I suppose what I intended for the ending was that it was a question, not an answer. I want you to look back at everything we’ve seen so far and answer for yourself. Did the crew teach Pi well enough to overcome the influence of the Warmind? What did we learn about morality, ethics, love and responsibility from our travels with the crew? I don’t think any ending where I answered that for you would have been a fair one. The true ending is up to you. 
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So it was a Mother 3 style ending. They pretty much did the same thing when pulling the final dragon needle, with the fate of the universe left up to interpretation.
Still, 2 things i felt were unresolved through this.
Where are we? I thought the psionic explosion caused by Erik made the universe reset but it just seems like we’re in the same universe, just forward in time. Is this the original sector or is it an AU?
What’s going on with the whole Ragnarok situation? It seems like it happened and Erik took his place on the tree and then that entire plot line just sort of disappeared, which ties a bit into the first question of where this is happening since an event like that would be pretty significant.
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So was the purpose of the luminary defined before between you and jp? What was it ?
Is there like a small fandom still alive for Nika Starlight? like a bunch of future hipsters into 100 year old christian pop music?
How did Nika’s career and life go after we last saw her?
A lot of this would have been made clear if the party had captured or talked to Randy after he killed Higgins. Laying it out here, out of character, feels kind of not-right? Suffice to say that the multiverse situation got pretty tangled and that the universe of the live show wasn’t necessarily the exact universe we saw in episode 50 before the big suck.
Ragnarok is still coming. Like in the myths of old, it cannot be prevented, but merely prepared for and defended against. Ultimately, the Shindel realized this and built the AI to fight the coming darkness, and Erik’s sacrifice allowed that to continue. Essentially, his death charged the eye and prepared it for merging with the Warmind / Pi hybrid entity.
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Nope! We’re still not totally sure what was behind them, but I had some ideas that never quite saw screen-time.
Once you create something as popular as Nika Starlight, it never quite goes away. There are definitely those who still dig that old time Starlight pop. As for her future, who knows? Might be a story for another day.
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Possibly weird question for @AdamKoebel. Did the fan novel by @pepryce tie into the show any way in influencing some of the events that happened during the 117 years? Or is it just being left as part of the multiverse for fans to flesh out if they so choose?
I’m working my way through both the fan novel and the twitch vod at the moment so the question is more of a curiosity for “yes” or “no” rather than specifics, if they exist.
Awesome show, I loved it. Personally I feel like the darkness Ragnarok is on Earth. Humankind created it or caused it because let’s be honest humans aren’t good. This is the reason humans left for other planets originally. Humans want to find and go back to Earth because they’ve forgotten this. Who knows though, just my thoughts.
I think perhaps this didn’t really occur to anyone at the time, i think people might have just assumed he lived after being shot and that was the end of it, not much hint of multiverse shenaniganry! Shame, would have loved to have learned more. I always want to know more!
Also funny that this only further solidifies Brumpo especially on Asa!
“I heard Brumpo Tungus has returned and defeated the Warmind!”
“Yeah thats what i heard too, and he didnt even need any of the Holy Nukes! Went in with only his bare hands and flaming Stetson”
“You know i heard he once defeated an entire pirate fleet with only his fingers!”
etc
Fantastic show, sad its over again!
Adam mentioned somewhere else in the thread that the Earth of this universe (multiverse?) is sorta as-written in Other Dust, the sister-game to SWN.
Spoiler: [spoiler]It’s a post-apocalyptic wasteland with psychics and AI war machines vying for supremacy, etc.[/spoiler]
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Cool, thanks for answering and for the amazing show!
I caught a livestream of yours before the show where you talked about how nervous you were about the show but you killed it dude! So great! Hope we get to see a live one shot like that again <3
Definitely was my favourite live show so far. Swan Song was always the show that I had the most fun watching, and this liveshow really brought that back. As you guys mentioned while playing, the time just flew by.
I think the main question I have is whether or not you planned the ‘big bad unknown threat’ back when you started building the lore behind the sector’s AI, or if this threat only came into being after you learned of the liveshow (or possibly came into being due to Mercer’s character choice / motivations?).
I’m also curious if there was any stories or adventures you wish you could have told in the Swan Song universe, or if you’re generally pretty satisfied with the adventures and topics you ended up covering.
Finally, and this is the most serious question of all, if you could spend an entire day hanging out with one character from the Swan Song universe, who would you want to hang out with?
-Higgs opens Rajani’s video message-
‘I had the strangest dream…’ -Rajani shakes her head and cuts video-
This might legit have been one of the most heart crushing moments of the entire live show for me. I mean, realizing pretty much everything we knew of Asgard Sigma probably doesn’t exist anymore, I always felt a bit more attachment to Rajani as a more or less permanent friend/employer to the crew. After 30 years of nothing, she wakes up with this urge to message and old ‘friend’ because of a dream she had, even though she knows he probably dead. Knowing she’s gone when Higgs gets that message, just kinda tears me up inside. I don’t know if anyone else, fans or crew alike, feel the same way, but there was definitely a pit in my stomach when that happened. Also worth noting is the fact that aside from Sunbeam and the mother, Rajani was the only person that wrote him.
That rambling aside, this was awesome, and while I’d still like more (because I’m selfish like that, and like to have answers), I think this is an acceptable cliffhanger, and much better than the smash cut from episode 50. Well done, as usual. This was a very welcome breath of fresh air. No real questions, just outright appreciation. Swan Song brought me into the Rollplay community and I have a very big emotional attachment to it. Thank you all for doing it justice <3
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Understood but I’ll continue to think that way until we get another Swan Song episode showing otherwise.
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My wife and I prepared for yesterday, I had hoped it up all week. We ordered Chinese, I left on the break for snacks, and we didn’t miss a moment of the show live. This show has a lot of emotion for me because my wife and I really developed our relationship watching Rollplay together, and we ALWAYS were trying to guess what was going on, laughing about the insanity, etc.
When the video message with Rajani and Higgs finished wife grabbed me and said “it’s ok”. I had unknowingly grabbed my face and had tears welling up in my eyes because apparently I was much more attached to Miss Van Dorn than I was aware. If there is any one thing I want as much information as possible about it is her. I wanna know about the dream, why she felt the urge to call Higgs, how she -really- felt about him, and while obviously she was successful, how did she navigate those waters, and keep her line defended and in tact. I hope @AdamKoebel gives some more detail about this because I love her so much and there was so much there I wanted to know.
Much love, to everyone.
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That was a great, subtle moment. I feel like, perhaps, there was a greater mutual respect between the two than Rajani was allowed to have with her regular colleagues. Like Higgs and Rajani were real with each other, and Higgs wasn’t afraid to be an absurd ass around her (which I assume few others around her were ever willing to do when she gained power). She still had to maintain her perceived place of authority, but they did well together in what little time they worked with each other.
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Loved the episode! Matt and Lenore were great additions to the crew 
Well. Blimey.
Swan Song is genuinely in my top 5 sci-fi franchises of all time, but I don’t think any of the others in that count had a better, more fitting finale. The psychic Viking end-of-the-universe was great, but nailing the series down to the question of ‘am I a good parent’ was a great, great call.
Massive kudos also for Mercer for stepping into Steven’s rather hefty shoes. The tone of the character and the mix of humour and serious was completely on point and added another valuable voice to the show.
I imagined gushing about the rest of the cast as well (especially as I was never on reddit to comment there in the past) but, honestly, I can’t work out how to put it into words. I guess I’ll just say that I think you’ve all managed to make something with a breadth of quality that’s very, very special.
As amazing as an established series like TNG is, they never managed to hit the quality in range that Swan Song did. I guarantee you that I’ve never laughed along with Star Trek like I laughed along with the Legend of Brumpo Tungus. Red Dwarf never managed to do more than lightly brush the philosophy and debate sci-fi can offer before it had to add more funny lines. I guess Hitchhikers Guide comes closest to that balance, but it never had me caring about the characters the way this show did either while SG-1 and Firefly were often tempered in one way or another by the constraints of TV.
Really, if anyone asks me why I’m such a big sci-fi fan, I’m just going to start describing Swan Song to them as it didn’t just cover all my favourite aspects, it combined and interwove them to make it complete. If anything I’ve struggled since the show hit it’s stride to find anything that really matches it.
And that’s the thing - I’m legitimately sat here comparing Swan Song in my head to books, TV, movies, games etc in terms of it’s narrative qualities. If you asked me to sit down and play Stars Without Number I don’t think I could do it, it’s actually not been important to me for 52x4 hours of a ‘game stream’.
So yeah. Thumbs up from me.
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I just started watching the vod and there is mention of a recap video, but i can’t seem to find it… is this patreon only, stream only, or am i just looking in the wrong places?
You know, it’s really funny, because whenever I talk about things I saw on ‘a show I watched the other day’, and I tell people I’m literally watching a bunch of people play a Tabletop game via Skype, they usually give a look like ‘Really?’
But then I follow up with something along the lines of It’s better than anything I’m watching on TV. And it’s honestly true. I connect more with most Rollplay shows, and Critical Role while I’m at it, more than most things I watch on television. It might have something to do with the fact that I’m sitting with the people as the show is written, and I’m experiencing things with these characters as they experience them. It’s just so much more than watching a pre-recorded TV show. And that’s awesome.
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