Abridged (not really)

Im episode 18 of Wrong Way Up, Chat challenges our protagonists to calculate their current driving speed and find out if they could not have *walked* here faster... On the way down to the ice lake, they find a rover-wide smooth bit of terrain and reach the lake without a bridge, which totally proves the series is scripted and recorded on a set...! (No-one said it was *well* scripted.) To explore the "Steve's Stop'n'Go" and "Universal Truth" signals, they get their planes ready in varying chaotic ways. W4sted plans to repair his drone printer and DE chases his bug-ridden Panther plane.

The Bots in the Stop'n'Go are ignored sending the universal greeting. Capac thinks he learned from Jane Austin that the universal truth is finding a good husband. Splitsie destroys the Universal Truth because it's just a sign saying "you are here" plus loud Fun Music. Capac says it's typical that Splitsie would disregard the truth just because he doesn't like the soundtrack. Bugs send DE's plane yaw spinning to the ice, so he walks over to the Stop'n'Go.

(0:30) Splitsie gives w4sted a lift to the Stop'n'Go in the Neon Pumpkin. By the time they arrive, DE has requested a tow truck and Capac has walked there on foot. (Today, Texfire is in Chat only and not in game.) W4sted randomly dies in a dancing contest against a Bot. The Bots are friendly and reveal they are remembering "who they once were" and that they need to "reach the north base". DE drives the Jalopy closer to the Panther crash site and they hope he doesn't attract bad luck. Splitsie is still suspicious of the Bots, even though their towing service arrives at the Panther as ordered. Splitsie's wishes for a winch are shot down by w4sted who insists that since SE's hardbody physics are softbody physics then Keen, if they ever attempted softbody physics, would surely create liquid physics by accident! A fan in Chat donating a large sum asks for "a grinder death match"; Splitsie runs towards Capac but gets shot immediately because he brought a grinder to a gunfight. The Bots notice an "overcode" in their software update, they seem to be infighting, and the tow truck suddenly tries to grab Splitsie's plane... Splitsie fights them off and destroys their defense turret from his plane. The Jalopy withdraws to the lake where they drill ice.

(1:00) DE shares an idea how planes can launch vertically from Capac's new plane lift, and Capac sets to work, he just needs to know the rotor displacement of a European swallow. DE re-adjusts his Panther's center of lift while Splitsie re-designs the front of the Jalopy tractor. The repaired Panther makes it back to the runway and Splitsie builds a sensor-assisted launcher while they discuss hydrogen engines.

(1:30) Capac wants to push buttons, but the lift-off is postponed due to lack of steel plates. DE and Splitsie eye the abandoned Stop'n'Go and race each other to dismantle it. Capac's chat wonders if the Stop'n'Go will become another trailer, but Splitsie merely steals a cargo truck.

DE bids his farewell for tonight. Capac learns that the custom Edward Scissorplane holder works only if you wiggle the plane. W4sted's face is strong, but not the 1000-mega-newtons strong to mess with the Panther's wheel suspension. They ransack the Stop'n'Go and push the (logged-off) Bots into holes. Splitsie wants to blow up the hydrogen tanks of the Bot base, so W4sted kamikazes a hydrogen truck into it, which goes poof and doesn't do much damage.

(2:00) Chat suspects the Bots have been selling low-quality watered-down hydrogen until Capac and Splitsie manage to blow up the whole Bot base. W4sted has rebuilt his drone printer (with drones named after the Spice Girls) and lifts off in his plane to scout a path north. They joke that the next series could be named "Wrong Way Capac!" where everyone would follow Capac's sense of direction instead of a compass. Leaving the ice lake, they drive west to avoid the northern mountains. They chat about testing Remaarn's vicinity voice chat mod, and that Capac would not trust a pizza that Splitsie told him to eat. They consider ways of driving north around a gully, including using warheads.

(2:30) While Capac is afk for a minute, Splitsie damages the front and loses two wheels. Splitsie drives out of the gully and reattaches the wheels while Capac eats his last US American snacks that Tibura sent him. Texfire stops by in YouTube chat to point out that Splitsie is "wheelie making progress." Splitsie follows W4sted's GPS breadcrumbs and Capac builds helpful spotlights. W4sted leads them around the mountains across terrain that is bisected by another gully as they chat about the years when various sci-fi stories are set.

(3:00) To look at the path options together with w4sted (and Capac in w4sted's gunner seat), Splitsie launches in the Neon Pumpkin using Capac's new mechanism which flings him more weakly than Texfire's paperplane thrower. After deciding on a route, they all park back on the runway and the Jalopy drives on. Splitsie imagines the Jalopy climbing mountains on piston arms with maglock hands. At least the acid rain has become rarer as they near the polar region. They stop in front of the least steep northward slope and regret that the Subgrid Wheel Control script does not support suspension jumping...

(3:30) Splitsie builds one climbing arm and w4sted builds the second arm mirrored on the other side of the tractor. Capac brainstorms a future zipline idea and builds an even better search light turret.

They end up combining two different ideas how the Jalopy should climb: Splitsie's idea was to reach *forward*, grab hold, and pull like an arm; w4sted's idea was an *upwards* walking motion like a pole-vaulting leg. Meanwhile, Capac sits nervously in the cockpit with his fingers on the handbrake. The first piston-rotor-hinge contraptions bend unnaturally and need a redesign. Chuckling, they sum up the situation in the style of procedurally generated Rimworld art descriptions.

(4:00) They compare the climbing motion to a crab or a Trilobite. Capac wonders how Trilobites tasted and states that, today, Trilobite fossils are used to date rocks. W4sted wonders where to go on a *date* with a *rock* -- Chat's speedy answers range from "a rock concert" to "a gneiss restaurant." While w4sted and Splitsie struggle with the grabby arms, Capac continues to blow Chat's mind with his extensive Trilobite knowledge. Chat points out Capac's Nightbot is broken, while w4sted's *superior* Nightbot even calculates WVT.

W4sted is worried that Splitsie has set the mechanical force to yotta-Newtons again, but Splitsie appeases him that this time he set it to a small number... that ended in E36... Adjusting the arms' pistons and rotors manually, they actually make progress climbing, despite Chat's increasing skepticism. We can hear clanging in the distance.

(4:30) Splitsie is looking forward to the time when they are confident enough to coordinate the Jalopy's walking steps at a faster pace. W4sted reveals this only works because they have years worth of training in Piston Whisperer 101 followed by Courting Klang 102. Capac laughs that Splitsie is not factoring *him* in into his list of things that could cause their undoing. DE and Texfire are in YouTube Chat and watch in horror. By the end of the episode they have reached a mid-way plateau and they'll continue with more climbing next episode.

## References

1. ↑ The universal greeting is Ba weep granna weep ninny bong from the Transformers movie.
2. ↑ Spazzmatica Polka
3. ↑ Capac's reaction reminds Texfire of the scene in the Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones shoots a swordsman.
4. ↑ In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the answer to the bridge keeper's question "What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?" is "An African or European Swallow?"
5. ↑ See episode Smashing Neon Pumpkins
6. ↑ Gneiss is a type of stone pronounced "nice."
7. ↑ WVT is W4sted Variable Time, w4sted's imaginary timezone that ensures his streams always start at "9PM."
8. ↑ The scientific notation E36 is an abbreviation for a 1 with 36 zeroes in the end which makes it, as w4sted realises, not a small number. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E\_notation