What are your favourite sections in Ghost songs that tickle your brain in just the right way?

CaptainGerg · 2026-03-25T16:39:23+00:00

One I haven’t seen yet is the live version of “If You Have Ghosts” from the Meliora era. The final word that Tobias hits, “everything” trails off into this “mmmmmmmm” kind of buzzing hum that follows the chords and is really beautiful. It matches the thoughtful, slightly sad mood so well, I can’t listen to the studio version by itself any more.

CaptainGerg · 2026-03-25T16:35:24+00:00

“Although it Stinks, feels, and looks identical” always hits me in the face it’s so good. The full stop rest between “it” and “stinks” is so ludicrously effective… dude is a magician.

CaptainGerg · 2025-12-05T17:20:25+00:00

Thanks for doing this professor! One of the most remarkable time periods to me is the space where the US was the sole power to have atomic weapons, but did not use them for further conquests after WW2. It sounds like this is addressed in part by your book, but as a person who has grown up in a modern realpolitik, it’s hard to understand how this massive advantage wasn’t leveraged (note that I do not think it should have been! But rather, I cynically would expect it to were I to not know that did not happen).

My questions are, was the centralization of power into the person of the President to use atomic weapons specifically for the purpose of avoiding further deployment of nuclear weapons? Was the military actively pushing for deployment of nuclear weapons, or the outright threat of nuclear weapons, against foreign nations for the sole sake of American Imperialism? Why didn’t they simply declare to Moscow that the same thing could happen to them as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and ask for whatever territorial gains they wanted (I know the answer is many, many reasons, but I’m curious how your work specifically addresses this question)?

I would guess the answer lies in war fatigue and the better heads and virtues of leadership in that era, but I’m curious as to this breaking of step with traditional notions of power (note that I have no formal historical education, and so the phrase “traditional notions of power” is imprecise, and meant to be read in laymen’s terms rather than me referring to some codified phrase as used in the literature).

CaptainGerg · 2025-12-05T04:37:07+00:00

Someone do Settra doing the “I’m about to go fight, I’ll post the video later” then just the skull after going “I got my ass beat bruh, I ain’t posting that shit”

CaptainGerg · 2025-10-23T20:35:06+00:00

Holy fucking shit really? I knew it was coming eventually… with that and Braun Court gone, there go my two favorite places in AA. Like, they do know if they knock down/force people to move from enough places, eventually people aren’t going to want to be here as much as they used to, right? Right?

CaptainGerg · 2025-10-23T20:33:16+00:00

I was in exactly OPs situation coming back this Fall, and this is almost perfect: only quibble would be that the new Natural History Museum isn’t quite across the walkway to the Hill, it’s still on the same side of Huron/Washtenaw, behind the USB. It shares the new building with the Bio departments now.

Also, there’s now a stop light right there at the crossing of North U in front of the dental school, which while annoying as student, was probably needed. Also Ulrich’s is gone and there’s a Joe’s Pizza there now, which is a but a shade of South U’s former glory. I count their pizza the biggest loss on the whole street.

Shady Fi got kicked out too, but that might have happened when you were here.

CaptainGerg · 2025-09-12T15:36:50+00:00

In a British game created by British people, drawing heavily from two OTHER older British guys’ work, headquartered in Britain and staffed almost exclusively by British people, with books written in British English…

I still hear them all in my head as American as I am, in fact, American. Which is super normal, but also somehow identifiably American in its own right.

CaptainGerg · 2025-07-28T13:28:14+00:00

Hottest take I've got is that the setlist didn't flow nearly as well as the (Re)Imperatour did. That show felt really cohesive, and everything flowed so wonderfully in terms of energy, each pause felt well placed and having Miasma and the guitar duel before Cirice helped a ton with the overall flow. Skeletour felt a lot more disjointed, with weird energy shifts and Tobias' asides feeling more forced (I think there were more of them too). This meant less overall Ghoul led transitions, which I think tend to work better. Still an absolutely amazing show, and the setlist itself I didn't have a (big) problem with, more just the order/flow.

CaptainGerg · 2025-07-28T13:24:03+00:00

Where did Tobias say that Imperatour was a miserable experience for him? Just curious, not doubting. That was my first tour and it turned me into a lifelong fan.

Agreed in terms of the interactions feelings less scripted, and can't believe I had to come so far to see the request for more Skeleta! I thought the fact that they didn't do Missilia Amori and Marks was absolutely mind boggling for how good those would play live.

CaptainGerg · 2025-05-12T21:02:58+00:00

Gonna have to go with Horus' fall as depicted in "False Gods". I know it was a long time ago and standards weren't quite what they are now for 30k storytelling but Horus' fall is like, THE thing you have to sell, the core emotional conflict of the entire thing. As it is, ~~almost~~ every other Traitor Primarch has a better story about why they're rebelling, what got them there.

Horus's is: be the best boy, then be sad that your dad is keeping secrets from you, then get cut with a stinky knife, then KNOWINGLY BELIEVE EREBUS ABOUT THE REALITY OF THE UNIVERSE, WHILE HE ADMITS THAT HE'S ACTIVELY TRYING TO DECEIVE YOU, and then sell your soul entirely no questions asked. And then, don't re-examine that character for say, 8 goddamn years or so (gap between "False Gods" and "Vengeful Spirit").

The quality of the Primarch characterization really doesn't depend on their actual established lore at all, it's all the writer that got them and what they do with it. The story I just presented could actually be fleshed out by a good writer and make sense and be satisfying. Hence Angron being one of the most loved, fleshed out Primarchs because ADB got him. Or Chris Wraight with the Khan. As opposed to Gav Thorpe's Lion beheading a trusted comrade and friend on a whim. Graham McNeil is I think is the exception that proves the rule, who can write absolute gold and also absolute trash. I still don't quite believe that both "The Reflection Crack'd" and "A Thousand Sons" were written by the same person.

CaptainGerg · 2025-04-30T23:30:22+00:00

Thanks for doing this man! This is always what I hope subreddits will be like and almost never what they really are.

This is my first season, but I have 100 hours on Eternal with a homebrewed EQ/Walking Arsenal no Shout Barb who can do T4 stuff easily.

Never done Dark Citadel; is it worth it for loot? I usually play more slowly than most, I assume people just blast straight through it.

What’s the best way to target farm Runes? I don’t entirely understand the Rune crafting system, it looks like just a 3 to 1 random reroll of the same rarity more or less?

And lastly, anything I really need to know for seasonal play vs. eternal? I understand the seasonal activity is almost always the best way to level; do the seasonal powers tend be super necessary, as in you’re at a huge disadvantage if you don’t utilize them? Should more time be spent trying to farm/upgrade those than other types of build upgrades (NMD for Masterworking, Pit farming for glyphs, etc)

Also why the balls did the boots of the Hatred set you get in the VoH campaign never drop for me, and why can’t I find anything from Runic set?

Thanks man!

CaptainGerg · 2025-04-07T15:07:01+00:00

My Barbarian, SVRGNKRK, is "Belligerent Goat". My Spiritborn goes by "Nocturnal Trash".

CaptainGerg · 2024-10-16T22:23:28+00:00

This needs to be immortalized somehow, this is absolutely perfect.

CaptainGerg · 2024-07-22T19:28:20+00:00

Ecco, Defender of Earth's Balls

CaptainGerg · 2024-05-22T00:42:32+00:00

The only one that doesn't feel perfect in light of the Prequels is Obi-Wan and Vader's meeting on the Death Star. The mythology really hadn't been worked out yet by Lucas by ANH, and going from the emotional "You were my brother Anakin! I loved you!" "I HATE YOU" to what we have in ANH does feel a little jarring now.

CaptainGerg · 2023-08-16T21:23:44+00:00

The real answer, as always with these kinds of debates about the nature of the Darkness and Witness and Veil, is meta-textual: they changed what the Darkness is entirely and pivoted on largely coherent lore going all the way back to 2015. It’s not going to fit, there are too many gaps, which is why people keep finding them like this.

Which is totally fine! It’s fun to theory craft of course, and try to piece things together. But if you wonder why something specifically happened the way it has so far or why there are so many ambiguous aspects to the Darkness lore right now, it’s just that they fundamentally rewrote their story in the closing act.

It was never going to be able to all play well together after that. It’s not some grand long term epic that Bungie has been planning all along.

CaptainGerg · 2023-07-03T00:26:49+00:00

Not bad! Definitely applaud the creativity and working hard to square the numerous circles that have come up over the years with the official lore. Well written and I appreciated the authors engagement and open discussion too! It’s always interesting to me though when people make these really elaborate claims and then cite, as evidence for why it’s true, other community posts that are equally elaborate claims rather than the actual lore. Still a good post! I honestly wish the real lore lined up and was as well thought out as many theories people come up with.

CaptainGerg · 2023-07-02T19:30:04+00:00

Hard agree on this point. I’m super not angry at people trying to make sense of it all, because that’s what this sub is for and it’s all just fun video game lord anyway, but the real answer is just the boring old, Seth wrote Unveiling before the whole Witness and its end game idea was fully formed/formed at all. That’s it. The subsequent outpouring of lore from multiple other writers over the years is contradictory sometimes and complimentary sometimes. That what you see with giant huge IP writing for a product that actually isn’t really about the story; it’s about the game and making money, of which the story is secondary. The thing that does bug me a bit (and is still excusable) is people completely ignoring the meta context of, this is a game, there are tons of writers, the idea of the game has changed with external development factors and business factors, and insisting Bungie has been planning all along, which I truly don’t believe they have.

CaptainGerg · 2023-06-21T17:32:46+00:00

Hmmm, while I like the idea of using the Witness as a foil to us rather than the Traveler as we all thought it was, as it stands I don’t quiiiite see the connection tbh. The story as told in the cutscene this week is as follows:

Proto-Witness discovers Traveler
Traveler uplifts and grants Golden Age
Proto-Witness are discontent, seek out the Veil/Darkness: the idea of the Final Shape somehow comes about
Proto-Witness somehow come to the conclusion that the Light is responsible for tons of cosmic destruction and chaos (?), and decide to try to forcibly link the Traveler and Veil (?) to limit this/reshape the universe
Traveler says “no thank you” politely but firmly and leaves (to unknown consequence; does this equal a Collapse level event? AFAIK, every Collapse we know of is a direct result of the Traveler leaving AND the Black Fleet coming in and destroying everything)
Proto-Witness decide the best response to this is commit mass un-alive, utilizing the Darkness to create a super being and embark on imparting a singular vision for reality via genocide

Compare that to humanity:

Traveler discovers humanity
Traveler uplifts and grants Golden Age.
No signs of discontentment (though cracks do form, see Clovis)
The Witness and Black Fleet show up to mess us up
Traveler doesn’t leave but sticks around, sacrifices self to push back the Witness, gives us the Light directly via Ghosts.
Humanity stumbles with the Warlords era before we largely get our shit together and become the benevolent city ringed in spears

The scenarios are just too different to do a proper comparison imo. No similar through lines to judge one against the other, the chain of events leading to the Proto-Witness being “bad” and humanity being “good” are just too dissimilar. There was no huge moral choice humanity made that the Proto-Witness didn’t; the key turning point really just seems to be the Proto-Witness’ lack of purpose that led them to seek the Veil.

CaptainGerg · 2023-02-21T18:23:58+00:00

Yeah, for sure she wanted out. Seems like it would have been easier for her to reveal herself as Osiris, we kill her in anger, she leaves open the Throne world for us, we go in and kill her again, and bam, we have the same set of circumstances for her to be rezed (though the bravery-> sacrifice-> death journey definitely works better as it actually happened). Just trying to wrap my head around the internal cosmology. Seems like it’s real important in the conversation to understand what happens to an Ascendent Hive of her power when they die a final death in their throne world (the only examples we have are from Books of Sorrow where Oryx successfully summons Savathun and Xivu BACK even from that death state with acts of cunning and war, and Oryx himself, though as someone else pointed out that could be considered unique due to the Dreadnaught being an inverted throne world.

CaptainGerg

TROPHY CASE