[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How much of it is real, how much of it is exaggerated, all of this stuff, and that does- that benefits from having a lot of writers who have very different attitudes towards the same characters, the same settings, and things like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I s- I suppose not. It'd be good to have his input though. Uh, 100%. Um, for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just to get difficulty out of the way, I'll say with difficulty,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The important thing about enjoying difficult combat is having the ability to be in complete control of the situation with your skills as a player. In a game like Skyrim, or pretty much most RPGs, there's a big stat


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, element to it, like, say you don't wanna take a single hit in a fight, that's not really doable in Skyrim, you're gonna get hit by arrows, etc, etc. Whereas if you're playing, you know, like a Dark Souls or a Witcher or a ton of other games that use combat systems similar to that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Theoretically if you play well you can dodge everything, so having difficulty works.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It would, as you said before, it would have to be an overhaul, a complete overhaul, because if that much focus went into combat, uh, like, you know, melee combat,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, how are you gonna make magic and archery not extremely OP? If you have to have a difficult sword fight of everyone, why wouldn't you just use an arrow or cast a fireball right into the middle of the crowd? It would be a lot of work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By default, if you're playing a specific character who doesn't have much investment into strength, it's a two-handed strike. But making that a one-handed strike when you have sufficient strength, for example, or if you have dexterity or agility, then a move will be much faster.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you know, things like that can change the way you play without completely overhauling animations, mechanics, combat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is also another, like we've seen a, I mean, you see it to varying degrees. We saw it in Cyrodiil, uhm, because it was kind of, it was going for the very in fantasy style at the time. Skyrim, if you compare it to the way Nords appeared in, say, Morrowind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Art style is an important part, I guess, because obviously tech limitations have always been there, but the art style of the mainline series has changed drastically from game to game to game to game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and I'm curious if they would kind of go for a slightly more realistic looking human races or, or if they would implement an art style on top, if that makes sense, because, you know, like Oblivion,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's kind of goofy in respect, but also really cool looking, but it's not just an updated version of the way Morrowind made things look, it went a completely different way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's almost, it's almost between Skyrim and Oblivion, in a way. Yeah. Cause, yeah, the races don't look goofy, but the world is very vibrant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything is so replaceable that you'll never have a pauldron you care about. There's always one to care about more and it's probably random. Whereas you can have more pieces to your armour that you can mix and match, but they can still be unique in the way more Skyrim versus Fallout 4 had.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thought my roof was about to go off, but yea, I think we're good, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I almost don't know how I feel about that because, yea, we do want closure on the storylines of Skyrim, but if it's too soon afterwards...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We may end up just kind of rehashing the same conflicts. Just in a different location. So it's kind of, I almost, I almost feel like it would be a good idea to have, yea, not a huge time skip so that everything becomes irrelevant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Plus, it's made by the same people who are so invested in their world that they've created. It's not being palmed off to another group the way Fallout 76 was and even to an extent ESO. They're just, they're kind of like, oh yeah, we want to keep these franchises going.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why are you even making this? We could make so much more money if we made a different kind of game, like single player RPGs, they're dead, why are you doing it? Uhm, then again maybe they're doing it purely to get everyone's good books again, but either way I think it has to be


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It depends how much control they have, really. It depends how much control the developers have, which I, I, like, how much are they going to have to appease the executives and, you know, the people who really profit from that, because I guarantee that none of the people actually designing the game want anything like that in the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think the important problem is when it's implemented. If Creation Club or DLC is accessible, honestly, in the first year, then I think that's reprehensible because that stuff should have been a part of the game. If after a year, if they've released a full product and they respect the price tag of the game,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then there should be no reason to be giving you anything new for a year. Or maybe not a year, but you know what I mean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess that, that is kind of the point I'm making, but maybe a year is too much of an exaggeration, but say you've got a game that comes out, and on day one, you've got some creation club options, even if they're small, that is literally just taking them from the game, whereas if, yea, if there's stuff that they're, if they're so involved in the development process that they're like, oh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, we've golded, we've got a gold copy of the game, it's ready to ship, but we're gonna keep working. It's like, well fair enough. Well there you go, like Dawn Guard. That's not usually the case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're inhabiting a dead world. That was always my draw to Fallout, is that you are one of the few ragged survivors who's somehow clawing on and everything else is horrible. Uhm, I don't really want- Yeah, it's very like-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you can't, no, but you can take selfies. Yeah, well true. So, I mean, I hope there's a, I hope there's a spell, like an alteration spell in Elder Scrolls 6 that lets you take selfies of your character. That's my number one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the idea of them being important in Redguard makes sense because you've got the Imperial armies attacking Stross Makai, whereas when you're in their homeland,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the rulers of Cyrodiil doesn't really have much of a bearing on the people when you've got all of these different influences like the, the Old Nidic, the Nordic, the Colovian, the Nibbanese. It's like, well, what makes an Imperial?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, I mean, one thing about Oblivion the game is when you see the way Cyrodiil looks in that game, it's hard to imagine how two such distinct cultures can kind of be coexisting right next to each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when you kind of view it from the perspective that it was initially described as like endless jungle where, you know, you have the highlands off to the west and then in the centre you've got the grasslands where the, you know, the Nibene Basin where all the Nibeneese culture is, you can imagine that there's a lot of really inhospitable land between the two cultures.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's like more of a martial kind of culture in Colovia versus a bit more mystical, uhm, in the Nibene region.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it more just sets the stage for what Cyrodiil would become in the future when new emperors would come along. Because, you know, the idea of having the Elysian Order under Marook have like, there's a line that says something like, a third of the first era, which is an enormous span of time, nearly 3000 years, you've got this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're really pushing this theocratic, this is the religion, this is the religion, uhm, and any time they're dealing with other cultures, they're gonna be pushing that as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the terms of like, sorry, were you gonna- No, well I was just gonna say, it's like you really can't, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can't define Imperials as a race, like, you know, as the name suggests, you're only really calling them after their rulers and after their culture. So like, you know, if you were trying to give them racial bonuses, it'd be like, well, how do you give like a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the original Nidic inhabitants racial bonuses, you know, with Bretons, you've got the Elven aspects, with the Nords, you've got the kind of like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Saxons to the Collovians, which kind of makes sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You still very much do have the Anglo-Saxon culture just completely wipe out the Celtic culture, except for in small corners of the country. So, you know, if you're in Wales or if you're in Cornwall, then you still have a lot of your roots.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whereas, if you're mainland England, you're much more likely to be kind of the Germanic aspects rather than the French or the Celtic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I guess that would explain why there's no kind of magical aspect to Imperials as a race, because if you have the Nibbanese, that was my concern, was that if you have Nibbanese influence on the race, you would expect to see some, some kind of magical resistance or an ability to, destruction magic or something that makes you a battle mage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you were to do it properly, you'd probably have some races that are far more overpowered than others too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, Ashlander. Yeah, it was, yeah. And then having like crowns versus four bears with the red guards can, can quite heavily affect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And once the Colobian kings kind of had their, their sovereignty and their own power, the only way you were ever gonna unify Cyrodiil, let alone Tamriel, was to have an incredibly powerful leader, which Reamon proved himself to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because that description really paints the kind of alien frontier that they came to this central land, they found this obscure race of bird people, they built this grand city around this tower that was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] done in the, in the aspect of the greatest tower, the ur tower, the adamantine tower.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can imagine it kind of becoming the center ground for cosmopolitan attitudes of a bunch of different cultures that were forced together, you know, these risen slaves, this Nordic influence, the aliens, and everything else that comes along afterwards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when you remove a lot of the kind of frontier elements of it and you just kind of dumb it down to be, you know, middle earth or something like that, uhm, then yeaah. You kind of lose it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, cause obviously it is the limitations, but it does sound really cool and like, you know, thinking back to kind of stories about London back in medieval times where you've got tower bridge and there's so, it's so populous that you've got houses like lining the bridges, you know, so people are just living in these tiny shanties where really it shouldn't be happening. And it adds so much more kind of culture and life to the city, but obviously Oblivion was never really going to manage that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, it's unfair to say that they didn't distinguish between, uhm, the people and the cities, but the difference between Leyawin and a Colovian city is not nearly as drastic as you'd like if it was more attentive to the law.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, like the way you mentioned kind of the Imperial influence and Morrowind, that that's an important part of the kind of colonial attitude of the Empire, is that generally speaking, when you try to expand into another province or continent or country or whatever else,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You tend to get absorbed by their culture, not the other way around. If you try to cling on too tightly to your own, you just become, you know, like a stronghold in somebody else's territory. Uhm, and you're just, you just fight against them. You know, like you, you can compare that to say the Romans going to Britain. There was no hope that ever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is one aspect where there's a lot of potential for Elder Scrolls 6, if it's set in Hammerfell, to see a really different portrayal of the Imperials, because obviously the Imperials have a long history with Hammerfell, and with the Crowns, and to see a cross between Imperial, sorry, Forbears, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Although yea, it would be a really good contrast to Skyrim. You wouldn't be calling it Skyrim 2, it would be more like Hot Skyrim.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a big chunk of it is still kind of somewhat in old Mary Dominion hands. And there'll be their influence on it even though it's more modern history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's very convenient that Kulakane is assassinated, obviously. Yes, exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, the Ming dynasty isn't quite as prolific as the September one, you could say.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be fair to the Mead dynasty, it kind of suffers the same way the whole 4th era suffers, is that you've got a big stretch of time with no real information of what's going on during it. You know, but between Titus Mead I and Titus Mead II, there's 150 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, there are supposedly other rulers in between that we don't really know about. Obviously the Oblivion Crisis puts them in a bad- puts Cyrodiil in a bad position even when Titus Meade does.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you'd, you'd, you would think that within 200 years, you'd kind of get things under control again and not be quite so frail when the old Merry Dominion come knock in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It always becomes so hard to justify certain things because it seems like the Old Merry Dominion is, is, they've got a plan in action, they're picking up the pace. I can't remember the exact year, but the difference between bringing Valenwood into the fold and elsewhere is, is a long time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can't really justify, uhm, and the same kind of applies to the Mi dynasty, kind of setting things up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you're saying you want the Old Merry Dominion to conquer Tamriel?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can see unification of, like, your character being essential in the unification of the crowns and forebears being very important to a conflict with the Thalmor, the Elmeri Dominion in Elder Scrolls 6. I can see that being a thing. That could be an interesting


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then whether there's a connection there, but also the vampirum order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's very heavily implied that they have their foot in the politics of the empire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's for sure. Which I mean plays into their, their budding heads with the, with the high elves as well. And I mean that's probably the most important thing about their religion to talk about is it's quite easy to talk about the nine divines as a lot of cultures that have been imperialised do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Heavily implying that Akatosh, you know, Akatosh being the one and removing Auriel's aspects out of it, as the Elysian Order do under Marook, is very important to Imperial identity, I'd say. That, you know, you're most...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It almost is kind of a reclamation of Shaw, if you boil it down, uhm, or Lorcan, as opposed to Akatosh or Oriel. You know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The major ones are all very isolated. They're not, they're not the kind of thing that the common person is gonna stumble across. Even if you can see in the distance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you imagine the scale, maybe, but yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, there's no doubt once it gets a little conspiratorial and they start planning things, the Empire would crack down on it. It wouldn't be quite so acceptable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I mean one aspect of the empire that is quite well done in Oblivion that shows some of their more ancient roots is the cult of the ancestor moth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which has kind of been around since, you know, early Nibbanese culture that has persisted to this point because it's kind of like their way of communing with forces beyond and they were given the exclusive ability to read the older scrolls which has become an essential part of their culture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What is up ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Fudge Muppet, I'm Scott here with Michael Drew as always, this is the Otter Scrolls Podcast and today, we are diving into the Skull.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that's the big, like, uh, distinguishing factor is that they kind of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably a little bit of variation, but essentially like animists and that being like animism in general is like believing that things, animals, trees, rocks, they all have a soul or some form of spiritual energy that the world around them is very much


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alive rather than this sort of creation of gods that is, that is rather this sort of static kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can sort of see that a little bit in how they also tend to skip.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, all of the, sort of, personified deities like your, your Stendara and your, even the Dei, you know, there's limited degrees of it, but, you know, Stendara and, uh, other nine divines and stuff like that, because really when you start looking at pantheons of gods and polytheistic religions,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You sort of, they often like personify sort of, there'll be natural things and stuff they personify, but they become more so characters and starting personifying or like personalities and themes and stuff rather than


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Literally being a rock it's like the god of all the earth and so on rather than no this mountain is quite literally has a soul and a spirit to it and there's sort of these qualities and they all look back at you can even look at the all maker it's kind of looking at like either sort of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, shamanistic or all the different kinds of religion. Like, you know, I think it's, I think it's actually from Greek mythology initially anyway, but you know, Gaia, the big concept of the mother earth, like that kind of vibe thing. It's the all-maker seems very much, um, like that. But in terms of their like actual history, you could probably make the argument that a lot of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Early Nords were potentially like that because even if you look at the animal totems, like initially the Nordic pantheon are derived from these animal totems that they worshipped back on Atmora and presumably they all came over from Atmora at some point and then there was sort of a split and they sort of isolated and there was this sort of concept of the ore maker and so on that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they, they stayed with their sort of totemic sort of religion as opposed to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, uh, pantheons of the nords that sort of develop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was just going, yeaah, it's funny that, cause typically, uhm, and even you can look at the wikis and stuff, they sort of cite it as like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anu Padme as in Allmaker adversary, but if you actually, you know, like I said, look at the, look at the adversary. It's interesting that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Thartag, aka Alduin, the world devourer, is seen as an aspect of the adversary. But as we know, like Alduin, Akatosh, all of Oriel, it's all associated, it's very much a derivative of sort of like Anu and Oriel and stuff like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The actual Anuic force here is seen as, as an aspect of an adversary. However, I don't know where Homomora, I can't remember if Homomora.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is he said as an aspect of or is he just another sort of tricky?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I tend to buy into that because there's one other thing to consider there is that the adversary is also, like one of the other aspects, he's also called


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if you think of that in the frame of Anu wanting to be everything and unlimited and so on. But if you actually look at that like infinity as almost a sense of greed, like I want everything and so on. And he's so opposed to any limitation imposed on him by Padme or Lorcan and so on, like the Allmaker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's an interesting dynamic, because I feel like people just go, oh goodie, so Anu. Or Maker, they must be aligned, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that's a really good case to make that, that it is actually.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well yeaah, the snow elves, you know, worshipping Orioles, servants of the Abbasids and so on. It sounds very strange, like even if you think about like kind of how the religion would develop, you've got


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They've just had sort of like an isolated split off where it goes more into this Allmaker stuff and then the dragon cult kind of got defeated across the board and then the rest of the totemic religions in the Nordic faith on Skyrim just sort of became like the, their, uh, stun and shore and such. But, uhm, still like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In all of those religions, you've always got the sort of Anuic aspect as the adversarial one, whether it's the adversarial Thar Tag, or whether it is, you know, Alduin, the world eater for the Nords and so on. That's always, it's kind of, you know, it makes sense. Like it's like where would the pro Anuic sort of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what I'd say. I would say it's not, I would say it's Padme is, is, is your maker for sure. I think in that, in that dynamic, because like, once again, everything's just sort of like even, you know, Anu and Padme is a, you're all working within cultural distinctions of that's what the elves call the separation or so on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but it says they forgot or chose not to remember that the adversary is always watching and that he delights in tormenting the all-maker and his chosen people. And so it was the adversary that came to be among the skull. It was the adversary that kind of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's the malevolent figure, it's not like, I'm gonna test you, it's, it's like, he likes the torment and so on, that the orbaker says, stay to the true ways kind of thing and like live among nature and stuff so it doesn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it's basically like Allmaker 2, like everything they do, um, is it's all acceptance of mortality, like it's reverence of the world you live in, reverence of the natural cycles, reverence of everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like you can have anti role models or like negative people can, you know, or negative things or things, whatever can give you like lessons that are valuable. It doesn't mean that they were in your best interest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, sorry, meaning that, that, so the adversary is- Was in the same way that the Don-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Allmaker being Paname is far more compelling than Anu being the adversary, rather than, you know, get out of your elven mindset where you assume if it's, if it's good sounding, it must be Anu or Oriole or Anatoche or whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but also one thing to worth mention too is like, while it's very easy to paint the picture of the skull being all like, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, they're, they're fully part of nature, but it's not all hippies in the way that they are quite, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's tough in their adherence to ways, like I think it's in, especially in the Blood Moon DLC in Morrowind, so this is, you know, towards the end of the third era.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, they are far more, uh, you even see them in other, like armor, they look far more intimidating and so on and seem more harsh than the far more like, let's sit around a campfire kind of ones you see in the Dragonborn DLC.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In Skull, uhm, society because there's not a lot to go around and so on. So he had two options. It was basically exile or, uhm, death by these wolves or being eaten by the wolves. And you can almost see that as like, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, but yea, it's probably also worth mentioning too, like you were mentioning the different elements and stuff before, that there is all these different stones and so on, and in general that the skull are incredibly tied.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Originally, he was a young boy of the sort of, of the skull and so on, and then this is the same story where the greedy man, because they, because they got all lax.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What basically what happened was this young boy goes around to all of the different stones and does these sort of like challenges or something like, you know, to restore the oceans. He had to go and like find this like black hawker thing and there's all these different interactions. Like one of them, like Michael mentioned before was the whole, uh, getting the seed or whatever it was from the fowl to restore the forest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and there's, there's several of those kinds of things. And basically, the stone singer, Eva, goes around and restoring all, all, all of these totemic sort of stones and restoring the elements and restoring the balance of the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Restoring the ways of the Allmaker and so on. But that kind of thing, you, you do a similar thing in the Blood Moon DLC and of course you also do a similar thing purging those same stones from Mirax influence in the Dragonborn DLC. So you're sort of playing the same kind of, uh, role a few different times.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Perhaps this is a little bit too tangential for the whole conversation, but it is about just religion in general, talking about pilgrimages and stuff like that. But it is interesting to look at how many of, um, religious cultural practices and stuff like that are kind of, uh, mimicking and in a way you could kind of say,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mantling a previous sort of thing. So for example, like, you know, following the same pilgrimages of certain prophets or something like that or visiting the same sites or certain like little rituals are actually parts of a story that have been redone. So in this example, you know, if you're doing the same, you know, pilgrimages around the stone as Avar Stonesing, you're taking a cultural hero and you're doing the same.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Act in a kind of way, but it's interesting when you actually think about like, humans like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So being so compelled to repeat stories and sort of like arcs and fulfill roles and stuff in these sort of narratives that get played over and over and over again in history. And then they sort of form like strings of these sort of mythological kind of things. Like this is what Elder Scrolls really tries to do and you see it so many.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can get onto the whole like enantiomorph sort of concepts or these sort of combinations of, of different, you know, rebel witness king and these kinds of, um, archetypes, but these archetypes you do see multiple times throughout the history, through the gods, through all like the mythic tales. And it's kind of like, if you kind of view it as like a sort of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A stage, really, or a drama or something and how people fit into these roles and then they sort of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's kind of like viewing everything in the Elder Scrolls is far more helpful if you view everything as story or everything as, I mean, it is fiction to us, but I mean, if you start viewing everything in the world as, as, um, fiction


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like quite literally story and story arcs and so on. It helps, um, you understand the cultures and stuff. So you could use that for the skull, but you could use it more broadly too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think it's fine. It's like what they use as a criticism.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I would say unfairly so, um, that it gets off just sort of any animistic kind of religions in general is that it has a sort of childlike quality to it because like a kid will sort of think that their toys or something has feelings or, or all of these things. Oh, I don't want to hurt the tree because it has feelings, but like, you know, and you know, you can go like, oh, science, we don't understand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They don't have feelings and stuff like that, but uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That I feel like is probably, probably it's how a lot of early religion probably started or a lot of like believing that there was a soul to, to nature and that nature is more personified. And then later as, you know, the culture becomes more advanced, you know, or advanced or whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So then you have gods of commerce, which is for example a completely, you know, it's a, it's a figment or of society, a complete like structure. It doesn't exist within the natural world. It's just, it's a, it's a concept. Do you know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's like when you have all of the gods and you view them as, uhm, sort of, like, you could probably go and look at all of the pantheons all across Elder Scrolls, and if you were thinking like, oh, what exists in nature, you could probably like eliminate like 90% of them. And you can also see that like, you know, gods sort of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, there's this whole like, you know, the concept of myth makes reality or whatnot, or the way God's worships perhaps like influences or changes them or, or maybe it is just different cultural ideas about them. But you can see, and this is even in our real world, that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That the views of gods adapt with the culture, because it almost feels like, to be honest, like a lot of gods anyway are personifications of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know how Ares was once a very popular god of war, but then later on, like that started becoming, uhm, Athena's kind of thing was far more valued or so on, but it was sort of like how gods in different parts of history,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I was just, I was just, yeah, it's not, but it's like, he becomes the daedric prince of mad cow disease. Like, you know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not a human- like secrets. But I think secrets are the only kind where you need language and communication. Not really, if you kill- If you-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But a lot of them do still, do get like, or like throw like Mephala's entire sphere. I would even say he's got the weak ears and stuff. What's sex? Why's? Oh, but it's, it's-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mufaila's use of sex is not in just, it's, it's like a, it's a, it's a use as a tool. It's like comparing it to murder. It's not, it's not just, it's not just procreation in general. It's not like the function of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ah, but I'd still say like two thirds of it is, like even Namira, so like decay is fine, but like the whole idea of mortal revulsion and disgust and all this kind of stuff, like a lot of those things are just perspective of what nature.


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[Assistant] Well see, that's kind of what it's like, yeah, well like he's a good example of Julianos is how he's the bookworm and academic kind of things have been later attributed to him, which initially was just something as soon as like wisdom and hermetic orders as Junal and hermetic orders about around like, you know, introspection and esoteric sort of knowledge and stuff like that. It's a,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where they come from. They would have just been a bunch of Nords on Solstheim, worshiping the dragon cult stuff, and then there's all the Valok, the jailer stuff, and fighting Mirak and so on. And then there's sort of the offshoot of tribes from there. So, the Stalrym, like, burial practice would have already been, I guess, like, established and so on. And I don't, it's hard to tell exactly when the Skarl.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Off shot, like, cause they're only a small tribe too, more like already have been. It's not like there's some huge part of the population.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, and they did get isolated by supposedly the big battle between, uh, Mirak and Valok, the jailer, which severed the Island of Solstheim from it, which therefore easily makes it an isolate. So it can just sort of grow culturally distinct by itself because it's not connected. But what do you think?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There is interesting, I don't know if it's also just mythology, but there's that, that they're separated. I think it's cool, like it could be a mythology thing, or it could be even literal as it's cool. Uhm, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, uh, I think in the Ava Stonesinger story, it says that Solstheim was, um, like it was like a warmer time or something like that, but basically a much nicer climate. And I know that Kodlak Whitemane also, you know, says things like, oh, distant green summers or something like that in their chat. There's lots of allusions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a bunch of Nordic things to these like this old time when things were good and green and, and, and stuff like that. And I, and I,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's interesting to think what it could have been like that, but like if you did have some old, maybe Skyrim and Solstheim wasn't as cold, but I'm trying to think, no, that would make it worse.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because if you, if you, he's a really, really like boring, like make it logical answer kind of thing, but you know, in the same way that, um, you had, uh, if you have like, like, like glacial freezing and stuff like that and freezing up the water and so on, but then it makes the water level,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hold on, alright, I got the wrong way around. This should go up, cause what was it when...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This ain't a science podcast. No, this ain't. No, that would make, yeah, so, uh, but that would make it colder in the past because of what I'm saying is like, you know, if there was lots of like Arctic freeze, like atmore and freezing and stuff like that, there would be less.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look, at the end of the day, yeaah, it's magic bro, but I was just trying to, you know, I think the magic's the best answer. I kinda like it, I don't see why I can't have a cool big super battle that like, crushes the land. I mean other things have done it around the place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, uhm, but, uh, as for Starlorm I guess, like at one point they were, uhm, not, they were opposed to, uhm, using it and then they were again into the smithing of it. Again, like they've gone through ebbs and flows about like whether it should or should not be used, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is probably a more boring explanation, but I always thought it had something to do with the thorn, like sort of ice thorn. Like, I mean, they're all of these shout people that can make do magical things with their breath and stuff like that. You can imagine them sort of breathing onto this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sort of pour a bucket of water and then breathe it on and freeze them into the thing or something like that. But because it happened for a lot of them, I think it was because they were talking in the, in the story of the Snow Prince.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, all were buried in Starland. He was buried like ceremonially, but not with Starland because that was reserved only for...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Overall, I think, uh, Nords should have Nord maxed. And when we get to Red Guards and Hammerfell, they should definitely Red Guard max and pull in all of the crazier parts of the lore and try and make it as prevalent as possible, uh, rather than, you know, boring.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what happens for the improved bone mold in the game Dragonborn. You're learning the recipe. Yeah. Okay. Cause that's kind of what it looks like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Drago was said to have been cursed by the Allmaker for practicing cannibalism and so on, and that's why they live on in undeath in this, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] ...meat hall thing, because it's basically, it's basically just a Beowulf story transposed into this, the whole...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess there's only one other thing I can think of or something that I think, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The fries hags, or something they're called, they're just basically these sort of ice mage women, well, ice witches and so on that exist on Solstheim during, uh, in the Blood Moon DLC. And I wonder what their connection is to the Skarl, perhaps maybe they are like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In touch with nature kind of thing, but they are pretty sure it's like they're said to be in touch with kind or something like that or kind witches or something like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's like, there's another example. Cause I'm pretty sure, from memory that they even with, they're even with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, that's uhm, I think that's your fantasy Eskimos. I don't know if anyone else has anything to say about them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At the end of the day too, I feel like if you have a one really good insight to take away from this is that don't buy into, I don't think the Anu, Padme, Allmaker, Padme, um, dichotomy, sorry. The label. It's flipped. Yeah. It's flipped. Um, Allmaker being the Padme.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, they are a very traditional people, and their culture, I suppose, is truest to the Kaima from ancient times, who left, supposedly, from Somerset, and traveled all the way to Morrowind, following prophet Veloth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, obviously, following the teachings of the Three Good Daedra.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and, and they basically were Chima like all the Dunmer were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when the rest of the Dunmer basically formed great houses and became all civilized and kind of started running societies and stuff,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Ashlanders stayed true to the really, like, traditional, uhm, almost indi- well, they're not indigenous, but you know what I mean, that kind of primal life is what they stayed true to, and arguably, they even regressed further than they actually did in ancient times, because it said that they had strongholds long ago that they'd live in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you know, by the time of Morrowind and onwards, it seems like they've really kind of embraced the natural heart life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was gonna say they're also incredibly, like, xenophobic and like, you know, they're not fond of outsiders, although you can, like, ally or, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Become friends with the clan, and be known as a clan friend, but you can't exactly join them. You'd also wanna be really careful around Ashlanders, because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, when you, when you read a lot of the texts about them, there's this kind of idea that like, oh, they're really misunderstood and like, you know, they're not just these like savages, although obviously exiled ones and exile being a punishment of theirs for doing a wrong thing by the tribe. They turn to banditry and, and things like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uhm, you wouldn't want to be messing with them in general, like there's this idea that you can offend an Ashlander, kind of without realizing it, to which someone might say, oh, but they won't attack you if you're unarmed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's like, I don't know, Defiant Armed. I'm sure anyone traveling out in the wilderness in Morrowind would at least be carrying some kind of dagger or something for protection.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Blah blah's house and you just walk in and he's like, hi, like nice to meet you. But like, oh, cause it's the day hours, you know, you're allowed to trespass in my property, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, it's said in the lore that their customs are quite hard for outsiders to understand and that it is easy to accidentally offend them. So your best bet is to be extremely overly polite and kind of don't speak if you don't have to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, but where that happens, you also have, oh, very polite, it's kinda like that walking on eggshells vibe of like, if you're not very polite like they are, then you're rude. You know, there's a story of, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't- I think it was from Elder Scrolls Online, but basically like someone out there exploring us to speak to the leader of the tribe and the person they were talking to, could have been like a gulakan or something, was basically just put their hand on their sword straight away ready to draw it. Like-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As if, as if like, how dare you speak to the leader. I'm getting protective, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, funnily enough though, it is, in a way...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, also similar, like again, I agree, we don't want to conflate the two, but like, you know, the video that you made about the Skarl and how the Allmaker seems to be a paramaic being.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's kind of like a utopia dictatorship, if that makes sense. Like you've got these three gods, they're the lore essentially, but they'll bring you prosperity as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that's- so that's as well why the Dunmer see them as liars. Yeah. Which is- which is kind of ironic. But- but then again, like you look at the great houses of Morrowind, like not all of them follow-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The three, like, good Daedra's teachings by any means. Obviously, like, they all, because of where they're from, they all take parts from it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like culturally and things like that. They can't help but do that. But I mean, you know, look at house Rateron, for example, they're very like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you know, tell the truth, take things seriously, do the right thing, kind of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Good guy warrior action, they're not about like being deceitful and assassinating either.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it's not like you're wrong, it's like, oh, you were kinda right, but your, your religion is evolving now, and now this is the new, but like related religion that's based on the exact same principles, or teachings and ideas as the last one. Yeah, it's kinda like a new figurehead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, uh, you guys were worshiping a real thing. Yeah, it was just this saint, but like the real God is the God and like, you know, you should worship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, okay, fine, then, uh, this is an idea. I have literally no care whether or not this is like, I'm sure it's everything in history is varied. People get sensitive because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sorry, I was just gonna, just gonna interject for a second. I just wanna challenge the idea uhm, that the Ashlanders have to be simple. Like maybe they do, I'm, I'm kinda just like uhm, thinking out loud.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There- is there anything specific about the three good Daedra's teachings that basically says you have to stay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For example, uhm, they weren't like, I don't think super big on like luxury and things like that. It was like progress, progress, progress, you know, overcome, overcome, invent this, get to this stage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Couldn't that still follow the teachings in a way? Like there's nothing that says you have to like stay here. Cause you can move from here to here in terms of like overall society prosperity. In theory, I know it kinda never works like this in history. And still keep it tough by always pushing to that next thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I agree, and that's why I said it never seems to work the way I'm suggesting in history, like it does always seem to kinda like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Go that way, but it is just interesting because it's like, here are some obstacles to overcome. You know, you want to ascend and it's like, okay, I've overcome them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I-I-I can fully get that, but like, what are they gonna achieve? I guess that's my thing, cause like, if I was part of some sort of philosophy that was about overcoming- Like, when I look at monks, for example, right? Like, you know, monks can do whatever monks wanna do and stuff, but I don't really see that as like, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, it gets static after a while, obviously you can't measure like what's going on internally, but-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If, do you know what I mean? I feel like it would hit a point of diminishing returns between I've been a monk for 20 years or 30 years or even just maybe not monk because people will say there's like levels of spiritual elevation. Let's just say I'm going to live on the land, um, you know, as a hunter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At what level does that actually like change?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As far as obstacles to overcome versus just repeating the same life day in and day out because by, in a way, in a funny way, cause I know all, to us and to any Dunmer living in Morrowind, you know, they may look down at the Ashlanders, but I think as you said, Drew, in one of your videos, throw a citizen from Morrowind out into the wild and they probably wouldn't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dunmer religion and the Three Good Daedra as more individualistic and less as like this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This god would kind of make sense, or would kind of approve of this lifestyle more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whereas, you know, like you're saying, this god would prefer betrayal and, and you know, being a power hungry little kind of snake.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look at how in real life people would worship kings or even in the modern day, people will worship celebrities, singers, rappers, whatever, right? Like really, like, you know, they have some big fans or people will really get behind a politician who is just saying they're going to do this and that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can really imagine just how kind of potent it would be to have a living god or group of living gods as your kings and they're like really doing stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kind of like, just arguing against, just for the sake of it, let's just see, against the Ashlanders, but couldn't like, a lot of people be like, quote, right, with a long enough time frame?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I'm sure for like most of the Ashlanders who lived normal lives and just lived and died and the tribunal was worshipped by most of society the whole time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They wouldn't have felt like super vindicated necessarily. Or like if anyone, if any society has a king or a system that falls apart, obviously the second strongest system takes its place. So it's kinda just like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, like, yeah, okay, the good days are now back in favor, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what? I dunno, like I, I know, I, I dunno if I'm getting across exactly what I'm trying


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but I mean, anyway, the main take is though that it is cool that they did stay true to the ways of the reclamations as they're called, but they wouldn't even call them the reclamations because for them there was nothing to reclaim, right? They adjust the Daedra that always


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and they enjoy that. They probably don't enjoy being celebrated very much, especially if they kind of detest the people that are celebrating them or like detest their lives because it's easy to say, it's easy to keep your nice buildings and be like, yeah, you were right. Go you Ashlanders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyway, I'm gonna go live in my nice house. Bye. Like, you know, it's, it's kinda like if you're really about that life, go live it. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, but you know, and, and like I said before, it's kind of, if you give enough time, anything besides, you know, these spirits like Daedra that will just always kind of be there, any leadership will fall apart eventually.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's kinda like, whether or not the tribunal, you know, fell apart then or a thousand years later, the Daedra are always technically, you know, most likely to be like, right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it's just, it's just like statistical, it's like if there's a one in a thousand chance of them falling apart each year, wait a thousand years or two thousand years and they probably fall apart.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, we don't know that they've done nothing necessarily. Like, it's hardly news if you're playing Skyrim where they're gonna be like, oh, we rebuilt this settlement here. Like, it's kinda like, not really.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sure they've done something, right? They've been hit by the Argonians, the Red Mountain, a bunch of bad stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But is that just, I mean like look, canon is canon, but that just sounds like bad writing to me. It's kind of like how the grey quarter in Windhelm is like having so many problems and it's kind of like the feel in Windhelm is like they've just come over from, you know, Ash Cup and Morrowind, but like they've actually been there if you look at the timeline for a really long time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's just moved, but still, like I'm sure they're building in Blacklight or like, you know, trying to do stuff there. They wouldn't just be sad in their, in their cities for so long.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because people underestimate, like, and you've said this, I think, Scott, about Fallout games before, where it's kinda like, it shouldn't feel like this bombed, like, people actually rebuild, like, fast. You pop up houses and stuff within a year, like, not super nice ones, but it's not,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And especially having the knowledge of doing so, cause when I say Fallout 2, I'm not talking about a tribal that doesn't know anything from, you know, past life. Like, we're talking about people who understand how to build their own city's architecture and stuff, you know, they're not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, they're not without knowledge and without skills. So they, they should be able to rebuild.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Especially when you've got nothing else to do. But anyway, we were talking about, uhm, the Ashlanders and things. Well they live in yurks. They live in yurks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think as well, something we should cover is just some more like, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basic societal things about, uh, the Ashlanders. Uh, for, for example, how they even like travel around and stuff. They use Guas. You know, these interesting creatures in Morrowind. I'm sure you've seen Guas before. And, and the thing with Guas is, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Guars are more intelligent than horses, and they're also omnivores. Which is quite advantageous, you know, if you're trying to like, uh, be as flexible as possible, they can eat vegetation, but they can also eat meat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which, you know, they're, they're good mounts basically. And then you got to look at the.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're kind of within the tribe, the, the culture and unlike a lot of tribes, there's ranks and, um, and importance of this kind of like female figure of spirituality and intelligence. Like you see in kind of like other groups, like, you know, the Orcs and their strongholds, they've got that. Um, so yeah, you've got these wise women and the wise women basically


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they attend to spiritual matters. They also, uh, which is quite unique. They interpret dreams and prophecies and things like that. And of course, you know, there's the Nerevarine Prophecy, which is a very big deal in the Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind. And ironically,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you know, it is an Outlander who will be the Nerevarine, despite the Ashlanders being very against Outlanders in general. Uhm, not very welcoming to, you know, the savior of Morrowind, although perhaps it's kinda like a polarizing, like, check.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think, I think it being adaptable definitely helps it survive as well. Because like you're saying, you can just twist it to fit and therefore it continues to fit, you know, and connect neatly with the current context that it's being told in versus, you know, falling into the past or being thought irrelevant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The uhm, the wood elves are in that way with their spinners, you know, and they tell tales.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Read Logos to Bios. Oh gosh. Gonna, gonna, um, wrap this one up ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for tuning in. Do let us know which lore topic you want to see next on the podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's like, he's like Inigo Montoya in, uh, in Princess Bride. That's right. You know, you gotta watch your footwork, you gotta watch your terrain. He, he's the guy. That's right. That when he's, when he's, when he's about to start the duel, he's, he's gonna talk some shit. Yeah. Hey, nice shoes idiot. When you get him the toilet store and then while he's circling around you, you're gonna back up onto some gravel and then you've got the loose footing under the ground. He's like, yeah, you're on the gravel now. That's, that's it. Sips is like a fence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dark soul, dark soul. The dark soul, right. So, I'm driving, uhm, to a wedding with Mrs. F. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm driving along and we're on the M25, we're going about 70 miles an hour, keeping up with traffic. And all of a sudden, the traffic starts to slow down, so I start to slow down, I go to change down to fourth gear, and the clutch is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Loose as hell, and the gear stick is just like, rigid. So I'm like, holy shit. So I like, jam it, and it goes into neutral. So now I'm in neutral on the M25, and I can't get back into gear. So, we're like, you guys there?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm in, I'm in, like, I'm not in the fast lane, I'm in the next lane to that, whatever they call that lane, the pussy lane, and I'm just cruising along, and I'm sort of like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Holy shit, I'm like, love, I can't put the fucking car in gear, and it starts to feel like heavy, and I'm like, is the car dying on me? Like, what's happening? I'm traveling fast, and there's cars and trucks all around us, I'm never gonna be able to pull over to the side. I'm like, holy shit, and then I just like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pump in the clutch like crazy, slam it back into 4th gear and it was okay. And she was like, should we pull over? Should we pull over? And I'm just like, nah, it'll probably be fine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got, I got there. Well, after that, it was, it was intermittent. So it was like, sometimes it would stop working. I'd be like, alright, fuck. So I'm like, all that happens is, all that you'll see is when I'm changing gear, the car starts rocking back and forth because I'm pumping this clutch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I'm trying to put out a fire with my foot, right? It's just like slamming it and trying to slam the stick in gear. So, we, we made it there. I take it to the garage and the guy's like, go, well, I've always taken my cars. He's a really...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really good garage, but the guy always seems like he couldn't give a shit. He just acts that way. But he's actually a really good mechanic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I go in and he says, uh, well, it wasn't the clutch. And I was like, Oh my fucking God. He's going to say, uh, you know, you transant some axle partners decoupled from the stabilizing grip unit. And that's a five grand jump or something. But instead he goes, he says, luckily.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it only cost a hundred quid in the end. And it was like, but it was either, it was either the slave drive unit had decoupled from the cremulator and was leaking fluid, or new car. Like it was on, it was like a coin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what else is really good? The smell of money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My brother-in-law bought a brand new VW Golf about ten years ago. It's a nice car, it was beautiful, brand new, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, £20,000 for a car. Now alright, he used it to drive to and from work, and he was like, I don't need it to be reliable. I was like, okay, I bought my car six years ago for £2,000, and this was the first time I've ever had to take it to the garage in six years. That's good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even if I'd had to spend five grand somehow keeping this thing up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm still better off than him for spending 20 grand and when he goes to sell his golf, you know, he got like, he got like a fraction of that for it because of course he's put like 80,000 miles on it or whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's one of those things where you might have a sort of, you know, not day to day, but you have regular dealings with these people, but your knowledge is zero.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it's like that old thing, if the car's broken, I'll walk out, I'll still pop the hood, as if I know what I'm looking for. I'll just look there, shake him a head going, oh, could be the, uh, transom foliolator. Yeah, but even if-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but not on, on this model this year, mate, nah, cause you see there was a fault in the 284 bicuspid valves that, uh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, no, I'm in agreement. I'm nodding. You can't hear it, but imagine me nodding vigorously.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It'll take 20 years, 20 years apparently of using a solar panel for it to actually pay for itself and to make back the energy that it costs to make them that has been expended. Like it's, it's such a, until the technology is-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have you thought about diamond encrusted solar panels? They are all the rage, mate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Any time some female interest comes on the show that's meant to be like the hot young thing that's uh, you know, she turns up in the, in the square and all the married women looking at her like, who's that bitch, she's not having my man. Phil Mitchell's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's just like, he just took, he was like, okay, is that like, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, that is my endorsement of anime. That's the biggest endorsement you'll ever hear. I'm with Sips on this one. I, like, my review of that book is I would actually rather watch anime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, here it is. There are two kinds of people. Mendikan and Mendekant. And he's a Mendekant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We've all wanted to just peace and go wandering out and live a simple life and leave the kids back home. We, you know, it's a bad day. But you, you know, wake up the next day, it's another day. I don't think you can judge life by one day. There's some fucking Zen for yo ass.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can you imagine that? You start opening up a Zen church somewhere and they come in and there's just sips chilling there and they're like, they come up to you and say, do you have a Zen question for me to ponder?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're like, I Googled it. It's just a machine that does it. It's very, it's a simple mechanical operation. You're like, is it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've handcrafted a Snickers bar and I now understand the method of inserting caramel. No you don't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like a lot of it is, it might have been like, it's almost like talking about something that was revolutionary in its day and it should still be mind blowing now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, stories like that, I'm kinda like, well, I mean, we've got a kind of cynical modern worldview. I don't think people were cynical about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's also kind of cultural, isn't it? It's like, the meaning of those stories will have a different meaning to people who've grown up with a Japanese culture, as opposed to me, who grew up, or Lewis, who just grew up watching anime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had a lot of, a lot of messages about the anime thing, and I was talking to Sips before we started about whether I want to reopen that can of worms or whether we just want to-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Put a lid on it and just say, no more, no mass, are we done?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I kind of want to give a final word to it, but it's a multi-part final word, alright? So first of all, in response to people saying that me calling anime a genre is wrong, I look this up and it very carefully lists that anime is not a genre, that it's more like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it's the way they do things, like it's the way, it's like a, um, a format, if you like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the source for that was a book called Everything an Anime Fan Needs to Know, which is kind of a biased source. So I'm not entirely sure that you could say that anime isn't a genre.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it is to me, and uh, you know, that's a Zen question for you. Is it genre a definitive thing? Or is it something that you could say is in the, you know, to me, when I watch anime, a lot of it seems very samey and similar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So a lot of people sent me movies, or things, try this, it's so good, and all this kind of stuff. And I went and looked at about five to ten minutes of each of these things, they're all for some reason available on YouTube, a ton of these.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like full movies and stuff, just right there, which I think might explain part of the popularity. It's readily available. And look, if I was 15, I'd love this shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's violent, it's cartoony, it's kinda goofy, it's very simple to understand and follow, there's not a lot to it. And I mean, for instance, this one guy sent me this thing called Paranoia Agent, which he describes as a David Lynch-esque show.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right. Right? Now I was watching it, it definitely is not David Lynch-esque. Like there's very little, there's no second layer to a lot of this stuff. It's all very straightforward. If someone's thinking something, it's written on their face. Normally if they're angry, they'll do that thing where their eyes go like X's and there's a little storm cloud over their head. That kind of shit. It's like I get it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's like a storm cloud. Oh, he's angry. Alright, good. It's simple. It tells you what you need to know, just like we were talking about My Little Pony, about how it's literally like, let's go upstairs to get my book!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The more adult ones, there's a lot of very static shots of someone looking at a sunset or they're in a field. And it's like that doesn't make it deep. It makes it deep when you're 15, but it's not deep. That's my point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For a start, I am not someone who bangs on and on about Star Wars as if it's some kind of great. I mean, if you watch the original Star Wars films, I am looking at them with a huge amount of nostalgia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, if I, if the new Star Wars, if, if, the new Star Wars film, I really, really enjoyed it, but it was a remake of the older Star Wars films, but remade for a modern audience, I think. It was, it was still, my kids watched it and they loved it. It's not a complicated movie. No. It's just a fun action movie. That's fine. I'm never gonna tell you that Star Wars is amazing. It's out now, right? Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can, let's listen, I'll say it right this. It's boring, cookie cutter, I don't like it, full stop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I probably spent like a hundred and a hundred quid maybe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, it's a free game and then if you have to spend some money to really get competitive, I think you can get the game for free. You can definitely play it. You can do like, you know, do some quests, do the arena. I mean, my, my buddy hardly ever buys decks because he just, he's really good in arena.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he's really good at building arena decks and he just hits the arena up. So let's say if you're...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I still haven't played it. Still looks too, too detailed for me. You haven't actually played it though? No, no, no. You should play it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's so hard. I mean, it's an amazing game if they could just have the Rimworld aesthetics or prison architecture or anything, but with that back, I would be like, I am so far into this game, like I would never come out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's crazy, but you have to really look to find those numbers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's just so time-consuming, like having to do anything. I mean, when you're really into it, I can see why people love it. Like, it's a really nerdy game. It's almost like programming. And when I wanted to do that kind of stuff, and I'd be like, oh my god, this is amazing, you know, I was really into it. But Rimworld is like a really light version of Dwarf Fortress, and they've started to add things in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But make it kind of Dwarf Fortress-y. So you have stuff like, uhm, your colonists can fall in love. And I love the detail, like one of my guys had a fight with a tortoise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, when he then, he then built a statue at the, uh, sculpting table, and it was of a couple falling in love, because he'd also fallen in love with one of the other colonists, but it said there was a foreboding sense of, of death about the sculpture, like when he's describing the sculpture, and in the background you can see a tortoise and a lot of blood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something does come out. If you attack that, a big, uhm, an insect comes out with a chain gun, I believe. That happened to me in one of my other games. And it did the same thing. Well, I'm glad I didn't check it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, they borrowed a lot of the style, I think, from Rimworld.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's got, it's got that kind of, uh, roguelike element to it where random shit will happen that wipes you out, and you just have to try and learn from it, like incrementally. So for instance, I started a base, it was going well, and one of the things you'll find when you land


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When your pods crash land, there's all kinds of shit around the map that you can investigate and stuff like that. And there was what looked like a building set into the side of a mountain, so it was like an ancient structure. And when one of my colonists went near it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Guess what's in there? It's like an alien base. They had like, there was all kinds of technology in there. There's like multiple aliens chilling in there. I was like, holy shit. Game over. Like they poured out psychic knives to all my guys. They blew them all up. It was like end of game. They even killed my dog for fuck's sake.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yea, you should try Rimworld, it's a lot of fun. I recommend just play it on the default, like, which is like Cassandra Classic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And play, play it on rough, uh, and you'll get, the early raids will just be tribes people with bows and spears and stuff. Once you get down your little sentry turrets, you'll be okay. Uh, but you'll learn the timings of when you need to start farming. Cause the seasons, it's, it's, what I really like what they've added in is like the temperature and stuff. So you can now have heating and cooling and we, we have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they all caught hypothermia. And while I'm trying to build heaters to keep them warm, they're struggling outside in like minus 40 degree weather to get the steel to build the heaters. Three of them died getting the steel into the house. One of them was able to build one heater. Nice. And I just made her hide in there until the cold snap was over. But at that point, we'd lost so much. The colony was basically done for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was thinking that about Dota. A lot of people have been saying to me that, oh, have you given up on Dota? I mean, I've got 5,000 hours of Dota, but I haven't played it much in the last two weeks because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey, I was waiting for the patch and then I know now the patch is here. So by the time this goes out, the patch will already be like, what, two weeks old or something like that. And I still haven't played it because I'm kind of enjoying taking a break from what was starting to feel very repetitive. Same here as every game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know how the game's gonna go from the heroes you've been out-drafted you're like, okay, so we gotta do this, we gotta do that. And it was starting to get a little bit repetitive. Just enough for me to need to take a break from it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like my last hitting really goes downhill, I start forgetting about map awareness and stuff, whereas when I was absolutely caning it and playing like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other thing is, it's not so good for streaming if you just play one game of Dota and then switch. Like a lot of people tune in, uh, like if I'm streaming for five hours and at the start I play one game of Dota, then I'll be losing people because they'll be like, what's he switching to? Oh, I don't like that game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Makes me need to take a break from it is, and I've really enjoyed streaming Rust. Like a whole bunch of new people have come in that don't normally watch it. The devs, like, uh, on their dev blog, they put a thing on there talking about, uh, the fact that the Yogscast and, and, and some that we were now doing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Russ, which was great, I'm really happy that they saw that. They gave me and Sips a bunch of keys to give away. They gave me 20, they gave you 100! Bastards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I guess, I mean, I gave away all 20 in like 10 minutes, like there was people just hoovering them up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, but the thing is, when I'm playing Rust, it's not like one game, I can just play it until I'm sick of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And generally speaking, there's always something to be doing, something to be doing. You can go out and look for a fight or raid base or whatever like that. And I kind of like that. But people were tuning in. If I'd played Rust for half an hour and then just fucked off and done something else, those viewers have been like, I thought you were going to play Rust. Like there's kind of a, people tuning in to watch that. Yeah. Yeah. So that was kind of the thing is when I'm playing Dota.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I start streaming Dota, I can't switch to another game. Like, people are like, what are you doing? We came here to watch Dota, and I'm kinda like, oh yeah, sorry. So I feel almost compelled to stick with one thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like honestly, uhm, very little has changed in Offworld Trading Company. I played it when it very first came out in Alpha or Beta, whatever it was, because I thought, wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This looks interesting, and I played it the other day, and very little has changed. It's pretty much the exact same game, and it's very limited, and I do not know how they can charge 23 quid for it. I think that's ridiculous.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which completely changes the game, rebalances everything. I saw it on Rock Paper Shotgun the other day. Wow. And that, that looks like quite a big deal. Uhm. What's it called? Although, I, I don't know. Right. Civ 5 Rock Paper Shotgun. Let's have a look.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wondrous. The Civ-5 community patch project.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I actually do have quite a weird one, which I'm not sure if other people do this as well. I suspect they do and I thought I was weird, but I'm not. So it's nothing creepy. One of the things I find myself doing when my mind is wandering is I'll count the faces of a shape in a thing that I can see. So for instance, if I'm...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I do it with text a lot. So for instance, if there's something on my, if I'm just waiting, rather than just sit, I'll kind of, I don't know why, I think my tiny brain kind of feels a weird need to be occupied. So I'll count.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's not clever. It's like, for instance, I'll see a brand name, like I'll see the word vitamin. So I'll be counting the lines in the V. So if I'm looking at the font for this, this V on this bottle of vitamins here, right? So you've got, for a basic V, you've got six faces.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, the bottom of the V, no, if it's a point, that's not a face, right? But then at the top of that V, you've then got one of those blocky bits. I don't know what you call it in a font. It's like a little hat on the top, on the left and the right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What a bizarre thing. I know, I just, I've always done it, I don't know why, it's just like a tick in my brain, I just do it, I just count the facets of the faces of a font or a word, mainly words, words and numbers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I thought of an alligator because I always get them mixed up. Is there a difference?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Like it's about what's happening. Like if I'm making breakfast and a song stuck in my head rather than sing the song, the lyrics will be about what's for breakfast. And my kids love it. Like they think it's hilarious.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I used to do that in my exercise books at school. My mum brought them all up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other day, she was like, I had it clear out. I find all your old exercise books from the like, the last six years, like your six years at school.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. I did, I, I do routinely ask my wife things that would have been deal breakers early on in our relationship. Okay. Like if my last name had been cunts, like the German name, K-U-N-T-Z, would she have still married me? Like, and if I had insisted that she keep that name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because then she would be Maddie Facker. Maddie Facker, yea. And she probably would say no.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, Maddie Facka. Maddie Facka! Like that. Would you be cool? And I would, I was really proud of the Facka name, like, but you can't change it, you gotta keep it. Would you still have married me? And I bet, I guarantee you she would say probably not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been recognized a couple of times, nowhere near as many of you guys have, but it's all, it's been really disconcerting when it's happened because it's been, when I'm out and about, it's just like a random thing that's happened. Never, like, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once you look at the family tree as well, calling it the Septim dynasty, it's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tennessee, you're stretching that word a bit because just the sheer amount of like, uh, different families and, you know, connecting Tiber Septim to say Uriel Septim the 7th, there's, it's just a million miles of disconnect between them and everything that's gone on in the meantime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is one dynasty, one empire, but really there's kind of nothing really connecting the end of the line with the start of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in a way, it's not even the Septim dynasty, because Tiber Septim's father, whether you bind to the kind of High Rock origins or the Atmoran origins, is not a Septim anyway, because that's what Tiber Septim


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I mean, the idea of what it means to be dragonborn and to have the dragon blood becomes so kind of hazy, because, you know, the idea that all of these emperors would have been eligible to wear the Amulet of Kings and would have the dragon blood, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It actually gets a bit hard to believe, and you know, depending on what you buy into with Tiber Septim, and you know, whether there's this great deception that he really doesn't have any kind of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They would go through these processes, like, you know, the lighting of the dragon fires, all this stuff doesn't really necessarily mean anything and they can kind of just fake it and maybe have, they have an alternate amulet of kings that's just like a knockoff. Yeah, like the idea that things could just be ceremonial wouldn't surprise me with how chaotic it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah, exactly, so kind of the two with the same name being rulers regardless of who their parents are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so Tiber Septim's reign was, you know, kind of referred to as the Golden Era, and it was always going to be downhill from there, because he essentially brute-forced the unification of Tamriel, you know, you've got some slightly shaky deal, you know, um, treaties, like the Treaty of Thrustmachy, you've got the Armistice with Morrowind, and obviously just,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Butchering millions of people in Somerset and even in elsewhere to bring everything together. It's like, oh yeah, well done, you've unified Tamriel. But when you then pass the, uh, the buck onto your, you know, your, uh, the future rulers,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not gonna stay that perfect for too long, you know, you can't really maintain that. You can brute force it, but you can't maintain it for a long time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, exactly. You're not exactly, um, putting kind of a common culture on the- on all the races and all the co- and all the provinces. They all have their own interests and the second you leave their province, they're just gonna get back on with their own thing or they'll push you out or whatnot, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so it's the, when it does start to go a bit shaky with some of these emperors, it's like, oh, that was kind of inevitable that this would happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, he's arguably the one of the most damaging of all of the emperors because just dismissing people who were wise enough to be part of the Elder Council and replacing them with whoever would lie in his pockets the most, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if I remember, everyone loses in this war, uh, essentially, because does, Kintyra, is it confirmed that she's killed at the start of this war, or is it that her just, her armies lose?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also based on the idea that the race of the child is based on the mother, you then have dark elf emperors for the next two generations?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it seems this is where the line of emperors strays away from being kind of Breton of origin and Nordic again, because Sephiroth II is a Nord.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, because I mean, if we, if you buy into Tiber Septim and his kin all being Bretons as opposed to Nords.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think he's the one who has had the most positive impact since, you know, we mentioned earlier, I'm forgetting which one it was now, which Uriel, I think it was one, I think it might have been Uriel II, or Plagius II, who essentially sold the Elder Council to the Highest Bidder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it says he utilised defunct spy networks and guard units to bully and coerce the difficult members of the Elder Council. Based. Uhm, and with the help of his half-sister Maura Halford. So, there's a quote that says, Uriel V conquered Ezrianette, so that's the island on the way to Akavir, but Uriel VI conquered the Elder Council.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Essentially returned the power of the Emperor to the Emperor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it does seem that even though, you know, like, he's obviously very hardy because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ten years in exile in oblivion, like plagued by nightmares, would break most people. And while he comes back less, kind of like brazen and making big bold moves, he's very- he still seems to rem- like keep his, uh, his intellect and he's very cunning and- and prudent in his decision making.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And continues to be a pretty good ruler all the way up until his assassination.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That does seem to be the case because there's a lot of mention of him having waking and sleeping nightmares when he's exiled.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when he comes back, you know, like talking to the champion of Cyrodiil in The Sills, he's like, you're the one from my dreams. So uhm, it seems that maybe his time imprisoned in this, this pocket realm has given him like a prophetic ability to see the future in his dreams. And he's, you know, obviously seems to work out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And even then, it seems that he foresees his own assassination, you know, whether or not something could have been done about it, or whether he had accepted that fate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, it's hard to say, but then, you know, his bastard son will actually go on to save Tamriel from this oblivion crisis as well, so even after death he's doing good stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's kind of just one of those situations with the Empire where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The most powerful or influential surrounding king or lord from, from one of the regions like Colovia or High Rock ends up just taking the Ruby Throne and everyone just accepts that, that your power has kind of put you there. Maybe like, in some form or another that's what Sephiroth II has done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uhm, and I mean like, you know, it's not really the topic of this video, but you gotta give some credit to the Meade dynasty, because Titus Meade I did a pretty good job of, you know, coming in and organising things after the chaos that was left by the Oblivion Crisis.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not, not sex. He just sees a molehill and he thinks, is that, is that Alicia? I'm gonna, I'm gonna go and there's some moles just trying to live his life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There is elements of that that you really can't tell what the truth is, so, you know, uh, just briefly going over it, you obviously have...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whether this, like, Tiber Septim actually had Dragonborn powers and could- could use the way of the voice, or whether it was just Izmir Wulfarth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You've got the story of the assassination where, you know, Kulakane was killed, and supposedly Tiber Septim's throat was slit, which stopped him from being able to shout, and he had to rule the empire with just a whisper. That, you know, all of his rulings were done by a whisper.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in reality, if that happened now, they'd prob- you'd see the mythology, like the mythos, and say, oh, this is just-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's just a story, it's not true, but it's far enough back that you kind of have to question, oh, is that just a metaphor for the fact he was quiet spoken and didn't like to show his power? Or did he really survive having his throat cut and he was just this god-like being? So you can't really afford that kind of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, mythological aspect to modern rulers like Titus Meade because we can all see it and the history is so recent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, with The Fourth Era, you kind of really are starting from scratch, because when the Oblivion Crisis happened...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Empire lost so much respect from just about everyone, and Morrowind is the perfect example of that, because in Morrowind most of the houses and most of the populace didn't like the Empire, but there were some people like the, uh, like House Lalu who were actually


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, fairly loyal, but then the Imperials pull out all of their soldiers from Morrowind during the crisis leaving


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you've got the forefair and you've got fools that gibbering or whatever coming along, people don't really care about them or respect them and even when they do reclaim little bits of land, uhm, they're just not an influential power anymore and that never really came back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It seems like a very good diplomatic leader who would have been very useful at some points in the Septim dynasty, but when you've got the empire as it was post-Oblivion crisis where even getting some land back and reforming some of the empire, it really needed powerful displays.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can't really have a kind diplomatic leader in these situations when you've got the Old Merry Dominion that are coming back with a force and they're relentless in achieving their goals. So...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Someone like Titus Meade II, while he seems like a good emperor, was never going to garner a great deal of respect, and he was never going to achieve a great deal at the time he came to rule. Yeah. And it led inevitably to everything, like the Great War.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I mean, if it wasn't for, you know, we can get into the Stormcloaks as well, but that's a huge conversation, but if it wasn't for some of the other provinces being a bit rash about how they respond to this White Gold Concordat, you can imagine that Titus Meade II would have been


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's kind of, it's a meaningless, uhm, treaty that they can just break at some point anyway. You know, like, uh, the idea that because they've, at their weakest moment, have signed this White Gold Concordat and capitulated to the High Elves, I highly doubt that they would do that unless they desperately needed to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm a filthy asshole. Well my keyboard, I mean to be fair, my keyboard is pretty clean right now. I've like started cleaning it more but at one point, at like a really low point in my life, I'm pretty sure that there was like a congealed horseshoe of like Pringles and Cheetos dust on


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Possibly the two key, which was my flash shield key.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I mean it is seriously debilitating in your life. Being anal is not having OCD. OCD will cripple aspects of your life and potentially ruin parts of your life because it's a compulsive disorder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you just use like a bit of, do you carry like wipes with you for that? Or do you just use toilet paper? Because, arguably there's a lot of shit on the thing that holds the toilet paper in public toilets. And not only that, maybe on the toilet paper itself. Like, I don't know how many people have been in there waving their dick and their ass around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think you should consider actually carrying around some antibacterial wipes. That sounds like a good idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not a suitcase, it's like a big fucking bag that has like diapers in it, uh, wipes, bottles, like fucking soothers, everything. It has everything in it. So, no, I'm not gonna put a fucking handkerchief in my pocket, I'm just gonna put it in the bag with all the other shit that we carry around everywhere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Frank Underwood, yeaah. Yeaah, get me a handkerchief with, with Frank Underwood's initials embroidered into it. That would be nice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That would be really good. And as a joke, when you come over here, you're like, alright, come on Sips, let's see the handkerchief, and I pull it out, and there's just a big shit stain on it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There you go. I've wiped my ass. And that's what you got when you wiped your keyboard down. I wiped my keyboard and I wiped a big log of shit off my keyboard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's true actually, there is a lot of poop in my life. Not like bad poop, it's like, you know, baby poop isn't that bad actually. It's like pretty buttery and like doesn't really smell like poop. Uhm, it gets everywhere though, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, no, it's like, when you have a diaper, sometimes that diaper just isn't enough to hold the torrent of matter that escapes one's butt. So, you imagine like, how can I best explain this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, no, no. Okay, so this is the thing. No hole is being punched anywhere, okay? Okay. So, and this thing is really tight, right? Like, there's not a lot of wiggle room for you in that thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, because I mean, your life isn't a cartoon, contrary to popular belief, so it's not blowing up like a balloon, no. What's happening is the shit just shoots upwards, out the back of your rubber underpants, all up your back, and onto your shirt, and everything else as well. That's how baby shit. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's why nobody likes it when a baby takes a shit, especially when you're out in public. And babies and children just have this like sense. They have like this sixth sense for


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Doing stuff at the most inconvenient times, okay?