A Conversation with Pierce Brown

What is sweeter than to have someone with whom you may dare discuss anything as if you were communing with yourself? How could your enjoyment and times of prosperity be so great if you did not have someone who's joy in them would be equal to your own? Marcus Tullius Cicero. Alright, thank you for joining the Sons of Aries, a Red Rising podcast. I'm your host today, Colin, with me as always, as Charles and Chris. Today we have a bit of an interesting show for you. Obviously at the top we're going to do our warnings, spoiler warning, here be dragons for all things and all books. We will do our best to avoid the book of Lauren as we normally do, but just be aware. Be careful, there are definitely spoilers for all of the series of Red Rising. Also we do swear, we do talk about adult things and there are adult things in the books. If there's something in particular that we think needs a content warning, we will put that in there ahead of time. But for the most part, if you've read the books then you know what's coming. If you haven't read the books, go and read the damn books. Why are you listening to a chapter crawl of Iron Gold? If you haven't read Iron Gold, go read the books first and then come back. And then the last warning we or last thing we want to say is that this is Pierce Brown sandbox and we're just playing in it. So we appreciate the effort that Pierce has put into these books. They're his characters and his situations. We do not claim any ownership, although we do have some head canon that we throw out every now and then. Finally, our Howell of Appreciation, this episode is for the amazing fandom. The Artificers, the Carvers, the Musicians and writers, Lerkers, Lurchers and Lucky Lose on Socials, Chuck and Chris and I have gotten into these books over the last few years and we started the podcast for ourselves so that we could dare discuss anything as Cicero says, but also as a way to meet other fans. We had no idea after we wrapped our, our red rising and we did this silly little fake news broadcast not thinking anyone would be down to be foolish, but man, the Howellers love to look the fool. Howellers, Pod, Hale Reaper, Fade to Obsidian, Shark Bates all did little man on the street bits and the commercials were all amazing and made by the creators on Instagram and TikTok and they went all out. It was our first moment of looking at each other and being like, well, shit, I guess we are part of a cult now. So today's Howell of Appreciation goes out to you guys, the fandom, we love you. Alright, I want to circle back to the cult thing in a moment, but first let's just kind of explain the game plan here. Today we are not continuing the Iron, or the Golden Sun chapter crawl, but we'll be back to that soon enough. Today is a little romp through history and maybe along the way we'll find a few points of contact with the books, but first, Pierce. Man, what the hell are you doing here? Lurken, you know, you guys are the new kids on the block. I figured I'd come just make sure everything's up to snuff. You know, we got to have some quality control here. Yes. Well, that's awesome. Thank you for taking the time to hang out with us. Brown nosing is not going to get you out of our marks. You got to try. I got to try. Not very subtle, I suppose. It's all good. It's all good. With that beard, you can get away with a lot. Like I said, you got a comforting voice. This feels like a comforting, safe environment. It's a safe space. It's, well, I don't know if it's a safe space, but safe for you. Appreciate that. Like I was saying, people loves guys. I'm saying shit. Very, very much so. The cult thing. I've got my dad reading the books. I got my brother reading the books. I've got my brother and law, my sister, two other couples that I know, Chuck and Chris have been prostilitizing. What was the moment for you that you were like? Holy shit. This is a full-blown cult that you've created. Well I always had this deep suspicion that I'd found a cult, but I knew that I didn't really have that mentality to really, if I started it on Monday by Wednesday, I'm going to feel alienated by the cult. And I was always afraid. I created this really silly animated TV show once there's about a cult leader who is really, really successful. But the problem was his cult got way too into it, it's too zealous. And so he tried to escape the cult. And so the entire show is about his cult trying to catch him and bring him back. But it's like imagine like a Jesus figure, but now in the modern landscape, he just wants to go to Wyoming and ride horses. And they want to, he's tired of turning water into wine. I don't feel that with this group. That's the fun thing. I feel as though sometimes I get really uncomfortable with the idolization of figures in the modern landscape. It makes sense. If you think about Demi Gods and how we revere Alexander the Great, who I look at as kind of the first social media star, and come back up that claim if you guys challenge it. The thing about the red rising group and the red rising groups is it feels like we're gathering to celebrate like a secret that we just want to share. And I think that a lot of them, bases get gatekeepery. You don't really appreciate Ned or that's not real literature or I was there from the get go type thing. And it's natural because I think that we all take something that we really like and it can become part of our personality and can inform us and feels very intimate. And then if it gets too popular or there's a bad adaptation or you feel like there's some betrayal by the creator against you personally. And it does feel like it's personal because if you love something that much, how could it not feel personal, right? You've given me countless hours and then you're laying a bed thinking to my character. It's like, I do owe you something. So, but it's really interesting because I think that the core groups and you mentioned some of the other podcasts and they guys do a great job of keeping the, I think the ethos of the books alive in the community itself. And I think that parallel is seldom found in fandoms. So when I said you guys are new kids in the block, I really want to say hi. And I, it was really just kind of wanting to talk about the things that got you guys interested because you have a different perspective. I think that some of the other podcasts that I've seen, particularly in some of the classic reading materials you guys have thrown around. And that's near and dear to me, while it's not all of what red rising is, it's an important fundamental part of the spine. So I wanted to come over and see this part of the fan group or the fan base, right? Because each one has a different, has a different in and you know, you're quoting Cicero off the top. Right place. Hell yeah. It's definitely an interesting ecosystem. As we've gotten to meet some of the other creators and podcasters in this realm, everybody has their niche, but nobody seems to be like, everybody's just super welcoming, which is like you said, is rare, not just in fandoms, but like if you're a sports fan or anything like that, there's always that assholes like, well, do you remember that? The 1986 team that lost in the Super Bowl. Well, if you weren't around for that, then you definitely aren't a fan. None of that going on here. One thing that you just said that has my brain ticking is, you're right. Alexander would crush on social media, not just like the thirst traps, but essentially the naming of what is it? 32 cities or 36 cities. Those are the first tweets. You know, he's basically just tweeting every time you named it city. He had an astonishing amount of war correspondence ascribes along with his campaign. He was receiving daily letters from his mother. You know, he once I've said that my mother charges an extremely high rent for nine months in the womb because she was such a busy body about his affairs. So you know, this concept of that, yeah, because there's far businesses only at horses, they weren't really communicating. You know, for most of the campaign, he can get a letter home in three to seven days. And imagine that writer's out, then the next writer's out. So he has a steady stream of things coming back and he's sending war correspondence back, right? Because Alexander had a chip on his shoulder, you know, Philippe created a mouth. Philippe created the first professional army, really. Even the first special forces with the high pastists, guys. And so Alexander inherited all this, but then he had to prove it against guys like Parmenion, you know, and gosh, clearest, I think black clearest, no, black clearest was a buddy of his. Well, Parmenio and who's the? What's the anti-ionist? He's the suck up. No, there was a suck up who got his daughter married to Philip after Olympias. That guy, you know, I'm talking about their. Yes, yes. And Alexander's brother, Alexander was married. And Olympia killed that kid when Alexander took him. You got a problem. And already looking it up, you got to try to cheat. And Olympia's roasted him over the fire. That guy's, anyway, that family. So we had to prove, he had a lot to prove to the classic commanders that had, you know, united Macedon and subdued the Greeks and the Elyrians, right? And so in the Thracians. - Was it in Tipeter? - Yes, or in Tipeter. I think also had a son who is problematic, but or perminiode lessons. It's been a while. But anyway, point being, Alexander had this ecosystem of veterans who had already done what was unthinkable, conquer Greece, no one had done it. It's a degree, much less that entire kind of Balkans area. And so Alexander's gone out and he has to prove himself, right? Yeah, he had the command of the left wing, we need a 16, but this is him, he had to do all this. So he's needing to prop up his image to keep his, 'cause, I mean, the only way you really die as a Macedonian king is assassination, right? It's like, if you look at their family tree, it's crazy, right? So he's needing to keep this propaganda up at home, right? But he also loves fame, his idol was Achilles. So everlasting fame is what, you know, he slept with two books underneath his bed, right? I bet you guys can name him. It's brilliant. And what was the, what was the other one? It's not Aristotle's. What was the only map they had basically? Horatitis. Well, Herodotitis, but that wasn't what he slept with underneath his, that was, they used the, they used the Herodotus pass, Herodotitis's maps and stuff. They didn't really have maps, but xenophons and abassists. Oh, oh, yes. Xenophons and abassists. 10,000 guys. I'm fucking looking at the landmark and a basis right now. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have that entire collection. It's so good. So good. But it's, you know, he's, he's, he has two books. One of them is his manual on how to become a demigod. And the other one is his map, you know, to do it. Yeah. I love to the, the idea that the one of the reasons why he's able to get these letters within three to seven days is actually the Persian, the Persian infrastructure is so fantastic. That I know that they, you know, they create the first postal system. And he's just like, yeah, that's a really good idea. We should do this. I like that. I like that. Let's just change the crest. Yeah. Yeah. This kind of piggybacks to something that Chuck wanted to bring up. Chuck, go ahead and, you've got that question you wanted to bring up there. Well, the, what I love about going through the books, and this is be my little chance to like fluff up to how you're writing is and props to you. These moments of battle throughout the series that you write, the intensity, the emotion, the pure fear that you can elicit the reader while they're going through chapter by chapter, how you write how the snap of a finger, you know, anyone is liable to be terminated. This isn't a typical series where you have the heroes surviving till the very end, you know. And everyone's on the chopping block at all times. And it makes it real. It makes it completely realistic. And it, it makes my heart almost jump out of my chest while I'm reading it and remembering things of stuff that I went through myself. Like one of my favorite moments of all time and I've talked about it probably 50 times that Colin is from Dark Age. Dark Age is my favorite book. I just have to throw that out there. But chapter 60, you know, pup one. You got Alexander racing on grab bikes to Heliopolis and he's pleading on the radio begging for help, you know, for support, a response, anything from Darryl. And you get that feeling of dread. And I'm literally shaking while I'm reading this and it's reminding me of going through a city. And this is what makes this more than any other story. It's how you write this gripping intensity that I have to give you props. And I feel like you were in the fox hole with me or an atari with me and your ability to make it real is that. It's insane. So it's like the idea of like studying history and how it changes is this the best way to write into this or is it I always thought if you were going to write this much detail into a battle scene is you had to be there. But I'm not trying to like be rude about it. But it's like you nail it completely to the point where I'm almost crushed and I have to go see my VA shrink afterwards, but it's gripping, you know, and that's a good thing. And it's helping me get through my own stuff, you know, and that's a funny thing. And I say funny because I get that comment more than I way more than I thought I would when I started writing this series, my great insecurity is that I've never been shot at. I'm not saying that I want to be shot at, but it does, it does feel like cause playing in a bit and it does feel like and I think I speak for perhaps or I should speak for everyone who is in a creative field and hasn't had that happen to them. But then our duty is is instead to just try to write with as much empathy as possible, not sympathy. I think sympathy, sympathy is where good intentions go to die and you're telegraphing your punches and then it seems like a lecture. I think that what makes hopefully makes mine different is that I try my best to capture emotions with words, right? And that kind of thing. But it's, I think it's really like that I am exploring it and I'm not trying to, I haven't come to a conclusion on a lot of this stuff. And because of that, it allows it to be, it allows it to just be and then you can draw your own conclusions from it, even with the morality of the characters and decisions that they make. And hopefully it makes it feel like I'm not guiding it artificially to create a statement that is incongruous with reality. And that's what I'm trying to not do is be incongruous with the reality. And I think that anyone who writes about violence has a duty to not be incongruous with reality. I'm not saying you have to show everything. I think some of the most effective stuff you can do is using your mind. So I kind of have a rule for myself like for red rising and it's not because of any moral stance really. It's because I feel though if I write a sex scene, it'll jeopardize certain elements of the book in certain dignity of characters. If I write from certain characters perspective, I wrote, you know, for Lightbringer, I wrote like 200 and something pages for from several POV and I realized that I had fucked up and I had to throw away, you know, a massive chunk of the book. I literally just threw it away. I didn't go harvest it for parts. Throw it away. And I did that because I was several works because he's an enigma. And then showing you how the enigma thinks is going to be different and jeopardize your understanding of him. I am not, I do not presume that I could hit that mark well enough. I might. I might work on it as long as I might work on it until it's right. But even if I hit it perfectly, it's not going to be with some people's heads. And I'm going to then violate that, that informal contract with the audience, which then you'll feel when I talked about violation, you can feel violated because you thought you knew who several was for maybe eight or nine years, right? And then I changed that and it felt like no, I can't do that. Even if it's going to piss off readers and it's going to be two more years writing this thing, I don't want to do that. And it's not like a moral thing. It's like it makes me nauseous. And it's the same way with kind of like, there's moments where I, you know, save it when I don't kill a character. And I will feel insecure about it, insecure about it. And then finally, like my editor will get to it and he's like, why you pulling punches? Why are you keeping your powder? What are you saving it for? And I'm saving it because of my writing style because I'm always, I never know when I'm going to need a character sometimes. I definitely know thematically. I definitely know huge parts of how it starts. You know, I knew from, I mean, how it begins and ends and it's not like I know specific scenes. I know the emotional frequency I want that and it's all here, right? And so it's very instinctive. And so the battles and stuff, they're, they're impossible to approach these battles. These battles are millions of people, weaponry, you know, that I don't go into too much detail in, etc. But the reason I decided the first person present tense with red rising is because of the complication of the subject matter. If presented in third person omniscient or first person past tense would have to give you so much information, the cognitively, it would divorce you from the ability to feel it emotionally. And I thought that that's, I think it's been a bit of big flaw in almost every single fantasy show since Game of Thrones is they, they try to get you to invest in five characters in different parts of the globe. Yes. Yeah. And then as though it's some sort of like great trick, great like amazing culmination with, oh my gosh, all their, all their plot lines affect each other, you know? And I think that, I think that's Tom Foulery because how are you going to cognitively understand this world? First you have to grasp it, right? Then you can start to care about it. But if you look at the things that are part of our cultural landscape, Harry Potter, Star Wars, give me another one. Tolkien. Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings. Shire. Under the cabinet, a printed drive, Tatooine. They start in the keyhole, right? And as your character encounters things in the world, you encounter them, right? There you rise. They're the beholder. And so I thought that, you know, that very narrow look would allow me to do a slight of hand. which is I can show these big battles and I can show these things that I've hopefully populated enough along the way that I'm not doing huge info dumps in the battles that it's about experience. You know, what can Darrow see, you know, with regard to the battle? And I think that one of the things that shocked me, and this is just from paintballing, okay? Just from paintballing. One thing that's shocked me is how quickly people who had a plan and everyone had to shoot. And it's like none of them follow it. And then none of them, like that's the one uniting thing we have is the plan that was before. That's the only thing that we kind of, you know, but then everyone kind of gets instinctive and tries to flank and then like it just all falls apart. And you just feel very quickly isolated and alone, even if you're doing everything right. And so it's like I draw from experiences like that. And I think that, okay, with, you know, because it comes down to chemistry, like biochemistry, right? There's a limitation on what you can experience. Your body limits you. It was shock with adrenaline, right? Like talk about your body when all of a sudden adrenaline hits, it doesn't matter how fucking hydrated you are, you are chalk mouthed like to hear, you know, like through, right? You're just a cotton mouth, right? And call it zombie mode. Zombie mode, right? And so like there's all these hunches I've had. And then I talked to the military veterans or people who are active or I read like first-hand accounts of a civil war battle. And it's just people have always been people. Fear has always been fear. The way it is delivered and what we're afraid of, it's just different delivered mechanisms of death. But it's still the same thing, right? - Yeah, we recorded, I don't mean to interrupt, but we recorded the iron rain, or an episode about the iron rain last night and paired it up with some D-Day first-hand accounts. - Oh really? - It's like pretty shocking how similar, well we also had a couple quotes about Terawa. And they just, they line up really almost, not word for word, but the emotion, the emotional thrust of their experience, lines up with what Dero's saying at times in the iron rain in a way that's kind of startling. - Yeah, I haven't mind those first-hand accounts, but I think that might be testament to how it doesn't change, right? I remember reading a letter like from one of the less popular Parthian campaigns that the Romans were waging in the second century. And it was from a letter from back home after there was much discontent back home about the war. And the letter, the letter read like a Vietnam war letter. The red, like an Iraq war letter. And it was simply saying, it was simply putting the words in a rather disciplined but slightly menacing tone of like, we're out here for you. Our disgusting hands make you safe and comfortable in Rome. So if be where the men doing your dirty work when they come home and know they were not appreciated. And that feeling of cultural betrayal, I'm like, oh, yeah, like I didn't think that they would have that same sort of cultural betrayal. And that's such a unique thing, right? So things like that lead me to believe that the experience is limited to our ability to relate it, limited to our ability to feel it. And so war must feel very similar to what it used to feel like. But it has to feel even stranger because there's an alienation. - I mean, you guys read on killing. On killing? - No, I'm killing. - You guys gotta read on killing if you like on stuff. - I'm killing. - Yeah, faces of battle. - Yeah, for-- - The Kegin is one of my favorites. - Yeah, faces of battle is astounding. I got a lot from that for Dark Age obviously. But on killing, and they were talking about, they were doing the math on casualties. - Oh, David Grossman, the post, yes, yes, yes. - Yeah, I couldn't have placed his name, but they did a, like, basically they did math on the munitions and the weaponry that I think it was maybe civil war, maybe, but it was a gunpowder age. And they were saying the casualties should have been eight times higher based on the rate of fire, based on the accuracy, based on the volley system, et cetera, and how much leds in the air. Why was anyone walking away from these battles? And the assumption was that it's because people, when on moss, you know, in these, in these columns are not firing to hit. They are actually just firing to be part of, it's normative functioning. They're doing it to be part of the group, right? Because, you know, for a lot of people and a lot of testimonies I've heard is, it's not bravery, it's fear of shame. Because if your buddy there is there, and you're a brother to him now, you've gone through things with him. And if he's there, how can you not be there? Like, right? And so for Dero, you know, Dero I obviously couldn't kill in books one through three, right? Is that just boiler? Is that okay? No, that's fine. Okay. So I can't kill Dero through, I can't kill Dero through that. So I thought I have to have all my secondary and tertiary characters have three, have like three acts structure in their own arcs. So they always have an arc going on. Even if it's a small thing, they have to be, I write it on a posted note, and it couldn't be larger than that. It would have to be what their state, what they wanted at the beginning, you know, what stood in their way of accomplishing that. And sometimes it's their own internal thing, and that's usually when it's best. Some internal contradiction stands in their way. So they either learn to not want the thing because they value their morality or they sacrifice that thing in fundamentally change. But when they die, and I can kill them because they're not my first person present tense narrator, my mission is to feel like, how can I create tension in every scene, right? And it's by showing the reality, or you know, at least of violence, and showing the capriciousness of it, and showing these arcs that you feel in the background happening, getting interrupted mid-strived. And I think that's what makes it different. A lot of times I see that authors kill people when they're at the end of their arc. And I don't think that accurately illustrates the trauma of death. The most fucked up thing for death for me is going into someone's room and seeing all the clothes that have no meaning. - Oh yeah. You know, countering that in high school a few times was really tough. And I had a lot of death in my life for like three or three in high school, just in order to amount of it. And I didn't see, you know, I had, I did have a friend like die in front of me. And you know, it's not combat, but I have to imagine that it haunts in a similar way. - Oh, it's powerful. - Because yeah. - Because all I was thinking about and the only thing I relived is that my friend ran into the street. I could have reached out and grabbed him. I could have, I thought about it, but I didn't. Now that's, I did not know that was gonna happen, right? You could hit, but I relived the this. That I could have been like that. It could have been like that, right? And there's no fault there, but it could have been different. And it's that I relive all the time. And then I was reading accounts of PTSD. And I think it's the thing about, we always talk about death and stuff like that. But my guess is that war is so psychologically traumatizing in its own way because it is proof and testament of how fucking small you are. Here you are with years of training, the best equipment you can have, the best military that's ever existed, the most coordination that's ever existed, the most down the line care for troops that's ever existed, 90 times what Russians get. And you still are small and alone and made of meat. And nothing else is made of meat. Everything else, everything else is moving at 17,000 kilometers a second and it's made of hard like titanium and steel. And you know, it's crazy. And it has to be like, it doesn't feel like a pre-ordination. - I'm just gonna say, I feel like a lot of that, like you're mentioning it came through for me in lightbringer in that internal dialogue that Darrow is constantly battling with 'cause it's, you live through experiences most of the time, it's in the moment, it's a reactionary, you're just trying to survive, but it's your body, your brain processing, what the hell just fucking happened and your mind twisting it and making it worse and that's the worst case of PTSD. And you're nailing it as far as the books go. I mean, lightbringer's number two for me, but yeah. - Well, I'm learning as I go and you're saying, I appreciate it, learning as I go and it's, these are all hunches of mine based on, you know, aggregating a lot of things. And I hope I'm never seeming like I'm telling someone their experience because that is my, that is exactly why I look at what, you know, the compliment you gave me as the ultimate compliment really because it was my greatest insecurity in writing this series. So thank you, I'm so glad to connect it. - Oh, hell yeah. One of the things, I'm just talking about this stuff because, you know. - It makes sense, it must be a fear to have that potential of putting something out there that you think is gonna connect and then have it just not be accepted the way you intended. - And that can happen. - That's the risk. - I just wanna say, so this, going through things years ago, getting out of it, about 15 plus years ago, and then going into my own shell, trying to deal with things, just to give you perspective on how your writing has infected me. So I don't know about anyone else, we're all different, we're all messed up in different ways. But I almost regressed into a shell, and then reading through this series, and then talking with Colin again about it, and then talking with Chris about it, and then the idea of doing our own podcast, none of that would have happened if it wasn't through actually reading through your books, feeling a connection, and then talking more with my own doctors or whatnot. And then it's like, well, here we are. And now here I am talking to you. So it's insane. So I appreciate that, man. I gotta imagine that I can't imagine, I can't imagine the culture shock of coming back, and not being able to communicate. Yeah. How could you communicate? Why would it even be worth it to try, when you can't even, the language doesn't allow for you to articulate? Maybe, that's my hunch. They break you down to the point where you're supposed to be basically a robot, you're not supposed to think for yourself. That's why maybe in paintball, or like to use that comparison, we're not supposed to have eternal thoughts, and you know what I mean? We're all we have, yeah. Exactly. So you need to break them down enough, where they're, no, no, no, no, no, this is the plan, you stick to the fucking plan, or you're done. And then when you get out of that lifestyle and try to, you know, immerse yourself back into normal life, that's the switch that you have to figure out how to turn off, or to reintegrate back into society. And that's been the most difficult for me. And it almost twists back every time I see an old friend or somebody from the old unit, it flips it. And it's like, shit, I don't wanna go back to that. So it's still a constant battle. But you're doing a hell of a job. You're really doing a lot of a job, man. And thanks for sharing with us, man. One thing that we kind of have touched on a little bit as we cover the earlier books, what's it like to have written kind of predictive battlefield experiences? Oh, yeah. You've got drones playing quite a extensive role. It's actually, it's super weird now, because stuff that was, stuff that I was employing that was novel to me, and I had not sought the real world for inspiration, is now very much real world stuff. Like, in Dark Age, I'm taking, here's the thing, I'm not trying to predict the future, I'm just chasing things through their logical conclusion. And one of the things is like how quickly the tip of the spear gets blunted in sustaining agement. Like, when they're in Dark Age, yeah, okay, yeah, I got all this fantastic technology. But, you know, it kind of comes down to the AK-47 sometime, like for a lot of it, it comes down to, you know, look at our teams guys who were on mules, right? Yeah. (laughing) Like, and there's a lot of complications with having mules and deployed or renting. Yes. Comment-deared. Yeah, I was gonna say comment-deared. Yes. Borrow. Heard some interesting stories. (laughing) Not for now. Yeah, not for now. (laughing) But the reality that is, I'm not predicting that, that's what happens, you know? Yeah. And it's the same way with like drone swarms. Drone swarms are obviously going to play into, I don't think it's the spoiler to say it would play into Red God, because the society has had a prejudice against AI and a prejudice against non-human combat. Because the golds, you know, are trapped in this delusion. And societies do that all the time, you know? Look at, look at what it takes for us to go to the moon. We don't go to the moon unless we have a geopolitical competitor. We don't do anything unless we're like forced to, right? So we had, we had, there has never been a country that has had the dominance over the world, like America did from the time we launched, like we landed on the moon to the time, I don't know. A 40 year chunk of time, however you want to find it. We could say when the wall fell, et cetera, right? But we had unfettered economic dominance over the world. We had a GDP like that, you guys know the stats and we didn't go to the moon, right? We need sometimes that outside influence. The golds that haven't had an outside influence, they've done their damnedest to make sure they don't, right? And so they've ossified. And so it's constant evolution, it has to be constant evolution, right? And nothing, nothing drives ingenuity and development like existential threat, right? Like existential threat to either, you know, politically for the United States or even like for the, for the gold regime, right? And so you're gonna see all these technologies increasing. But what I love about like the kind of wonken me likes, yeah, likes the tic-tac toll of it all or the rock paper scissors of it all, right? I like thinking it was rock paper scissors, but like Russian nesting dolls too. So it's like there's layers of it. And so no one thing, like yeah, 'cause otherwise the answer would always be Nuke it for morbid, right? Mm-hmm. So I think that having, you know, Nuke for morbid has to be real reasons from either a bullet, like a, from a resource standpoint, economic, political or even personal best if it's all those things to not do that. But also create some like reasons why that technology doesn't just beat everything, right? Like shields, right? I've often seen shields, shields are used in all sci-fi, right? What I thought though is that shields almost didn't like, deny in these big battles, you're trying to find, you're trying to find the, the, the, the, how to say the choke point. The, is that the best word? For the weak points? No, the point of, the point where the battle will be decided, the decisive place, like, inflections turning, inflections, thank you. Thank you. I didn't sleep with the wind there. Thank you. I'm gonna work. It comes in when we need him. I just, I need, I need, I need to, assistant help me write this book. It's like, what was the word? Yes. Yes. Done. Oh, man. That's interesting though. You've hit on two things that I think I really, I never thought of is the, the goals are, I really have bought into the Fukayama and the history mentality where it's like, this is it from here on out, nothing will happen. We are the sum of humanity. We're the sum of humanity, right? Yeah. Interesting. Right. And so they froze it. But anyway, the, the, for shields, I wanted the shields to be, you know, there's a hundred meter or 10 meter gap, you know, a hundred meter gap from the ground, otherwise, seismic events occur. And then you have a collapse of the shield that's terrible and everything blows up. You know, Dune uses that kind of same thing, same principle of why you can't always have shields in the desert, the worms will calm, etc. You know, there's, there's like, you know, they do that in sci-fi, the rock paper scissors. I'm not creating that. But what I wanted was I grew up playing every iteration of Total War. You guys ever play on the other hand? Oh my God. Yeah. I saw a PC gamer 1998, 1999, and I bought it, and I did nothing else. I would get my left nut right now to go back and play Medieval Total War too, for five days. No doubt. Medieval was medieval. Correct. I just, the age of empires. I didn't mess too much into Total War. I love Age of Empires. Total War. That's the thing. You had the strategy and the tactical. It was the best combination. If we put as much time into like our personal finances as we did into managing our empire. Oh my God. The worst thing is that I can't make my brain work with, you know, I can, I can focus for 14 hours and get up once to P playing that game, you know. Totally, totally. And I still am terrified of unrest and the Mongols. You know, they're just always there at the last minute. Yeah, it's the entire, they're lazy AI. They just allow them to create these full stack armies when they just have these. Massive armies out of nowhere. Yeah, I'm literally raised that city, and now it has like, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the flangeites of Alexander's left nuts at who were like, you can't say historical term there. Yeah. Yeah. Like, and they can just produce so many. And I'm just, I'm just dealing with the Zerg Rush. And this is bullshit. Well, Zerg Rush, but they're all pro toss. That's bullshit. The thing that you're highlighting is, is that Total War did a bad job of this, that you, you're doing a very good job of which history has over and over, which is that really crazy balance between the offensive and defense and warfare, where all the sudden you have, you know, mounted, armor, soldiers, and they can lay ways to a battlefield real quick, especially once you find a crack and guys start to turn around. Then it's, that's when the, the bloodletting really begins. And you, I think Ejax brought that to the fray in dark age and you started going to see totally, oh, these guys are mounted cavalry. They're, they're, this iron column rolling across the desert at 500 miles an hour, peeling off as they go, you know, like, 12 go that way, 12 go there's like, that is fucking hard to stop. Right? Nice and possible. Right? How do you stop that, you know? And especially when you're, you know, you're not as equipped as the reds are, right? As the rising is, the rising has to use different systems, right? They have to combine arms fire. They have to have to have tiered takedowns. You know, they can't just solo everyone. You know, you've created like the red swarm. You know, that's a counterbalance in a way that you do reading. You're like a gold could kill all the reds in every town they go into. Unless all the sudden they go, you know, literal red and just swarm them just to hold their legs down for a grade to take a shot knowing that they're all going to die. How do you keep killing a lion? Exactly. Yeah. Home numbers. And I fundamentally believe anyone, any pretty much anyone can kill almost anyone at any time, right? That's why power is so interesting to me. Like, yeah, you might be the most powerful man in the room, but if your barber doesn't like you, [LAUGHTER] Exactly. If you might be the most powerful man in the world, if your barber doesn't like you, then he's more possible. If they have power to end your life, you know? And I love playing with the people that know that and respect that and how they treat that differently. You know, like, at Lysander wrestling with, you know, his question of fear or love, you know? But on the battlefield, it's really fun to play because you get to see things put to the test, right? Dero's line of saying, I would die for the truth that all men are created equal, right? But in our own world, we are endowed with equal rights, but we are certainly not created equal. If we are, if we are a created equal, shit, you know, I'd be a downhill skier in the NBA, you know? I love those things. Those are really fun. I don't like basketball. I think it's a flawed game, but-- There's only the last two minutes. Only the last two minutes matter. Two minutes matter. Yeah. And that last two minutes is the worst type of play. Oh, that is, yeah. Of Inny's fort. So it's like, if it's a close game, the last two minutes are just going to suck, in my opinion. In less you like the free throw. I was just going to say, you lost a portion of your fan base. Hey, that's OK. That's OK. It's not a peak 90s NBA anymore. We'll be OK. That's-- I loved. Yeah. I mean, I've spent too many hours watching Larry Bird highlight Reels on Twitter. Larry Bird. Oh, man. I love Sean Kemp. Sean Kemp. Sean Kemp, Garrett Payton. Those two on TV were so fun to watch. Oh my god. Yeah. Man, there was Sonic. Seattle was exotic to me. I was in Midwest in Texas. And Seattle was this fabled land. And then Green jerseys. And then Sean Kemp had that flat top. And Grunch. It was the coolest place in the 90s. Oh, yeah. I love 90s bass. It's totally different though. Those guys are just body in each other. There's no premium dies. They're like just real basketball. If you like basketball history, Luis Ball is just a fantastic read. It's about the ABS. Yeah, it's just how wild west it was in the ABS. I just got loose. Loose was it called loose balls? Loose balls. Yeah. Okay. I just want to be very specific. I get it right. Because yeah, don't Google that. Maybe. Maybe a pen that would mask a ball. I know these guys. They were they were our exanders. Other bodyguards. Yeah. Took us a second. Yeah. One of the things that we I particularly love and I know Charles and Chuck agrees the kind of morally gray spaces. We live in those spaces and we don't like to think about it that way. I don't think we like to think about it very often. You know, I think Ephraim is one of my favorite characters. Atlas is not one of my favorite but he's one of the most top provoking characters. And Publius T is one. Was it Caraville? Who's the brown, right? I'm sorry, I said it again. Publius, Caraville. Who's the Caraville? Yeah. So he has that line of just touching back on what you were just getting at is where I all men are created equal and I'm going to make them that way. I think that honestly that might be the most devastating line in the whole series for me. No, it's never brought that one up. I read it and was like, holy shit. This is that's the most dangerous man on the chess board right there. Somebody with that is like crazy. Do you recognize? Do you recognize the original quote? It's a change a little bit. Is it a style in quote? No. It's a guy who made a handgun quote or it's about that. It's about the handgun. Who? What? I'm so deeply. I'm very. Exactly. Look up Samuel Colt and Samuel Colt made men equal. I think that I don't want to butcher the phrasing. Get them all perked up. Yeah. Google search. I think this is where it comes from. I think they're like Smith and West. I think I'm in the same way. I got God made man. Sam Colt made them equal. Yes. That quote. I mean, it's awesome. It's slaps, but it's also crazy. I read that I was like 16 and I was like fuck. And then that stuff and it just pulled it out of the gumbo. You know, and then it was like that's obviously like what a crazy line for, you know, of any idea long to say. Truly. It's, you know, it's the most dangerous idea I think or one of them in the motion. No matter what his persuasion is, no one should say that. Never, never. Actually, while we're on quotes there, I got to know the endure speech. I am a huge Churchill guy. I'm sitting next to a whole bunch of Churchill. Oh, yeah. You were pulling straight. I know you, I know Mustang and DAXO have a moment where they kind of reference it and she has a straight quote. People have changed, but or times have changed, but people have it. Why, why should the speeches? But were you also using some Lincoln in there? There's a better, better angels line that I think. Okay. Good. I thought I was making it up in my head. No, I looked at figures that I thought Virginia would respect. Got. And I mind some of their sentiments. Some of the diction is particular early part of the speech. If I remember correctly, is Lincoln. And then Churchill on the kind of like the bridge to the close, you know, the, will fight him, you know, from the, you know, the dust planes of Mars or whatever. Yep. Some quotes I remember perfectly. He'll do ones I did so many iterations of. Like, what did I settle on? like that, the Victor quote, the pity them one, oh, cause it just like that all day. - Dude, that's one of the fucking coolest, I love that line, I love the extra butt, man, that line is sick. - That one, I stood up from the computer and I walked away like Eminemity and I'm, yeah. - Right, please stop. - That one, that one I was very much like, "It's working!" Once you're like, "I hope it works, you know?" - That's funny, that's great. - And this is important too, 'cause, Colin, we do our recaps going through your chapter by chapter. Colin likes to point out and be like, "I think this is where he's coming." - Yeah, this is where I think Pierce is going with what this and this is my idea. So just for you to confirm a handful of these right now, it's pretty awesome. - I know, I do it with your vote. - I do not claim to have inside knowledge. I don't know anything from anything. I'm not scholars by any means. - No, but that's okay. - Like, I'm operating on hunches and you guys are operating on hunches when you're reading, you know? It's instincts and you know, it not be correct, but I think we're all coming with the proper unity, so it's fine. - It's like, I like it if, for me, it's really rare for some of the deep cuts to be seen. So when you call them out, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I planted that nine years ago, "no one's brought it up." And I am so tickled pink that you thought of that. You know, like one of my favorite ones is as Adelante, they're referring to her favorite Roman strawberry. - I'm a calling McCulloch guy, so like, as soon as I read that, I was like, "Oh, okay, that's Sella." - Exactly it, yeah, and I think Sella is one of the most compelling figures in all Roman history. - Totally. - And that line he has, like on his epitaph, no friend ever did me right or like, and no enemy did me wrong, who I did not repay in kind. And in full, that's really-- - Really? - That's cool. This guy settled business and then retired to the country. You know, and led like an insane life before he even became, to be like Marius's sidekick essentially. And then to have the hoots put up, be like, "You know what, I could do this better "than the guy who's basically, "I think he was what nine times console." You know, he wins two massive, anyhow. - Yeah, no, crazy. - And just disagrees with him. - Totally. - Yeah, and like, if we're to believe Colin McCullough, which I kind of do based on Marius' actions, 'cause he seemed very wrapped up in his own ego. I think that hasty thing, that insecurity from being from the countryside and being the outsider just made him fucking chronically insecure. - Which is a Tississero too. So we know for a fact that it definitely had that effect on somebody. - Right, right. And I don't think Sella would have risen where he not so irritated by how irritated Marius was with him coming back with the Jagertha, you know? - Well, and you kind of hit on this on another interview that I'd watched recently where it's like, we often underplay that idea of the annoyed, non-professional who just is like, "You know what, they're not doing it right. "They're not doing that right or they're not doing it justice "and I can do that." And they don't report that idea. - Or motivating fact. - Or personal umbridge. - Look at that White House correspondent, Zinnor, and tell me that is the-- - That's the greatest example of that. I mean, dude. - That is a man assigning his life to Vendetta. And, you know, we could go further. One thing that I did-- - But that just shows you that humans have always been human. These are the same things. But imagine, imagine, imagine the political discourse on the rostrum and Rome, where all your competitors have gone to Rhodes and done two years of rhetoric, right? They're midway up the cursus and orm. They've all held posts. They've all been Lancers, a Decomps, some fields of battle, or at least been in the administration bureaucracy, right? It is a competitive game of what are those fish that kill each other when they're in the-- - Oh, that fish. - Japanese. That's it. - That's it. - Chris. - Again, Chris. - I actually have a few of those. - Yeah, it has a few. - That's me. - They're, because they're kind of like, you know, pitples in a way. And I don't mean that in like, pitples or, you know, pitples reflect their training and master in upbringing. I love pitples. But at the same time, you look at the construction of a pit bull and have votes. - Something. - You know, you look at the construction of the benefits they have, votes, something. The golds are, why I find Roman history so interesting from 132, from like, what is it? The crackhead brothers are 132, 135, 137 to 31. We see it to actium. It's so fucking cool because they're all playing within the same arena, the same rules, the same expectations, the same pressures, the same vulnerabilities of being out of office, right? And, you know, when you're out of office, your subject dumps console, you can be prosecuted and they're all just waiting, they're licking their chops. What does that remind you of? You know, right? It's not any different. Trying to use the courts, you know, as a tactic to seem like you're the valid, whether you are or not. You know, using the courts as a mechanism to go after your political rivals is as old as, you know, Rome as courts. - As old as we are, right? And so then seeing these beta fish, you know, all in the same ecosystem and pond, fighting with the same rules, no technological advances over each other, like the long bows, long bows is like, you know, it's crazy advanced technology. The Mongols are essentially all, you know, Apache helicopters compared to who they're fighting, right? The Vikings, the Vikings are like 250 years of like, of C-Tech and cultural technology, basically, of like the culture has, they have, they're out of a small population, but they're operating as though they have twice as many men because their women are guarding the, and running, Catica, Catica, and like, they're placed back home, right? - They've got four multipliers all over. - They've four multipliers in culture, like in their sociology, in their technology, they didn't even know for hundreds of years where the Vikings fucking came from. (laughing) - You know, - Imagine that just out of the mist, a long boat unloads just crazy, fucking. - And it's because your boats can't get across that damn North Sea, nothing even know where like it ends because you get there and it's just damn rocks, right? So like, you know, but I love, and I think you guys like, like this stuff too, like I was just talking to my mom about this. She was like talking about why, why does Scandinavian have such a great record with female leaders and progressivism, like why were they so far ahead of the Western world? My kind of argument is that surviving contact with the Western world as a tribal entity is almost impossible. - Totally. - In my mind, there's only really two that have thrived. And I would say, King Kamehameh is responsible for why the Hawaiians were able to do this. And then the Norse were able to do, were able to have this progressive and interesting structure because they had such a closed ecosystem, which so rape was extremely, extremely prosecutable and enforced, like within Viking civilization because the entire civilization breaks down. Like it's an existential threat. If someone's allowed to rape a woman back home when the men are away, right? It breaks down the entire tribal cohesion. So that is an enemy of the state there. And by necessity, we're talking about invention, right? Earlier, we invent when we're pressured. The Vikings had to survive as a, as a, as a, as a Vikings of verb, right? - Yep. - Vikings of verb. So their culture is the act that they do. They cannot Viking if they cannot trust the homefront to be safe. - Totally. - Right? So how could, it's a chicken egg scenario? Did they trust their women first or did they say, good luck with the kingdom? And then it turned out fine, you know what I mean? But the proof was there from like, from like a very original level, but it gave them an immense, a mensibility for to have like cohesion unity and to operate like a fist, right? As opposed to a bunch of scattered hands, you know? And you look at all these different reasons of why they were, you know, these cultures one, of course the Mongols were gonna fucking win, you know? As soon as soon as they were united, game over, you know, uniting them, that takes like a warrior, shaman, that's crazy. But once they're united, are you kidding me? Like what can anyone do? Like at all. - Literally nothing. - But in Rome, they were all operating on a flat playing field. And it's just, that's where you get to see the personalities evolve. That's where you get to see it. And that's what really inspired the kind of gold rivalries back and forth, right? And that's why Dero is meant to be so confusing. It because he's cosplaying as them, but doesn't have the same normative function they do. He doesn't have the same framework, right? And because he doesn't have the same framework, he's not gonna make the same assumptions. And when you're not making the same assumptions, you see all these assumptions they've made that is just considered normal. And they are not like, it's like, a lot of times in math equations from what I've read, and this may not be true anymore, but what I've read is like, the problem's at the beginning. It's an assumption you made is why they think, all of this works, but you've made an assumption of like a small thing that's held to be true. And it's because of that assumption that you're just a similar to the true, you're gonna spend years and years trying to solve this part and then realize this is the problem. And so that's why Dero is able to exploit that really well. And I think you can see that with like Alexander, Darius was completely confused by his style of warfare. He's going to, you know, is it Gagamela? - Yeah, Gagamela. - Draws the entire wing out. I forget what that moot maneuvers calls, but draw the wing out, extend the line, and then drive the companion cavalry down the seam that it's created just straight towards Darius, right? No one did a horse charging in the middle of a formation. They didn't have heavy cavalry. - Well, he wasn't maneuvering. - He like practiced that, which is crazy to me at Carinea. Like 10 years earlier, he has this idea. And he like, pegs it in the back of his mind and it's like at some point, this worked pretty well. We can refine it and make it more effective. But at some point, I'm gonna use this in a moment. And then he finds the fucking moment. It's unbelievable. - He was testing his hunch. The hunch worked, he gives the sacred band, worked really well, you know, but, and then he just applies it and it's actually probably easier to apply it there than it was against the Thibans, for sure. - Yeah, I mean, just the mass of the Persians makes it somehow. You know, he's turned their strength on its head and it becomes an actual weakness in the Persian form. - How confusing is communication on a modern battlefield? Now think about 250 different tribes that the Persians, the Subjugated tribes, the Persians have drawn on. All with different tech, all with different styles of fighting. I mean, the Persians were gonna lose. Now that Alexander chose to make it so decisive, that is crazy shit, like that he risks everything being at the spirit, like, I mean, - You guys know the campaign cap, "One guy, two guys, three guys." And Alexander's the one guy with like, "Cleetus here and I forget who's on this other side." You know, and it's, how could another king, who's been raised like a god, think that another king would do that? He has so much to lose, like, but he could-- - Everything. - Yeah. - Literally everything, right? - And it's in not just once he does it over and over, which goes to the idea of, he must have truly believed he was. It can't have all been propaganda. He must have really bought into the Achilles connection, the god connection there. - You know what they say, he did every morning. He did a prayer to Zeus, sacrifice the goat, or something equivalent every morning, which is like a meditation. It's a meditation, but he didn't, my guess is he wasn't saying to Zeus, he was saying father. - Father, yeah, that makes sense. - My guess, I don't know that for a fact. - No, but it makes total sense. And as you're talking, I'm thinking, Parmenio really reminds me of a mix of Lauren and Harnassus. There's like this kind of-- - I like that. - Not intended, but I like that. There wasn't-- - They have the same kind of effect on Dero of like, why I wouldn't do that? And, you know, well, I wouldn't if I were Parmenio either. That kind of mentality is what you see a lot of in Helio. - Yeah. - And also, if you're raised at the top, you're built to think of installation as in title. like you're entitled to insulation. Alexander, we talked about bravery, right? Like Alexander growing up with all the companions, like they knew everyone's capability. They had, that many ways was like a team, whether the teams were to spec ops, right? Except way more intense, because they'd known each other since they were like eight, you know? And how can you, how can you not be brave in front of them? So it's like Alexander putting himself at the front as a demand that everyone is as brave as him. And no one can be as brave as him, 'cause he's at the front. So you're always trying harder, right? To get a baseline. And it's psychologically so much sense. - We want to be respectful of your time. You should be. - I'll go another, I'll go another 30 with you. - Oh, well, thank you. That's awesome. - I'm a fun. I have one thing I wanted to get to. And then eventually Chris will have a question. But I'm a little bit. - He's doing great. He's doing great as he is. - He's doing great as he is. - So we talked about this idea of the gray matter not changing, everything else. And you kind of hit on it, and you can see it throughout history, there are these fantastic photos of bombs being dropped in Vietnam and World War II that say like, fuck you Tojo or you know? - Oh yeah. - So happy Christmas, Hanoi or whatever. - Yeah. - And then you see the little lead bullets that slingers and ancient Judea were slinging that would say like, you know, fuck your mom last night or, you know, here you go. - Yeah, my friend sent me that on Instagram and I didn't know it was existed until like a couple months ago. - There's a stone. If you, you know, I'll try and find the link for you. But there's a stone that's in the Sinai Peninsula. And it's graffiti covered from ancient Egyptian armies, British armies, Roman armies, all these guys and the two jokes. - That is so funny. - The two jokes that are most commonly. - I think it must be like, I'll kind of, I'll probably put it in the book. - Yeah, it's a major through way for the, you know, it's a conquering path. The major jokes on it are dick jokes and fart jokes. So our sense of humor is exactly the same. The brain has not changed. - No. - So my question to you, and this is something we see a lot in history, we talk about it where like ancient Rome, you know, Kato and Cicero are talking about returning to a version of Rome that was more conservative. Let's go back to the house I on days of the real Rome, the Rome that was. We see it now, we've seen it, you know, in the 50s, we saw that this return to a version of the nation or our state or whatever. - It's a hallmark of conservatives everywhere. - What were the golds ever actually shepherds? Did the society actually work the way that Lysander has convinced himself or is this a version of the propaganda that he has bought wholehearted or maybe he knows it's not. I just, I'm trying to decide for myself or if it's in your head or whatever, if that was the case, because then it creates the question of if it actually does work and it works the way that they say, can you justify a violent rebellion that costs millions upon millions of lives? - Yeah. - If a couple of tweaks to that system actually does provide what he's claiming it could. - Love the question. - Can't give you a specific answer. - But I can give you my thought process. My thought process, like, you know, red rising came about in a culmination of things. I was reading a antigony, I just read antigony, I had been reading Plato. No, I had been reading Aristotle and then I got reminded of Plato because I thought there was something about a philosopher, Kings, it was compelling based on some of your assaults. So I went back into Plato and got my dog eared copy from high school and saw how Delma was in high school. I think I was just highlighting to get like, 'cause the teacher would go through. You know, yeah, because I was reading Game of Thrones, you know what I mean? - Yeah. - Yeah, so I was in my big fantasy sci-fi kick, like I read, I don't know, everything that I could find, you know, in a very, I had a syllabus, I was going through it, you know? And so, but then I found myself back to, oh, it was Hyperion Dan Simmons's book that got me thinking about Greece and Rome again, Greece again. And so then I went back to start reading the plays because there's so many great, you know, Canterbury tales is obviously what Hyperion's based on, but there's a lot of amazing Greek references and stuff like that in there. So I went back to try to edify myself and found the Philosopher Kings. And in it, you know, the Plato's Republic is a conversation between imaginary, you know, guys, or philosophers who are challenging, you know, a thesis of, you know, the main, of Plato basically, he's standard. And in it, they're trying to find out what the proper form of government is for a city state. And they go through all of them and they're not so kind about democracy for a lot of reasons that are very valid. And they decided that a, you know, a benevolent monarch is basically the best form of government, right? But how do you institutionalize a benevolent monarch? You create and draw from your populace, people based on merit. So it's a pure meritocracy, right? And the pure meritocracy is just basically means to like to, to, you know, men of iron, you know, are warriors for us. The men of silver will mind the coin, but the men of gold are interior then they can come from any walk of life. We'll be trained in the humanities, trained in what it means to be human, mathematics, and all these things. And they will as kind of an oligarchy almost, you know, but like chosen by the people rule over the people. So it's educated, it's an educated, palate bureau kind of, right? (laughing) Because that's how you institutionalize a benevolent monarch. That's the hope, right? You teach the values of philosophy, the values of prudence, all these great values. And then they're supposed to select amongst themselves the best, right? Okay, great, cool. But, you know, I started looking at any form of government ends up in my mind turning into an oligarchy. I think every form of government does. And so I said the same thing would happen with this. And it happens because, you know, an educated group of, a small educated group of people almost always defeat and an educated or uninformed majority. That's what the game Mafia was created to show. I was just gonna say, the Mafia game, yeah. Right? The only time really that the town wins is when you play with people a lot and you start like, you know, being better at the game. Then you can sus it out. But if you're playing with a group of people that don't really know each other, the town almost never wins. And it's because trust is difficult, right? And when you know something, you're united by a secret advantage and you're gonna protect that advantage, right? But if you are united only in the suspicion you're being duped or united in violation, it's really hard to collaborate because you're not protecting, I mean, one, you're the majority. So even if you, like if you go to war, if you rebel, but then your neighbor Chad stays home, you know, Shagging all the people left over on the block and you die being brave and risk everything and Chad gets the benefit when Chad didn't do anything, but there's nothing pressuring Chad to do it. You know, if Chad's in a small group, he's pressured to do it because there's a degree of, well, you gotta do it, you know? Because we know, you know, and if you don't do it, we're just gonna, you know, the consequences are pretty immediate. But it's kind of the same thing about that volley fire I was talking about. The volley fire early on, they found out that most people don't want to kill someone else. Particularly when there's anonymity, it's kind of like the opposite to the internet. It's like that. (laughing) Right? So, but the group thing is you're pretending like you are, but the problem is everyone else is assuming that everyone else is killing the shoot, killing the aim, but they were estimating crazy numbers, and I don't want to talk out of my ass, but it was something like 50, 60%. They were saying we're trying not to hit the person, they were shooting over their heads. And I think to piggyback on that, the Grossman book, I think he's talking about, he covers that in World War II too. There was something like 60% of the guys fired their weapon, but not actually with an intent to hit anything or anyone. It's crazy, like it was like a million bullets per one that hit someone. Crazy. That's a ballpark figure, but it's crazy like that in that war. So they were trying to figure out how do we make people kill better in the American military? And sadly, they discovered the kind of secret sauce in the World War II theater. The accuracy of people in the Pacific front was way better than on the European theater, because they look different. Because they speak and have a different culture, speak different language, have a different culture, you don't recognize it, they're alien, right? Black Mirror did a great episode where they have, these guys are killing zombies or monsters or whatever, and it turns out that they're just like refugees, but it's like these implants that turn them into the target, but that's what we do, and we do it strategically, right? We use the word "murderer" to make people feel like they're to when it was conscripts and stuff, it's a bit different now. The intentionality of people joining is different in a volunteer army. But in a conscript army was extremely difficult. And so they did it by basically painting them as the other. And it was really effective, like really effective. And so I tried to employ things like that into red rising as well. But the reason I brought it up is the Bolli Fire. What was I connecting it to? I didn't sleep last night, so my first-- - Yeah, no worries. Whether or not the golds were ever actually the shepherds that they came to be. - And so everyone is like, when you're in like a big group, everyone's assuming that someone also step up. Where a small group, there's a responsibility to protect the small group. So the golds will be much more prone to acting and doing something and protecting what's theirs as opposed to rebels rising up and wondering, is it worth it? I have some-- and I think that's part of capitalism is-- I really fundamentally believe this-- capitalism is a really, really, really, really good thing to stop a rebellion. Because capitalism provides bounty. Capitalism provides a lot of reasons not to go to war, not to risk everything. Because life, even if it's unfair, is pretty fucking good. If you measure it against the standard living that in the world, really, if you measure the standard living against people in time, it's pretty good to be even like him. It's pretty good. Now relative to other people, what other people have, perhaps not in the society. But are you gonna go to war because you're jealous of someone having something to think that's unfair, but you have a home you got. You know, your kids can eat, you can eat. That's not a concern, right? And that, keeping people in like a limbo if it's not worth it to rebel, I think is far more effective than any military force. So it incentivizes status quo. So I felt that the goals would just pervert the system like anything else because power gets fucked up and I look at Marcus Aurelius for this. Marcus Aurelius, right? The wakus man in all of Rome, right? And I mean that in terms of he was extremely, extremely progressive, right? And extremely conscious about power, extremely conscious about philosophy and where he stood in things and how small his share of time on earth is and also how powerless he is as the most powerful man in the world, right? And he leaves, he leaves it to communist. He leaves it to communist, a psychopath who had fought 750 times in the arena. Not one, 740 times. What? That's like given the presidency like Logan Paul. You know? Well, we found the TikTok clip. That's the thing. To the 30s guy out there, you know? And it's like, that's the prudence of a father, you know what I mean? And so that's the prudence with its goals would pass down there. Even if they had a great idea at the beginning, how quick is it going to be perverted because people like giving shit to their kids? I think that's, that answers the question without. No, but it does, it gets the, it gets the, to the, the meat of it, the meat of the thing. Well, I, I, we could keep going and asking these, these kind of questions, but I, 10 minutes on I can bookie. Okay, we've got a quick round that we want to hit. We've each got a couple of questions here. Cars to go to D'Lenday asked, is that the route for Mars must fall? Yeah, of course. Thank God. That was, keep me up at night. Tonya, you're making his day. Yeah. Lysander, I have a pet theory that this is his arc Iron Gold is fear, dark ages, honor and lightbringer is interest. The argument to sit at ease makes that states and people all act out of fear, honor and interest. Is it might anywhere near the mark with that? Yeah. Maybe not. Chuck, maybe I fucked up. I fucked up. No, no, no, no, no, structure's great. My conclusion might not be. Okay. You know, because again, I like the little twist, right? And like I think like Plato was on the money with like breaking shit down, but just as flawed as everyone else, because he's, you know, he's dealing with the flawed creature. So it's like, yeah, I love that logical, the framework of it. But I think that, you know, one could also make the case that Lysander was learning a great deal about fear in, in the second book. So it just, it's an inspiration, but it's not a rule. Makes sense. I, we, we've done some fanfic here that I've written. Oh, what are your feelings on fanfic? Because I felt we were doing it and I was excited. And then I was like, how did it? It's like George Martin talks about, you know, I read his Hollywood reporter article. He talks about how there his like kids and nobody should touch him. And then I was like, oh, shit, maybe Pierce feels that way about his characters. Is that that? Yeah, yeah. Well, it was more about if he dies and nobody will be allowed to finish it, but it wasn't about. Oh, yeah. No, I agree. I don't want, I don't think anyone should, I think that the arrogance to presume to raise your hand for that, um, you should be slapped. Um, I think that that is fundamental, I think that is fundamentally disrespectful. Uh, I would prefer never to have the next two books and someone else do. Um, that's my belief on it. I agree. I agree. But you're okay with saying, I would say that. Yeah. Was that but you're okay with fan. Yeah. Yeah. Well, just imagine he, Colin has written up and did a really cool ragnar with his deep love and riding voice. So, well, no, it, it stems from what you had said earlier about or in some other interview, you had mentioned how like you just were wondering what was happening, uh, in game it's wrong. It's like what, so you were like, I'm going to write the series. Yeah. And so I was wondering like, what was the conversation between our NASIS and Orion when they got the orders to send the white fleet or like, yeah, what's ragnar doing in the, the ready room when all the sudden he hears Darryl's voice alarm. Like, what's he thinking? You know, yeah. Um, but I love that. No, just wanted to clear that with the man. That's why I think that like a lot of times there are sometimes where I'm, you know, don't want to talk about, I don't want to talk about aspects of red rising like, like the, like the, uh, process and all that crap is not fun. I really love talking about the world and seeing how you guys see it. And I don't know. I'm just at the end of it. Like the end of the day, like I built a fort in the woods and you guys are coming and playing them. Fort with me. And if you guys built a new parapet over there, I'm like, I want to see like, you know, let me in. Yeah. It's just like, it's yeah, I just, I just get so enthusiastic about it because it's like the stuff I like. So I love to hear you. I really, I love to hear you. That's what I believe. Um, and my last one for you is what are you reading right now? And do you have any, you know, there, my brother started, he hasn't read a lot of history and he found it a little difficult to get into the swing of like names and where things are leading and stuff like that. What do you recommend for history books for people to kind of get the sense of what you're doing? Oh, Rubicon. Rubicon Tom Holland. Yeah. I think it is the best, um, is the most digestible, but also detailed and comprehensive, but he does good narrative throughout. It's totally digestible. Someone who's a alien to Roman history. Um, and Tom Holland does an amazing job at, at, yeah, amazing job at making it palatable without talking down. Yeah. Um, I, I just, I really think the world of that guy. Yeah. Persian fires. One of my top five all times. So darn good. So darn good. I love that book. Um, Stephen Pressfield, I think that history courses are fucked up and we learn not to, it's kind of, I think history courses off to make the same mistake that I was accusing, um, a lot of big fantasy TV shows that are making. And I think that they're trying to get us to cognitively comprehend important, like just dates and stuff. And none of that matters unless you have a connection to it. I think that every history course should start with a historical fiction. Um, I'll book set in that period. Like, you know, you're doing colonial histories, do a Johnny Traumane book. Yeah. Uh, because as soon as, as soon as you do that and it's, if, if the connect to the character, the brain starts doing what you do, you're populating the, the gaps. You're, you're thinking about the character, what he's up to and doing based on what you know of the world. So then when you, when you learn about, I don't know, um, the battle of the bullpen's or like, you know, bunker hill or something, you're, you're kind of seeing it like through how it would affect people and you're seeing it because you're not just engaged on your logic, your emotions engaged and you're empathizing. And I think that that allows us to really, really like put ourselves in a situation and we have this thing called like a modernity bias, right? Where now, now these fools out there are saying, you know, really believe that aliens created the pyramids because they can't, they can't, because they can't grasp that humans were that's sophisticated, it can't have happened. So the fault can't be with their imagination. I think that it has to do with a modernity bias, and thinking that people in the past were dumb or the nuts, in fact most of the people in the past would walk circles around us with basic competency. Because the amount. They had to be Swiss army knives of people, and they're doing it withbooking like, you know, negative five five negative nine vision, you know. Like like. I think I would have been a great soldier in a lot of ways, like, you know, a massive on army and stuff. But I have fucking bad eyesight. Like. But is that a product of selection based on us having the ability to fix that? And I wouldn't have had it, maybe, or maybe just 20% of the population was just butt. Yeah. From the jump. Right. And so I just think that we have this modernity bias. And like if you see colorized World War II footage, all of a sudden it seems way less like magical. Or distant. Or distant. You know, that's the big thing is that we have this. It's a, yeah, exactly. And it's a failure of imagination that is the biggest problem with history being taught. I think that's a brilliant idea. I'm sure. Failure of imagination and like an incredible, an incredible misunderstanding of your own abilities. 100%. Chris, now it's your time to shine. You've got questions. Please ask them. I'll be quick. Much like Colin wants to justify his quote, "theor is here. I have one on Ragnar." So we just covered blood brothers. And as a tattoo person myself, I was wondering, is the order of his mother's sister and father tattoos going down to his feet? Is that intentional? Or is it am I just reading way too far into that? It's intentional. Yeah. So they'd be building like a power column. Right. Kind of like the Mongolian spirit banners. Hmm. You know, they had the horse, the mains of each of their best horses, you know? And I think for them for Ragnar, it's like the forces that influence them. Right. Yeah. Cool. All right. And then one of my sticks is doing alternate chapter titles. So I just wanted to pitch my record. Red God alternate titles here. Yeah. If you want to use one, we'll clip it so no one knows the link. So we're big say in heads here. So red dot is my first one. Red dot? Yeah. Off of blue dot. And then Jupiter descending in honor of the sci-fi movie Jupiter ascending to tie into the end of the white bringer. So that's what I got for you. I was so concerned because I know how much they loved Neuromancer and I saw the matrix. I was really worried when Jupiter sent me came out and then I watched it and I was like, "Oh, no, mine." Yeah. You're good. You're good. Oh, man. Yeah. That one. There's so many things that just I can see how it seemed cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's a fever dream. I just got just quick little random ones. But if you could go back throughout the series, swap out character wise and actually have them accept the rising. The sun's a derro. No, not this question. Have you gotten it before? Because then I'll let it. No, no, no, no. I've gotten this flavor. And the, but keep going. So who would I put on derro side for the opportunity? Yeah. Who would change its tactics? I would want tactics. So this is a long debate that we've had is actually between tactics and Lauren. Oh, but Lauren fundamentally wouldn't. He couldn't, you know, tactics could have would have. Lauren was too baked. Lauren was too baked, you know. Okay. Have you ever seen an old man trying to stripes like that? You know what I mean? What a nice. Yeah. Brits my heart, man. I've been arguing old dog from your mouth, from God's use, from God's lips to my ears. You know, Rommel, Rommel, Rommel was a great man who killed a lot of allied soldiers. You know, and I look at it kind of from that prism. They don't have to be on your side to have dignity and they can, they can, don't have to be good to have dignity. And I think Lauren had dignity, but he wasn't morally good. I mean, Romulus Al-Raz, like the pinnacle of that, I think. And I'd argue he's a better way better person than Lauren is. For sure. The problem is Lauren is just, was complicit in so much. Yes. I'm looking at this fucking shunned aside. I'm looking at his portrait and weeping myself to, to bed here. That's beautiful. Think about the, think about the circle figures you admire. True. True. You George Washington, and George Washington wasn't really exceptional at violence. No, he's true. He's a very bad battlefield tactist. Yes. Like to come to Sherman, like that is a, that is a, that is a scary customer. Antis too, the big inspirations for, for characters. Oh, okay. Like Darrow is a lot of Ulysses S Grant. I totally see that. Not in, not in terms of his personality, but in terms of his, his general shape. How we place it? Yeah. And please tell me that we don't have the same final act. I just finished Grant's memoirs and I mean, that last is brutal. He's going searching, he's going searching. Oh, these, oh, these. Well, then, well, let's hope that, no, no, I'm red that. Few thousand. We don't, again, we want to be respectful of your time. We really appreciate you. No, I didn't. I do too, because I got to work some and I would just keep talking. Well, we've got one last thing we didn't want to do. No, we know God because we know you're working on it. And we first off off the top, take your fucking time, man. You don't owe us anything. Take your fucking time. Do it when you're ready. But we have our ideas of red gods ending. We want to pitch to you. Chris, go ahead. All right. So, Lysander sees thousands of versions of the future and throws himself into a pit of Oracle. He lives for 10,000 years as a human Oracle hybrid with hundreds, hundreds of passionate bullies by his side. Lysander, I'll let you. It's new heart. AI generated Bob Newhart wakes up and realize it was all a dream. I did that. I said a bike, like a couple of years ago, I said a bike messenger, a Portland bike messenger. He got hit from a road diet. He got teabond and wakes up and Darrow's just a Uber eats delivery driver. That almost kind of leads into mine. Mine was just, it was all a gold simulation running through Doomsday scenarios of how to prevent their future downfall. And it's like the sovereign inner chair was the simulation device and she's pretty brutal. Yeah. Yeah. I can see why I love Dark Age. Could you imagine the betrayal? That's a contract betrayal. I should be. I'm not going to say, I would never. I almost had him. All right. Well, we truly do appreciate your time. And again, take your time with Red Godman. We can't wait to, we can't wait to dive in. Yeah, well, this was straight up some of the best time I've had on the internet in a while. So thank you. All right. And that's the end of the episode. I love it.