Adobe Express makes it quick and easy to create everything I need for my business. From social posts, TikToks and flyers, all in just a few clicks. Get Adobe Express for free. Search for Adobe Express to find out more. Welcome to a special preview edition for our new audio drama series, Wasteland, a Dex Legacy Story. My name is Chris Gregory and I'm the producer and co-director of the show and I'm alongside Emily Inkpen, our writer and co-director.
Now, Emily, The Deck's Legacy is a preview to your original trilogy of novels, which, before anyone rushes to Amazon, are unpublished at this point. But Wasteland is brand new, isn't it? So where did it come from?
Yeah, it's brand new. So I was on Reddit, the audio drama forum, and I always kind of hang out in there just to sort of see what's going on and see what people are saying. And there were a couple of conversations. This was a couple of years ago, but there were a couple of conversations. conversations that took place about mecha audio dramas and audio dramas about mech pilots. And there seemed to be this gap in the market.
and people wanted them and people especially sort of the gamer audio drama crossover people in occupying that area Really wanted to have a mecha audio drama to listen to while painting their, you know, their game figurines and stuff. Really wanted to have something like that to get into the headspace while playing games. And I found this really, really interesting. So I sort of, you know...
slid into the comment thread and I said, you know, don't tempt me. You know, I could do an amazing spin-off of The Deck's Legacy about this. And... It's the first time in my life this happened, but they recognized who I was through my name, just my name, Emily Inkpen. And a couple of people were just like, oh my God, okay, it's you. I tanked my way through the deck's legacy, you know, in January. in one day loved it if you do this i'll be so excited
So, of course, I thought, OK, well, now I'm kind of committed. You know, I said I would. So apparently that's all it takes. I'm very easily persuaded. I sort of started thinking about this idea.
It's sort of, I mean, it's taken a couple of years, but you can't say that I didn't fulfil my promise. And it's not just mechs, is it? There is... politics and there are relationships okay so you can't have a war without politics and you can't have stories without people and politics on the political side it's it's always messy and dark and somebody always benefits from a crisis
And sometimes it's the people who fought hardest against the crisis that benefit most. And then those people have to grapple. with benefiting from it because they want to condemn the crisis loudest and they often are but then you've got to sort of point out it's like yeah but you did pretty well off the back of this thing and then they have to like sort of you know navigate that water And I just, I love exploring the duality.
of these situations and people are messy too so in Wasteland we get to know Captain Sarah Sachs, Lieutenant Quentin Therese, Sergeant Iseri Vorsinza or Vorsi and Sergeant Trevor Ezrin. They all have stuff going on. They all have pasts. They're all really fantastic characters. And they're people just doing their best, aren't they? Yeah, Wasteland is about good people.
which is rare uh the dex legacy is about dex island who are the baddies and although the kids in the dex legacy are doing their best they do some pretty horrific things because that's what they've been raised to do um but in comparison the people in wasteland are solid and i remember george stagnell uh asking me what ezren's deal is you know any underlying darkness you know anything anything going on there that i should you know tell him about and i found myself saying nah
He's a pretty solid guy. He comes from an ordinary background and he loves his mum. And that was so weird to say, and it doesn't make Ezran boring. It just means that he's facing really tough times from a, I mean, what we might call normal. starting point. You know, he's just a regular guy who joined the military when he was younger for, you know, opportunities, etc. And, you know, has found himself here.
But he comes from a normal family. He went to school. You know, I mean, there's nothing unusual about him. And he means well. So, yeah. What do you know about economics, Ezran? You just want a nice posting in Rome so that you can spend some more time with your girlfriend. Well, it wouldn't hurt. Have you heard from her lately? Yeah.
Every day, but... I'm sure she's fine. I know, I know. But I'm not there. And it's not like I can tell her about what we're working on here. So she can't say to any of the guys drooling over her. Hey! If you don't leave me alone, my boyfriend's gonna turn up in a five-meter gossin-plated mech with a cannon on each arm. How do you know that there are guys drilling? Because I was one of those guys.
And she's a goddess. So, asking this on behalf of some of our listeners, especially new listeners, I guess, do listeners have to listen to the deck's legacy? in order to get wasteland absolutely not it's written to be its own standalone thing so some decks adjacent characters appear in episodes but they are fully embedded in this new perspective the story is about the new character
and the situations that they find themselves in. So I think people who are already fans of the deck's legacy will love the fact that they're getting this fresh new perspective, fresh characters, fresh... place in the world but people who have never listened to the dex legacy will be able to just listen to wasteland and not worry about it so Why this story? What is it that brings these people together?
Episode one of The Deck's Legacy, The Bomb, opens with Nathaniel and Tristan on their way to Zart, which is the capital of Xenos, where they'll be witnessing the launch of their new bomb, their new... experimental missile and the nationalists and OC government commissioned it and bought it and are looking forward to ending a long war for good uh so it's a sort of like last final measure thing situation going on so episode one of wasteland
the bomb starts on the same day we're just coming at it from a completely different angle and I'm always interested in like I sort of mentioned before, like alternative perspectives. One person's hero is another person's nightmare and all that jazz. So one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. One person's act of aggression is another person's desperate bid for freedom. and autonomy and getting a view of the world from Dex Island.
I mean, that's a really dark and unusual perspective. It's a closed state and horrible things happen there. It doesn't mean that everywhere else is a picnic, but, you know, like... But getting outside that environment and that ideology makes for a completely different experience. And tell us a little bit about these people. Okay, so the people are soldiers.
This is still a military political science fiction. It's just a very different military. Okay. So how is it different? Well, Dex Island is all about the genetic experimentation and eugenics. If anything... should seal their status as the baddies. It's that, to be honest. In Wasteland, they're using mechs. So this isn't a case of enhancing humans. It's a case of giving humans enhanced tools.
external enhancement so it's it's it's like a similar aim but coming from a completely different place and sax is a core reflection of that difference she lost her legs during her previous project when she was testing an exosuit and it functioned so if she were on dex island she'd be scrapped sent to the lab for medical experimentation she'd die that you know would be ridden off
In Xenos, she's fitted for mechanical legs and, I mean, yeah, obviously her life has changed and her sort of opportunities in the military have been affected. but she can still live and work and thrive and contribute in a major way to the future of her country. Now, there's one character I think that's especially important, and that is...
Sax, Captain Sarah Sax. She's really important to you, right? Oh, Sax. Well, she's on the cover. Her and her mech, Nova. So mentally, I cast her before I started writing. Marie Claire Wood was an actor I've... always wanted to work with she's been in other alternative stories productions and her voice i mean her technique is flawless there's a precision to her delivery
And it's just masterful. And I wanted to work with her, but there were no real meaty roles coming up in the deck's legacy. So when Wasteland came to mind, I placed her squarely in the lead role. And I mean, fortunately, she was available and said yes, because she's in some big productions these days. Yeah, Marie Claire was recently in a movie in a scene with the legendary Sir Anthony Hopkins. So we're lucky to have her.
We're overjoyed with all of our voices. Wasteland has an amazing cast. We've got Sarah Golding and Kareem Cronfly, legendary voices and perfect for their parts. Kareem, well, he's... voice oh my god it's like it's like resin it's gorgeous and warm and wonderful for he plays lieutenant teriz and he and marie claire worked so well together in the studio and sarah is another
legend in the audio drama space she's been in basically everything i think i looked this up she's been in over 60 audio productions she's award-winning she's she's fantastic uh she's got this just gorgeous texture to her vocals and a really light touch so she can just convey casual authority. She's just fantastic. We've got John Glover. as minister for kits and john is a legend he was in the original hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy tv series he's a regular on the archers i mean
I was most excited about his appearance in Animals of Farthingwood, but that's probably just me. Honestly, he's been in everything. We've got Ethan Reed as Minister Kyn Kravik. He's a rising star, thanks to his work in Baltimore.
as Gate 3, where he played the male dream visitor and people just... loved his voice in there he's got an amazing voice it's incredibly deep and resonates at a different frequency uh to most other voices i don't know how he does it he wields his voice he doesn't just use it um david monteith is an amazing actor. I met by chance a couple of years ago at the Clark Awards.
And I knew I wanted to work with him immediately. He's been in so many West End stage productions acting alongside Michael Sheen and others. He's amazing. You look him up and it's like, oh, wow, you know, he's been in that. Oh, and he's been in that. He voiced about.
11 characters in Baldur's Gate 3. He's got one of those voices. Sophie McNair and George Stagnall as Vorsi and Ezran. Fantastic new voices for us and real talent. Sophie has such an expressive voice and she got... divorcee immediately and George I mean he plays a medic and he's got the right tone for that when I listened to him the first time I thought
yeah, I'd trust you if my guts were hanging out and you told me everything was going to be okay. And not everyone has that kind of delivery. I mean, let's face it, I have to say like most doctors don't, but George does. Obviously, we had an amazing time. It's so important in the studio that people gel and we do table reads and things so that people aren't meeting for the first time when they go into the studio. So the table reads happen via Zoom.
But I mean, a lot of the time, these actors have never worked together before. And then they're performing together live pretty quickly.
And yeah, so I mean, I think it was Marie Claire Wood and Sarah Golding working together for the first time. Is that right? They're in loads of scenes. They did amazingly working together. I've worked with both of them a lot over the years, but never in the same... production until a couple of years ago I cast them together in a drama called Postcards from Another World by Fraser Armitage.
You can tell instantly when actors have a chemistry, and this was definitely a case of that. From then on, I knew that I wanted to put them in another story, and Wasteland was a perfect opportunity to do that. General Zarekin? At ease, Sax. You wanted to see me? I did. Vickett, the Minister of Defence, is on his way. Ready your unit, Captain. This could be it. You really think so? I do, yes. The Prime Minister's going on about a final answer to the Civil War and...
I think it might be us. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they just nailed their parts. General Zarekin, Captain Sarasax. They've known each other for a long time. They go way back. And you just got that vibe immediately from them. in this production it just yeah they just gelled um so now now i have some questions for you because i wrote it and we both directed it but you did the sound design and let's face it it's mechs
So much of this production is about sound design. So what were the main challenges? Yes, you do tend to challenge me with sound design, Emily. I think the main thing with Wasteland was just thinking about the mechs. These giant machines, and I was trying to think about... all the different mechanical stages in their movement. So there are gears, there are pistons, there's some sort of propulsion, some sort of engine, I guess.
We're hearing internal controls quite a lot because we're mostly in, I'm not sure what the terminology is, the cockpit, the driver's seat, the cab, whatever the terminology is for a mech, with sacks. So, yeah, what we would hear, what would she hear, and how could I bring that all together? Now, the online sound libraries that I normally use didn't really yield the results I wanted, so I ended up having to build the sounds myself.
And then give the whole thing a sort of rumbly, thuddy stereo effect as the feet land on the ground. I mean, I'm blown away by what you've done. But I have to ask, is it... as fun to create as it is to listen to? Or did I hand over the scripts and a headache as like a joint package? Well, you know, there's always a moment when I look at one of your scripts and think how the...
How the flip am I going to make that happen? But this one has been a lot of fun once the initial panic subsided. The bed for the sound design is always the voices and the raw dialogue from the studio. as recorded by the maestro that is Richard Orpheus Campbell of Red Valley fame, is just superb. And our actors have really delivered in these parts. Those vocal assembly edits are fantastic.
The challenge when I'm added in the sound design is not to mess that up by smearing thuddy footsteps all over them. So you mentioned there that you couldn't find every sound you needed from online sound libraries. We've talked before. about improvising sound using vegetables in other interviews and appearances that we've made, like the vegetable sound effects for breaking necks, et cetera, is a bit legendary now. Anything like that in Wasteland? Yes, well...
We do have to be imaginative from time to time. There was some recording done in your backyard in Reading a while back, which involved... Not exactly vegetables, but a cold frame which you might use to help vegetables grow. Yeah, so most people won't know what that is, so you better explain. So a cold frame is a thing that gardeners use to protect young or less hardy plants.
from frost in cold places like your backyard anyway we put a microphone inside this thing which is a sort of wooden frame with a thin clear plastic covering and dropped pebbles and gravel over it to replicate the sound of a roof fall in an underground military base. And you can judge whether all of this worked when you listen to episode two.
I think this was your idea originally, Emily. So your reputation as a high-tech sci-fi writer might be somewhat tarnished when everyone knows that you have a collection of low-tech gardening equipment. Yeah, that's the weird thing about me. In my head... I'm... mechs and military sci-fi but in reality i'm basically a hobbit so okay another another element in our episodes is the music we use the theme tunes but also the music that appears in between scenes
Tell our listeners a bit about the music in Wasteland. Yes, it is truly amazing and totally in keeping with the aesthetic and feel we're trying to get across in Wasteland. It's written by the fantastic Dr Alan Stroud, who wrote the soundtrack for the main theme and incidental music in The Deck's Legacy. So if you've heard that show...
I think you kind of know what to expect. Now, you set all of that up, didn't you, Emily? Yes. Back when we were releasing episode two of The Dex Legacy, so early days, I put out a query on social media asking if anybody would be up for...
coming up with a theme tune. I got chatting to Alan when he responded to the post and we started nerding out about Thomas Bergson and Vangelis and you know all sorts of people and next thing I know I've got this incredible piece of music in my inbox and we had a few entries which were all extremely good but we both fell in love with Alan's and he's gone on to create some amazing stuff for Dex and having original music makes such a difference and I
I'm a massive soundtrack nerd. So the fact that there's now a soundtrack for my world, it still blows my mind. It hasn't sunk in. That's something that has never sunk in. you So, apart from saying go listen, is there any more we need to know about Wasteland Emily? Just have a listen. This is a story about good people doing their best in very difficult circumstances. And for that reason, I think it's worth listening to, especially now.
uh there's like a lot of hitting various fans in the story but the characters at the core are solid and yeah i think i think we could all do with a bit of that right now
And we should at this point have a quick update on the deck's legacy. What's going on with Season 3? Well, last year we ran a Kickstarter for Season 3, and thanks to an amazing effort from our listeners and supporters, it was successful. So now... we're in production table reads happened this week we're going into the studio next week and it's all very exciting any new characters and actors we should know about we have some excellent new voices in season three and i know listeners are going to
love them leading the way is a character played by the amazing Nicholas Briggs most known as the legendary voice behind the Daleks in Doctor Who it's amazing to have him on board I'm still pinching myself I walked away from the table read with this massive grin on my face. He just nailed it. And I know people are going to love it. And he's joined by Catherine Giorgio.
who we've wanted to work with for ages, and it's lovely to be able to bring her in with a great part working alongside Nick. We also have a new voice for Dr. Osa Srivastava in the form of Eleni Aristido. She's a wonderful addition to the cast in this core role and makes a brief appearance in Wasteland so you can get a sneak peek at this new era of Osa in episode one.
Excellent. So we'll keep you updated on all things Dex Legacy on our social channels. We'll put links for those in the show notes of this podcast. And finally, Emily, Wasteland. How can people listen and subscribe? Okay, so it's quite simple. Search Wasteland A Dex Legacy Story in your favourite podcast app or follow the link in the show notes for this podcast. You'll know it when you see it because it's the cover with the big mech on the front.
so you know bit of a giveaway there we'd also be so grateful if you could drop us a rating or review on spotify or apple podcasts it takes about 30 seconds but massively increases the profile of a show particularly a new show like Wasteland and new shows need all the help they can get. Yes, please do hit that subscribe button wherever you listen. We're going to leave you now with the trailer for Wasteland, a DEX legacy story. Thank you so much for listening and enjoy. Wasteland.
A new science fiction drama from the makers of the DEX legacy. My name is Captain Sarah Sax. Prepare your mechs and report to the dropship. We are moving out. Sergeant Zeri Boissinga, Minister. This is Siri. And your mech is different to the others, so tell me about it. This is Tank. A heavy model built to take fire and protect. Of course it would be difficult at first, but hate doesn't last.
Hate lasts longer than any other emotion. Nova has come a long way since our first exercises. We understand each other at this point. I know what this program means to you, Sarah. Well, really, Quentin. You always say it was my encouragement that got you back on course again after your accident. We both know. Mr. Bex. The nastiness will not recover support from many years. How dare you consider this a benefit on any level? Right. Therese. Horsey. Ezra.
I wish I could say our training has prepared us for what we're about to see. But I don't think anything could. We don't know what we'll encounter once we're there. What I do know is that we're the only unit capable of finding out. We've received our orders and this is our time. Search Wasteland, a DEX legacy story in your favourite podcast app to listen and subscribe.
The Fable and Folly Network, where fiction producers flourish. Broadcasting, this is Roger Bergato-Fisher. Communications, something, Moonbase, wherever. You guys can sort out the next thing. I need to get the rover checked and loaded. Jong? On it, boss. Excuse me? If communication still makes a difference at this point in the plot, if we can keep this base or this moon together long enough to be a thing. I changed my direction.
I worked my way down. I took those scraps, the bits they'd forgotten about or thrown away, and I built my own place. Still inside, but within the shadows. All my thoughts, my hopes, all of my heart is on a makeshift rocket hurtling towards us with the most precious of cargo. We'll definitely deserve a celebration. Not like yours.
You and your boy down there? I hope he's got a private room waiting. It'll be enough to be close again. Ah, meu amado. When I have Alex back in my arms, maybe then I can think about resistance. We've kept the corporations at arm's length longer than most. Well, whatever you're building, here or wherever, I'm in. Any way we can help. It feels like we're approaching the closing stage of this journey. The final stop.
But either way, it's been one hell of a story. And either way, it ends with Alex. Moonbase Theta Out. The final season. Broadcasting on your podcast feeds starting August 14th. For early access, join us at patreon.com slash monkeymanproductions. Moonbase Theta, out.