Creator Chats - Joe Fisher and Gabriel Urbina on "The Harbingers"

I'll tell you one thing. What I do want to do. I want to like cold open. Here's here's something I want to ask you because this the the new show it is modern fantasy one would say, right? Yes. Okay. And then but now previously you've also written science fiction. Yes. And now let me let me ask you are there sometimes when you want to punch fantasy writers right in their face? Let me explain what because like with fantasy it's like things happen just because like this is like the reason why this is happening in the story is because of the magical scroll. You know, whereas in sci-fi you have to actually like find a reason why things are happening and it's infuriating that they get to do that. It feels unfair to me. I mean maybe that's just me. I always it's rare that I don't want to punch people in the face. There's always there's always a reason why I want to punch someone in the face sooner or later the probability of me wanting to punch you in the face it just approaches 100 percent. You know, like yes, just one eventually. Yes. But no, but look I really subscribe to the notion of those stories whether they are fantasy or science fiction really tend to work a better the more that the fantastical or sort of supernatural or whatever you want to call it elements the more that they can all be traced back to like one single source. Whereas the more that it is kind of you know it's a world with aliens and psychics and strange weather phenomena and all these things. You're at a certain point it's just kind of a like okay so just like anything can happen at any point for any reason. Right. We have gotten to the point where I want to punch you in the face. Hello everyone. Hello Midnight Burger People. It's Joe. Hi. Now you may be wondering what the hell is going on right now and let me explain. I am currently talking with the one the only Gabrielle O'Bina. Hello Gabrielle. How are you? I'm terrific. I've just gotten to you know fence some very angry violent feelings. So I'm feeling great right now. Isn't it great? I feel like a weight has been lifted right. Oh yeah. No, no, no, very cathartic. So the reason why the reason why we're here today is because we're going to be bringing you the first episode of Gabrielle's new show. Now for those of you who don't know which is probably very few of you you may know Gabrielle from unseen from zero hours or of course the incredible wolf 359 creator of all those. Gabrielle you've got a new show out. I do. And it's called a rap sheet. Adding to your rap sheet and it is called it is called the Harbingers. That's the one. This is a great show. I've been listening to it. It sounds really really really fantastic. Oh thank you. That is all thanks to Jeffrey our incredible sound designer Nichols Padani our brilliant composer and our terrific actors. It really is an amazing and an amazing team putting all of this together like you can feel like in in every second of the audio you really do you really do feel it. Where did this where where did it all start? It started in Michigan appropriately enough. This is one of these stories where we have a very specific origin point for the idea because I'd been working with Jeffrey and Eleanor the folks at audacious machine creative the company behind this show on a different show. I'd been working on their fictional chat show world gone wrong. And so we had a little company retreat where we all went to Michigan and we bounced some ideas for new seasons and new episodes new adventures that that show could go on and that also then inevitably transitioned into let's bounce around ideas for adventures that we could go on as creative people. In Jeffrey and Eleanor were kind enough to ask me if I had any ideas for audio fiction series that I might want to make. And that led to a couple of conversations about the sort of shows that we wanted to be listening to the kind of ideas that we want to see tackled in our fiction the kind of again just kind of explorations of the audio space that we wanted to go on and out of that sort of retreat next to a gigantic frozen is where the first seeds of the Harbingers came. That's amazing. You know you're talking about so you know basically what we're talking about is a I mean to put it very broadly this is a this is a story that takes place in the modern world a world that feels the same as yours in mind. Very very close to it at the very least. Very very close to it but the the world of magic is starting to sort of seep into this very real world. Yes it is kind of one of those they're used to the magic magic has been long absent and now what if tomorrow we woke up and the headlines were a man has figured out how to do magic magic is starting to seep back into society and what what that world would be like and you were talking about you know in these initial conversations you're talking about the ideas that you wanted to talk about the show is full of ideas and these are not ideas about magic necessarily or the rules of the magical world these are ideas about the world that you and I live in. There's a lot of discussion of geopolitics there's a lot of discussion of you know a lot of discussion of a lot of the things that you see discussed in the news right now. Right. Is that just how you like when you sit down to write that's just what comes out or was did you set out to write about a certain you know sort of basket of issues? Yes yes the the the the famous writing term basket of issues. It's a little bit of a mix of both of those. It's I'm reminded of I promise that this very fast anecdote we'll get back to answering your question. No no no we love long anecdotes. I am a Midnight Burger go away. I am reminded of a few years ago when the French movie Teton came out and everyone was losing their minds and watching it and getting you know sort of the getting their brains dented by everything that happened in that movie. For sure. And at a certain point there was sort of a conversation in my friend group that was okay but what is it about this very weird movie that is made that is so compelling to us. Right. And it was the brilliance Mac Rogers creator of give me away in a couple of other amazing audio fiction shows that articulated at best when he sort of just very off the cuff said that is a movie that encapsulates this idea that any attempt that we have to leave our humanity behind is only going to lead to stranger and more violent collisions with it. The more that we try to go into fantasy the more that reality is just going to catch up to us in stronger more unexpected ways. And I feel that when you do a show about fantasy and about magic and about people that have supernatural powers it's that exact same thing of the more that you go into this man can do impossible things the more that you are leaning into this is now a conversation about people in our real world that have powers that they maybe shouldn't have. You know you do a show about oh my god this is someone that has the capability to snap his fingers and destroy an entire city and kill everyone there. Isn't that terrifying? Isn't that like awful and terrible. And then you sort of go for a moment and think about it and you go well wait a minute we live in a world with atomic weaponry for example we have now been living for about five generations in a world where multiple of those people really do exist where somebody could decide to do that. And so yeah so I think that it is just it just comes with the territory of you know fantasy is fun because you get to a little bit leave the reality that is so commonplace behind but it only leads to stranger more violent collisions with all the things that we have in the world around this. It's interesting you describe it that way because you know in in leaving the world that you live in behind the world it you're saying that it it almost clarifies the world that you're living in when you are talking about your world in a sort of fantastical setting because this is putting it through a different prison yeah. So the specifics of the world are stripped away leaving the ideas. Exactly. Which makes them you know makes them easier to talk about you're saying. 100%. That's very fascinating stuff it's you know it was described to me it was described to me as as the West Wing with magic. That is that is one of the sort of what I think of as kind of like the business card introductions that you're in the elevator. Yes and this is exactly yeah yeah yeah because one of my one of my problems as a writer is that I have never been able to come up with a show that can be quickly explained inevitably it's always like there's this and there's that and there's the other and this and all of a sudden it's like three paragraphs just to get the basic concept of the show out there. Right. So we have been kind of workshopping different ways to describe the show and West Wing with magic I think is one of the better ones. The other one that I really like is it's like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell but if it was happening in modern day America rather than in 18th century Britain. Right. You know something that we should definitely talk about right now is because we're talking to midnight burger listeners. Hi guys one thing we should definitely talk about is the fact that one of the one of the co stars in the show is Lauren Grace Thompson. Yes the incredible Lauren Grace Thompson. The incredible Lauren Grace Thompson. Now listeners you may know her as the voice of young bird bird on midnight burger and now she is also in this show as well doing an amazing job she is a truly incredible actor. Yeah and I just the the number of times that I've given her something that I'm not sure is good or not and then she says it and it's and then I'm like oh it's actually great fantastic. She's she's really wonderful in that she is she's one of those performers that may just be completely unstoppable like there may just be nothing that Lauren can't do because it does feel like her in the Harbengers. Yeah her character in the Harbengers is someone that could be so prickly and so ascetic and so unlikable and Lauren just always finds a way to deliver her lines with such a somehow audible twinkle in her eye such a sense of charisma and such a sense of personality. Yeah that you sort of go oh my god this woman is such a mess and so terrible and I love her with every fiber of my being. For sure it's really like it's a wonderful it's it's those those are wonderful moments with Lauren when she has like a block of text coming up and she launches into it and you're you're listening to it and you're thinking god I would hate to be on the receiving end of what you're saying right now it is you know it can be it can be a withering experience. Oh yes. Oh yes. But and at the same time is you know there's and usually when usually people are like that I have a hard time like connecting with them emotionally but Lauren has this ability to be completely carving someone up like a turkey while at the same time you're seeing them as a as a human being as a fully fleshed human being you know what I mean. I think that she's incapable of playing anything one dimensionally which I think is where that comes from because it is so often with those kinds of things it is just sort of this and now for half a page we're just getting this single note over and over and over and over again whereas with Lauren it is always sort of point and counterpoint it is always sort of oh my god it's the vicious dressing down and I feel the wound that pride beneath it or oh my god it is the dressing down and I feel the righteous anger or the indignation or the insecurity there is always sort of this two way communication of she is representing what the character is doing and then also just so visibly representing what the character is feeling underneath it's really magical it's something else. It really is it's such a it's it's it's so great to just hear her in anything I'm always excited when her voice pops up in anything so um so in listening to the episodes that you have out right now there's four out right now there are four out at the moment episode five comes out next week as of when we are recording this next week as of when we are recording this and a week from today actually you know I get like with some stories I get the sense of a very definitive end point right like I can see that we're sort of we're we're corigning towards a very definitive place but with this story as I'm listening to it I get the sense that we're kind of like you know that moment in Legend of Zelda when I'm at the top of the mountain overlooking who for all of a sudden you're like oh wait that this was not actually the tallest mountain yeah right and you're looking at all of the things that are possible and you know it does it does feel like there is in the story a lot of potential in the future you know because I'm not I mean there's certainly events that are talked about in the show yeah that uh you're definitely excited to hear the explanation of right um but it's certainly but it's not but the story isn't about what happened you know if the story isn't about what led to that incident the story is really about we are in this world now yeah uh and and we don't know what's going to happen next I mean have you are you seeing it as are you seeing it like that or is it are you seeing it as more of a definitively this is the end sort of experience oh what a great question um so the the fun and difficult thing about writing this show is that this is a show unlike anything that I've ever written because the structure of it is kind of events in the story start to happen around 2025 occasionally will poke to an even earlier point than that but really the narrative gets going in 2025 um but the story is being told in 2030 as the two main characters are going through some prep sessions with a lawyer for a congressional hearing right that they have both been um rather sternly invited to attend by the United States government because of some not particularly awesome stuff that went down um and so different episodes are bouncing up and down that timeline you know episode two is in like 2028 then episode three is in 2025 episode four is in 2025 and 2018 like you're kind of just like bouncing up and down the timeline as opposed to just kind of going episode one is in is on Monday episode two is on Tuesday episode three is on Wednesday and so on which is really really fun because you get to you know play a lot of really fun trolling games with your audience where you can kind of reveal different things at different moments and kind of keep certain things back as the story unfolds um and then show them something that makes and kind of go oh my god now I need to go back and relisten to things because it's going to have a completely different context but then the downside of that is that you kind of need to do so much math up front because then you are kind of like okay what is the actual timeline of these five years what is most of the stuff that happened in these five years because I need to have a clear enough idea of events that I can actually put together that non-linear presentation of it um so for again and the great thing about working with folks like the audacious machine um team is that they have enabled and encouraged um in some might even say pushed me into all my worst ideas and all my worst tendencies in terms of having a really really ambitious scope because for example at the end of the third episode you learn something that really kind of changes the way that you might think about the story because it is one of those moments that kind of goes and if you think that the entire story is just about this one very zoomed in thing that we are going to be focused on let me tell you that there's all of these other things happening off screen that we're not getting to yet um and that entirely came out of us having conversations that were like ah isn't doing this going to be so fun when we get to it in like season three isn't that great and then kind of going like no wait a minute wait a minute let's start to have that fun in season one let's start to kind of like tell people what kind of party it is let's not hold back on that um right and so that is a little bit of where it is there is kind of a very set timeline there's a very set kind of set of ideas about the show we do have a idea about how things are going to end but for example there is no possibility that the story is going to get wrapped up in season one we are already talking about this is at minimum a multi-year story and it is really wonderful and intoxicating and terrific to get to tell the story where you are going this is a multi-year canvas minimum right it is one of those stories where I feel like there are so many moments that implies so much more you know there are so many moments where it's like you it's like you're sort of going down this corridor and you keep seeing tributaries you know you keep seeing other places you can go down but you're going down this direction right now you know you're going to have to you know swing back around and see these other places at some point it's like with every step into the story the story seems to get more and more expansive which is really really great to listen to I love that metaphor because and this is actually something that I've thought about while writing the show in more on more than one occasion the thing that I've tried to simulate is there is a scene in the Cameron Crow movie almost famous where the protagonist who is this like young teenager that's gotten wrapped up in like the uvra of a rock band in 1973 he gets taken to this hotel in LA where like a bunch of bands are staying and the scene just needs to be like he walks down a hotel hall room to get to the hotel room where they're all hanging out and he keeps walking past these rooms where the doors are like half a jar and catching glimpses of things that you're like wait a minute go back in there like that's a whole movie in and of itself like what was going on in that room and he's just like I gotta get to like the main hotel room like you know I have this appointment that I gotta keep and you're just going oh my god but no wait I go back and like tell me more about that tell me more about what was going on there that seemed really cool or that seemed really sweet or that seemed really exciting yeah so I love that you use that metaphor because I've thought about that more than once as I've been figuring out the writing for the show you can tell you know you can tell that there's you know there's you know you you you feel like you're not walking into a series of plot lines you feel like you're walking into an entire world you know which is one of the exciting things about the show I think so let me ask you know you've been you've been doing this for a while we can go back to Wolf 359 we can go back to before that and here we are now in the year 2025 how have you witnessed the sort of the podcasting landscape change the audio drama landscape change how's the audience changed has it changed you know how do you compare then to now I mean I tend to be one of those the more things change the more they stay the same kind of guys um you know I started I started podcasting in 2014 back when woolly mammoths roamed through the RSS feeds and they were all in that time powered RSS feeds that's right I think that in that time audio fiction has been declared dead about three times right and has you know resurrected has you know risen from the grave yeah at least two times and maybe we're due for like another resurrection sometime in the next year or so um and I think that all of the big sort of seismic changes that people tend to focus on tend to kind of be about what the few companies are doing with the top echelons of the quote unquote talent in the scene right and so when people are kind of like all the money is gone audio fiction is dead I'm kind of looking around sort of being like you know look at its heart some of my best work in the medium for the entire time that I've been here is work that has been made for basically no money in someone's garage right and that is the place where there is still so much experimentation happening where there's still so much discovery where so many cool stories are being put together and we're seeing that a lot of creators even people that you know have been working for some of those big companies while the money was there are now coming back and sort of going well I love the freedom of being able to tell the story I love the speed of the medium I love that you can kind of do something and I love to play with the imagination so I want to come back here and do something with my own resources right so I don't give too much credence to this idea of there are these giant industrial changes that have completely transformed the scene I think that the level of audience literacy is the thing that has changed I think that gone are sort of like those early days of kind of so many people going I've kind of half listened to some welcome tonight fail I think that I get it but I'm still very intimidated by this idea of it is this play that unfolds entirely in my headphones and I don't know how to engage with that yet right I think that now people are so sophisticated I think that they have listened so much I think that they are down to do you know to be involved in stories that are more innovative stories that are more experimental stories that tell different kinds of narratives I think that that's the biggest thing that I've seen change the 10 years that I've been around this bar that's very cool it is you know it's an exciting audience you know and it's great it's it's an audience because you know we we kind of stumbled accidentally into doing it you know we started doing it during the during the pandemic just to have something to focus outlet yeah just have an outlet and to see that there was this audience out there that was ready to get much weirder with it than we had thought was really comforting and it's just it's wonderful to know that it's you know that the audience is out there and they have literally had nothing you know for a long time you know and it's so it's it's great to you know it's great to meet these people and be connected to this whole world yeah it's it's it's been really a trip so okay so we've got four episodes out now you we are right after this conversation you're going to hear everyone you're going to hear the first episode of the Harbingers and then the next three you can listen to instantly on the podcasting app of your choice everyone so pick it up and wherever podcasts are sold wherever podcast are sold you can listen to the Harbingers it's a great show I'm really looking forward to hearing more and Gary all thank you so much for coming in and talking to the Midnight Burger people today Josh are you kidding me thank you for having me I'd be I'm so thrilled to be here all right and here we go episode one of the Harbingers you Miss Skinner will be right with you Dr. Blackwell we're sorry for the delay it's fine don't worry about it can I get you anything while you wait water a cup of coffee I'm all right Miss Faefer thank you you was there something else no that's everything thank you well actually look I just want to say I know it probably feels like the whole world's against you right now but there are people who who get what you did and why you did it thank you Miss Faefer I appreciate you saying that I mean it if you hadn't been there if you hadn't done what they're saying that it could have gotten so much worse than it got bad enough Miss Faefer we we let it get bad enough I know I know but still thank you Miss Faefer I think that's more than enough oh yes ma'am is there anything I think we're all set I'll ring if we need anything yes miss Skinner Dr. Blackwell please excuse Erica Dr. Blackwell she's a wonderful assistant but unfortunately she's still a bit naive optimistic still a bit young and optimistic I'll fix that and do course but in the meantime welcome to Skinner D'Vries and wise men Dr. Blackwell my name is Claudia Skinner it's a pleasure to finally meet you yes same here thank you for making the time you're young young to have your name on the side of the building I mean ah it's my father's name he started the firm back in 04 ah and so you graduated summa cum laude from brown and went on to get law degrees in both Cambridge England and Cambridge Massachusetts absolutely I assure you Dr. Blackwell you're in excellent hands do you have any questions before we get started yes how much do you charge my fees are being taken care of you don't need to worry about that that's not what I'm asking I'm asking a personal injury lawyer is what 250 an hour give her take if I was trying to get a divorce that's 400 it's 600 an hour for an immigration attorney and nine for the kind of lawyer I'd need if I had shot a man in Reno just to watch him die so how much are you with your Alexander McQueen suit and your name on the side of the building and your naive assistant you're turning to the dark side how much are you charging per hour to sit here and talk to me it's more than any of the numbers you just quoted I can say that much how much more Dr. Blackwell is there a reason you need to know this right now is there a reason why you're not just telling me you know there's this story my father used to tell to his clients he'd go once upon a time there was a young scorpion who wanted to cross a river unfortunately he couldn't swim so we asked a passing turtle to carry him on his back the turtle hesitated but eventually agreed after the scorpion promised not to sting him but when they were halfway through the river a terrible impulse fell upon the scorpion he brought his stinger down and as they both start drowning the scorpion says don't look at me it's in my nature and you knew I was a scorpion when you agreed to take me across the river yeah I know that one actually as the scorpion's stinger bounced harmlessly off the turtle's hard shell he found the other animal looking back at him over his shoulder and the turtle just said tell me you want to fuck around some more do you want me to get you across this fucking river that was a story about how sometimes you can just let people help you a frog it's usually a frog when I've heard that story well let me assure you Dr. Blackwell you're not dealing with a frog and let me remind you you are the center of an unprecedented disaster one in which people died the only reason you haven't been charged with a sterical number of criminal charges is because no one is quite sure of how the law interfaces with your unique circumstance but the government's catching up they're doing a congressional hearing the kind that's going to decide how a lot of laws are going to work in this country and they have been kind enough to invite you to participate and when I say invite I mean subpoena this hearing is either going to go exceptionally well for you or it is going to lead to you being invited to see the inside of a courtroom in a trial which you will have no chance of winning so finally allow me to ask you would you like me to get you across the river or would you prefer to fuck around some more let's let's get across the river let's this is Claudia Skinner handling case mgr831 this is information prep session number one it is November 7th 2030 Dr. Blackwell just so we can get the formalities out of the way could you please state your full name as well as the capacity in which you are known as a public figure yes my name is dr. Adam Blackwell and I am the first human being with real scientifically confirmed magic powers I am the most powerful man in the world audacious machine creative presents the harvangers created by Gabriel will be episode one I'd love to change the world all right dr. Blackwell why don't we start at the beginning sure I was born April 15th 1998 in Portland Oregon the house where I grew up had yellow shutters and a white fence the nursery and oh what you're allowed to be cute and I'm not is that how it works that is exactly how it works let me be more precise you were a graduate student at singler university in Chicago yes yes you were a masters candidate in the archaeology program technically the anthropology department but yes why why did I want to study archaeology is that relevant it could be if you chose to study archaeology because it was your beloved father's dying wish very relevant if you were convinced there were ancient secrets buried somewhere out there that would help us fight the rise of fascism absolutely if you became an archaeologist solely out of your deep seated love for the films of the Indiana Jones series that can stay between the two of us I liked languages I thought I was going to study linguistics and go on to work as a translator but then my second year in college I took an anthropology class and I just fell in love yes that would be from Rapa newy to Harbinger's an introductory survey to the forgotten empires of the world taught by Julian Mcandless who went on to be your mentor and chief dissertation advisor that class changed my life it showed me a new way of thinking about the world and it taught me tell me about Amelia sterling Amy Mr. Ling was another grad student at singler we started the master's program at the same time did you think much of her Mr. Ling was brilliant absolutely brilliant but she could be stubborn it could be difficult to get a word in edge wise around her would you call her arrival okay well here's what you need to understand if you were interested in the study of ancient cultures that grad program at singler was the place it was one of the best funded programs it had some of the best professors some of the best opportunities but there wasn't enough of all the above to go around anytime one of us got a research project to prove or a seat on a field expedition or even time with our advisors we were taking it away from one of the other students in as much as you could say it about me and Amy you could say it about all of us we were all rivals and yet you didn't go on a date with any of the other students in the program did you oh my come on that's in bounds how do you even know about that this isn't the hard part you know lord knows we haven't gotten anywhere near the hard part it's all going to come out at him and I'm going to be the friendliest person who's going to ask you about it so pretty please stop fucking around and answer the question one I went on one date with her I was 26 and I thought it might be a good idea and did you find her attractive then diagram between the people who like miss sterling and the people who like oxygen is very close to being a circle doctor blackwell yes I found her attractive and we went out one time must have been April of 2025 and how did it go what did the two of you talk about so it's in clear university april 2025 okay did you know that right now on this planet there are seven people who could save the world seven people who what seven people all with the power to save the world right well common sense says that cannot possibly be true I had yet and you're not talking like people with their fingers on nuclear buttons who are choosing not to press them thus preventing and no no no no fuck that that sucks I'm talking active making things that are broken not be broken saving the world all right I'm intrigued who are these seven real world superheroes Paul Berthold Makoto Kamiki Simon Godowsky Jerome Eckerberg Jacqueline St. Pierre Carlos Luis Mendes and Zaccheer Mujambar Ah the seven richest men in the world six richest men and its richest woman thank you very much sure and the way they save the world is Simon Godowsky has a net worth of 210 billion you want to know how much NGOs estimate the yearly cost of ending world hunger would be from the way you're presenting that question I'm guessing 200 billion no way high conservative estimate 10 billion a year easy what that can possibly be extreme poverty is even cheaper threshold to set it those living for three dollars and 20 cents a day there's people living three in 20 a day bumping approximately 900 million people up to that level costs about 1.8 billion chump change how do you just clean water across the whole world 50 billion child health about four hundred dollars a year per child call that another 50 billion hum homelessness is more complicated but local experts estimate that 13 billion would end homelessness in San Francisco that's that's not solving the issue globally no still that's a start all of which begs the question if there are people who have the ability to just snap their fingers and save the world why is the world not saved uh i mean besides the obvious reason it's the whole what sorry obvious what obvious reason oh well just because jackland state here has a net worth of 200 billion it doesn't mean she has it sitting in a bank somewhere it's in like stocks and bonds and company valuation okay sure fine but that's a road bump if you have something worth 50 billion theoretically you should be able to sell it and then you have 50 billion yeah i'm sort of scared to disagree with you right now good that means my whole stick is doing its job but to get back to the real question there is no booking good reason if someone has that much money that much power and there's so much broken in the world they have a moral imperative to do something about it so really from a social pragmatic point of view i don't think there's a way to justify the existence of any of them so we're gonna eat the rich just the seven richest that's only masking let's eat those seven people and feed the world oh holy shit put a beer and a half in me and i just i went off in a whole thing wow it was very impressive still though i'm sorry i clearly do not know how to do first dates it's fine how do you know all of this stuff i like actuarial tables and i have a good head for numbers even when i'm outraged no especially when i am outraged so now what i was thinking we'd finish these beers settle up and then i'd get you to walk me home you get me to walk you home would i have any say in the matter oh none whatsoever i have very pretty eyes and i can make them get all big and round so i can basically get people to do anything i want here watch please oh my god put those away before you hurt somebody it's like a super power and basically a Batman villain you know there is an alternative to you walking me home uh because dude i think you're gonna want no no no no no i do one i just how much would it cost to say fix climate change oh that's a big one somewhere in the ballpark of 700 billion a year well see there you go if i was someone that wanted to solve climate change but i only had 200 billion wouldn't the best most ethical thing i could do with that money be to well turn it into 700 billion i mean no not if you like like if you're burning the world to get richer that's not gonna no no of course not i'm just talking in the abstract this isn't good because what you're talking about obviously obviously no no i just mean this is all just a thought experiment no one person can actually stop the world from any that my point that i'm trying to put it okay maybe in like a frittabra level but like in the real world i can't wait to talk for a second i can see it is all i'm saying i can see why someone might not immediately sink all their resources into solving one problem if there was something bigger and more meaningful they could do later on and therefore i can see why we might want to give your your evil seven or whatever a bit of latitude that's all i'm saying you done cool i'm gonna go home any hang on pro tip dude next time you're trying to pick up a grad school girl with tattoos and a shaved head playing devil's advocate for the billionaire oligarchy is so not the move see ya you know this is exactly why Mcandless hasn't approved any of your research proposals what did you just say to me you know your proposals for the archives or fieldwork you know how he keeps telling you to go back to the drawing board to think bigger this is why you never look at the big picture Amy you always just swing for the fences and he knows it and you know it and you Adam fucking blackwell are so afraid of taking any swing at all that when your opportunity comes you're gonna let it sail past you and you know it and would we consider this one of your more successful first days no don't answer that fieldwork that year was in princess Elizabeth land yep which just for the record is in and artica east and artica to be precise one of the flattest most accessible parts of the continent and why did we want to go to this lovely place well um they call it the Robinson site they found it a few years earlier buried under the ice global warming and all the remains of Ann Sarath that's um one of the great harbinger cities constructed about 4,000 years BC according to the carbon testing it was buried under nearly whoa whoa whoa what what is this what are we doing here what oh come on you're my lawyer i'm your client it's your office and you're still going to tell me that i can't smoke company policy apologies should i have arica get you an astray no no don't bother i'll just arun kuntelka bear happy oh shit sorry it did have it now i forget that it's less fun for people now it's okay okay it's okay where did you send it oh way just away shall we yes let's um sorry we were Antarctica dig site ruins mccandless was putting together an expedition yeah they'd been digging it up for a few years which is really hard when half of the year is freezing darkness before sunset the previous um you know april they made a discovery uh crypt or something like a crypt something at the very bottom of the excavation mccandless wanted to go check it out and you got to go i got to go but not miss sterling but not miss sterling mm-hmm and i presume that's where it happened right December 15th 2025 the world continues to real after last nights announcement what was supposed to be a simple archaeological expedition to the australian sector of Antarctica may instead be remembered as a turning point in western civilization following contact with the object now known as article zero mild-mannered graduate student Adam Blackwell has been given the ability to freely relocate matter at will i don't think the times actually called me mild-mannered no that was just me having a bit of fun you went to the south pole found a thing and suddenly you can do magic am i getting that right not just any thing this thing article zero a harbinger ring of magic but still feel trip ring boom magic that's the broad strokes of the thing what happened when you got back to america what happened after you got superpowers oh they're not superpowers i came home spent weeks going through tests until finally they were satisfied i really could do magic and after they let you go i went back to a little thing called my life finished my dissertation i graduated in spring started teaching at st. Clair in the fall is that usual to get hired that fast no i was an exceptionally strong student i had a good relationship with the head of the department and news had just broken out that i could do fucking magic having me as an adjunct was the best and last ad sinclair would ever need to run so they had me as an adjunct that first fall semester you took over one of the survey classes introduction to harbinger linguistics catchy title was a popular last time they'd run it there were four people in the class that fall after they saw the enrollment forms they moved me over to sumpter hall that's where they run movies on the weekends it seats just shy of 350 you taught a 350 person class on the mechanics of dead languages from six thousand years ago no no no no the class was 450 if you didn't get there early it was standing remote light sinclair university september 2026 now the name harbingers is what is known as a secondary observer exonem with some ancient cultures we have some record of what they call themselves failing that we can usually at least call people by the region they inhabited these people lived in the indos valley so let's take a wild leap and call them the indos not saying that's a good practice but it is a common practice now with the harbingers you run into problems we haven't found any records yet that point to what they call themselves and as for geography sites containing written records of the harbinger's languages have been found in adicama in south america in remote islands in the south of oceania and most recently in rural irland they seem to mostly exist to make historians lives difficult it was actually one of the great mysteries of the age of exploration people would sail from place to place and find these ancient objects with languages that weren't the ones spoken by the locals now imagine your 17th century irish sailor you leave your little village where old man mcdonald found those spooky rocks with the strange carvans you sail halfway around the world and what do you find more old spooky rocks with the same weird language nobody understands can you even imagine what that must have been like um in any case they kept finding these really old artifacts all over the world almost like this really old culture had been around before anyone else got their act together that's where the name came from harbingers ones who came before now wasn't till the age of antartic exploration began in earnest that the real ruins of what is now known as the harbinger empire were discovered but by then the name it stuck so what are you going to do now i did say harbinger languages in the plural the modern theory is that these are actually contemporary languages one was used for day-to-day activities your regular please pass the salt sort of things the other one was there well sacred is a loaded word but they're ritualistic language it was only used for rights and special activities but for a long time archaeologists referred to these as the day tongue and the night tongue but a more accurate translation would be the language of the sun and the language of the stars and uh needless to say there's a lot more that the harbingers wrote in the language of the sun so we know comparatively little about how the language of the stars worked okay this we've only got a few minutes left so we'll call this good for the day rather than diving into a whole atopic does anyone have any questions there you go any questions that don't have to do with my unusual abilities yeah all right everyone i need you all to understand this is a serious class okay i take the academic study of harbinger languages seriously and i expect you all to do the same anything else that i can do that's not really what we're here for okay which is why we are only going to do this once okay okay just just a quick demonstration and then we're done all right folks in the front row uh anyone have a quarter you do okay great thank you very much okay just so we know that i am not pulling a fast one on you i am going to take this marker and put an a on one side of the coin and a star on the other side okay now for most of human civilization if we wanted to transport an object from here to there we had to expend energy to move it across space whether it was by carrying it ourselves or by using a burst of kinetic energy to set an in motion on its own what i can do is transport matter from a to b without crossing the intermediary space okay everybody ready i think we're going to hear it more than see it with something this small so shush shush shush shush here we go three two you okay let's see where did it land from the sound i think it was around the second to last row maybe does anybody yeah you you got it and it's got the a in the star yeah well there you go from a to b in an instant now now how did i do that part of it is just mental focus part of it is the word this it seems is what the language of the stars actually was the harbinger's way of channeling this ability and part of it is the part we don't understand yet i found this ring in a very old very remote part of the world and as long as i'm wearing it well it seems to let me do that and it really seems like it takes all three so in case the course catalog didn't make it clear learning the words won't let you move things across space not on its own could you do something bigger what was that could i transport something bigger bigger like what a person a person well a person is tricky because what is a person is a person one thing or many like what if i transported you to the middle of the quad and you went but you're but you were close did it yeah that's not what we want i have to be very precise with the language if i want to do it right all right that's time time was whoo it's a minute or two ago actually please read chapters three and four of the Warner and i will see you all here on Thursday the harbingers will be back after these messages and now back to the harbingers so sinclair university 2026 10 minutes later all right that wasn't too bad one session down thirty one to go what did you stop yourself from saying well well well Amy sterling adam blackwell it's good to see you you too Amy did you watch i snuck in the back about five minutes in so what did you stop yourself from saying what at the end when they asked you about teleporting a person you you you bit down on something you said what if you go but your clothes don't what did you almost say i almost said what if you went but your skin didn't ah lively i thought it's gonna be a whole thing it's their first day i didn't want to freak them out um didn't want to put too much of the fear of you in that oh very funny Amy so what brings you around these parts they said you transferred they said the truth took my business to columbia big apple greener pastures and all that and are they actually greener yeah who knows kind of hard to tell with all the concrete i'm just here to handle some paperwork and take some meetings i'm flying back tomorrow but i realized i haven't seen you since uh sure and i couldn't resist poking my head in here seeing how your class was going how did i do any notes it was fine your fourth slide had some photos of the stuff they dug up at the rhyme and that's still not verified oh damn it uh i'll take care of that anything else what what else you uh you're not really here to fill out paperwork are you Amy nah i just i had to see it i had to see it with my own two eyes you can do fucking magic and you are you are lecturing about carvings in goddamn rocks yes Amy i am i cannot believe that you are lecturing about car and what should i be doing hmm instead of being here where am i supposed to be right now Amy or what am i not doing enough with my platform for you we are 54 days away from the midterm elections dr blackwell which political party do you support okay it's nice of you to drop by Amy i enjoy our little talks it's just i fuck i don't know what you should be doing but dude you can do magic literally the only thing that's a wrong answer to the question what do you do if you get magic powers is exactly the same fucking thing you would be doing if you didn't get the god damn magic power all right Amy this has been fun let's get together again the next time one of us develops magical abilities in the meantime have a good time at Columbia where you'll also be looking at carvings of rocks you are such an asshole Adam no one no one has ever changed the world by sitting in an ivory tower magic is wasted on you and yet i am the only one that can do it it really is a shame you didn't get to come on that expedition Amy what could have been right she has a point you know oh she very much does not she does though aren't you my lawyer what what do what do what a point about what a point about how nobody has ever changed the world by hiding in the ivory tower of intel it's for gods fritz harbor you know the story excuse me okay fritz harbor see a lot of people have this mistaken idea that the apocalypse is something we've only had to worry about in recent years but no actually people have had concerns very valid concerns about the world coming to an end at practically every point in human existence in the 1900s you know who is at the top of the list of global concerns starvation the world had reached an absolutely massive population one and a half billion people and we could not produce enough food to feed them the problem was our crops they took up too much nitrogen in the soil and it took too long to replenish it so it was estimated that over the course of the following 20 agonizing years two-thirds of the world would starve to death but see there was this guy German chemist called fritz harbor big thinker real kind of ivory tower guy he locked himself in his lab and figured out a way to make ammonia you might be familiar with it it practically extracts nitrogen from the air and is used to grow more than three quarters of the god damn crops in the world today bread from the air that's what they called it in the newspapers bread from the air it was seen as a miracle and so thanks to mr. harbour the world didn't starve and we now have nine billion humans over half of what we ate in the 20th century was thanks to his discoveries and when we try to calculate which individual human beings are directly responsible for saving the most human lives fritz harbor is at the top of that list so don't ever tell me that you can't change the world by taking time to figure shit out okay is it my turn now great doctor blackwell could you do me a favor could you say a bit about fritz harbor's work after 1912 what fritz harbor this man who you clearly think so highly of 1913 and onwards what did he get up to he became involved in world war one he invented the chlorine gas that the German army used against the allies and he personally oversaw much of its deployment which is why he is often called the father of chemical warfare and after world war one any other major contributions to european history he he developed a gas a pesticide gas which had a warning scent after his death it was discovered and reformulated so it no longer had that warning scent and what was it called before and after the reformulation cyclone a and cyclone b i need you to stop doing that you need me to stop doing what answering your questions losing your temper and going on a three-minute screed about the achievements of a German war criminal wait wait but look he was involved in monstrous things but really we're doubling down on the merits of what was it the father of chemical warfare this is going to be a very hard process you know if you're going to get through it i need you to be able to not get baited into saying or doing something stupid that that won't be a problem won't it what happened on august 16th 2028 well that's um fuck doctor blackwell what happened i was here in new york i've been asked to speak an event at the u.n. new york city 2028 thank you keep the change well well well look who actually made it off campus for once oh good you're here and this has been such a pleasant day so far is that any way to say hello to a dear old friend doctor blackwell hello Amy how inevitable to see you that's more like it hello adam what are you doing here same thing you are loading up on caffeine and then walking over to today's event you're also speaking at the u.n. i am and nobody told me no which i'm guessing is thanks to it is well thanks for that i like the hair by the way is that part of the brand now something like that i thought you liked the shaved head look well i had awful taste back when i was still a grad student so how you been how's the tour um tours on hold for a bit i'm doing some events with the campaign oh yes i saw your endorsement video and i can't help but notice that i haven't seen yours may i ask what the fuck is taking you so long don't tell me you actually want walker to get reelected i keep telling you Amy i'm just a private citizen i don't see how it's my place to tell anyone which way they should vote oh my god sometimes i forget just how full of shit you are and then it's like oh right he's totally full of shit i'm doing well by the way this translation work on the materials from the rhyman expedition i really couldn't give less of a shit adam now come on you can i do this thing or what you know Amy you can say that you don't care all you want but unfortunately for you i know you i know how much you love this stuff the translation the discovery i know how curious you must be what the fuck is he been doing cooped up in there all these years what is he capable of now oh it's so cute the way you flatter yourself oh if you think that's cute all right mr. special you really want me to believe you're not just doing coin tricks like some birthday party magician let's see it no come on doctor you want me to believe you can do something that's worth my time let's see it impress a girl erolia baru escalera por aconde yeah you made my coffee cup disappear yes i did but didn't make my coffee go with it no it did not so now there is quite a bit of nitro cold brew all over my clothes you are a child come on Amy this is an important event don't want to be late oh you were still an asshole Adam blackwell i get you're putting my coffee cup anyway how long did it take before someone finally found the stupid coffee cup six weeks give her take um-hmm and it was this photograph that did it yes that's the one yep just for the record could you please verbally describe it it is a photo taken by the extremely large telescope array of the sea of tranquility which is a part of the moon and about five meters to the left of the lunar landing site there is now a coffee cup the moon you put a cup of coffee on the moon because your ex-girlfriend double dog dare you to get mischirp this is all my relationship with mistrialing is very particular do you do it okay okay okay okay what you need to understand is you say that a lot you know what you need to understand is this what you need to understand is that you are very worried about how you are seen I'm gonna help you figure this all out but I need you to let me help you okay all right that is all for today really but this is plenty for one day and I have another interview to conduct in a little while we can pick up this fun tomorrow morning bright and early right we'll see you tomorrow then eighteen hundred dollars an hour that's how much I'm being paid to get you across the river okay thank you mischirp and while I will not have you smoking anywhere in my offices you'll find I'm less particular about what happens on the balcony on the east side of the building sure you got it huh day one down just another five million more of these to go those things are gonna kill you you know unless you're so good now that you can just teleport the cancer straight out of your lungs I don't think I'm quite there yet in that case you might want to quit while you're behind I'll take it under advisement misterling dr. blackwell I thought your residency didn't end until the 14th all the shows are canceled for a bit you know it's hard to compete with the uh everything yeah with the everything I keep thinking I'm gonna see it you know every time I look up I know it's too small and too far away but I keep thinking it'll be there staring back at me yeah I know me too you doing okay now you not exactly what I had in mind for this year no no I thought there'd be more books thought I'd read more this year more books and less everything you read mechanical system yeah I got an advanced copy I can't believe that old fucker is trying to say that I was not a good student her proposals were never specific enough my ass well can you blame them you are the one that got away damn right I am how to go in there oh I pretty much just spent the last couple hours getting bitch slapped it was fine and how are you feeling tired tired and guilty don't say that it isn't over yet it's barely even gotten started that's not what I meant Amy I think this is usually the point in the conversation where you yell at me and tell me I'm an asshole you are an asshole a lot of blackwell but for all our sakes I hope it turns out you're an asshole who knew what he was doing mr link miss skinners ready for you well uh I got it yeah duty calls look yeah see you around at him all right ready to get started this is Claudia Skinner case mgr 831 this is information prep session number two it is November 7th 2030 mr link would you please state your full name and the capacity in which you have become known as a public figure this is Amelia Dorothy Sterling and I perform under the name the silver witch for three years now I have been able to manifest supernatural abilities I am the second documented person in the world capable of performing magic thank you mr link do you know what I would like to talk to you about well if I had to take guess I'd say maybe it's about how I started a chain of events that resulted in the most powerful man in the world teleporting the city of Boston to the moon I mean it's either that or mojito recipes no you want to talk about the Boston thing please okay where would you like to begin this has been the harbors created by Gabriel Urbina come back tomorrow for episode two the season of the witch today's episode was written by Gabriel Urbina it was directed and sound designed by Jeffrey Nils Garber it featured the voices of Andres Enriquez as Adam Blackwell Lauren Grace Thompson as Amy Sterling Amy being as Claudia Skinner and Kristen DeMercuria as Erica Fyfer today's episode also featured the voice of Olivia Love Hadelstein our original music was composed by Nicholas Padotti recording engineering and dialogue editing was by Jolene Wu our original art was created by Cassie J Allen the executive producer for the series is Eleanor Hyde we'd like to give a special thanks to Joshua K Harris Felix Christa Agostino and Olivia Love Hadelstein for their work on the development of the series and its original pilot episode you can learn more about the show see a timeline of the events of our story and become a supporting member at audaciousmachinecreative.com this is an audacious machine creative production thank you for listening you today's history tidbit on October 14th 1998 Australian archaeologist first discovered the ruins of Ann Serath