Dev Commentary 7: PUZZL, Web 3 + Short Story: "The Project"

Machine transcription; unreviewed and may contain errors.

Dev Commentary 7: PUZZL, Web 3 + Short Story: "The Project"
Source: collected/002-dev-commentary-7-puzzl-web-3-short-story-the-project.mp3
SHA-256: 57884a0d880e343b73b2faccaf5340e64435c5d7c93eebfd96720c82f2dc5ca9
Model: scribe_v2 | Transcribed: 2026-10-10T18:08:25.473414+00:00
Machine transcript — uncorrected. Speaker labels are local to this recording and do not identify people.

[00:00:00.060] Speaker 1: [intro jingle] Hello. You thought I was dead. Well, I'm not, and neither is this project. Neither are the stories. Quite the opposite, actually. We are deep in production on a story project called Puzzle. Now, this is taking the place of Allegiance, which we'll do another time. It's another major story in the Revealer block, and I am

[00:00:34.740] Speaker 1: immensely excited about it. However, I know what you're thinking. "What is this lecture? What, why are you talking to me? All I want is a cyborg preacher and his lovable companions fighting demons. What, what do you keep talking to me about?" Well, you're gonna have to listen to me talk for a little while longer. But if you can hold on, I've got a small side story called "The Project" set in the Mortal Steel universe with just a few familiar characters. So stay tuned for the end. Before

[00:01:09.760] Speaker 1: that, quick updates on project timelines, everything that's going on in terms of Collected. So as I've said many times, this is not a podcast. Now, this is a podcast that you're listening to, and that podcast is a part of a bigger thing. We are trying to find ways for creators to get paid, i.e., make a living with their art, and for their supporters to receive more and more value, better experiences, cooler products, and sometimes financial upside

[00:01:44.660] Speaker 1: when things work out. Now, it's been a hot minute since the last time I've talked about this. Now, the last time I talked about Web3 and what it's for and why it's important, nobody knew what the heck I was talking about, and it was easy to rant. Now a bunch of pictures of some monkeys sold for a lot of money, and everyone's mad. So I'm going to take just a moment to reiterate the values that this project is based on, what 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 is important succinctly, and then we'll move on to the fun stuff. To me, the three most important Web3 fundamentals, these are the innovations it has over Web 2.0 are, one, aligned financials, two, decentralized control, three, digital ownership. What the heck does any of that mean? I'll give it to you on an index card because now is not the time. Aligned financials. Hey, if we, that means

[00:02:54.980] Speaker 1: the creators, if we make money, you make money. It also means if we don't make money, you don't make money. Up together, down together. And that's a beautiful thing because it means I'm incentivized to help you. You're incentivized to help me. It's a great way to do that. Number two, decentralized control. What does that mean? All that means is the people at the top don't have all the power. They share it with the people all around, and they don't just share it on their word. They don't just share it with some policies on a piece of paper. They don't share

[00:03:29.920] Speaker 1: it under the premise that they're being nice, and that this is a gift. It is not decentralized contribution, decentralized sharing. It is decentralized control. We're giving people actual control, and you guys will have power over things that we do with all of our projects, whether we like it or not. That's called decentralized control. You have actual control over the overall brand, the direction, how the stories are used, how they're monetized. You have real control. That's important.

[00:04:05.760] Speaker 1: It's important because if you disagree with the people running the show, they have to listen to you. It's not, it's not a request, and that's important in both directions. But you gotta use that control wisely. Number three, digital ownership. The first two are beautiful things, and digital ownership is the cherry on top. It's the thing that says, "Hey, I own this thing that gives me control, that gives me aligned financials. I own it, and no one can forcefully take it from me."

[00:04:41.320] Speaker 1: It is secured by math and physics. It's a digital deed that says you have control, that says you have aligned financials. It's the part that enforces the rules and allows you to trade it and allows you to sell it. Ownership is an incredibly important innovation. Right now, it is enforced with essentially police and military, right? At the end of the day, that's how the law is enforced. Now, and hopefully more in the future as we lean into digital ownership, a great deal of that security comes from math and physics, from cryptography.

[00:05:16.500] Speaker 1: That is the thing that proves that you own something, that you have control, and that you deserve aligned financials. Those three things together are incredible innovations. And let's be clear, they are social constructs. It's just made up. That's what it means. It's just a fancy way of saying, "Yo, we made this stuff up." All it is from an engineer's perspective, TCPIC-- TCP/IP, I'm not even gonna edit that out, UDP, HTTP, plus blockchain. That's it. That's all I'm talking about. But

[00:05:51.340] Speaker 1: those protocol-level innovations are not interesting. These are the concepts that were enabled by those technological innovations. These are the social innovations that we're putting on top. And those innovations are just as important now, if not more so, than they were in October or November the last time I was talking about it. Now, I'm trying to take an active role alongside this incredible team that was crazy enough to take part ownership in this enterprise. We're trying to take

[00:06:26.100] Speaker 1: active control over that narrative because there really is something important here. It would be such a shame to miss an incredible paradigm shift for creators and supporters of storytellers, artists, musicians, to miss out on this chance to use an incredible tool to our benefit. But skepticism is always, always welcome. Pretty words and big promises are not enough to make major change, but they are necessary. And if you're skeptical that any of this is worth your time and you

[00:07:01.020] Speaker 1: really just wanna listen to some stories and you don't give a crap, that's totally fine. We will continue to deliver awesome stories, and we will never, ever try to make people care about social or cultural movements or even technological innovations that they don't care about. Instead, we're just gonna try and give you awesome stuff, and we're gonna tell you at every turn what you're going to get if you choose to buy it, if you choose to listen to the free stuff, if you choose to help us make these stories, if you choose to tell your own stories or make your own art

[00:07:36.140] Speaker 1: or build your own projects with us in some other way. All we're going to do is show you what value you could get and then deliver over and over and over again until the critics have to acknowledge at the very least there was one small organization who seems to have done something neat with this, and they're probably worth your time even if everyone else isn't. So all that said, very cool things coming. Puzzle is deep in

[00:08:11.120] Speaker 1: production. We've got a team of eight people now, not including any of the voice actors. Writing is about halfway done. I have another short story, uh, in the pipeline to tide you over a little bit, and I will occasionally drip content into this podcast feed, but there will be some silence because we have really, really cool big things coming that are way beyond the scope of just an audio story. Of course, Puzzle is an audio story, and you will get to listen to that too. And because it hasn't been said outright yet, the final thing I would like to

[00:08:45.960] Speaker 1: impart is as long as I draw breath, Mortal Steel episodes 11 and 12, and 12 part two probably, because it's real long, are going to be completed. All of the source files necessary to complete those episodes are safely stored, and it will be completed. Until then, I hope you enjoy The Project. 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. See ya. Mortal Steel: The Project. Archbishop Gabriel Kline looked down at the mech schematics on his desk and for the 10,000th time wondered if he'd gone insane. No, this made sense. There were good reasons to build a humanoid mech.

[00:09:56.460] Speaker 1: It could go on stairs, very big stairs. That would be helpful if they ever fought demons on a pyramid. He called in two nuns, his best engineers, to give him status updates. [door opening] 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. 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. 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 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 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, 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 one, you could drive it. Secondly, it was pretty damn cool. 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? Maybe disguise each piece as a vehicle or, or an animal, and then they 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 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 secret. No one will believe you. Just build it in the clean room. If you put up 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 them, he might have said yes. [door closing]

[00:13:16.260] Speaker 2: [sighs] [upbeat music]