Shardcast: Skyward Reactions (ON VIDEO!)

I'm particularly proud of that WTCC, great job on guessing that one so fast!

My random thoughts:

NO LOVE TRIANGLE! YAY!

I want M-Bot to be voiced by Alan Tudyk.

And I'mma pull out my encyclopedic knowledge of actors on you guys and be a nerd: Umm...Actually, Tommy Lee Jones wasn't in Ender's Game. It was of Harrison Ford. But the war hero guy was played by Ben Kingsley. 

I love Kimmalyn. Her personality is a cross between Alabama and Minnesota, but her name is all Utah.

Stop saying Avalanch!  Mountains have avalanches.   Books, Movies, TV shows, and other stories have climaxes.  You can't just rename things. And even if you could why would you?  Climaxes are way better than avalanches anyways.

3 hours ago, Edonidd said:

Stop saying Avalanch!  Mountains have avalanches.   Books, Movies, TV shows, and other stories have climaxes.  You can't just rename things. And even if you could why would you?  Climaxes are way better than avalanches anyways.

Avalanche means more than the literal definition. 

Quote

avalanche

noun

1. a large mass of snow, ice, etc., detached from a mountain slope and sliding or falling suddenly downward.
2. anything like an avalanche in suddenness and overwhelming quantity:

I think Brandon's "avalanches" often:

(1) Cover more than the climax alone. (e.g. in Skyward I would say the climax is when the bomb detonates and she goes to space, but the "avalanche" began a few chapters before that.)

(2) Are more about describing the nature of Brandon's climaxes. Particularly the "overwhelming" aspect, because of the way they tend to have some much packed into them. You could call it a climax, but you would describe the climax as an avalanche.

8 hours ago, Singer said:

I want M-Bot to be voiced by Alan Tudyk.

I didn't know I needed this until now.

I will say though, I was actually hearing him as JARVIS for a little while.  

8 hours ago, Singer said:

I love Kimmalyn. Her personality is a cross between Alabama and Minnesota, but her name is all Utah.

...the accuracy hurts.

No, Freeman Dyson has no connection to the Dyson company. He is a british/american physicist who, amongst other things, worked with Feynman on Quantum Electro Dynamics. At 94 he is probably the last leading physicist of a golden age of quantum field theories, who still lives. 

Is it confirmed, that the structures on Detritus are if human origin?They are  described as „ancient“ and I always attributed them to some race that vanished millenia ago. 

3 hours ago, Olm said:

Is it confirmed, that the structures on Detritus are if human origin?They are  described as „ancient“ and I always attributed them to some race that vanished millenia ago. 

Wasn't it mentioned in the early chapters that the structures contain human writing, etc? Plus, the starfighters, which they probably designed based on schematics in Igneous, have the same control layout as M-bot, an old starfighter that had been crashed for centuries.

17 hours ago, Edonidd said:

Stop saying Avalanch!  Mountains have avalanches.   Books, Movies, TV shows, and other stories have climaxes.  You can't just rename things. And even if you could why would you?  Climaxes are way better than avalanches anyways.

Brandon avalanche has been a term in the fandom for over a decade, its not a term that is going to change. It is also not exactly the same as "climax", Brandon avalanche refers to the way Brandon writes some (but not all) of his climaxes.

22 hours ago, Singer said:

I love Kimmalyn. Her personality is a cross between Alabama and Minnesota, but her name is all Utah.

Yes. So Utah!

This is the first reactions podcast I’ve listened to and I loved it. There was so much more excitement emanating from you all than other podcasts, and before listening I’m not sure I would’ve believed that possible. My favorite part was @Chaos explaining how part 5 was a Brandon avalanche - your voice alone was so animated! I’m sure it would’ve been more fun to watch! 

Finally got to the end.

Expectations are like fine pottery, @Chaos and @Overlord Jebus.

I didn't feel like the ending of Skyward had THAT big of an avalanche, but the way the scale of the book is... I just didn't expect it to be that massive? It felt right to me, though I don't think I would gush over it as much as Eric did.

Hey guys! So this, I believe was my first reaction Shardcast! Have listened to many, this was also the first video Shardcast! It's great to place a face with the voice! So, Yas! Skyward wow what a ride! I've been trying to get my friend into Brandon and got her Arcanum Unbounded; I think I'll get her Skyward, it'll be perfect! So, anyways...I won't go into everything I loved about it just a couple of things that really got to me. I don't know about spoilers so...

It really struck me how the peoples of Detritus really don't have a culture? For lack of a better word. To be able to produce music, philosphies, film, novels, art really would be a luxury for a human society that is constantly bombarded by Krell attacks. I believe some of you were talking about how FM is important changing the society to not be so militaristic. But the question, not will she do that and gain a following, but how could that even be a possibility when humanity can just barely congregate and live together without the fear of a deadly attack? Spensa and her gift will be key to this, I think. I think at the start Spensa just wanted to be a trigger happy warrior, but through her own personal evolution and her powers, I think she is learning that she will have to become something greater. Possibly training other people with her gift (because there has to be a few!) to get humanity to safely, off of Detritus so humanity can evolve and create and advance. From what Gran-Gran has said, what little we know, it seems to me that it would take more than one person to make the jump through the stars. But that is pure speculation, we really don't know. By the way, when M-BOT shut down, I cried super hard! And while I was flipping through the pages, as I usually do, I kept seeing the word Jerkface over and over again! I kept thinking wow, what the scud! That character must be awful! I totally ship Jorgen and Spin! The tension between the two....so spicy! I absolutely looove Jorgen!  And the tension throughout the book, I mean in general not just between Spin and Jorgen, amazing! I couldn't stop bouncing my leg! Great podcast! Awesome review! I wish we had the second book noooowwww! Thanks again guys! DOOMSLUG! DOOMSLUG! DOOMSLUG!

please find out if Brandon ever played AirRivals/AceOnline.

I feel like theres a bit of each of the 4 classes represented in the book.
B gear
>>Air Bombing Mode : kinda like a shotgun.... needs to be close to do hella burst damage can OHKO  :: that shield popping skill
>>Invisibility : M-bot's stealth mode

I Gear - Fast and agile single target fighter  :: basically everybody
>>Hyper Movement : better turning radius :: M-bot's advance turning
>>Overbooster : super speed for a short duration but only in a straight line. like a charge or dash

M gear - a paladin of sorts but has "scan" ability to reveal invisible b gears and a gears
>>Scan : M-bot's scan ability

A gear - A flying tank  
>>Air Siege : Quirk's flying long range artillery.
>>Advance Weapon : The only missiles in game that don't really have a turning radius so kinda like destructors.
*Each class has 2 . A standard Weapon (like machine guns) and Advance Weapons (like missiles).

Gravcaps limit- kinda like cool downs for IG + BG skills TA and BMM
>>TA : instantly turns you around
>>BMM : instantly retreats a set distance

In game there are 2 pools of health. Energy (red) and Shield (blue)
you have to burn through the shield to hit energy. Once your energy starts taking damage each hits drains your speed for a bit. :: I parallel it to how you need to divert energy from speed to recharge the shield.
 

On ‎11‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 4:19 PM, Singer said:

I'm particularly proud of that WTCC, great job on guessing that one so fast!

My random thoughts:

NO LOVE TRIANGLE! YAY!

I want M-Bot to be voiced by Alan Tudyk.

On ‎11‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 0:25 AM, Ookla the Stationery said:

I didn't know I needed this until now.

 

I know, right?

Also, does anyone else think that Hurl's name (Hudiya) sounds Hebrew?

Loved it!

Awesome podcast as usual, fun to put faces to shardcast voices.

I was really wary about reading this book, Brandon's other YA books aren't really for me. I went to the Skyward signing in Seattle really just to ask Brandon some questions, but because it was a ticketed event I ended up with a copy of the book (which I wasn't planning on reading).

Your review of Skyward @Ooklalord Jebus was the tipping point for me, and the fact that my young daughter was reading it and was really liking it. I ended up getting the audiobook too so I could listen to it while she was reading it.

I thought the Chaser reveal was great! One point I think that got missed about the Chaser bit in the podcast was that he was direclty mentally manipulated into seeing what the Krell wanted him to see, essentially a 3-D holo simulation projected straight into his brain. He saw his friends' ships as Krell ships. So when he said that he was going to destroy them all, he was referring to the phantom krell ships that were overlaid psionically over his friends' ships. Also, the fact that Spensa as a living FTL engine has a weakness that she can be mentally manipulated is just how Brandon builds his magic systems. The greater the power the greater the exploitable weakness.

I also thought the talk about Detritus being a Dyson sphere was really cool, I think after your clear explanation I have a pretty good handle of how Detritus works in conjunction with the near planetary objects. I drew a little schematic of how I think it all works:

The small little circled speck is M-bot flying out of a crack in the Dyson Sphere. And with Gray's description of M-Bot really standing for Mushroom-bot, I got a pretty good visual sense of what M-Bot looks like.

Also, thinking about this more, I think I've figured out something pretty important about M-Bot's old pilot based on all of the directives that M-Bot was given.

Stay out of fights, look for mushrooms, wait for me until I get back. M-Bot's old pilot was probably a spaced out, mushroom popping, laze-about hippy. He probably forgot where he parked M-Bot and crashed on some Krell's couch for the rest of his life. Poor M-bot.