Welcome to the zone former podcast. I am your host Alfred Tabex joined by one of the coolest guys in video game music today, Rosen Hey, everyone is frozen here Yeah, so sadly Nate can't be here. His router was fried and his internet's kind of down. So He can't be here today, but we have a great substitute. We have Rosen with us So that's always lovely to have you on the show. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me So one of the things that I wanted to talk about this isn't Zelda related at all But since I have you on here, I want to talk about your newest album the Skyrim album the kaizal a journey to Yes, Skyrim did I pronounce that right? Yeah, case. Oh, yeah I'm not a fume like expert, but yeah So first off I'm just gonna ask what inspired you to do a Skyrim album well last November when when the Skyrim special edition came out I immediately bought it and I was like, I'm gonna play another 300 hours of this game And as I played it with my wife, we were both like, oh my goodness, we should cover all these songs and also Well, that was one reason the other one is like at work I usually like stream music from Spotify and I noticed like Skyrim soundtrack is nowhere to be found on like streaming digital services like Spotify or Apple music, so I'm like, hmm We should do something about that So and also the other inspiration was working with Theophany on time sent part two We got a lot of recording sessions here at my studio for the choir and we In our spare time we kept doing all these like little snippets of Skyrim and like joking about it like Oh, let's sing the song and blah blah and like I guess like we said it too many times Or we we had so much fun with it that we were just like, oh, let's just turn in and turn it into an album So this happened at the same time or this was produced at the same time as I was finishing time send with Jason Theophany, yeah So how far back Does your love for music go like have you always Done music or is this just like a last ten years type of thing? No, um, ever since I was six years old I Guess I've loved music before that but I started playing piano when I was six and I have never really stopped doing anything music related I went to to college for music in Boston. I have a degree in film scoring So yeah, this is my life pretty much So did you work with Theophany on the score for the terrible fate film? Well, he did most of that. I just helped him I Helped him record. There's some like creepy choir parts in there singing like the Majors theme. I know if you remember Yeah, creepy. So yeah, we just like hired the singers and I pretty much like helped him record them here at the studio I I helped more with the production of the album might I I worked with him on The boss track the Adalba track and I recorded the rest of the choirs for him as well as like arranged some lyrics My wife me and my wife We wrote the the like lyrics in Sanskrit and other languages we use for the album No, it was pretty fun. Yeah So this is just kind of a curious question So how are you like one of the lead figures in the material collective or is that just something you work with someone you work with? No, so material collect collective When it started it was more of a collective So I remember I was invited to collaborate on this album with other like hundred musicians It was for Final Fantasy 7 and it was called material. I think that's where the name actually comes from So after that, I just started collaborating on other albums I'm also on like the final fantasy 8-1 and and I've helped, you know, advise some other artists for the other following albums my wife is also on it. I'm very good friends with the founder Sebastian Wolf and We've always wanted to do like, you know, bigger albums together and stuff like that So I guess that's how I ended up being signed by now his label called material collective And that's why like this album case all is released through it So for this one how much this is just kind of I'm always curious about this specific thing when it comes to video game Remixing especially with a lot of the tracks like on harmony of heroes and whatnot. How much of the album is like live recorded? Instrumentation how much of it is Compute done on computer. It's probably 90% digital virtual instruments most of the vocals are live and What else is life and the pianos are live as well. I always try to keep it, you know Life is that's my main instrument What else is life? I have some violin Playing in there. I'm trying to think what else. Oh and we recorded some percussion in this like Big Us Cathedral in in San Diego Took it like the, you know, super echoey thing if you listen to Track number 12 Dragonborn, you know, like the main theme the beginning of that That was a cool experiment because we actually and by we I mean like theophany and I like recorded this super big-ass like bass drum and We sampled it and we pretty much made a library and like, you know, then here, you know We just like mess up with it and stuff So that's why I say 90% like we like sampling a lot of instruments ourselves and creating our own libraries But you know in the end I guess you can call it in digital So how does that sampling process work then like what what do you do to get those samples to play around with in digital? Well, it depends on what kind of instrument, but I guess percussion is very simple because You know, you just have the percussion you can either pick like recorded here at the studio where there's no reverb no echo Or record it at a desired space like this one We just love the you know the the reverb from that cathedral. We bring like instruments and we pretty much record, you know different velocities meaning like different Amounts of intensity, you know, just like very like piano hits are very forte impacts and Yeah, this takes a while and after that we just like coat it into contact and you know make patches and Program them a little bit so they're not just like all weird when you play them and on the keyboard So do you have any other projects lined up that you can talk about or do you want to keep those a surprise? I mean, um, let's see. I Guess the one thing I I can talk about is I promised my fans. I think it's been a year now My last Zelda album was time once lost Majora's Mask Album that I released a year ago. Actually the I don't know if you heard it, but The last no the second to the last tracks I think it's like song of healing and with a little teaser at the very end. There's like a secret section that has Like you can hear both since the fact that and someone playing like accordion and you can hear like wind waker's theme so people have been waiting for me to release a wind waker album and So I guess that's no secret. That's what I'm working on right now. I'm getting Obviously, I'm getting the opening on board with this because So funny because he wants to arrange all the music. I don't want to arrange and vice versa So it's like perfect because we're not getting in each other's way and also we're helping each other collaborating Like he is amazing at percussion. Like I really admire the way he like handles percussion And sound design overall and I'm more of a melodic person orchestration, you know, like just finding different ways of making stuff sound different And my wife Revan she is in pretty much all my songs. She's amazing vocalist and She also plays other instruments like harp and trumpet, but So the three of us are trying to you know get together and make a wind waker Album or I guess EP it's not gonna be like a full-length album We want to try making smaller stuff from now on so people don't have to wait around for four years for you know new albums So do you have any ideas of what tracks are gonna be on that album or just any of your favorites Yeah, I guess I can tell you which ones My favorites will be We're doing the very first track, which is the opening to the game Remind me what's it called like hero hero of legend Oh, like the opening Yes, thank you. Yeah, that one we're doing we're for sure doing Dragon Roost Island. We are doing The great see that's my favorite track in the whole like soundtrack So I need to do that and like if he often is just like yeah, whatever, you know, that's like I Want to do cooler stuff like Dragon Roost Island or you know, and then I guess we're all collaborating on the Ganondorf battle like the very last Yeah So I think those will be there if we add more we'll see but those will be like the main must Arranged. Yeah, we have to arrange these guys Got me excited. Thanks. I'm looking forward to that. Thanks. Hopefully we'll do a good job. We'll see Me always do a good job. I always enjoy your stuff Yeah, I guess this is like it's very new to all of us because it's um, it's like I guess you could call it like a happier Style, you know, you know what I mean? Like yeah, you have any stuff. It's always like super dark and intense and like You know more epic I do more like melodic, but it's still like epic and like very dramatic So this will be a very very different album for sure Okay, so moving on then Have you heard about the Zelda the Legend of Zelda encyclopedia that's coming up. Yes, I heard something about that, but um, okay Yeah, that's very exciting So we're gonna talk about that a little bit then According to what we wrote on our On Zelda informer says the first chapter is gonna feature a visual journey that explains some of the very basic features in this Series like Hyrule Kingdom and the master sword on another chapter contains a massive list of all enemies characters and items to appear in Series and then another chapter tackles the story in each game which could add additional details not seen in the games themselves So this is the second one that we're getting this year. The last one we got was the art book Which I don't know if it's come to the United States. I don't think he has otherwise. I think I would have it Yeah, and so I'm pretty excited about this because it's you know, it's Zelda and it's it's a book on Zelda stuff What kind of stuff are you looking forward to actually I'm very very excited about looking at more More stuff about the master sword. I think that's my Favorite thing about this all the series is just like such a legendary sword and and you know with Skyward sword will learn so many things from that You know like how it has its own character and stuff like that So I'm looking forward to learn more about those secrets or like origins, you know What about you? I'm kind of the same page like I really looking forward to especially the story part To hear more story details that we typically hopefully that we typically don't get in the games Because we kind of got some sort of backstory to the Legend of Zelda itself in the hero Yeah, Hyrule of Historia with that manga in the back And so I'm kind of looking forward to more stuff like that that fleshes out the story of Legend of Zelda and each individual game Because the mongas themselves that come out aren't really canon. I know they're just kind of based off what I wish they were Yeah, they are pretty good And then you get stuff like at the end of Ocarina of Time like that bonus chapter and just you know It's a little cool stuff that I really wish was explored more And maybe we'll see a bunch of that stuff in the book Maybe we'll see a bunch of that stuff in Breath of the Wild that like things that we didn't think would be explored or explored But I'm pretty excited about this. This is pretty much some of the only Zelda news We've gotten so far I know this past week or so. They're making up for her. Yeah, I'm very excited too I mean the I have one of the things I like the most about Zelda is the story So I hope that they just flesh out more stuff about the you know The timelines and stuff like that or just give us more background on some characters that we haven't heard about You know the Sheikah tribe is one of the most mysterious things from the the series So I think that'll be pretty exciting to explore And maybe they'll explain to you that third timeline split that we got in Hyrule Historia where Link supposedly dies Be nice to figure out where that came from and how that works. Yeah, exactly Yep So have you played Super Mario Run? Yeah, I have I was just playing that before like We started talking Yeah, I mean I play at work. I mean I know I shouldn't The you buy it actually or yeah, um, I I knew I was gonna buy it like the moment that I downloaded it just because It's it's Mario on my phone. Yeah, so I feel and so I kind of want to talk about our first impressions for that game Because apparently it's not doing so well a lot of people give me bad reviews. Oh, this is cool We get to talk about this. Okay For me First of all, I was very impressed with the design. They did a great job at not making it look like Like a phone app if you know what I mean like very glossy like big text and stuff like that It still looked like Nintendo game and I really like that. It was very fleshed out The mechanics I actually loved at first I was very skeptical because I was like, oh another like wrong game and as much as I love them, you know This was very unique Yeah, it was way way easier to use and I thought it was gonna be because I was worried about that You know like what's gonna happen like are you gonna die like that easily or you know stuff like that? But I really liked it and the same as you I actually bought it right away Like I will always report Nintendo.  So I don't know really what they're talking about Which is weird because typically when like Pokemon go or something came out that it would crash. Oh, yeah, this is fine. Oh, so buggy But like Super Mario runs. It's good. It's it's a cool little iPhone game There's a lot of replayability to it my opinion. Yeah, I agree with you You you go through the the tour the world tour And then you have to go back and collect all the coins then you have to go back Click them the second set then the third set Then you have the toad rally thing where you can just run up against each other like in a ghost mode Yeah, I get frustrated with that a lot because I lose a lot. Yeah, no, I know what you mean But I think people yeah, they're not saying that they're not saying past the fact that it's like $10 and I'm like Well, if you compare it to other Mario games that are like 40 or $50 back in the day I mean, this is really nothing and it's like the same experience and yeah People might say like oh, but you know, I can beat this in one night and I'm like well not really because It's actually a very challenging game once you try to collect like you say like the separate Set of colored coins and stuff like that Have you have you gotten all of them? I'm trying to I got I got a majority of the first set Yeah, so I'm trying to get whatever house item or whatever that you get from those ones And then I'll move on to the next than the next I'm trying to collect enough toads right now to get Luigi Oh, yeah, the only ones. I don't have a Luigi and Todet. Okay. Yeah, I have to that. They're not Luigi That's pretty cool. I was not expecting like other characters to be honest I actually thought it was gonna be like a cheaper looking game and that I was like oh whatever But I'm I'm impressed I guess because I had those low expectations Yeah, it looks like the new Super Mario Bros Ported to a phone which is nice. Yeah, it looks good. It doesn't look terrible. It doesn't look blocky or pixelated Which is really cool. Yeah, that's nice So the visuals are nice It has some of the same music that the other games have so it's not necessarily like something new But it's it's familiar and that's good Exactly because we can look at it and be like oh, yeah, this is Mario Even though we're not played directly like Mario right and a lot of people are saying it didn't bring anything new I mean it kind of did the mechanics are new Yeah, you can you can do tricks and rolls and jumps and jump over enemies vault over them Like there's a lot that's new to this. I don't really know what people are expecting from a mobile Mario game Yeah, because you know if you download it or if you bought at any point Sonic CD on the phone You have the Overlay, which is those that the d-pad and the a and the b button On that very small phone. Oh, you're trying to control it like that. So it's it's it's more of a hindrance to do it that way Yeah, it's not gonna make enough. Yeah, then they just have something like this And I think this is a great use of the iPhone in terms of playability for the game Yeah, like I love how simple the design is but you can you can play with one hand I mean and one finger, you know, that's that's pretty cool. I mean it sounds super simple But it's actually very hard to implement into a good game Also, I think I don't I don't get why people say like ten dollars is too expensive when though some of those people like Have been playing like free-to-play games and they probably spend like a thousand dollars in a year. You know, it's just Buying meaningless, you know upgrades Yeah, I mean I'd rather pay once I'd rather pay ten bucks once than I have to pay like ten bucks over the period of time And that's something Nintendo's good at so far with their mobile games Or if you even want to consider the Pokemon Not Trozee Pit cross. Yeah, for example with the first foray into free-to-play games kind of if you spent like thirty dollars Total then you got the game for free like the rest of the game was just open to you Yeah, so they have a really good consumer friendly models of games To where it's like, okay, you pay this one-time amount or you could pay X overtime if you reach the maximum and then you get the game for free or like the rest of the game like unlocked Yeah, you don't have to worry about anymore Micro payments. Yeah, I think that's a that's a better model in my opinion because even I've all my friends have spent so much money in Pokemon Go, you know It's yeah, it's ridiculous, but oh well, hopefully people will actually give it a chance for what it is, you know just See that it's a brilliant design and you know because simple it's hard to do, you know mm-hmm So along with that though We learned Just recently on this probably today or yesterday That a lot of the investors were disappointed by early reviews and sales of Super Mario run And the shock this shock the stock shares finished down at seven point one percent in the Tokyo stock exchange and Which extended a losing streak to five days during which the stock has fallen more than 16 percent So and the stock had already risen more than 20 percent in the space of a month before the beginning so it's it's dropped about 16 percent of that 20 percent of it rising and So that's not necessarily that good for Nintendo and a lot of this is also from the Wall Street Journal In case you guys want to look at it. Yeah, and I mean ask a stock holder myself. I've always I've always invested in Nintendo. I think like for seven years. I've been like a stock holder in there And I tried not to rush and like, you know, just sell all my stocks one like for example like when Pokemon came out but that the thing is as an investor when you see headlines are just saying like oh people are not happy with this because it Costs and blah blah. I feel like it's very It's one-sided, you know, like all media And I think the reviews on the App Store didn't help because visually it looks like a horrible game because you know if all those like one-star reviews and You know, it's just a lot of like the very angry people who are not really Grading the game professionally, I don't know how to say it and because I've a lot of reviews out there And saying that it's actually an awesome game and yes, it is worth the $10 It's just like all this like like angry users that are just like I don't know. There's you know, this is crap Whatever so as an investor like you see all this you only see all these things, you know I I bet that 90% of this people haven't even seen the game or haven't bought it or whatever So they're just scared and they're like, I'm gonna, you know, bring my stocks out of this market, you know Mm-hmm, and I don't know although It's kind of weird though because after what happened with the Pokemon and a lot of people just like Throwing their money at the at Wall Street. I thought it was gonna happen again, but I don't know. I don't know what happened there Well, it seems one of the reasons that people seem to not like it too much is not the fact that the $10 Prices on it period, but the fact that they make you pay $10 after already having the game for a little bit so somebody said I think it was Matoi Acomodo former Nintendo game director stated that they should have either asked players to pay when downloading or Give more free content if they were to pursue a free to download model So basically either and this was kind of confused me at the beginning teams I remember them saying there's gonna be a $10 game. Yeah on the app store It says get so it's a free download But then after you Play the first world you hit a paywall And that's kind of discouraging to a lot of people. Yeah, because they see that and they're like, I don't want to pay You know $10 and you could still technically play the game without that But you miss out on a lot of the content correct So you miss out on like the blue green yellow purple toads So you can't really expand the game or get any more characters Or move through the world correct So that that might be a deterrent to a lot of people Maybe Nintendo will change that maybe they won't I think that the $10 price point is is fine the way it is I don't think they should change that and again Wall Street Journal also stated that the game isn't available on the Android operating system yet So we might see more downloads more payments through that. I think it's a little premature to Jump the gun and say, oh, well, it's it's obviously poorly like doing poor. So we shouldn't even try to Do anything about it. It's been out for like two three days now And Pokemon go everybody forgets that they treat it like it's some like oh, it's it's Pokemon go now We play it like every time we go out or every so often, but the launch for that game was abysmal Oh, yeah, you could connect you the servers were always down Anytime you used an incense or a lucky egg or bought anything it would pretty much go away because you couldn't get back into the game So for the first week and a half of that game is unplayable I think even past that there were plenty of glitches plenty of bugs the tracking system went down So there was no reason for that like for people to like that game Because it was broken and it's still kind of is it's still kind of yeah And like people are still angry about that like Pokemon searching Mechanic and stuff like that, you know, they haven't fixed it or or they took it out right like the future They kind of added something different.  Yeah, I feel like a lot of this is just based on like and Like a fast reaction, you know without actually thinking about it like most of internet reactions, you know And yeah, it's I think it's It's weird too because this is kind of the flip-flop of what happened with Pokemon go is the investors saw Pokemon go is a huge success for Nintendo And so they poured their money into that into Nintendo stock for like a week straight only to find out after that week that Nintendo only had like half a investing interest in Pokemon go to begin with and then they pulled out Whereas the Mario game Super Mario run they have a full invested interest in Like they every all the in Revenue and influx of revenue is gonna go to Nintendo And so it's it's more on the lines of if they fix whatever crashing glitch is appearing for some people Then I'm sure the game is gonna do perfectly. Well, I think again. It's like you said it's it's really Dumb to just you know have a premature reaction to something like this and pull out It's you know, it is what it is it's gonna happen because people get scared with their monies in True in danger of being lost, I guess But you know sock market changes all the time goes up and down So I really wouldn't worry about it too much like right now This may seem like a big deal for Nintendo, but they always tend to bounce back and who knows January with January 12th With a switch reveal. It's it might go right back up. Yeah Yeah, so, you know stocks are stocks are so weird. Yeah I Don't even tell me about that Don't get me started on this Yeah, so we're getting more and more reports to now that the switch I mean, this is something that we heard a long time ago. It was morally morally more of just a rumor That we were gonna get the switch and it was gonna be less powerful than the ps4 and kind of on par with the Xbox Yeah So what do you think about that like being less powerful than the ps4 is that a problem or is that just a non-existent issue? You know at first when I heard it the first time I was like, oh, no, this is horrible. Why are they doing the same mistake again? But when you think about it, yeah, I think it might be less powerful I mean, well it is gonna be less powerful But I don't think this is a problem because this is first of all, it's a hybrid console So you cannot have the full potential of a home console is just sitting there with all those fans and all those processors and stuff like that And at the same time have the same powerhouse and just like, you know While you're driving or going to work not driving. Don't don't do that But the other thing is That games are gonna be running at 720p when it's portable when it's like undocked so That makes me wonder, you know like Yes, it's less powerful, but I don't think it's gonna be a problem At all also because the architecture like these processors and like the graphics card like have Are way more advanced than whatever the way you had anyway, so I feel like it's genius that if you know if they can manage to just Be able to use the full potential of both the processor and the and the gpu You know, I think it's gonna be a magical console that you can just carry everywhere with you What do you think I think I kind of agree like I don't think necessarily it's a problem Like I've always I'm always a little sketched out whenever Nintendo decides that they want to go at a lower Yeah, processing power speed or whatever than the PS4, but also we've heard from Other companies like third-party companies like EA or Ubisoft talking about how easy it is or how easy it's going to be To port games from the ps4 and Xbox one over to the switch So even if it's kind of a downgrade of power, I don't think it's gonna be that much that's gonna be significant Yep It's not gonna be like when they had to port things from the ps3 and the Xbox 360 to the Wii I don't think it'd be that drastic where you see a noticeable shift I feel like it feels that way third parties would just not you know Make games for the switch and I think a lot of them are just jumping, you know going for it Yeah, that's a good sign and I think yeah and a lot of the like I guess my clearest example of of the comparison between the ps3 and and The Wii type of thing when they downgraded was if you play Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 On a ps3 and an Xbox 360 you get a more well-rounded more Better-looking a better-looking experience with more content in the game better story like dialogue and stuff Whereas if you play it on the Wii, it's the same as the ps2 version And so far and from what we heard about that about porting to the Wii It was really really difficult for companies to do even more so for the Wii U So they just kind of didn't like a lot of third-party companies just stopped porting stuff to the Wii U but so far from what we've heard is that Nintendo is having like great luck with people porting it over to their console So I don't think we necessarily have anything to worry about in terms of power for the switch At least I hope not right now. It's again. It's mostly just rumors It's not like we're gonna get anything significant until January. Yeah Again, you know, we're still still waiting. We got an announcement for an announcement again. So we'll see there March is not that far. Yeah, which is kind of I know it is but yeah, I know it will be worth it you know again the fact that a lot of like developers are supporting the idea of the Nintendo switch gives me a lot of hope because you know from the very beginning we saw like A company like directors being like, oh, yeah, I want to make games for like switch It looks like such a cool console, you know, like I saw the specs and you know, I'm very convinced about this you know, so If they can board they get in their games like you said, you know, and they're not having any trouble with that I don't see why we should be scared of that Okay, I think that's all we have for news topics So I'm gonna get hit on a little fan topics a few of them that we missed from last week All right, and then we'll talk about our our fun topic of the day So Steven Waters the second says do you think we'll ever see an origin of the Triforce in a game? Something that really expands into why there was a need for it in the first place What do you think about it? Oh, I Want to say I really hope so I had not thought about that before I don't see why they want to do it because they already did for the Master Sword or although that would have to be like a Breakwell, so But they they never said like this is the only prequel we were gonna do it, you know, I Can see them doing that. I hope so because I mean well actually, no I don't think they will and I can tell you why because most of when you play a game as all the game It goes into all this like mythological like Section where they tell you all the legends and legends and fables and I mean they're legends You don't actually see them happening at all. So maybe that's the beauty of The Legend of Zelda's lore. So maybe they don't want to show just about everything, you know, like when Helia was I Don't want to say a life because she was a goddess, but you know, I mean like when she was around doing stuff creating the world Yeah, I think it'd be interesting to see because kind of also what he said like Why did they leave the Triforce in the first place? And then we've talked about this on Zelda form a while back with a bunch of articles talking about the Divine Prank Which is what they talked about in Princess So it's it's more along the lines of like why is this a thing like why did they leave it here? And I kind of so it could kind of be looked at like in Christian mythology, there's the Tree of Good and Evil at the very beginning of the game The Lodge of Good and Evil at the very beginning of the world and it's put there more as a test As the one thing humanity is not supposed to touch not supposed to evil. Yeah, correct. And so In that it shows That's how the the fall of man happens how sin enters the world is because of them Reaching and grabbing and eating from the tree And so you could kind of view the Triforce like that as in it's not supposed to be something for human use Like there's reasons why the goddess has to step in whenever there's a War about it like the Hylia fought against the team and King now for possession of the Triforce and kind of like you see you see this Unfold over and over again like it's used in the wrong way that it has to be used correctly is I don't necessarily think it's something that Again, Nintendo has never been clear on story. So this is all speculation But I don't think it was something that was intended for human use is more of a reminder That the goddesses and them controlling the world and creating the world So it's it's more of a symbol like a like like their power a symbol of their power It's just it's really confusing because again, we really don't know that much about it or why it was there Otherwise, it's just there to like mess up the world that they created which we've seen time and time and time and time and time again Yeah, these goddesses are very careless. Yeah, if you ask me So let's see so Ryan Seaman asked I think I might have already asked this Last week, but I'd like to hear you pin on this I have a topic starting both of the while being that there are over a hundred shrines in the game How many ruin abilities do you think it'll be possible for link to acquire in that like? for example, there's the one where You get the magnetic ability in order to manipulate objects and stuff So basically just kind of extra items without there being items in the game Do you think that we're gonna get one for every shrine or maybe every 10 shrines or something like that? You know what I think is gonna happen is that there's gonna be like some core ones like the most important ones like let's say the magnetic thing and in When you do more ruins what's gonna happen is you're gonna be able to evolve those Avilities writing rather than just getting like 20 million different Once I think that's what's kind of happened. So you could say like maybe we're gonna get like 12 You know powers like that and they're just gonna like branch out from that Yeah, kind of like a skill tree for each item or each rune. Yeah, you know, you can do heavier stuff or I don't know Yeah And I think too like it'd be kind of difficult to make a specific Weapon or specific room for each different shrine. Yeah, that would be too much. Yeah, maybe that's why they're taking so long One mechanic per shrine But then at that point you'd be wondering why you know why you have That one ability if it's just gonna be used for this one trying to be kind of seen seen as frivolous Yeah, I know like why program this in the game. Why worry about this if it's only used for one thing So like I agree like it probably is maybe 12 20 and then it just gets upgraded from there Or maybe it doesn't get up or maybe there's just like certain shrines that you can only reach after you've gotten Each fruit. Yeah, because so that's all about connecting like the different items you have to like pass Certain tests, you know, I mean, I know there's always like a main like future item for a temple But you you always have to use one of the previous ones anyway, you know So, yeah, I don't see them Like doing like a million of them So George J. Naur asked the More kind of posed an idea about the progression of Zelda games that they have taken in terms of store telling a gameplay And where does Nintendo go from here? So obviously that the the next progression that we're getting is breath of the wild Which has been told that we're gonna have a story to it. We haven't really seen any Like definitive story to the game We know like little hints about it like there's calamity game and obviously something happened That to left Hyrule and ruins links been asleep for a hundred years. There's the bird people like all these things and I guess the last real story telling game we got from Nintendo in terms of Well, really anything with Skyward Sword Because that was not necessarily really heavily focused the story But it really set the myth mythological aspect of Zelda. So we got where the master sword came from We saw how Who Hylia was and that whole goddess of maybe she's got some time. Maybe she's not we don't know But we did get a lot in that game And so I think that hopefully moving forward Nintendo is going to want to add more store telling into the game And they're hopefully gonna get better at that. I mean, I think we talked about this I think you're talking about this with NATO all back. Okay, is that the story telling in Hyrule Warriors was actually pretty? Oh, it was like a fantastic story But Nintendo at this point can't be like well We can't let like a third party do something better with our own games than than we do So, what do you think? Well? Yeah, that's so true um, I think the beauty of Of this new game is that it's an open world and they have the chance to throw in so much lore in there, you know Because it's not gonna be forced on you because it's not gonna be a linear Story or gameplay. So I think that you're just gonna learn so much from the lore That we don't know about, you know, both from like this wherever this is in the timeline and just like overall the whole like series And you know, you might find a lot in like books or kind of like in Skyrim How they have like so much lore but it's all hidden in books and like people just giving you quests and stuff like that You know, I feel like it's kind of the same. They're they're trying to Compensate for that lack of story like you say and other games Yeah This is pretty much all I have for the fan topics. Um, sorry, we didn't put any out a question out today Uh, Nate's internet was down like I said, so we couldn't exactly get to the facebook page post about it But um, as always you can feel free to just drop us questions whenever we can put them on our youtube youtube Uh videos that come out each week or you can email them to us or you know facebook or twitter Whatever works. Um, so last topic that I want to ask is last night I saw Star Wars Rogue one with my fiance and her family Um, and I saw some articles about it afterwards because I was kind of staying away from any spoilers And one of the articles was talking about Uh, it was titled Is Star Wars or like can Star Wars be Star Wars without the Luke Skywalker family or the Skywalker family? Um, so basically can a core Star Wars film Or anything about Star Wars be done without Actually talking about you know Luke Skywalker Anakin Skywalker that that whole aspect Who the main like the main story of Star Wars is about them. Yeah. Um, so that got me thinking Can there be a Legend of Zelda game? Like a full Fledged Legend of Zelda game like this was a Rogue one was a two and a half hour movie that came out Like as a yearly release for Star Wars And it was a side story it wasn't it was a part of the main story, but it was kind of it filled in gaps. Yeah So Do you think that we could get a game a Zelda game not necessarily could we'll intend to make one because that's always you know We'll intend to do this or this But would Do you think that they could a Zelda game could survive on its own without any of The core characters that we always hear about like Zelda or Link or Ganondorf That's a tough one, but at the same time you have games like Majora's Mask where You know, you don't really have Zelda or Ganondorf, you know I mean, I know you see like Zelda in the memory, but honestly that's that doesn't count It was like super force so they could call it like Legend of Zelda But I feel like even without those elements they could have called it like, you know, the Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask so I mean I would say yes, they could do like it's enough to try to Compensate for you know, like just try to fill in Plot holes in there, you know, like about sages that would be pretty cool like And also I think they could potentially make games about the shaken drive. How do you say? Yeah, yeah, thank you I've always wondered. Thank you You know because that is like super mysterious and stuff like that and I'm pretty sure like they don't have to include either Like Zelda link or or Ganondorf And I think it would survive on its own to be honest with you Of course, it wouldn't be like as a Zelda game, you know in terms of like Mechanics and you know gameplay and stuff like that, but yeah, I think it's possible Yeah, and that also might come It might become more likely the more Nintendo focuses on story Um, because right now there's not necessarily a need I mean, there's a need like we all there's certain areas that we like to see fill in or certain characters We like to see explored Um, but Nintendo may not see a need right now for a story telling game that fills in some story If they're not too focused on it And they've already said in the past multiple times they focus more on gameplay than on story. That's true As sad as that makes me because story is a big part of gaming for me. Um Yeah, but there's Uh, there's I think there's room for a side story Like we've like the hope is that there'll be a sheet game that explains what happened with zelda In like the seven years between Okay, great link going into the temple of time and coming in kind of in a style of like assassin's creed or thief or something Where it's a stealth based game Um, I think that Nintendo that is zelda game could survive without its core characters But there'd have to be a reason for it to to be made not necessarily just to have a side story Um, like I can't really spoil too much about rugwinner. I won't I won't be that guy But there's there's a lot of people who haven't seen it yet For all the complaints that there are with that movie and some of the complaints that I have with the movie It does fill in some plot holes From the original trilogy It explains how a lot of things happened Um, and you know why certain things got to where they were Um It also does some good job at establishing some more lore to the to the star wars universe um, but also The Now canon tv show Star Wars rebels Is pretty much a show with skywalkers any skywalkers and it's remarkable. It's it's great Yeah It's it's so good and it's doing so well So I think there's room for a zelda game without Zelda in it. They're just there has to be a reason for it. Um, it has to have a purpose other than hey, look It's a spin-off title. Um, because those typically don't do that. Well, I'm looking at shadow of the Hitchhawk right there Not everything works Yeah, not not every idea you throw at the wall is gonna stick. Um, but I I think it'd be cool to see a side story game Um, without any of the core characters in it, but there again, there'd have to be a reason Like we'd have to there'd have to be some logical Um idea behind why we were getting this game and what they had to do with the story and their importance Well, I would love to see like the origin story of the Majora's Mask, you know, like The tribe where he came from and stuff like that. That'd be awesome. I don't think that would need like link or anyone, you know Yeah That'd be interesting to see like gameplay for that too. Maybe it's like kind of like a fire emblem as game Like very something like that. Yeah, that'll be cool Mm So I think that's about all we have today Uh, thank you for joining us again, Rosen. I'm always happy to have you on the show here. Thank you so much So where can they find you if they want to look for? Um, they can find me on facebook. Um, It's facebook.com slash Rosen dot us or they can find me on my website, which is www.rosin.audio Um, yeah, that's okay. That's I think like the best option Hmm And as always, uh, you can find me on twitter and Zeldin former whenever I decide to get around to writing editorials again Now this takes up a majority of my time. Oh, I bet that's a lot. Thank you guys for joining us and thank you Thank you, Rosen for for being here. My pleasure. All right. See you guys next week


This is Witchspace news for Friday the 3rd of January 2020 I'm CMDR Buur In this weeks news Frontier reiterate their schedule for the near future and share some big elite numbers A planetary circumnavigation record is broken The AXI publishes their annual anti-zeno report CMDR TECOSO hits photoshop for Christmas And LaveCon 2020 tickets go on sale Remember to hit like and subscribe and click the little bell icon to get notifications You can also join us on the Buur Pit Discord server And you can become a supporter of this channel through Patreon or YouTube membership Links to everything you need are in the description below First and foremost everyone at the Buur Pit would very much like to wish you and yours the happiest of happy new years and what a year this is going to be Without a shadow of a doubt this is one way or another going to be one of the most defining years that Elite Dangerous has ever known It kicks off sometime in January with the first of this year's updates with bug fixes incoming off the back of last year's speed beta The awaited and then long awaited and then very long awaited Much postponed fleet carrier update is scheduled to arrive around the middle of the year and so logically sometime between now and June-ish we should finally start hearing what fleet carriers actually are and what they bring to the game then sometime towards the end of 2020 the much hyped hugely anticipated possibly leaked paid update is due to casually stride into the room possibly wearing shoes or driving a new SRV or fighting high winds and battering rain no one except Frontier really knows what it is or indeed when we'll find out what it is whatever happens over the next 12 months it will surely forever define Elite Dangerous going forward what a year this could be Frontier's regular schedule of let's play lunchtime live streams kicks off again on the 6th of January to paraphrase David Braben himself it's all very exciting over the Christmas break Frontier released an infographic detailing some of the colossal statistics that have emerged from Elite Dangerous over its lifetime thus far this stuff is always fascinating and serves to underline just what a unique experience Elite Dangerous is some of our favorites include 4,788,600 Thargoids eliminated no wonder they don't like us just 0.042 percent of the galaxy explored over 200 million used limpets left littering the galaxy the human race just can't help itself can it total rebies for commanders amount to 6 trillion 979 billion 89 million 133 thousand and 261 credits at least half of that is people hooning around gd 140 by air reckoning and our absolute favorite number the longest distance traveled in the humble sidewinder 167,277 light years by commander rince wind cumory that is one seriously used side one careful owner the record for the longest planetary circumnavigation was entered into the planetary circumnavigation club's Hall of Fame just before Christmas Commander Straha Jaeger completed a four-month drive around B.L.A.U.E.U.Q W.K. dash V.D. 3.1 C.7 the planet has a circumference of 12,690 kilometers that's an estimated journey of 16,000 kilometers in an SRV four months in an SRV elite dangerous proving yet again that it is all things to all people commander magram of the anti-zeno initiative published the 3305 annual fargoid report to reddit this week detailing the movements of the green meanies this last year the achievements of humanity's efforts against them the changes to the galaxy as a result of the lurgy lettuce infestation and a quick look at what you can do right now and what to possibly expect in the next 12 months whilst fargoid movement has been stagnated since the witch head sector and the enclave interstellar initiative you can still fight fargoids and assist Operation Ida in their ongoing cleanup operations well worth a read the report has a nice section detailing date by date benchmark moments in AX activity throughout the year including that time when commander tater chip held the newly discovered authorist variant on the ground and punched it to death serial image and music creator commander to koso took to photoshop over the christmas period and produced some brilliant pictures depicting elites biggest ships in real world scenarios you'll see a couple of them in the background right now hit the good commander's twitter feed linked below to see the rest they're quite excellent because he's some sort of witch and finally tickets are now on sale for this year's lavecon which is the third to the fifth of july destiny unhappy accident and fate have conspired against us in previous years to get to lavecon not this year we're attending in force the entire burpit family will be there if you're planning on being there we'd love to meet you you'll find a link below to the lavecon website as well as links to everything else we've talked about this week that's it for the first witch space news of 2020 thanks very much for watching we'll be back later this week with more videos until then oh seven commanders follow the greens on the way out and do keep clear of the toast rack we very much look forward to seeing you next time


Oh gosh, we have so many people. Good morning and welcome. I'm Lisa Grundy. I'm the head of the United States Institute of Peace. We were established by the US Congress in 1984 as a national nonpartisan public institution that's dedicated to helping prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflict abroad. It's an honor for the Institute to host this important discussion on the findings of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. We are so pleased to welcome Congressman Doug Lamborn, representative from Colorado, steadfast champion of our country's security, who serves as the chair of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces of the House Armed Services Committee and his co-chair of important military and foreign policy caucuses. Representative Lamborn is going to be making opening comments to help us frame this issue, talk about what we need to do to defend ourselves as a country, to defend our values, and to defend our way of life. The Institute is honored that the chair of the Congressional Commission, Madeline Creedon, and the vice chair of the Commission, Senator John Kyle, are here with us this morning to discuss the Commission's very important findings and recommendations with Wes Mitchell, who is one of the Institute's most distinguished senior advisors. As I think all of us know, the work of the Congressional Commission is absolutely crucial. China has embarked on comprehensive military modernization. This includes the breakneck expansion of its nuclear arsenal, becoming a second nuclear peer of the United States. At the same time, Russia retains a large and destabilizing nuclear arsenal. Russia has rejected its treaty obligations, its adopted escalatory nuclear strategies, and its relied on nuclear blackmail to wage a naked war of aggression in Europe against Ukraine. The threat that these two competitors and adversaries pose to the US, either acting alone or worse in concert with each other, is arguably more complex, more grave than any the US has faced since World War II. Today's discussion on strategic posture is of special significance to USIP. We've had the privilege of hosting a series of bipartisan national security reviews at the direction of Congress, including the Congressional Commission's 2009 predecessor, which was chaired by former Secretaries of Defense William Perry and James Schlesinger. I promise, West Mitchell, that I would hold up the study from your predecessor, Commission. In 2009, that commission, which was working in much more optimistic times, concluded, this is a direct quote, that the danger of an existential threat has dramatically decreased. This is 2009. This has permitted the United States to reduce its reliance on nuclear weapons and substantially reduce our nuclear forces. The 2009 commission went on to conclude, the risks of war with China are low. The apparent risks of nuclear war are even lower. But the commission added a cautionary note. It warned, there is also profound uncertainty about China's strategic intentions as a power grows. The commission also cautioned that two days, decades after the end of the Cold War, Russia and the United States are certainly not enemies, but neither are they allies. These warnings were oppressive. All of us who work for peace today know that to achieve it, a superpower has to be ready for conflict. Its military forces have to be capable of deterring and defeating acts of aggressions by nuclear armed great powers. But all of us who work for peace also know that peace requires a sober readiness to engage in diplomacy and arms control and risk reduction activities when they promote strategic stability. Congressman Lamborn, we are so honored you're here. May we, with your permission, invite you to the floor. Well, good morning. Good morning. Thank you all for attending this important discussion today on our nation's strategic posture. And Lisa, thank you to you and your whole team for hosting us. It's a real honor to be here. It is also my privilege to represent Colorado's fifth congressional district. I work daily to advance the defense of our nation and preserve all of our personal liberties. My district has a unique place in the nation's strategic enterprise. It is home to the US Northern Command, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, and US Space Command, three organizations that are charged with the strategic defense of our nation. As chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, my role is to ensure that our nation is prepared to deter, defend against, and respond to any attack. The Strategic Forces Subcommittee is charged with overseeing the US's nuclear missile defense, hypersonics, and military space programs. These functions all enable the US to lead in world events and defend against global threats. Congress forms commissions when it recognizes that it cannot reach enough of an agreement to solve a specific problem through the normal legislative process. As you are all aware, nuclear weapons policies tend to be one of those issues. The Congressional Commission on Strategic Posture, whose report has brought us together here today, has only been created twice, first in 2008 and again in 2022. While strategic deterrence is something Congress generally agrees we need, there is little political consensus about how to achieve it. However, both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees agreed that strategic deterrence was important enough to have an independent and bipartisan group examine the problem and provide recommendations. The committees established the Commission through the Fiscal Year 22 National Defense Authorization Act, mandating this important work. The commissioners, all experts in strategic deterrence with unquestionable credentials, have a mandate to deliver a, quote, threat-informed, forward-looking, and non-bipartisan consensus, unquote. And their report accomplished this mission. It presents a sober analysis of the country's strategic disposition and makes clear-eyed findings and recommendations that are, for good reason, garnering a lot of attention. It signals the threats to our national security that have morphed into something that we are not fully prepared to defend against. With the report of this length and detail, it would be impossible to address all the threats and all of its findings in our short time here together this morning. But let me share with you a few main takeaways. The first is that we are now in a world where the United States, for the first time, faces two nuclear peers. Some consider this finding to be striking and novel, but I believe that it is long overdue. Both the 2018 and the 2022 national defense strategies did not address the Chinese strategic threat, even though many were sounding the alarm. Open-source satellite imagery detected growing Chinese ICBM fields, destructive anti-satellite testing, they started that in 2007, fractional orbital bombardment, and hypersonic weapons development. And of course, we must not lose sight of the Iranian and North Korean threats. The cessation of the maximum pressure campaign on Iran and the failed JCPOA negotiations have emboldened the Iranian regime to accelerate its enrichment program to destabilize the region. While we can hope for the best, we must tailor our strategic posture in a way that also deters Iran from embarking on a weaponization program. And meanwhile, North Korea has been expanding its nuclear forces to threaten our allies and the continental United States directly. Even more disconcerting is the recent meeting between Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin. They reportedly discussed the proliferation of advanced ballistic missile technology that would greatly increase the North Korean ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to distant targets. So the commission's recommendations require bipartisan support on the Hill and consistent support from the administration. And it should be deserving and should get garnered that. If a bipartisan group of 12 commissioners can arrive at these conclusions with a very high degree of detail, I hope that we in Congress and the administration can do the same. I agree with the report that Congress and the administration must take a unified case to the American people to gain their support. It is imperative that the American people understands what must be done to deter armed conflict and protect our way of life. I have been watching closely the threat scenario develop over my years in Congress. I'm in my ninth term, my 17th year in Congress. And now I have the opportunity to use my position as strategic forces chairman to actively address the threat through the NDAA, which we pass every year, and other standalone legislation. The top priority for the defense of the nation must be maintaining a modern, credible, and effective strategic deterrence. I am joined in this view by every secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs for the past several decades. However, this concern has not been universally adopted by all members of Congress. This report does not prioritize or recommend funding of any specific program. That's up to Congress. But nothing in this report is out of reach if we apply the necessary resources and funding and willpower. If maintaining the strategic deterrent is the top priority, then Congress should look to the recommendations made in the commission's report and prioritize them. The commission's most pressing finding and recommendation is that the current program of record is inadequate to meet the two nuclear peer environment. We must not only fully fund and execute the current modernization program of record, but also expand it to ensure that we can deter and counter the Russian and Chinese threats simultaneously. I, for one, doubt that the number of deployed warheads allowed under the new start, 1550, is adequate to meet the Russian and recently constituted Chinese threats. Also, it is critical that the Sentinel ground-based deterrent, the B-21, the Columbia class submarine and nuclear command and control programs that tie all those together, are given every opportunity to deliver on schedule. Congress must also invest in our nation's scientific and industrial base to ensure it is able to deliver these capabilities with no degradation in our current deterrent posture. In addition to addressing our strategic nuclear forces, the commission also accurately called for the urgent modification of our theater nuclear force posture as opposed to strategic nuclear forces. We cannot afford to be placed in a position where an adversary conducts a limited strike and our only option is surrender or massive retaliation. All or nothing may not be the best response. That is why I have been championing the highly survivable nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, also known as Slickham Inn, as an ideal solution and I fought to make it a program of record in the fiscal year 24 house passed in D.A.A. I welcome the commission's recommendation that the U.S. must field sufficient conventional forces to effectively deter and defeat simultaneous Russian and Chinese aggression in Europe and Asia. I agree that not having a robust conventional force only increases our reliance on nuclear weapons to deter our adversaries. So to that end, I've been working diligently in Congress to promote the development of both offensive and defensive hypersonic weapons capabilities to match those of Russia and China to deter coercive strikes by them on our critical infrastructure. Also, I have and will continue to champion strategic investment in the space domain which is now being fully contested. This will ensure that our space assets are survivable and can provide the communications, navigation, intelligence, and missile warning necessary for fighting future conflict. I believe also that extending new start in 2021 with no concessions sought from the Russians looks now like a missed opportunity. But in conclusion, I'd like to commend the commission on completing this important report. It delivers a hard hitting message that the U.S. must act today in order to be prepared for tomorrow's strategic threats. Our strategic deterrent is the foundation of our national security and for peace, which this institute is all about. So thank you for your important to this important topic. Well, let me start by echoing Lace and saying how much we appreciated having Congressman Landborn with us this morning. I think that was a strong and clear message and we appreciate his diligence and his leadership on what are obviously some pretty important issues. We have, as Lace said, two other very special guests with us this morning and it's a privilege for me to be able to welcome them and start off our conversation with them. My name is Wes Mitchell. I'm a senior advisor with the U.S. Institute of Peace, our Center for Russia and Europe and of particular interest to our center in this discussion, we have an ongoing effort to study strategic stability and present some recommendations on what, if anything can be done in the near term in the way of either nuclear diplomacy or engaging with our allies. So it's a timely report for that reason among the others that were given. But I wanna say how great it is to have both of you and I don't think our guests require a lengthy introduction. They both have, they're both well known for very distinguished careers in public service. Madeleine Creedon was chair of the Strategic Posture Commission. She previously served as principal deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration and she also served as an assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs. Senator John Kyle, of course, vice chairman of the commission. He served with distinction as a U.S. senator from the great state of Arizona. He was Republican whip and led deliberations on strategic affairs, including the 2010 New START Treaty. Let me say at the top, if you haven't looked at the Strategic Posture Commission report, you should do so.  It is not light reading. It is a very long document. I think it has 80, 81 recommendations, more than 130 kind of top line takeaways or findings. But it's necessary, I think, at least if you're interested in matters of international importance and certainly if you work at the U.S. Institute of Peace and you're interested in peace on our planet, I think you need to at least read the executive summary because the world that it describes is not the world that we're accustomed to. It's not the world of the peace dividend coming out of the end of the Cold War. It is a dangerous world. It's a world with two nuclear armed peer competitors. And I think most importantly, I said earlier in the green room, the report sort of grabs you by the lapels and it says, wake up. So whatever else you take from the document, I think absorbing the dangerousness of our predicament, the novelty of our predicament, the first time in our nation's history we've had two nuclear armed competitors, but also the messages, I see it, that we're late. We need to wake up, but that we're behind. I think comes across, there is a tone of urgency that is unmistakable. So I wanna talk a little bit about the commission and its findings. There's a lot of ground we could cover, but I'm gonna try to be selective and draw out some things that might be interesting to USIP, the people who work here, the people who are watching online who follow these very important issues. So I'm gonna start with a few questions here on the dais and then we'll turn to some questions from the audience. But Madeline, let me just start with you as the chair of the commission. I wonder if, just for the benefit of our audience here and for the general public, if you could tell us a few of the findings that you think are most important, that Americans most need to be aware of that came out of your undertaking. Well thanks, Wes, I appreciate that. And I would actually say a very good place to start is with the 2009 strategic posture commission report because that really sets the historic background and when you start with that report and then you come to our report, you get a very stark picture of how substantially things have changed. And that's what I would say is probably the most important takeaway from our report is that the world we thought we were gonna be in in 2008 and 2009 didn't happen. The rest of the world chose a different path and we are where we are. So we have to be very, very wide eyed about where we are. And the end result of that is, as you said, we are a little behind. We are in a world that we didn't plan for, we didn't want, we're not well prepared and we have to also look at our strategy. So if you think about where we are in this report, the big picture is our strategy has to change. We need a two-war strategy because of the threat. And second, we have to figure out how we can prepare, how we can, as a nation, put things in place so that future decision makers and our report is very forward-looking actually have decisions to make. And then the last piece is to enable all of these decisions and helping us be prepared is we have to really focus on the infrastructure, both at the National Nuclear Security Administration and at DOD so that we have the ability to do whatever is needed to allow future decision makers to be prepared. Senator Kyle, let me take it in a similar direction here and ask you, you served on Capitol Hill for a very long time and if the United States is gonna act on these recommendations, there's gonna be, there will have to be a clear sense of priorities. And you know, one of the things that comes across in the report is how upside down we really are. So I think it would surprise a lot of Americans to realize how long it's been since we recapitalized most of our strategic nuclear arsenal. We're at the bottom end of the modernization curve. That really comes across. The Russians, which Russia has a far smaller economy, a less powerful military in many ways, are at the opposite end of the modernization curve. The Chinese are sprinting to parody, basically. And we're still, if I understand correctly, we're still modernizing the triad, the program of record on a one to one basis. So let me ask it this way, this is not entirely a fair question, but if you were an appropriator and you looked at this report and you said, it's almost triage, what right now are the most important things we need to focus on to start closing the gap that is described in the report? First of all, it's a very fair question because we've already been asked that question many times by members of Congress who recognize the fact that believing that we had a peace dividend, a period of time within which we could just relax and not worry about spending money on our strategic deterrent, including our nuclear forces, we allowed them all to atrophy, to the point that not only our weapons, but the delivery systems for those weapons all have to be modernized at the same time. They're all wearing out at about the same time. And these are not weapons that you can just put a band-aid on and have them run for another 20 years. So the bill to modernize these forces comes due now, rather inconvenient, but that's the fact. So with the question of prioritization, I answered by going back to Representative Lamborn's comments a moment ago. As he pointed out, every recent Secretary of Defense and Joint Chiefs Chairman has said that the number one priority for the US military is our strategic deterrent, underlaid by the fundamental nuclear component of that deterrent. If that is the number one priority, that's where you start. Don't ask me to choose within that priority. Ask me to choose between everything in that priority and other things that would be nice to have, but don't rise to the same level of importance as protecting the United States and the rest of the world, frankly, from nuclear war. There is nothing more important than trying to deter nuclear conflict. So everything that we call for in this report needs to be funded. Now the good news is, well, it's kind of complicated. Let me just take a moment to explain. The existing program of record, what we have embarked upon to refurbish, to modernize our nuclear forces is a multi-year program. It's got at least another dozen years or so to run. And our report notes that it's absolutely critical that we finish this project. But this project was designed just after the 2009 report in about 2010 to reflect the world as we thought it existed then, which was Russia and the United States have agreed on what we think we need to deter each other and we've embodied that in the New START Treaty. That's the science of our force and we don't need to worry about China. Well, now we have China, which says, and by all indications, it is going to achieve its goal of having the same kind of triad with equal capability of Russia and the United States. So now all of a sudden, we've got two countries to worry about, not just one. And we're not saying that they would necessarily collude in an attack on the United States, but it should be evident from the behavior of several different countries in the world today that when there is conflict, other nations not involved in the first conflict may see opportunities to engage in their own activities that are in fact inimical to our interests at the same time. So the possibility of an opportunistic challenge of both Russia and China simultaneously cannot be ignored. So how do we both modernize our existing forces over the course of the next 10 or dozen years or so to reach the level that we thought they should be in 2010 and now account for the new additional challenge represented by China? Well, first thing is you do fund what you said you had to do in 2010 so that at least we finish our current program of record, which means that we refurbish our nuclear weapons, we develop new delivery systems for them, modernize our command and control, and reconstitute the entire nuclear enterprise, all of our laboratories and the scientists and so on that work in those labs and production facilities. All of that's a big deal, costs a lot of money, but ironically, it's only, well, I say it's only, it's about $75 billion a year average. It represents about 7.5% of the defense budget. I mean, this is, we can afford this. So we do that, but we also say in the report that's not sufficient to meet the challenge of tomorrow with the Chinese quickly achieving their goal of having parity with Russia and the United States. What else will it take? In our report, we talk about several different capabilities that we think we're going to need. We don't identify specific weapons systems. We don't pick winners and losers, as Madeline has said, but we do identify requirements that we're going to have to have. And as Madeline said, one of the key things is, we at least have to size our nuclear enterprise in such a way that we have the capability of producing more if we decide we need it and of producing different kinds of things than we have been producing in the past. And that also applies to our delivery systems. I mentioned the 7.5% of the defense budget. Two thirds of that is just in two programs, are missiles and submarines. So the delivery vehicles really constitute the bulk of the cost here. And we understand that in addition to those that we planned for, we may have to increase the numbers of B-21 bombers and submarines and missiles and cruise missiles and the like. Not just numbers, but composition, disposition and other ways of dealing with the problem. All of which is to say that we have the existing program of record to complete a new challenge that will cost more money. And all of this is the number one priority of the US military. Should be the number one priority of the administration and the Congress. So we fund that whatever it costs. And then we can set priorities below that. That's the answer to your question. Well, I appreciate your candor and you said the word, the bill. You're talking about expenditures and really what the report describes would be a massive overhaul.  It's shifting back to a two war standard. Madeleine, let me put it this way. What do you say to the person who's listening to this? And they say, look, I get it. We live in a dangerous world. We have a $30 trillion public debt. We just had a massive, we've had a couple of massive spending sprees lately. There are entitlement programs that are dear to a lot of voters, a lot of Americans that take precedent over defense spending. What would be the answer to the lay person who's concerned about undertaking what looks like it would amount to a fairly significant ratcheting up of our expenditures on the military? What's the, what would you say to that person? Well, to start, this is not, as I mentioned, this is a threat informed report. We have a situation now where if Russia and China continue on their trajectories, we have to do more to make sure that we are secure as a nation and that we have the ability to work with our allies and our partners. Our allies are one of our strongest assets. We have to also think about how we avoid nuclear war. I mean, that is the fundamental point of all this. And to avoid nuclear war, you have to avoid war to begin with. So with all of the other challenges that we have economically, I think fundamentally people do not want to engage in a shooting war with US personnel. I mean, we did that for the last 20 years and we don't wanna do that again. So how do we want to avoid war to begin with? And then work on the, because it's all about deterrence. And I know that's a hard concept to explain, but we wanna make sure we do the things that preserve our way of life, that allow us to still maintain a strong role in the world where we don't see all of our freedoms, I mean, taken away, it sounds a little hyperbolic, but we don't really want China to be the driver of policies and freedoms in the global common. So in the report, one of the things that I would say is we start off with a chapter on the threat. So it pretty much lays out, this is the situation, this is what's going on. And the second chapter is on the stakes. And that is all about why do we care about this? And it lays out, I think in pretty strong terms, we need to care about this. We need to care about our role. We need to care about protecting allies. We need to care about how we preserve our way of life, and it's all at risk. I wanna open for questions, but let me get in one more question of my own, Senator Kyle, you dealt with the negotiations for New START, you're very familiar with nuclear diplomacy. The job of the U.S. Institute of Peace is peace. And what we're talking about in the report is what I like to call peace with a capital peace, systemic peace, but avoid, mitigate, resolve conflict. It's clear in the report that you don't see a lot of space for nuclear diplomacy until we've started to get a handle on our own capabilities. The Russians have probably violated every nuclear treaty that they've entered into. The Chinese have, it seems like they've made clear. I think we're engaging them right now at the Assistant Secretary level, but seem to make it clear they're not very interested until they've closed the gap. Where, if at all, do you see space for diplomacy in addressing some of the concerns that are raised in the report? Divide that into two parts. First of all, first is risk reduction. And second would be larger arms control type treaties. Our report notes that the prospect for the latter, at least anytime soon, is very dim. And until, as you say, the Chinese get to the point where they think they have parity with everybody else, they're not interested in talking. And because of Ukraine, Putin doesn't seem much interested in talking either. However, there are still opportunities for risk reduction. And that's what you saw President Biden and the Chinese leader, Xi, attempting to do, to some degree, yesterday, at least having our military being able to talk to the Chinese military, at least being able to pick up the phone and say, hey, you've got an airplane that's flying too close to one of our civilian aircraft here, getting to move away some distance or that we're gonna potentially have a problem. Things like that, and then a lot deeper than just that incident kind of risk reduction. But there is an opportunity for that. And you never stop working on those kind of problems because there are always opportunities for accidents and misunderstandings in the world where you've got a lot of militaries potentially colliding and you just need to try to de-conflict everything that you can. The last point I'd like to make is kind of, to put an exclamation point on what Madeline said before, one of our recommendations, a very explicit recommendation in the report is that the president, cabinet officials, leaders in Congress all have to begin talking to the American people about this. It's been a long time since an American president has sat down with American people and said, let me tell you about what our interest in the world really is and why we need to deter potential opponents and what it takes and what it's going to cost. And some of the things we might have to give up as a result of doing this. Have you heard that speech recently? Not unless you're pretty old. And congressional leaders don't like to do it either because it's not a fun subject to talk about, but unless their constituents back the tough decisions that they're going to have to make, they're not going to be able to make those tough decisions. So our report says you have to engage the American people in this conversation. It'll be pretty new to them. They're not going to want to hear everything you have to say, but it's critical in a self-governing nation that the people who elect the leaders understand the most basic challenges. And if we're to stay out of war, we've got to be strong enough to deter our adversaries. That message has got to be driven home to the American people. Let's open the floor for questions. I think we've got a couple of microphones and let me remind everyone we're on the record and we're streaming online. Please identify yourself and please make it a question. Anyone? Alright. Thanks very much. Rusty Barber, USIP, and thanks. So this is incredibly fascinating and I love the way it's grounded very much in our domestic, current domestic situation. My question is you mentioned the importance of our partnerships, which is something, of course, a special capability we have that our adversaries don't have in depth. So given the way in which you've also painted concerns about what this will do to other domestic budgetary concerns and so forth and in fact that we're having to reintroduce this issue to much of the part of our population, what is the commensurate capability of our partners to be able to shoulder some of this strategic capability? So our allies and partners are extraordinarily important and I think this is also a message that has to be taken to people. I mean, we just need to discuss that allies are important. They're an important asset. They are not a burden, but all of us are stronger together. So to be stronger together, the allies also have to do things and obviously some of the allies do more than others. Some are bigger, some have smaller GDPs, but they can all do what they can do and one of the things I think we have to do too is we also have to be very focused on how we bring our allies along, how we bring our allies into our broader strategy, how we bring our allies into planning, how we do more than just say, please buy our equipment, more than foreign military sales, but really focus on what are those things we can do together, research and development together, research and development that leads to true systems, true deployable systems, figure out how to actually do co-manufacturing. There are lots and lots of hurdles to achieve this. Obviously, ITAR is one of them. AUKUS is a good example of where we are really partnering with two close allies, Australia and the UK, to do real constructive work, real cooperative work, really getting equipment out the door. But even to do that, there's legislation needed to be able to resolve some of the export control issues. I think we have a lot to do too, to articulate how we can utilize our allies, how we can incorporate them better, and how we can deal with hurdles, probably in all countries, that are in the way to this, to joint research and development and joint cooperation. Everybody together needs to do what they can do. We also I think have to look at being more reliant on our allies in some areas, and then having our allies accept the fact that the alliance at large is going to be dependent on different allies for different things. It is a new dynamic, but I think we have to do it. Additional questions? Jorgen? Hi, good morning. Thank you for this panel. Jorgen Andrews with USIP. When talking about deterrence, a huge part of that discussion is about the state of mind of the competitor, the enemy. And in authoritarian countries like Russia, like China, I think we just got confirmed that she is a dictator again yesterday. So, authoritarians are well known for creating echo chambers that don't feed them accurate information. Authoritarian governments often make decisions, not always based on fact or logic. How does your commission and its report account for the unpredictability of decision-making in authoritarian governments related to the deterrence question? You know, we're building a system. How do we know when we have deterred people who aren't always taking all the data into account? We had a lot of discussion about what would deter certain adversaries and it's not easy to know always. We call in the report for a lot of additional intelligence to help us understand that very issue. So that forms part of the recommendations in one of the sections of our report. But all of that doesn't really help a whole lot if you don't have the basic fundamental deterrent capability to begin with. And so you have to recognize, and I know this phrase peace through strength might have a political connotation to it, but I happen to think it pretty well encapsulates the idea that the best way to deter a potential aggressor is to be so strong that he's not tempted to mess with you and to put it in technical terms. So if we can rebuild our deterrent, our strategic deterrent capability to the point that neither Russia nor China nor Iran or North Korea for that matter believe that they could achieve the objectives that they want to achieve through military conflict. We can also focus on the very important question of what we want to hold at risk, that what do they value most as a part of that equation and thereby develop the deterrent that should work to keep the peace. In the back, Yasha. Thank you both. My name is Yashar Parsi. I work here at USIP. The former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown said about the US-Soviet arms race that when we build, the Soviets build. When we don't build, the Soviets still build. With this in mind, what is your assessment about what is driving China's expansion of its nuclear arsenal? Is it, as some analysts have suggested, a response to modifications to US strategic forces during the past couple of decades? Or is it, alternatively, a reflection of China's greater ambitions? Thank you. Well, that's, you know, that is a difficult question. But if you go back a number of years and start reading some of the various white papers that have come out of China, some of the papers from some of their military institutes, there clearly is a desire on the part of China to play a different role in the world. And to play a different role in the world, they have to have capabilities. So I think this is, you know, based on a lot of these documents. This is a goal that really has its basis in China's desire to be that independent, strong country clearly in their region, but also globally. And it's that new role of China being a power globally that I think is driving them to do what they're doing. I mean, they've said it over and over again that they want to shape the global commons, they want to shape global standards, that they want to drive in their image and replace us. So I think we have to take them at face value. And I think, you know, I personally think this is what's driving most of what they're doing. Yesterday, the Russians loaded a hypersonic projectile onto an ICBM and wonder if one of you could say a word about missile defense. Your report deals with it at length. Do we need an east coast missile defense, a BMD installation? Do we need, how do we deal with the cruise and cruise missile and hypersonic threat? Let me address that two ways. First of all, what is the threat? Historically, the threat had been from a ballistic missile which goes way up in the air and then comes down at a very rapid speed. We then saw the development of cruise missiles, which are slower but much lower, more like an aircraft, but are hard to detect and in some respects, hard to deal with. We also have missiles of different ranges so that some require more of a mid-range capability, others require a greater capability. You also have defenses that are point defenses, defending a particular area, others that have to defend a much larger area. Recently, the Chinese and Russians have developed these hypersonic weapons, which travel so rapidly and move so quickly one way or the other that they're very difficult to intercept. And especially if you get one of these orbital weapons, which can literally be put into orbit and come down at a moment's notice. Obviously, we don't have anything right now to try to stop that. So that's what the nature of the threat is. What have we done in the past to try to defend? North Korea represented a threat to us that we have deterred through a ground-based interceptor, a missile that some of which the numbers classified, but a number of which if a North Korean missile is heading our way, we launch a certain number of these missiles to intercept it. And we have a certain number of them. I think right now, 44. And they're located in Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and also at an Air Force Base in Alaska. If the North Koreans continue to build a lot more ballistic missiles, it may or may not continue to make sense for us to continue to try to defeat that with this ground-based missile that we currently have and are constantly improving. What may make more sense and what certainly would be required in the case of a much more robust kind of attack that could theoretically come from, not theoretically, that could come from China or Russia would be something that's based in space. You have to have the surveillance and tracking and queuing technology that space provides, which is a much larger area within which to operate. And we do have the capability now of satellites, both in low Earth orbit and higher orbits, to detect launches, to track them, to cue potential intercepts, and even potentially to have intercepts in space or from space. What our report in this regard says that for potential coercive attacks from China or Russia, we need to have a robust research, an RDT&E program, not just research, but development and testing program that could result in deployment of space assets to deal with this potential Chinese or Russian threat. By coercive attack, I mean an attack that's more limited than a bolt out of the blue everything, throw everything at us kind of attack, but rather one which launches a few missiles to destroy some critical infrastructure or critical military facilities and convey the message to us, we can do more of this if you don't back off, if you don't comply with our demands. And what the United States is thinking now is we need more than just either, OK, we give up or we have to launch everything we have at either Russia or China. There's got to be some middle ground in order to try to avoid the ultimate nuclear war. And this might be achieved through defenses that could be deployed either in space or combinations of space, sea, land, and space. All of the domains in other words could contribute to this through radars and other communications back and forth. This gets very complicated in terms of how all of these things work, but I just want you to know that what the report says is our ground-based system is OK against a minimal threat. And we can continue to use that and may grow it somewhat. But against a larger threat coming from Russia or China, which is much different than a North Korean threat, and to deal with these new hypersonic threats and even cruise missiles, we may need something much more robust. And that may mean that we have to put most of those assets in space, which is a better environment within which to try to deal with this defensively. We have a question from Leith Grande. And while we're, I just want to add one thing. So one of the things the report does is, in a more near term, is we heard a lot from the commander of US North Command about being able to protect in a near term critical infrastructure, certain bases, certain critical infrastructure. And that would look at deploying some of the systems that we have now. Think, Thad, Patriot, those sorts of things. And that is one of those much nearer terms than some of these longer-term research and development things. So I just wanted to throw that in. One of the things that's so striking when you read the report is the sense of urgency that you convey. It comes through. And I think many of us who were reading it that aren't specialists in the field asked ourselves, is America asleep? Who's asleep? Who's not taking this seriously? Why are the draughters of the report telling us this is so urgent? Because it implies that we're either underestimating the threat. We're not properly framing it. There's not a commitment to do something about it. Is America asleep? Let me take a crack in that matter. Can shoot me down if she disagrees. America was asleep. We thought we had a peace dividend. Cold war is over. We can relax. Well, that's not an irrational way of looking at things, except somebody needed to continue to mind the store. To understand that while we would like to do that, things rust. Things fall apart. We need to change out vacuum tubes and put in circuit boards. You know, we have to modernize the weapons that we've developed in order to deal with threats. And we didn't do that. We should have kept up a minimum level of maintenance of what we had, but we didn't. As a result, now all of these things, the life, the effective life of all of these things is expiring about the same time. And there are, as one of the experts says, no more workarounds. We can't continue to delay it by putting some more band-aids on it and hope it'll work for another couple of years. We've got to decommission the old systems and bring in the new. That's a difficult thing to do in a just-in-time way. In other words, just as this one totally fails, we bring the new one on board. It's really hard to calibrate that in such a way that we don't have a gap in deterrence. And that's the second point. We're not asleep right now, but we have some really big challenges that we haven't exactly figured out how to deal with. In order to meet the schedules that we've laid out here, we should have an industrial base that's much more robust than the one that we have. We should have better and a lot more technical and scientific people. We should have a lot more skilled tradespeople who could weld submarines and the like. And we need to have different systems than the system that now relies a lot on other people to make things for us and deliver them just in time, which may mean that we may need to do more of this manufacturing here in the United States. All of those things are problems that have cropped up over time. It's nobody's fault, but we've got to deal with them now. And they are really hard problems to deal with, all of which will jeopardize our ability to meet our schedules, which are very tight to begin with. So I just would add, I think one of the things that I want to make absolutely clear is everybody agree that right now, today, our nuclear deterrent is safe, secure, reliable, and effective. The key issue, and it's not that we've been asleep, it's that we were focused somewhere else. We were focused on terrorism. We were focused on the Middle East. We were focused on other things for quite a long time. So what happened was we had a big focus on maintaining. And so we did. And the Navy and the Air Force actually took heroic steps to life extend and maintain these delivery systems. And when the plan that really started to take shape in the post-Newstart era to replace all of these delivery systems and also do life extensions on all the warheads, those plans started. But what we have discovered, what we found out, is after years of not building new things, we kind of don't know how to do that anymore. And so a lot of the capabilities that had been in the past didn't exist anymore. So we have to relearn how to do all this. And this is one of the challenges in the infrastructure. We have to figure out, we have to learn how to do them. And not just how they were done empty years ago, but we have to do these in ways that they are more capable, that they are more able to be upgraded, that they are more flexible. And it's just hard as we transition from maintaining old to actually building new. And this is where the infrastructure comes in. Because a lot of the things in the infrastructure also went away. So we have to recreate a lot of these capabilities again. And it's just proving to be really hard. I mean, all of this is just hard. The buildings are hard. They're sort of one of a kind, first of a kind, high hazard buildings. It's been a long time since we've worked on a new nuclear weapon. It's been a long time since we built a new ICBM. The last brand new bomber was the B-2. It was a Cold War bomber. So it's just recapturing all of these capabilities after years of attention on other things and shifting from a maintenance perspective to actually we have to be in a situation. We have to be able to build new again. It's just, it's hard, and it will take a while. And as a result, we're running into lots of problems. They're late. They're over budget. I mean, I kind of expected, because we're relearning a lot of things again. I regret that we don't have more time for questions. This has been a fascinating conversation. And I was just saying a minute ago to Madeleine, to my knowledge, this is the first time, first public document, at least, that's really acknowledged and shined a light on the central strategic problem of two major peers and the dilemmas that that will create. So I think it sends a signal domestically, the wake of the alarm clock. Sends a signal to our adversaries, as well, that we're waking up and to our allies. So thank you for the important work you did for our country. Please join me in giving our speakers a round of applause. Thank you. Thank you.