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Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

1stGear posted:

So people who haven't read Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead can understand the reference, its a play following the perspective of two minor characters in Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. But instead of playing the perspective straight, R&G are somewhat aware that things are...off. The two essentially wander through the events of Hamlet as the major characters of that play briefly intersect with the parts that R&G played as occurred in Hamlet. Its a heavily meta play and touches on themes of fate, insignificance, and the line between art and reality. The coin flipping is a reference to an event from the beginning of the play where the two are betting on coin flips and every single time the coin comes up heads.

A perfectly ordinary lighthouse rocket-transport. But today Booker DeWitt found himself not taken to a holy Paradise on Earth. Today, this capsule took him on a one-man trip, to the Twilight Zone.

And yeah, R&G are Dead is an incredible bit of theater full of humor and wordplay and metahumor and philosophy and absolutely marvelous.

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Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Also, Comstock's religion was apparently not intended to reference Mormonism, but when you go for a splinter sect with an American Exceptionalism focus there's going to be some similar themes. Whether that's true or "don't piss off the Mormons" marketing spin is up to the viewer. That said, when I reached the baptism my first words were "oh poo poo, I'm in Mormon Stepford."

The bit before the baptism, "if he had done this and had not done the other thing it would have been enough," does anyone know if this is general Christian liturgy? I know it as Dayenu, a song Jews tend to sing at Passover dating from the Middle Ages, but the style is so strong I wouldn't be surprised if it's been appropriated and adapted outside of this game.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Sundowner posted:


Edit: Although GenHavoc's post is great, I'm surprised this much could be drawn and speculated upon from the opening hour but I guess that's also why the opening sequence is so great. When I first played I was so caught up in the experience of exploring Columbia that I didn't even have time to think about it until a little later in to the game where things started to click.

I think a lot of "we're going to give you clues from the start that you have no idea are clues because we're not going 'mwahaha' after saying them" games (for example 999 and Virtue's Last Reward) have this effect when LP'd. When you're playing the game you move from scene to scene without any time to stop and reflect, while LPs go in chunks so you have a lot less to digest at a time (or in the case of screenshot LPs, things which were onscreen for a second get plenty of time sticking around to be noticed). There's also a lot more eyes on any given part of the story than when one person's playing. When I played it myself I had to rely on dreams to figure things out, when playing I was just too caught up in the top-level of figuring out how to kill whatever was in my way.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Where things started feeling silly to me was when I pulled a cup of steaming hot coffee out of the trash and drank it.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Attestant posted:

It's pretty easy to miss for some weird reason. The game itself even gives you the option to hold a button to focus the camera on it, and I still missed it the first time I played. I blame the fact that you approach the statue from the side and are somewhat distant from it. It doesn't change profile quite enough to draw your attention, if you miss the weird static effect.

Yeah, first time I saw it I thought it was some glitchy "error in the Matrix" kind of thing, but didn't see any actual change.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Note the second piece of clothing was from a broken gear vending machine (we never see any working ones to use) that features a stylized Jewish tailor as its mascot. Just a bit more of the casual racism.

That "mulatto dwarf or a Frenchman with a missing left eye" line sounds like it's referencing something, but I have been unable to find any hints what. Anyone have any ideas?

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Louispul5 posted:

Until then, I have never understood why the Irish aren't "white." They're the whitest non-albinos ever, but every racist group hates them, here and in Europe.

It's the immigrants. America got a flood of Irish immigrants, which became a reason for the established True Americans (aka the LAST wave of immigrants) to complain about them taking up space and taking jobs and all that fun stuff when you can abuse a group of downtrodden people and then get mad at them for letting you do so. These days you get some residual stuff (mostly from history books) but the Irish have been around long enough to be complaining about the new immigrants, and I doubt you'd find many folks in the modern day who didn't call them "white" as a result.

America: if you come here and put up with hate long enough you get to pretend you didn't deal with any of it and hate the next folks in line. Unless you're black, then you never get un-screwed.

EDIT: to answer your comment less indirectly, you can't go hatin' on white folks, that's just not Christian. Anyone you're hating has to have a reason not to be white.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

The amusing thing with God Only Knows is that they did such a good job adapting it to barbershop (though the Beach Boys are already pretty much all bout pure tones and harmonies and all that) that it took me a good two minutes of listening to remember that it wasn't supposed to sound that way or exist in 1900.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

It's odd, there's some bits of info I've figured out but I can't recall how I figured them out. For example the Order of the Raven doesn't get any more information, and I know some pieces people haven't mentioned, but I can't recall if dots I connected for that came later. I'll have to re-watch the first videos to figure out what we know.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Speedball posted:

The first words of the title of this LP being "Quantum Theory" keeps fooling my subconscious into thinking this is an entirely different video game. "Quantum Theory," an attempt at imitating Gears of War that had some neat setting ideas but absolutely terrible gameplay.

Somebody needs to LP that thing.

It could be Quantum Conundrum. Booker sends all of Columbia into the fluffy dimension.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

It could also me a more literal meaning of misogynist, "someone who would go and harm those fragile little creatures who men should be protecting."

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Real hurthling! posted:

Maybe the cop was dumb?

Anyway unless that line is the "rosebud" of this game what's the point?

Misogyny is his sled.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

thiswayliesmadness posted:

Are we allowed to spoil future songs they're going to "old tyme" up? I honestly didn't notice this part of the game at all till later on [...] and heard a popular 80's song. Whoever did the job of converting some of the music was just fantastic.

95% of people miss that song, and 100% of people have a "what the frak" moment when it's pointed out to them, but I think it can wait. Don't want to spoil the surprise.

And I agree, somebody had a lot of fun making bits of these games. Whoever drew/painted/whateverthetermis those paintings depicting Lincoln? They're so detailed and so well done.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

JamieTheD posted:

So, Letuce and her "brother"... Doesn't anyone think it weird that they literally seem to have one mind? This is my speculation: They're both a single Schrodinger's Cat. In the "Unadulterated Cat" sense of the phrase. It'd be heavy handed, but it makes sense, in the way people popularly understand Quantum... thingumajigs.

It's a twin/BFF thing. My brother and I have spent so much time together that we'll finish each other's sentences and pick up trains of thought before the other person's finished saying them. Other people say it's like we're speaking code to each other; when we really get into a problem or idea we use just enough words and gestures for the other guy to run with it, since we know how each other thinks and don't have to worry much about being misunderstood.

It also gets me in trouble with other people when they can't follow what I'm saying, because I do it out of habit. I'll drop off in mid-sentence because the guy I usually talk to can fill in the blanks, leaving whoever I'm currently talking to hanging.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

dotchan posted:

On "It Would Have Been Enough", Google says Joseph Smith preached a sermon on this very topic.

Behold!Optic Blast!

Man, that sermon makes me feel uneasy. Please indulge me for a moment while I try to sort out why.

Dayenu and the Bioshock ones are songs of praise, one to Hashem and one to Comstock. Dayenu builds through the whole thing, ending with the biggest moments of the giving of the Torah, delivery into Israel, and building of the first Temple. The Bioshock one builds as well, in tone at least. "Sacrifice of his beloved" and "expulsion of the Vox Populi" don't mean much to us the listener without context, but the preacher certainly feels they're important.

Smith's sermon is a eulogy. It takes a woman's life and forces it into the structure, and instead of praising her will, or wisdom, or kindness, it gives credit at every step along the way to God, including such things as "they moved into a different house, praise the Lord!" The climax, the greatest deed done if following the structure of the original poem, is her death. Maybe it was better in person, I've known some powerful orators who don't translate to paper well and you don't found a religion as a clumsy speaker, but the whole thing feels off.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Sundowner posted:

Edit: Oh yeah, I bought the season pass earlier this week so now my guns are gold. A little weird and I'm not sure if it's a permanent thing. I personally like 'em because they look really cool and ornate but, eh, whatever. I don't know how to access my bonus infusions after starting a new game or if I even can, I don't even know if I should use them anyway considering they're just flat out free upgrades for being a season pass holder.

Once you pass the Blue Ribbon you can't get em.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

The book Elizabeth wields is The Principles of Quantum Mechanics by Rosalind Lutece. I'd like to note that this isn't quite an anachronism like some other things. Modern-ish "many worlds" quantum is from the late 70s/early 80s, but Planck's hypothesis was in the late 1890s, and Einstein used it in 1905 to explain the photoelectric effect. I just wanted to head that off before anyone jumped on it, I've seen that happen in every thread about this game on every forum.

Lutece, of course, is entirely fictional as are her contributions to the field. The phrase "quantum mechanics" to classify all this stuff is slightly anachronistic by five years or so but I think that can be attributed to her research, unlike some other things we've heard in this game.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

John Liver posted:

This is a similar situation to the barbershop quartet, I noticed - sounds like the song is Everybody Wants to Rule the World.

It plays in Paris as well, though a lot of folks are too busy looking at Paris to notice that.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Ulvirich posted:

Surprised no one mentioned the title of the book Elizabeth was holding when she's about to clock Booker upside the head.

I did.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

And the children's rhyme for completion's sake:

"Songbird, Songbird see him fly, drop the children from the sky. When the young ones misbehave, escorts children to their grave. Never back-talk, never lie, or he'll drop you from the sky!"

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

That song is very subtle, and I've seen a lot of folks say "man I was humming that song when I left the boardwalk but I had no idea why." It's neat.

You skipped (understandably especially since this was a replayand there's a lot of stuff to show off) taking Elizabeth around the beach. She'll comment on things, try to lift one of the medicine balls, and generally be adorable.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Some other little touches, the bits before the ambush of people trying to act natural. "Do you sell... sauerkraut" and the guy saying it was a dollar when the sign on the stand says two gets me every time.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

CommissarMega posted:

...which is why they're able to connect each others' sentences and such...

That's just a matter of being close. My twin brother and I do it all the time, and I've seen other people do it as well once they've known each other for ages. It tends to feel odd to an outside viewer because if we do it ourselves it feels natural since our brains are supplying the context and the rest of the words. Like listening to one side of a telephone call.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Claven666 posted:

Can someone be white but not be "white"?

If a reason must be found for one man to hate another man he feels must be hated, a reason will be found no matter how twisted the logic.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Ekster posted:

Sorry for not clarifying before, but yes I have read the previous posts, but I wasn't sure about how mainstream these viewpoints actually were. Judging from the previous reactions, apparently more mainstream than I thought. Guess my view of early 20th century America was more rosy than I had previously thought. Sorry about that.

It's not something Americans like to talk about unless they're drumming up political support in certain parts of the country. Usually gets a brief mention in history class, which may be followed by a "but that's all better now, we fixed it" depending on the teacher. Spoiler: it's better than it was, but we haven't fixed it.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

citybeatnik posted:

My West Texas, Church of Christ dirt farming grandparents said the exact same thing about my mother.

My mom made a couple of comments the first time I dated a non-Jewish girl, but they stopped when I pointed to my goyim dad and asked if my grandparents said the same thing when she married him (they did, and she gave them an earful about it at the time). It led to some useful discussion about reflex reactions and first- and second-thoughts, so I don't hold it against her.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

cokerpilot posted:

So what was the replica heater?

Another weapon.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

In RPG terms, high Int low Wis.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

ynohtna posted:

Wow, they really do love doing the whole Harry Lime heavy characterisation of people we've yet to meet in these *Shock games, don't they?

It's been ages since I've seen The Third Man, can you explain what you mean by this?

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

citybeatnik posted:

Anyone recognize that song that was playing ~15 minutes in to the video? I can't quite make it out but I swear I recognize it from somewhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LQfRXalvHQ The Bonnie Blue Flag. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bonnie_Blue_Flag has the full lyrics of both it and the Union's version.

Bruceski fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Sep 25, 2013

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Abilifier posted:

I just read about Wounded Knee on Wikipedia. Was this covered in the thread yet? Because that little bit of history really adds a lot to the characters of Slate, Booker, and Comstock. I'll add a quick summary if it seems appropriate.

It has not and oof, is it nasty. Having been both there and with the Pinkertons it's not surprising that the office flashbacks (hallucinations or whatever you wanna call them, definitely some dream/nightmare and reality intermixed) show him sitting there staring at a bottle.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Abilifier posted:

I also saw this quote from L. Frank Baum, you know, the guy who wrote The Wizard of Oz

I'd like to think he was being sarcastic. Anyway, this is all from the Wikipedia article, I'm looking through some other sources now. It was a pretty horrifying event, and it really was a stain on the military's history, which wasn't exactly all that great to begin with.


Here's the full text of Baum's editorials for Wounded Knee and Sitting Bull's death, taken from http://hsmt.history.ox.ac.uk/courses_reading/undergraduate/authority_of_nature/week_7/baum.pdf

quote:

The Sitting Bull Editorial
Sitting Bull, most renowned Sioux of modern history, is dead.

He was not a Chief, but without Kingly lineage he arose from a lowly position to the greatest Medicine Man of his time, by virtue of his shrewdness and daring.

He was an Indian with a white man's spirit of hatred and revenge for those who had wronged him and his. In his day he saw his son and his tribe gradually driven from their possessions: forced to give up their old hunting grounds and espouse the hard working and uncongenial avocations of the whites. And these, his conquerors, were marked in their dealings with his people by selfishness, falsehood and treachery. What wonder that his wild nature, untamed by years of subjection, should still revolt? What wonder that a fiery rage still burned within his breast and that he should seek every opportunity of obtaining vengeance upon his natural enemies.

The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are. History would forget these latter despicable beings, and speak, in later ages of the glory of these grand Kings of forest and plain that Cooper loved to heroism.

We cannot honestly regret their extermination, but we at least do justice to the manly characteristics possessed, according to their lights and education, by the early Redskins of America.
(Saturday Pioneer, December 20, 1890)

quote:

The Wounded Knee Editorial
The peculiar policy of the government in employing so weak and vacillating a person as General Miles to look after the uneasy Indians, has resulted in a terrible loss of blood to our soldiers, and a battle which, at its best, is a disgrace to the war department. There has been plenty of time for prompt and decisive measures, the employment of which would have prevented this disaster.

The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.

An eastern contemporary, with a grain of wisdom in its wit, says that "when the whites win a fight, it is a victory, and when the Indians win it, it is a massacre."
(Saturday Pioneer, January 3, 1891)

Hard to pin doiwn a man's mind a hundred and twenty-five years after the fact, but it sounds like someone disgusted at what had been done, but who felt that there was no way to redeem the Sioux.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Dr. Buttass posted:

There's a rather brilliant series of blog posts kicking around the internet about how the Twilight series is just riddled with unconscious references to Mormonism (Cliff's Notes version: Edward Cullen is Joseph Smith. Stephanie Meyer wants to screw her prophet). I think it serves better as commentary on the faith than as a form of actual entertainment; if I recall the posts correctly pretty much everything creepy and/or incongruous in those books is rooted in Mormonism to a greater or lesser degree. Even the stuff that isn't directly relevant to the faith still gets a pass on the basis of Jose-I mean Edward being super hot.

The ones I've seen about that tend to do quite a bit of reaching to reinforce their argument. Things like "the books have Native American characters, Mormons believe they have a ancestral link to Native Americans" or "Bella doesn't drink tea, Mormons don't drink tea, therefore THESE BOOKS ARE ENTIRELY ABOUT MORMON DOCTRINE." They're definitely books written from a "nice boys and girls who do the things nice boys and girls do" perspective that has values lagging a bit behind the times in a manner shared by Mormonism and other religions (but not all religions and not exclusive to religions), but there's a fair bit of difference between that and "Meyer wants to bone Joseph Smith."

That said, I consider my threshold of "books that exist as a mouthpiece for religion/author's philosophy" to be the Narnia series, particularly the later books. That's a pretty high bar to pass, and I think the only other books I've willingly read that passed it are the Golden Compass trilogy, where one character stands up on a soapbox and monologues about everything that's wrong with the Catholic church.

Bruceski fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Oct 8, 2013

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Kangra posted:

I'm sure you know this, but Pullman did this deliberately as a sort of response to the Narnia books (and his criticism could well have been aimed at the Anglicans as well as the Catholics).

No, I didn't know that. Did he intend it as a satire or "you think you can write a heavy-handed essay of your dogma disguised as a children's story? Check THIS out!" Because it doesn't really work on the former count.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Trust me, we can't even safely tell you what Elizabeth had for breakfast. Unless you think it's been mentioned and you missed it, just don't ask.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Flesnolk posted:

I seem to recall the "pay your workers in tender only valid at the company store" was a thing, too, but I can't recall the why of it.

Because it means you keep all the money. If I can get everyone working for me using tender that can only be exchanged for my goods I can jerk wages and fees around all I want. You get a 10% raise and everything at the store's more expensive!

It also keeps them from leaving. No saving up to start somewhere else.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Capitalist barons were used to thinking big. Buffalo Bill was hired to feed the railway workers and personally killed 4200 bison in eight months, if you believe the tales he told about himself. A lot of these work areas (depending on the industry) were towns in their own right, so the boss provided the food, the lodging, the transport... not a situation where you can just pop over to Safeway for some tomatoes. And it let him skim off every side.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Flesnolk posted:

Well now don't I look stupid, but at least it's an interesting topic. Thanks for bearing with me.

Oh yeah, I meant things more as teaching than admonishing. A lot of the major American fortunes (Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, the kinds of names you now see in PBS credits) were made in this era between the Civil War and the rise of the unions and workers' rights, it's kinda both fascinating and horrifying what they got away with.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Hirayuki posted:

Is there an easy way to tell the Columbias apart, or are you truly stuck in this version of it with no hope of return? (Don't answer that spoilery last part.) I often have a hard time knowing where I am in parallel-world games.

At various points the Games threads have exploded with people trying to make sense of things, so I'd recommend you just do like Mystery Science Theater. Repeat to yourself it's just a game and relax. They don't do any "slipped back into Universe A without noticing" kind of thing, it's all up front.

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Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Rather than Red and Blue universes, the weapons' proper labels are Vox and Police. The Police weapons tend to be more standard, the Vox ones are cobbles together, stronger but less accurate or smaller clips and such.

I'd like the idea of "variations on a theme" with those weapons a lot more if the upgrades were for each pair rather than separate ones for the Vox weapons. It spreads the whole upgrade mechanic a bit too thin for my tastes.

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