record_id: 2ebf8b3e-f83d-81b7-9521-d505595267b4
created_time: 2026-01-17T01:51:00.000Z
title: 01-16 Lecture: Political Intrigue, Military History & Warfare
source_url: /

[TRANSCRIPTION]
Speaker 1 00:00:00
"'He only runs Mars because your men put a bullet through Arch-Governor Ossitian. As for the Obsidian, we know who to blame. They look at me. "'We have more than enough helium to act before we take the mines back,' Publius says. "'The Telemannus and Augustus Armada is on its way here. Turn your eyes to that, Zarn. I will deal with Mars.' After Zarn departs, Publius dismisses his staff to the far wall and looks at me. I search his face for some sign of evil. Even now it is a pleasant face, a small chin and delicate facial bones, with only a long nose to add drama. But those eyes, for so long cold and distant, flicker with excitement. "'Apologies, Vidinia,' the incorruptible says. "'I'm sorry it came to this. If your child had only been delivered to me as requested, we could have spared you this trauma.
Speaker 1 00:00:30
But change is not always pretty. An honourable man like the incorruptible could harness the wardens. They were poised for defection after Wolfgar's death. But it must have been Liz who poisoned the togas and destroyed the barrier to let them all be in. Publius isn't an operator, but how did he know about my agreement with Dancer? The question is driving me mad. I looked up to you once. You know I truly did.' Lilith's puppet smiles sadly to himself and leans against the dais. He doesn't know he's a puppet. He thinks he's in control. And here comes his gory, damp speech. "'I thought you were our great hope. After the fall, I sung her praises. I debated radicals in our political halls. I preached an even middle ground. I thought the Vox misguided in their fervour.' You were not perfect, far from it, but you were the best we could hope.
Speaker 1 00:01:02
Let us be sensible, I said to those radicals. Let us understand that we cannot make a new world in a day. But I was wrong. Our whole political discourse was like a great infant. None of us knew our business or how big our feet were. There was no culture to build upon. Politics was new to us, but not to you. I watched you dismiss the voiceless majority. I watched you accrete power, even as you shouted democratic platitudes. I watched you lead us, rung by rung, back into the old world. Soon, I knew there was no middle ground, only the past and the future. The poor and the rich. Us and you. It was then I realized sensibility is taught by a more palatable name. Since the first ape pulled himself out of the mire to fashion an axe from stone, the meek served the strong.
Speaker 1 00:01:33
We learned to content ourselves with crumbs. We allowed ourselves to be placated by religion, a promise of something after all this horror. We allowed ourselves to be enfeebled by poverty. We learned to be scolded whenever we raised our voice. Lasting change must be slow and steady and civil, we were told. That civility neutered us. But tell me, Virginia, was gold civil when they conquered Earth? Did they assemble in peaceful protest, or did they come with terror? He paces before me, waxing grandiloquent. If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during revolution must be virtue and terror. Virtue without terror is helpless, as I have learned after ten years of being the voice of reason. Terror without virtue is evil, as Gould has taught.
Speaker 1 00:02:05
My terror is nothing more than speedy, severe, and inflexible justice. It is an emanation of virtue, the vehicle for it. I know, I know, you think I allied with a monster. He picks lint from his toga, not knowing the strings his monster has put in him. But the child was meant to be returned to you after you stepped down. You have done far worse. You allied with the moonlords, fascist slavers. He looks direly offended. Using a criminal organization is hardly comparable. And now that you have removed them for me, hardly problematic. Your attacks on their facilities were nearly without fraud. I know you look down on me for this monologue. But after so many years of biting my tongue, it feels good to have a voice. I wanted you to see the execution because you will be found guilty today and die tomorrow,
Speaker 1 00:02:37
since my texts tell me you have a self-destruct protocol in your brain. Before you do die, that is, I wanted you to understand that I am different from you. What remains of the syndicate is already being destroyed. I do not abide criminality. Quicksilver has deserted Luna, but he will be hunted down and put to the obelisk like your spymaster. I do not allow allies to escape justice when they are villains just because they have the power to do so. I am going to, To remake the world, Virginia, it will be as it should, one without hierarchy, without economic class distinctions, one in which it will be criminal to own excess wealth, where the loftiest goal of a human being is to serve the people, no corporations, no private citizens, or serve one another for dignity and protection of the common good. All men were created equal, and I will make them so.
Speaker 1 00:03:10
He claps his hands together. Now, are you ready for the justice of the meek? Chapter 54. Virginia. Justice of the Meek. We are joined by six radical Vox senators who survived the massacre, to comprise the People's Tribunal. Several dozen others join, but it will not be a public monstrosity. Likely, Publius wanted to limit the possibility of my allies rescuing me. Whichever of them is alive. Even through the muddle of serotonin I feel the fear of the final tally. Will I ever see anyone I love again? That's the loneliest thought. Not my husband, not my son. Not Kavaks, or Niobe, or Severo, or Liana, or even Victra. No one but these fools. They did a first with proclamation of the day's importance, of the seriousness of my.
Speaker 1 00:03:42
ridiculous crimes to impose my will on humanity. Then Publius reads the charges as the robotic cameras zip around for dramatic angles. With one twenty centimeters from my face, I listen, and try not to smile from the chemicals racing in my brain. You are brought here today before the People's Tribunal, so we may adjudicate your guilt or innocence as to the charges of high treason, assassination of Ganser O'Farran and loyal senators of the people, election fraud, bribery, conspiracy to install despotism, embezzlement, and fornication with a known collaborator of the Korg Golds, Daxo Aotelemanus. How do you plead? I stare at them, finding it difficult to frown. They hold themselves with such ludicrous self-importance. Canaries pretending to be eagles. No, not canaries. Canaries can smell death coming.
Speaker 1 00:04:13
They're godo birds. Silence will not save you from these charges, citizen, Publius. What's this? The robotic cameras go dead, and drop to the floor, hacked. There's a noise in the back of the court. Something resembling a scream. Publius shouts for the wardens to investigate. Half of the two dozen make for the door, calling for backup as if their comms weren't dead. I stare straight at Publius as the weapons fire outside and grow silent. Publius, what's happening? A red senator asks. Severo, one of them cries. But Publius knows. He knows all too well, because moving in his glass is a squid. The remaining wardens take defensive positions around the entrance and the senators. I look up at the ceiling as three transparent shapes drop from it. They land beside the wardens guarding Publius, and tear off their heads.
Speaker 1 00:04:45
Large fountains onto the ghost cloaks. They deactivate to reveal three tall golds, in black armor, embedded with the bones of complete skeletons. I know their blood-spattered faces. Each one was from House Cleter, the dark brotherhood my brother formed during our year at the Institute. They shared the hunting grounds with me as children, and human flesh with my brother. Each was there at Darrow's Triumph, and survived ten years in isolation. They are pale and mad from their time in our aquatic prison, and laugh at the vox senator's scream. The wardens at the door are already dead. I tilt my head back just enough to see the rest of the psychopaths enter. Seventeen remain of the blood-soaked Martian savages that my brother collected for his own personal quest, to depose Octavia, and reach the highest office in the worlds. Not a one of them is out of their thirties, and it seems a hilarious realization to think that perhaps their time in defeat.
Speaker 1 00:05:17
we have a significant force at the head of the pack. She pulls off the red face. and takes a black iron crown from one of her men, and sets it on her head. She walks toward me carrying a warden's head. She rolls it like a playing ball toward the speechless senators. They murmur her name in terror. Several try to flee. She runs her hand along the back of my head as she comes to a stop. Publius, you've been very naughty. Her voice is dead and empty of humor. I gave you that seed and you tried to kill me. This is not the behavior of a pet. She produces a studded dog collar and a leash. Come. Publius does not move. The box senators stare at him. You are in league with bone riders, a red cries. Have you gone mad? Publius has lost his voice.
Speaker 1 00:05:47
Lilith's becomes a wimp. Publius! Come! You're not erect, he moans. Lilith tilts her head. The right hand of the Emperor! A red! Disgusting! Begone, Slaver! A blue shouts at her. We are free men and women here! We wear your chains no more! We would rather die than— Lilith lunges in a way the blue probably never thought possible. One moment she is beside me. The next she has tackled the blue, and is hacking her face apart with an iron hatchet. When the blue's head is a ruin, Lilith walks back to me, and holds out the collar, motioning, Publius! Come! Publius quivers, and I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for him!
Speaker 1 00:06:36
Her men pull them down to fix them tight. Two protest and are killed. After the survivors are fitted, Lilith tilts her head to the door behind me. My Emperor, your slaves await. Small hands applaud from behind me, and the bone riders bend in amorous supplication. Even Lilith. Well done, my Queen. Well done, my friends. That voice. If that scent is your knees, but I know it to my bones. Fear eclipses all rational thought. Little footsteps make their way to the front of the... Well done, my Queen. The door behind me. My Emperor, your slaves await. Small hands applaud from behind me, and the bone riders bend in amorous supplication. Even Lilith. Well done, my Queen. Well done, my friends. That voice. If that scent is your knees, but I know it to my bones.
Speaker 1 00:07:07
Fear eclipses all rational thought. Little footsteps make their way to the front of the court. An abomination wears the face of a small boy around ten years old. Its hair is flaccid, its face narrow, its eyes reptilian in their cold curiosity. It stands before the enslaved box carrying several simple plates. I know this emotion, the abomination says sweetly. This reminds me of a novel I've read about a shoemaker in old Russia. It's this moment, isn't it? This moment where you breathe on all fours, your head's privately tucked to your own chins, where the personal myth which you shrouded around your heart collapses under its own weight, and you realize what you actually are. Not me. That would still give you a victim narrative with enough tragic romance upon which to nurse yourselves. not average you're all clever in a rudimentary way just smart enough to rise above the sea of.
Speaker 1 00:07:38
human meat to comprehend how insignificant you really are the abomination touches cubist's head, we all want to be special must thank you to discover you are not he goes to the blue wheel of slaughter and picks out handfuls of her brains and deposits them upon the plates before setting each one in front of the box no one falls to her knee and unveils a small box from the box the abomination draws an antique razor the sword of salinas he cracks the whip the natural order has resumed he says to the box hic son leonis say his men the son of augustus rules the republic but what is the world with only lions and you will be rich and mighty slave kings of the emperor he points the sword of salinas at them now eat your supper publius is the first to eat as they.
Speaker 1 00:08:14
cry and chew the abomination watches and turns to me with familial affection hello sister so nice to finally meet you chapter 55 virginia the wolf and mother apparently how does do neil lewis says, I am in a nightmare. The clone of my brother stands before the morning chair, running his hand along the smooth wood, as if it held an electric current. Still wearing his collar, Kublia sits on the floor staring at nothing. Gorgo, the obsidian enforcer with gold teeth, watches the clone with deep respect. Severo, Pebble and Clown are driven to their knees beside me before the morning chair. They have been beaten to a pulp, which means they look quite like I did after the mod did its work.
Speaker 1 00:08:44
Even my hair is missing chunks. My forearms are covered with poorly-suited wounds. You will tidy up, portion. Severo hisses at Lilla through mashed lips. Now the hell, you still suck in oxygen. He glares at the clone. And what the fucking fuck is that? Lilla smiles idly and sits at the foot of the clone's chair. Bone riders rove about. Made all the more mad by their isolation in deep grey, they have decorated the room with the corpses of Republic wardens. Mustang? What is this? Severo asks. Who is the beady-eyed rodent? That is a clone of my brother, I reply. The spike has not been removed, but no longer plays with my serotonin levels. Instead, my legs are paralyzed. I barely notice. The jackal, Pebble whispers. Bullshit, Severo says.
Speaker 1 00:09:14
Bullshit. He tries to stand but receives a kick from the bone rider to his stomach. He falls, gasping. Gorgo walks up to him and kicks him again for good measure before returning to the clone. How? The Emperor is our master strategist, Lilith proclaims. He sees all. He sees all, Gorgo echoes. I was not certain my plan to wrest control of the Sovereignty from Octavia would work, the Abomination says, still examining the chair. So I left dear Lilith instructions and samples of my DNA, in case my life was spent in the effort. I left messages and instructions to myself. One can never be too careful. He walks around the chair, eyes barely coming over the top. After she recovered from her own wounds, Lilith went to Earth and found Zanzibar, the Master Carver, and proved her ultimate loyalty by groaning in her own womb.
Speaker 1 00:09:46
Severo literally throws up. He spits bile on the ground. You met this Brit to get the Japo inside you. The only way you could do it was by shitting out his clone. Lilith lunges forward, so close to caving in Severo's skull with her hatchet. No one misses it, not even the Bone Riders, but they don't seem to care one look. The joy they feel being in their armor again is almost childlike. That is the most bent thing I've ever heard, Clown says. Pebble squints at Clown. Did you give us LSD again? You know I hate LSD. Quality stock like Victra, choosing a mongrel for a mate is far more perverse than simple cloning, the clone says. Lilith blinks unhappily at the mention of the Jewelry Eye.
Speaker 1 00:10:17
Victra's sister Antonia was my brother's lover before he died, and she did not look like Lilith. But that was the opinion of my first life. I care very little, except for the pollution of the gene pool that you and your mongrel children represent. My babies eat your heart out with a spoon, Severo says. Oh, please, Severo. It wouldn't do to make me fret. He taps his finger on his chin. I have learned something watching this republic. People only obey when it costs them something to disobey. So, the next time you threaten me, Severo, I will teach you how much it costs, and we'll see if it happens again. Prime? Don't talk to me like you know me. I don't know you, you little freak. You're not a real person, you're just afterbirth. Mustang, have you not voted all over yourself? I stay silent, unable to put my cluttered thoughts to words.
Speaker 1 00:10:48
Daxo. Dancer. Daxo was my best friend, and this, this is what killed him. I feel shattered. If this creature got a hold of Pax, thank Joe for Victra. Keep him safe. Keep Electra safe. Must I? Severo says. Can you hear me? Her name is Virginia, the clone says to Severo. The same blood runs through her veins as in mine. I am Adrius, and I am not Adrius. In some ways, I am less. In some, I am more. I have learned from my first life, studied the archival recordings of the Institute and the lives of my enemies. He sits down in the morning chair. Pulling apart your Republic was so easy a child could do it!
Speaker 1 00:11:19
He smiles. I cannot rule publicly, of course. In time, perhaps. But until then my socialist dog will do. He strokes Publius's head. The disgraced senator flinches. I did intend for Pax to be my passage so I could earn my scar. But Sephi interfered, and Atlas insisted Lilith not pursue. My day of red doves. My little bird sang such sweet songs to me. He gestures to the high windows where the patchel bells sing. There were patchel bells in the window when Dancer and I met. There were patchel bells in the gardens where I had so many conversations. But we checked them for hardware when Sophocles kept eating them. There must be something more sophisticated than that.
Speaker 1 00:11:50
Atlas and Atalantia merely liaise with Lilith in the end. The clone continues. We were going to sell Electra to Julia Albalona. Old Edson? He smiles at Lilith. She looks pleased to be out of her red disguise and back in her Bone Rider armor. The Fools think they have a puppet on Luna. A Red Queen. What a hollow farce! The Fools think they have a puppet on Luna. he taps his finger to his lips he is identical to adrius even in his tics if not in his memories, i'm going to kill you sephora says didn't get the pleasure last time and it will be slow, the clown watches him without emotion i told you the next threat would cost you this is your fault, gorgo please bring in the wolf and the prisoners the obsidian disappears after side passage a moment later the great sun draws at the far end of the hall open syndicate thorns guide in a cargo.
Speaker 1 00:12:21
skiff loaded with a giant iron statue of a howling wolf it bumps against the ground as it sets down behind us sounds come from inside a voice calls out through the iron meaning pebble whispers beside me no clown manners sephora just watches as the iron wolf begins to blow with heat the iron thumps as the howlers inside try to kick their way out smoke slithers through the wolf's nostrils then the trapped men and women inside begin to scream as they melt in its belly their cries of agony funnel through the chamber of the wolf's throat to unilate into a howl when no more howls escape the wolf and the smell of roasted meat fills the room the clones speak did you learn your lesson several several does not reply he's not inside his body at all neither are clown and pebble their eyes are glassy their shoulders slumped several eyes are dry and dead.
Speaker 1 00:12:55
I hope you have, Sephiroth, because I have great plans for you. My sister has uncovered ways to play with the mind. I am going to play with yours, so the next time you see your wife, your daughters, you will not even know who they are. I will strip you of all you wanted, as you and your pack stripped me of all I wanted. He strokes the chair. Then we will be even. i have never seen several afraid like this he glances at me knowing full well what we did to the duke of hands and now that it is his turn all the blood rushes from his face his hands tremble at his sides as if he is being electrocuted his girls are his everything when an animal scream he lunges for adrius and gets just far enough for lilith to personally beat him to the ground she gets up and she nails him in the head with the hilt of her hatchet he stands again bleeding everywhere and.
Speaker 1 00:13:26
another bone rider kicks him in the kidneys time and again he stands up and takes a step toward the clone until lilith kicks him in the head two steps short several goes limp on the ground and i can do nothing my confidence my proud intellect are dormant in the face of this i am paralyzed inside and out with horror just kill us and end this ridiculous show i snap the clone's face is blank for me as bone riders drag several away you are not adrius you're just playing the role she taught you i point to lilith the clone walks down from his perch to cut my face the blood that runs through your veins runs through mine you are my sister virginia my only blood how could i ever kill you he strokes my hair you are family too long you've been weighed down by fools and insects.
Speaker 1 00:13:59
you deserve a second job behind him lilith sucks on her teeth you deserve true dominion over the sheep chapter 56 virginia. I am the guest of honor at a banquet for jackals. My brothers' creatures could never have been accused of sanity before their imprisonment, but after so long robbed of power, they have become mad with the taste of it. As night sets, Sunwell turns to orgiastic bedlam. Niobe's fleet has arrived with the ships of my house, House Telemannus, House Arcos, and almost all the lesser gold houses of the Republic. The box fleet over Luna gathers information to block their way to the planet. The hologram of the pending space battle floats over the room. While the Republic eats itself, the Bone Riders party.
Speaker 1 00:14:31
Safe behind citadel walls and puppet legions, they indulge in yellow and green mountain ranges of narcotics. They have emptied the citadel cellars of my husband's whiskey, and chugged down bottles of wine which have been in my family for generations. Their syndicate servants bury them supplies of pinks and political enemies. On them, they indulge their most depraved appetites. Some poor souls are fetched from the deep cells to be used for fencing practice, or made to fight each other naked in gladiatorial bouts to the death. The bodies fall to the floor to die, and thorns drag them out and bring new ones in. The prisons, brimming as they are with the box's enemies, have an unlimited supply. When I have to watch the silver senator Britannia Ag. Krieg face down an unarmed drunk Bone Rider, I turn away. She no longer seems an adversary, or even a rich woman. To them, she's just the lower species.
Speaker 1 00:15:03
wet towels sucking stone. I have seen almost all there is to see, so it is not the barbarity that irks me. It is the shallowness of their cause. There is no cause, there is no religion, no delusion of honor, only some vague notion of retribution and domination, which means little more to them than the degradation of their enemies. To me, these ten years are felt like a hundred, full of texture and trials and triumphs. But these savages were frozen in time and deep grave. They did not evolve. They only want to live in the past, in that fleeting moment of youth, where even the sovereign feared the house Pluto of Mars' institute. They were barely past twenty years old, and all the worlds were laid out before them. Now, in their ecstasy, they don't realize how far behind everyone else they are. Or maybe that is the reason for the ecstasy. Maybe they all know they are doomed because of their own nature. And they want to live in the sun while it shines. How long can this ruse really last? I have stayed quiet to assess the situation, well after my initial shock wore off. I have learned much. My real brother hallowed the Bone Riders. He mocked them behind their backs. But the best soldiers are often the hollow ones, whom you can fill with your own purpose. This clone doesn't know he is supposed to hate the Bone Riders. He was raised by a woman who worshipped the Jackal and the Bone Riders, and thought the two inseparable. How disappointed the clone must be in the legends he was raised on. I sit at his left hand, a place of secondary honor. Lilith eats her hummingbird eggs across the table from me. She feeds like a pelican, head down, eyes up. Slurp, slurp, slurp.
Speaker 1 00:16:00
Like clockwork, her eyes flick to the clone to make sure he has everything he needs. When he stops drawing with his stylus on a datapad after a pink screams from a bone rider arrow, Lilith bolts to attention. It is almost grotesque to see how quickly the dead-eyed killer melts into suffocating sycophant. What is it, my emperor? Do you possess everything you need? Lilith loved my brother. I've always known it. But now that love is something wrong. She would have been his lover, but he liked pretty halfies like Antonia. So instead, Lilith gave birth to his clone. I do not believe I understand psychology enough to try to unravel that. But I wager the clone has. And that is the vulnerability of this little cabal. I glance up at the arrayed fleets. In reply to Lilith's query, the clone forms a simple three-dimensional puzzle on his datapad, and flicks the floating image to her of his datapad.
Speaker 1 00:16:32
Can you solve that? Sitting up straighter, she peers at it. Slowly, her eyes lose their gleam, as she realizes she doesn't even know there is a puzzle. He looks at me to make a joke of her. I never thought I'd see Lilith squirm from shame. That influence is slipping. She did fail him with the abduction of Pax and Elektra. Now she is frightened I will steal him away. And he is afraid that I will let him down like these bone riders have. How long did it take for his mind to be useful to her, I wonder? Has it been four years? Five? She did much on her own. But how long will he need her now that he has his other bone riders? Now that he has the Vox Legions through his puppets, she must wonder. She must be afraid. And he must be annoyed that he is still so small. I know where to drive away. If he had all he needed, Lilith, I would already be a blank slate, wouldn't I?
Speaker 1 00:17:04
She says nothing. The clone watches intently as I solve the puzzle. I add two new polygons and spin it back to him. He looks at it for a moment, and then smiles in delight. He adds a fresh twist to the puzzle and hurls it back. This volley lasts the better part of thirty excruciating minutes, as the feats probe one another over our heads. I have a strange feeling inside as he pauses the game to spend several minutes on a separate datapad, making adjustments to his battle plan. The ships above move according to his wishes after a slight delay. His last volley was an oddity. He did not try to beat me with it. In fact, he seemed surprised and then delighted to see I could solve his puzzles. After that, he was just having fun. By the third puzzle, so was I. I would have given fingers off my hand for my twin to sigh like that when we were children. All my life, I thought my brother was born broken. He wasn't.
Speaker 1 00:17:34
Perhaps he was just born with an incompatible father. Do you remember our puzzles? I probe the clone as he watches two destroyers test the Tamanus plank. He frowns as they are repelled. I know they occurred, he says, giving new orders to his datapad. Evidence, here and there? I glance at Lilith with a smile. The puzzles defined my relationship with my brother. I don't know how many he gave me over the years, but I know how many I kept. I solved each one, and he'd smile and congratulate me. But sometimes I would follow him, and see him slapping himself and gouging his skin, and he's really stupid, stupid, stupid. If this was his insurance plan, he'd have given his clone all the information he needed to become himself again. The puzzles were a key component of a rivalry that shakes his psyche. He would have included the puzzles. And if he'd included them, he wouldn't have been surprised I could solve them by obscuring our volume.
Speaker 1 00:18:07
The fact that he was surprised is a loose thread I've been looking for. I glance up at the fleets, as he lures a Telemannus Corvette into a trap, and pull on the thread as quickly as I dare. I'm surprised you enjoyed me solving these, I say. What do you mean? It used to, I knew so. He stares at me. Did it? Don't you remember? Sometimes you would hit yourself, and call yourself stupid for failing to form one. Did I ever? No. He puzzles over that for a moment, then looks at Lilith. Is it possible that she redacted some of the information Adrius passed down to his clone? By the look on his face, it isn't the first time he's wondered it. She's lying, Lilith says, seeing the wedge, but not knowing how to blunt it. Kill him is more her game. You are the brightest mind in this solar system.
Speaker 1 00:18:38
Ah, so there's the difference. This clone has been raised to believe he is a god. My brother was kicked, and beaten, and left on a rock to die more than once. One earned his victories, the other feels entitled to them. Are you doing this for Lilith, I ask the clone, or is it for Adrius? I am Adrius, he says. And do you want to be? He tilts his head to examine me as the Martian fleet withdraws, to reassess their strategy after losing two more covets. Don't let her pour poison in your ear, my Emperor. She always thought you were a monster. Lilith says to him. Turning to me, she says, You betrayed him to slaves. You abandoned your own brother. You hung him from the gallows yourself. He should have been worshipped by the world, but you just stepped all over him. You hated him. You called him a monster. If I hated him, why did I pull his feet?
Speaker 1 00:19:09
I ask. If I didn't love him, why would I keep those puzzles? Lilith goes still. Eat that bitch. The clone activates, leaning forward. I suspect that artifacts from Adrys's life would be of almost religious importance to him. The clone's eyes are open. I can't see.
Speaker 1 00:19:51
You did. So why disobey me? He leans forward. Did you plan the day of red doves? Did you use the white gills to start a war? What does he mean by that? You are a blunt instrument, Lilith. You know this. I treat you with respect, and you dare meddle with my designs. I thought they were proof of destruction, sir. I pray for your sake they have not been destroyed. No, she says. You made them. Where are they? I ask, hoping I'm right. The clone stands up. You heard my sister, Lilith. She may not be our ally, but she is of better blood than you. Answer her with due respect. Lilith looks at me with abject hatred. In my quarters, the clone looks disgusted, as if he'd found her going through his drawers to smell his underwear. Have them restored to their original locations.
Speaker 1 00:20:21
I will view them at once. At the battle hall, he glances at the Telamana's fleet, which makes no new movements towards the planet. They have little appetite for blood. They're trying to break through our jammers to broadcast to the people. We have time. The clone stands in my private office, staring at the puzzles Lilith took from the room to hide for herself. He has not spoken for five minutes. I am surprised Lilith found the hidden vestibule behind the wall. It seems, however, she did not find a hidden passage within it. Must that low-glove watch us like this? I ask him. She looks like a jealous vulture. Leave us, he says almost in a whisper. Lilith's cold eyes dart to me. My Emperor, it would not be wise. I flop down in a chair near a coffee table covered with books, and a vase of night lilies. Paralyze my legs if you're so afraid. The clone eyes the table behind me with suspicion. There were defense-related systems located in the table, Lilith reports. We deactivated them, my Emperor. And the dining table? Deactivated as well. The clone points to a different chair at the small dining table, and another vase of assorted flowers, almost all of which are dead. I sit in the chair, and he paralyzes my legs via the psycho spike.
Speaker 1 00:21:07
See? That wasn't so hard, I say. He turns to Lilith. If she kills me, she kills Severo and the others. If she'll pay that price, she's earned it. Lilith lowers herself into a weary bow, and backs without two, so the Bone Rider escorts toward the door. The clone looks back at the puzzles. I was hoping it wouldn't be paralysis, but nothing is easy. I know you're playing a game, the clone says as the door closes, but I don't fault you for it. This all started as a game. It wasn't until four years ago I heard my recording to myself. Lilith had instructions to follow, a psychological profile of the proper puppet to sponsor for a Senate run. Publius fit my specifications perfectly. She did take control of the Syndicate on her own, but the Underworld wasn't prepared for her level of violence.
Speaker 1 00:21:37
That's both of me talking. But she only goes in one direction at a time. He walks down the lines of the puzzle, passing very near to the Idle Night Middies. The flowers, uncared for, droop in their vases. Many are dead. She would tell it to me all like a story at first, then presented it to me as a problem set. Given the variables, which airing to kill, which product to sell, I liked it better when it was stories. I was a hero in them. Or he was. He stops in front of a maze. But we're not. And I know why. Lilith took me to a slaughterhouse on Earth when I was young, and I saw how they would kill the cows, and then make them into food for us to eat. Tell me, why are cows different from people? Cows have dreams. Cows have affection for their friends and family. If you are going to say it is because cows are less intelligent than people, it is because, "'Why is it not acceptable to slaughter them? Why is it not acceptable for me to slaughter people who are proportionately less intelligent to me than cows are to them? And if you say it is because people feel more, then I invite you to stab a cow and a human in the throat, and see how very similar they are.' As he speaks, my eyes search the vase of the flowers, looking for a live one. "'That's false equivalency. Logical fallacies are beneath you,' I say.
Speaker 1 00:22:21
"'You know it's true,' he replies. I look back to him from the flowers, just before he glances back. "'Deep down, that's what I care about, because I can talk to you and I know you hear me. I was promised that with the bone riders, but they are… aberrant monkeys. From Lilith's lips, you would believe they were seraphs. You hated them before, too,' I say. "'Did I?' he asks, sounding almost relieved. "'You thought them ridiculous. They are venal. And did I hate father?' "'No. I shot him in the head. You loved father as a father should be loved. But he didn't love you back. That was the problem. You thought it was your fault. There were many things that were your fault, but not that.'"
Speaker 1 00:22:52
a matter of if he cared when he did it. Our father didn't. And I think you spotted that. Then why are you, you, and why am I me? he asks, turning around completely. Because I gave up trying to please him, and you never did. I honestly don't think you ever cared about any of this. I wade to the walls around us. With every new endeavour there's always the hope that you will find happiness, be less lonely. Let me tell you what I've learnt. The moment you become sovereign, you become the loneliest person in all the world, because there is no new endeavour, no new height, to which you can ascend. Whatever loneliness is already inside you is magnified, because if you were lucky enough to have anyone understand you before, they won't understand you after you sit in the morning chair. Only one person, alive at a time, knows what it means to be sovereign.
Speaker 1 00:23:22
He traces the lines on the marble floor with his toe, as if it were a puzzle. I glance back at the flowers. There could be one alive on the other side of the vase. Do you know why I did this? he asks. I did it because Lilith told me it was the only way I could see you. You would kill me if you were not at my mercy. I know. You think I'm a freak, and I am. But thank you for speaking to me as if I would. I recognise the gesture. Even if it isn't a kindness. Do you hate her? I ask him. Lilith. I'm sorry. die, I had a thought. I asked Lilith to build me an iron cow. She built me the iron wolf instead, as I knew she would. One day soon, I will melt her inside it. I forget the flowers.
Speaker 1 00:23:53
and stare at him. Why? Because she doesn't understand irony. He means it, and he doesn't sound upset, proud, or even excited about it. And doing that would make you feel happy, I ask. It doesn't make me feel anything. It's just an opportunity for novelty. To do that to Lilith, who gave birth to him, who breastfed him, who woke in the middle of the night when he cried as a baby, who trained him to walk, to speak, to read, seems in the moment to be the cruelest act I have ever heard. My brother was many things, but even his evil led with a heart. This thing has just bought. Just like making the Republic eat itself, I ask. Indeed, he smiles, pleased. I knew if anyone could understand me, it would be you. I only wish father were here. Cruel, though he may have been, so I could see this.
Speaker 1 00:24:24
cruelness, look in the eye, smell its ugly breath, to see if I felt it. Felt what? Evil. What precipice of the mind could come to anything more terrifying than a cruel father? I think, I say slowly, perhaps you have spent too much childhood indoors, young man. He reels back, annoyed that I dare try to pull out of the discussion with affected rhetoric. In his mind, it is disrespectful. You don't think I'm Adrius at all, do you? He asks. His mood darkens. I suppose to you this must all feel as if you were with a voyeur. He gestures to the puzzles. I am not real to you. I am an interruption. At very best, an imposter. His lips fall upward as his eyes narrow. Am I wrong? Nah, kid, you're not wrong. If Adrius was here, he would be eating lobster as he gave this lecture,
Speaker 1 00:24:55
on a table containing the body of a conquered foe. If Adrius were here, he'd have sex slaves brought to him after the battle, and fuck them on Octavia O'Loon's bed. He'd have liquor bottles with piss, and then give them to his bone riders to share. And then, after all that, he'd tell it all to no one. His war on the world was a joke built around a central need to prove he didn't yearn for the approval from the only man who wouldn't give it. You, on the other hand, are just a joke built around me. A visitor to this world who doesn't belong. A ghost. He looks stricken. I finish it. And what father was to Adrius, I am now to you. He steps closer, as if to confess. It would appear so. Emotion leaks into his voice. It must end in your death then, I suppose.
Speaker 1 00:25:26
I spot the flower I need. It's moments like this I sympathize with Darrow. There is a patient, longer scheme available, where I earn the clone's trust over days, even weeks. I could fix more things then, perhaps. I could ensure the rescue of Severo, Pebble and Clown, but if I wait so long, how much of the Republic will be left by the time I am in a position to save it? The fleets will be at it again soon, if they aren't already. Both navies will be able to protect us from the Golds. The prospect of their destruction, at the hands of each other, is more urgent a calamity than the safety of my friend. I make the same choice my husband had to make. It doesn't have to be that way, I say to the clone. I am not like father because I do care about you, even if I don't love you. You killed my friends when you didn't have to. Lilith put that in you. What I said, it was in reaction to that.
Speaker 1 00:25:56
I don't want to be your enemy. There are things Lilith is wrong about, things that will jeopardize your life. For instance, the Pandemonium Chair. Did you know Octavia only used it twice? It is dangerous. Are you trying to tempt me into asking for the codes to the Crescent Vault? he asks. No, I say. I am trying to tempt you into asking about my research with the Pandemonium Chair, how the Psycho-Spike functions. He lifts his datapad and sends tendrils of pain racing along my spine. I think I've discovered it for myself. Of course, but you haven't cracked how to actually erase the memories, have you? They're quite different functions, mewing and destroying, and more than twenty-four steps to the latter. I lean forward with a smile. I see. he couldn't figure out the puzzle i'm sorry rude of me to not put in an easy little button for idiots he wants to know how to do it so he can do it to me and make me his companion what sort of.
Speaker 1 00:26:28
companion i can only guess he looks scolded but walks closer and you would just tell me in time all things are possible brother i picked the nightly out from amongst the dead flowers in the vase and i handed out to him the way bologna knights did as they returned to loved ones from war his response is a basic human response when you're caught off guard and someone reaches to shake your hand in a comfortable setting you usually shake it when someone displays a deep and respectful flash of cultural esoterica that you value as well you respond he does both if he had had proper kinesthetic training by a razor master he wouldn't after all genius or not he's still only 10 years old he takes the flower but he doesn't take it the way i would or the way adrius would he takes it like an entitled child who spends too much time indoors violently chapter 57.
Speaker 1 00:27:03
virginia black cathedral night lilies respond well to a gentle touch they do not abide rough, that's when the necrotic spines come out to play i had them made that way as my last in a long line of redundant defenses all of which have either been deactivated or removed except my bloody damn flowers precisely because it is more in line with something atalantia would have lying around than virginia our augustus, The clone flinches as several sets of glistening needles burst on the flower to pierce his thumb. He screams at the sudden blinding pain. The shaded toxin's ability trickles slowly down the tip of his thumb, spreading toward his hand. He falls backward, staggered by the intensity of the poison. I feel the agony as well. It seeps from my right index finger up my arm straight to my spinal column. I almost throw up, but I must move.
Speaker 1 00:27:35
I throw my body forward off the chair to the floor near the clone's datapad. He dropped it the second after the needles went in. The flower's spines have retracted. I pick it up very gently. Flower in one hand, pad in the other. I crawl to the puzzle wall, trying to turn off the psycho spike without getting another dose of the spreading poison. Transponder to the escape door. Lilith's creepy sweet. The door to the hall explodes inward as Lilith responds to her emperor's cries. She's carrying two hatchets. She runs toward me. I find the right function on the datapad and return sensation to my legs. I scramble upward and lunge to touch the wall behind the pictures without disturbing the flower in my hands.
Speaker 1 00:28:06
A jarring force hits my back. It almost feels like a punch compared with the searing pain in my index finger. Menocrotic poison is spreading from the hand. If it gets to the torso, I'm dead. But by the wrist, I'll be in such agony I won't be able to move. I slam my other hand into the wall. The wall shoots straight upward to reveal a metal chute at waist height. I duck and drop the flower just as Lilith tries to chop my head off from behind. I try to spin kick her legs, but she steps over the kick and delivers a slash downward. I catch it on my left forearm. The bone breaks so abruptly that it pierces the skin. I stumble back into the wall beside the chute and reach for the flower with my poisoned hand. Lilith is brutal and effective. She chops me in the left shoulder, takes off my right ear, then buries a crushing blow in the right side of my ribcage. The bones break, and something inside me ruptures.
Speaker 1 00:28:37
I crumple downward, just close enough to the flower. Lilith glances back at her emperor, knowing I'm mortally wounded, but unable to detect why he's screaming. Almost blind with pain, I fumble for the flower with my poisoned hand. Another dose of poison goes through two more of my fingers. My vision pulses, and I hurl the flower up at Lilith's face. It is the only part of her not covered with armor. I don't see where it hits her, I just hear her screaming. She stumbles away, almost dropping her hatchet. Something clanks on the wall behind where I stand. It's connected to me. I reach backward and find metal. I pull on it till I feel pressure release in my back. It's one of Lilith's hatchets. I look at her, and I stumble from the pain and loss of blood as I wind up to throw it at her. She's hunched beside the cloak. There's a ripping sound, and she stands up with a shudder.
Speaker 1 00:29:08
It was her nose the needle's got, and she didn't take any chances with how much of her nose she cut off. She turns back to me, and pulls another hatchet from the sheath on her thigh to join the bloody one she already has. I throw my hatchet at her. She doesn't bother dodging, it just sparks off her armor. I lose faith in the fight, and I dive into the escape hole to plunge forward. The ride is a minute almost straight down through darkness. The tunnels go almost as deep as the Dragonmoor Bunker. The tube levels off and deposits me on a soft landing pad in a small room. It is one of the Citadel's secondary fallback bunkers. There are four tubes that can access it. I pull a lever to close all four. The tunnel is almost as deep as the Dragonmoor Bunker. They might have found everything else in my office, but not this. I'm going to pass out from blood loss soon. I rush past the weapons cases to the medical station. Arm broken, I clumsily grab the laser saw first.
Speaker 1 00:29:39
The blue line of energy comes to life. Without hesitating, I slice off my index finger at the bottom joint. The pain of the amputation and cauterization are meager, compared with that of the Lily's toxins. I leave the gouge where my ear used to be, weeping blood. The flow has already diminished, and will stop soon from coagulation. I take off the middle finger at the top joint, and just the tip of the ring finger. I discard the laser cutter and reach for the cauterizing gun. No time for anything pretty. Even with it, my internal organs will likely keep bleeding and rupture. I moan over the medical table in pain, as the gun melts closed the wound on my right side. Then I see all the other ones I can reach. I thought I would face a dire choice. To save Severo and my friends, or to save myself. Now, I realize there is no choice. If I don't get out, I will die. And so will the fleet in audit.
Speaker 1 00:30:09
I have to get out. I take three shots of stims to stay awake, then pump blood from the med station supply into myself as I sit woozy in front of the communications terminal. It is located beside the ejection chute. The terminal is already in black cathedral protocol. Someone else must have called it. Cavax? Holliday? The hidden network immediately connects me to the bridge of the Raynard, Cavax's flagship. He turns to see me on his displays. Sophocles tilts his head toward the camera. Cavax, I am in the small chapel. The man's eyes widen. Flashes from battle wash over his face. I have internal bleeding in the kidneys, and likely the liver. Left arm is broken, right hand losing function. Severo, Clown, and Pebble are also prisoners in the Sun Hall. How many clergy in the building?
Speaker 1 00:30:41
I don't know. Do you know where the prisoner's located? No. Can you find out? He asks. Giving you access to internal cameras still connected to the systems, I say. Cavax, make the call. I'll go back for them if you think I can make it. He and his techs sort the feeds for a few moments to find the ones I sent. As they do, I examine the defense systems I had installed in the Citadel. Nearly all of them are dark. Lilith and the clone peeled my fortress apart. Oddly, the escape and transit systems are the only systems running. Likely so the clone and the bone riders could move about behind the scenes while they pull the strings of their puppet government. Kavax is done appraising the information I sent. Where are they? I ask. Let me see your wound. I turn them toward the camera. Eject, he says. We have teams on the ground ready to move at exit.
Speaker 1 00:31:12
Eject. My heart wants to be the person who risks it for Severo in the face of certain death. My head can't decide. But in this situation, the person on his end of the line is the boss. Kavax has operational control. I look emptily at the ejection tube. Is this what it comes down to? Leaving the best of my friends in the clutches of a ghost from my past? I suppose so. Severo was right. I am not Mustang any longer. I am the Sovereign. I crank open the ejection hatch, crying out from the pain as I use my broken arm. I feel very selfish as I crawl through the aperture into a small padded compartment large enough to fit ten. I close the hatch behind me, and the lights in the compartment and in the concrete tunnel glow. Electricity channels through the two metal rails on either side of the tunnel, and the compartment shoots forward.
Speaker 1 00:31:43
It carries me away from not only Severo, Clown, and Pebble. It carries me away from the place Daxo died, and the people who killed him. It takes me away from ten years of work in a place I had always feared. I had dreamed of one day leaving the Citadel of Light behind, perhaps ousted from office in a hard-fought election against a worthy successor, or after my relevance had worn out. I once hoped it would be Dancer who took it on next. Never did I imagine my last time leaving the Citadel would be like this. As the compartment races along the 40km tunnel, I make myself a promise that this will be the second to last time I leave the Citadel. I will return to finish this, and then I will never see this place again. It feels like a dream when the compartment slows to a stop. The hatch pops open above my head, and I emerge. Large men in armor stand waiting for me. But then, their rifles rise.
Speaker 1 00:32:14
And I see the Vox upside-down pyramid on their armor. I stand there with my hands in the air, feeling myself fading. Gunfire comes from the hall, and before the men can turn around, the wall behind them erupts. High-powered rounds mow them down in seconds. A team of heavily armed Lion Guard and Pegasus Legion soldiers burst in from the hall hunched over their weapons. The battered helmet of a Pegasus Centurion retracts to reveal Holiday T. Nakamura. Lie down, ma'am, she barks. Two of her men expand a peculiar stretcher with two large pods on each end. Holiday forces me down onto it. I make no arguments. I can barely walk. Reynard, this is Grey Rock. I have Gold Horse. We are on the move. The stretcher locks me in place. I see what the pods are for when an intense pulse field throbs between them with a thong.
Speaker 1 00:32:45
Two soldiers carry the stretcher as Holliday leads the squad out of the room. Gunfire echoes through the halls. Gunship engines roar outside as we ascend the bunker via the stairs. Dozens of Vox Legionnaires lie dead. More of Holliday's lurcher squads join us. They look like a troop of evil gargoyles as they push from the bunker and force out into the light of day. We're in one of my brother's craters. Now I see why Kavax didn't send in men through the tunnel earlier. It's in the center of a Vox Mobile infantry legion headquarters. Lion Guard and Pegasus Legion gunships lay waste to the camp. Holliday leads the special forces troopers straight into the back of a waiting assault transport. Its guns rattle as we lift off as soon as I'm aboard. Fifty Pegasus troopers activate their boots and fly close behind the transport as the door seals. The war becomes a distant rumble.
Speaker 1 00:33:15
A medical team waiting in the assault shuttle rushes to me. Before I can object, they sedate me. I feel our escape from atmosphere distantly through the bumps that resonate through the deck. When I go weightless, I know we have made it to space. When the shuttle wheezes to a stop and plunks down on a deck, I know I have made it to the Raynard. I close my eyes and succumb to the loss of blood. I wake to find Arrow's mother asleep at my bedside with Sophocles in her arms. The ship is quiet. It seems they disengaged with the Vox fleet. Monitors above me track my vitals. I am in the Raynard's medical bay. Sophocles wakes up first and gives a little yip and jumps on my bed. I wince as pain races through my right side from my wound. Stupid animal, Deanna says, swatting it away. She wipes heat from her eyes and looks down on me with such protective love that I start.
Speaker 1 00:33:48
to cry. Not for myself, but for her, for the pain I see in her eyes, and all the pain she must have felt these last days for her son, for her grandson, for Severo, for me. And then I cry for Daxo and Theodora, and the friends I left behind with the monster. She cradles me as I do, humming in my ear, as I've always wished my mother had done for me. Hours later, when I've worked up the strength, Kavax and Niobe come to see me. I worry for a moment that Nakamura was too ashamed to come, but then Deanna drags her inside. Holiday can barely meet my eyes for the shame of letting me be captured. It wasn't her fault. I was thoroughly undone. I'd read the end to Kavax and Niobe for Daxo, but all that needs to wait. Has Heliopolis fallen, I ask. Not yet, Kavax says, but our agents say it only has days left.
Speaker 1 00:34:21
Darrow, I ask. We don't know, Niobe says. Tax? Kavax can't answer, so Niobe does. Ephraim T. Horne abducted them from the Obsidian. Their whereabouts are currently unknown. Abducted them? Again? We don't know why. But it occurred immediately after the Pandora was hit. Mitra is missing. Her escape shuttle was found, but the first rescue team was shot down crossing Obsidian airspace. Her legions were grounded on the orders of the Arch-Governor, for fear they would initiate a war with Cephys Obsidian. I lean forward in hope. Rolo survived, then. He's a good man. Star-ward. Tough. Loyal. And he was a son of Ares. No, Holliday said. They assassinated him in Aegea. I sink into the bed.
Speaker 1 00:34:51
Well, then it's Voril. They shake their heads. They got him, too. Well, then who took the post? Some idiot. Diana says. Kieran. Kavak answers heavily. Temporary appointment by Mars' regional governors. Darrow's brother. I send him to Mars with Niobe to negotiate with the Obsidian. I'm hopelessly behind. Wait. No, Publius and Zahn mentioned this. Who assaulted the ship? It looks like Cephys, Kavak says. I just blink at him. I never thought we should have trusted that mongrel breed. First the coppers, then the crows. Looking up at them, I just realize that they think Publius did all this. I don't have time to explain. Calming her husband, Niobe shows me the current disposition of ships in the system.
Speaker 1 00:35:22
So the Republic battleships are here, around Luna, while the ecliptic guard gathers over Mars. I don't have time to explain. Is this fleet strong enough to break through Ash Armada over Mercury? I ask Kavak. Yes, Kavak says. No, Niobe corrects. We cannot defeat them without the cryptic guard or the Vox fleet joining us. We might be able to break through as is, but to land and load on the fire? She stiffens. A miracle could occur. Or, it could be the greatest disaster of the war. We have to try, Kavak says. The arrow would for us. Deanna heads to the door. Deanna, stay, I say. No, she says gruffly. Maybe I can one day forgive you for doing what needs doing. But I can't give you permission to abandon my boy. She steps out. Holiday still has not weighed in. Virginia, there's something else you need to know, Niobe says.
Speaker 1 00:35:54
Princess, the Rim has made a secret alliance with the Core. It can't get any worse. Fresh ships, fresh legions of enemies, thrown into the fray at the exact moment they could break our backs. They are currently unaware we have this intel. We don't know where they will strike, but we can assume it will be decisive. She looks at her husband. Mercury is in far orbit. I think they will hit us as we cross near the sun, when our sensors are distorted. No, Kavak says, disagreeing again. They will hit Mars. Take out the Phobos dockyard's eye for an eye. And that is why we should return to Mars, Myobi says. Kavak knows better the rim, and I know better Atalantia. Mars cannot fall. No one has suggested rescue in Severum, I say. We send three teams in through the tunnel after we are back to you. We lost contact with them ten minutes later.
Speaker 1 00:36:26
I said, Virginia, we have four operatives still in the building under Moonhall. They are Severo's best chance. But if we try to hammer our way in now, massacre. And the clone kills my friends. We can't stay here, Myobi says. The Vox fleet wants a fight. They're still pursuing and we're a million clicks away from Luna. Surely Plubius can be reasoned with, Kavak says to me. To do all this, he might have used the mob, but he can be rational. If we fight his fleet, no matter who loses, gold wins. It's almost too much to bear. What do you think, Holiday? I ask. Finally she meets my eyes. Retreat is the only option, ma'am. We must regroup on Mars. If we go, that leaves Earth alone with the Vox, and the swelling, bold host. It will fall unless the clone sees it is in his interest to try to defend it with his.
Speaker 1 00:36:57
loonies fleet. But Mars can be defended, without help from Luna. Earth cannot. Then we go to Mars, I say. Oh, I promised my husband I would come for him. I cannot. It is a betrayal that will haunt me to the grave. Kavak sags in exhaustion. He sees me notice, and finally seems to see the scores of wounds the mob gave me on my exposed arms, neck and legs. I had forgotten them. The tears gather in his eyes as he leans over the bed. All hope is not lost, he whispers to me. I fail to see how he can believe that. He kisses my forehead. I sent a man to Mercury, to bring Darrow home, if Heliopolis falls. Who, I ask? The same man who told us the Rim was coming.
Speaker 2 00:37:28
Chapter 58. Darrow. Severo's Palace. Gliarastus, the master maker, stands before his crudest creation. The starboard hangar of the Morning Star no longer exists. Onassis' engineering corps have carved through the midsection of the ship, to create enough room to house the spirit of Farah, our fastest and youngest torch ship. The insides of the Ferran have been almost entirely gutted to make room for the most powerful electromagnetic pulse weapon assembled in all the campaigns of the war. It is not a new device on the surface, but it is the nature of war to inspire evolution. In his purple robes, Clearestis resembles an evil necromancer from one of Pax's storybooks. His hands labour with some Byzantine contraption designed for his fourteen fingers. It measures arcane readouts, the meaning of which only my wife and her narcissist astrophysicists.
Speaker 2 00:38:01
could ever hope to understand. Old researchers with large, roomy eyes check their own notations and murmur to one another while the younger breed crouch in isolation, their cranial implants flickering as they attempt to keep pace with the orange idol. As the EMP finishes its eighteenth preliminary test, I survey the length of the device, its nest of wave-shaped coils, each three times as thick around as a man, its blue lights and vacuum tube. A steady thump-thump comes from the oversized helium reactor at the aft of the ship. The lights dim. Clearestis clicks his tongue at his servant, who bends to scratch his inner calf. Mid-scratch, he screams at a welder for silence. The thick-set red spits tobacco juice into the can tied to his neck by a string, turns off his torch, and hangs from the ceiling on his life.
Speaker 2 00:38:33
The engineers and construction teams hold their collective breath, not so much in anticipation of the result, but for fear of the maker's monstrous temper. Green integers dance across his face as his eyes dart through the report, punctuating it with murmurs of, Interesting. Sophilius instantaneously. Shit, shit, and dickless shit. And more esoteric mercurial profanities. Do we have a problem, Glerastus? Glerastus sighs, as if in prayer, to give himself patience. Problem? You ask if we have a problem? The folds of his neck twist red as he cranes his head to glare at me like a frazzled yet contemptuous elf. Young man, you bamboozle to me into helping you activate the storm guards under the pretense that you would use them only in a limited capacity and instead turn a city I love into a coral reef.
Speaker 2 00:39:05
Any compassion I had for your cause has been drowned by the encroaching sea. Yet if I do not help you again, as you so eloquently and brutally elucidated, when you browbeat me into helping you on this fool's errands to rid you from my planet, the city of my birth will resemble little else in the known universe except the center of a G-type main sequence star. The fact that I find catharsis in profanity while endeavouring to fit three years worth of research into three weeks of practical application does not reflect upon the enthusiasm for the work, which is little, nor the necessity, which is great. So, yes, we have a problem. But the particular nature of my frustration is isolated to a conundrum which you have neither the patience, nor the temperament, nor the cognitive ability to understand. He turns the data on its side, scrolls through it again. Ah, he says, never mind, I solved it.
Speaker 2 00:39:36
He twirls his fingers. You, why did you stop welding? Get back to our work! Must I do everything? Clearastius stalks out of the spirit and heads for his meek shit office on the floor of the hangar. You're all bloody saints, I say to the welders. Ah, sir, one croons. Can I have a kiss? asks another. Back to work, Anastas shouts. We're not paying by the hour. We find Clearastius sighing as he slumps into his thinking chair, a queer perch made from a single flowing branch of a sunblossom tree. I know it is beneath you, Anastas says, as Clearastius' servant pours his master a glass of port. It would do them some comfort to know they're not trusting their lives to magic. Clearastius surveys the commanders I brought with me.
Speaker 2 00:40:06
Now, that sounds tiresome. He puts his feet on a silk stool, and sighs as his servant removes his purple slippers and massages his heels with rose oil. Anastas looks six seconds away from cladding Clearastius on the ears. He has little patience for snobs. I have more experience with the breed. It's just in the MP. What's so complicated about scaling it up, I say, and wait for the explosion? Just an EMP, Lirastes repeats, as if reading his own obituary aloud. Am I just an ambulating mammal? His eyes stare at me. Did you not retain anything of your curriculum from the Academy, aside from astral belligerency? I retained enough, apparently. The infantry commanders, trouble. Lirastes sighs in annoyance, and regards Fraxer and my infantry commanders with distaste,
Speaker 2 00:40:38
offended by the sunburned visages and thick chests of hardier mammals than he, and retreats to intellectual bullying. I track what he says, because I married a woman who'd be insulted if I couldn't. Weaponized, transient, electromagnetic disturbances have tenaciously sharp leading wave-agents, escalating precipitously to their maximum level before decaying slowly. Imagine a double-exponential curve. Problematically, the shielding made by the Venusian dockyards is designed to recognize this sort of blunt belligerency —he fixes me with a glare— and provide countermeasures for Atalanta's fleet. Consequently, I have decided to use a benign, damp sine wave to create a coupling between the source and the victim equipment. Usually, this is a byproduct of a weaponized EMP, but the genius here is that instead of diminishing within the double-exponential envelope,
Speaker 2 00:41:10
the sine wave wavelengths will increase. However, considering the distance required, the energy demand will be staggering. Creating a more efficient and staggered energy ignition is profoundly difficult, absent a nuclear explosion, and if I do not perfect it, you will all die in the sky. He eyes me again. "'Now that I have satisfied the curiosity of your apes, the zoo is closed!' He closes his eyes. "'Begone! Lest you have an advanced degree, or care to replace Exeter in massaging my feet!' "'I'll take his spot, if you like, Master Baker,' Glaxo says with a smile. She holds up her hands. "'I know they look like elephant feet, but they're tender to the right sort.' Glorastius makes a face of distaste. "'Such a bloodline! Squandered on martial absurdity!
Speaker 2 00:41:40
You've genius in your line, woman! Your brother was the mind of a generation! And your father—' He sighs. "'You waste your time playing soldier. So that's a pass. Troth! Issues finesse to look. Don't forget my breakfast tomorrow. I can't work without sardines. Tomorrow is a Tuesday, after all.' As my infantry commanders fight like muttering their concerns to one another, Anastas follows me and Fraxer out of the star's hangar. "'What do you think?' I ask him. "'He's pig-headed, cruel, eccentric, fickle, and ten times as demanding as my first wife!' "'But he's a genius!' "'Was,' Fraxer says. Riches made him slow. She glares back at the man. "'Little more than a lapdog to whoever holds Mercury.'
Speaker 2 00:42:11
"'You thinking he'll betray us?' "'I'm thinking we should endeavour to remind him Atalantia is scared of us.' "'What do you have against him?' I ask. "'He's a coward. First off, his designs are rubbish, robbing the Egyptians blind. When the bastard closes it up to the slavers, then to us. He's a blood-fly, invertebrate, commissioned to pop him when we evac. Denied, psycho, Anastas says. Wasn't asking you. He's my second-in-command, Fraxer. When I don't speak, he speaks for me, I remind her. Uh-huh, but you're speaking. You're not killing the mastermaker, she shrugs. Sure. Where were we, I ask Anastas. Can we even tell if he's full of shit? If he leaves us hanging up there, we're all dead. He's spineless, Fraxer moans.
Speaker 2 00:42:42
He wouldn't dare cross us. Probably right, Anastas grimaces. See, I'm not the sharpest on magnetism or waveform theory. My focus was practical mechanics. What about 200 brains with a thousand degrees between them going step for step with him? He's smarter than each one of them in theory, but not all of them together. If he's playing games, they'll red flag it. On this week, he can have it. Seems he'll do what we need him to do. That's the trick, isn't it? You want the genius happy? We need sardines. Sardines. He says he gets headaches without sardines for breakfast on Tuesdays. Tomorrow is Tuesday, and he's fresh out. You have to be joking, I say, with Fraxel. I don't damn well know. This man's been pissing into crystal decanter since he was a teenager.
Speaker 2 00:43:14
So far, no look. If the Heliopolitan Silvers here have sardines, they're denying it. We could raid their kitchens, but we're on unsteady footing as it is. Where's Severo and the Neatons? I mutter. Manassas raises an eyebrow in query. You think he just always smells like it? Fraxel asks. I think he smells like wet dog, personally. I reply. Well, it depends if it's raining or not. Guys, the jungles were rough. You remember that trench boy he had? Thought we'd have to amputate, Fraxel says. Yeah, you tried. Then he woke up. That was funny. Manassas shakes his head. This is not the conversation I thought I would have when the Reaper of Mars came to North Africa to make me a brazier. I thought it'd be all fire and guts and devilish mayhem, not prepubescent humour.
Speaker 2 00:43:45
You should check Severo's pantry. All sorts of illicit goods are there, so I hear. Why don't you check it? I ask. I won't send any of my men in there. I sigh and motion Rona over from my bodyguards. Go see if there's any sardines in Imperator Barker's stateroom. She goes white as a corpse. Uh, isn't that a task for support? Not you, too. It's just... Well, there's booby traps, ain't there? Alexander once tried to steal whiskey. Came back shaking like a softball from their first aerial truck. Fine. my bodyguards all find something very interesting in the contours of the deck superstitious idiots i'll get that bloody damn sardines ten minutes later i'm shrieking like a goat on the floor just inside several's room as a medic pulls needles from incredible pain races through my body as.
Speaker 2 00:44:18
my hands and feet turn purple and start to swell uncontrollably a flat voice draws from a hologram of several's face don't touch my it's prime sir the yellow says to me she injects me with anti-venom it's prime the pain will subside in a minute swelling should start to go down now sadly the color will remain she looks up at several's hologram i'll um wait outside in case you need me told you run assess from the door slag off when my hands have almost returned to the normal size and feeling has returned to my feet i stagger up and turn off the hologram a hidden needle clicks my finger class dna detected a sexy.
Speaker 2 00:44:50
voice says nothing leaps at me from the darkness profile match for daryl of lycos best friend also known as reaper boss howler one apex asshole brother mustang speech second class clearance, Welcome. I apologize for warning shots. Master has been notified of your skulking. Sticky finger traps deactivated. Help yourself to a glass of scotch, best friend. Take in some music, reaper. Admire the trophies from the decimated enemies of the noble howlers, boss. Enjoy the extensive pornography library, howler one. Relax in the sauna, apex asshole. It has no traps. But above all else, steal nothing, and enjoy your stay in...
Speaker 2 00:45:20
Severo's Palace. Severo's voice adds very seriously. Second class, I ask. Yes. Master says you know why. I look back to Rona at the door. Nope, Rona says, and bugs out. Screwface makes a motion of sending guard and ducks into the hall. Pixie, I mutter, and shut the door. The suite is large, comprised of half a dozen rooms filled with his prizes. I've avoided this place since arriving on Mercury. To be here is to be reminded of how we parted. The place is too much like my friend. Mugs of evaporated whiskey sit in ranks atop banners of fallen warlords he's trampled. Candy wrappers fill the eyeholes of solid gold skulls taken from Magnus's floating palace in Africa. The scepter I gave Adria Sinatica sits on the couch for Severo to use as a backspreader.
Speaker 2 00:45:53
Only one place is spared the chaos strewn throughout the suite. My wife once told me, a man's soul can be seen in the rooms he keeps the cleanest. I asked her what room is my soul. She tapped my razor. Severo's soul is his armoury, but for a different reason. One wall is for use. Razors of Severo's wolf armour hang central on the longest wall, surrounded by a shrine of knives. Tickler, his favourite, is missing. Replacement razors gleam with oil. Several from the gems of, are there, as is the minotaur's with its fawned pommel. I gave it to Severo as a gift when his youngest was born. He always coveted it, especially after Sethi won ashes off him in a game of who gets the most kills. Pulse fists and more esoteric weapons fill the rest of the shelves.
Speaker 2 00:46:25
One wall is for memories. One of Ragnar's razors. Weed's old pipe. Gwyn's howler cloak. The bloody cape Octavia Arloon wore the day I killed her. Highest on the wall, in a place of honour, is the sling blade I used at the institute. I look at it for a long time before I take it down. It is far heavier than my razor, and falls smaller than I remember. I swing it till it makes a swish swish. I laughed at him when I saw it there the first time. Laughed even harder when I found out how much trouble he went through to track it down. But I think I skipped past the part that mattered. How much the blade meant to him. With his father always away, always secretive and frightened to show his love. That blade gave Severo something to follow. Something to dedicate his life to.
Speaker 2 00:46:56
Until he found something else. The last wall is for his family. Hollows of his gulls float above coin-sized projectors, so that it seems like a hundred reveries fill the shelves. They've danced here in the darkness without anyone to see them for months. There are little bracelets and tokens, ink footprints and palm paintings. An emerald cake picture gave to him when we sailed for Earth, a golden unicorn figurine. And in the centre of it all, his father's blood-red Ares armour, with its spiked crescent helmet. The bench where he would dress for battle faces this wall. The armour looks so odd if surrounded by the domesticity, but it is easy for me to forget that Severo's life was always war, because his father waged it instead of raising him. After I saw how Lauren's sons were consumed by his vocation, and theirs continued to be.
Speaker 2 00:47:29
consumed, I tried to separate them. War and family. Like the Fritzman, I thought they were two worlds that you'd never meet. Severo knew what I did not. What it is like to be raised by a warlord, by a distracted man. And he knew that our world is one where everything collides. He didn't close his mind to his family before battle, because he knew they did not make him weaker. They made him stronger than he was by himself. I feel the key underneath my jacket. Even though I will never be able to agree with his decision to return to Luna instead of Mercury, I understand it. He even said it to me, though I did not want to hear it at the time. He would not make the same mistakes. If I ever see him again, I will ask that he forgive me asking him to make that impossible choice.
Speaker 2 00:48:01
And if I see my boy again, if I see my wife, I will not close myself off to them. I will be the father and husband they deserve.
Speaker 3 00:48:09
Chapter 59. Nysander, the Impaler. I am one of the tortured. The Gorgons, a handsome gold woman with a pert nose and a gecko of a grey, pour alcohol over my burn on the first day. Just getting acquainted, they say as I scream. They inject something into my neck, and time does indeed slow down. The agony sustains itself for what feels like a week. Then it is gone, and the pain of my burn is omnipotent once more. The Gorgons ask about the Bologna blade they found on me, about my name, but if I give it to them, then what will they do with it? The Fear Knight is away, so it seems. Would they contact the Amigilo? Would Ajax intercept it and send a kill squad here to finish what he started? And Seneca left incomplete.
Speaker 3 00:48:40
I need the Fear Knight to return. I need his direct authority. My stomach feels inside out, it's so hungry. My hair has begun to fall out from radiation sickness. All of us are nauseous, our bodies are naturally resistant to radiation, but, with it floating in continuously from the Ladan, our DNA unwinds, bit by bit. Soon the symptoms will worsen, the Elysian knights and I talk intermittently as the days ebb and flow. I look for some sign of insanity in them to explain their allegiance to Darrow, and the betrayal of their own colour, but I detect none, except for the zealotry in Alexander and Drusilla. The rest seem only to be here because House Arkos, their patron, joined years ago. Drusilla speaks of the dream of Persephone, of helping the people, as if all low colours were paupers and slaves before the rising.
Speaker 3 00:49:11
It's a laugh. I bet reds and browns happier than most golds I know, and all of them with better lives than the greys who fed our military machine. But greys never broke under the hutch, of all the colours they've remained the most loyal to the society. be my fourth day with them, Ignatius and Drusilla are taken away, Ignatius is returned first, sheet white, and holding three stumps where they used to be fingers. When Drusilla returns, she says nothing, as she sobs into the stone. Any belief that I am a plant among the Arcosians disappears. The torture binds me to their pack, as I supposed it would. Conversation becomes scarce. Slowly Alexander draws in on himself, becoming dour and hopeless. It is all Drusilla can do to keep him drinking water and eating their gruel. My scheme begins to seem so foolish. There is nothing to be gained out.
Speaker 3 00:49:43
of the misunderstanding that brought me here. I will die here, or I will risk telling my captors who I am, and wait at their mercy for my enemies to decide my fate. I've resolved to tell them, when I am strung up on the chains for the fifth time. The time dilation drug is too much to bear, and even the Mind's Eye cannot spare me from its rigors. But Pert and Gekko, as I've taken to calling my torturers, disappear once I'm hoisted up. The cavern is dim and unadorned. Stalactites drip water into a shallow pool. Beside that is a chest full of torture devices. I hear footsteps behind me. A man breathes. Hey you. You know a little trick.
Speaker 4 00:50:20
I always do when I come into the truck, I run my backpack over the side of my foot so it just spins, so it's in the right position.
Speaker 5 00:50:32
You're a lot like somebody I know.
Speaker 4 00:50:36
I made up for that car that was fake.
Speaker 5 00:50:39
Oh yeah. 
Speaker 4 00:50:51
Now this thing is actually worth a lot.
Speaker 5 00:50:53
Should we check it out. 
Speaker 4 00:50:58
Once we get home.
Speaker 5 00:50:59
Why don't you put it back in your thing just in case, okay. 
Speaker 4 00:51:02
Yeah. That's why I put it between this, so it wouldn't get band-aided or anything. Bent. Can I put it in there? Because I want to make sure it does not get bent any single way. And right in there is the most safest. So how did your day go. 
Speaker 5 00:51:23
My day went well, for the most part.
Speaker 4 00:51:29
And, um, so can we watch a video. 
Speaker 5 00:51:33
Yeah, tell me about your day.
Speaker 4 00:51:34
Uh, good. I like Buffalo. Hi, it's P.E. My random was Rusty bringing snacks, uh, because it is his birthday. Then my, my love was Rowan taking my, my blue folder home.
Speaker 5 00:51:53
Hmm. On purpose. 
Speaker 4 00:52:00
He might have done a nasty joke, too. Yeah, do you know Rowan's real name is James? No. Yeah, that's Rowan's real- So why do they call him Rowan? He just rolled his neck and no one else knows. And they accidentally, every year, they accidentally, no one else knows.
Speaker 5 00:52:34
It's cool that you guys share that secret.
Speaker 4 00:52:50
Okay, so can we watch a video. 
Speaker 5 00:52:56
You guys both can share that. Yeah, we should do. Let's create a 3D print of this guy.
Speaker 4 00:53:03
I just thought about that when you said, like...
Speaker 5 00:53:06
You don't get credit when I...
Speaker 4 00:53:07
No, I was going to say, make a custom one. It should be, like, steamy.
Speaker 5 00:53:31
Did we finish everything. 
Speaker 4 00:53:32
Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:53:39
Neenah. Sha. 
Speaker 7 00:53:48
It's the 25th of October, 1854, near the city of Samastafon, the Crimean Peninsula. Lord Raglan, commander of the British forces. How wonderful it would be to be a lord, which is exactly what you can be, thanks to Established Titles, today's sponsor of this video. Established Titles gives you the right to call yourself a lord or a lady by selling you a piece of land in Scotland, with a craic, trees for the...
Speaker 7 00:54:21
James Thomas Bourdonnais, 7th Earl of Cardigan, stands by with the unit under his command, the Light Brigade of the British Cavalry. Do they have pistols? I know, they do.
Speaker 7 00:55:03
The battle isn't going well, having lost important positions in the nearby Causeway Heights. Watching the abandoned positions, Raglan spots Russian forces capturing and taking away his artillery pieces left behind. He's furious, but it gives him an idea. He realizes the Russians would be weighed down by the artillery and reasons that if charged by a quick cavalry unit, they would be forced to either abandon the weapons or get cut down. It's an opportunity not to be missed.
Speaker 7 00:55:34
He turns to his brigadier, Richard Eyrie, and tells him to order the light brigade to attack the pillaging Russians. Eyrie writes down the order. Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Immediate! He gives the written order to Captain Louis Nolan, who then rides down to the bottom of the hill to give it to Lieutenant General George Bingham,
Speaker 7 00:56:04
the 3rd Earl of Lucan, commander of the cavalry. Lucan is confused upon receiving the order. It doesn't mention the location of the artillery, and he can't see any enemies carrying away guns from his position. They are out of sight on the hills to the south. He says, Lukin questions Nolan as to what the order means. Nolan answers by waving broadly to the east and shouting to him, attack immediately! Nolan doesn't know it, but he's just sent the light brigade to their doom.
Speaker 7 00:56:36
Towards the east where Nolan gestured, there is another Russian artillery battalion ready to fire. They're one and a half miles away, straight down an exposed valley, flanked on either side by hills, occupied by the enemy. Lukin is shocked, such an attack is suicidal, but the order seems clear and he has no option but to fulfill it. Nolan rides away unaware of what has happened, it's just a colossal error.
Speaker 7 00:57:06
Lukin reaches the Earl of Cardigan and relays the order. Cardigan is equally shocked and immediately questions the sanity of such an attack. While Lucan agrees with Cardigan, he reminds him it's a direct order from Raglan, so they have no choice but to obey. Lucan leaves to rally the heavy. Cardigan steels himself. Faced with an order for a suicidal charge, he raises his blade and rallies his men. The dangers are obvious to everyone,
Speaker 7 00:57:37
but orders are orders. The 600 cavalrymen take their attack formation, led in the front by Cardigan. As Cardigan and his light brigade move towards the valley of death, the first movements are steps, slow and deliberate. Then, they move faster into a trot. Nolan watches as the events unfold, something or terrible wrong. As 600 charge into battle, Nolan jumps on his horse and races desperately to stop them.
Speaker 7 00:58:09
he overtakes and cuts across in front of the brigade as they enter the valley, trying to intercept cardigan he calls to him but it's too far the first explosions of cannon fire echoes through the air as nolan approaches cardigan cardigan sees him nolan opens his mouth to tell him and a shell explodes right in front of him nolan falls off his force lifeless his message is undelivered lord raglan can do nothing but watch horrified as his men push on into the mouth of hell into the valley of death rolling.
Speaker 7 00:58:57
It's the night of April the 14th, 1912, and the Titanic is on its maiden voyage. All the crew know that ice might be sighted. However, it's a moonless, quiet, starlit night with no cloud. The sea is as still as a mill pond. Not a breath of wind in the sea like a sheet of glass, making the detection of icebergs very difficult. A telegram is received on the Titanic's... It's the morning of May the 2nd, 1968, near Loc Ninh, South Vietnam. Three Bell UH-1 Huey helicopters fly low and fast over the Vietnamese countryside.
Speaker 7 00:59:32
Inside, members of a 12-man Special Forces recon team grip their M-16s as the choppers descend to a clearing just west of Loc Ninh. A few feet above the ground, they leap from the side door. With deafening roars, the Hueys' gas turbines lift them up and away as the dirt and grass swirl violently in the rotor wash. Now, the American servicemen are on their own in hostile territory. ... Less than 100 yards away, nearly 1,000 well-camouflaged North Vietnamese soldiers crouch in the treeline.
Speaker 7 01:00:04
An eerie stillness hangs heavy as the recon team surveys the area. Then the silence is shattered by telltale AK-47 cracks and muzzle flashes as the NVA soldiers open fire with everything they've got, instinctively hitting the deck. The team knows they're seriously outnumbered, and even worse, the choppers are already gone. Their mission had been to gather intelligence about NVA and Viet Cong troop strength. Now it's a matter of life and death. Streams of pissing AK rounds fly overhead and pierce the dirt and vegetation all around them.
Speaker 7 01:00:38
Within minutes, some soldiers are wounded, others killed. Frantically yelling into the radio, the squad leader requests an emergency extraction, while the rest return fire. Just a few miles away, the Hueys circle back towards the Beliga team, but as they approach the clearing, they're hammered with small arms and heavy anti-aircraft fire. A number of crewmen are seriously wounded, and the helicopters take heavy fire. Grudgingly, they call off the extraction and return to forward operating base to unload the wounded and test the damage.
Speaker 7 01:01:12
Monitoring the situation by radio in a room adjacent to the tarmac, as the Hueys touch down, is 32-year-old Texan-born Sergeant Roy Benavidez. He storms from the hangar and jumps into the first helicopter deemed fit to return to the firefight. Knowing nearly all of the team members are dead or wounded, he directs the pilot to a clearing and leaps to the ground. Now, nearly 100 yards from where he needs to be, he runs the gauntlet between the Vietnamese forces and the downed team. Halfway there, he's shot in the leg and takes another glancing round to the head.
Speaker 7 01:01:44
Shrugging off the pain with equal parts adrenaline, indignation and downright determination, he reaches them, just in time to direct their meagre fire towards the advancing NDA. With a little luck, it'll give them just enough time to get everyone out. If not, they'll wind up as one more statistic. Through the automatic rifle fire, Benavidez hears the additional rescue choppers circling, but the pilots struggle to see the team in the tall grass. Popping a smoke canister will guide them in, but Benavidez knows it'll reveal their location to nearby artillery and mortar teams too.
Speaker 7 01:02:18
Fresh out of auctions, he pops two canisters, but the landing zone is still too hot for the Hueys. The closest they can get is 50 yards away, maybe more. Bleeding badly and in excruciating pain, Benavidez single-handedly drags the wounded men to the waiting choppers, one by one. But the hail of bullets is intensifying, and the Vietnamese have edged to within hand grenade range. Now, with half the team safely in the Hueys, the fearless pilots guide the machines closer to the remaining few, who are mere yards away, as Benavidez runs alongside, blazing away at the enemy.
Speaker 7 01:02:54
Instead of jumping in on himself when nearly all the fallen soldiers are on board, Benavidez scrambles to recover the body of the dead team leader, and the classified documents he was carrying, lest they fall into NVA hands. But when he's within a few yards of the waiting chopper, he's hit again, and a well-placed grenade sends hot shrapnel into his back. Things couldn't possibly get any worse, except they do, when the pilot of a nearby helicopter is hit, causing it to spin around its propeller shaft before crashing into the ground.
Speaker 7 01:03:26
Now, with multiple bullet wounds, a back full of steel, and losing blood by the pike, Sergeant Benavidez makes his way to the wreckage, and hastily organizes the survivors into yet another defensive parade. The situation worsening by the second and ammo running dangerously low, Benavidez finds a working radio and calls in airstrikes and cover fire from the gunships that have just arrived on the scene. For his troubles, while administering first aid to a fellow soldier, he's wounded again, this time in the thigh.
Speaker 7 01:03:59
But he drags his comrade to a waiting helicopter, and he's not done yet. On his second trip, Benavidez is clubbed, bayoneted from behind by an NVA soldier, who he dispatches with his knife before covering the last few yards to the helicopter with the wounded servicemen in tow. Now heaving the last man into the huey, he sees two Vietnamese soldiers running towards him from such an angle that the door gunner can't shoot them down, which Benavidez does before collapsing and being pulled aboard by the astonished crew. The unbelievable tale of Sergeant Benavidez's gallantry and heroism in the face of overwhelming odds.
Speaker 7 01:04:35
while badly wounded resulted in the lives of eight men being saved. After the six-hour battle, a physician examining the unconscious Benavides counted nearly 40 bullet, bayonet, and shrapnel wounds, after which he was about to pronounce him dead. Luckily, the no-nonsense Texan alerted the doctor that he was still alive, as the story goes, by spitting in the doctor's face. Benavides received a distinguished service cross and four purple hearts for his actions, and he served until 1976.
Speaker 8 01:05:07
Here's the magic pen that erases scratches instantly. Look, no cuts, no photoshop.
Speaker 7 01:05:14
Hi, I'm David Webb. I'm the narrator and head of Yarn Hub, and what you're looking at right now is recordings from our recent playtests for our upcoming free-to-play game, Brass Rain. It's February the 19th, 1945. Iwo Jima, nestled among craggy volcanic... Heavily armed Japanese soldiers in pillboxes see the approaching invasion force. In the distance, crammed like matchsticks into amphibious landing craft, men from the 5th Marine.
Speaker 7 01:05:47
Division lurch towards the beachhead and their fates under the drone of diesel engines. Among those in the first wave is 23-year-old Corporal Tony Stein from Dayton, Ohio. As the slow-moving boats come ominously into range, the defenders open up with small arms, mortars and heavy machine guns. There's a slap, whistle of bullets as rams entrap the frothy sea and tear through the boats thin popping into the countryside.
Speaker 7 01:06:18
Slamming onto the beach, their ramps drop with mighty crashes and the men scramble out and through the surf, desperately trying to find some protection on shore. Stein starts forward and knows he has to act if he and his comrades are to survive the day. He deliberately tries to draw fire from the Japanese in an attempt to get their attention away from his comrades and also to get an idea of where the deadliest fire is coming from. With MacGyver-like ingenuity, Stein and his cohorts are well known for turning salvaged.
Speaker 7 01:06:51
aircraft machine guns into buzzsaw-like personal infantry weapons, aptly nicknamed Stingers. They were fabricated from an M1 Garand stock, the sight and bipod of a BAR, and a salvaged aircraft machine gun. Lastly, a carry handle from a Browning 1919 A6 was added to allow the men to fire it from the hip. Featuring blistering rates of burn exceeding 1,200 rounds per minute, they're lethal machines unlike anything the Japanese on Iwo Jima have ever seen.
Speaker 7 01:07:24
Leaping up and charging headlong towards a nearby pillbox, Stein and his belching Stinger had the enemy flustered and ducking for cover. Just a few meters away, he squeezes off the last few rounds through the narrow slit, silencing the enemy soldiers inside. The Stingers are an incredibly effective weapon, but have two fundamental problems. First, they burn through ammo at an alarming rate, leaving the firework exposed. And second, their barrels can become so hot with the rapid fire that they actually warp.
Speaker 7 01:07:60
Out of ammo, Stein turns and runs back down the beach to reload, miraculously stopping along the way to retrieve a wounded soldier and drag him to safety. Then, when he's rearmed, he takes off towards yet another Japanese position, again exhausting his ammunition in a mere second, taking out the enemy soldiers, and assisting a second wounded comrade on his way back down the beach. This time, before making it to safety, there's an incoming shot.
Speaker 7 01:08:30
Stein is stunned as the Stinger takes a direct hit. He flies from his hand. With determination, Stein retrieves him and continues on. Now sweating, dangerously close to overheating himself, he jettisons his helmet and boots and grabs more ammo and storms another pillbox, then another, and then another, retrieving strong marines each time, while his fellow men look on in disbelief. In all, Stein makes eight solo assaults,
Speaker 7 01:09:01
often getting to within just a few feet of the pillboxes, while all the while under withering fire. As the marines later go on to storm the peak of the island's dormant volcano, Mount Suribachi, Stein is in the thick of it when a well-placed mortarbound explodes near him, sending hot shrapnel cutting into his shoulder. The now famous photograph of the American soldiers raising the flag over Iwo Jima is taken as Stein is recovering in a nearby hospital ship.
Speaker 7 01:09:32
In hospital, Stein gets the word that again his beloved marines are taking heavy losses in their quest to take a hill. Hill 362A is where isolated units of determined Japanese are still holed up in caves and bunkers, and surrender isn't an option. Against doctor's orders, he leaves the comfort of his infirmary bed and reunites with his unit, and Stein leads a 19-man patrol against a Japanese machine gun nest which is holding up the advance of his entire company.
Speaker 7 01:10:02
Almost at the top, the gutsy kid from the American heartland takes a fatal shot from a distant sniper and drops on the spot. His selfless and brazen service earned him multiple honors, including a Purple Heart and the nation's highest award, the Medal of Honor, which was accepted by his proud. It's the 10th of November, 1944, near Morville-les-Vies, Normandy. The 761st Tank Battalion of the U.S. Army is about to face serious action against a reinforced German division.
Speaker 7 01:10:38
The 761st had to fight prejudice before they had even engaged the Germans as they are composed entirely of black American soldiers and NCOs commanded by white officers. Some army commanders expect them to flee at the first engagement, but the 761st are about to prove their worth. One of the M5 tanks of Company D is commanded by 21-year-old Sergeant Warren Gamaliel Harding Creasy, or simply Harding to his friends.
Speaker 7 01:11:10
This Texan sergeant may appear an unlikely soldier to onlookers, he's easygoing, polite, even meek, but he's also known as one of the most gung-ho, hardcore recruits since his training days at Camp Hood. As Harding stands on top of his M5... Yes, sir. Thank you area while manning the vehicle's 50 caliber machine gun The silence is broken by a barrage of fire that comes raining all around him Harding and his crew are unharmed.
Speaker 7 01:11:45
But a direct hit has knocked out the tank The unit's patch represents a black panther not a sitting duck and so before the Germans can attack again Creasy dismounts the Stuart and commandeers a 30 caliber machine gun from a nearby Jeep running towards the enemy positions The sergeant Creasy opens fire mowing down the crew of an anti-tank gun He then turns his attention to a nearby machine gun next. It's a jewel of Browning vs. Mouser.
Speaker 7 01:12:19
Comes out on top with all immediate threats wiped out Harding and his crew commandeer another m5 and get on with the fight, Later, when a lieutenant from another division flags them down, he needs to inspect a hill and could do with a lift. The narrow treads can barely grip the snowy terrain, but the tank manages to crawl up the slope. Just as they approach the summit, there's a burst of fire. Then another as the armor is blasted with machine gun bullets. Creasy orders his driver, Corporal Tyree, to back up.
Speaker 7 01:12:53
Ty kicks the machine into reverse. The tank falls into an anti-tank ditch. Standing at an angle, the soft underbelly of the M5 is exposed to anti-tank weapons. As Tyree rocks the machine back and forth, the German machine guns continue spraying their storm of lead. Creasy, calm under fire, immediately radios for help. Another tank soon arrives to tow them out of the ditch. But who is going to brave the hail to connect the two tanks? Creasy flatly announces to his crew, I'm going out to hook us up.
Speaker 7 01:13:26
Tyree replies, Christ Sarge! Creasy calmly adjusts his horn-rimmed glasses and answers, keep that thought. The sergeant then jumps out of the Stuart wielding his Thompson .45 submachine gun. He empties an entire magazine towards the enemy to keep their heads low, then hooks up a cable between the two tanks. Ignoring the German bullets whizzing past, he waits for the second tank to pull his M5 out of the ditch, unhooks the cable, then jumps back inside.
Speaker 7 01:13:56
As his crew look at him in disbelief, Creasy offers his views on the German gunner. That boy can't shoot shit. His sergeant ought to ship him back for retraining. But that boy must have a big brother in artillery somewhere as an armor-piercing shell rams right into the side of the Stuart. The suspension is damaged. One track is completely damaged. completely lost. Harding has had two tanks shot from under him in the same day. In the turret, Creasy grips the triggers of a .50 caliber heavy machine gun. He soon realizes that the German MG42s are now shooting at exposed infantry units.
Speaker 7 01:14:31
Harding redirects his fire towards the enemy nests, silencing their positions for good. The action is now. 
Speaker 5 01:14:44
Rags, throw them up here. I need, I need the box to go back. Yeah. No, not like that. Put it, look at me. Move the. 
Speaker 6 01:15:17
there and then put the brown bag on top make it straight and that stuff can just be underneath.
Speaker 5 01:15:45
the seat you can put it down whose turn is it in the front you just stay back there.
Speaker 7 01:16:08
now over and sergeant creasy can lead his crew back to the rear to regroup but there's no respite from bad news his best friend technician fourth grade horatio scott with company c has been severely wounded their friendship goes all the way back to camp hood and they've been inseparable since scotty has a message delivered to harding it's okay man i'll be back soon the morning after harding learns that horatio died during the night while undergoing surgery creasy immediately requests a transfer to company c to take the place of his fallen companion continuing the.
Speaker 7 01:16:43
fight with company c warren g harding creasy earned the nickname of iron man and had a reputation as the baddest man in the 761st facing again direct fire from machine gun nests he was described as going berserk creasy attacked the enemy positions single-handedly spending every single round until his unit had to pry the empty machine gun from his hands, The 761st Battalion, the Black Panthers, distinguished themselves by fighting continuously.
Speaker 7 01:17:15
for 183 days until the 6th of May 1945. Their Ironman, Creasy, was nominated for a Medal of Honor, but was awarded the Silver Star instead. He was at the forefront of every attack during the, 761st's 183 days of constant combat. The more fire he drew upon himself, the harder he fought. If you haven't yet, please subscribe to the channel and please watch more videos about him. It's June 1944, Normandy, and the 3rd Armored Division landed Omaha, White Beach,
Speaker 7 01:17:48
near Vecini in France. Riding on top of his Sherman is Tetson Tank Commander Lafayette G. Poole. His crew have been training hard and have yet to see battle, but this aggressive young Staff Sergeant trusts a bunch of misfits he commands. He calls them his pups. The men have named him War Daddy. They have been sent to take on the Germans near the commune of Villenefossade. His Sherman is called in the mood, ready for battle. The mood of Commander Paul and his crew are far from the easy tunes of Glenn Miller.
Speaker 7 01:18:22
At six foot three, it's cramped with a giant Texan inside the tank. That's why he likes the fresh air on his face, sticking up out of the Sherman turret like a cowboy on a beast of iron. They are in the 32nd Armored Regiment, 3rd Armored Division, who are nicknamed 3rd Herd. The fighting is tough. It's midday on October the 6th, 1973, in northern Israel. It's the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, and Lieutenant Zvi Greengold is celebrating with his family.
Speaker 7 01:18:58
It's the evening of August the 17th, 1950, near the city of Pusan in South Korea. Lieutenant Granville George GG Sweet of the 1st Platoon Company A of the 1st Marine Tank Battalion takes a moment to rest by the steel giants under his command. Around him is nothing but misery. UN forces have been pushed back from the moment they became involved, going from just south of Seoul to cornered against the sea in Busan in just a month.
Speaker 7 01:19:30
One of the biggest and most demoralizing problems has been surrounding armor. The North Koreans are equipped with Soviet T-34-85s. With its 85mm cannon, it's easily capable of piercing the American Chaffees and Shermans, while only the Sherman can fight it effectively in return. And to make matters worse, they vastly outnumber the Shermans, meaning that most of the time, soldiers had to fight them with chaffees, bazookas, or no anti-tank weapons at all, giving the T-34-85s a fearsome reputation.
Speaker 7 01:20:07
But today, Sweet has a reason for optimism, for under him isn't a chaffee or a Sherman, but it's a late World War II M26 Pershing. His four-tank platoon has been fighting in the defense of Pusan, and they've performed brilliantly. But he's still to meet the tank that has been dominating the battlefield in the last month. Lieutenant Sweet's crews busy themselves hauling ammunition into their tanks as the sky turns orange with the sunset, when suddenly an urgent message arrives through the radio.
Speaker 6 01:20:39
Flash purple, flash purple.
Speaker 7 01:20:41
Those are code words for one thing, incoming enemy armor. Sweet springs into action, ordering his crew to prepare for combat. The men of the supply depot rush to finish the resupply job, dumping jerry cans into the Pershing's fuel tanks as fast as they can, and spilling gasoline in their haste. Full. We're ready. Get moving. One after the other, the four Pershing's 18-litre V8s come to life with a deafening roar,
Speaker 7 01:21:12
rolling out to their first tank-on-tank duel. On the battlefield, the men of the 1st Marine Provisional Brigade scramble to counter the enemy advance, taking positions on the barren hills lining the narrow dirt road, through which four T-34-85s trundle onward, followed by lines of infantry. The Marines open fire on the North Korean soldiers, who take cover in the hills. The T-34s fire back, continuing to advance as small arms fire bounces off their armour.
Speaker 7 01:21:45
Marine bazooka teams hurry to meet the charging armor. They open fire and strike the lead tank right on its external fuel tanks, bursting them open and lighting a massive fireball across the engine deck. But the tank is unharmed within, and its crew keeps pushing, uncaring of the flames engulfing the rear of their machine. Meanwhile, further along the road, Lieutenant Sweet is making his way towards the scene. They're close, they can hear gunshots, and Sweet is in constant update of the evolving situation.
Speaker 7 01:22:20
But then they stumble upon a pair of abandoned supply trucks right in the center of the road, blocking the path. The commander of the second tank in line, Technical Sergeant Cecil Fullerton, looks down at his gunner and orders him, Keep your eyes ahead. If something rounds the bend, shoot it. He then climbs off his tank and hurries over to the abandoned vehicles, driving them off the road to open a space for the tanks to proceed. The tank convoy immediately... Let's go.
Speaker 4 01:22:51
Can we watch it up? Lower the seat please.
Speaker 6 01:22:56
Hey, what's up my dogs. 
Speaker 5 01:23:18
How was our day? You got a lot of like homework stuff done? Classwork stuff done. 
Speaker 6 01:23:41
I got my blueprint thing done.
Speaker 5 01:24:07
Oh yeah? How'd that go. 
Speaker 9 01:24:08
It was, I mean, I just used a piece of paper because I found out that like it's a lot easier to do it on paper the whole time. Hang on so you can catch it to make it 3D.
Speaker 6 01:24:30
Gotcha.
Speaker 9 01:24:53
And I got my math homework that was due on Wednesday next week done.
Speaker 8 01:25:05
Cool.
Speaker 9 01:25:07
But I made a mistake. I did the wrong homework for history. You didn't do the wrong homework.
Speaker 5 01:25:20
Guess who does the wrong homework? It's just Worky. The dude.
Speaker 9 01:25:29
I think it was like a thing that I didn't do for my semester. That was still in my backpack.
Speaker 5 01:25:36
Not at me.
Speaker 9 01:25:37
And I pulled it out and it was like the same format as the one that was assigned to me. But I have all the answers.
Speaker 7 01:26:28
Fullerton gets back in his tank and Sweet radios him. Sweet's tank has a problem with the elevation of the gun, so he orders Fullerton to take the lead. He'll take the rear. Fullerton's tank drives ahead as ordered, as the sounds of battle become more and more intense. Through the radio, Sweet is told, Thinking quickly, Sweet orders the platoon to stop and his three fully operational tanks to form a wall across the road and aim straight ahead. The enemy are coming.
Speaker 7 01:27:00
Fullerton takes his position, heartbeat racing. The other pair of Persians are maneuvering to take their spots beside him, when suddenly a fireball of a T-34 rounds the corner before Fullerton's eyes. He gasps and shouts, enemy ahead, fire! The Persians 90 millimeter cannon opens fire with thunderous fury. The shell streaks across the air and strikes the enemy straight on the turret, piercing right through and exiting out of the rear, continuing its path until it impacts into the hill behind. Inside the Pershing, the crew.
Speaker 7 01:27:35
waits for the cloud of dirt picked up by the Pershing's cannon to clear away. Slowly, it reveals the enemy T-34, seemingly untouched and still rolling forward. Fullerton shouts, another, just as the loader slams a second high-velocity armor-piercing shell into the breach. The gunner pulls the trigger a second time, and the shell slams into the T-34's upper plate, once again cutting straight through the enemy and firing out the rear of the turret. It too impacts the hill behind, making the Marines taking cover on the other side believe that they're under fire.
Speaker 7 01:28:10
The smoke clears, and Fullerton is shocked to see the T-34 still rolling forward. Thinking they had missed, he exclaims, another! Hit it for God's sake! The Pershing fires for a third time, impacting the enemy on the left-hand side. They hit the ammunition, and fire immediately pours out of the three points of impact. The Soviet-made machine finally comes to a grinding halt. It's a hit! We got it! Simultaneously, the second Pershing in line manoeuvres its way next to Fullerton's tank,
Speaker 7 01:28:44
just in time for the next T-34-85 to appear from behind the wreck of his comrade. The words echo within the American machines, and both Pershings open fire in unison. Two armour-piercing shells slam into the enemy armour. One impacts a T-34's turret cheek, causing it to violently spin around, and the disoriented North Korean gunner fires into the side of the hill. The two American tanks reload, and another volley of shells strikes the enemy,
Speaker 7 01:29:15
piercing their armour and causing the T-34 to burst into flames. But despite the inferno, the Americans watch incredulous as its turret continues to slowly turn towards them. Load HE, keep firing! The 90mm weapons continue to shoot round after round, slamming the enemy with four more high-explosive shells, stopping the enemy for good. But then, a radio transmission comes from the Pershings behind.
Speaker 7 01:29:47
Without him realising, the gasoline spilled during the refuelling had been set alight by an ember from his tank's own cannon. The flame rises above the engine deck and confusion spreads among the crew, but any thought of bailing out is suddenly squashed by a deafening clang reverberating through the Pershings' hull. Fullerton looks through the scope and spots a third T-34-85, firing from behind the smouldering wreckages of his comrades. With the flames behind them pushed to the back of his mind,
Speaker 7 01:30:18
Fullerton orders, Enemy ahead! Fire! Fire! A second shot from the enemy ricochets off the Pershing's armor before the might of the two 90mm main guns is unleashed once more. The ground quakes as they release their fury and the T-34-85 is struck down by their shells. Three men immediately jump out of the enemy tank and flee into the darkening landscape just in time before another...
Speaker 6 01:30:45
This is Braden.
Speaker 10 01:30:59
Hi Braden, this is Darlene calling you back from St. Jude's after entrology.
Speaker 5 01:31:02
Hi, how are you. 
Speaker 10 01:31:03
Good, so I did receive your message. Dr. Yoon isn't scheduling out until about April.
Speaker 5 01:31:12
Okay, then I thought it was awful convenient to be so, so quickly. So that's okay. I just I have to at least say that I tried. So I'm sorry. No, no. Yeah, all our doctors are scheduling now until then they just opened up a schedule. That's why for the afternoon. No problem. I appreciate you looking. Okay, thank you. No problem. You have a good day. Have a good weekend. All right, you do the same. Thank you. Bye bye.
Speaker 5 01:31:48
That kid is what he's talking about. Don't be so quick. Tell them they're wrong. Don't be so quick. Sing them a song.
Speaker 7 01:32:05
Evoli pierces through their abandoned war machine. The two Pershings continue to lay their fire upon the T-34s trying to make them burn while marines watch in amazement from the other side. The fire that's burning upon the American tanks is repeatedly blown out by their muzzle blast only to be reignited by the following shot making a very confusing sight for the onlooking marines. Behind the three wrecks the fourth T-34-85, changes his mind and turns around to flee the scene but a bazooka squad from the gathered marines.
Speaker 7 01:32:38
have other plans. They peek over the hill and open fire at its weak side armor neutralizing it in a single strike. Finally the order comes for the fire to cease and the battlefield falls silent. For them lay three burning T-34-85s at the cost of no casualties for the Pershings. Lieutenant Sweet can't help but feel relief. The myth of the T-34-85s invincibility had been spectacularly shattered.
Speaker 7 01:33:09
Lieutenant Granville Short Sweet would survive the war and return home and he passed away peacefully in 2010. Technical Sergeant Cecil Roy Fullerton would be awarded the Bronze Star for his actions. He's still alive today and we hope he likes his film. If you haven't yet, please subscribe to the channel and please watch more videos of ours. Thank you.
Speaker 5 01:34:14
You bend it, you bend it.
Speaker 5 01:35:59
Let's go see.
Speaker 4 01:36:06
You know what just fell off? What's that. 
Speaker 5 01:36:43
Stupid.
Speaker 9 01:36:47
Hey, is this thing broken. 
Speaker 4 01:36:58
Yeah. When are you guys broken? When it was on the floor, it fell on your head.
Speaker 5 01:37:04
Hey, hey, hey. Mom broke it last night. I don't know But you're so quick to blame them.
Speaker 5 01:37:44
Hey Maddie, I understand your concern, but every day every day I have to ask you it's not right, That you won't put away your stuff and they have to step it over. It's not right. No, dude, dude. He's not wrong for asking that. It doesn't matter. You share space and you don't care about them enough to put your stuff away. You don't care that they have to step over it. You don't care that I have to ask you every single day to put it away. You don't care. So why should he care about you? This one is incorrect.
Speaker 5 01:39:54
You guys already made him upset. Leave him alone.
Speaker 6 01:39:58
Give him a second.
Speaker 5 01:40:09
Just give him a second. Why don't you say, hey, Maddie, when you're done, I need to get in here or something like that. It's not like a, hey, move, because I need you.
Speaker 6 01:43:04
Do you want to work. 
Speaker 4 01:43:04
Yeah, but it's better on the end. I want it savory.
Speaker 6 01:43:17
What are your plans. 
Speaker 5 01:43:55
Nothing. I'm going to do a row and I'll be back. Okay. Fall over on the couch. Fall asleep.
Speaker 9 01:44:10
Do we go to bed late. 
Speaker 5 01:44:13
Hi. We're not, like, I haven't slept six hours only. Do you need a VR or am I okay to work a little bit? No, no, you're fine. I like just knowing what to expect.
Speaker 5 01:46:33
Hi, do you have my phone, dude? Okay, my phone can't be up there, dude. How about? Okay, I'm coming. So you said, okay, hold on.
Speaker 4 01:46:58
Facebook card.
Speaker 5 01:46:59
C-A-R-D.
Speaker 4 01:47:41
All the big ones, yeah. But there are such things as the big cards. Well, now I'm going to tell my teacher because I got that from school. And I wasted like two weeks on that.
Speaker 5 01:48:03
Okay, here's what you need to know. It seems like you're going to get a really expensive thing for not a lot, for a low cost. There's always nothing. There's a saying that says nothing in this world is free. Okay, so if it seems too good to be true.
Speaker 4 01:48:32
I also don't think that TVT is done. Because it said that to a real Pokemon card.
Speaker 5 01:48:42
It could be wrong. But listen, if these things were worth so much money, wouldn't it be better for me not to go to work and to take all of my money and buy those things all day long? Probably. But wouldn't a whole bunch of people be doing that. 
Speaker 4 01:49:02
Yeah.
Speaker 5 01:49:02
Yeah, but they're not. Only the kids are going after those. Why? Because the kids believe that it's a good investment. The adults don't.
Speaker 5 01:50:45
Yeah. Your coach might not know that they're fake when he buys them, kiddo. Your coach might not have known that they were fake when he bought them. Sorry, kiddo. Sorry, kiddo.
Speaker 11 01:53:10
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has created ripples in the world of defense. A new form of battle, once only drawn up in war games, has become a reality. It's tilting the advantages and changing everything we once thought of national defense. Joining me now is Trey Stephens, executive chairman and co-founder of Andral. Trey, it's been the last two years, three years, it's just been absolutely amazing with respect to how war is fought, how technology will change things. Talk to us about what you've learned and what we should know.
Speaker 8 01:53:43
No, it's a really good point. There's a tremendous kind of tidal wave of new technologies that are coming into the defense space, as we've seen in Ukraine with the conflict there, electronic warfare at play with drone technology, denying access to the airwaves makes it difficult to control the drones, like targeting. Artificial intelligence is playing a big role in this. that you get from software to do more efficient mission planning, targeting, command and control.
Speaker 11 01:54:21
You mentioned software. I want to pick up on that. The notion that, you know, we're starting to get used to thinking that it's for power in the world. 
Speaker 8 01:54:47
but, you know, figuring out ways to leverage very low-cost systems, to achieve really high-end military objectives requires the best possible software. And these are lessons that the Department of War has been learning at a very rapid pace in the most recent conflicts. So where does AI, artificial intelligence, fit within this framework? Yeah, you know, there's this long history in popular culture of people kind of being super concerned about killer robots and things like that, you know, kind of Terminator style.
Speaker 8 01:55:21
And I think that's sort of different than how we're seeing AI take place in the battlefield today. It's less about giving autonomous robots the ability to go out and execute missions without any human in the loop. It's really about giving humans superpowers, giving them the most efficient pathways of information for community control so that they can make the best decisions possible as they engage in warfare. And, you know, Undersecretary of War for Research and Engineering, Emile Michael, has recently talked about this as kind of like the efficiency frontier for soldiers that hasn't existed historically.
Speaker 8 01:55:59
So, you know, China has been doing this for a long time, for like the last 15 years, I think. The first reference to AI weapons in China was in a research paper from 2000. while they were doing their work on advancing the these that they have so deciding here in the u.s whether or not our big tech companies wanted to interact with the government and the department of war at all running from a little bit of a paper to that point uh like uh the resistance.
Speaker 11 01:56:38
maybe those military ones uh sort of failing to hang these companies are too big too powerful to the now i do believe it's being shifted where we believe hey blue on its next day two stocks stood out today big time but so was palantir and that.
Speaker 11 01:57:08
that speaks again to the new role that these new innovative companies like yours are playing.
Speaker 8 01:57:13
to keep us safe yeah no you're absolutely right um it is a very new era uh you know that the public perception has shifted pretty meaningfully in the past few years around whether or not we be, investing in the military obviously many of your views i'm sure saw that president trump has been talking about a 1.5 trillion dollar defense budget obviously taking huge steps uh secretary.
Speaker 8 01:57:46
jerry hexeth has been out on his arsenal of mentor how important this is my favorite from, his trip tonsville to starbase was he said uh we're done with a peacetime science fair

[AI_SUMMARY]
The lecture covers political intrigue and military history, detailing the Charge of the Light Brigade's disastrous miscommunication, the bravery of soldiers like Sergeant Roy Benavidez during the Vietnam War, and Corporal Tony Stein's heroics at Iwo Jima. It also discusses the 761st Tank Battalion's fight against prejudice and the tactical engagements of the M26 Pershing tanks against T-34-85s. Additionally, it explores the role of artificial intelligence in modern warfare, emphasizing its use to enhance human decision-making rather than create autonomous weapons.