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Speaker 1: [intro jingle]

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Speaker 1: Hello.

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Speaker 1: You thought I was dead.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'm not, and neither is this
project. Neither are the stories.

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Speaker 1: Quite the opposite, actually.

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Speaker 1: We are deep in production on a story
project called Puzzle. Now, this is taking the

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Speaker 1: place of Allegiance, which we'll do
another time. It's another major story in the

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Speaker 1: Revealer block, and I am immensely
excited about it.

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Speaker 1: However, I know what you're thinking.
"What is this lecture? What, why are you

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Speaker 1: talking to me? All I want is a cyborg
preacher and his lovable companions

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Speaker 1: fighting demons. What, what do you
keep talking to me about?" Well, you're gonna

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Speaker 1: have to listen to me talk for a
little while longer. But if you can hold on,
I've

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Speaker 1: got a small side story called "The
Project" set in the Mortal Steel universe with

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Speaker 1: just a few familiar characters. So
stay tuned for the end. Before that,

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Speaker 1: quick updates on project timelines,
everything that's going on in terms of

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Speaker 1: Collected. So as I've said many
times, this is not a podcast. Now, this is a

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Speaker 1: podcast that you're listening to, and
that podcast is a part of a bigger thing.

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Speaker 1: We are trying to find ways for
creators to get paid, i.e., make a

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Speaker 1: living with their art, and for their
supporters to receive more and more

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Speaker 1: value, better experiences, cooler
products, and sometimes financial

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Speaker 1: upside when things work out.

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Speaker 1: Now, it's been a hot minute since the
last time I've talked about this. Now, the

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Speaker 1: last time I talked about Web3 and
what it's for and why it's important, nobody
knew

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Speaker 1: what the heck I was talking about,
and it was easy to rant. Now a bunch of pictures

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Speaker 1: of some monkeys sold for a lot of
money, and everyone's mad. So I'm going to take

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Speaker 1: just a moment to reiterate the values
that this project is based on, what

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Speaker 1: I call Web3 fundamentals. All right.
Not that any criticisms

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Speaker 1: leveled at the current state of play
are unearned, but let me state why I think this

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Speaker 1: is important succinctly, and then
we'll move on to the fun stuff.

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Speaker 1: To me, the three most important Web3
fundamentals, these are the innovations it has

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Speaker 1: over Web 2.0 are, one, aligned
financials,

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Speaker 1: two, decentralized control, three,
digital ownership. What the heck does

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Speaker 1: any of that mean? I'll give it to you
on an index card because now is not the time.

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Speaker 1: Aligned financials. Hey, if we, that
means the creators, if we make money, you

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Speaker 1: make money. It also means if we don't
make money, you don't make money. Up

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Speaker 1: together, down together.

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Speaker 1: And that's a beautiful thing because
it means I'm incentivized to help you. You're

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Speaker 1: incentivized to help me. It's a great
way to do that. Number two, decentralized

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Speaker 1: control. What does that mean? All
that means is the people at the top don't have
all

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Speaker 1: the power. They share it with the
people all around, and they don't just share it
on

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Speaker 1: their word. They don't just share it
with some policies on a piece of paper. They

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Speaker 1: don't share it under the premise that
they're being nice, and that this is a gift.

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Speaker 1: It is not decentralized contribution,
decentralized sharing. It is decentralized

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Speaker 1: control. We're giving people actual
control, and you guys will have

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Speaker 1: power over things that we do with all
of our projects, whether we like it or not.

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Speaker 1: That's called decentralized control.
You have actual control over the overall brand,

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Speaker 1: the direction, how the stories are
used, how they're monetized. You have real

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Speaker 1: control. That's important. It's
important because if you

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Speaker 1: disagree with the people running the
show, they have to listen to you.

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Speaker 1: It's not, it's not a request, and
that's important in both directions.

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Speaker 1: But you gotta use that control
wisely. Number three, digital ownership.

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Speaker 1: The first two are beautiful things,
and digital ownership is the cherry on top. It's

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Speaker 1: the thing that says, "Hey, I own this
thing that gives me control, that gives me

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Speaker 1: aligned financials. I own it, and no
one can forcefully take it from me." It is

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Speaker 1: secured by math and physics. It's a
digital deed that says you have control, that

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Speaker 1: says you have aligned financials.
It's the part that enforces the rules and allows

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Speaker 1: you to trade it and allows you to
sell it.

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Speaker 1: Ownership is an incredibly important
innovation. Right now, it is enforced with

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Speaker 1: essentially police and military,
right? At the end of the day, that's how the law
is

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Speaker 1: enforced. Now, and hopefully more in
the future as we lean into digital

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Speaker 1: ownership, a great deal of that
security comes from math and physics, from

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Speaker 1: cryptography. That is the thing that
proves that you own something, that you have

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Speaker 1: control, and that you deserve aligned
financials. Those three things together are

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Speaker 1: incredible innovations. And let's be
clear, they are social constructs.

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Speaker 1: It's just made up. That's what it
means. It's just a fancy way of saying, "Yo, we

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Speaker 1: made this stuff up." All it is from
an engineer's perspective, TCPIC--

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Speaker 1: TCP/IP, I'm not even gonna edit that
out, UDP, HTTP,

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Speaker 1: plus blockchain. That's it. That's
all I'm talking about. But those protocol-level

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Speaker 1: innovations are not interesting.
These are the concepts that were enabled by

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Speaker 1: those technological innovations.
These are the social innovations that we're
putting

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Speaker 1: on top.

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Speaker 1: And those innovations are just as
important now, if not more so, than they were in

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Speaker 1: October or November the last time I
was talking about it.

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Speaker 1: Now, I'm trying to take an active
role alongside this incredible team that was
crazy

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Speaker 1: enough to take part ownership in this
enterprise. We're trying to take active

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Speaker 1: control over that narrative because
there really is something important here. It

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Speaker 1: would be such a shame to miss an
incredible paradigm shift for creators and

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Speaker 1: supporters of storytellers, artists,
musicians, to miss out on this chance to use an

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Speaker 1: incredible tool to our benefit. But
skepticism is always, always welcome.

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Speaker 1: Pretty words and big promises are not
enough to make major change,

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Speaker 1: but they are necessary. And if you're
skeptical that any of this is worth your time

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Speaker 1: and you really just wanna listen to
some stories and you don't give a crap, that's

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Speaker 1: totally fine. We will continue to
deliver awesome stories, and we will never, ever

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Speaker 1: try to make people care about social
or cultural movements or even technological

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Speaker 1: innovations that they don't care
about. Instead, we're just gonna try and give
you

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Speaker 1: awesome stuff, and we're gonna tell
you at every turn what you're going to get if

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Speaker 1: you choose to buy it, if you choose
to listen to the free stuff, if you choose to

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Speaker 1: help us make these stories, if you
choose to tell your own stories or make your own

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Speaker 1: art or build your own projects with
us in some other way. All we're going to do

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Speaker 1: is show you what value you could get
and then deliver over and

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Speaker 1: over and over again until the critics
have to acknowledge at the

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Speaker 1: very least there was one small
organization who seems to have done

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Speaker 1: something neat with this, and they're
probably worth your time even if everyone else

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Speaker 1: isn't. So all that said, very cool
things coming.

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Speaker 1: Puzzle is deep in production. We've
got a team of eight people now, not including

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Speaker 1: any of the voice actors. Writing is
about halfway done. I have another short story,

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Speaker 1: uh, in the pipeline to tide you over
a little bit, and I will occasionally drip

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Speaker 1: content into this podcast feed, but
there will be some silence because we have

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Speaker 1: really, really cool big things coming
that are way beyond the scope of just an audio

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Speaker 1: story. Of course, Puzzle is an audio
story, and you will get to listen to that too.

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Speaker 1: And because it hasn't been said
outright yet, the final thing I would like to
impart

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Speaker 1: is as long as I draw breath, Mortal
Steel episodes 11 and 12, and 12

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Speaker 1: part two probably, because it's real
long, are going to be completed.

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Speaker 1: All of the source files necessary to
complete those episodes are safely stored, and

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Speaker 1: it will be completed.

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Speaker 1: Until then, I hope you enjoy The
Project.

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Speaker 1: This short story is set somewhere,
I'd say episodes-- between episodes

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Speaker 1: four and six of Mortal Steel. Enjoy.

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Speaker 1: See ya.

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Speaker 1: Mortal Steel: The Project.

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Speaker 1: Archbishop Gabriel Kline looked down
at the mech schematics on his desk and for the

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Speaker 1: 10,000th time wondered if he'd gone
insane.

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Speaker 1: No, this made sense. There were good
reasons to build a humanoid mech. It

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Speaker 1: could go on stairs, very big stairs.
That would be helpful if

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Speaker 1: they ever fought demons on a pyramid.
He called in two nuns, his

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Speaker 1: best engineers, to give him status
updates.

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Speaker 1: [door opening]

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Speaker 1: Sisters Ursula and Gretchen traded
silent glares of concern with each other.

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Speaker 2: Can it climb? It can't climb.

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Speaker 2: Can it jump?

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Speaker 3: Uh, no, sir.

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Speaker 1: Gabriel drummed his fingers on the
desk. He wasn't insane.

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Speaker 1: Maybe he could tell them about the
pyramid idea.

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Speaker 3: Archbishop, we have some concerns
about the project.

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Speaker 1: The first nun glanced at the other.
What? Had they rehearsed this? Was

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Speaker 1: this, this some kind of intervention?

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Speaker 2: Material storage wants to know why we
need so much titanium. Tell them we're

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Speaker 2: building shelves, very expensive,
very light shelves.

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Speaker 3: What about power storage? Generation?
We don't have enough solid state batteries,

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Speaker 3: and it's too small for our fission
reactors, unless we design a new one.

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Speaker 2: How long can it run on traditional
batteries?

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Speaker 3: Um, maybe two or three minutes.

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Speaker 1: There were excellent reasons to build
a 30-foot tall humanoid exoskeleton. For

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Speaker 1: one, you could drive it. Secondly, it
was pretty damn cool.

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Speaker 1: Was he losing it?

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Speaker 3: Archbishop, how do we keep this a
secret? It's not something we can hide for long.

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Speaker 2: Okay, hear me out. [upbeat music]
What if we build it in pieces?

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Speaker 2: Maybe disguise each piece as a
vehicle or, or an animal, and then they

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Speaker 2: can be reassembled.

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Speaker 1: Their wide-eyed stares stopped him
short.

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Speaker 2: [sighs] There's only one reason we're
building a mech.

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Speaker 1: They leaned in, their practical minds
eager to make sense of this madness he'd put

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Speaker 1: them through over the past few
months.

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Speaker 2: Because it's completely, utterly,
hopelessly impractical. You don't need to keep
it

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Speaker 2: secret. No one will believe you. Just
build it in the clean room. If you put up

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Speaker 2: enough biohazard and radiation signs,
no one will get nosy.

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Speaker 1: They nodded slowly. It was enough.
They would keep working.

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Speaker 2: Do you still want us to do the
transforming animal thing? No, that was a joke.

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Speaker 1: In a better world, though, when there
wasn't a demon army bearing down on top of

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Speaker 1: them, he might have said yes.

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Speaker 1: [door closing]

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Speaker 2: [sighs] [upbeat music]