Elon Thrust takes flight

Episode 9 of Wrong Way Up starts with Splitsie, Capac, W4stedspace, Shack, Texfire, and DE discussing the metaphorical implications of naming a plane "Owl" while Capac and Splitsie simulate a domestic dispute that ends in gunfire. Shack walks up to W4stedspace, puts on sun glasses, and leaves. They are in the dark on mountainous terrain and running out of ice. Seeing the moon on the horizon, they tell Shack the tale how Splitsie crashed the rover so hard it landed on another planet and that they've made it only 41km from the landing crater. Shack is amused by Tex describing the rebuilt Jalopy as "the farmer's shovel" and makes a daring tree pun. Splitsie is a positive pessimist who is satisfied because he was expecting the worst, and optimist Shack is worried about Splitsie's "positive" reinterpretation of tree murder. They overhear the Bot's message about a nearby refuelling depot. DE points out Splitsie's character growth to now *ask* whether it's okay before driving on--he just forgets to wait for the answer. DE and W4sted declare running face first into a spinning wheel a new manly exfoliation technique ;-) while Splitsie is concentrated on driving, leaning in his chair with his tongue tip out.

(0:30) Splitsie's driving damages the runway and his companions are being ejected left and right, but they made it on to flatter terrain. Kanajashi Bot suddenly drops bombs from a "Warthog 2 - Electric Boogaloo". Shack launches from the runway and rams the enemy Warthog. The colliding planes crash and the pilots (Shack in red and Kanajashi Bot in blue) engage in a knife fight on foot, but Kanajashi escapes. Splitsie, DE, and Tex in the Jalopy chase the Bots' cargo convoy ("Gary Bus-ey"), while w4sted engages one of the enemy Danger's Owns in the air. Gruzzob Bot is shot down and the Bots are evacuating their refuelling base. Capac and Splitsie fly a captured gray-pink Danger's Own and help fix up the stolen plane that Shack's driving.

(1:00) Shack and Splitsie both return in their stolen planes and Splitsie pancakes perfectly on the plane elevator next to "Shackwing Duck". Splitsie steals magnesium from the crashed convoy's cargo. Capac teaches Texfire how to fix something which surprises Splitsie. Shack fails to catch the surveillance plane because his plane is a "rock flapping its arms". Splitsie drives the convoy (renamed to Benedict Cumberbus) and scraps the plane he arrived in. Shack's "plane's landing profile needs to be more vertical" (in other words, he keeps overshooting the runway). Instead of landing, Shack engages a passing bomber but one bomb hits Texfire's trailer and destroys the crane arm...

(1:30) Shack lands on the ground and is lectured by w4sted on power management. Their next target is the Bots' fuel depot. After several exciting successes and failures, Shack lands on the runway with seconds of power to spare. The Jalopy suddenly rolls forward -- due to a bug, DE's taxiing plane has taken control! Shack, w4sted, and Splitsie jokingly argue over "don't press P!" while a surveillance plane passes. They finally secure all planes, and the Jalopy and Elon Thrust drive on towards the fuel depot. Splitsie suddenly recognises the messed up ore distribution -- he left in the custom settings of planet Omicron from Survival Impossible... They stop again and DE reveals that his Toblerone crashed because (as the footage showed) he had accidentally switched off the thrusters.

(2:00) They chat about making pancakes and nuking planets from orbit while w4sted drives off in search of ice. The protagonists and the Bots trash talk each other a bit and Capac takes potshots at a surveillance plane while Splitsie struggles to drive over very hilly terrain. The realisation that their dawdling gave the Bots all the time they needed for evacuation prompts more trash talk. Splitsie jinxes it with ironic cheerfulness and his reckless driving almost makes the others resort to religion. Shack misunderstands a "smooth brain" joke and hilariously defends his "manly rugged topography". They spot the Bots' base on an ice lake and Capac reports incoming enemies and a strange friendly signal from the Bot base. Shack lifts off from the hangar while Splitsie chuckles and makes the runway flap. Capac exits turret control and realises he was left behind 3km ago...

The Jalopy slides across the ice lake and they engage the skeleton-crewed enemy base with only minor friendly fire incidents. W4sted joins the air strike, Shack is shot down, and half the fueling station goes up in a ball of fire. A sneaky Splitsie hacks an enemy Warthog but they need to shoot down the remaining turrets first.

(2:30) Splitsie and Shack fix the Warthog and prepare to siphon off the hydrogen. The Bots claim they want to coexist in peace and the humans were aggressive first. Splitsie promptly shoots DE for saying "like and subscribe!" and gets capac'ed by DE in return, proving the Bots' point. They assume gyroscope sabotage as Capac's stolen rover suddenly flips. While they refuel and make repairs, w4sted lifts up to scare off another Warthog with Capac as wing gunner. Tex's new crane make it difficult repressing further "manly" jokes. Shack isn't allowed to complain about "fun rides" with Splitsie because he joined late and (they sing) "Nobody's seen the horrors I've seen, nobody drives like Splitsie." DE LOLs at a burst connector spilling lag inducing amounts of pistols in the Bot base. w4sted confirms he accepted the terms and conditions to suffer rubberbanding. It's hard to identify the least explodey part of the rover to store hydrogen.

(3:00) Just as Splitsie jacks up the rover for repairs, they must hurry to protect their equipment from acid rain. W4sted suspects a defensive Shack of causing more damage to their planes than the acid rain (just #blamecapac). 500 litres of Splitsie's backpack are mysteriously taken up by something invisible and Capac quips "that would be your ego." Splitsie shoots at Capac but admits comments like these are why he keeps Capac around because Capac prevents--"forest fires!" W4sted and Shack chase the surveillance plane just as a second shower of acid rain makes them scramble to save Texfire's repurposed hydrogen siphoning crane. Capac explains the rules of "rock-mining drill-scissors" versus acid. The Bots write off their fuel depot.

(3:30) The protagonists loot the Bots' components and hydrogen and Capac gets squished by the collapsing enemy base. DE meanwhile extends the elevator platform. They park the rover away from hills so w4sted can attempt to land his hypersonic plane on the short runway using dragchutes. Splitsie beats Capac to blowing up the ruins of the enemy base. Capac stands as marker on the runway and warns of an incoming Warthog as w4sted hits him and misses the runway. The episode ends with an epic dogfight between W4stedspace in his Elon Thrust and Kanajashi Bot in the Warthog.

## References

1. ↑ Shack uses a custom suit mod by Chipstix where he (in addition to opening and closing the visor) can make aviator sun glasses appear on his custom face.
2. ↑ They are referring to the English metaphor where "grandfather's axe" has had its head and its handle replaced and it's still the best old tool they've ever had. Also known as the Theseus paradox: If each individual part of the Ship of Theseus was replaced, one at a time, is it still the same ship?
3. ↑ Splitsie warned in his tutorials not to get in the habit of using the parking shortcut P because it also undocks carried ships. Only a few months before the start of this series, in release 1.99, Keen had made this behaviour configurable.
4. ↑ Capac'ing someone is a euphemism for midair jetpack collision.