Okay, time for Lore Dump, part two.
Zodi Plays: Custom Robo [18] Outside
Video Length: 37:24
In this episode, after we wake up from the initial burst of horrible truths, we get a call from Ernest telling us that the source of said truths is here, again, at Dendai Don’s, again! Horrible murder death robo aside this is actually pretty hilarious. Don’s been open for less than a day and Rahu has already returned to absorb thet abundant negative energy radiating from the place. I don’t know if it’s because of his customers eating week old sushi and immediately regretting it, or Don’s complaining about his closed restaurant just being that alluring, but it is honestly pretty funny.
Less funny; Evil is here fighting Rahu himself… and he WINS, knocking the robo out! Then he reveals he’s going to take Rahu for hismelf… in order to give to the Z Syndicate! Dun dun duuun! Who would have guessed that Evil would do us a traitor like this. And as if on cue, Eliza shows up… only she doesn’t recognize him, which destroys him utterly, and we go to engage her in pitched robo combat! Beating her rather soundly, we go to take Rahu for ourselves… only for Oboro and, as we finally learn, Sergei to arrive! The Zed Syndicate leader fights us next, in a two v two with Marcia helping us so she can fight her brother, which she just outright says. This one is a fair bit harder, but we manage it… only for Oboro to outsmart us with a flashbang, and for NotEliza to escape during the fight. Welp.
With that uh, abject failure out of the way, we return to the police to report that hey we encountered Rahu and the bad guys got it. This is… bad, but they table the discussion so they can talk us through the rest of the super secret plot stuff. The reveal of what the outside world is like, the scope and scale of how big, and yet how small, the world that remains is, it’s all really impressive to me, I think. And after that… we kind of get into some deeper philisophical topics like the idea of “ignorance is bliss” and how that can apply to different folk for different reasons. It is honestly rather interesting, and while the game is obviously not going to delve super deeply into it, it’s still worth thinking about.
Philosophy and Police Wank
While I call Harry a sort of shallow person here, his “laissez faire” lifestyle isn’t actually called BAD here, it’s just noted that for someone like him this secret information is irrelevant, begging the question of “why should he ever learn it?”. Whereas Marcia, empath that she is, takes one look at the outside and realizes society as a whole is ultimately fragile. What good has this done for her, to know? Now, an answer to this (one that I believe in by the way) is that while ignorance is bliss, it is also limiting. I do feel like knowledge for the sake of knowledge is important, that you SHOULD want to learn about the world, even if much of what you end up learning turns out to be “wow civilization could crumble at any moment due to all these horrible factors”. Because knowing lets you prepare, adapt, understand. Sure, not knowing won’t help Harry, but it won’t HURT either. Yes, Marcia is terrified of the implications… but it’s steeling her resolve to fix it. Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power.
It’s just interesting to me, this contrast that the game sets up and never really fully elaborates on- and it’s also super interesting since it is presented by people who are genuinely kinda shitty, but still ostensibly on the good guy side. The police chief says in THIS EPISODE that closing Don’s restaurant was a punitive measure due to him not calling the police. But he DID call the police, and the cover story from the police is that they closed it due to the body. So all the police did was punish him for no good reason. So when the Rahu situation happened again, he didn’t call the police at all because the police have shown that calling them does nothing but make his life worse. It’s a situation the police directly caused themselves and they really don’t get it. It is truly fascinating to me that the cops can acknowledge that they are wholly incompetent, and then note that they would prefer if only they were called in, not bounty hunters.
Anyway, all that aside, I hope you enjoyed. Next time, we’re going on a walk about while we think about the horrible truths we have learned, and whether or not we can actually continue and try to save the world. I hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you next time.
