We have spoken a lot about -the power- over the course of these sermons, but what can one do once they have firmly acquired and established -the power-? Solaris offers an answer: sinful decadence.
The Sacred Empire of Solaris was founded some 800 years back, but did not come to true power until 300 years later when it all but conquered the world during the Shevat-Solaris War. And, centuries after those conflicts, Solaris’s government controlled the actions of nearly everyone on the planet. But what was happening within the walls of that flying fortress? Well, it depended on your caste…
Solaris is supported by a large group of “workers” that are practically indistinguishable from slaves. They work all day and night, and are punished with death at the slightest sign of insubordination. This is considered wholly normal and necessary by all Solaris citizens, and is happily consumed by the citizenry that stands at the higher castes. Oh, and speaking of being “happily consumed”, Solaris also mulches its have-nots into a Soylent Green Slurry, so the rich eat the poor without a second thought. The powerful devour the weak, even though the only reason the weak are labeled as such is a simple accident of birth.
But once you get past the dietary restrictions, what do the rich do in this society that holds all -the power- on the planet? Nothing! They are idle, and frequently spend their days watching holo-programs (while those on the surface of the planet have barely mastered the phonogram). They exercise their bodies not through actual work, but in home aerobics. And when their emperor appears to tell them that strange people have invaded the country, and said people are to be executed, they happily agree that their master’s bloodlust must be sated. Mind you, this is still a city where dissent from anyone will be chastised via pursuit through the sewers by attack triangles, so it is possible the population is just afraid to speak out against any injustices. But then again, those guys zooming around in their hover go-karts don’t look too broken up about the state of their civilization…
But where does this all lead? Well, despite the fact that Solaris had easily the best showers on this planet, it still could not maintain -the power-. Even though there were multiple high-ranking Solarians involved in the invasion of Fei Fong Wong, none were strong enough to stop the terrorist martial artist with a giant robot. As a result, the whole of Solaris was obliterated by the actions of one man, and the wicked kingdom was brought low.
So learn from the sins of Solaris! Do not use -the power- to build an idle nation, fore it shall be ground to nothing by a ponytailed slacker.
Even Worse Streams presents Xenogears
Night 13
Original Stream Night: May 4, 2021
Night of the Simulated Theme Park
Random Stream Notes
- We’re going to start by beholding the Final Fantasy 7 Tifa cameo! Welcome back with Kishi, Caliscrub, and fanboymaster
- BEAT does not know who Elly is. Still.
- Hey, this was back when they announced Elon Musk on Saturday Night Live. Remember when he was only subtly impacting our entertainment choices?
- Also, BEAT watched Netflix Voltron, but failed to remember the Voltron lions are… lions. They are not dogs.
- Elly’s Mom is wearing the same outfit as Allen of Xenosaga. The lore implications of this are terrifying.
- BEAT’s dad knew a guy who had a full-length poster of himself in a closet. Like Elly. And Elly turned out fine.
- Jeanie for real joins for the first time as Elly hacks her dad’s computer! Historic!
- “You call people named ‘Stan’ ‘Satan’?!”
- Mega Man 4 is the most unremarkable game Kishi can think of.
- BEAT would rather talk about Nicholas Cage, but watching Citan force a cannibalism is allowed.
- As I have to deal with dumb Xenogears codes, I am invited to talk about Warzard. Hey! Now you can play that game on modern consoles.
- After Fei throws up, I relay my story of being a giant Mortal Kombat / videogame nerd back when I was 12. So little has changed…
And then we talk about watching our family members die in arcade games and Oregon Trail.- Square Enix, please call me. I have wonderful ideas for Kingdom Hearts x Xenogears. I promise to be good.
- A conversation about developer crunch leads to some heavy sighs about the industry and that one Avengers game.
- Oh good. We’re talking about the Ken Penders extended universe for some reason.
- Final Fantasy 10 allows you to just decide not to die, which is not unlike downloading yourself to a TV sphere.
- Hey! Fei is eventually trapped in the Matrix! The second one! With the Architect!
- “When you do post this, I will pay attention to that.” BEAT? Are you paying attention now?
- And we’re going to stop before the big action happens. This would have been a good place for Xenogears 1 to end…
Next time on Xenogears: A shocking explanation of absolutely nothing.
Let us again consider the nature of -the power-, and how one must use it.
And then Bart took the reigns of royalty. And even though Nisan was in the very precarious position of having just regained its independence, Bart attempted to abdicate his responsibilities further. He wanted to make the country a republic, which is all well and noble, but he wasn’t giving up his Omnigear to some unknown council. The prince-now-king had the most powerful super weapon on the planet, and he wanted to use it to… I don’t know… go out for pizza or something. He could have immediately combined his firepower with political power to protect his nation for generations to come, but he thought the right thing to do was give half this strength over to the populace, and keep the other, more tangible half for himself. 
“Final Destination is a stoner movie by association.”
Are all videogames naturally authoritarian?
The police are… a bit of a thing of late. Or maybe they always have been a thing? This is a difficult topic to broach, as this is a very public blog, and I hesitate to make any statements that could be interpreted as overtly political. Ha ha ha. Just kidding. The truth is I hesitate to make any statements that could get me fired, politically ostracized, or outright jailed. Do I think all cops are bastards? I can say, with complete confidence, that I know one retired police officer that I would not describe as a bastard. I also know one not-retired, not-fired police officer who, when my house was robbed, immediately accused my neighbor that was literally across the street because “you know, we get a lot of calls about that mixed family,” despite the fact that actual evidence proved this to be a completely baseless accusation. So, ya know, there are people on both sides (“Aren’t you missing a word in that quote?” “No.”). And, regardless of my feelings on individual police officers, I am all for defunding the police, as even the smallest PD seems to account for enormous chunks of city budgets. I have absolutely no qualms about stating that our teachers should have more funding than our police officers. But maybe this thinking is influenced by my love of videogames? I have only played a handful of games where high school teachers have been villains (and they mostly involved 
And, if you’re just following the plot of Jet Set Radio, it is extremely anti-authoritarian. The police are a problem from the first level, but they are, more or less, little more than a nuisance. JSR distinctly portrays the police as incompetent, and, in a game that technically doesn’t have any offensive options (the “bosses” of this game are defeated by spraypainting and then becoming too embarrassed to be a threat), they are easily thwarted by simply skating around. They’ll never catch those wily kids! And, similarly, when the “real” big bad surfaces with a plan that could obliterate the city and potentially all life on the planet, it is eventually revealed that… it wouldn’t have worked. Magical demon summoning isn’t real, silly, and Evil CEO Goji was always going to be just as unsuccessful as Police Captain Onishima. The message here is clear: not only are known authorities ineffective, they’re downright goofy. The hip teenagers were always going to succeed, and these squares never had a damn clue.
But, while many videogames focus on the freedom that their protagonists are fighting for, these heroes, in actuality, have absolutely zero autonomy. Final Fantasy 7 is practically a game all about how there’s 
And what’s the moral there? Well, there is hope. Videogames are, by their nature, authoritarian, because, more than in any other medium, a videogame can be programmed to force the player to either play the game how directed, or walk away. A book or movie is always going to include a fastforward feature, but videogames can allow for so much as a “chapter skip” to be outlawed. However, given enough time and effort, fans can reclaim practically anything, and, before you know it, Tab (that’s his name!) has been replaced by 
So, does this entire article exist because apparently your old Dreamcast VMU crapped out, and you never made any progress in the PS3 version, so, in order to capture gameplay from Jet Set Radio, you had to start completely from scratch despite beating/unlocking everything about twenty years ago? Maybe.
Let’s talk about Alfred Chicken, and what he means to the current state of our democracy.
Now, before you go thinking that the Alfred Chicken Party had anything useful to contribute to political discourse at the time, consider that Karl Fitzhugh was absolutely just the marketing arm for Alfred Chicken’s Amiga (amigo? Were you trying to say amigo? How about amiibo?) debut. The Alfred Chicken Party was rightly pegged as a publicity stunt, and wound up placing second from last in the election (and, to be clear for my American readers, this is not a situation where “placed last” also means “won the popular vote”). In fact, the Alfred Chicken Party was such a flagrant and obvious publicity stunt, it rapidly inspired new legislation that would require a candidate to acquire many more signatures to actually appear on a ballot. Democracy works! Through Alfred Chicken!
It has come up again and again in recent months, but people show a surprising amount of loyalty to faceless corporations that don’t care if the average consumer lives or dies. Toys Я Us recently went out of business, firing every last employee while its board of directors skipped town with giant bags adorned with dollar signs. But it’s been determined that “the brand” is still viable, so Geoffrey the Giraffe will be back in our faces soon enough. And a huge portion of the population is going to eat it up with a multicolored spoon! Toys Я Us? I love that place! That’s where toys come from! And videogames! Just like Gamestop! And who cares if one single company has been selling me $60 games for years, and then buying them back at 60¢, I’ve got brand loyalty! I’m a Powerup Rewards Member! Sometimes I earn a free pen! I will follow these companies straight into Hell, so please show me your viable political candidates! Who is the leader of the Think Geek Party? Does he need a donation!?
And the most unfortunate thing about all of this is that there is literally nothing you can do about it. You can vote for your favorite party, you can vote for the candidate that is going to save the world, and you can canvas your neighborhood and drum up support in every way you know how. But, end of the day, Wal-Mart is still going to make literally billions of dollars, and whoever is in charge of those billions of dollars is going to make just a smidge more of an impact on the political landscape than anything you could hope to achieve with a “grassroots” campaign. And do you think you’re ever going to compete with Wal-Mart? Fat chance, little voter.
But a funny thing happened. Netflix came along, and, in a few short years, Blockbuster was dead in the ground. Netflix was cheaper, more convenient, and less overtly evil than Blockbuster, so people took their business elsewhere in droves. And it didn’t matter that many areas still have terrible internet connections. It didn’t matter that Netflix and its ilk could never support the historical selection of a well-stocked Blockbuster. It didn’t matter that streaming services would doom us forever to a fragmented system wherein you just kind of hoped your favorite new release would drop on a subscription you already own. No, none of that mattered, because Blockbuster simply could not compete with the new monolith that was streaming, and, in practically no time at all, Blockbuster was resigned to the same fate as the dinosaurs (mostly frozen in remote regions of Oregon). Blockbuster was once king of the hill, and now it is barely a footnote in history.
No company is ever going to be perfect (they are, almost literally, money making machines. That has a tendency to step on a few ethical toes), but maybe you don’t need the latest make believe horsey game if it is also apparently responsible for 80% of all crunch misery in North America. Or maybe that company could just produce one god damn game with a female protagonist. That would be a step in the right direction…
Other Questions: And Alfred collects eggs as one-ups, and hatches from a new egg after every death. Is there more than one Alfred Chicken? Does each collected egg start the cycle of life anew for our hero? The theological implications of this game alone…