Climbing Down and Falling Up

Episode 16 of Wrong Way Up begins with Splitsie and Texfire scouting a route in the Neon Pumpkin. Splitsie gives Texfire precise instructions how to make GPS markers during flight but instead, Tex ejects and dies because he has remapped key bindings... so they just wing the navigation. Impressively, Tex uses his crane to pick up the Neon Pumpkin from the ground and smoothly places it in the hangar. Kanajashi hints in in-game chat at "alternative warfare". Facing a slew of hinge and wheel settings bugs, W4stedspace considers replacing the subgrid control script with a player as driver in each trailer... Splitsie finally manages to drive on.

(0:30) Capac suggests a route and they dig through the uneven ground. They "psychoanalyse" Splitsie's 25-years-long obsession of blaming Capac and whether his trailers are compensating for something... Kanajashi passes by in a bomber plane named **Ghost of the Mastodon** as their path is blocked by a doom voxel. Thanks to their combined brain power, Capac removes the voxel (and Splitsie) with a rocket launcher. DE is using a plugin to zoom in and identifies the Ghost as a plane carrying a *projection* of the Mastodon. Kanajashi drops bombs that are Sound Blocks playing Fun Music and Splitsie hurries to "disarm" this psychoterror. While they are paving a drivable path, Splitsie looks up for the first time and is startled by the Ghost. The sim speed drops dramatically while the Jalopy is balancing uneven ground and more doom voxels.

(1:00) While Splitsie and W4stedspace verify that it's not Texfire's crane causing the sim speed drop, Capac and DE disassemble items to assemble ammo for the rocket launcher; the doom voxel however trumps the rocket launcher, so they destroy it using a block drill instead. Watching the road train move over the hills is beautiful and terrifying at the same time. They tentatively dismantle some subgrids and eventually have to reboot the server to regain sim speed.

(1:30) They can't find their way in the dark and raindances don't help, so DE suggests that *Kanajashi* drive and *they* get to be snarky in chat. As sunrise, they can see clearly and drive on with ease, experiencing the whole gamut of Space Engineers emotions within minutes. Back south, Capac spots a "Propaganda tower" from where Kanajashi advertises the bot collective over the violent humans. They park the Jalopy and prepare an attack:

W4sted reveals best practices for remote controlling drones. Capac learns about bot "oil change" from Kanajashi's radio. DE implements a mechanism that quickly grabs and flips planes off the runway. W4stedspace sets up a punchline about not using the F word, right before he has a deadly accident in his own drone printer. Capac has "built a turret on his turret so he can shoot while he shoots" -- Splitsie sighs and dismantles the clang bait. Texfire has built an astronaut on a beach towel with a beer.

(2:00) As last preparation, W4sted fixes all wheel settings *again*, while Splitsie shares a cartoon of DE on the Toblerone drawn by Shadow, and a clip of Capac removing a doom voxel (and Splitsie) with a rocket launcher.

The attack begins: W4sted, DE, and Texfire launch three of W4sted's drones. Capac is Splitsie's gunner again because w4sted crashed the fourth drone before Capac even controlled it. Despite Kanajashi's repeated cries in in-game chat that the propaganda tower is unarmed, the protagonists annihilate it for drone target practice; Kanajashi himself is long gone. Splitsie in the Neon Pumpkin lands back on the runway after several attempts. The weather turns foggy as they drive on north.

(2:30) They stop on almost level ground to let W4sted scout a path. They dream of sending Capac as an acrobat to Cirque de Soleil and chat about Las Vegas acts they've seen. While Splitsie does runway repairs, Capac calls it the Runway of Theseus. At launch, W4sted's Edward Scissorplane gets caught by a jutting hill and everyone, including Capac's forklift, helps repair. Soon w4sted launches into the fog with Capac and DE on his wings (until Capac has to recover from a PC crash). Splitsie meanders the Jalopy up a mountain, failing to follow the scouts' instructions.

(3:00) In in-game chat, Kanajashi hints that they are endangering the local migratory birds and Capac wonders what they taste like. After a short acid rain, Kanajashi passes over them in a bird-shaped plane called the Canada Goose. Splitsie hasn't been listening to the scouts and gets them stuck on uneven terrain. When Splitsie relogs after a game crash, he ponders about experimentally measuring grinder damage tiers and calls Capac his Beaker but Capac wants to be the Swedish Chef. The stuck subgrids slow down the simspeed, so they reboot the server while laughing about a YouTube chat comment where someone stole potato chips on crutches. W4sted recognises the Canada Goose from the workshop and Kanajashi explains he modified it. Splitsie and DE build drills on the Jalopy to dig the roadtrain out of its mountain side ditch. Texfire entertains everyone with his spontaneous singing.

(3:30) DE tries building a piston skid and they move a few more metres downhill, tearing off half the runway. Capac wants to visit W4sted in the UK for a roadtrip where they pull cars out of muddy fields IRL -- Splitsie agrees! For a minute, they are distracted by a cheeky Kanajashi sneaking around inside one of the trailers. Texfire uses his crane to pick up the sheered off runway and cantilevers manually. Driving blindly downhill in the fog, Splitsie admits that "**this was a bad idea**." As the fog lifts and they see the terrain below their wheels, Texfire wishes fog would cover this sight. The whole roadtrain slides and each trailer rolls on its roof, lying wheels up on the step mountain side...

(4:00) Kanajashi points out in in-game chat that he didn't do it, and that, without the bots firing even one shot, this is the second most damage done in this series. Capac's beautiful Kaboom Caboose trailer has exploded; his forklift has survived but is unreachable. Capac declares they have achieved their goal of being "wrong way up." The crane and the drone printer are smashed. At least DE's hangar design has protected the planes well. Splitsie immediately starts building pistons and gyroscopes while chat suggests it would be easier to build wheels on the new bottom side, especially since the hangar is resting in a perfectly stable position. Capac detaches the Kaboom Caboose to lose weight while Splitsie parcours up to the cockpit and overrides the gyroscopes. The chain of remaining trailers rolls a few more times and lands on its wheels at the bottom of the mountain side. Despite the damage, this worked out in the end. The Neon Pumpkin and the forklift were lost but the other planes survived. Splitsie walks a maze of catwalks to meet his cackling team mates at Capac's "habitation deck" to find them sitting in a circle on toilet seats around a spinning light. Splitsie predicts Shadow will turn this scene into a cartoon soon.

## References

1. ↑ A doom voxel is a tiny immobile physical obstacle that cannot be removed with a hand drill; a collision could cause huge damage to the Jalopy.
2. ↑ Spazzmatica Polka by Kevin MacLeod
3. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship\_of\_Theseus
4. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker\_(Muppet)