Feed Drop: The Harbingers

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Hello friends, Ross Sutherland here. You're listening to Imaginary Advice? This is a bonus drop in the feed this month. A guest episode from another show. A show that I'm a big fan of. The show is called The Harbingers. The Harbingers. It's a new show produced by Audacious Machine Creative and written by the fantastic Gabrielle Urbina, who also wrote the show Wolf 359.

The Harbingers is a serialized audio drama. At the time I'm uploading this, it has eight episodes in its feed, but I know there's more coming out very soon. I think the next batch of episodes start. Coming out around Valentine's Day. Um I'm very excited by the scope and ambition of the Harbingers. I find the scale and complexity of what he's doing extremely inspiring. I mean, I think he's an absolute madman, but

That is the number one quality that I admire in any artist. So he has me completely dialed into this thing.

I am going to play you now the first episode of The Harbingers. This is the pilots. At the very end of the episode, if you hang around, you can hear an interview I did with Gabriel Urbina about the project. But I should also say turns out that my microphone wasn't working properly when I did this interview with Gabriel and it sounds like I'm interviewing him From the inside of a sealed glass cube. He sounds absolutely fine, but I sound like I'm trapped in some kind of miniature greenhouse. So

Get ready for that. I hope you like this uh extra episode of the podcast. I will be back soon. My name is Ross Sutherland. Here is episode one of the Harbingers.

Can I get you anything while you wait? Uh water? Um a cup of coffee? I'm all right, Miss Pfeiffer. Thank you. Was there something else? Well well, actually, um Look, I just wanna say I know it probably feels like the whole world's against you right now, but there are people who who get what you did and and why you didn't. Thank you, Miss Pfeiffer. I Appreciate you saying that. I mean it. If you hadn't been there if you hadn't done what

They're saying that it could have gotten so much worse than It got bad enough, Miss Pfeiffer. We let it get bad enough. I know, uh I know. Uh but Thank you, Miss Pfeiffer. I think that's more than enough. Oh um, yes, ma'am. Is there anything? I think we're all set. I'll ring if we need anything. Miss Skinner? Doctor Blackwell? Please excuse Erica, Dr. Blackwell. She's a wonderful assistant, but unfortunately she's still a bit naive. Optimistic. Still a bit young and optimist.

I'll fix that in due course. But in the meantime, welcome to Skinner Devrees and Wiseman, doctor Blackwell. My name is Claudia Skinner. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Yes. Same here. Thank you for making the time.

You're young. Young to have your name on the side of the building, I mean. Ah, it's my father's name. He started the firm back in 04. Ah. So you graduated. And went on to get law degrees in both. England and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Absolutely. I assure you, Dr. Blackwell you've got to be a little bit more. Do you have any questions before we get started? Yes. My fees are being taken care of. You don't need to worry about that. That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking

fifteen hour, give or take? If I was trying to get a divorce, that's free. It's six hundred an hour for an immigration attorney and nine for the kind of lawyer I'd need if I hadn't shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. So how much are you with your Alexander McQueen suit and your name on the side of the building and your naive assistant you're turning?

Said, how much are you charging per hour to sit here and talk to me? It's more than any of the numbers you just quoted. I can say that much. How much more? Doctor Blackwell, is there a reason you need to know this right now? Is there a reason why you're not just telling me? There's this story my father used to tell. He'd go. There was a young scorpion who wanted to cross a river. So he asked a passing turtle to carry him on his back. The turtle hesitated, but eventually agreed.

But when they were halfway through the river, a terrible Fell upon the scorpion. And And as they both start drowning, the scorpion says, Don't look at me, it's in my nature. And you knew I was a scorpion when you agreed to take me across the river. Yeah, I know that one. Actually The scorpion stinger bounced harmlessly off. He found the other animal looking back at him over his shoulder.

And the turtle just said Tell me, you wanna fuck around some more or do you want me to get you across this fucking river? That was a story about how sometimes you can just let me. A frog. A frog. that story. Well, let me assure you, Dr. Blackwell, you're not dealing with a frog.

And let me remind you You are the center of an unprecedented The only reason you haven't been charged with a hysterical number of criminal charges is because no one is quite sure of how the law interfaces with your unique survival. But the government's not going to be able to do that. The kind that's going to decide how a lot of laws are going to work in this country, and they have been kind enough. To participate. And when I say invite I mean subpoena. This is the first one.

Or Chance of winning. So finally, allow me to add. Or would you prefer to fuck around some more? Let's go. Let's get across the river. Let's

This is Claudia Skinner, handling case MGR 831. This is information prep session number one. It is November 7th, 2030. Dr. Blackwell. Just so we can get the formalities out of the way. Could you please state your full name as well as the capacity in which you have audacious machine The Harbingers, created by Gabriel Urbino. I'd love to change the world. All right, Doctor Blackwell, why don't we start at the beginning? Sure.

I was born april fifteenth, nineteen ninety-eight, in Portland, Oregon. The house where I grew up had yellow shutters and a white fence. The nursery was Oh what? You're allowed to be cute and I'm not? Is that how it works? That is exactly how it works. Let me be more precise. You were a graduate student at Sinclair University in Chicago, yes? Yes. You were a master's candidate in the archaeology program? Technically the anthropology department, but yes. Why? Why?

Why did I want to study archaeology? Is that relevant? It could be. If you chose to study archaeology because it was your beloved father's dying wish, very relevant. If you were convinced there were ancient secrets buried somewhere out there that would help us fight the rise of fascism, absolutely. If you became an archaeologist solely out of your deep-seated love for the films of the Indiana Jones series, that can stay between the two of us. I liked language.

I thought I was going to study linguistics and go on to work as a translator, but then my second year in college, I took an anthropology class and I just fell in love. Yes, that would be From Rappa Nui to Harbinger's, an introductory survey to the Forgotten Empires of the World, taught by Julian McCandless, who went on to be your mentor and chief dissertation advisor. That class changed my life.

It showed me a new way of thinking about the world and it taught me Tell me about Amelia Sterling. Amy, Miss Sterling, was another grad student at Sinclair. We started the master's program at the same time. Did you think much of her? Miss Sterling was Brilliant? Absolutely brilliant, but she could be stubborn. It could be difficult to get a word in edgewise around her. Would you call her a rival? Okay. Well here's what you need to understand.

If you were interested in the study of ancient cultures, that grad program at Sinclair was the place. It was one of the best funded programs. It had some of the best professors, some of the best opportunities. But there wasn't enough of all the above to go around. Anytime one of us got a research project approved or uh a seat on a field expedition or even time with our advisors, we were taking it away from one of the other students.

Inasmuch as you could say it about me and Amy, you could say it about all of us. We were all rivals. And yep.

You didn't go on a date with any of the other students in the program, did you? Oh my come on. That's inbounds? How do you even know about that? This isn't the hard part, you know. Lord knows we haven't gotten anywhere near the hard part. It's all going to come out, Adam, and I'm going to be the friendliest person who's going to ask you about it. So, pretty please. Stop fucking around and answer the question. One. I went on one date with her. I was

26 and I thought it might be a good idea and Did you find her attractive? The Venn diagram between the people who like Miss Sterling and the people who like oxygen is very close to being a circle. Dr. Blackwell. Yes, I found her attractive. And we went out one time. Must have been April of twenty twenty five? And how did it go? What did the two of you talk about? Sinclair University. April 2025. Okay.

Did you know that right now on this planet there are seven people who could save the world? Seven people who Seven people. All with the power to save the world. Right. Well, common sense says that it cannot possibly be true. Ah, and yes. And you're not talking like people with their fingers on nuclear buttons who are choosing not to press them, thus preventing any No, no, no, no, no. Fuck that. That sucks. I'm talking active making things that are broken not be broken, saving the world.

Alright. I'm intrigued. Who are these seven real-world superheroes? Paul Berthold, Makoto Kamiki, Simon Gadowski, Jerome Eckerberg, Jacqueline Saint Pierre, Carlos Luis Mendez, and Zakir Mujambar. Ah, the seven richest men in the world. six richest men and its richest woman. Thank you very much. Sure. And the way they save the world is Simon Gadowski has a net worth of 210 billion.

You wanna know how much NGOs estimate the yearly cost of ending world hunger would be? From the way you're presenting that question, I'm guessing two hundred billion. No, way high! Conservative estimate? Ten billion a year. Easy. What? That cannot possibly be cheap. Extreme poverty is even cheaper.

Threshold is set at those living for three dollars and twenty cents a day. There's people living for Yes, there are people living at three and twenty a day. Bumping approximately nine hundred million people up to that level costs about one point eight billion. Chump change. How do you just know Clean water across the whole world? About four hundred dollars a year per child. Call that another fifty billion.

Homelessness is more complicated, but local experts estimate that thirteen billion would end homelessness in San Francisco. That's that's not solving the issue globally, but No, still that's a start.

All of which begs the question If there are people who have the ability to just snap their fingers and save the world, why is the world not saved? Uh I mean, besides the obvious reason. It's the whole w sorry, obvious. What obvious reason? Well, just because Jacqueline St. Pierre has a net worth of 200 billion, it doesn't mean she has it sitting in a bank somewhere. It's in like

Stocks and bonds and company valuation. Okay, sure, fine, but that's a road bump. If you have something worth fifty billion, theoretically you should be able to sell it and then you'd have fifty billion, yeah? I'm sorta scared to disagree with you right now. Good. That means my whole shtick is doing its job. But to get back to the real question, there is no fucking good reason.

If someone has that much money, that much power, and there's so much broken in the world, they have a moral imperative to do something about it. So Really, from a social pragmatic point of view, I don't think there's a way to justify the existence of any of them. So we're gonna eat the rich. That's all I'm asking. Let's eat those seven people and feed the world. Oh holy shit. Put a beer and a half in me and I just

I went off on a whole thing. Wow. It was very impressive. Still though, I'm sorry, I clearly do not know how to do first dates. It's fine. How do you know all of this stuff? I like actuarial tables and I have a good head for numbers. Even when I'm outraged. No! Especially when I am outraged. So Now what? I was thinking we'd finish these beers. Settle up and Then I'd get you to walk me home. You'd get me to walk you home? Would I have any say in the matter? Oh none whatsoever.

I have very pretty eyes and I can make them get all big and round so I can basically get people to do anything I want. Here, watch. Please Oh my god, put those away before you hurt somebody. It's like a superpower. I'm basically a Batman villain. There is an alternative. To you walking me home. Uh because dude I think you're gonna want No no no I mean no no I I do want. I I just uh Okay um how much would it cost to, say, fix climate change? Oh that's a big one. Somewhere in the ballpark of

Seven hundred billion a year? Well see, there you go. If I was someone that wanted to solve climate change, but I only had two hundred billion. Wouldn't the best, most ethical thing I could do with that money be to, well, turn it into seven hundred billion? I mean... No. Not if you like Like if you're No, no, of course not. I'm just talking in the abstract. This isn't even a real thing. No, no, I just mean this is all just

Just a thought experiment. No one person can actually stop the world from ending. That's my point that I'm trying to think someone could. Oh, okay, maybe in like a fritabur level, but like in the real world that's not a good idea. Would you just let me talk for a second? I can see it. Is all I'm saying. I can see why someone might not immediately sink all their resources into solving one problem if there was something bigger and more meaningful they could do later on.

And therefore, I can see why we might want to give your your evil seven or whatever a bit of latitude. That's all I'm saying.

Cool, I'm gonna go home. Well Amy, hang on. Uh pro tip, dude. Next time you're trying to pick up a grad school girl with tattoos and a shaved head, playing devil's advocate for the billionaire oligarchy is so not the move. See ya. You know, this is exactly why McCandless hasn't approved any of your research proposals. What did you just say to me? You know. Your proposals for the archives for field work?

You know how he keeps telling you to go back to the drawing board to think bigger? This is why. You never look at the big picture, Amy. You you almost just swing for the fences, and he knows it, and you know it. And you, Adam fucking Blackwell, are so afraid of taking any swing at all that when your opportunity comes, you're gonna let it sail past you. And you know it. And would we consider this one of your more successful first dates? No, don't answer that.

Field work that year was in Princess Elizabeth Land. which, just for the record, is in Antarctica. East Antarctica, to be precise. One of the flattest, most accessible parts of the continent. And why did we want to go to this lovely place? Well, um they call it the Robertson site. They found it a few years earlier, buried under the ice. Global warming and all, the remains of Anne Sarath.

That's um one of the great harbinger cities constructed about four thousand years BC according to the carbon testing. It was buried under nearly Whoa whoa whoa what what is this? What are we doing here? What Oh come on. You're my lawyer, I'm your client, it's your office, and you're still gonna tell me that I can't smoke. Company policy. Apologies. Should I have Erica get you an ashtray? No, no. Don't bother. I'll just There. Happy?

Oh sh shit sorry I it's a habit now. I I forget that it's less fun for people now. It's okay. It's okay. Where did you send it? Away. Just away. Shall we? Yes. Um, sorry, we were Antarctica, dig site, ruins. McCandless was putting together an expedition. Yeah. They'd been digging it up for a few years, which is really hard when half of the year is freezing darkness. Before sunset, the previous um you know April, they made a discovery. A crypt, or something like a crypt.

Something at the very bottom of the excavation. McCandless wanted to go check it out. And you got to go? And I got to go. But not Miss Sterling. But not Miss Stirling. Mm-hmm. And I presume that's where it happened? Right. December fifteenth, twenty twenty five. The world continues to reel after last night's announcement. what was supposed to be a simple archaeological expedition to the Australian sector of Antarctica may instead be remembered as a turning point in Western civilization.

Following contact with the object now known as Article Zero. Mild mannered graduate student Adam Blackwell has been given the ability to freely relocate matter at will. I don't think the Times actually called me mild mannered. No, that was just me having a bit of fun. You went to the South Pole, found a thing, and suddenly you can do magic. Am I getting that right?

Not just any thing. This thing. Article Zero. A Harbinger Ring of Magic. But still. Field trip, ring, boom, magic. That's the broad strokes of the thing.

What happened when you got back to America? What happened after you got superpowers? I came home, spent weeks going through tests, until finally they were satisfied. I really could do magic.

And after they let you go? I went back to a little thing called my life. Finished my dissertation. I graduated in spring, started teaching at Sinclair in the fall. Is that usual? To get hired that fast? No. I was an exceptionally strong student, I had a good relationship with the head of the department, and news had just broken out that I could do fucking magic. Having me as an adjunct was the best and last ad Sinclair would ever need to run. So they had me as an adjunct.

That first fall semester you took over one of the survey classes. Introduction to Harbinger Linguistics. Catchy title. Was it popular? Uh last time they'd run it, there were four people in the class. That fall, after they saw the enrollment forms, they moved me over to Sumter Hall. That's where they run movies on the weekends. It seats just shy of three hundred and fifty. You taught a three hundred and fifty person class on the mechanics of dead languages from six thousand years ago? No.

The class was four hundred and fifty. If you didn't get there early, it was standing room only.

Sinclair University, September 2026. Now the name Harbinger's is what is known as a secondary observer exonym. With some ancient cultures we have some record of what they call themselves. Failing that, we can usually at least call people by the region they inhabited. These people lived in the Indus Valley, so let's take a wild leap and call them the Indus. Not saying that's a good practice, but it is a common practice. Now with the Harbingers you run into problems.

We haven't found any records yet that point to what they call themselves. And as for geography, sites containing written records of the Harbinger's languages have been found in Atacama in South America, in remote islands in the south of Oceania, and most recently in rural Ireland. They seem to mostly exist to make historians' lives difficult.

It was actually one of the great mysteries of the age of exploration. People would sail from place to place and find these ancient objects with languages that weren't the ones spoken by them. Now imagine you're a 17th century Irish sailor. You leave your little village where old man Macdonald found those spooky rocks with the strange curves. You sail halfway around the world, and what do you find? More old spooky rocks with the same weird language nobody understands.

Can you even imagine what that must have been like? In any case, they kept finding these really old artifacts all over the world, almost like this really old culture had been around before anyone else got their act together. That's where the name came from. Harbingers. Ones who came before. But by then the name had stuck, so what are you gonna do? Now I did say harbinger language. The modern theory is that these are actually contemporary languages.

One was used for day-to-day activities, your regular please pass the salt sort of things. The other one was their well, sacred is a loaded word, but their ritualistic language. It was only used for rites in For a long time archaeologists referred to these as the day tongue and the night tongue, but a more accurate translation would be the language of the sun and the language of the stars.

And uh needless to say, there's a lot more that the Harbingers wrote in the Language of the Sun, so we know comparatively little about how the language of the stars worked. Okay, this we've only got a few minutes left, so we'll call this good for the day, rather than diving into a whole other topic. Does anyone have any questions? Any questions that don't have to do with my unusual abilities? Yeah. Alright. Everyone, I need you all to understand this is a serious class, okay?

I take the academic study of Harbinger languages seriously, and I expect you all to do the same. Anything else that I can do, that's not really what we're here for. Okay? Which is why we are only going to do this once, okay? Okay, okay, just just a quick demonstration and then we're done. All right. Folks in the front row, uh anyone have a quarter? You do? Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Okay, just so we know that I am not pulling a fast one on you, I am going to take this marker and put an A on one side of the coin and a star on the other side, okay? Now, for most of human civilization, if we wanted to transport an object from here to there, we had to expend energy to move it across space, whether it was by carrying it ourselves or

By using a burst of kinetic energy to set it in motion on its own. What I can do is transport matter from A to B without crossing the intermediary space. Okay, everybody ready? I think we're gonna hear it more than see it with something this small. Here we go. Three, two, Berum Laro Yorakata. Okay, let's see. Where did it land? From the sound, I think it was around the second to last row, maybe? Does anybody Yeah? You? You got it?

And it's got the A and the star, yeah? Yeah. Well, there you go. From A to B in an instant. Now, now. How did I do that? Just mental. Part of it is the words. This, it seems, is what the language of the stars actually was the Harbinger's way of channeling disability. And part of it is the part we don't understand yet. I found this ring in a very old, very remote part of the world. And as long as I'm wearing it, well, it seems to let me do that.

And it really seems like it takes all three, so in case the course catalog didn't make it clear, learning the word Could you do something bigger? What was that? Could I transport something bigger? Bigger like what? A person. Well, uh a person Because what is a person? Is a person one thing or many? Like what if I transported you to the middle of the quad and you went, but you're But your clothes didn't. Yeah, that's not what we want. I have to be very precise with the length.

If I want to do it right. All right, that's time. Time was ooh, it's a minute or two ago actually. Uh please read chapters three and four of The Warner, and I will see you all here on Thursday. The Harbinters will be back after these messages. And now, back to the Harbingers.

Sinclair University, 2026. Ten minutes later. Alright. That wasn't too bad. One session down, 31 to go. What did you stop yourself from saying? Well, well, well. Amy Sterling. Adam Blackwell. It's good to see you. You too, Amy. Did you watch? I snuck in the back about five minutes in. So what did you stop yourself from saying? Come on. At the end, when they asked you about teleporting a person, you you you bit down on something. You said, What if you go, but your clothes don't?

What did you almost say? Uh I almost said, what if you went, but your skin didn't? Ah. Lively. I I thought it's gonna be a whole thing. It's their first day. Uh I didn't want to freak'em out. Mm didn't want to put too much of the fear of you in that. Oh, very funny, Amy. So what brings you around these parts? They said you transferred. They said the truth. Took my business to Columbia, the big apple, greener pastures and all that. And are they actually greener? Eh, who knows.

Kinda hard to tell with all the concrete. I'm just here to handle some paperwork and take some meetings. I'm flying back tomorrow, but I realized I hadn't seen you since Sure. And I couldn't resist poking my head in here, seeing how your class was going. How did I do? Any notes? It was fine. Your fourth slide had some photos of the stuff they dug up at the Ryman. That's still not verified. Oh damn it. Uh I'll take care of that. Anything else? What? What else?

예. You're not really here to fill out paperwork, are you, Amy? I had to see it. I had to see it with my own two eyes. Magic and you are You are lecture. Carvings in goddamn. Yes, Amy, I am. I cannot believe that you are And what should I be doing? Instead of being here, where am I supposed to be right now, Amy? Or what? Am I not doing enough with my platform for you? We are 54 days away from the midterm elections, Dr. Blackwell. Which political party do you support? Okay.

I enjoy our little talk. I don't know what you should be doing, but do you You can do magic. That's a wrong answer to the question, what do you do if you get magic powers? Is exactly the same fucking thing you would be doing if you didn't get the goddamn magic powers! All right, Amy. This has been fun. Let's get together again the next time one of us develops magical abilities. In the meantime, have a good time at Columbia where you'll also be looking at carvings of rocks. What an asshole.

Ever change the world. Magic is wasted on you. I am the only one. It really is a shame.

She has a point, you know. Oh, she very much does not. She does, though. Aren't you my lawyer? What what do you what do you what? A point about what? A point about how nobody has ever changed the world by hiding in the Ivory Tower of Intelligence. Oh forgot! Fritz Haber. You know the story? Excuse me? Okay. Fritz Hobb A lot of people have this mistaken idea that the apocalypse is something we've only had to worry about in recent years, but no.

Actually, people have had concerns, very valid concerns, about the world coming to an end at practically every point in human existence. In the 1900s, you know what was at the top of the list? Of global concerns, starvation. The world had reached an absolutely massive population, one and a half billion people, and we could not produce enough food to feed them. The problem was our It took up too much nitrogen in the soil and it

To replenish it. So it was estimated that over the course of the following 20 agonizing years, two-thirds of the world would starve to death. There was this guy, German chemist. Fritz H. Locked himself in his life. and figured out a way to make ammonia. You might be familiar with it. Nitrogen from the air and is used to grow more than three quarters of the goddamn crops Red from the air. That's what they called it in the newspapers. From the air.

It was seen as a miracle. And so, thanks to Mr. Hobbard, the world didn't starve, and we now have nine billion humans. Over half of what we ate in the twenty nine. Ritz Hover is at the top of that list, so don't ever tell me. Okay. Is it my turn now? Great. Dr. Blackwell, could you do me a favor? Could you say a bit about Fritz Haber's work after 1912? What? Fritz Haber. This man who you clearly think so highly of. Nineteen thirteen and onwards. What did he get up?

He became involved in World War One. He invented the chlorine gas that the German army used against the Allies, and he personally Oversaw much of its deployment. Which is why he is often called the father of chemical warfare. And after World War One, any other major contributions to European history? Doctor Blackwell? He He developed a gap.

A pesticide gas which had a warning scent. After his death, it was discovered and reformulated so it no longer had that warning scent. And what was it called? Before and after the reformulation. Cyclon A. and Zyklon B. I need you to stop doing that. You need me to stop doing what? Answering your questions? Losing your temper and going on a three-minute screed about the achievements of a German war criminal. Wait, wait, but look.

He was involved in monstrous things, but that really doesn't we're doubling down on the merits of what was it? The father of chemical warfare? This is going to be a very hard process, you know. If you're going to get through it, I need you to be able to not get baited into saying or doing something stupid. That That won't be a problem, won't it?

What happened on august sixteenth, twenty twenty eight? Well that's Fuck Dr. Blackwell. What happened? I was here in New York. I had been asked to speak at an event at the UN. New York City, 2028. Thank you. Keep the change. Well, well, well. Look who actually made it off campus for once. Oh. Good. You're here. And this has been such a pleasant day so far. Is that any way to say hello to a dear old friend, Dr. Blackwell? Hello, Amy. How

Inevitable to see you. That's more like it. Hello, Adam. What are you doing here? Same thing you are. Loading up on caffeine and then walking over to today's event. You're also speaking at the U.S. And nobody told me. No. Which I'm guessing is thanks. Yeah. I like the hair, by the way. Is that part of the brand now? Something like that. I thought you liked the shaved head look. Well, I had awful taste back when I was still a grad student.

How you been? How's the tour? Hmm, tour's on hold for a bit. I'm doing some events with the campaign. Oh I saw your endorsement video. And I can't help but notice that I haven't Yours. May I ask what the fuck is taking? I keep telling you. I'm just a private citizen. I don't see how it's my place to tell anyone which way they should vote. Oh my god, sometimes I forget. And then it's like a little bit of a little bit of a little Totally full of sh I'm doing well.

I really couldn't give less of a shit. Now, come on. Are you gonna do this thing or what? You know, Amy, you can say that you don't care all you want, but unfortunately for you, I know you. I know how much you love this stuff, the translation, the discovery. I know how curious you must be. What the fuck has he been doing cooped up in there? Oh it's so cute the way you Oh, if you think that's cute.

All right, Mr. Special. You really want me to believe you're not just doing coin tricks like some birthday party magician? Let's see it. No, come on! Doctor? You want me to believe you can do something that's worth my time? Let's see it. Impress a girl. You made my coffee cup disappear. Yes I did. Didn't make my coffee go with it. No, it did not. So now there is quite a bit of nitro cold brew. All over my clothes. You are a child. Come on, Amy. This is an important event.

You are still an asshole, Adam Blackwell! Cup anyway! How long did it take before someone finally found the stupid coffee cup? Six weeks. And it was This photograph that did it, yes. Uh that's the one. Yep. Just for the record, could you please verbally describe it? It is a photo taken by the extremely large telescope array. Of the Sea of Tranquility. Which is a part of the moon. And about five meters to the left of the lunar landing site, there is now a coffee cup.

My relationship with Miss Sterling is very particular due to Okay, okay, okay. What you need to understand is You say that a lot, you know. What you need to understand is this. What you need to understand is that you are very worried about how you are seen. I'm gonna help you figure this all out, but I need you to let me help you. Okay. All right. That is all for today.

Really? The This is plenty for one day. And I have another interview to conduct in a little while. We can pick up this fun tomorrow morning bright and early. Right. Well I'll see you tomorrow then. Eighteen hundred dollars an hour. That's how much I'm being paid to get you across the river. Okay. Thank you, Miss Skinner. And while I will not have you smoking anywhere in my offices, you'll find I'm less particular about what happens on the balcony on the east side of the building.

Sure. You got it. Day one down. Just another five million more of these to go.

Those things are gonna kill you, you know. Unless you're so good now that you can just teleport the cancer straight out of your lungs. Oh, in that case, you might want to quit while you're behind. I'll take it under advisement. Mr Ling. I thought your residency didn't end until the fourteenth. Oh all the shows are cancelled for a bit. You know, it's hard to compete with the uh everything. with the everything. I keep it. thinking I'm gonna see it, you know? Every time I look up.

I know it's too small and too far away, but... I keep thinking it'll be there. Staring back at me. Me too. You doing okay? Not exactly what I had in mind for this year. I thought there'd be more Everything. You read McCandles' new book? Yeah, I got an advanced copy. I can't believe that old fucker is trying to say that I was not a good student. Her proposals were never specific enough. Well, can you blame him? You are the one that got away. Damn right I am. How to go in there.

Oh I pretty much just spent the last couple hours getting He was fine. And... How are you feeling? Tired and guilty. Don't say that. It isn't over yet. It's barely even gotten started. That's not what I meant, Amy. I think this is usually the point in the conversation where you yell at me and tell me I'm not. You are another one. For all our safety. I hope it turns out you're an asshole who knew what he was doing. Miss Sterling? Miss Skinner's ready for you. Well, uh I gotta Dirty calls.

Good luck. See you around, Adam. All right, ready to get started? This is Claudia Skinner, case MGR 831. This is information prep session number two. It is November 7th, 2030. Miss Stirling, would you please state your full name and the capacity in which you have become known as a public figure? This is Amelia Dorothy Sterling, and I perform under the name The Silver Witch.

For three years now I have been able to manifest supernatural abilities. I am the second documented person in the world capable of performing magic. Thank you. Miss Sterling, do you know what I would like to talk to you about? Well, if I had to take a guess, I'd say maybe it's about how I started a chain of events that resulted in the most powerful man in the world teleporting the city of Boston to the moon. I mean it's either that or mojito recipes.

No, you want to talk about the Boston thing. Please. Okay. Where would you like to begin? the harbinger Today's episode Well. Adios Skinner. Christian Di Mercurio as Erica Pfeiffer. Today's episode Olivia love Haddles. Our original Composed by Nicholas Spadani. Recording engineering Our original art was created by J. Allen. Eleanor Hyde. This is an opportunity.

Hello Gabriel. Hi Ross. How are you doing today? I'm doing I'm doing okay, man. I'm doing good. It is uh is so lovely to uh to get Jen. Uh no, absolutely. It is a pleasure to be summoned here to this place of pure audio and presence to have a conversation with you. So I would love to Uh get you to try and explain. And to my listeners, what the Harbingers is all about. I appreciate the use of the word try there, um, because as with all of my audio creations.

I've been someone that has been doing this gig for about ten years now and I have a litter of shows behind me, each of which is more resistant to the fast elevator pitch than the last. They are all sort of shows that take a little bit of unpacking. But here is the heroic attempt at explaining what the Harbinger.

The Harpenters is a audio fiction podcast that follows Two people, uh Adam s Adam Blackwell and Amy Sterling, who are academic rivals, they're in the same grad school program, and due to some fascinating flukes of destiny. They become the first people in the modern world that can do real math. like real. We went into a room, there were scientists, there were physicists, there was a bunch of like tests that were done. And at the end of it, the scientists were going

Yep, that's magic. We don't know how they're doing it, but that but like they are bending the rules of reality and doing things that should be impossible. And naturally, these two people having those powers more or less overnight makes them the two biggest celebrities, the most notorious people on planet Earth.

And that is a recurring problem because number one, they have very different ideas about one, what does with that kind of power and what that one does with that kind of celebrity and that kind of norai. And number two, because back when they were in grad school before they had magic powers, they actually had a bit of a complicated will they won't they romantic relationship. That has not fully been resolved yet to this day. And so the show kind of charts.

their relationship between themselves and to each other and to their magic powers over the course of the first five or so years of their having these magic abilities.

It feels like like you know, I know we're currently at a time that we're recording Uh Eight episodes are uh are uh are out. I know you've got We have just hit our midseason finale with our eighth episode. It really feels like you are just getting started.

And um one of the things I really love about it is there are so many mystery uh that are sort of like captured within the timeline of this story that you are very kind of like carefully jumping forward and back and kind of like teasing this kind of bigger story um within it. I know this isn't your first time. I mean would you

do you call yourself a showrunner? I think I've I've I think I've I've I've heard you described this like a like a showrunner before. Like this is not this is not your first rodeo when it comes to kind of taking on a story of of of this magnitude. um uh you also uh were the creator of uh wolf 359. um like having completed like that process Uh like what did you learn uh from finishing Wolf 359 that's kind of like that's kind of helped you going forward?

Working on Harbingers. Oh, that's fascinating because I feel that the biggest lesson that I learned from Wolf 359 is one that I am a little bit subverting in my own writing process with the harbinger. That's interesting. And I'll tell you what I mean. The biggest thing that I learned from Wolf 359 is that if you are Show running, or you are writing, or you are designing a big, big, long serial show. And Wolf 359 was.

sixty episodes over four seasons. There were special episodes. There were mini episodes. There was, you know, the finale was like a two hour movie monstrosity, um, or movie length monstrosity. I don't want to make anyone think that there's actually a filmed version of it somewhere. Um when you're doing something like that. you kinda have to plan it like you're doing a long road trip.

like you kinda have to plan it the way that you would plan a drive from the Atlantic side of America to the Pacific side of America where if you are going On day four at exactly eleven fifteen, we're gonna hit this roadside attraction and we're gonna be there for 45 minutes and then hit the road again so that at 230 we can be at this restaurant over here. Number one, you're gonna make yourself miserable. You're gonna be stressed throughout.

And when on the way to the first roadside attraction you see a sign for something that is way more exciting, the only thing that you're gonna be able to do is go, Well, that's too bad because we're go with the the plan is the plan and we gotta stick to the plan. Um But you still need the general bearing. You still need to know: well, the idea is we're setting off from New York in kind of four weeks from now, we want to get to San Francisco.

What happens in the middle, you have to be fairly flexible. You have to kind of let yourself discover the story. You kind of have to let yourself like find these like little distractions. You have to let yourself kind of go, like, you know, oh I thought that we were gonna spend, you know, a week in this place, but it turns out that that place is um South Dakota and there's not allowed to do in South Dakota, so let's just

speed through this and get this there as quickly as possible. Um I do not know why I arbitrarily picked on South Dakota. I've had a lot of fun visiting South Dakota. It's a lovely place with lovely people. Um And so that was kind of the biggest lesson that I learned in terms of how to put together a show from making that show. That whenever we sort of leaned into

But this is the plan, and we've been building up to this for like three years. That was usually when things started to feel a little bit forced or a little bit contrived or a little bit Like we were trying to force the solution to a math equation to be what we wanted it to be, rather than the way that the numbers were coming out together.

Um, whereas whenever we sort of let ourselves go, why don't we spend a little bit more time over here? Why don't we do a little bit of that over there? Why don't we like kind of go over here, then that is a little bit something that actually let you find the fun in the thing or let you respond to the things that your brain was finding engaging.

And you have to kind of be the first audience to the show. If you're not engaged as you're writing it and as you're making it, nobody's going to be engaged by listening to.

That's so exciting. I love that man. I absolutely I I think that's just that is so exciting. And you know, I I can relate to that a lot. Um myself, yeah. Like E

If it feels like work for you, if it's basically just like a very long rhythm action game and you just have to like hit the buttons in the order that you said you were going to hit them. Right. Right. Then suddenly it becomes kind of like it can it can become like a very very workmanlike, you know, and you know, and yeah, and if you can't surprise yourself. then, you know, like it's very hard to surprise an Right.

cryptic terms. Um so you know, we started hanging out because both of our shows had their kind of premiere at Tribeca last year at the Tribeca Festival. And at the time we had kind of an early version of the first Pilot of the harp. there at Tribeca. And I call it an early version of the first pilot because we actually completely threw it out and re-recorded it and changed the script and brought in new actors and new music and just kind of like completely did it over.

But at the time, we had a loose plan for here's what we think that this first season is going to be. Here's kind of what we think the second season is going to be. Here's what we think latter things are going to be. Here's how we think this is gonna end up. And at a certain point, I realized that one of the things that I was the most excited about was something that we were not going to get into at all until the second.

And it sort of was starting to feel like, oh my God, we're just like writing the whole first season, waiting to get to the point when we can talk about that. And so I went to my two producers and I had a conversation with them about that. And now in the finished show, in the thing that has already been published, we talk about that thing that was only gonna show up in season two in the third episode. Because all of a sudden it was this like

This is what we actually want to get to. Like this is this is what feels exciting and this is what is making me want to keep writing the show. Why would we not give that carrot to our audience? Why would we not let people in on the fact that like down the line this is coming? Can we get it in as soon as possible? And overwhelmingly

That is the thing that people have told us when they're listening to the show. They get to that conversation and they go, That's when I locked in. That's that is when I knew that I wanted to like keep listening and I wanted to know more about that. And that is a prime example of

It's great to make the plan, but you also need to be ready to let go of the plan. You need to be willing to kind of go, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let's not stick to the schedule just because it is the schedule. Can we just move the thing that is fun? I kind of feel like somewhere in there there is some useful life advice as well. Right? I think that is not just something that applies to storytelling.

Uh I'm here to say that instant gratification does not get the good rep that it deserves. I think that we're Eat our vegetables and to, you know, delay kind of like our no, no, no, none of that. I say if something is fun, you should do it today. Yeah. Pizza for breakfast. That's why I absolutely yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Um you know, I I think about like often when I think about serialized writing, it often makes me think about uh Charles Dickens, his serialized storytelling. It's it's I think it's such a go to literary comparison and how he shaped the direction of his stories like through feedback from You know, like uh like if people liked a character or they had an idea, like he was kind of amenable to an idea of kind of like adjusting the focus.

Did you find that at all whilst working on Wolf three fifty nine or No and uh that that's interesting because that is one of the big evolutions that if you listen to Wolf three fifty nine, you see us figure out in real time. Because The first season of Wolf three fifty nine, back when we number one We're still figuring out how to do a show in general, and numbers two were still figuring out how to do that show in particular. It had kind of this absurdist sitcom in space.

sort of a structure and so every episode would kind of be a weird little situation and the characters would interact and then kind of at the end of it it would sort of leave you with the sense of, okay, that situation is now resolved. I can't wait to see what they get up to next week or so one would hope But by the end of the first season we were realizing like, no, these are people that are Kind of trapped in this nightmarish, bureaucratic

Horrible space and are having an a mystery adventure, trying to figure out how to get out of it. And at that point, every episode sort of started to end more or less with. Something that is pointing towards the next stage in that journey, the next step in that direction. Which also helped with Just in case you were thinking of tuning into a different podcast.

Or God forbid watching a TV show or double God forbid actually interacting with another human being. No, listen to the next one. Listen to the next thing that's on the queue. Keep your focus on there. Um There's a great Stephen Moffat quote from a lesson that he did at one of the big universities, it might have been Oxford, might have been a different one, where he talks about His idea of ideal TV writing is you have to imagine that your

Ideal viewer is someone that is, you know, the TV happens to be on at their apartment as they are getting ready to go out on a date. And to go out on a date with someone that they really like, a date that they're really excited about. And as they're about to go out the door, they happen to glance at the television and kind of go

Wait, wait, wait, what is this? What what's going on over here? And so you have and so it's like, you know, can you get them to stay and watch the next five minutes and be five minutes late to the day? And then in those next five minutes, is there something in there that can make them want to watch the five minutes after that? And so on and so forth until they have missed the date and they are a trapped TV person instead of a productive member of society.

And with the Harbingers, there's been a very real metric for or a very real aim to produce Kind of a first eight episode arc where if somebody discovers it today when episodes one through eight are out. And they intend to listen to one episode. Can we make them go, oops, I accidentally listened to all eight in a row and I did that instead of going to my friend's birthday party or something.

Um, and so every episode sort of tells its own story, but each one is designed to have an ending that makes you go. Oh, but wait, I wanna I wanna hear like the next bit of the timeline that's going to be unveiled. I wanna know the next thing that I have just kind of been like

catapulted into with my imagination. Yeah, and I think that is something that uh I was like so impressed with. For the moment I I I started listening to the hard You have been Incredible control on uh the pacing of the show. Um, although you've got these, you know, these big revelations, and I I love I love the system of kind of doling out this information where it often feels just because we are this eavesdropper in a room of kind of conversations, how

Lots of times it is things that like everybody else in the room already knows. And then suddenly we're like, what's that they're talking about? What the what happened? Well. And you know, to to to part the curtains a little bit further for folks that might not have heard it yet, the recurring Structure of the show, the quote unquote present day of it is five years after our characters have acquired their magic power.

And both of them are having conversations with a lawyer because Something fairly terrible has happened. And they are in the process of kind of staring down a lot of legal apparatus that is about to have

some very tough conversations with them and there might be some very difficult consequences. And I like that structure because it is one of those great storytelling techniques that kind of lets you have characters within the universe going, let's discuss events and let's figure out how we got here and let's kind of, you know, like really piece together this narrative that then lets us kind of flash back and bounce up and down the timeline.

But the other great thing of it for my purposes is that when you are talking to a lawyer and you're piecing together a story, there is this recurring sense of But we're gonna stay on target. Like let's focus, let's talk about this thing, let's not, you know, get bogged down on this other thing. And especially when it is happening kind of in the future of a lot of the story.

There is a little bit of a sense of, well, we don't need to talk about that other thing unless it is the thing that we're talking about in this moment, because you know it and I know it. But then we get to kind of give these like little flashes, these little glimpses of it. Um you know what's a scene from a movie that I think about all the time when I write this show, and I think that you'll appreciate it.

Because I keep kind of going, I wanna write that scene and I wanna write a scene that works that like that. There is a scene in Empire Strikes Back. where Admiral Piet, the guy that is kind of in charge of the Star Destroyer fleet.

goes to talk to Darth Vader about the latest things that they're doing to track the Millennium Falcon and how they almost have them here and how they've got this. And you as the audience, you know where the Falcon is. So you're kind of biting your nails because you're going, Oh my God, you know like Ah, what is gonna happen to them? Good scene, just like as is. Like it's like nice, it's tense, it's giving you information that you want to have, it's giving you information that you need to know.

But the key to the scene and the thing that really makes it is that the admiral steps into the room like thirty seconds before he's supposed to, and he catches a glimpse of Darth Vader putting on his helmet. And just for like a moment you see the back of his head, and it's the first time that you're seeing Vader without the helmet.

And you're kind of going like, whoa, wait a minute, what was that? But then as soon as the helmet is on, the admiral isn't gonna say shit about what he saw. Darth Vader obviously isn't gonna say anything about it. So the scene just continues and you're just left with this kind of sense of Okay, well I'm appreciating the scene that I'm getting, but also I kind of just got this narrative check that somewhere down the line we're gonna come back and like get to see something there.

And I really want to know what that is now. Um, and that is sort of something that I've been trying to emulate, like the effect that that scene had on. When I first saw Empire Strikes Back when I was like eight years old, is so much of what I'm trying to do with the way that the show presents information of just can you have the scene that is clear and interesting and suspenseful? And then can there also just be a flash of

What was that word that you almost said? Because okay, I guess we're moving on now, but I kinda wanna know where you were going. Can we go back and talk about that? That's very, very interesting. I'm so excited to where this story goes and what happens to these people. And uh yeah, congratulations Gabriel. Uh it's it's

No, it means a lot. I did want to ask you more about like your background in terms of like how you kind of came into writing. I guess I sort of I I I I I I missed my chance to do that. Um I uh I I fell in with I fell in with the wrong people at the wrong time and never recovered is the short version of that. Um And sometimes you can come be a guest on our show or I can come back and like we can do the long version there. Gabriel?

Thank you so much for being here. And now we're here. Yeah, you owe me big time. Big time. No, no, no, no, no. Thank you for having me.