107: Time Wars #4: The Zenda Vendetta Simon Hawke

gellaho

The Book Cage: Episode 107 - Time Wars #4: The Zenda Vendetta

Even through The Year of Pain, we must still kneel at the altar of our patron saint, Simon Hawke. This time, Time Wars is all about The Prisoner of Zenda. You know The Prisoner of Zenda, right? No? Well, it's like the Price and the Pauper, but about a fictional country. But, that 's not really important here. What we see here is Simon Hawke become Simon Hawke. Featuring horny women, irritating villains, and strange title typesetting, The Zenda Vendetta has everything. Join me, Friday 5pm eastern, as we save Ruritania.

gellaho

The Badgers in the Discords

Hell yes.

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Fuck yeah, Time Wars!

FancyShark

Talk of Simon Hawke becoming Simon Hawke made me realize there is another prequel that works: Yakuza 0

But anyways, fuck yes, Hawke

gellaho

A little under an hour until Time Wars #4: The Zenda Vendetta. Here is your preview

gellaho

This book took quite the journey to get here

The Badgers in the Discords

Now I know that sounds bad, but consider, dear reader: the Timekeepers ended up creating a lot of profit just before the end.

shaqtoberfest jakesy

Huh, I guess Mississippi isn't just a river after all

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Book hype!

gellaho

Time to begin the process

FancyShark

Let's gooooo!

gellaho

I think by the fourth book, you aren't allowed to call it the "new time travel adventure series" anymore

The Badgers in the Discords

Yo there were 4 Time Warses?

That seems like 3 more Time Warses than most societies should be comfortable with

FancyShark

Hi, @gellaho ! Hi, @The Badgers in the Discords ! Hi, @MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO ! Hi, @shaqtoberfest jakesy !

gellaho

The Illegitimati

FancyShark

I think that means "My bastard son loves cardboard"

The Badgers in the Discords

Prefacing any acknowledgment with "with friendship and respect" is a great way to get me to think it's not meant with those things

Brendan

Let's do this thing we are doing!

HeyitsTom

ok so how doctor who is this gonna be?

FancyShark

Hi, @Brendan !

Hi, @HeyitsTom !

gellaho

Start with a six page timeline, just going to skip over that

Brendan

"Bastards cannot grind you"

GDC

Think that means "fake without silicon carbide"

FancyShark

Hi, @GDC !

HeyitsTom

hi fancyshark

Brendan

HAWKEY HOLIDAY

The Badgers in the Discords

"Do not purchase if seal is broken"

gellaho

Then another thing to skip

Brendan

Hawkesday the best day of the week.

The Badgers in the Discords

Oh no, the publisher fucked up and put the appendices ahead of the story!

GDC

Are you going to make us read a textbook?

gellaho

Then the book starts

FancyShark

"You there, boy! What day is it?"

"Eat a dick, asshole."

"Why, it must be Hawkemas! The spirits did it all in one night!"

GDC

Brendan

Hey, it's Colm Meaney, star of The Crossing Guard.

The Badgers in the Discords

Star of our hearts.

gellaho

Why don't you honore my balzac

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

I would want to punch someone who reads like this.

FancyShark

Mickey Spillane, reknowned author of Ey, Fuggedabowdit

Hi, @Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage !

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

But how could this be, those people are from different times?!

GDC

So he's got a bunch of books by old perverts, and Sigmund Freud

The Badgers in the Discords

Yeah how about you— uh— how bout you… Barbara my… Tuchman…?

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Im proud of Hawke for not putting himself into that list.

The Badgers in the Discords

Fucking nailed it. 😎

gellaho

Moses is a big old slab of beef

FancyShark

What about the lats

The Badgers in the Discords

You gotta be to lift those big heavy stone commandments

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

So this book didn't have an editor, huh

HeyitsTom

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

He can lift EIGHTY POUNDS WITH ONE HAND!

GDC

Hawke needs no editor

The Badgers in the Discords

They died in the Time Wars

gellaho

More like Isuck Ass-imov

shaqtoberfest jakesy

ICE

HeyitsTom

gellaho is Batmaning us. You prepared ahead of time didn't you!

FancyShark

Hawke is a master of going on massive rants that either come to an actual point or have enough rad random shit in them that it makes up for it. Or you get a lecture on how to smelt metal or how swiss army knives make great gifts

gellaho

Really, the only thing you need from the prologue is about Moses's secret

gellaho

I could have included the paragraphs describing ten different priceless artifacts

Brendan

Why is Simon Hawke absent from this constellation?

FancyShark

SEE?!

Brendan

In the memory palace holodeck no less?

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

The MAN can always find you when its time to pay your child support.

FancyShark

Hawke is a lunatic, but he's the awesome kind

The Badgers in the Discords

He's a lunatic who knows how to hit a page count

gellaho

You know what, have the helmet from "Chinese" Gordon and the iron cross

Brendan

God, the lats that must require.

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

"Chinese" Gordon is Gordon Liu, but in the Time Wars.

FancyShark

Because hair never deteriorates

The Badgers in the Discords

Uhhhh maybe that iron cross for saving one of the biggest madmen of WW2 isn't something to be proud of, Moses

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Oh.........Otto Skorzeny gave him a medal huh?

Brendan

Otto Skorzeny the cartoonishly evil Nazi?

gellaho

If Simon includes himself it's only to self-denigrate.

Or to do meta humor with an evil sorcerer

FancyShark

Okay, fine. Here's the collection of scalps he salvaged from-

Brendan

Bold decision to have our hero team up with Nazis to save Mussolini's life.

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Too bad about your luck, Mussolini, you ended up being upside down anyway.

shaqtoberfest jakesy

Or as a self insert under the name JD Masters

gellaho

Moses is the heroes' boss. And he probably had to save history or something

The Badgers in the Discords

Save the dictator, save the world

gellaho

Anyway, off to the plot of The Prisoner of Zenda, a book nobody knows

shaqtoberfest jakesy

Lest we forget

Brendan

Doesn't mean he should keep mementos.

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Its fun how the Time Wars have progressed to happening in entirely fictional places, rather than places like "France", which is only semi fictional.

The Badgers in the Discords

Time is like a river, some of the bends and streams are completely made up

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Famous fantasy city of Dresden

Brendan

France, being a part of Spain, only exists in a fiction of surrealist elderly baby fantasyverse.

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Not that kind anyway, if he had like a necklace made of White Army teeth from the Russian civil war I'd give him a pass.

gellaho

Time to meet the slab of beef that is the villain of the piece

gellaho

The Badgers in the Discords

Slab Bulkhead Vs. Fridge Largemeat! The grudge match of the century!!!

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

"Hardly anyone dueled anymore, except for a lot of people"

HeyitsTom

it's Kylo Ren isn't it

he's going to kill the past

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

"Like a Germany times seven amount of people"

FancyShark

Dude has more gaudy jewelry than a capsule machine

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Did we just get a bit phrenology here with the dudes skull

gellaho

And with a name like Nikolai Drakov, you know he's trustworthy

FancyShark

A Serbian Ambassador

Brendan

Nikolai Drakov is Hawke's real real name.

HeyitsTom

Nikolai Drakov is just like "Bob Smith" in eastern europe right?

shaqtoberfest jakesy

It's not far off lol

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Its also an anagram for I Am Bad At Anagrams.

HeyitsTom

my favourite anagram is Tanlord Dump

gellaho

✅ Redhead

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Ah yes the aristocratic nose

FancyShark

"Holy crap, did I ask for your life story?"

Brendan

I often attend the Viscomte's balls to air my father's cuckoldry.

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Jeez dude, its just a big honker and red hair, its not like youre a werewolf or something worse like a Jehovah's Witness.

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

We're doing a phrenology!

FancyShark

This gets way darker when it's revealed they can interchange facial features like Mr. Potato Head

Brendan

Witches can't be king, unfortunately.

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Let me find my monocle I use for old timey science

There it is

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

My games of Crusader Kings 2 say very differently.

GDC

I'll grab some whalebone calipers

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

I've determined Rudolph has the forehead of an idiot, and the cheekbones of a deviant

Brendan

You can be the king of witches, but you can't be the witch of kings.

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

He can be whatever he sets his mind to

gellaho

Anyway, Drakov poisons him after revealing he's from the future

shaqtoberfest jakesy

I just need lip moistening to hit my Hawke Bingo

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Damn I forgot to make bingo cards

FancyShark

"It's a special concoction I've developed called 'bleach'"

HeyitsTom

"ah, a delicacy from your homeland? Of course I'll try it! What did you call it, a tide pod?"

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Monster Energy in the 19th century body has the same effect.

FancyShark

"I seem to have lost all feeling in my legs!" is normally what you say when a party kicks into high gear

GDC

I've had brandy almost that good

gellaho

Meanwhile, in 2619, our heroes are being told about a fictional place they're going to time travel to

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

"You've never heard of it because it doesnt exist, like Liliput or Finland."

HeyitsTom

Ruritania! 😆 you wouldn't have heard of it, it's in the middle of nowhere

GDC

Naming your fictional country Ruritania is like naming your fictional element unobtanium.

Brendan

Upvote more, you philistines.

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

This book is based on another book!

gellaho

Finn has a lot of pluses and minuses

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

He seems like he shouldnt be a Time Commando with that kind of record, to be honest.

FancyShark

AKA "He's a loose cannon but he gets results"

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Finn is a double reverse general

gellaho

And Finn has red hair, but that probably doesn't matter

GDC

If they let him go he'll just get hired by some other time cop force in another state

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

The Temporal Corps used to have standards, now they only want you to have a GED and tattoos are okay.

FancyShark

"Burly" appears to be the favorite word of this book

Brendan

Antiaging drugs + traveling through time must make it super weird to tell exactly when you're subordinate to someone in their career.

HeyitsTom

wait so the temporal corps is aware of the infractions he will commit in the future? Or he went to the future to punch a retired old general in the face and then got demoted in the past?

gellaho

They let in somebody from the 12th century, it's pretty loosey goosey

FancyShark

Confirmed: Dick Clark was a Time Cop

shaqtoberfest jakesy

Redhead though so it's cool

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

To be fair, Andre can kill a motherfucker real good.

FancyShark

Fuck yeah, Andre Cross

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

And is not shy with the comradely handjobs, if you ask her nicely.

gellaho

Get negged, Ruritania

shaqtoberfest jakesy

Ligma Balkans

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Suck it, fictional country, you got annexed by Austria-Hungary. You know how shit you have to be to lose to them?

FancyShark

In terms of time, it's unimportant. But in terms of time, it's significant.

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Austria-Hungary once lost a battle to itself.

HeyitsTom

it's nowhere special, but it's on the way to everywhere special

gellaho

Finn played a Merry Man, met the Three Musketeers, and was The Scarlett Pimpernel. But this is ridiculous

Brendan

Cool, he invented Brienne of Tarth.

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

oh wait HAWKINS

I like mine better.

HeyitsTom

I'll allow it

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Good old tuberculosis.

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Things are about to get consumptive up in here!

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

You could always count on TB back then.

gellaho

Luckily, Finn looks exactly like both the dead guy and the King of Ruritania

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Sure death but sexier than typhus.

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

I don't think this is going to help the situation at all. If anything that's going to lead to confusion.

gellaho

That is quite a coincidence

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

The cool part about Ruritania being entirely fictional is that you dont need to work to make your main character look like anyone, you dont even need a handwave.

HeyitsTom

why not just say they can do the star trek surgery to change his appearance

Brendan

I hate when my coworkers find my Kang accounts.

FancyShark

Finn running into the dissonance that happens when you find the NPC with the same facial features you gave your character

GDC

So is the conceit here that Ruritania was a real country, or that it bacame a real country due to a time war?

gellaho

To be fair, he's already done that three times in the first three books

And Simon gets bored easily

HeyitsTom

there's no way anyone could possibly know that

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

And also he forgot

FancyShark

I'm assuming it's that it was a real country and they're going to screw something up and erase it

gellaho

In Time Wars, all fiction is real

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Finn was so close to getting his free sub sandwich from the surgery punchcard too.

Brendan

He was so close to becoming the Earl of Sandwich!

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

How great would this book be if the rest of the story was just them trying to find a fictional country

Just time travelling to ask very confused austrians about a place that doesn't exist

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

That would be pretty sweet if they spent a couple hundred pages running down what turns out to be time terrorist propaganda.

gellaho

Mikey Elphs

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Michael, classic Strelsau name

HeyitsTom

I feel like whoever wrote that description might be projecting a bit?

GDC

That's reading a lot into one hologram

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Hahahahahah Dostoevsky reference number two, keep going Simon.

gellaho

Mike gets duked on

shaqtoberfest jakesy

They're still reading Dostoyevsky in the 27th century huh

FancyShark

In another time and place, Michael would be telling you about metal bands you didn't care about while perusing record labels

Brendan

All happy families are alike, because every single one of them is headed by Finn time-traveling to marry the hottest women in history.

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

He just did the ready player one thing but with books

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Depression is in.

gellaho

He is Russian, real name: Nicholas Yermakov

shaqtoberfest jakesy

Nicky Yerms

gellaho

Red heads out the wazoo

gellaho

Also: Flavia

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Flavia of Love would get six seasons and so many people would shit on stairs.

Same amount of crowns tho.

FancyShark

"Fever for the Flava of Flavia" would be remembered as a wildly successful Pringles campaign that landed all of its producers in prison

gellaho

Basically, The Prisoner of Zenda is "The Parent Trap," but with cousins instead of twins. And preventing a coup instead of marriage

Brendan

Didn't I tell you? Finn gets it.

Who among us can say this isn't what he'd use a time machine for?

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

"What are you, gay?" - the Ruritanian public to their monarch.

GDC

Flavia sounds like a low-tier coke knockoff

FancyShark

Fuck yes, time hijinks

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Made with apple skins and sawdust.

FancyShark

Local grocery brand

GDC

Everyone hated the kid whose parents served Flavia at their birthday party

shaqtoberfest jakesy

It's one of those shit sodas flavored with stevia tho

gellaho

You remember time agent Mongoose?

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Vaguely

FancyShark

Hell yeah. He killed Cobra twice

gellaho

Yeah, he's dead

FancyShark

NOOOOOOOOO!

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

God damn it no, Mongoose!

You were a person!

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

RIP, Mongoose, you died offscreen.

FancyShark

I appreciate him being killed offscreen after all the betrayals and faceturns

Brendan

We're going to run five novels in asynchronized parallel.

gellaho

Finn loses English grammar for a bit

shaqtoberfest jakesy

Everyone knows Goose dies in the end, how else will maverick get his redemption arc

Brendan

Detective/Political thriller/Time caper/Parent trap

GDC

The Timekeepers would be the name of the Clock King's goons, if the Clock King was in batman 66

FancyShark

Didn't know? Dude, he teamed up with you multiple times!

He also tried to kill you multiple times!

gellaho

So, remember when I said this is where Simon Hawke becomes Simon Hawke?

shaqtoberfest jakesy

ICE! ICE! ICE!

gellaho

Not sure why I said that. Anyway, here's the sexy nude lady assassin

FancyShark

NYSTEEL! NYSTEEL!

Aaahhhhh, there you are, Hawke

The Year of Pain has been missing this brand of horny

Brendan

I'm not comfortable knowing Time Cops of 2639 have nude holoscans of everyone in history.

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Sophia Falco, solid nude lady name.

Brendan

Can't even picture her not wearing pearls.

gellaho

She's also a milf, so if that's your thing

shaqtoberfest jakesy

Not Italian enough tho

Brendan

How did this book get my two things but fail to combine them?

gellaho

This is why you shouldn't go through the body scanners at the airport

shaqtoberfest jakesy

Falco. Codename: Falcon

HeyitsTom

she changed her face but kept the extremely distinctive ring that would be personally recognizable by the greatest time cop in history

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Hahahahah you gave her your fathers ring like a dork, Finn. You should know love isnt worth beans in the TIME WARS!

shaqtoberfest jakesy

I'm Forrester. Codename: Subaru

gellaho

Dun dun dun

gellaho

MOVIE! MOVIE! MOVIE!

FancyShark

"Oh god, it's like we suck at this"

FancyShark

SWAAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

HeyitsTom

that's the name of two different enemy agencies?

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Its almost like you can fuckin decide the Time Corps sucks ass AT A LATER DATE!

Like background checks are almost worthless for determining future behavior in some ways.

GDC

The Time Bureaucrats really dropped the ball there

Someone fucked up the Time Paperwork

gellaho

Get some Manchurian Candidate in here

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Sophie Falcon was radicalized by the time they time bombed Cambodia in 2345.

FancyShark

Hypnotic Moles of the Future, tonight on the History Channel

gellaho

That's a lot of words, Simon

GDC

When you get kicked out of referee corps school they make the hand gesture like they're ejecting you from the ballpark

FancyShark

It's never a good sign when a psychiatrist in your medical corps commits suicide

gellaho

In case you forgot

gellaho

I know! I had an appointment with him on Thursday

Puppet Partisan FlippantSausage

Brings up the question as to how they got to the psych guy, but sure, focus on the hot Italian milf.

GDC

A name like Falco makes it easy to come up with code names or RPG character names

HeyitsTom

they infiltrated another guy who let in the psych guy