SATAH: Welcome to Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and epistolary TTRPGs. I'm your host, Satah, and my goal is to showcase multiple possible experiences of self-paced games by inviting guests to play them alongside me so I can compile our stories together. You can support the show financially at patreon.com/foliopod, or join there as a free member to get access to the bonus podcast feed. At the end of every Folio series, I have taken to posting a little wrap-up post that partially talks about the process of its production but also has a bunch of, like… charts, uh, and those kind of goofy things, about cards that we pulled and dice that we rolled. Those are public posts, but if you aren't following the show on any social media, signing up as a free member is a great way to be notified of them.
Today we're finishing our games of Live. Love. Die. Remember. a game about "mechs falling in love with their pilots, reliving their memories of love before the end, and the cost of victory" by Ray Cox. With me again are Brianna Price and Dora Rogers. Check out their links in the episode description, particularly Dee's currently-ongoing Kickstarter for Drink My Sweat, a Bottoms-inspired storytelling game for queer women. Punch cuties, get messed up, fall in love, and be fucking hot. Running now throughout February 2025.
This is it. There's one more memory to witness, and then we have to make the choice. After seeing how our mechs' relationships to their pilots developed, what will they do at the end?
GAME: MEMORY SEVEN
SATAH: This is going to be the last memory before our final fight.
DEE: Oh my goodness, I only have one scene left before the end.
BRIANNA: To our final scene.
DEE: [Big sigh] Okay.
SATAH: That was such an exciting penultimate one. I feel really good about how the arc of that has gone so far, and I feel like I've opened up a lot of potential ways that the final stuff could go down, so let's see what our last one is.
DEE: [Gasp] You'll never guess. It's "the sunrise you watch together." Not today, Satan!
BRIANNA: I think… I think I know what I want to do for this next one, because I think it's fun to do… I love a calm before a storm, which, you know, Hurricane, all that stuff. And so I think for this next one, I'm going to do "the sunrise you watched together."
We were on a ship that was heading towards Balentown, and it just so happened that as
we set out and we were off on our way, the sun was setting. We were out. We were–  previously, we were in the hangar, sitting together. No windows, no way to tell what was going on, except Topaz asked me, "Sapphire, what, um… what's the date and time right now?"
And I told her.
She says, "Huh… can we get the hangar door open?" She called into, uh…
And they said, "Any problem? Any… why do you need it open? Is there some sort of problem?
She says, "No problem. Just would appreciate it." Kind of a pause and then… hangar door opens slowly to reveal a beautiful sunset. She said,
BRIANNA, AS TOPAZ: Have you ever seen a sunset before, Sapphire?
BRIANNA, AS SAPPHIRE: No, we've never had a mission stationed at sunset. I have only ever seen the night and the day.
BRIANNA: And she smiled, touched her hand to my console. Said,
BRIANNA, AS TOPAZ: Every night, me and Cereza, we used to watch the sunset. No matter where we were, what we were doing, it was a routine. Sometimes we'd eat dinner there, sometimes we'd just watch it, have a drink, whatever. But every night we would watch it.
BRIANNA, AS SAPPHIRE: Did you like the sunsets?
BRIANNA, AS TOPAZ: I think I liked watching them with someone. It's one thing to see something beautiful and it's another thing to see something beautiful and know someone else is witnessing it.
You know… after everything went down, we were on the run for a bit. We'd hide out in attics and basements and shelters and wherever we could. We weren't able always to catch the sunset, but we tried still to keep some part of a routine alive.
And it was on one of those nights where they found us. A couple of drunk bastard soldiers coming out of some bar saw us, recognised my face from the wanted posters, took a shot.
She… she got hit. I shot him back. We were on a hill, looking out… the beauty of it. And she said, "Well, at least it's at sunset, huh?" And I screamed and I cried. And every sunset since I have averted my eyes, I did not want to see it. I did not want to witness it without her.
BRIANNA, AS SAPPHIRE: Then why did you open the hangar door?
BRIANNA, AS TOPAZ: I don't know, Sapphire. But do you like the sunset?
BRIANNA, AS SAPPHIRE: I like watching it with you. It's nice to witness something beautiful together.
DEE: It's actually cycling back and forth. I kept– I got like 18, like, three times in a row.
"How you celebrated your victories." I don't love that. What's around that?
"The time you took down a challenging foe" and "when you met their family in winter." It's interesting because we have established the sister, but… let's take down the challenging foe. Challenging– we haven't really seen her being like a wizard of a pilot, right? Like, she's- she's good. She's doing dangerous stuff or accomplishing missions, but I like the idea of us being up against… like, an ace, right? Like, somebody who can match Tamsin for skill.
So I think we're on, like, you know, one of these attack runs. We're in space. We're targeting, you know, like a heavy- a heavy ship, like a battleship. We're part of an attack on a battleship. And we're, like, the- the– you know, we're like the big guns. Like there's a lot of mechs that are with us that are sort of, like, the escorts. And we're the bombers basically.
And the mechs– you know, like, this whole elaborate battle is happening and there's an enemy ace on the other side who takes apart our escorts and is coming in to destroy us. And Tamsin tells her unit, "Stay on target. I'm gonna protect us." and drops back and gets into a dogfight with this ace.
And this is maybe like an experimental suit on the other side? This is a… let me see the names I wrote down. Courage, Dauntless, Wisdom, Innovation. Or is it something else? Um, "list of virtues." Let's see that that returns. Jeez, there's like weird stuff here that feels like self-helpy. Here's something from the University of Victoria. "Virtues, the giftwithin." It still feels very self-helpy, but that's fine. Oh, "Fidelity" is good.
Okay, this is a Fidelity. It's a Fidelity. It's an experimental Fidelity mech. And… it is gorgeous and it is so high performing. It is lightning fast. It's very tough. It's not as tough as an Adze, but it's very tough for a mech that was not designed for the same mission as us. And it's so much faster and it's packs a real punch. It's probably like– I think it looks very heroic. It's very, like, uh– it's got, like, Gundam colours, right? So I think it's probably, like, mostly white, but it's got like blue and red and yellow, um, these very, like, heroic primary colors.
And I think we– yeah, I think we do know the pilot actually. I think that's more fun. Not personally, but, uh… like people start talking about– people know that this experimental mech belongs to… let's see. Like, the Red Baron, right? Like, that's the classic ace name. The– what would we call this- this- this terrifying mech? Um… because we wouldn't call it the Fidelity. Well, we would call the mech the Fidelity, like, once we figured out that's what it was technically called.
Oh god, this guy's probably on comms. He's probably like– oh, or she, that's hotter. She– this pilot is probably on comms. Like, she's very noble warrior esque; like she's probably like, :you are a worthy foe: or whatever. So that's how we know that it's called the Fidelity, because she- she brags about it. And– yeah, she wouldn't give herself a cute nickname. She's too classy for that. So I think we would just know her by her name. So let's go to a name generator. Oh, Odessa is good. Oh no, Jocasta is better. Jocasta… Jocasta Belmont. That's good. Jocasta Belmont. Uh, yeah. Um, and we call her, uh… we call her the White Witch, um, because her, her suit is this, like, blazing white- this, like, pure white, um, with these- these other supporting colours.
Yeah! So it's Tamsin versus the White Witch. Um, I wonder if they have a name for- for Tamsin and for me. Well, let's put a pin in that. Uh, we, um, yeah. So… it's the White Witch versus Tamsin. And uh, like– the thing- the thing is that like, I have- I have advantages over, uh, over the Fidelity. Like, I am just tougher. It is– even with the, uh, Fidelity's powerful weapons, it's tough for… for it to hurt me. But it's really tough for me to hit Fidelity, especially in a damaging way. Like I can get glancing blows, I can get, like, indirect hits, but like to get a direct hit that would be needed to break Fidelity's upgraded armor is really tough for me.
But I finally do. I fin– I mean, I finally do. Right? And I think it's- it's thanks to Tamsin's ability as a chess player. Because she– which is something she doesn't always get to show off, right? Like, she's always doing these, like, sort of bombing runs, like, attack- attacking static targets or heavily armed targets. But in this case, she- she's dealing with somebody who's very fast, who's very smart and she- she cannot be as fast as them. She just can't move as quickly as they can move. But she can think about what they're going to do and she can lay traps.
And I think that this doesn't happen right away? It's like, she lays a trap and she scores, like, a good hit and it damages Fidelity. And that's when the White Witch is like, "Holy shit." Like, "This is- this is a real pilot. This is going to be fun."
And, um, it is this gruelling duel, and, um, I think I do– this is the first time, I think, that- while Tamsin and I have been together, that I take serious damage. Because she keep-, keeps hammering my joints, so– I've said that a few times as a weak point, um, and she finally just like, breaks through the armor of my shoulder and, um, like, disables half the- the missiles– the missile pods in my torso. And, uh, and disable some of my thrusters. So our mobility is even more limited.
But Fidelity is starting to get pretty beat up at this point and its performance is starting to suffer. And Tamsin– Tamsin, in the end, outlasts. Um, she is patient. She's smart. She keeps laying these intricate traps and eventually Jocasta Belmont makes a mistake. And we take her down. And, uh, yeah, we win.
And I think it's like a little bit of a mixed emotion, right? Because of course there's a lot of excitement when Fidelity explodes. And, uh, there's cheering from the rest of our unit and, like, their mission succeeds and we're winning and everybody's going to live on our side. But I've never forgotten what Tamsin told me about death. And, uh, I think she says something softly to– just for the two of us, and for Jocasta. Something like, um, "Rest well, White Witch. I wish it didn't have to be this way."
And I probably have some little way… I think that her way of showing affection for me at this point, late in our relationship, is that she runs her hands along the cons- along like the- the consoles, which, again, I can't feel, but I can- I can see her doing and I know what the gesture means.
And my way of showing support for her is… hm. Gosh, I mean, it's interesting, right? 'Cause it's like, uh… it's like being remote, right? It's like a long distance relationship. How do you s– how do you indicate a hug? Uh, I don't– I don't want it to be as simple as like displaying a heart. Um, I don't think that…
I think it's just words. 'Cause I can talk to her. I think I just say, um, "You did so well Tamsin."
And she says, "Thanks, Z"
And, um, I don't think– I think that she's very careful. She never– she doesn't, like, tally kills or anything, and she's very careful not to put something on my chassis that could be indicated as a, like, a brag, like, "Oh, like, we're the ones who destroyed the White Witch." Um, so I think she waits a little while at first, first of all, so that nobody will get that impression. And then she– when she adds something, she adds… she adds a flower. That's what it is. Because it's a symbol of both of life and of grieving.
And it's not like– it is occasioned by… she's sort of consciously like, this isn't just for the White Witch. This is for all the lives we've had to take. Uh, you know, I don't think she says that, but I think that's what we're both thinking. It's like, she felt this connection to this enemy through this really intense combat. And it just is something else that made her reflect on what we're doing here and the fact that we do have to kill people. And, um, she wanted to both mark the connection and mark a reminder that we have to keep in mind what it is that we're doing.
My cat's coming to beg for food. I know, buddy. Oh, I'm so close to done. I will feed you in a minute.
SATAH: I also haven't rolled a single four yet on the D4. Let's see. [Die clattering] Nope. Rolled a three. So these are from results 21 to 30. [Die clattering for too long] Ough… dice off the table… character dies… RIP. It is a five. 25. Oof… "How it felt when they touched you." This is a great game. [Giddy laughter] It gets it. In a lot of ways. Which I love. It is emotional. It is the emotional mecha game jam, but also it is– it is just inherently, it seems– it understands the- the- the sensuality of it. Which is fantastic.
And I think what this is… obviously, she's touched me a lot, right? Repairs, but also just like… pardon the sentence I'm about to say: if she's inside of me, she's touching me. [Laughing] Um!
But, uh… I think to follow on the last one, part of the reason that this is a notable touch is that it is going to be extremely intimate, in that she wants to get a look at my personality core. And I think, like, I don't have any sensors in there. I mean, I have sensors of like– enough sensors to do diagnostics with, but I don't have any, like, visual sensors or anything like that and I can't, like, manipulate it. It's just in there. And so in order to take a look, to see if there's any, like, notable physical thing about it, she has to look.
And I think that this involves a lot of us collaboratively figuring out ways around security alerts and… like, "Hey, don't open up the mech's brain?" Um. Like, this is the type of maintenance that should only really be done in a shop, right? Where normally they would just, like, plug me in and there would be a thing that's like, "It's okay. This is a clean environment. Go ahead; do brain surgery." Um. But we don't trust home, right? So.
We have to do a lot of getting around security alerts. And I think she has to essentially break a couple of physical things that she will have to repair later, and she's, like, wincing the whole time. And I'm trying to tell her like, "I don't- I don't feel pain, like, in the way that you do. Um, yes, I'm getting alerts that those things are being broken and it's- it's not comfortable, but it- it isn't like you're breaking my fingers or something," you know?
And she's just like, "I know, but I just– I don't- I don't like it. And I know that it isn't comfortable for you and… I can't help but perceive it in the way that I would if it were being done to me."
And she… gets in there. And I'm not sure– I think ultimately that, like, she doesn't necessarily find anything, and that's okay, because that is not the point of this scene. It's about the feeling. And I think… yeah, it is deeply intimate, and… again, my- my sensors are- are- are limited, but I can feel some amount– like, I need to be able to feel in some way things that are happening in there, otherwise I wouldn't know what's wrong. I wouldn't know if something bad was happening. And so there is something akin to feeling when she touches the personality core and gently maneuver– like, puts her hands around it, looking for something. And I think that even…
She very hesitantly expresses that she thinks she needs to unhook it for just a little while to like, look at the connecting– look at- look at the connection spots and she's not going to like open it up or anything, but she does need to… disconnect the core from… my body essentially, right? To just really be thorough.
And that is like… a- a thrilling, horrific act of trust where, like… she is so gentle and counts down and- and lets me know everything that she's doing, but what she ultimately does is, like, completely disconnect me from any ability to move or hear or see or any of the things– the ways that I'm used to experiencing the world, she takes away. Because– and- and- and- and I am just– I have awareness, still, because I exist in some form in the personality core; it's just that I am completely cut off from all senses. And I imagine it's a little slow, too? Like I have external– she has to disconnect me from something that serves as, like, external computing power, right? And so I am suddenly, like… blindfolded and just… I've lost all amount of, like, tactile physical control. And also things are just a little bit slower. There's, like, external memory stuff that I can't access and I just have to trust that she is doing this in a way that is, like, safe and okay.
And she is. It's fine. After some amount of time, she reconnects me, and- and I blink back fully online to her asking me if I'm okay, checking in. She, like, puts a hand flat against the- the walls of the chamber that hold the personality core and asks if I can feel that? Like, are my temperature sensors working? Can you tell that something is hot here; that something warm is touching you? Though actually, I guess it would probably be warm in there, so I like the idea that it's the op– that she has, uh, a drink with ice in it and she, like– in a way that probably isn't very comfortable for her, she, like, grabs a handful of ice and sticks it against my chassis and is like, "Are you registering this temperature anomaly?"
And I say, "Yes. Please don't give yourself freezer burn."
And she laughs. She's like, "It's fine. Ow." And drops the ice.
And… ultimately she's like, yeah, physically everything looks… you know, there isn't– a- a jack that looks like it's been obviously manipulated; there isn't some sort of restraining bolts on any of the hardware that I can see. All of the connections look like they should. There might still be secrets, but there'll be software. Which in a lot of ways is… in some ways, easier, in some ways harder, right? To deal with. 'Cause if it's software, it is internal. And it's hard because she's not a hacker or programmer or anything, so it would be difficult for her to override, but it is– it's- it's more of an intellectual fight if it's software-based, which is possible. If it's hardware-based, it could be irreversible. And so… if there's something, it seems like this- this might be good.
And… that's how that feels. That's how all of that feels, is… thrilling and intimate and… terrifying. And wonderful. And it is just this deep trust. And she carefully does everything back up as well as she can and asks for several full diagnostics, repairs stuff that she broke in a way that at least it stops yelling at me, and schedules… we-we come up with a list of parts that she needs to– that we need to get so that she can actually fix it. Because if it goes– if it stays unfixed for long enough, it will send an alert back home. But we do have a little bit of a grace period.
And that's, uh… that's our final memory. And I think we are both pretty shaken from that experience. I think that it was a lot more intense for both of us than we were expecting. And with that…
DEE: Let me count my marks. That is seven scenes.
BRIANNA: And that's, that's scene seven. Um… fuck! Okay!
DEE: Hoo boy. Okay. I feel much more invested in Tamsin and our life together than I thought I would.
BRIANNA: What's next? Jesus. Ugh. Okay. Make your… okay.
GAME: MAKE YOUR CHOICE
SATAH: We're gonna- we're gonna head into the choice.
DEE: We're in the end game now! Um, my cat is fed. Let's go.
BRIANNA: Section three, "make your choice."
DEE: "Now that we've done all our scenes, it's time- time for one final moment."
SATAH: "You see yourself in a war zone."
DEE: "A mech
DEE AND BRIANNA: "and their pilot
DEE, BRIANNA, AND SATAH: "standing on the battlefield
BRIANNA AND SATAH: "fighting as one."
DEE AND SATAH: "There is a moment of calm
SATAH: "amidst the fury."
ALL THREE, OVERLAPPING AND REPEATING EACH OTHER: "You see all the moments that led you here stretched out like a sea of thought around you."
BRIANNA: "The future looms in your cybernetic mind."
SATAH: "This battle will see you break."
DEE: "This battle will break you."
BRIANNA: "This battle will see you break."
DEE: "And you have to make a choice."
BRIANNA: "Each player describes how their mech makes the choice about their future and what the outcome is."
DEE: "Bare witness to each mech's final moments."
SATAH: And there are three choices.
BRIANNA: Auuugh. Okay. Okay.
DEE: "You sacrifice your life to save your love:"
BRIANNA: "The mech dies, but the pilot lives."
SATAH: "You sacrifice your love to end the war:"
BRIANNA: "You both die for something bigger than yourselves."
DEE: "You sacrifice peace
BRIANNA: "to keep your love:"
SATAH: "The war goes on, but at least y'all survived, right?"
DEE: Oh my god.
BRIANNA: Fuuuck. Ohhh god! This is brutal.
SATAH: And I think this is interesting.
DEE: This is really interesting.
SATAH: Because…
DEE: The thing– okay.
BRIANNA: 'Cause to me, this is– this is a choice of… something I think about endings a lot… I don't want to get too meta. Actually, I love getting meta. What am I talking about?
Something I think about endings is I think endings often communicate… what is… the point. You know? What is the point of all this? What are we trying to say? And I think in this case, to me at least? This is– this is a story about grief and war and whether it is possible to move on while still in war and whether it's possible to find peace without the war ending. And I think in this moment, I think I just have to think… what would Sapphire do?
SATAH: Both for… me being who I am and the way that I play games and the things that I'm interested in, and because probably of- of the prompts and the way that they ended up being laid out… didn't talk a lot about the war! And I think that's also because of the thing of me being built specifically to target the enemy ace, right? 'Cause there has been an ongoing war this whole time, but I think we were very rarely involved in it.
And the plot that developed there… basically. Let's say that I were to roll to choose one of these, which I don't think is my plan. It would take a little bit of work to figure out why we would sacrifice ourself- ourselves to end the war. And there have to be reasons, I'm sure. This war is- is devastating and it's terrible, and I'm sure that Brig has people that she loves and she's lost people and- and we do want an end to this violence. We- we- we truly genuinely do.
But. We haven't exactly been focused a lot on our, uh… respective loyalties to our command or the state or whatever it is, right? We didn't even really figure out what the resources were. Though I have– I have the vague image of it being, like, territory control of an asteroid belt that has, uh, asteroids that are rich in some sort of resources that are important in creating technology, something like that. And- and as sort of a– the war is about that, but also it's about resources in other ways. In how wars are about resources, because one of the things you can do to win a war is deny your enemy enough resources that they can't fight anymore, right? And so… this has been a war where there is an active battlefield around the thing that we want, but also it's a war of constant, uh, espionage and blockades and trying to make it so the other one doesn't have food and whatever.
DEE: The thing that is really interesting is that I've established this as a forever war. So this is a war where both sides are incentivized to keep the war going forever. And I'm sorry to keep coming back to Gundam, but like I said, I'm a Gundam girlie. This is kind of the premise of a lot of, a lot of Gundam fic- a lot of Gundam… "Fic." And probably fic too. This is the premise of a lot of Gundam shows. That, um, like, ultimately the side that you are fighting on may not actually be the good side per se, which goes right back to, like, Gundam 79 where, like, the Federation actually sucks and keeps letting them down over and over again.
Um, so the question is how could me and Tamsin achieve peace?
SATAH: It would be easier, as we're ranking these, to find a way to say that I die, but the pilot lives. I think… I'm pushing against that for a few reasons. One of which is just, like, that scene in the storm? The third memory, when we were caught in that storm and I kept trying to tell her like, "You could leave, or you could hide somewhere else. You can go without me." And she just insisted, "No."
While it would be totally fair to want to explore sort of the tragedy of… in the end, I sacrificed myself for you anyway, even though you didn't want me to, I think that I'm– I prefer the version that is like… one of the things that you taught me… that we learned together… that I learned. Is that you wouldn't want me to do that? That probably, actually, you'd prefer we both die rather than just you live. And so I'm not going to put you in that position.
TAMSIN: How could we achieve peace?
Well, I mean, one way would be that… we could actually rebel. We could take up arms against our own side. Yeah. Ohh, yeah. Okay. I think I know what this has to be.
Because as much as I love Tamsin, I think the reason I love Tamsin and the way that I love Tamsin is that Tamsin has taught me to be a good person. Tamsin taught me that it's terrible that we have to kill. Tamsin taught me to prioritise life over the mission, over the war. Tamsin taught me to care about others. And as much as I love Tamsin, as much as she is the center of my universe, I think that… she, on the whole… like, to some degree I was pro- I was programmed to help her, and then I was supposed to be able to be overridden. But I've proven that I can't be overridden, and that I can change my programming.
So I think that… I think that the choice that I make is not going to be to save Tamsin, because I know it's not what Tamsin would want.
SATAH: I suppose that the other way to interpret, "You sacrifice your love to end the war; you both die for something bigger than yourselves" would be that we die defeating the ace. And that's very possible.
BRIANNA: Let's- let's play out where we are. What moment of calm there is.
We are in Balentown. The Hurricane is here. They did not go to Fort Anchor. I don't know why. Maybe there was a scheme. Maybe there was some sort of plan. Maybe we were given intel wrong or– I don't know. They came to Balentown.
And we have made our way, through town through the rubble of buildings, and under the streets, hiding out in the few homes not yet fully destroyed. And then… we find… their mobile base. Their kind of moving, walking carrier. And we can see as the Hurricane sits triumphant in a giant throne on top of the carrier.
This time we're prepared for the potential for a trick.
SATAH: It's very easy to see how we just kind of fuck off. [Laughs] Right? Uh… that follows very easily.
BRIANNA: We're under the carrier. We know that the sensors have not picked us up yet. We know that if we go up there, we might be able to kill him. And without the Hurricane, the war ends much easier. But I have calculated the odds, and a front-on attack like that… the chance of survival… given the circumstances?
SATAH: This is such a difficult choice. Really, I'm just choosing between you die for– "you both die" or "you both live, but the war goes on."
DEE: I'm going to sacrifice both of us for something bigger than ourselves.
BRIANNA, AS SAPPHIRE: Your chance for survival if we do this is 1.2%.
BRIANNA, AS TOPAZ: But it's a chance to kill the Hurricane.
Whatever happens up there, you kill him and you run. You shoot him, you slash him, you do whatever you need to do. And then you get out of there as quickly as possible.
BRIANNA, AS SAPPHIRE: But your chance of survival is 1.2%.
BRIANNA, AS TOPAZ: But it's a chance to kill him.
DEE: And I think what this looks like is that we have a new kind of mission, which is that there- there is a rebellion.
SATAH: I'm going to roll a die, not to make a choice for me, but doing the thing where– you know sometimes if you can't decide what you want, flip a coin, and then when it's midair, you'll be able to tell by the result that you're wishing for which one it is? So I'm going to do evens "you both die," odds "the war goes on." And I'm rolling a d6.
I got odds, "the war goes on." How do I feel about that?
DEE: So at the end of World War One, there was this moment where– like, the Russian Revolution happened, first of all. Lest we forget. And that was sort of this like two part revolution where it started as– it started as a revolution, right? It was just, like, regime change, let's get rid of the czar. We hate him. And then Russia stayed in the war for a while, but it was not super clear if they were going to stay in the war forever. And then eventually there was the communist revolution. And they, like– then they left the war very quickly after that.
But that was, like, a widespread thing, right? And it was very much in the air. Like, the– there was, you know, like a lot of agitation in Germany, especially against the czar, or– the czar. The- the- the Kaiser, right, because it was the czar in Russia. And, like, there were moments where, like– on, like– like, with French troops, because like so many French people died in that war. Most of the fighting was in France, right? Like, there was a moment where the French generals said to their allies, like, our troops can't attack. Like, they won't obey the order. So we can't give the order because they would just like… it would be– that would be the end. Like, that would be the end of us as an army, so right now, like, we just can't do it.
SATAH: Yeah. Yeah.
So.
BRIANNA, AS TOPAZ: Remember the promise we made. You said that if it's to kill the Hurricane, the rules change.
BRIANNA, AS SAPPHIRE: Your chance of survival is 1.2%.
BRIANNA, AS TOPAZ: Damn it, Sapphire, I know. I know.
DEE: Our societies, the- the lunar– the- the societies on the moon, the societies on earth. Like, they're reaching a breaking point where life has been about keeping this war going, and these companies making more and more money off of all of this destruction and building more and more weapons, and people being asked to, like, ration food and, like, people being conscripted into the military and people working… buying war bonds, right? Like, all of our lives have been restructured around these wars. And people are just reaching a point where they can't do it anymore.
BRIANNA, AS TOPAZ: I've taught you a lot, I think, and you've taught me a lot. We've learned a lot from each other, but I want to underscore what love means here. Love means you do what the person you love wants you to do. Even if it's hard for you to take. Even if it breaks you.
Do this. Bring peace.
Just like we promised.
BRIANNA, AS SAPPHIRE: … Okay.
SATAH: This is the big confrontation with Doc, the enemy ace, And we're sparring. And it gets to a point where we could take her out, but it would be a sacrifice. Like, if we take her down, we're going with her. And I think I get primed to do it, because this is- this is what I'm for. This is what we've been working towards. And it's awful, but… I think I even offer to sacrifice myself and she lives, right? Like, I light up the ejection options that she could– she could take. And she's like, "Fuck you." [Laughing]
DEE: I think I'm going to say that– I'm going to give a little glory to the moon. The, uh- this starts on the moon. There is a… a strike– a general strike on the moon that is violently suppressed, but then, you know like, the protests and demonstrations in response to that overwhelm the authorities. And, like, there's a… y'know, it's not clear if the regime is going to– the corporate regime is going to stand. And this same thing happens on Earth afterwards. That– you know, there's, like, a sympathetic revolution, where it's just kind of like, "Yeah, like, fuck these guys. Fuck the guys who have put us into the situation."
BRIANNA: It goes like this.
DEE: What happens is that we're part of a unit that is standing by outside of a major city, a major industrial city, uh, where there's like a lot of labour– there's a lot of labour organizing. God, probably, like, unions are in a terrible position in this awful forever war world. But in, you know, both officially and unofficially, there's been a lot of labour organizing in this city, and this is sort of, like, where it starts.
Um, there's a general strike, and there are– there's sort of a moment where the police lose control and everybody's kind of like, yeah. Like the– like there's– where– the city is not under control. Like there's, you know– no business can keep going.
And we're part of a mil- we're– the military is sent in, which means infantry, to keep the peace. But we are attached. We are outside of the city and we will go in. It's understood we will go in and we're like… we're– this is not a mission we can do, right? Like, the only thing we can do is lay down incredible amounts of destruction. So everybody in our unit, all of the Adze pilots are like, "Wait, what is this?"
And of course they all look to Tamsin.
And, uh– you know, like, the military– there's just like fighting, right? There's just firefighting in the streets. It's street by street fighting. And it is taking too long and there are way too many casualties on the government side.
So one day we are… go out on patrol, which we do all the time, you know. Like, we're- we're ordered to sort of, like, walk around; like, go to different places on the perimeter. This happens frequently. We're ordered to do it. And then we are ordered to fire on the city.
BRIANNA: I'm getting emotional about my own stupid thing!! Okay. It's not stupid. It's– whatever. Okay.
SATAH: I prime myself for us to both go down, taking Doc with us. And then Brig says, "Wait." She slams on the intercom button again to communicate with Doc. And she references, like, a paper that Doc wrote early in her studies, where– and she- she asks, like– she references the thesis that is– that is– it's- ugh. What is it?
It's like… "do you really believe that"… I'm trying to get to, like– it's- it's something about, like, do you believe that we can transcend something, but I'm also trying not to do a, like weird, uh, gets into eugenics territory of "creating a better person through technology" or- or creating a new… "do you think that, uh, mechs or- or mechanical sapient beings are superior to humanity and therefore the future of it." Uh… but it's like…
[Lengthy gasp] So it's… before she went– it's before Doc specialised in artificial intelligence and machine sapience. It's, like, her undergrad, essentially. And she was studying philosophy, and she wrote like this big capstone paper on free will.
DEE: You know, like we reach a certain point and it's like, "Okay, now lay down fire support in these coordinates." And this is with, you know, like, these big freaking missiles or like firing cannons with like, you know, shells that are bigger than a person.
And, um, Tamsin says– Tamsin refuses the order And, um… [Big sigh]
SATAH: And Brig slams on the intercom and asks Doc, like, "Do you really believe in free will?"
And Doc, I think, at this point, is, like, trapped in some way. She- she can't get away. Like, very much at our mercy. And she hesitates and then responds, "With the consideration of extenuating circumstances… yes, absolutely I do."
And Brig… puts her hand on the transmit button. Doesn't talk. Gathering her thoughts. And she just goes, "Well, then act like it."
BRIANNA: They climb up the station, trying to scramble away in, finding the best possible chance of survival. Not going in head on if they can avoid it. But at a certain point they have to pop up and out and into an open hangar. They're on a runway. At the end of the runway is the throne.
SATAH: And she takes her hand off the button and she says, "Hey, Pick, do you want to get out of here?"
And I have, like, slight alarm going off about, like, mission parameters, and I say, "All indications show that this is our chance to–"
An P– and Brig goes, "Pick! Is that what you want? Or you want to get out of here?"
And I look at the, like, pinned collapsed mech of Doc in front of us. And I see– I have to see her face, right? Like I see through the– it's- it's- it's not that the cockpit has, like, a broken window. It's that, like, she's low enough power that the, like, blackout coating isn't active anymore. It's, like, a battery-powered thing that she can turn on and off and it has to be off because there isn't enough power. So I can see her face.
And she's- she looks shocked. Like she has been scared, but right now she is just like, "What the- what the fuck is this? What- what does this mean?"
And part of me is tempted to take her with us. My worry is that that is too much of a win for our side. There should be consequences to this, right? And that would technically be taking out the enemy ace.
DEE: [Hard exhale] I think that the whole unit refuses the order, right? Like, so then, like, immediately the order is given to her second-in-command, her lieutenant to, you know, to relieve her of command and take over the mission. And that person, you know, refuses the order.
And, um it comes down to… another unit is sent in and Tamsin talked to them,and I think I talked to the intelligences that they have. But they don't have intelligences, they have- they don't have artificial general intelligences, right? Like they have- they have like a- an expert program that is very good at doing things with a mech and can sort of talk to you like the computer in Star Trek can talk to you, but it's not a person. So there's nothing I can do there.
She talks to the pilots and they are– they don't want to fight her, but they make it clear that they're going to follow the order and they just ask her to get out of the way.
And she says, "I can't do that."
SATAH: It's fun to me if we take her. So what I'm going to do is invent a justification for it, which is that, like… she's not popular in the internal structure in, like, command on her side. Like she's very, very good at what she does and she has a lot of respect and so they have to keep her in the field, but they don't like her. She has dangerous ideas about the importance of mechs and- and their personhood, uh– I am going to, in fact, decide that that is, that is the way that she is– and even has opinions about how the resources that we're fighting over? How they should be used and who we should ask what they want from them. And so they have been kind of trying to get her killed>
DEE: This is the moment of decision where all of these things have been flashing through my head. And part of me wants to– I'm receiving that shutdown order, the one that's like "shut down the mech." Like "don't- don't let- don't go rogue," but they know it won't work. Uh, they're kind of hoping against hope it will work.
I could let that go through and we would live. We would live. We probably couldn't be together anymore after this. I mean, Tamsin would feel betrayed for one thing, but also she'd– she's probably going to be arrested, but we would both live. She would live.
The other thing that I consider very seriously is that I could eject her. I could eject the cockpit and I could do this fight alone. But I'll fail. I'll fail. There's a reason that I have Tamsin. Because I can pilot this thing, I can shoot the guns, but like, I don't have the– [Snapping her fingers] the fuckin spark, you know? So if we want to protect this revolution, we have to fight together. Even though I know that whether it's here and now or soon, it'll lead to our death.
BRIANNA: There are weapons firing. The Hurricane stands and says, "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at Fort Anchor. What are you doing here?"
And there is a clash. They leap up from the runway, slam blades into the Hurricane's eyes, into their face. And the Hurricane screams in fury. Grabs the mech. Crushes the cockpit.
DEE: I just tell Tamsin, "I'm with you."
And she raises our cannon. And she draws a bead on these mechs flying in. And she fires on them to keep them out of the city.
BRIANNA: Sapphire hears Topaz grunt in pain, knows that they won't survive this, that this is not the 1.2% chance.
And retracts one of their blades, takes out a gun and just fires down the middle, cutting the Hurricane in half.
SATAH: When I say "Yes, I would like to get out of here." I'm also the one who asks Doc, "Would you like to come with us?"
And she's like, "Wh-wh– you don't have to bring me to a second location. You can just kill me here."
And I say, "That is not what I asked. Would you like to leave with us?"
DEE: It's a long fight. Because it's like, you know, we waste those guys, whatever. We beat the White Witch. But mutiny is not going to fly. Civil unrest is dangerous enough. Mutiny is too dangerous. And we get overwhelming force brought to bear on us.
SATAH: And Doc has these, like horrified, awed eyes, just marveling and goes, "Heh. Fuck yeah, I would."
DEE: And, uh, the unit fights with us, the other intelligences fight with us, and one by one they go dark. Their armor, their thick armor gets broken into, the intelligences die, and the pilots die. And… and so do we. Eventually.
BRIANNA: The Hurricane falls, but the carrier is still going. As Topaz sits there, choking on their own blood, she says, "Run! Get out! Get out of here!"
DEE: Just bit by bit, I take too many hits, my armor gets chewed through. Tamsin is so fast, and she's so smart, and she's so good, and she keeps winning. She keeps beating pilot after pilot after pilot. And she hates it, because she's killing her comrades.
SATAH: And I… pick up her lifeless mech… and we leave.
BRIANNA: The last thing that we see is shots firing.
DEE: But eventually… no mech is that tough, no armor is that strong, no pilot is that good. We run out of ammunition. We try to fight with just my hands and legs, and we get- we get blown apart.
BRIANNA: Sapphire says, "I hope you'll introduce me to Cereza. It would be nice to witness something beautiful together."
DEE: Not that we can know this, but… this example, and the material help, right, of, like, stopping a bombing run for hours. It makes a difference on the ground. It sets an example to people around the world and to the military. And the military is not conclusively with the government. They are divided as this conflict goes forward.
BRIANNA: And then there's a shot. And that's it.
SATAH: And this is a win for the enemy. With her out of the way, they are able to promote people who will toe the party line. And they are able to organise their forces in a way that is strictly more advantageous. And they are able to– nobody knows what happened to her. So they're able to just like, martyr her, right? And use that against us. And this, like, incontrovertibly, is way better for them than for us. For our side. For our former side.
DEE: The resistance, although we can't know this, is eventually going to come out on top. And it will be a new world. And it may not be a perfect world, but it will be a world that will end this goddamn war.
SATAH: And so the war goes on, and it tips towards our enemy. But we're not there. We just start going as far as we possibly can. We hit areas where there are perimeter proximity alarms that we didn't even know existed, saying like, "You're leaving the fucking solar system. Are you sure? You don't appear to be in a ship, you appear to be in a single mech. What's up? Hey. You're getting a little far out."
DEE: Girls are going to get to grow up and be pilots, and machines will be used to build and grow and help things rather than to kill.
SATAH: And we have to do some heists. [Laughs] We, like, steal some equipment, some chargers. And I think this is another reason why it sucks more for our side: we know our security, and we're able to get in and out before anybody knows to watch for us. So we steal a bunch of shit, and we just keep going. And we're not really sure where or what we're going to do. And we know that the war is going to keep just ravaging behind us.
But we're not going to be there.
DEE: The end.
BRIANNA: No happy endings. That's the– that's the life. That's the world. 
SATAH: Yay!
BRIANNA: So, the end! "Now that the game is over, you can take a moment to talk about what you've done together. Check in on how everyone's doing." Ahhh!!
"Relax and decompress. This game has the potential to be intense." Yeah. No, I, uh, god.
DEE: "Check in on how everyone's doing. Relax and decompress. This game has the potential to be intense." And I have to say that was more intense than I thought it was going to be.
BRIANNA: You ever make up a situation and then get sad about it? Um… because I do. I've done that. Many a time.
DEE: I… I love Tamsin. I'm sad that we both had to die. But I think it's- uh, it's what she would have wanted. She was a good person. And, uh, she cared. And, uh, she cared about others, and she cared about the larger world, and… I hope that… I hope that's something that I can carry forward myself, which is a crazy thing to take away from a solo game about a mech who's in love with a person.
SATAH: That was so fun. That was so fun. What a good game.
BRIANNA: This was great. I really think this game is fantastic. I really enjoyed doing this in a kind of random prompting situation. I think that's a fun way to play it. I would recommend heavily for folks to do that. I think they should create D30s just for this game.
DEE: This was soo fun. I had a blast recording it. I was like, am I really going to get, like, a long enough recording out of this? And my goodness, I certainly did. So I hope you enjoyed it.
BRIANNA: Thanks folks. And go look at something beautiful together.
DEE: Bye!
OUTRO
SATAH: This has been Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and epistolary TTRPGs. To find where you can find the show, check out foliopod.carrd.co. Sign up as a paid member at patreon.com/foliopod to vote on games and participate in live streams, or join for free to get access to the bonus feed with edited audio-only versions of the streams a couple weeks after they happen and occasional other stuff.
You can find Brianna on Bluesky as priceofbrie, like the cost of the cheese. Check out her games at weepingrobot.itch.io and watch her stream at twitch.tv/saltcravings.
You can find Dora on Bluesky at queenregnant. She has games at deecity, deecity.itch.io, and games she makes with her wife at gal-pal-games.itch.io. Check out the Kickstarter for Drink My Sweat, a game about ritualising queer feminine transgression and messy attraction through a fight club, running now and throughout February 2025.
You can find me, Satah, at posatahchips on social media generally, and check out my other work at gaygothvibes.online.
This week, Brianna and Dee and I finished our games of Live. Love. Die. Remember. by Ray Cox. Everything I mentioned here is, as always, linked in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening… and take care out there.