[SPEAKER_09]: Hello, to all my followers who expressed concern about me after my last video.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Not only am I okay.
[SPEAKER_09]: I am extraordinary.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I'm very excited to see you all in person very soon.
[SPEAKER_09]: I wanted to take a minute out of my schedule today to address something.
[SPEAKER_09]: Recently, a podcast host asked me an interesting question.
[SPEAKER_09]: Who am I?
[SPEAKER_09]: That can be a difficult question to answer.
[SPEAKER_09]: Can't it?
[SPEAKER_09]: It can be complex, vulnerable, elusive, even for all of us.
[SPEAKER_09]: But I want to try and be vulnerable for you today because I think you deserve it.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I trust you.
[SPEAKER_09]: I grew up in California.
[SPEAKER_09]: As a kid, I was lonely.
[SPEAKER_09]: I lived in a small town, went to a small school, and still didn't have that sense of community that I felt that I should.
[SPEAKER_09]: A few times I thought I made real friends.
[SPEAKER_09]: But, so I was on my own a lot.
[SPEAKER_09]: There was a period of my life where I would spend my lunch breaks trying to see how many times I could walk a lap around the school.
[SPEAKER_09]: That was my existence back then.
[SPEAKER_09]: I didn't belong.
[SPEAKER_09]: I wanted.
[SPEAKER_09]: I really did.
[SPEAKER_09]: But something just always felt wrong.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I think you know what I mean.
[SPEAKER_09]: I think sometimes at work, or at school, or even in your family, I think maybe you felt it too.
[SPEAKER_09]: But here's where I went wrong.
[SPEAKER_09]: I blamed them.
[SPEAKER_09]: The school, the other kids, teachers, parents.
[SPEAKER_09]: But I was wrong.
[SPEAKER_09]: It wasn't any more their fault than it was mine.
[SPEAKER_09]: So what was it?
[SPEAKER_09]: Right, what was it?
[SPEAKER_09]: I realized that I wasn't a part of the community that I felt I was supposed to be.
[SPEAKER_09]: I could feel it.
[SPEAKER_09]: But I couldn't find it.
[SPEAKER_09]: And that bread anger and resentment.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I think it's easy to get trapped in that.
[SPEAKER_09]: I think it's easy to feel betrayed by a community you're not a part of.
[SPEAKER_09]: But I was wrong.
[SPEAKER_09]: I needed a community that I could not find.
[SPEAKER_09]: And this is that community.
[SPEAKER_09]: Formana.
[SPEAKER_09]: Formana found me when I couldn't find myself in through or Amana.
[SPEAKER_09]: I did.
[SPEAKER_09]: I found myself.
[SPEAKER_09]: I created myself.
[SPEAKER_09]: So that's who I am.
[SPEAKER_09]: And that's why I'm here.
[SPEAKER_09]: And that is why I care so fundamentally about this religion.
[SPEAKER_09]: Or Amana filled a part of me that I thought was unfilible.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I want to give that to everybody.
[SPEAKER_09]: I want to give that to you.
[SPEAKER_09]: So consider this.
[SPEAKER_09]: Maybe you're forcing yourself to be a part of a community where you don't belong.
[SPEAKER_09]: Ask yourself.
[SPEAKER_09]: Does this feel right?
[SPEAKER_09]: But these, my people, ask yourself, like I didn't for years before I figured it out.
[SPEAKER_09]: Ask yourself.
[SPEAKER_09]: Who are you?
[SPEAKER_09]: A remina?
[SPEAKER_09]: Shetheter.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, it's not like we interviewed him and asked him that question.
[SPEAKER_02]: He makes it sound... Now for the record, I take what Orlando said seriously.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not trying to unnecessarily plant for this asshole.
[SPEAKER_02]: but I'm also not willing to let him spew shit unchecked.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this, frankly, pisses me off.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is praying right out in the open on the vulnerable and the desperate.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what cult leaders do.
[SPEAKER_02]: They find the people who need someone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Need help or support or a sense of community.
[SPEAKER_02]: People who don't fit in, who've been abused, who fall in on hard times, neurodivergent people and depressed and isolated people and folks dealing with addiction.
[SPEAKER_02]: He speaks directly to those people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Makes them feel seen and cared for, like he's one of them, except he wants you to think that he's made it and he can give you a way out of your own personal Quagmire too.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry, that's bullshit.
[SPEAKER_02]: He has shown us exactly who he is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go back to the episode called the alignment if you haven't heard it.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is not going to help you.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is going to judge you, manipulate you and use you for his own gain.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if he's looking for sympathy, he can shove it.
[SPEAKER_02]: How many of us were never bullied?
[SPEAKER_02]: Never spent a recess alone, never had to have a teacher explain that someone wasn't our friend, but they weren't just making fun of us.
[SPEAKER_02]: If we were even lucky enough to have teachers who cared.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you really went through all that, you wouldn't seek power from others in that position.
[SPEAKER_02]: You'd value them, the way they deserve to be valued.
[SPEAKER_02]: You wouldn't pull them in and throw them away.
[SPEAKER_02]: Frankly, it's desperate, and it's sad.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyways, what the fuck is he doing wandering around London?
[SPEAKER_02]: And if the video there was an announcement, you heard it.
[SPEAKER_02]: London tube district line.
[SPEAKER_02]: We know Rexwerlitz isn't his given name and the government still doesn't know what is, but for all we know he used his real passport to get in.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's standing there surrounded by people shooting a video.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what the fuck?
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess he could have ways of avoiding customs or fake identities.
[SPEAKER_02]: But don't you love how he didn't actually answer the question?
[SPEAKER_02]: Who is this guy?
[SPEAKER_02]: What are his connections?
[SPEAKER_02]: Hell, what's his fucking name?
[SPEAKER_02]: And how bad of a state does Oramana have to be in, that he seems like a good option?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, maybe people are just hedging their bets, but we got to get Orlando back in here to tell us more about the internal politics of all this.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a major Covenant London.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't know anything about them.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're easily the most secretive of them all, and they're the second oldest next to New York.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all I've got.
[SPEAKER_02]: So... Is that why he's there?
[SPEAKER_02]: Who knows?
[SPEAKER_02]: But the whole where in the world is Rex question is getting a little cat and mouse and I kind of fucking hate it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anywho, the gilded age.
[SPEAKER_02]: Am I using the historical stuff to avoid dealing with all of that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, is that unhealthy?
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe, but here we are.
[SPEAKER_02]: are in trepid investigators, Dalton theories, went up in flames.
[SPEAKER_02]: Little, tension break there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, there's a reason we're presenting all this in chronological order.
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to walk the same path, Irving in the gang walks then and see what comes out of the woodwork.
[SPEAKER_02]: So my questions at this point are the same as theirs were then.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't going to make you listen to his entire post-new years rambling, but of course they were all in a tizzy after Dalton's fiery end.
[SPEAKER_02]: Endless circular discussions about what could have happened and why.
[SPEAKER_02]: Irving stayed up listing the same old facts and questions till even he was tired of himself.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the discord has been chewing over some of the same ones.
[SPEAKER_02]: What the hell was Dalton up to?
[SPEAKER_02]: Was he involved in the murders with an accomplice, perhaps, Georgina, and he wound up meeting the same ill fate as their victims when the ally shipfraid?
[SPEAKER_02]: Was he after the same thing the murderer was and came into conflict with them?
[SPEAKER_02]: Was he killed because he'd been planning to reveal something about the murders at the party?
[SPEAKER_02]: Was he himself somehow trying to solve the murders and was caught by the real perpetrator?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the deal with his list?
[SPEAKER_02]: You begin to understand the tensions of the time as we dig deeper into this story.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, the parallels with the present are damned uncomfortable.
[SPEAKER_02]: As someone on discord correctly guessed, Dalton's body was so burned if there was no way to see if he had the same marks as the others.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're also seeing this idea of balance starting to pick up traction in the past.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's exactly what Ellie was looking into on her blog.
[SPEAKER_02]: Could that have gotten her kill?
[SPEAKER_02]: Endless questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: But...
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to keep trucking through this muck together until we make sense of it, just as Irving was doing in February of nineteen hundred.
[SPEAKER_02]: Though hopefully with more sense in the end.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes?
[SPEAKER_07]: No, nothing.
[SPEAKER_07]: Though actually I'd been meaning to ask Mr. Houser called.
[SPEAKER_07]: He said you'd put in a request for an unusually large transfer out of your trust.
[SPEAKER_07]: Ah.
[SPEAKER_07]: He wanted to run it by me, make sure everything is in order.
[SPEAKER_07]: I was wondering what was taking him so long.
[SPEAKER_07]: So shall I tell him that... Everything's in order.
[SPEAKER_07]: Are you sure?
[SPEAKER_10]: The amount is... Yes.
[SPEAKER_10]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_10]: It's time I took responsibility for my own funds.
[SPEAKER_10]: I see.
[SPEAKER_10]: And you're being responsible with your funds?
[SPEAKER_10]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_10]: I do.
[SPEAKER_10]: It's an awful... I had an investment opportunity.
[SPEAKER_10]: I thought that money was mine to do as I wish.
[SPEAKER_10]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_07]: I just hope you're thinking things through.
[SPEAKER_07]: Investing smartly.
[SPEAKER_07]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_07]: You know, if you ever want advice.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm not sure your advice is in line with my own goals, but thank you.
[SPEAKER_07]: I was just going to say that Mr. Houser has always advised me well.
[SPEAKER_07]: You're always welcome to consult him.
[SPEAKER_07]: I keep him on retainer.
[SPEAKER_07]: Can you report back to you, apparently?
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, come now, Elliott.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'll tell him not to.
[SPEAKER_07]: Are you still so cross with me?
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm not sure what you mean.
[SPEAKER_07]: You've been avoiding me for weeks.
[SPEAKER_07]: I've been avoiding.
[SPEAKER_07]: I've never seen your calendar so full.
[SPEAKER_07]: You're up and out of the house before I've had my morning coffee.
[SPEAKER_07]: I hear you clattering home after midnight.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hardly.
[SPEAKER_07]: Just yesterday when I walked into the study, you snatched up your papers and left faster than I could say Jack Robinson.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm not avoiding you.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm not.
[SPEAKER_10]: I've just been dizzy.
[SPEAKER_10]: Apparently so.
[SPEAKER_10]: I meant what I said.
[SPEAKER_10]: I think it's time I take some responsibility for myself.
[SPEAKER_10]: I've been working on that.
[SPEAKER_10]: Really?
[SPEAKER_10]: I would don't sound so surprised.
[SPEAKER_10]: You knew it had to happen sometime.
[SPEAKER_10]: Well, I hoped.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, and would this sudden tenacity be inspired by some young lady or another?
[SPEAKER_07]: What?
[SPEAKER_07]: No.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, come, you can tell me.
[SPEAKER_07]: There's nothing to tell.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's not insult your old man's intelligence.
[SPEAKER_07]: I see more than you think.
[SPEAKER_07]: You do?
[SPEAKER_07]: I've been there, Elliot.
[SPEAKER_07]: You have?
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, you... You can confide in me.
[SPEAKER_07]: Just this once.
[SPEAKER_07]: Who is it, son?
[SPEAKER_10]: I... I don't want to disappoint you.
[SPEAKER_10]: But I don't have a name for you.
[SPEAKER_10]: Oh, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_07]: Some...
[SPEAKER_07]: There was a time, well, before your mother and I, at one time, it was Cebilla.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, we had an understanding when we were young, at your age.
[SPEAKER_07]: At your age, you think you have all the time in the world, but then there was the war and afterwards,
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, I wasn't the same man.
[SPEAKER_07]: My mind was not on such matters, and I didn't act.
[SPEAKER_07]: I let that slip away.
[SPEAKER_07]: Of course, I loved your mother very much.
[SPEAKER_07]: I knew.
[SPEAKER_07]: And you know Roscoe's a dear friend.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: But if you truly do feel that you could see a life with either of these young women.
[SPEAKER_07]: You must act.
[SPEAKER_10]: There's no war brewing now.
[SPEAKER_07]: No.
[SPEAKER_07]: But all windows eventually closed just the same.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't see why.
[SPEAKER_07]: Elliot Vile as the daughter of the Magister is fittest daughter.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, I care far more for your happiness than any connection our family could make.
[SPEAKER_07]: But many others will be interested in her for political reasons, and you have no idea what intentions Vialis family may have for her.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think I'd know if she'd been approached by some.
[SPEAKER_07]: I saw Archimedes Amidor engaging her at New Years.
[SPEAKER_07]: She was just tailing Dalton.
[SPEAKER_07]: But he wasn't.
[SPEAKER_07]: Remember, you're not the only one who has a choice to make, and every day you waste an indecision.
[SPEAKER_07]: Vialig gets closer to making hers.
[SPEAKER_07]: As does the ring.
[SPEAKER_10]: Elliot, where are you going?
[SPEAKER_10]: Back soon.
[SPEAKER_10]: Make my excuses.
[SPEAKER_10]: You can't be late for dinner.
[SPEAKER_10]: Elliot!
[SPEAKER_07]: Lovely.
[SPEAKER_06]: A bit unorthodox, but if anyone needs a snack before our last guest arrives, please help yourself.
[SPEAKER_07]: Elliott was quite late for dinner.
[SPEAKER_07]: A quarter past eight, the strange collection of guests were still gathered in our Senio Amador's parlor, making polite conversation.
[SPEAKER_07]: It was a group of around fifteen, Anthony James and his immediate family, including Nathaniel, unfortunately.
[SPEAKER_07]: A few of the Martin relations, the Spencer's, the Lowls, Adeline Ross.
[SPEAKER_07]: No Doyles, Wadias, or Wilds, and no direct line Johnson's or Van Tassels.
[SPEAKER_07]: It was clear that none of us quite knew what we were doing there.
[SPEAKER_07]: Not that anyone would dare mention it.
[SPEAKER_07]: delicious.
[SPEAKER_06]: We have blueberry cake tonight.
[SPEAKER_06]: The sugar arrived this week from our plantation in Cuba.
[SPEAKER_06]: You fully recovered from the war then, Mr. Amador.
[SPEAKER_06]: Hardly.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you're recovery to do.
[SPEAKER_06]: Business is now even better than it was two years ago.
[SPEAKER_06]: Is that a fact?
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, fortunately, the American's investment, the protectorate is far more robust than Spain's was in the colony.
[SPEAKER_06]: Here, here.
[SPEAKER_06]: Father's being modest.
[SPEAKER_06]: The Amador is a bit responsible for a greater and greater share of the exports from the central provinces.
[SPEAKER_06]: Not comedians.
[SPEAKER_09]: Good fortune perhaps.
[SPEAKER_11]: I'm just sorry to make it to the island before the whole thing was over.
[SPEAKER_11]: My regiment was next in line to join the governors, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: As you've told us, I don't think I've ever seen someone so disappointed to miss out on the chance to get Cuban fever.
[SPEAKER_07]: For once, I found myself silently agreeing with Adeline.
[SPEAKER_07]: Since this little conflict with Spain, the younger generation thinks they understand what war is.
[SPEAKER_07]: Fortunately, that topic didn't last long.
[SPEAKER_07]: Unfortunately, the conversation then drifted in the same inevitable direction that it always has since the New Year.
[SPEAKER_12]: Did you hear?
[SPEAKER_12]: Premium Johnson and Julius Fantassel were seen walking together after the service on Wednesday.
[SPEAKER_11]: What?
[SPEAKER_11]: Even after what happened the other week?
[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry, what happened the other week?
[SPEAKER_11]: Dalton Thorns rejoining.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_11]: One of the cost of practice ran a story.
[SPEAKER_11]: They saw the water he's leaving the Thorn residents.
[SPEAKER_12]: Surely the columnists didn't know what they were doing there.
[SPEAKER_11]: Doesn't he?
[SPEAKER_12]: Doesn't he?
[SPEAKER_12]: Sure, maybe the columnists didn't know.
[SPEAKER_12]: But maybe someone else did.
[SPEAKER_12]: Someone else, such as someone on the outside who could envy us.
[SPEAKER_12]: Adeline, you can't believe that one of our own would have done that to poor Dalton.
[SPEAKER_12]: Done.
[SPEAKER_12]: We're the others.
[SPEAKER_12]: What are you saying?
[SPEAKER_12]: You don't think they were accidents?
[SPEAKER_05]: Dalton Thorn, Philbert Stokes, Edward Doyle, the Windsor.
[SPEAKER_05]: All in one year, are you telling us you do think they're accidents?
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, let's not jump to any conclusions.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's sad.
[SPEAKER_08]: There's certainly every reason to keep our affiliation secret from those who wouldn't understand.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, of course, you're right about that.
[SPEAKER_07]: But surely there's nothing noteworthy about two people like Priyam and Julie is walking down the street.
[SPEAKER_12]: But Irving, if someone saw where they were coming from, Titus is a fine magistrate, of course.
[SPEAKER_12]: But I do wish he teaches something of discretion.
[SPEAKER_06]: Especially if he expects him to be the next magistrate.
[SPEAKER_03]: Julie is the next magistrate.
[SPEAKER_03]: I watched that boy grow up and he's so much sort of a picnic.
[SPEAKER_07]: Adeline, I don't know if I'd go quite that far.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wouldn't you?
[SPEAKER_03]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the sisters.
[SPEAKER_03]: That would be interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Granted, Titus cares too much about the family name and all that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think as far as he's concerned, Julius is the only choice.
[SPEAKER_08]: Which is not my view and ideal one.
[SPEAKER_11]: Nor in my.
[SPEAKER_11]: And with such misfortune in their own family.
[SPEAKER_11]: How does that bower for the rest of us?
[SPEAKER_12]: Oh, come.
[SPEAKER_12]: So many tragedies can't be random.
[SPEAKER_05]: Because misfortune isn't random.
[SPEAKER_12]: Oh, God, not this again.
[SPEAKER_05]: Our power's been fading for sixty years.
[SPEAKER_05]: And not to put too fine a point on an outline, but now we're dying.
[SPEAKER_05]: Literally dying.
[SPEAKER_05]: At what point do we have to stop and think about whether we should do something differently?
[SPEAKER_12]: Oh, please.
[SPEAKER_12]: This is clearly the work of a disgruntled outsider.
[SPEAKER_03]: I agree with Nathaniel.
[SPEAKER_05]: You do.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I don't think the thing to do differently is to start hexing.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you'd have us just open our arms and let them es fortune fall on us?
[SPEAKER_05]: Our families and friends, close our eyes and see who dies next.
[SPEAKER_05]: What if it's me, Adeline?
[SPEAKER_05]: What if it's you?
[SPEAKER_05]: And what if the poor souls you hex?
[SPEAKER_05]: Better them than us.
[SPEAKER_08]: This shouldn't be happening to us.
[SPEAKER_08]: Of course it shouldn't.
[SPEAKER_08]: But this balance nonsense is dangerous.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ignoring it is dangerous.
[SPEAKER_05]: The pattern is right in front of you.
[SPEAKER_05]: The grittier we get, the more we suffer.
[SPEAKER_11]: It is true that Titus, in particular, has been attracting as much bad fortune as he has good.
[SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, regardless of their fortune or lack thereof, I gather we can all agree that the way a Magister Van Tassel is handling his successor is far from ideal.
[SPEAKER_08]: With all due respect, Mr. Amador, I'm not so content to let this rest.
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't always like how the magister does things either, but it's, we can't possibly lay Dalton Forn's death at his door, or Edwards or Phil Albert, certainly not Ashford and Loretta.
[SPEAKER_08]: He couldn't possibly have stopped that.
[SPEAKER_05]: He didn't even try.
[SPEAKER_11]: He's too busy planning gratuitous parties.
[SPEAKER_11]: He is your magister.
[SPEAKER_11]: It's right.
[SPEAKER_11]: Ballons are not.
[SPEAKER_11]: Titus is so preoccupied with keeping the magister ship in his line that he's letting the rest of us suffer.
[SPEAKER_11]: Even his own family.
[SPEAKER_07]: Just when I thought the situation couldn't possibly deteriorate any further, I turned to see what the others had.
[SPEAKER_07]: It was Eliot, standing in the doorway with Viola Van Tassel on his arm.
[SPEAKER_10]: Apologies for being late, Mr. Amador.
[SPEAKER_10]: I heard Mrs. James couldn't attend, so I hoped you wouldn't mind if I brought someone else.
[SPEAKER_11]: Mr. Tassel, I apologize.
[SPEAKER_11]: I didn't mean to.
[SPEAKER_01]: You certainly sounded like you meant it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you don't need to apologize to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not my father, and I don't always have to agree with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, if you'd be good enough to catch me up, I can make up my own mind.
[SPEAKER_06]: Later, perhaps.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now that we have our full compliment, I think it's time for dinner.
[SPEAKER_06]: I miss Vent Castle, you are most welcome.
[SPEAKER_06]: May I?
[SPEAKER_07]: Dinner went more smoothly.
[SPEAKER_07]: Arsenio Amador's seating arrangement was well tailored to split up the more volatile among the guests.
[SPEAKER_07]: But I felt a pit in my stomach all night.
[SPEAKER_07]: Not about Eliot's behavior, while tactless at least it showed initiative.
[SPEAKER_07]: Nor about the fear that someone outside Oramanis targeting us.
[SPEAKER_07]: But about fighting amongst ourselves, so readily and so thoughtlessly.
[SPEAKER_07]: This isn't who we are.
[SPEAKER_07]: This isn't what the founders built, nor what the generation's sense have preserved.
[SPEAKER_07]: I fervently hope it passes quickly.
[SPEAKER_07]: Irving Johnson, February second, nineteen hundred.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been stuck on the question of motive with these deaths.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why Ellie's in Claire?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why Ingram's Spensley?
[SPEAKER_02]: Who even were these people?
[SPEAKER_02]: What did they have to do with each other?
[SPEAKER_02]: I have no fucking clue whispers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, same thing in the past, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially with Dalton gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: And clearly in nineteen hundred they were wondering the same thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then listening to that scene, it hit me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it's random.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe that's the point.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, okay, people start dying.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody knows why, nobody can find a pattern, but any of them could be next.
[SPEAKER_02]: That fuels paranoia.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now you have a community who's scared, and the more scared, the more paranoid people get, the easier they are to manipulate.
[SPEAKER_02]: Take Arsenio Amador, the guy hosting this dinner party.
[SPEAKER_02]: And remember, his son was the one hitting on Viola at New Years?
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't need to know all the guests, but Arsenio and Archimedes, they're important.
[SPEAKER_02]: So at New Years, Irving wrote this about Arsenio.
[SPEAKER_02]: Island Mit, I find his pedigree as good as most of the Covins.
[SPEAKER_02]: After all, his father joined the founders within the first decade of Oramana, even if their connection was through friendship and business rather than blood or marriage.
[SPEAKER_02]: the Amadoras or Belisters, and it sounds like everyone knew that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now the dinner curry.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was the first time our Senio hosted one, but it won't be the last.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, as for his guest list, what you should know is that nobody there had anything in common except one thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were all on the lower rungs of the Cubans' social hierarchy, and as you heard, they were pretty unhappy with Magister Van Tassel, which gets us back to our Senio.
[SPEAKER_02]: Something I'm going to tell you right now, are Senio Amador once power.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you throw a cast system, paranoia, and an ineffectual leader into his toolbox, well, we're going to see what he does.
[SPEAKER_02]: Enter my epiphany, a cast system, paranoia, and ineffectual leader, or Ramana splitting into factions, and someone who wants to exploit it all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Doesn't that sound awfully familiar?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I don't know, maybe that's the answer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe Rex is following a century-old playbook to unseat Magister Demos, and if history's any precedent?
[SPEAKER_02]: But, we do have one thing going for us that they didn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: In nineteen hundred, there were only two factions.
[SPEAKER_02]: The establishment and the channelers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas today, we have three.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, Saint Charles.
[SPEAKER_04]: Saint Charles.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's kind of a huge, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't really heard the contours yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: What exactly?
[SPEAKER_04]: We got in touch with them last year, and we've been talking, Commercase, and they went for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Went for it, Conjury?
[SPEAKER_04]: They're trying it out.
[SPEAKER_04]: Saint Charles is...
[SPEAKER_04]: Is... I'll say it.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're sluts.
[SPEAKER_04]: For a good experiment.
[SPEAKER_02]: Official nomenclature?
[SPEAKER_04]: They wouldn't disagree.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're actually super chill.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm... I'm not kidding.
[SPEAKER_04]: They love to be at the forefront.
[SPEAKER_04]: Honestly, I can't think of a single major discovery about the energy that didn't come out of St.
[SPEAKER_04]: Charles.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, the way back to the alignment.
[SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_04]: They haven't changed.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, when Susan reached out... Well, huh.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I reached out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, is he...
[SPEAKER_02]: Why not the Magister?
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, she's got a lot of her play, but you know, I do what I can.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what did that look like?
[SPEAKER_04]: When I reached out?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, their declaration, they recognized Susan as Magister, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what's the mechanism for that?
[SPEAKER_04]: Mechanism?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like, what does that actually mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: How do Cubans recognize each other?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it a Council of Magisters thing?
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, it's a little complicated.
[SPEAKER_04]: The Coven's operate pretty independently.
[SPEAKER_04]: The Council of Majestors only meets in every couple of years, but there's no set schedule or anything.
[SPEAKER_04]: But, as far as I know, St.
[SPEAKER_04]: Charles was talking to Seventy first about it for a while beforehand.
[SPEAKER_04]: Wouldn't shock me if they wanted to get the Council together, but that didn't happen, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they just did it independently?
[SPEAKER_04]: We talked a lot, and they were persuaded.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what's the protocol for like recognizing Susan as Magister?
[SPEAKER_04]: It's usually the Magister's call, but St.
[SPEAKER_04]: Charles makes decisions as a community.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think they collectively agreed, and that's kind of a bigger deal than if it were just the Magister.
[SPEAKER_02]: So do they like have a ceremony?
[SPEAKER_04]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it's not that formal.
[SPEAKER_02]: They just say, pretty much, just because Orlando Carver
[SPEAKER_02]: Orlando said they declared for Susan.
[SPEAKER_02]: That sounded really official.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is official.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, but like, I wouldn't really put a lot of faith in what he says.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, he's a, channeler.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: But not the kind of herd of before he's not correct.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's kind of in a third camp, like a third faction.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: He raised some pretty legit concerns about a schism.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean,
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I get that I do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah?
[SPEAKER_04]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_04]: Nobody wants to skism.
[SPEAKER_04]: Or a war.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, to whatever want that.
[SPEAKER_04]: But... you're... What, are you proposing the good guys give up just to avoid a fight?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously not.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh-huh.
[SPEAKER_02]: Danny, I'm not siding with Chandler's.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just programming them.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's what they said about you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm neutral.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, any other Covins you're recording?
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm having some talks.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm optimistic.
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll see what happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, I'm still gonna keep that line of communication open with Orlando.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah!
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I mean, you gotta get all the sides, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Couples too.
[SPEAKER_04]: Honestly, it's just... Well, there's gonna be a day when... There's gonna be a day when people have to make a choice.
[SPEAKER_04]: And when that happens, Cam, those three factions might become two.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know that, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you trust him?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I just met him, kinda.
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just, just saying, I... What?
[SPEAKER_04]: You're always welcome on Skinner.
[SPEAKER_02]: What happened in Skinner is produced at Masama Voice Over Studios in New York City.
[SPEAKER_02]: This episode starring Dan Olson, Joseph Dean Anderson, Sam Morrison, Estella Livia, and Vico Ortiz, and featuring John Palacio, Sammy Rivas, Katie Polinsky, Jim Phromwood, Ethanial Curcio, Johnny Gottz again, Katrina Brown, and Evelyn G.V.
[SPEAKER_02]: Music by Mitch Gardner.
[SPEAKER_02]: What happened in Skinner theme by O'Reilly Webb?
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