Mass Effect: Space Brexit!?

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Now, wait a minute. Now wait a minute. [00:00:02] Speaker B: Sometimes in life we have to make difficult choices, and we may feel like, do these choices even matter? Are these choices real? Are we really getting to make a choice? Or are we just gonna get the same ending with just slight tweaks on it? This is. This is the question that you must ask yourself every time you step into the polling booth. Every time you take that noble step down into the voting booth, you must ask yourself, am I the Commander shepherd of my own destiny? You must ask yourself, which of the three endings am I gonna get? Sorry. 17 endings. Sorry. How many endings are there? We're not sure. [00:00:50] Speaker C: Only three. [00:00:51] Speaker A: At least three. At least four. [00:00:53] Speaker B: There's only one way. There's only one way you're gonna find out which ending you're gonna get and vote. It is time to vote. It is the most important election of your life. This election, which will be, I do truly believe, the most important election of our lifetime. [00:01:13] Speaker A: This is the most important election of our lifetime. [00:01:17] Speaker B: This is the most important election. [00:01:19] Speaker C: Don't you you hear that? [00:01:21] Speaker A: This is the most important election in our lifetime. [00:01:24] Speaker B: I certainly think it's the most important. [00:01:26] Speaker C: Election of my lifetime. This is the most important election of our times. [00:01:32] Speaker A: Politicians say every time, this is the most important election. [00:01:35] Speaker C: This one's really that important. [00:01:37] Speaker A: I voted so hard, I voted my. It blew my wi fi. But I'm still voting by phone as we speak. Voters by phone. [00:01:45] Speaker B: Only legal for a temporary amount of time. [00:01:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:50] Speaker B: Brief window. Welcome back to the most important election of our lives. I'm Kennedy Cooper. With me as always, we have Andrew Field, a illustrious statistician. [00:02:02] Speaker A: Numbers, but with Greek letters. Ooh. [00:02:06] Speaker B: And we have an incredible guest today. We have a. Wait, no, this. This really can't be right. I'm sorry. Hang on. [00:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah, you're right. The note's gotta be wrong. [00:02:18] Speaker B: If somebody that's running for office. [00:02:20] Speaker A: Whoa. We wouldn't let him want to be politician. On our podcast. [00:02:27] Speaker B: On our podcast where we joke about voting, we have a real votes person this time. Wait, hang on, hang on. Wait. Dylan Thomas Blaha. Is that. Are you in the studio with us? Is this real? [00:02:38] Speaker C: This is me. Thanks for having me. [00:02:42] Speaker A: Wow. I didn't know politicians were real. I thought they were just made up stories to make you vote blue no matter who. [00:02:49] Speaker C: They're not all robots, I promise. [00:02:53] Speaker B: I thought we were making everything up on this show. [00:02:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:56] Speaker A: Oh, come on. [00:02:59] Speaker B: Jokes aside, I actually. I think Andrew might be better equipped to truly field this, but. Yes, Dylan, your campaign has caught our attention. It's been something that we've been interested in and really Andrew's the one who of course, brought it to our attention. So why don't you take the lead here a little bit, Andrew, with the okay, introduction, I think, I think you deserve this one. [00:03:25] Speaker A: So imagine, if you will, House districts and the funny little way that they get districted. Dylan is running for Illinois House 13. Now, I could explain to you what this is, but if you were to look up a current House district map, you would find this very nasty, upside looking. Oh, what's gerrymandering? I don't know what it is, but the seats there, and currently it's being held by just one of those Democrats that, like, she votes, like she's in a swing district, even though it's a safe blue one, like very bad votes, all sorts of things. If we're going to have that district for Democrats, we might as well get a progressive one. Is there a progressive candidate running for IL13 in there podcast right now that can pick this up? [00:04:18] Speaker C: I'm right here. [00:04:19] Speaker B: All right, so, Dylan, we like to give our guests a chance to shout out what they're working on at the front of the show, just in case people don't listen all the way to the end. So, so go ahead and tell people all about your candidacy for Illinois House 13. [00:04:36] Speaker C: Yeah, so my name is Dylan Blaha. I'm running in Illinois's 13th district to get big money out of politics, fight for, for working people. And the biggest thing is that I am, you know, I don't take corporate donations, I don't take money from Israel or any other foreign lobby. And I'm just here, you know, I'm not the typical politician, I'm not the typical Democrat. I'm here to fight for people because I feel like, you know, a lot of us have been discontented with both sides. And even when it comes to fighting Donald Trump and fighting against a lot of the Republican rhetoric that we're seeing right now, a lot of them just capitulate to it. So, but no, I've been able to get, get out and, and just meet people across the district, talk to people at farmers markets, at their doors, so on and so forth, and it's been a really rewarding experience. I think a lot of people, when you talk to people, they, they're against the genocide in Gaza. They're, they're struggling right now, and there's a lot of ways they're against what's going on with, with ice ripping people from, from the streets. And so I'm just, you know, really fighting for the will of the people right now. And unfortunately, a lot of Democrats, they're too busy listening to their consultants, and that's fine. I mean, I'll just win by listening to the people. [00:05:58] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think it's brave of you. Somebody has to represent the moderate centrist position in America. Most people refuse to do this. They will only pander to the right. Meanwhile, the average American would like the military budget to be reduced, actually, you know, but. Sorry, Dylan, this is a bit that I do a lot, but it's just, I think it's kind of funny that, you know, a lot of times positions like yours are sort of painted as radical by certain media elements and things like that. But really, if you look at the polling, everything that you just described, it's like you said, you're sitting in line with what people want. You can just look at the numbers. They're right there. [00:06:40] Speaker C: Yeah. No, there's a recent poll that more Democrats identify as progressive than moderate. Nowadays. There's, you know, among 18 to 29 year olds, I think there's a 62% approval rating for socialism. So, you know, and, and I don't go around here and say that I'm a socialist. You know, I just say, like, my policies speak for themselves and we're just fighting for, for workers, unions, and we need to fight back against the, the massive wealth inequality because, because some people are mad about Trump, but it's not just Trump. Like, it's, it's the entire system that needs to change. [00:07:17] Speaker B: Right, right. He's, he's just a product of the system of wealth. Like, they just. Wealth creates guys like Trump. [00:07:26] Speaker C: Exactly. And even, even if, if, you know, he'll die someday, you know, even when that happens in office or out of office, there will be somebody that comes to replace him unless we change the system. [00:07:36] Speaker B: Well said. [00:07:38] Speaker A: I live in Illinois 13, and I plan on voting for Dylan Blah for House rep. [00:07:44] Speaker B: Speaking of changing the system, let's change the system that we're currently talking about on this podcast to the Xbox. Dylan, you came to us with the topic of Mass Effect, beloved RPG video game series, a relatively unique and especially when it came out, fairly groundbreaking series. [00:08:13] Speaker A: What? [00:08:13] Speaker B: I actually had to learn a lot about Mass Effect to make this podcast. I've never played them, but I, I'm aware of, even before I got really into the lore so that I could write this show, I've been aware of the impact of these games. You know, like, I've had friends that played them and talked about them and things like that. And so I know that these games definitely have had an interesting effect on gaming culture and artistic culture and some other things, but I don't know enough about them to truly speak to what makes them so very special. So I'd love for you to describe what is it about these games that you love so much that you want to talk about them today? [00:08:54] Speaker C: Yeah, so I think for me, I played Mass Effect in late high school, early college, and you know, they were really popular. I remember the third one came out, I think in early 2012, and it was just, it's something that it's more than just a third person shooter. You know, the action's okay, but it's the story that really engrosses you to the point that they even have a story only version. But you're really able to, you're develop, you're able to develop different relationships with these characters depending on all the different dialogue options. And it really, it really allows you to get invested in there. And you can kind of, you can role play in a way that you could say, oh, well, how, how would I behave in these situations? Or you could be a renegade character and be like, all right, well, how would Al Pacino as a, as a dirty cop act in this circumstance? So, you know, and, and so there's, there's plenty of different relationship options. There's different ways that all of these scenarios play out. One of the things that I know you guys joked about at the beginning with the different endings is that that was really the only point where the series really fell flat was at the end that because it builds it and builds it up that, oh, there's going to be all these different, you know, Heavy Rain style endings where, and, but in reality it was, it was really just three endings, or I think it ended up being four after. I never played the ending after they updated it because I was, I was upset. But in the original ending, it was just red, green or blue, you know, that you get to pick. But, but throughout the whole thing, you know, you can. You end up ending wars or letting them play out based on your decisions. And there's characters that, especially in the third one, depending on your decisions, either live or sacrifice themselves. And so it's just very, it's a very moving series. There's a couple other ones, you know, throughout the time that I've played that I would say are on par. You know, I love the Last of Us and the Last of Us too. Even though sometimes it made me feel things that I didn't want to feel. I don't know if you guys have ever played those, but games are like that. Some good games, yeah. But no, I like a good story with my kit, with my game. [00:11:18] Speaker B: Nice effect. Yeah. So Mass Effect takes place in a pretty broad, expansive and strange, kind of somewhat unique. It's a little Star Wars Y and a little bit. It is reminiscent of a few things, but it's a somewhat unique and interesting universe. Is there anything you want to speak to in that? Like, is there anything about the universe in particular that speaks to you or that kind of, like, draws you back over and over again? Because it seems like there's a lot to sink your teeth into. [00:11:48] Speaker C: There is. I think the thing that I always go back to is humanity's role in that environment, you know, because essentially there's this, you know, this alliance of a lot of different aliens that have been coexisting together for a while, and then there's. There's a whole lot of lore before you even start the first game. And so there's these Turian wars that. That happened with the. The first encounter with the humans and the Turians. And it does kind of just make you think when you go through one of those games, you're like, yeah, this is kind of how humans would behave. And kind of like when you watch Avatar, and you're like, yeah, this is humanity, right? Yeah, I think, you know, and that's where that is one of the different things is you get to see these different races that have developed on. On these different. These different planets, and it's just another way to kind of help you build different perspectives. Right. I think that's the one thing that. That a lot of people lack in today's society is. Is empathy and perspectives of what others have gone through. So I think just like, reading books is helpful in helping you develop empathy. And I know there's been a couple studies that have shown that. I think it's the same way in video games, too. You know, you kind of. You go, oh, well, I just thought that this guy was evil. But now that I know his backstory, I can kind of see how he became this way. [00:13:26] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:29] Speaker B: I think things like that can be pretty interesting. And it definitely seems like Mass Effect deals in a lot of like. Like, gray morality rather than, like, harsh. Like, this is good, this is bad. There's only a few things in the Mass Effect universe that are clearly unambiguously good or bad, right? [00:13:48] Speaker C: No, exactly. I mean, there's. There's a couple especially in the third one that. Yeah, I mean, there's times that you might have to sacrifice one person to save a group of people or you might. The lie is almost the nicer option than telling the truth in certain scenarios. And. Yeah, so there is a lot of ambiguity there. [00:14:09] Speaker B: I think that's really interesting. You know, I mean, there have been some people that have criticized aspects of Mass Effect storytelling and, you know, there's definitely, like, flaws in it. But also there was an aspect of representation in Mass Effect that was a little bit. A little bit ahead of its time, I would say. [00:14:28] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I mean, honestly. Yeah, it was. It was woke before, you know, as. [00:14:34] Speaker B: Some people would probably say Mass Effect 1 woke if it came out right now. [00:14:39] Speaker C: Would you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. [00:14:42] Speaker B: Don't you think that the conservatives would be like, oh, look at this wokey video game for wokies. And it's like, you basically play a cop. You guys like content. [00:14:53] Speaker C: I know there's like propaganda in here. Yeah, no, exactly. You know, because I. I think especially in the third one, like, you can definitely. I mean, Liara, you know, technically she doesn't have a gender with her race, but, you know, she swings both ways. And. But I think by the third one, like, yeah, a lot of the characters are gay, lesbian, bisexual, things like that. So even in that way and that. And there is that focus on how you can. You can romance one character over another. So. Yeah, definitely. I think, like, was it Baldur's Gate 3? I haven't played that one, but I've heard that one's been called Pretty Woke. And it kind of reminds me of like, you know, modern day Mass Effect. [00:15:34] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Baldur's Gate 3 has a. Has a strong element of. Everyone just seems to be like a bisexual down for whatever. [00:15:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:15:48] Speaker B: So, yeah, Mass Effect, pretty interesting setting. There was a lot to potentially draw upon to try to come up with some political topic to discuss today as well. Obviously, you know, there's a lot of different themes in Mass Effect that you could read into different metaphors for different things. But I kind of found that, to me, the most interesting thing that I kept coming back to is that humans in Mass Effect are Brexiters. Yeah. [00:16:23] Speaker C: No, they really are. [00:16:28] Speaker A: Just in the episode. No explanation. [00:16:30] Speaker C: No explanation. [00:16:33] Speaker A: Okay, continue. [00:16:34] Speaker B: There's. There's some strong Brexit energy in a lot of these political parties in the human. The human political sphere. And now I just want to say, first of all, before we get any deeper into it, I was legitimately impressed with how deep the politics of Mass Effect are because you've got like factions and sub factions and sub, sub factions. And it. They really actually, like a lot of video games just be like, here's Kingdom A, here's Kingdom B, you know. [00:17:06] Speaker C: No, I mean, it's one of those games that like, if, let's say you haven't been playing it for a hot minute and you went back to it, you'd like pick up the little Codex or whatever and you'd be like, oh, wow, I have to relearn who's allied with who and who's this guy again? Yeah, no, the war goes pretty deep. [00:17:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And so you have like a lot of different layers of allegiance, shifting allegiances, things like that. And it's, it's. It's pretty interesting. But again, there's like a reasonable number of human political parties that have some amount of representation within lore in the Systems alliance government. And like three out of the four big ones are Brexiters. [00:17:52] Speaker C: No, exactly. Right. [00:17:54] Speaker A: Wait, listen, if all but one are the Brexitards, doesn't that make the one that isn't a Brexit or the only true Brexiter faction? [00:18:05] Speaker B: Really makes you think something like that? [00:18:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:09] Speaker B: Even though the humans, it seems like now, correct me if I'm wrong, it seems like the humans basically kind of wind their way into the Citadel Council in the first place. [00:18:20] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. They weren't on the original Council at all, but yeah, they, they just kind of worm their way into it. And then by the end of the. The first game, which it was weird, like I hadn't played the first game for so long because I played it on PlayStation, so I started with two and three, and then eventually I played, I played one. But yeah, by the end of the first game, that's when they appoint you either appoint like Udina or the other guy, the cooler guy, the Admiral to. To be on the council. So yeah, no, it's. And it was probably running way better before humans got there, but yeah, so. [00:18:58] Speaker B: Humans kind of like demand their way onto the council and then almost immediately after getting council membership are like, we should actually be isolationist. We should act. We. We don't need anybody. We've got all the answers we need right here in the, in the Earth sphere of control. Never mind the fact that the Systems alliance government is itself pretty divided because you kind of almost have like a Gundam esque, I assume may be inspired by Gundam possibly a little bit kind of situation going on where you have like a, like a lot of political power unnecessarily centered on Earth. [00:19:45] Speaker C: No, you really do. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's weird because you don't even visit Earth until, like, the third game, I think. Yeah. [00:19:54] Speaker A: What? [00:19:55] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's. [00:19:57] Speaker C: It's. [00:19:58] Speaker B: It's great. Like, it's. It's so much like some of the problems that we face in real life where, you know, these decisions are being made that greatly affect everything that you do, but you don't even. You don't even get to go to the same restaurants that, you know, the people that make the decisions hang out at. Right. Like, that's Mass Effects one and two. Like, you're living under the shadow of these politicians on Earth, but you can't even. You can't even hang out with them for five minutes. [00:20:31] Speaker C: No, exactly. I mean, it is definitely an interesting because, like, I think overall there's. That the overall bad guys in the series are like, this group of aliens that, like, created. It's this whole cycle where they created, like, AI and then eventually the AI ends up deciding they don't need the organics anymore. And there's like kind of a whole storyline with that whole business. But then. Yeah, I feel like for a lot of it, too, with the political portion of it, it is like. Like sometimes when you're going on, you're like, am I even on the good side right now? Yeah, there's a lot of ambiguity there. Like, in the second game, Shepard gets, you know, he starts out with the elusive man and. And all of their people kind of helping, you know, a bunch of random, you know, thugs and bounty hunters and such. [00:21:28] Speaker B: Yeah, there's definitely some are we the baddies Moments in a game like this. It sounds like. [00:21:34] Speaker C: No, exactly. [00:21:35] Speaker A: It's fine. It's fine. It's fun. [00:21:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So I thought. I thought comparing this with Brexit would be kind of fun because it seems like a lot of the sort of political actors and major political groups in the System alliance mirror somewhat some of the politics in the UK right now. And I don't know if that's intentional or if it's just coincidental or, you know, but like, you can't help but kind of look at the Verdant alliance and think, like, Corbyn left question mark. Like, they're not perfect, but, like, there's something to that, right? [00:22:18] Speaker C: No, no. I mean, it's so crazy now because, I mean, I lived in Germany for. For three years. I was stationed there for the military, and every Brit I met, it's just like, oh, Brexit. Just completely regretting it. Yeah, yeah. [00:22:34] Speaker B: And I think. I think if the human isolationists in Mass Effect ever got what they wanted, they would regret it immensely right away as well. [00:22:42] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. [00:22:45] Speaker B: Which kind of leads us into the voting portion of this episode. The topics I've come up with for us to discuss today, which all kind of center around the idea of, as I decided to frame it, Space Brexit. [00:23:02] Speaker A: Space Brexit. [00:23:05] Speaker B: What would it look like to Brexit from the Citadel Council? What would it mean, the Systems Alliance. These are the questions that I want to examine today. [00:23:17] Speaker A: Actually have one question. So you mentioned that there were three factions that were Brexiters. How do they differ in their form of Brexiting? [00:23:27] Speaker B: It seemed like levels of racism and levels of Earth centricness, mostly. Am I right? [00:23:34] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely. There's a lot of. There's a lot of racism throughout the galaxy in Mass Effect in general that you get no matter what planet you're on. [00:23:44] Speaker B: But. [00:23:44] Speaker C: Yeah, that's kind of. That's kind of what I've gathered too, with the Earth ones. Yeah. Gosh, it's been like 15 years since I played, but. Yeah, that's kind of how I remember it. [00:23:56] Speaker B: On that subject, stepping into the polling booth here, you remember well enough to say which political party you think might have. Might be the one to propose Space Brexit. There's a couple different ones. I can also pull up the list and read it off for us. [00:24:12] Speaker C: There's terra firma. Forward. [00:24:16] Speaker B: The blues also gives off Brexiter vibes. [00:24:20] Speaker C: Definitely. Like, terra firma's got that. That America first, you know, pro human, anti alien policies. Yeah. [00:24:29] Speaker B: Forward humanity, though. Can't rule them out. [00:24:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Human independence and strong defense. Yeah, yeah, they're all. They're all not great. Yeah. [00:24:39] Speaker B: Like, most of these are potential Brexiters, but I actually, my hot take is, I think it would. Even though terra firma seems like the obvious choice, I think the Blues would be the first ones to bring this up. Even though they seem to champion a certain amount of liberalism and progressivism. I just think that they're so Earth centric. [00:25:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:03] Speaker A: Make Earth great again. [00:25:05] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's. That is true. Right. I mean, I think that's an interesting take. Yeah. Especially the idea that, like, hey, maybe. Maybe if we just focus on making Earth healthy again, you know, and. And spend less of our time and money on all these other planets, then maybe we can at least save ours. No, that's true. [00:25:24] Speaker A: Right. [00:25:24] Speaker B: It's such a common pitfall. With a lot of, like, environmentalist type movements is that you can often have some type of offshoot that. That ends up trying to poison the well at some point. Right. [00:25:38] Speaker C: And there were also, like, which I don't even know. I don't know if they actually had a Colonies United type thing, But a lot of the. There was a lot of different human colony planets, too, that already just kind of did their own thing as well. And, you know, they were farmers or whatever, so, yeah, they. They just. Everyone and every human wanted to be isolationists in one way or another. [00:26:00] Speaker B: Yeah, there was, like. There was, like, one faction that was, like, pro integration. Yeah. [00:26:07] Speaker C: Alliance. Yeah, yeah, exactly. [00:26:09] Speaker B: Like, the. The. Even most of the. Yeah, even most of the, like, outer colonies political factions are like, well, it's messed up what Earth's doing to us, but we should be allowed to oppress someone too. [00:26:22] Speaker A: Wow. That doesn't remind me of anybody of any country nowadays. [00:26:29] Speaker B: To be drawn to anything. [00:26:31] Speaker A: So a political mass effect. [00:26:35] Speaker B: So, on space social media, where Space Brexit would, of course, be championed by grifters, what is the emoji that everyone uses to symbolize Space Brexit? Oof. [00:26:52] Speaker C: Oh, God. Well, they can't do it to the moon thing, right? Oh, my God. [00:26:58] Speaker A: I got it. No, I think I got it. There is one thing about Earth that is unique. We got the chance. Some people got the chance to see it last year. But the solar eclipse, how the moon perfectly covers the sun, like, the perfect shape, that's something that is probably Earth, unique to Earth, even if there are other planets, because things have to be so perfect. I think that would be the symbol. [00:27:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:23] Speaker C: No, I think you're right. [00:27:25] Speaker B: I like it because it could easily look, like, grim and fascist with very little effort. Right? [00:27:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:27:31] Speaker B: Like, it wouldn't take. It wouldn't take much work to make an eclipse look menacing. [00:27:36] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I. I just took something beautiful, something amazing, and turned it fascist. Oh, no. [00:27:45] Speaker B: This is. [00:27:48] Speaker A: How it works. [00:27:50] Speaker C: I did always wonder in there, you know, like, there's. There's so much. There's so much alien on alien racism in Mass Effect that it is like, well, I guess it's cool that humans are united now, but it's crazy that the only thing that united a bunch of them was that they don't like other species. You know, I mean, that's kind of an interesting idea. I know that's been done in other things before. [00:28:14] Speaker B: This is the Watchmen theory of politics, right? We're gonna end racism by destroying New York City. [00:28:24] Speaker C: Just dropping a Squid. Yeah. [00:28:29] Speaker B: All right, so it's obvious that Space Brexit is going to make things worse for the Systems Alliance. I'm going to assume that for the purposes of having an interesting discussion here, that one of the things that might suddenly become scarce in the Systems alliance is Meta Gel. What are we going to call the worst human capitalist alternative product that replaces Medagel? What is the off brand Metagel called? [00:28:59] Speaker C: Well, there's obviously going to be an Amazon Basics version, you know, that's, you know, you can get in in an hour via. Via space drone or something, you know. [00:29:09] Speaker B: I mean, Amazon Basics. Med. Health. Healthy. Healthy Goop. [00:29:14] Speaker C: Yeah. Health Goop. Yeah. Sold by 67 different places. Yeah. Like all those ones. [00:29:24] Speaker B: Banned in the eu. [00:29:26] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Where is it made in, though? I don't know. Yeah, that'd be tough. [00:29:33] Speaker B: It's probably made in like. It's not made on Earth. [00:29:36] Speaker C: No, definitely not made in America, that's for sure. Yeah. [00:29:39] Speaker B: Yes. Probably not even. It's. Ironically, it's probably still. Even though we're claiming that now this is the human alternative, it's probably still not made by humans somehow. [00:29:51] Speaker C: Yeah, we've outsourced that because capitalism. Yeah. [00:29:55] Speaker B: How much worse off is the Space Brexited System alliance when the reapers show up? [00:30:00] Speaker C: You know, I mean. Oh, if they've, if they've gone full Brexit. [00:30:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:06] Speaker C: Oh, completely worse off, right. I mean, yeah, just the idea that. [00:30:12] Speaker B: Like, totally, like, are we just watching the human worlds burn while the rest of the aliens are like, all right, while the human world's burn, we'll come up with our defensive strategy. [00:30:23] Speaker C: Yeah, no, exactly. I mean, it's. It's hard to know what the strategy would be there, other than completely reactionary. Yeah. Oh, man. [00:30:33] Speaker B: Continuing on these kind of subjects, how much more expensive is the all Earth made Omni tool? [00:30:41] Speaker A: Oh, geez. [00:30:43] Speaker B: And is it even as good as. [00:30:46] Speaker C: Let'S say they said the iPhone in, in America would be, what, like $3,500, so. [00:30:54] Speaker A: Holy. [00:30:55] Speaker C: Yeah, you'd say at least 3.5 times as expensive. Right? Yeah. And. And you know, it's still not. It's assembled in America. Some of those parts are still coming from other galaxies, you know. Oh, boy. Yeah, it's. It's interesting too, because do you know, have you heard of like the mass relays and Mass Effect? [00:31:17] Speaker B: I. I've read a little bit about them, but rather than me badly try to explain to our audience what they are, why don't you go ahead and take the floor for a second? [00:31:27] Speaker A: No. Spread Fake news. Kennedy. [00:31:29] Speaker C: No, it's perfect. Yeah, so it's, it's the main way to, to be able to jump across the, you know, to different galaxies in, you know, in a lot quicker time, you know, because other than that you would just only be able to move at. At faster than light travel. But it's one of those things that everyone thought that the Proteans who were like one of the first races of organics had made them, but actually it was, it was like the, the Leviathans, the, the original species that actually made the mass relays back in the day because science. [00:32:07] Speaker B: But. [00:32:07] Speaker C: But no, I isolationist group would probably like vote to take out the mass relays to be like, oh yeah. Well then that way nobody can come to us. We don't have to worry about them. This is perfect. Even in the process, if blowing up a mass relay might accidentally blow up a part of the galaxy also everybody's. [00:32:28] Speaker B: Just gonna love the results of not having access to the mass relays anymore. [00:32:33] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No more trade. [00:32:38] Speaker B: Rip trade. We missed the. So I think Dylan, you in particular might be able to give us an interesting answer for this. I started to wonder and I didn't have a good answer for this in my mind because I haven't actually played these games. Just had to do my best watching Lore videos and stuff and just trying to understand what the heck's going on in this crazy ass game. Which. Which planet would be the Irish backstop of the Systems Alliance? Where would they be? Where would the Systems alliance still be secretly doing deals with the Turians even after they've Brexit? [00:33:18] Speaker C: Oh, that's a good question. I mean, honestly, like there's enough shady stuff that goes on on the Citadel. They could probably just find an Irish pub on the Citadel and, and do it that way, you know, but. Oh God, I'm trying to think of what all the planets are. You know, it's crazy because like in. You go to so many different planets in these games. I don't even. I didn't even know which one would be the best one to go to. That's why I'm like cop out answer. Citadel. Yeah, you like. So a lot of the Mass Effect games are. It's like an Ocean's Eleven type of thing where you spend so much of your time like putting it. We're putting a team together to go do this thing along the way, so. So you definitely visit a whole lot of planets in your time. When you're there, as you're building up your team to Go take down the reapers or whatever the storyline is. I don't know. Final answer still on the Citadel. [00:34:13] Speaker B: All right. [00:34:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:17] Speaker B: How would Boris Johnson spin leaving the Citadel convention as good for galactic peace? [00:34:27] Speaker C: Oh, boy. I mean, he'd probably just say that, like, diversity is our greatest downfall, you know, that it's led to. You know, he'd have to like, oh, God, he's got such great hair. I always. Sorry. I just think about Boris Johnson's hair. [00:34:44] Speaker B: And his hair really is amazing because it's like, he just. I've never seen a grown adult man that looked so much like his hair as, like, schoolboy hair. I just. It's fascinating. Like, he constantly looks like his mom, like, did his hair, and then he, like, grumpily, like, ruffled it at the bus stop, like, you, mom. Yeah. [00:35:13] Speaker C: Oh, man. I still just think, like, peak Boris Johnson, aside from standing next to Trump and seeing their hair together, is. Didn't he have, like, a party during COVID when he had, like, a bunch of COVID regulations and lockdowns? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I feel like Boris Johnson, he would ultimately be in a room like, well, as long as I could still, you know, trade with everyone else, it's fine. I think it's best for everyone else to, you know, to go along with Brexit, but as long as it doesn't affect me. [00:35:46] Speaker B: Yeah. That was, like. Part of what inspired this was I just saw some. I'm not even going to try to remember his name because honestly, fuck. Fuck giving these guys any extra breath. But some billionaire in. In Britain was like, okay, I admit that Brexit has been bad for the working class, but it's so good that we did it foreign. It's just like, wow. [00:36:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:13] Speaker B: I mean, how do you even respond to that? [00:36:16] Speaker C: I had seen, when I lived in Germany, the Frankfurt airport was just a mess in the way that there's. There's buses going everywhere and there's so many flights. And then I finally found out, like, oh, part of the reason that it's so chaotic is because after Brexit, they bought on a bunch of extra work on behalf of the eu, so, you know, they're bringing in a whole bunch of extra money. I'm like, oh, yeah. Another way that the UK is just hemorrhaging money because they're losing all this business. [00:36:50] Speaker A: Good. [00:36:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:54] Speaker A: I'm gonna hemorrhage lots of money. Kennedy's the one with the good. [00:36:58] Speaker B: What it would be like if you went from a situation of having great trade deals to suddenly having tariffs On a bunch of stuff anyway. This one's a little bit more outside of the box. Hold on, I'm gonna save that one. [00:37:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:15] Speaker B: Once. Once the alliance has successfully space Brexited, do they lower the standard of what constitutes a garden world in order to exploit migrant space workers or. [00:37:30] Speaker C: Oh, 100%. Yeah. [00:37:32] Speaker B: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Or do they raise the standard of what constitutes a garden world for elitist real estate fraud purposes? [00:37:44] Speaker C: You know, I think real estate fraud is just. I mean, that's never going away, right. I mean, as long as we have capital, Right. [00:37:57] Speaker B: Are we going to. It is a tough choice, right? Do we want to exploit the workers more or do real estate fraud more? These are both. [00:38:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:38:08] Speaker B: Especially if we're comparing to the British ruling class. These are the. These are the pastimes of the British ruling class. [00:38:18] Speaker C: I think. I think the question would be, well, how could we do both? You know, could we. [00:38:26] Speaker B: Those two things and cricket in there and suddenly. [00:38:30] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. But if you had to go with one. [00:38:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:36] Speaker C: I guess real estate fraud would probably be the bigger. Bigger one. Right? I mean, that's in my heart. [00:38:41] Speaker B: Kind of feel like. I feel like. I feel like they would raise the standard because it sounds better to you in that. That way that conservatives like stuff. [00:38:50] Speaker C: This is the last evil thing. Yeah, yeah. [00:38:53] Speaker B: Like, oh, we're. We're raising the standard of what a garden world is. We're, you know, that's. That's good for everybody. Right? And then, like, your property taxes are suddenly nuts. [00:39:03] Speaker A: It's like how they want a strong dollar and don't want a wimpy, weak dollar, even though, technically, if you want to bring jobs back to America, you need a weak dollar. But no, let's make the dollar strong. Just like that. Yep, Yep. [00:39:18] Speaker B: Perfect plan every time. Okay, so the, the query and the quarry and I don't know if I'm saying that. [00:39:26] Speaker C: Quarrying quarry and. [00:39:28] Speaker B: Yeah, the quarry and migrant fleet is about to make its way through the Earth Systems alliance controlled space. Who says the most racist thing? Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage or Liz Truss? [00:39:46] Speaker C: Oh, God. [00:39:47] Speaker B: You're allowed to say bonus answer. Keir Starmer. [00:39:52] Speaker A: I do. [00:39:54] Speaker C: Gosh. I would still probably say Boris Johnson. You know, I mean, just because he's got no filter. [00:40:02] Speaker B: I gave him tough competition. Just so we'd at least think about it for a second. But. [00:40:06] Speaker A: Oh, and I thought about it for a second. [00:40:10] Speaker C: Those poor quarians, you know, I mean, I don't know how much you read about their story. So they. They created a synthetic race called the The Geth and, and, and you know, they were kind of living together and, and then eventually the Geth realized that it would be better if they didn't have organics there, so they drove them from their own homeworld. So, you know, a literal example of, of an AI uprising. [00:40:41] Speaker B: Oh great. Cool. [00:40:42] Speaker A: Cool. Can't happen in real life. [00:40:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:44] Speaker C: But then like, even when they showed people still shunned them for, because they were able to create this self aware AI in the first place, so it wasn't like people felt bad for them. And they also had an, they have like this immunodeficiency that causes them to constantly have to wear like a, I don't know, like a pressurized suit kind of thing. Poor Koreans. [00:41:13] Speaker B: Tough, tough stuff, tough stuff. And still called them degenerates. [00:41:22] Speaker A: So. [00:41:22] Speaker B: Said they had no value to the economy. Okay, these, these last couple I'm going to hit you with are a little bit more esoteric, let's say. So first, how does a sentient planet tell if it's suffering from legitimate climate change or just normal sentient planet aging related symptoms? [00:41:44] Speaker C: That's true. I, I guess that, that sentient planet would have to know that, you know, if, if you were millions of years old, I think at that point you would just have an intuition of like, oh, this is normal and this is not normal. And you know, what's been happening to our planet over the last, you know, century, even compared to everything that's come before, is not normal. You know, I mean, I, I like to say that, not to bring it back to my own politics, but, you know, climate change should be everyone's top priority right now because the planet is rapidly warming. But we're living in a world where, you know, fascism grows in America every day and a lot of people don't have money to, you know, even put food on the table. And they, they've been having to make tough decisions. So unfortunately we not, we aren't doing enough to fight climate change. And you know, now Trump is, you know, saying it's a good thing. So. But yeah, hopefully that planet would just have the intuition of like, oh, this is, this is not normal though. Yeah. [00:43:00] Speaker A: Okay, so I was going to be, I was going to be a smartass and just say, well, obviously the planet sees the planet doctor to see if it's normal or not. But no, nobody would trust the planet doctor because the planet doctor would be in big planet and be lying to you. [00:43:19] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, you got to get a second planet doctor opinion. And then once they say no, you definitely should have been getting that treated. Then you're like, shoot, I lost so much time. It's. It's a whole thing. [00:43:34] Speaker A: But people are ignoring the planet doctors right now. [00:43:40] Speaker C: Yeah, well, some people. Apparently. It's under debate whether it's not real, you know, so. [00:43:47] Speaker B: Yeah, if you just. If you just take your planet. Just take your planet near a black hole. Yeah, there you go. It'll stuck off any impurities leaving you healthy again. [00:44:00] Speaker A: I. I feel like. May I make a critique of this plan? [00:44:04] Speaker B: Nope. How do you determine who owns an asteroid for the purposes of maintaining economic space borders? [00:44:16] Speaker C: You know, I. I would do it similar to maritime law, I guess, you know, which I'm not an expert on, but. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, are we talking which planet owns an asteroid? Or like, is this asteroid the US's or Germany's? You know, how. What level of detail are we getting to here? [00:44:40] Speaker B: I really think this is more of a planet scale thing. Yeah. [00:44:45] Speaker C: Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. I mean, I hope we never get to a point that we're fighting over who owns an asteroid. Let's just put it that way. [00:44:56] Speaker B: You have to be able to. [00:44:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Tell me who owns what if you're. [00:45:01] Speaker B: In charge of the Space Force one day, Dylan. [00:45:04] Speaker C: That's true. Yeah, it sounds. It sounds like we'd have to develop an international treaty that, you know, everything within X and, you know, X amount of radius from the planet's surface, you know, falls under, you know, Earth's priority. And then everything that's outside of that, that's just, you know, that's open, you know, space law, space maritime law. Yeah. But, yeah, I'm sure the Space Force will try and come up with their own plan. [00:45:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Which is that America owns all the. All the good asteroids and usa. [00:45:37] Speaker A: Usa. [00:45:38] Speaker B: Well, you know what? Actually, luckily we. In a few weeks we'll be able to get an answer to this question because we're actually. I'm not joking about this. We're going to have a space law expert on the show. [00:45:49] Speaker C: Really? No. That's awesome. [00:45:51] Speaker B: Yes. [00:45:52] Speaker A: Wow. [00:45:53] Speaker C: Well, I hope that the answer that I just gave was shattered. You know, you can. You can call me up and let me know. [00:45:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna. We're gonna play back this section of the episode, have him critique you. No, I'm just kidding. But I will ask. I will ask the space law expert about. About asteroid. Who owns an asteroid? [00:46:14] Speaker A: Wow. A candidate for office who listens to professionals and the scientists on the issues. There's somebody I want to vote for? [00:46:23] Speaker C: No, I mean, I think it's important, right? I mean, I, I was, I was a cancer researcher day. And, you know, so I, I mean, and even then I would know that I haven't kept up with everything that's going on. So I would still defer to the current researchers, you know, to find out, you know, the best recommendations when it came to things like, Things like that, especially with A.I. i mean, that's something that I'm very concerned about personally. And so, like, yeah, I'm meeting with a lot of experts on how, how to effectively regulate AI moving forward to make sure that nobody's jobs are hurt, you know. No, nobody should lose a job over AI in my opinion. [00:47:03] Speaker B: All right, final question. [00:47:05] Speaker C: Drumroll. [00:47:06] Speaker B: Which European monarch would be the most terrifying if they were turned into a reaper? [00:47:13] Speaker A: Wow. [00:47:15] Speaker B: I mean, right, because the reapers are the old. They, they, they, they. They repurpose the bodies of the old monarchs. [00:47:27] Speaker A: Henry viii. [00:47:30] Speaker C: Yvonne the. The Terrible was one from, From a long time ago in Russia. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, you know, it's just, it would be like Princess Diana and you'd be like, wait, did she die or did she, you know, is this what happened to her? You know? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, no, I think Yvonne. [00:47:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. What if it's Princess Diana and her, her young, tragic, beautiful face is permanently frozen there and. And you just, you're struck by it, and so then you, you forget to attack and then you die. [00:48:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:48:08] Speaker B: Right. [00:48:09] Speaker A: Wow. Very sad. [00:48:11] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that. It took a dark turn. [00:48:16] Speaker B: I think Elton John wrote a song about this. So, you know, we'll let him. We'll let. If you have further questions about that, you can pick it up. Email. [00:48:25] Speaker A: Yeah, email Elton John. [00:48:27] Speaker B: Just email Elton John directly. Yeah, well, yeah, I think Yvonne the Terrible sounds like not, not somebody you'd want to run into in a, In a sketchy situation. [00:48:39] Speaker C: No, that's true. You wouldn't. [00:48:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, like, they called him Terrible for a reason, Right. [00:48:45] Speaker B: Even if he wasn't like a robot, like, just. I wouldn't want to meet Ivan the Terrible just in a dark alley and. [00:48:51] Speaker C: He'S got a dude. Yeah, yeah. [00:48:54] Speaker B: Like, that just sounds, that just sounds bad. Right? [00:48:58] Speaker A: Just go down a dark alley and you're like, oh, no, it's Yvonne the Terrible with his terrible knife. [00:49:05] Speaker B: Like, that seems worse than running into Henry viii. Yeah. On face value. Like, it. If I ran into Henry VII in a dark alley, I just shove him over, to be honest. I just push him down. I'm just very Brave. [00:49:23] Speaker A: Very brave. [00:49:24] Speaker C: I feel like people in those days, you know, probably didn't have very good cardio, so I always just say, you know, I could probably outrun those, you know, people and just, you know. [00:49:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:36] Speaker A: Oh, our editor popped by a really good suggestion. Elizabeth ii with corgi drones. [00:49:43] Speaker B: That's scary. [00:49:44] Speaker A: Yes. That's terrifying. [00:49:46] Speaker B: Oh, we just got rid of Elizabeth ii. Please don't. Please don't bring her back at robot form. I'm not ready yet. I'm not ready. [00:49:54] Speaker A: Kennedy, you have no idea. Let me tell you what I've been doing this weekend. I'm just finalizing the corgi drones. [00:50:00] Speaker B: No, no. [00:50:02] Speaker A: Kennedy, would you like a corgi drone? It will attack you. All right, I'm gonna have to find somebody else to give that one to then. [00:50:13] Speaker B: You know, on that subject, Queen Elizabeth hasn't been dead for very long. Her state funeral, massively expensive. Actually, part of the problem that they're having right now, economically, is just that they paid for this ridiculous state funeral at a time that they were already in an economic crisis. And then they. The guy that they have now, King Charles, he's gonna need a ridiculous state funeral in, like, 12 to 48 months. [00:50:44] Speaker C: Yeah, that's. [00:50:44] Speaker A: I'll be specific, Kennedy. [00:50:46] Speaker C: Yeah, that is a little specific. I don't know. Are you his planet doctor? [00:50:52] Speaker B: I am his planet doctor, yeah. I'm actually. I am the. I am the planetoid IO Okay. [00:51:02] Speaker A: Wow. [00:51:03] Speaker B: Yep. [00:51:04] Speaker C: No, it's a. It's a lot of money. [00:51:06] Speaker B: Yeah. It just. It's. It's fascinating to think about where. Where. Where. Where the. The post Brexit economy might continue to go from here. And if there's any sort of positive end that can come for that, they could use a few. Dylan Blaha is running over and running over in jolly old England right now, probably. Although I think you have to be son of noble piece still to get into the one house, so good luck with that. [00:51:37] Speaker C: That's true. [00:51:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:39] Speaker C: I mean, it's tough, right? Because, I mean, people. People are struggling. People are struggling everywhere, not just in America. And because of this enormous wealth transfer to the 1%, I mean, I think the. The global 1% owns over 50% of the wealth in the world. And in America, America's 1% owns 93% of the overall wealth. And so when we see things like Trump with his $200 million ballroom that was paid for with taxpayer money, when we see the amount of money that got reallocated, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars to ice, when we see Money, going to things even like a state funeral of a. Of a prominent figure in society, it does make you question, you know, when are they going to start helping us? And so I think, you know, that's, that's part of what, you know, what I'm running for is to, to help people understand that I'm running for them and not for the political class. [00:52:50] Speaker A: Dylan Blaha for illinois House, seat 13. [00:52:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Dylan Thomas. Blah. Thank you so much for joining us today. [00:52:59] Speaker A: It was a real Blaha blast. [00:53:03] Speaker B: God damn it. This has been a really fun episode. And it was also just great to hear you talk about some of your thoughts on the issues because really, they just align with my own and just remind everybody, for everybody out there who maybe also thought, hey, this. This guy seems all right. What can I do to help out? Where do. Where do they go to get involved with the campaign in some way? [00:53:30] Speaker C: Yeah. So if you go to Dylan for Illinois dot com, that's D Y L A N 4 Illinois dot com, you can sign up to volunteer. You can fill out our contact form just to stay more informed about our campaign. And I do have all the, all the buttons on there on the website if you want to follow us on social media or join our own Discord Channel. So, yeah, no, I. We're excited to meet new people. We get new volunteers every day and love to have more. You know, this. This campaign is not about me. It's about. It's about us. [00:54:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's definitely not about space Brexit. [00:54:06] Speaker C: No, that's true. I know. [00:54:08] Speaker A: Absolutely not. [00:54:11] Speaker C: Now I want to go play more Mass Effect, though. [00:54:14] Speaker B: So. [00:54:16] Speaker C: It'S been a while. As I'm playing, I'll be like, I would have changed my answers now, but it's okay. [00:54:25] Speaker B: All right, well, listeners at home, thank you for voting along with us as always, and we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. [00:54:32] Speaker A: Three Ever.