. What's interesting about, like, you've never played a JRPG that's PvP. Pokemon is, for a game that is supposedly very simple and aimed at 10 year old children, really, really deep. The complexities are intentional. Where things overlap and what is available to counter what else is something that thought is always put into. A lot of Pokemon battles in the past were 1v1. VGC is two versus two at the same time. So you have this element of two guys out. They're supporting each other. You don't know who your opponent is going to attack. They don't know which one of theirs you're going to attack. You can switch guys and move what space they're in. They don't necessarily know exactly what moves you have. It's like half poker, half JRPG, and there's so much room for creativity because there's so many options. Even though there's an obvious meta, any competitive game is going to have meta, but there's still always going to be weird niche options to the point where you could see a world tournament where somebody's bringing a tiny little electric squirrel and winning the tournament with this squirrel that nobody ever saw coming. That's a true story, by the way.
[00:42:07] Star Master Jeff: Okay, good sell. I'm going to give it a ranking of either you've sold me, you've somewhat sold me, or you haven't sold me at all. And you haven't sold me, man. And I got to tell you why. I got to tell you why. It was almost a losing battle from the start. There's many elements of this. That's why I picked it. Yeah, there's... Well... There's a lot of elements here that don't jive with me. One, as you know from our days of playing Smash together and my years of addiction to Overwatch, I can't play competitive games anymore because I get way, way, way too involved and not in a way where I'm like, ah, that was a few rousing competitive matches. It's more like I lose and then I play and then I'm like, I lost, I have to keep playing. I lost, so I have to keep playing. I won. That was fun. I got my dopamine hit. Time to play again. Oh, I lost. Got to keep. And it goes for hours and hours and hours. And then I'm waking up and I'm thinking about it. I'm going to sleep being like, oh, it's like two in the morning and I have to wake up and I can't stop. I'm addicted to competitive play. Two, I don't give a shit about Pokemon. I know. I didn't watch the cartoon. I didn't play the card game. I tried the Game Boy Color version for like eight seconds. And I was like, walked through some grass and a mouse attacked me. And I'm like, oh, this feels like it's going to take fucking forever. Like, I like to sit down to play a game. And when I hit go on the menu, the game starts. And by that, I mean the fun fucking part of the game. I want to start a match in Overwatch or I'm playing Grimrock, Legend of Grimrock 2. You immediately start and you're in like a fucked up situation. I love that. I mean, obviously, everything I'm saying right now is positives for lots and lots of people. But for me, it's just not going to do it, man. And that's funny that you chose it because you knew that it wouldn't work.
[00:43:58] Brian: I wanted to find something that you weren't already kind of like, maybe I do like that. I wanted to pick something that you were like, I hate that shit. I appreciate that.
[00:44:05] Star Master Jeff: I thought you were going to sit down and try to convince me about Monster Hunter. That would have been a little bit better of a sell. Maybe. Because it's like action oriented and it's not competitive and it's co-op. Yeah. That probably would have sold me. We'll save it for another time. But even then, you've been playing that for like a decade and I've never played Monster Hunter once. It's true.
[00:44:21] Brian: It's been more than a decade too. It's been like 20 years. Well, that's all the time we have for today.
[00:44:30] Star Master Jeff: Thanks for joining us, Brian.
[00:44:31] Brian: Yeah. Thanks for having me on Star Master Log. Hope everybody doesn't get sick of hearing me in the episodes and in the Rules Explained and now here as well.
[00:44:41] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, well, everyone loves you. Scapegoats forever, my bud. Scapegoats forever, indeed. Next time on the Dark Star Adventurecast, the crew's finally got real leverage against the loop, but leverage isn't the same as a good plan. The loop is degrading. Victor Saren and Viktor Strake seem to have something in common, and Voss is still connected to the gyroscope, which is glitching out of control. Whatever they try next is the last shot they've got before something on that station gives way for good. It's the thrilling conclusion of season one here on the Dark Star Adventurecast. If you'd like to get these episodes two weeks before they drop publicly, the Dark Star Adventurecast Patreon is at patreon.com/darkstaradventurecast. We really, really appreciate each and every one of our patrons, and we hope to see you there. Right, Brian? Yeah. Thanks so much for listening, everyone. And from Brian and I, we'll catch you on the next one, and stay together. Keep following that signal.
[00:45:47] Brian: Thank you.