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Source: collected/002-dev-commentary-7-puzzl-web-3-short-story-the-project.mp3
SHA-256: 57884a0d880e343b73b2faccaf5340e64435c5d7c93eebfd96720c82f2dc5ca9
00:00:00.060 Speaker 1 [intro jingle]
00:00:06.720 Speaker 1 Hello.
00:00:08.880 Speaker 1 You thought I was dead.
00:00:12.560 Speaker 1 Well, I'm not, and neither is this project. Neither are the stories.
00:00:18.460 Speaker 1 Quite the opposite, actually.
00:00:21.080 Speaker 1 We are deep in production on a story project called Puzzle. Now, this is taking the
00:00:26.740 Speaker 1 place of Allegiance, which we'll do another time. It's another major story in the
00:00:31.920 Speaker 1 Revealer block, and I am immensely excited about it.
00:00:37.700 Speaker 1 However, I know what you're thinking. "What is this lecture? What, why are you
00:00:43.160 Speaker 1 talking to me? All I want is a cyborg preacher and his lovable companions
00:00:49.280 Speaker 1 fighting demons. What, what do you keep talking to me about?" Well, you're gonna
00:00:54.240 Speaker 1 have to listen to me talk for a little while longer. But if you can hold on, I've
00:00:58.340 Speaker 1 got a small side story called "The Project" set in the Mortal Steel universe with
00:01:04.459 Speaker 1 just a few familiar characters. So stay tuned for the end. Before that,
00:01:10.520 Speaker 1 quick updates on project timelines, everything that's going on in terms of
00:01:14.160 Speaker 1 Collected. So as I've said many times, this is not a podcast. Now, this is a
00:01:19.700 Speaker 1 podcast that you're listening to, and that podcast is a part of a bigger thing.
00:01:26.440 Speaker 1 We are trying to find ways for creators to get paid, i.e., make a
00:01:32.220 Speaker 1 living with their art, and for their supporters to receive more and more
00:01:38.220 Speaker 1 value, better experiences, cooler products, and sometimes financial
00:01:44.020 Speaker 1 upside when things work out.
00:01:47.320 Speaker 1 Now, it's been a hot minute since the last time I've talked about this. Now, the
00:01:52.220 Speaker 1 last time I talked about Web3 and what it's for and why it's important, nobody knew
00:01:58.080 Speaker 1 what the heck I was talking about, and it was easy to rant. Now a bunch of pictures
00:02:02.700 Speaker 1 of some monkeys sold for a lot of money, and everyone's mad. So I'm going to take
00:02:07.640 Speaker 1 just a moment to reiterate the values that this project is based on, what
00:02:13.680 Speaker 1 I call Web3 fundamentals. All right. Not that any criticisms
00:02:20.020 Speaker 1 leveled at the current state of play are unearned, but let me state why I think this
00:02:24.340 Speaker 1 is important succinctly, and then we'll move on to the fun stuff.
00:02:30.220 Speaker 1 To me, the three most important Web3 fundamentals, these are the innovations it has
00:02:35.520 Speaker 1 over Web 2.0 are, one, aligned financials,
00:02:41.400 Speaker 1 two, decentralized control, three, digital ownership. What the heck does
00:02:47.440 Speaker 1 any of that mean? I'll give it to you on an index card because now is not the time.
00:02:51.460 Speaker 1 Aligned financials. Hey, if we, that means the creators, if we make money, you
00:02:57.480 Speaker 1 make money. It also means if we don't make money, you don't make money. Up
00:03:03.540 Speaker 1 together, down together.
00:03:06.820 Speaker 1 And that's a beautiful thing because it means I'm incentivized to help you. You're
00:03:11.300 Speaker 1 incentivized to help me. It's a great way to do that. Number two, decentralized
00:03:15.700 Speaker 1 control. What does that mean? All that means is the people at the top don't have all
00:03:20.220 Speaker 1 the power. They share it with the people all around, and they don't just share it on
00:03:24.680 Speaker 1 their word. They don't just share it with some policies on a piece of paper. They
00:03:29.380 Speaker 1 don't share it under the premise that they're being nice, and that this is a gift.
00:03:35.160 Speaker 1 It is not decentralized contribution, decentralized sharing. It is decentralized
00:03:41.180 Speaker 1 control. We're giving people actual control, and you guys will have
00:03:47.140 Speaker 1 power over things that we do with all of our projects, whether we like it or not.
00:03:52.980 Speaker 1 That's called decentralized control. You have actual control over the overall brand,
00:03:57.900 Speaker 1 the direction, how the stories are used, how they're monetized. You have real
00:04:02.300 Speaker 1 control. That's important. It's important because if you
00:04:07.700 Speaker 1 disagree with the people running the show, they have to listen to you.
00:04:13.940 Speaker 1 It's not, it's not a request, and that's important in both directions.
00:04:20.000 Speaker 1 But you gotta use that control wisely. Number three, digital ownership.
00:04:26.560 Speaker 1 The first two are beautiful things, and digital ownership is the cherry on top. It's
00:04:30.840 Speaker 1 the thing that says, "Hey, I own this thing that gives me control, that gives me
00:04:35.960 Speaker 1 aligned financials. I own it, and no one can forcefully take it from me." It is
00:04:41.840 Speaker 1 secured by math and physics. It's a digital deed that says you have control, that
00:04:47.380 Speaker 1 says you have aligned financials. It's the part that enforces the rules and allows
00:04:51.780 Speaker 1 you to trade it and allows you to sell it.
00:04:55.040 Speaker 1 Ownership is an incredibly important innovation. Right now, it is enforced with
00:05:00.080 Speaker 1 essentially police and military, right? At the end of the day, that's how the law is
00:05:03.620 Speaker 1 enforced. Now, and hopefully more in the future as we lean into digital
00:05:09.400 Speaker 1 ownership, a great deal of that security comes from math and physics, from
00:05:15.060 Speaker 1 cryptography. That is the thing that proves that you own something, that you have
00:05:19.820 Speaker 1 control, and that you deserve aligned financials. Those three things together are
00:05:25.520 Speaker 1 incredible innovations. And let's be clear, they are social constructs.
00:05:31.540 Speaker 1 It's just made up. That's what it means. It's just a fancy way of saying, "Yo, we
00:05:35.720 Speaker 1 made this stuff up." All it is from an engineer's perspective, TCPIC--
00:05:40.940 Speaker 1 TCP/IP, I'm not even gonna edit that out, UDP, HTTP,
00:05:47.160 Speaker 1 plus blockchain. That's it. That's all I'm talking about. But those protocol-level
00:05:53.440 Speaker 1 innovations are not interesting. These are the concepts that were enabled by
00:05:59.480 Speaker 1 those technological innovations. These are the social innovations that we're putting
00:06:04.220 Speaker 1 on top.
00:06:06.720 Speaker 1 And those innovations are just as important now, if not more so, than they were in
00:06:10.900 Speaker 1 October or November the last time I was talking about it.
00:06:15.820 Speaker 1 Now, I'm trying to take an active role alongside this incredible team that was crazy
00:06:21.760 Speaker 1 enough to take part ownership in this enterprise. We're trying to take active
00:06:26.420 Speaker 1 control over that narrative because there really is something important here. It
00:06:31.620 Speaker 1 would be such a shame to miss an incredible paradigm shift for creators and
00:06:37.000 Speaker 1 supporters of storytellers, artists, musicians, to miss out on this chance to use an
00:06:42.180 Speaker 1 incredible tool to our benefit. But skepticism is always, always welcome.
00:06:49.500 Speaker 1 Pretty words and big promises are not enough to make major change,
00:06:55.480 Speaker 1 but they are necessary. And if you're skeptical that any of this is worth your time
00:07:00.780 Speaker 1 and you really just wanna listen to some stories and you don't give a crap, that's
00:07:04.580 Speaker 1 totally fine. We will continue to deliver awesome stories, and we will never, ever
00:07:10.120 Speaker 1 try to make people care about social or cultural movements or even technological
00:07:15.640 Speaker 1 innovations that they don't care about. Instead, we're just gonna try and give you
00:07:21.280 Speaker 1 awesome stuff, and we're gonna tell you at every turn what you're going to get if
00:07:26.460 Speaker 1 you choose to buy it, if you choose to listen to the free stuff, if you choose to
00:07:31.060 Speaker 1 help us make these stories, if you choose to tell your own stories or make your own
00:07:35.720 Speaker 1 art or build your own projects with us in some other way. All we're going to do
00:07:41.920 Speaker 1 is show you what value you could get and then deliver over and
00:07:47.820 Speaker 1 over and over again until the critics have to acknowledge at the
00:07:53.660 Speaker 1 very least there was one small organization who seems to have done
00:07:59.280 Speaker 1 something neat with this, and they're probably worth your time even if everyone else
00:08:04.380 Speaker 1 isn't. So all that said, very cool things coming.
00:08:10.380 Speaker 1 Puzzle is deep in production. We've got a team of eight people now, not including
00:08:15.560 Speaker 1 any of the voice actors. Writing is about halfway done. I have another short story,
00:08:21.400 Speaker 1 uh, in the pipeline to tide you over a little bit, and I will occasionally drip
00:08:26.580 Speaker 1 content into this podcast feed, but there will be some silence because we have
00:08:31.080 Speaker 1 really, really cool big things coming that are way beyond the scope of just an audio
00:08:35.580 Speaker 1 story. Of course, Puzzle is an audio story, and you will get to listen to that too.
00:08:40.900 Speaker 1 And because it hasn't been said outright yet, the final thing I would like to impart
00:08:47.500 Speaker 1 is as long as I draw breath, Mortal Steel episodes 11 and 12, and 12
00:08:53.360 Speaker 1 part two probably, because it's real long, are going to be completed.
00:08:59.420 Speaker 1 All of the source files necessary to complete those episodes are safely stored, and
00:09:04.660 Speaker 1 it will be completed.
00:09:08.340 Speaker 1 Until then, I hope you enjoy The Project.
00:09:14.500 Speaker 1 This short story is set somewhere, I'd say episodes-- between episodes
00:09:21.000 Speaker 1 four and six of Mortal Steel. Enjoy.
00:09:26.300 Speaker 1 See ya.
00:09:31.860 Speaker 1 Mortal Steel: The Project.
00:09:38.980 Speaker 1 Archbishop Gabriel Kline looked down at the mech schematics on his desk and for the
00:09:44.880 Speaker 1 10,000th time wondered if he'd gone insane.
00:09:50.600 Speaker 1 No, this made sense. There were good reasons to build a humanoid mech. It
00:09:56.540 Speaker 1 could go on stairs, very big stairs. That would be helpful if
00:10:02.540 Speaker 1 they ever fought demons on a pyramid. He called in two nuns, his
00:10:08.520 Speaker 1 best engineers, to give him status updates.
00:10:11.180 Speaker 1 [door opening]
00:10:16.840 Speaker 1 Sisters Ursula and Gretchen traded silent glares of concern with each other.
00:10:22.999 Speaker 2 Can it climb? It can't climb.
00:10:27.480 Speaker 2 Can it jump?
00:10:29.380 Speaker 3 Uh, no, sir.
00:10:31.640 Speaker 1 Gabriel drummed his fingers on the desk. He wasn't insane.
00:10:37.740 Speaker 1 Maybe he could tell them about the pyramid idea.
00:10:40.900 Speaker 3 Archbishop, we have some concerns about the project.
00:10:45.180 Speaker 1 The first nun glanced at the other. What? Had they rehearsed this? Was
00:10:51.060 Speaker 1 this, this some kind of intervention?
00:10:55.100 Speaker 2 Material storage wants to know why we need so much titanium. Tell them we're
00:11:00.180 Speaker 2 building shelves, very expensive, very light shelves.
00:11:06.020 Speaker 3 What about power storage? Generation? We don't have enough solid state batteries,
00:11:11.360 Speaker 3 and it's too small for our fission reactors, unless we design a new one.
00:11:16.700 Speaker 2 How long can it run on traditional batteries?
00:11:19.800 Speaker 3 Um, maybe two or three minutes.
00:11:24.020 Speaker 1 There were excellent reasons to build a 30-foot tall humanoid exoskeleton. For
00:11:29.900 Speaker 1 one, you could drive it. Secondly, it was pretty damn cool.
00:11:36.400 Speaker 1 Was he losing it?
00:11:38.660 Speaker 3 Archbishop, how do we keep this a secret? It's not something we can hide for long.
00:11:44.620 Speaker 2 Okay, hear me out. [upbeat music] What if we build it in pieces?
00:11:50.440 Speaker 2 Maybe disguise each piece as a vehicle or, or an animal, and then they
00:11:56.460 Speaker 2 can be reassembled.
00:11:57.940 Speaker 1 Their wide-eyed stares stopped him short.
00:12:01.060 Speaker 2 [sighs] There's only one reason we're building a mech.
00:12:07.760 Speaker 1 They leaned in, their practical minds eager to make sense of this madness he'd put
00:12:13.660 Speaker 1 them through over the past few months.
00:12:15.960 Speaker 2 Because it's completely, utterly, hopelessly impractical. You don't need to keep it
00:12:21.020 Speaker 2 secret. No one will believe you. Just build it in the clean room. If you put up
00:12:26.360 Speaker 2 enough biohazard and radiation signs, no one will get nosy.
00:12:31.680 Speaker 1 They nodded slowly. It was enough. They would keep working.
00:12:38.180 Speaker 2 Do you still want us to do the transforming animal thing? No, that was a joke.
00:12:45.400 Speaker 1 In a better world, though, when there wasn't a demon army bearing down on top of
00:12:51.440 Speaker 1 them, he might have said yes.
00:12:54.480 Speaker 1 [door closing]
00:13:16.260 Speaker 2 [sighs] [upbeat music]