Many A True Nerd Paradox Games / Funny

Jon's adventures and misadventures playing Paradox Interactive titles.

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Imperator: Rome

Nine episodes into his Imperator: Rome campaign, the YouTube comments are increasingly irritated that Jon's efforts to unite Greece under the Pan-Hellenic League have overlooked one tiny, backwater province in the midst of his territory.
YouTube Comment: Troizen: "The Achaeans can't see us if we don't move!"
Other Comment: Just a few more cities to become a major power, huh? If only there was a free city just lying around, waiting to be taken...
Another Comment: I'm convinced Jon is just trolling us all by not taking Troizen. There is zero chance he hasn't seen all the comments about it.
Episode 10 is of course "The Troizen Redemption," where Jon mentions the annoyed comments and proceeds to colonize Troizen in all of two and a half minutes.
Jon: Are you all happy now?
- The whole episode is nearly an hour long and involves two wars and major diplomatic developments, ending with an ominous hint about the future of the Hellenic League's government. The comment section of course is still fixated on Troizen.
Also in Episode 10, Jon decides on a novel way of handling an uppity faction leader.
Jon: So, you just basically need to go and - ooh! Prison! Yes, that would work. [...] Screw it, congratulations, you're in prison right now. (hits "Imprison" button) Oh no, we lost Stability, whatever shall we do- (hits the "Sacrifice to the Gods" button) oh I've stabbed a pig, so everything's fine now. So I don't really want to execute this guy, even though the Senate is on board with that. Instead, I would like nature to take its course. (spams the "Flog" button) So what we're gonna do, we're gonna give him a handful of floggings, alright. He's gonna receive some very brutal floggings. Right now his health is down to... yeah, 16.5%. One more flogging will get him down to 6.54%. And unfortunately, he's just losing health naturally, so if he just dies of "natural causes," in a few months, not really my problem. Shame really, nothing we could do about it.
In the middle of Episode 14, a pop-up informs Jon that his empire has taken a 70-year-old Arab man prisoner. Despite not being at war with any powers in the area.
Jon: Monthly legitimacy is going in the right direction, more and more tax- (pop-up appears) Apparently we... Who is that guy, and how and where did we capture him? Does anyone know where this guy came from? "The Arabian local power of..." Um? How did we capture this guy? So this guy's seventy-seven years old, suffering from dementia, and somehow we... captured him. (beat) I've decided that we're just going to let him go. Have fun doing whatever it is you were doing, wherever it was that we captured you.
For the Imperator grand finale, Jon puts the Hellenic League's affairs in order before retiring the campaign, by building marketplaces, further weakening its remaining enemies, and securing the royal succession by marrying the Tyrant to his most competent sister. Said Tyrant goes on to get accidentally castrated in a medical mishap, but somehow still produces several more inbred offspring.
Jon: Did you just manage to produce a daughter, despite being castrated? Because bloody hell, that's impressive! Impressive sexual feats just run in the family.

Stellaris

Jon's first proper Stellaris campaign is as The Mighty Ducks of Duckburg ("Woo-oo"), the Fanatical Materialist, Pacifist inheritors of a flooded Earth in Humanity's Wake. Their empire is called The Infinite Pond, "a pond that stretches out forever, with infinite breadcrumbs floating in the waves." Though the proper adjective is "Quackian," because constructing an adjective from The Infinite Pond "would be grossly offensive to our duck gods."
One of the first things Jon does is rename his Science Ship from the QQ Escalate to the QQ Science McShipface, since it after all will be the face of the empire during First Contact.
Jon's first colony can only support four Pops because it's choked by toxic kelp, but then he sees a huge, beautiful water world in the Phract system... which he can't settle because it has a primitive civilization on it, and his Pacifist ethos prevents him from changing his "Xeno Interference" policy to do more than observe or uplift primitives.
Jon: Sadly, my pacifist ways mean I can't just bomb a primitive people to have their bloody world for mine. Bloody hell! Ugh, fine. You know what, whatever, we won't bomb you, I guess, you lucky gits...
"Our guys can totally, totally, probably, totally take out these guys... yeah? Probably?"
Jon gets distracted until it's too late to save his Science Ship from being destroyed by a pirate base's defenses, and in Part 3 goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge for the QQ Science McShipface... except it was the QQ Pounce that was lost, and Jon only notices that his favorite ship is still around in Part 4, after he's been giving it orders for forty minutes.
YouTube comment: -Seeks revenge for destroying Science McShipFace
-Kills pirates with big fleet
-Sends Science McShipFace to scan the debris
...
"Well that's fine, we have got plenty of money, I feel like we've got loads of money right now, though maybe not that much money, ah, where's my Construction Ship right now? It should probably be doing something... my Construction Ship can't actually do anything right now, it can't afford to build anything, that's a bit of a shame but no worries..."
"Ooh, hello? The Imperium of I Haven't Heard of You has declared war on someone I don't even know who they are! Big news! More at seven!"
With a lack of habitable worlds to settle and other empires' borders hemming him in, Jon proves that pragmatism may trump his empire's pacifism as he takes a closer look at his neighbors.
Jon: How about you? "Unfriendly" and... they're weaker than us. Their fleet power is "Inferior." I'm not saying that we should declare war on them, just because they're weaker than us. But we really, really need a place to expand, and we're running out of options.
"Wait, hang on a minute... where did the... was the... oh. So, um, the reason the Lolehndrans are looking so strong is, um, I think they possibly just ate the Bilnocs, the religious fundamentalists who were over here, right? They've just gone a bit missing. Well, no mention of them. Yeah, I think they might be gone. Oh dear. Right. How are you guys feeling about us again? 'Actively hostile' and are superior to us. Hmm. Okay. Bit of a problem, here."
Part 5 brings an interruption to Jon's war plans, because after looking through the systems in his borders to decide whether to research Arctic or Tundra World Colonization next, he notices something right next to The Brightest Quack.
Jon: Apparently, Sirius III is and always has been a massive oceanic world that's just... there, and I've even had a little research post around outside the whole time, and somehow I missed that this here was a flipping habitable world.
He still plans on having a war of expansion, though, and he's going to be the good guy during it, since his target is a despotic dictatorship.
Jon: Basically, I'm going on a mission of liberation. I'm liberating their people from them, 'cause they're clearly dicks. So the people will throw open their gates to us with open arms and everything will be lovely. And I? I have a plan for dealing with them.
Just when Jon's about to declare war on the Ganlarev, his allies the Buhavilaa ask if he wants to join them during their own campaign of liberation. Jon happily agrees, and other than the Brightest Quack getting bombarded by an enemy fleet for a while, the war goes very well... and ends with the Buhavilaa getting one Ganlarev system and the rest being turned into puny single-world empires, while Jon gets absolutely nothing for his trouble.
Jon: I can't help but feel like the Buhavilaa did something very, very clever there, which is, they pretty much just moved in, and took over this world, and now they've pretty much blocked me off from ever getting to any of these. But I'm not really having that, to be honest.
But once again, Jon's plans are derailed by the Buhavilaa wanting to liberate more worlds from a neighbor, so Jon gets to spend Part 7 doing all the heavy lifting during a long slog of a war, without gaining anything for his efforts.
Jon: So we've got some experience winning wars, ladies and gentlemen, now we just have got to get the spoils from them. Next time, we actually go in on a war of aggression that we're gonna start for ourselves, and we're not stopping until we have seized some planets off some other people.
YouTube comment: Putting the "fist" in "pacifist."
Another comment: Stellaris: Pacifist Run: Kill Everything Run.
In Part 8, Jon acknowledges comments that he hasn't been the most peaceful pacifist, and admits that he still plans on invading someone, "but it's going to be a pretty small war, so don't worry about it."
"I'll do the Paradise Dome later, I just need to genetically-engineer the pacifism out of my species."
Jon's disappointed that his new colonies aren't doing much for his empire's look on the world map.
Jon: I wouldn't mind having this whole area, just so my empire is a little more round. I know that probably shouldn't be my main concern when planning who to go to war with, but it is a concern.
"Meanwhile, over here in Menchib, are you guys ready to go yet? ...Oh, no, sorry, I've been clicking on the wrong world, I keep clicking on that world! This world's been ready to go for some time! I'm good at running space."
In Part 9, Jon has to spend a moment cooing over a Tiyanki pod wandering through his territory.
Jon: Hello squid, I like you, I like space squid, they're nice. I wish we did have space squid - well, assuming they were, like, you know, wandering, eating bits of floating stuff and they actually didn't want to eat me. Assuming that was the case, I would like space squid.
And just a few minutes after that, Jon has to spend a moment cooing over his Delightful Bloodshed-class battleship.
Jon: My god, look at it! Look at it, shiny and beautiful! Aw, when this thing appears in your sky, basically you know you are going to die.
Jon draws, but chooses not to pursue, the "Clone Armies" technology.
Jon: Maybe don't use a Clone Army. "A natural lifespan of less than a decade, a lack of personal initiative" - you say this, right up to the point where one of them goes asking "Do we have souls?" And then they go asking for "rights" and "not to be sent into the meatgrinder," no, we're going for Atmospheric Filtering.
"Stone Age primitives - why can't they just hurry up and become spacefaring? Then I could do something fun with them."
Jon's outraged when a separatist faction forms within his empire, planning to free a world from "imperial rule."
Jon: This isn't imperial rule, this is the iron fist of science! That's way better than imperial rule!
After another look at his empire's policies, Jon (a pacifist) decides to switch from "Defensive Wars Only" to "Unrestricted Wars"
Jon: Good, change the war philosophy. This doesn't seem to cost anything, by the way- (pop-up notification appears) Oh. Um, the - oh dear. I may have just slightly annoyed our [Fanatical Pacifist] allies, here, by saying that unrestricted war is a good thing.
Part 10, where Jon finally gets to launch his war of conquest, is of course labeled "New Pacifism."
"I mean, this is bravery, this is bravery right here, that these guys have actually decided to stand and fight. It's also arguably stupidity, but it's kind of bravery..."
Jon's still wary of the Pops of Post-The Mighty Ducks that resulted from him researching genetic engineering, and takes a moment to examine his options for dealing with them.
Jon: So this presumably therefore is what things like, you know, enslaving, resettling and purging is for. Though right now I kind of have a position against purging, but... if they became problematic, then potentially I could just purge all of these...
Between Jon's aggressive policy positions alienating his citizens and the unhappiness coming from his newly-conquered world, he resorts to a Lythuric Manipulator structure to increase social conformity.
Jon: Because it pacifies people, I'm going to call it the "Pax gas," and it's definitely not going to - what do you mean, Reavers?
Jon is initially intimidated by an empire's skull emblem, then he takes a look at the species in question and changes his mind about them mid-sentence.
After finally building Observation Stations over the primitive cultures within his empire's borders, Jon decides to enlighten one of them, because "surely they'll become our friends, or if we don't, then we can just, like, murder them or whatever."
The unhappiness situation continues until a science lab on his latest conquest is damaged in an act of sabotage.
Jon: That is unfortunate indeed, and when I say "unfortunate," burn the bastards to the ground. Kill them all! I demand purges!
In Part 12, Jon decides that "if you can't find anyone around who wants to be friends, we're going to make friends" by declaring a War of Liberation to create some vassals. The conflict doesn't go terribly well at the start, though, as one of Jon's detachments gets overwhelmed by sheer numbers, and then his ground forces in their defenseless transports get ahead of his warships when moving toward an enemy fleet.
Jon: Right. So we just lost our entire army... um... What do we do now?
Jon's pleased when his first effort at native enlightenment is completed, less so when he reads the terms of the treaty.
Jon: Did we just give them the system?! Why did we do that?!
"Meanwhile, 1st Murder has not found anything over here, so let's go back to our original starting position and do this war better this time."
Having lost his first ground invasion force, in Part 13 Jon re-thinks his position on Clone Armies.
Jon: This one I might have been pre-emptive on. It would actually be quite nice to have Clone Armies, 'cause our armies are, like, are actually not that good. [...] Let's get going, let's make some clones. There's no way it's gonna end badly, aside from when it does.
"I don't know if this is a sensible thing to do. But like, once you've built the fleet, it doesn't feel like not using it has much point. You may as well use it. This was not a war of aggression, this was a war of liberation. A slightly dubious liberation, but..."
Jon eventually gets the hang of interstellar conflict and wins his war of liberation, reviving one of his former neighbors! Good?
Jon: We've actually created a new Bilnoc empire! That's brilliant! Wait, weren't the Bilnocs dicks who we hated? Well, I'm sure this is fine! I'm sure this is one hundred percent fine, we have got a new Bilnoc Conglomerate! Oh yeah! Oh that is just absolutely, one hundred percent perfect, I think, probably, hopefully.
After the Ganlarev population on the world Jon annexed do nothing but cause trouble for him, he decides to grant them their independence, creating a "vassal" empire that actively hates him.
Jon: They're now independent, that means we're down to five our of five [directly-controlled systems], this area is now... (cracking up) I went to war to kind of go to war against these guys, and now I've just given them their independence, but I'm sure it will all work out. We gave it straight back again, we took it over and then we gave it straight back, I'm sure it will all work out just fine in the end.
In Part 14, Jon is bothered that one sector of his empire is an enclave within the United Kithri Sovereignty, and so he starts "a very small war, with the Kithri, just for the sake of reunification, that's all."
Jon's settled so many worlds that he's just started accepting the default colony names, "because I'm kind of running out of duck puns."
"Apparently these guys are not very happy... oh, we're in an offensive war and you're pacifist, okay fine, that's a reasonable excuse."
After a long, painful slog of a war, Jon tries to win over the population of his newly-annexed worlds.
Jon: Anyway, once again we will upgrade all your buildings for you. See, the Romans, we've come in, we've brought roads, how can you possibly hate us when we've brought roads?
The occupied planet-turned vassal-turned independent system on Jon's border still hates him, and the feeling is mutual, so he "liberates" them as a mini-empire that shares his ethics, and suddenly he has a neighbor who likes him so much they agree to become his protectorate.
Jon: I feel this is how George W. Bush really hoped his Middle East invasions were going to go, that if you go in and stamp on them, then they immediately, magically get replaced by people who agree with you and want to be your friends. But it didn't actually go that way... but it does in Stellaris, so that's lovely! Maybe George W. Bush enjoys playing Stellaris, who knows?
"So now, my Influence gain has actually jumped to +4 a month. +4 a month is fantastic! That means I can really start actually (event pop-up) 'Nationalist sabotage.' Well not everything's gone to plan... You blew up the Paradise Dome?! I have to spend two Influence to repair that? You were supposed to be the happy lads, I didn't even realize I had a major problem with you. I should replace all of you with bloody robots, robots are always happy..."
During the lull after his latest bit of New Pacifism, Jon takes stock of his military options and is baffled when he sees one of the available army types.
Jon: Also, I can clone... droids. (beat) I think you may have just slightly misunderstood how droids work, there. But apparently if I clone the droids, they get better, because we genetically-improved the... droid. Y'know that, that makes perfect sense, yes, absolutely...
Late in Part 15, Jon's scientists detect some sort of galactic energy surge, and then something called the Unbidden arrive south of his empire. Jon decides to send a construction ship over just to see what's going on, and...
Jon: Let's just kind of prepare ourselves, see what's going on here, and we have got ourselves...
VIR: Construction ship under attack.
Jon: I think it just got eviscerated before I could even see what was happening. That there is a good sign! And any chance there could be peace between us, terrifying beast from another dimension?
The Unbidden: Peace... no peace...
Jon: Well, make your mind up!
Jon, who has 27k Fleet Power in his main doomstack, sends some expendable scouts into Unbidden territory and encounters three 40k Fleet Power stacks.
Jon: It kinda feels like... our fleet is going to struggle, ever so slightly.
Jon knows from Mass Effect that he needs to unite the galaxy against the Unbidden, but unfortunately everyone else hates him because of the whole "New Pacifism" spree, and his neighbors have all been crippled by his wars against them, so they stand no chance against the Unbidden.
Jon: Possibly this is kind of my fault... I have learned a valuable lesson: when the lategame crisis shows up, well... if you went around waging wars and making your neighbors weak so you could be strong, it doesn't actually... help, that much, unfortunately.
"I think the admiral died - no, the [empire] leader's dead. Maybe he committed suicide, because it was more honorable than accepting this utterly, utterly humiliating defeat."
After spending the Grand Finale trying to Fling a Light into the Future by settling The Last Quack, Jon builds up as best he can and tries one last desperate assault on the portal the Unbidden are entering through.
Jon: Death or glory, lads! Death! Or! Glory! ...Y'know, in seventeen days, when the warp winds down. That slightly undermines the heroic narrative, though.
The attack is ultimately a success, and Jon gets a pop-up announcing the Unbidden's defeat. Or at least, the portal's destruction.
Jon: "...the end of these invaders is finally in sight. A profound sense of elation has settled over most of the galaxy-" you say this, but how exactly are we going to stop what's already bloody here?!
After extracting his fleet and getting it back to repair and rebuild, Jon announces an end to the series, because even though there's still a lot of Unbidden to be destroyed, "when you read the story of a thrilling hero who dived into the lion's den and snatches victory from the jaws of defeat, do you really ever want to hear how he mopped up the blood afterward?"

Stellaris: Utopia

His Stellaris: Utopia playthrough gets off to a rough start due to technical difficulties.
Jon: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to... (screen changes to desktop) balls.
His Space Romans' first neighbor turns out to be a Fallen Empire made up of an innocuous-looking species. When the chat demands he declare war, Jon has to explain the situation.
Jon: This◊ here, this is the face of DEATH. Okay? This is what my sudden death looks like. These are Holy Guardians, Fanatical Spiritualists with overwhelming power in their fleet, armies and technology levels. Their cities float.
Jon has to explain why his citizens joining the Pacifists faction isn't necessarily a good thing, even though he's trying to build a federation.
Claire: Wait, but didn't you want to be friends with everybody and have like-
Jon: Yeah, but that doesn't mean I don't want to occasionally murder other people too! Too many pacifists in the empire is going to cause flippin' trouble. They're bloody trouble-makers. They're gonna want us to not wage wars and stuff.
Throughout the stream, chat keeps demanding that Jon's Space Romans pursue closer relations with their arthropod and Mighty Ducks neighbors, with the hashtags #sexthebugs, #sextheducks, #sexthe dreadnought, etc. Things come to a head when the federation fleets assemble.
Some Mighty Ducks immigrants settle an ocean world Jon names Pondpeii. Then an asteroid appears on a collision course with the planet, threatening it with a fiery cataclysm.
Claire: How... appropriate.
After a series of liberation wars to expand his borders, Jon gets to belatedly build mining stations so he can properly exploit all his new territory.
Jon: Just build mining stations, everyone build mining stations everywhere, because I kind of forgot mining stations were a thing, I forgot the empire expanded. Which it did-
Claire: (disapproving sigh)
Jon: -quite significantly, that is not my fault! That is not my fault, the empire expanded while I wasn't-
Claire: How? How is it not your fault?
Jon: I wasn't looking!
Jon gets spooked when a Fallen Empire declares war on a younger star nation, and isn't much reassured when chat explains that this isn't the same as it properly becoming an Awakened Empire.
Jon: Okay, they haven't woken up properly, but they're starting to stir. The alarm clock's gone off, and basically they've decided to destroy that alarm clock, but, they might hopefully hit the snooze button afterward. Basically, we're praying that they're going to hit the snooze button.
Jon insists that unlike other empires, he's not enslaving the galaxy.
Jon: Vassalage, it's vassalage.
Claire: Oh, I see.
Jon: Remember, the people we're bringing into our empire kind of actually specifically came to us saying "Please, for the love of God, we want to be your vassal, please enslave us. Here are our wrists, they don't feel heavy enough right now."
Jon's really pumped about putting Xeno Zoo structures on planets with the "Alien Pets" tile resource.
Jon: Xe-no Zoo! Xe-no Zoo! Xe-no Zoo!
Claire: I mean, are you sure you couldn't maybe prioritize something else-
Jon: Xe. No. Zoo.
"You know that empire we bombed into the Stone Age and went and took half their empire off them? They've become more xenophobic. Yeah, I feel like in some ways we might have been responsible for that..."
Jon's plan for his new ground army is to use cloning technology to splice Tabby with a Mushroom Man, creating legions of "the most terrifying creature in the universe."
Jon: They shall go down onto the planet, and roll over and pretend they're super-cute and want them to tickle their tummy, and then the people on the planet will go to tickle their tummy and then YAH! Then out come the claws! And also the mushrooms! 'cause God only knows what madness we've created here. Oh God, Claire, science has gone too far!
Claire: I Warned You!
A call from the Riggan Commerce Exchange has Jon cooing and laughing at the species◊ that greets him.
Claire: Their leader's like, "You're being really insensitive right now-"
Jon: "We're not cute, we're terrifying. I'm a serious businessman."
Jon thinks a newly-formed sector of systems looks like an inverted foot. Claire thinks it looks like... something else.
Jon: Based on what just happened, I think we've got absolutely no choice but to rename the Klaht Sector the Foot Penis Sector and assign it a leader. Ideally the one who looks the most like - okay, that guy looks a bit like a penis.
Jon's helpless army transports manage to get into trouble by outpacing their escorts.
Jon: Remember how we cloned Tabby an awful, awful lot and then sent them into a warzone and I promised you everything was going to be fine?
Claire: Is she alone in a warzone, Jon?
Jon: She's not alone, because we cloned her many times!
Jon's able to use emergency FTL to get the Tabbies out, but Claire isn't reassured.
Claire: Have you not read ANY science fiction?! She's dead! She's dead, she's embedded in a piece of mountain somewhere!
Jon: We don't-
Claire: What kind of a noob are you?!
Jon: It was our only option! So Tabby is somewhere-
Claire: You cannot go between without a point of reference!
Jon: Tabby is somewhere, Tabby is somewhere in the galaxy-
Claire: This flies in the face of fifty years of science fiction history!
Jon: According to our scientists, she may show up in about five months.
Claire asks Jon if he wants to give a Rousing Speech as he prepares to join the War in Heaven.
Jon: WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!
Adding more systems to the Foot Penis Sector changes its borders enough that Jon has to rename it the Foot Alien Penis Sector.
Jon's opinion of a subterranean civilization beneath one of his colonies takes a turn for the worse when he's not even given the option to turn down their demand that he return some refugees escaping religious persecution. This is followed by a request for aid during a "famine" that takes the form of energy credits rather than food, a gift of minerals that presumably came from a work camp, and finally a request for advanced military technology. Jon goes along with all of it, but isn't happy about the consequences.
Jon: I've just given away thirty percent of the entire empire's Engineering capabilities for ten years in order to arm genocidal maniacs!
Claire: Well done, Jon!
Jon: Why didn't you stop me?!
Claire: I tried!
To provoke the Holy Guardian Snails into attacking, Jon settles one of their holy planets, names the colony Escargone, and renames the star system Salty.
Stellaris is a game where a mis-click can have lasting, severe consequences.
Jon: Oh shit. I meant to turn the Population Controls off, but I turned them on.
Claire: Did you do the same thing where you were like "Oh, they'll have rights to go into - wait, no, we'll have to wait ten years-"
Jon: No, this is worse, this is - last time I just said "you can't join senior ranks of the army," now I've said "you can't have sex. For ten years."
Claire: Ten years, Jon?!
Jon: I didn't mean to do that!
Claire: And you can't change it-
Jon: I can't change it back! I can in ten years!
Claire: Flip's sake, Jon...
Jon: What I'm going to do immediately is I'm going to start building defensive armies, because I think that's going to cause problems...
Jon isn't impressed with a species of pre-sentients he could uplift because of their Gaia World Preference.
Jon: These guys I honestly feel like we should basically move in and eradicate them... we probably shouldn't because we're like, you know, xenophiles or something, but... you know.
Jon misplaces his transports so that his army of clone Tabbies gets torn apart by an enemy fleet, and begs his viewers not to tell Claire while she's away from the stream. Apparently she got something like 14 messages from fans snitching on Jon.
In honor of the sacrfice of the dreadnought Benor, Jon names a newly-conquered planet after it/him.
Jon: He actually died literally over here, fighting for our freedom. And when I say "fighting for our freedom," I mean, like, not really for our freedom, because we - actually, we didn't start this war, we got pulled into it by an idiot ally. But like kind of, kind of our freedom. He kind of died for our freedom.
Jon selects the "Total Victory" war goal when attacking one of the Awakened Empires, and is shocked to find afterward that the defeated empire's planets are now completely empty.
Jon: ...Okay, everyone's dead. I think I killed literally everyone, there's, like... we didn't show it, but I guess the implication is we basically murdered everyone.
He's later delighted to see some of the Awakened Empire's species on one of his Tomb Worlds.
Jon: Yes! It's not genocide! Not geno-cide! Not geno-cide! It's just "endangered species!" Really endangered! [...] At worst, at worst, it's attempted genocide!
Stream Chat Comment: No longer will you be remembered as history's greatest monster for curtailing the reproductive rights of snails.
When Claire returns for the next stream, Jon assures her that the army of Tabby clones went off to a farm planet with no space phones, but they're really happy "'cause there's no loud noises and they don't explode."
After a sad story from one viewer about their dead dog, Jon offers to name planets after stream viewers' lost pets. He gets a larger response than expected.
Claire: Ah, yeah, and just so you know, we've got planets Agatha, Zorro and Otis-
Jon: We're running out of planets.
Claire: You asked them! Everybody loves their dogs!
Jon: I didn't assume that many dogs would be dead! I assumed less dogs would be dead, I didn't-
Claire: Fewer!
Jon: -I had an optimistic - now is not the time to be grammatically-correct, Claire! We've got dead dogs, you monster!
One of the federation ships is being driven by Claire.
The finale of the playthrough has his Space Romans-led federation assembling to counterattack the Unbidden invasion. Before the first battle Jon has a heartwarming Rousing Speech where he points out how all the races of the galaxy have come together to defend it, even the ones his empire has bad history with. And then, just before the second battle, one of his federation allies wins the pointless war against an innocent rump state he started solely to get his federation mobilized and following his main fleet, resulting in everyone else ditching his force to go home. His pre-battle speech when he's forced to solo the endgame crisis is quite different.
Jon: I've got a new speech to make: Romans! About, maybe, a month or two ago, I gave a big speech about how the galaxy was all united together against the threat of the Unbidden. Well everyone else pissed off, um, because the fake war I set up in order to actually force everyone, to kind of trick them into fighting together, ah, that was actually won, accidentally, because the bloody Kheilzakkans with their stupid tentacles - yeah, the tentacle-heads, we'll call them the tentacle-heads from now on - yeah, I said it, I said tentacle-heads - they just won the war, and everyone pissed off because they can't be bothered to fight the extradimensional invaders. So I guess we're just gonna have to win this war by ourselves. Because Rome doesn't need friends! Screw xenophilia! Screw all the stuff I was saying in the previous speech! Now we're just going to go win by ourselves! So let's just go and do that, because in the end, you cannot trust the faithless xeno. Let that be the rallying cry across our empire! You can't trust the faithless cocking xeno!
Then he has to make a third speech after noticing, despite his xenophobic rant, that his grand fleet has an alien admiral, and his scientists and governors all belong to various other species.
Jon: Space Rome may stand alone here today, the other empires may not have show up, but Space Rome itself is a huge, massive, multicultural society featuring every type of robot, person, plant, fungoid, mollusc, bird, mammal... are birds mammals?
Claire: No!
Jon: Are you sure? AND mushrooms! Let us never forget the mushrooms!

Stellaris: Apocalypse

Jon's Stellaris: Apocalypse empire is the Tenets of Tabby, a spiritualist-egalitarian-xenophile star nation with the Syncretic Evolution civic. So the dominant race are feline Tabbies, wise but sedentary, served by human quote-unquote helpers, who "produce food so that Tabby can eat, and money so that Tabby can have the things she needs, which basically summarizes my and Claire's relationship with Tabby."
Jon: They don't, you know, get paid, and they have to work in the mines, ah, or they'll get whipped by the Tabbies-
Claire: They're happy to work in the mines. The Tabbies don't have to do any whipping.
Jon: Exactly. They do occasionally scratch, a little bit.
Claire: They bat, without claws.
Jon: They occasionally forget they had their claws out.
When the campaign properly starts, it turns out Jon's first neighbors are potentially problematic.
Jon: Hello, who exactly are... they've got "Destroyers" in the name. That is never a good sign. Fanatical purifying plants. "Quake in fear, alien scum, for your doom approaches..." I'm going to tell them that "love is friendship set to music."
"I probably shouldn't annoy them... I think I need to, yeah, neighboring empires, as soon as I'm neighboring, I can declare them Rivals, which means bonus Influence, which I can use to potentially out-expand them, which could be useful, and I'm not sure they can declare me Rivals in return because they don't do diplomacy, also, I'm scared of a cocking cabbage."
Jon's baffled when his empire's first election somehow results in a non-citizen becoming leader of the Tenets of Tabby.
Jon: I tried to bar humans from holding high office and one's become the cocking cat-pope. The pontifex feles is a human. Something's gone horribly wrong here!
"They're slightly terrifying, ugly, bearded bird people - oh wait, sorry, the mic was on? Uh oh."
Between the Fanatical Purifying cabbages and a distant race of Slaving Despot cactus people, Jon can only conclude that "plants are dicks." He's also tickled when it turns out the cabbage leader has picked up the "Substance Abuser" trait.
Jon: I suppose that raises the question, what substance? I mean logically, do plants grind up little bits of humans and smoke them? Could that be a thing?
Jon decides the cabbages need to go, but doesn't raise any armies during his build-up to war, and doesn't notice his empire's energy deficit while preparing. So as soon as hostilities are initiated, he has to go begging his allies for assistance.
Jon: Hello, so, that war we just started, um, I desperately need energy, otherwise I can't actually continue it. Any chance we can do a trade?
YouTube comment: Did Jon just start an invasion with 0 energy and no armies? I'm not surprised, yet I am disappointed.
The "-1 Perception" strikes again when Jon decides he doesn't want to pen in his neighbor with an outpost claiming a star system for his empire, completely fails to see the "Dismantle" button next to his cursor, and ends up selling the system for significantly less than the cost of building the outpost in the first place.
"So remember that direction we were expanding in toward the south? Um, the XT-489 Eliminators empire has just been in touch. I'm gonna guess, they don't want to say 'Hello, we are friendly can-openers, do you have any cans that need opening?' ...No. No, it turns out they're a Rogue Defense System of terrifying robot angel murder-demons. 'Organic vermin detected, your infestation of this galaxy cannot be allowed to continue.' Love is friendship set to music, XT-489!"
As Jon meets more empires on the far side of the galaxy, he comes to an unfortunate conclusion:
Jon: Our once-utopian dream, that everyone could all be nice, and get on with each other, and not, like, murder each other, has unfortunately gone wrong. Because we've realized that the galaxy has a south, and the south is full of dicks. Horrible, horrible dicks, and killbots, and slavers, and generally bad people.
Then problems arise close to home, where Jon turning down repeated requests to join a war with a neighbor he signed a defensive pact with utterly destroys their relationship, turning them hostile.
Jon: Have you guys calmed down, by the way? How are you guys doing, because you ought to calm d- (reads tooltip) It's gonna take... two hundred and forty-eight years for them to get over this. Or rather, just to get back to zero, it's going to take a hundred and seventy-seven years. Great, just great. Just because the game kind of bugged out and they kept sending me the same request over and over - basically, they spammed me, and they're annoyed that I put it in the "junk" folder, alright, that's what we're probably going to end up going to war over, the fact that I marked their mail as spam.
In response, Jon makes plans for violent expansion, and soon the galactic north settles into two allied blocs with claims on each other's territory, waiting for a truce to expire so war can begin.
Jon: Basically, I'm talking about triggering a massive war across the entire north of the galaxy, out of some vague desire to hold a small cluster of largely-unimportant mining systems, but screw it, that sounds kind of fun!
Jon gets annoyed when he has to reposition his fleets due to pirates overwhelming a starbase he thought would be strong enough to repel them.
YouTube comment: It's almost as if it would have been a better idea to spec your big main border fortress into something with a lot of guns and defences, as opposed to essentially a giant shipyard.
"The Spectral Wraith is dangerously close to our territory right now, but it's just wandering away, doesn't appear to be attacking us..." (zooms in camera) "It's just a giant, space, jellyfish, octopus, thing and it generally makes my skin crawl and I don't want to look at it anymore."
Jon tells an occupied starbase in the midst of enemy territory to build defensive platforms, "not because it's really strategically useful, but because it's funny."
Jon has to break his defensive pact with the rhino-turtles because he doesn't want to get drawn into a war, but still wants to maintain good relations with them... or does he?
Jon: I'm happy to form a non-aggression pact with you, alright, I'm not interested in war with you guys anytime imminently - well, maybe I am... Hmmm. Hmmm. Am I interested in war with them?
Battleships are important, because they lead to Titans, which in turn leads to the Colossus Project...
Jon: ...and I want the Colossus Project, dammit. 'cause let's just say, some of these worlds down here, I don't really want them. I'd like them to not be there, but I don't want to bother managing them myself. So! Just in theory, if they were to explode from some form of planet-cracker, that no one could ever prove was sent by me, 'cause there'd be no witnesses left, that could work! That could work nicely!
Jon doesn't immediately accept an invitation to a federation, since he's not done conquering, plus he might want to form his own federation, "with blackjack, and starfish hookers."
A Great Khan arises to change the course of galactic history, but Jon can't read the Khan's introduction without snickering about the Slerpanor Horde.
When choosing which candidate to pick as his army's general, the deciding factor for Jon is that "I like the fact that you're a cactus, like that strikes me as a good guy to lead from the front, a cactus."
Jon starts salivating over some juicy unclaimed systems to the galactic west, with a Gateway he could reactivate to link them to his core territory, but remembers something.
Jon: So I'm thinking, my empire's going to start spreading out - wait, hang on. Jon. Remember how we were just talking about the Great Khan, the massive, massive Great Khan army, that's clearly expanding in that direc- okay. We'll have to revisit whether that's a good idea or not.
"And the dicks have become Xenophobic. Well what a surprise, xenophobic slavers in the south of the galaxy, who would have guessed?"
As his rivals fragment and his empire continues to grow, burgeoning federations get very friendly toward the Tenets of Tabby.
Jon: Oh my goodness, it's like being the hottest girl in high school. Suddenly, everyone is begging me to join their league. Nonononono, I'm playing the field boys, I'll get to you later tonight, chill out.
Activating one of his Gateways will be hugely expensive, and of negligible tactical benefit.
Jon: But on the other hand, it's so badass, how could I flipping not? Let's quickly get this thing working again, and ooooooh... it's a bit like a mass relay but not~
Since Jon decides to attack the rhino-turtles while they're busy invading the neighboring ducks, Jon finds himself also declaring war on the ducks just so he can fight the rhino-turtles occupying duck space.
Once the war on the western side of his empire is wrapped up, Jon starts putting down claims against the molluscoids to his east.
Jon: So that's a good bunch of claims in immediately, but because of the claims, they're going to start hating us more - (opens diplomacy screen) - yeah, they're actively Hostile. "Tabby people emit an aura of unpleasantness," aww, that's not true! Aww, I feel bad I let down my starfish friends, but I kind of want all their territory and their megastructure for my own.
"Right, time to get this done... aww, you're so cute and I'm so sorry about this. [...] 'How can you hope to defeat us when the Spirits themselves are on our side?' Look, I'm Spiritualist too - oh, this is a religious war. That's a concern."
It's only after he's occupied a dozen systems that Jon remembers that he left his transport fleet, and the armies necessary to conquer the inhabited planets in those system, on the other side of his empire.
Jon: Okay... so my transport fleet's over there. So, it shouldn't be over there, the transport fleet should instead be over here, let's just bring the transports- It's fine. Everything's fine because it's got Hyperdrive III, alright? It's not as slow as you think it's going to be.
"I'd say that's enough for now, we will wrap up the first stage of the war against those bastard, treacherous starfish that did whatever it was they did to cause me to betray them..."
In the wake of his latest round of warmongering, the other star nations of the galaxy begin signing non-aggression pacts with one another, while the starfish people manage to bring the Space Romans into their federation.
Jon: Why is everyone like I'm the galaxy's bad guy right now? Just because I invaded the adorable starfish people worlds?
YouTube comment: Jon: Invades adorable starfish without provocation in an otherwise calm and peaceful part of the galaxy for massive territory gain. Also Jon: "Why is everyone afraid of me??"
Highlights of another land-grab war against the rhino-turtles include Jon neglecting to hire an admiral for one of his fleets, letting his transports and science ships get ahead of his armada, and him "invading" a planet he'd already taken and occupied. The kicker is that the whole conflict was a failed attempt to get close enough to some Evangelizing Zealots that they'd want to form a federation with him, except the Tabbies had an enclave on their borders before the start of the war.
At the start of the next episode, Jon's interrupted by the Fafossan Hegemony declaring war on the Polity of Hullfax, which prompts a change of plans.
Jon: Actually, I was about to attack them. Oh flip, can I not demand... balls. Right, so I just missed my chance, because I was doing the intro, to actually flipping vassalize those guys, because now they're no longer at peace. So that's just marvelous. Right, well, I guess that means I'm going up against the federation sooner than I was planning.
In the war that follows, Jon makes the tactically questionable decision to send his unarmed troop transports into an unsecured system.
Jon: Okay, mild miscalculation on my part, I kinda forgot about the fact that there's [defensive] platforms in the way, yes, okay. It's fine, everything's under control, I know what I'm doing probably.
One of Jon's former empires has a rough run this time around, so that at one point the Mighty Ducks have fractured into the Infinite Pond, the Mighty Ducks Confederation, the High Kingdom of Duckburg, the Mighty Ducks Alliance, United The Mighty Ducks Nations, and Unified The Mighty Ducks Worlds.
The killbots send an insult mocking the Tabbies for lacking "integrated multi-spanners or pneumatic flesh lacerators" on their appendages.
Jon: Actually, Tabby does have automatic flesh lacerators, they're called claws and they're quite effective when she decides she doesn't want to be petted.
Part 19 is titled "The Betrayal" because, after Jon's spent much of the game trying to form a federation with the Raxar, they instead form one with Jon's old enemies the Othari, who vote down any attempt for him to join too. When Jon tries to "love-bomb" the Othari with favorable trade deals, he has a distressing realization.
Jon: Why didn't I just do this to the Raxar?! I could have just love-bombed the Raxar with gifts this whole time! I could have done that at any point! Oh god... okay.
YouTube comment: And thus, Jon realized that diplomacy (beyond invading and eating up territory and vassals) is a thing in Stellaris.
Jon starts the next episode heartbroken that everyone's forming federations, but "no one wants to go to the prom with me, so that's all a bit embarrassing. I was supposed to go to prom with the Raxar, but they bloody asked out Susan Othari over here! I hate Susan Othari, and she hates me!" Fortunately he has a plan: conquer the Othari so that the Raxar's federation dissolves, leaving them free to go to prom with - er, form a federation with him instead.
After declaring war on the Othari and by extension the Raxar, Jon points out that the Raxar aren't as mad as they could be in the situation.
Jon: I think this plan might actually flipping work! Alright, this is not as stupid a plan as you probably think it is. It's a bit stupid, but it's not that bad.
Unfortunately, Jon is outraged when the newly-single Raxar immediately "jump into bed with" one of the Mighty Ducks successor states with federation association status.
Jon still wants a Colossus, but he doesn't immediately take the Ascension Perk to unlock them.
Jon: I'm trying to pretend to the Raxar I'm nice, until I can get them locked into marriage, then I can reveal I had a Death Star all along.
While looking for Gateways to add to his burgeoning portal network, Jon spots one within the Fafossan Hegemony.
Jon: Now, technically, I've got no argument with them, and I never have. But, they do have a thing I want, like, really want. So does that make it theoretically okay for me to go and murder them for it? (checks diplomacy) Who are they in a defensive - oh. They're in a defensive pact with me. And they're also actually pretty much the only empire I'm friends with.
Jon notices he's automatically dissembling the killbots he's finishing off, but assures us with the episode title that it's "Technically Not Genocide."
Jon: Disassembly is not genocide. No matter what the robots tell you, okay, self-determination is just a malfunction, alright?
"Is it weird or wrong or cruel to make a plant creature do the farming?"
Jon showers the Raxar with minerals, sensor links and research agreements to try to get their attitude towards Neutral at least, so that all he needs to do is reduce his Threat rating to make them like him. Then he looks at his other neighbors and plans the order in which to conquer them.
Thanks to the Stellarite Devourer's post-defeat research project, Jon's able to claim a system with a whopping seven habitable worlds. Unfortunately the first one he settles turns out to have the "Abandoned Terraforming Equipment" planet event, and he gets the result that turns the atmosphere toxic, killing the burgeoning colony. By the next episode the planet's renamed Move Along, Nothing to See Here.
Jon decides to reduce the Threat he's creating in his neighbor's eyes by, rather than outright conquering his neighbors, forcing them to become his vassals instead. Afterward, he discovers that yes, you still generate Threat by vassalizing unwilling empires, and the Raxar now hate him enough to break off their newly-signed non-aggression pact.
Jon: This is not war, this is liberation! That's the word, I'm liberating you!
YouTube comment: Jon is one Texan accent away from being George W. Bush.
Jon checks the victory conditions and finds that he's 2/3rds of the way to a Domination Victory, even though he was hoping for a Federation Victory.
Jon: I mean, I don't really want to, like, dominate the galaxy, that's not really what we set out to do. That's not what we're really about, we're xenophiles, we're spiritualist xenophiles, it's about peace and friendship and understanding and stop looking at me funny or I WILL invade you!
Jon decides to launch a blitzkrieg on a nearby Fallen Empire to steal their worlds and technology, which is sure to catch them by surprise.
Jon: They won't see this coming, in fact they like me, they think I'm great! "The Tenets of Tabby is always a great contributor to the magnificent medley of the galaxy." (beat) These are literally the only guys in the galaxy that like me, aren't they? ...Oh. I feel bad. (beat) Not bad enough to not invade and enslave- no, not enslave! There's no enslavement! We're going to integrate them! Integrate. It's going to be lovely.
Jon is dubious of a merchant guild's "Mutagen Crystals," but likes the sound of increased governing ethics attraction. Then he hits the "No deal" response instead of accepting the trade.
When the materialist Fallen Empire decides to Awaken, Jon envisions a scenario in which the Spiritualist Fallen Empire does the same to start a War in Heaven, and then he and the also-Spiritualist Raxar side with the Doctrinal Enforcers.
Jon: This could be how we get the Raxar to the prom. In a kind of shotgun wedding where both of us are forced to go to prom by our Spiritualist hydra-dad.
By "A Prom Date With Destiny," Jon has to admit that him and the Raxar aren't likely to happen, and decides that he's done trying to woo his fellow Spiritualists. Then the Raxar join another federation.
Jon: They just joined up with the Romans! That's... okay! I, I know I just said I was cool with the fact that I'm not going to the prom with them, but they can't go with the Romans! The Romans are kind of like my ex from my former playthrough... okay that's, that not acceptable, that's... oh no, that's not cool, aww... And also, could you guys please be different colors, it's kind of annoying you're- right, so remember how we went and killed the Othari to break the Raxar out of a federation at one point? I think we might have to go and do that again.
When managing his newly-conquered worlds, Jon's horrified to discover that a planet's previous owner built a fortress over a tile with the Alien Pets rare resource.
Jon: Okay, I am truly your liberator, 'cause I have come in, and I have liberated the Alien Pets. So seriously, I've done you all a favor, you're welcome.
Despite everything, Jon ends the episode musing that there might be a way for him and the Raxar to patch things up.
Jon: Maybe there's a way back for me and the Raxar. Maybe it doesn't have to end with me building a Death Star and murdering all of them on prom night. I don't know. "Prom night" might, y'know, come to have a much darker meaning as time goes by...
When the War in Heaven finally kicks off, Jon sides with one of the Awakened Empires, but the Raxar end up leading the League of Non-Aligned Systems.
Jon: You know, seeing all this happen, it actually, genuinely makes me quite sad. Like, me and the Raxar could have been friends. If I had been in a federation with the Raxar, me and them could have led the League of Non-Aligned Systems together. We could have saved the galaxy. We could have just absolutely smacked down the Grollferp. We could have utterly laid the smackdown on the Athallids, alright? It would have been easy. But no! You had to want to go to prom with literally everybody but me! And this is what happens! Now you're dead!
Jon gets sad when he invades the Brightest Quack, and gives a forlorn little "woo-oo" when his fleet arrives over Duckburg.
Jon: And this is gonna be the end - I'm so sorry. Guys, when I started this playthrough, I had dreams of like running into my previous playthroughs, and all of us joining the same mega-alliance and stuff. But it hasn't really worked out that way...
Jon's a little wary when he breaches the Shroud and encounters something called the Composer of Strands, offering a pact to improve his population, with the warning that there will be an unspecified price to pay.
Jon: Okay... what's the- eh, screw it, go on!
After the completion of the Pax Tabitha, his Tabby's Claw-class Colossus, Jon decides to test his new planet-cracker on a world held by the Provalguvor.
Jon: I mean, who is actually going to care if I fire a Death Star at some mushrooms? They're mushrooms, we eat them with pasta, it's fine.
"Um, yeah, Rome? So, good news and bad news. Uh, the good news is, I'm actually about the resettle Rome itself and the eternal fire will be relit. Bad news is, you're not actually going to be around to, um, to see it..."
The first planet Jon cracked was inhabited by nothing but a single Pop of Droids, and he actually passes on the chance to destroy another Provalguvor world because it's completely undeveloped "and that would make me look like the bad guys." His next target turns out to be fully-populated, well-developed planet, and he admits that it's a "bit of a harder sell."
Jon: But again, we fall back on the story: they're just mushrooms. Are mushrooms really people? No! Of course not, they're mushrooms, they're delicious with garlic.
(KABOOM)
Jon: Ahh, that's right, that's right, just slap some garlic on 'em and put 'em on the grill, flipping delicious as an appetizer. Ahh, yum yum yum.
The climax of the episode, and perhaps the whole series, is when Jon's fleet arrives over the Raxar capital.
Jon: Guys... it's prom night. We could have been wonderful together, Raxar. We could have been amazing. We could have been a federation that saved and ruled the galaxy, fairly, as Spiritualist Xenophiles, but no. No, you just weren't willing to, were you? You had to be all "Oh, I don't like the fact that you invade everyone, constantly!" Well, this is what happens when you complain about me invading everyone, what happens is, I send the cocking Death Star in!
(KABOOM)
Jon: (happy sigh) It's been a good prom...
One YouTuber comments that "Only Jon could take a 4X strategy game in space and make it a dating sim."
Jon's irritated that he's fighting on the side of the rhino-turtles and, due to the claims system, conquering systems for them. So he makes sure to use the planet-cracker on any habitable worlds in those systems, leaving the rhino-turtles with nothing but space and stations.
When the Raxar are down to their last planet, Jon feels a moment of disquiet.
Jon: I'm feeling a slight sensation of guilt right now, because I did, slightly, Death Star their homeworld and all of that. And maybe... maybe I didn't need to do that. Maybe, in fact, I could have, like, not done that, and been friends with them, like when they wanted to be originally. Maybe, like, when I was bombarding like literally this entire side of the galaxy, I could have... not done that? And then maybe they would have come 'round. And if I gave them some nice why do I have a Tomb World?
Since Jon's advancing his borders along the galaxy's edges, he decides it looks like his empire is giving the galaxy "a great big hug."
Jon: If you wanted a less friendly analogy, as my symbol is literally a claw, you could say I've got my claws kind of dug into the galaxy, but I prefer the hug analogy.
Planet-crackers plus "-1 Perception" equals Jon taking ten minutes to realize that he hasn't conquered a system yet because...
Jon: We blew up the wrong planet! (hysterical laughter) I blew up the wrong world! I blew up that one and that's... [...] Okay, Rule #1 of having a Death Star: before you fire it, make sure you're aiming it at a planet you actually want to destroy, and not the planet next door.
When Jon cracks the last Raxar planet, he realizes the optics aren't good.
Jon: That's, that's Death Star genocide. That's gonna be a hard sell for the PR guys... that's really gonna be a hard sell...
In the aftermath of the War in Heaven, Jon checks the other empires' diplomatic modifiers towards him and has an unwelcome realization:
Jon: Strangely, some of these guys would actually, potentially be coming around to like me if I didn't have a Death Star. Some of these guys are like -400 but I've got a -495 off the Death Star, so... if I'd never built the Death Star, some of these guys would actually want to be my friends. I feel like there's a moral message in here, but I can't quite figure it out...
Jon decides there's too much rhino-turtle space where his borders ought to be, moves his fleets into position, and contacts the Fex'Klanga.
Jon: "How little you must accomplish in your chaotic, unstructured..." Okay, that's not cool (hits "Declare War"), they're the ones who started this, so, "Total War (Colossus)"...
When considering what to do with a rhino-turtle planet, Jon sees that it's currently undergoing a slave uprising and decides he's doing them a favor by destroying it.
YouTube comment: (Enslaved people rising up against their masters)
Oh good, maybe those mighty egalitarian guys will save us
(A Colossus warps into orbit)
After wiping out a Marauder enclave within his borders, Jon receives a message from the remnants promising vengeance, but gets distracted cooing over how adorable the alien is while retracting into its leafy shell.
Jon's plans are derailed when literally the entire galaxy wants to declare a War of Independence against the Athallid Enforcers. He joins in, but urges restraint, because he wants the Athallid around to help with the end-game crisis... but he doesn't alter his tactics either.
YouTube comment: Jon: guys, we need the Athalid around!
Also Jon: deploy the Death Star on the Athalid!
A glitch where graphics from the system view show up on the galactic map forces Jon to explain that despite his past actions, "I didn't blow up an entire section of the galaxy, it's just a visual bug, let's just look elsewhere."
Jon's mystified when his fleet decides to use their Jump Drives mid-battle to hop to a distant system, throwing a wrench in his deployment plans.
The war against the Athallid is derailed when Jon detects a galactic power surge, and the Unbidden arrive in the galaxy. More specifically, in...
Jon: It's in Belgium! The cocking Belgians...
Jon's doubly-irritated when the war of independence ends and it turns out he was fighting for another empire's independence, leaving him an Athallid client state whom the Athallid aren't actually that interested in defending against the Unbidden.
Jon: By the way, if you guys would like to get involved, it would be marvelous if you decided you wanted to do that, okay? That would just be great right now, because there is actually the end of the universe happening, so if you guys would, like, get involved, I'd really appreciate it!
A random insult from the Avabbian Star Combine provokes a confused "Who?"
Jon: Oh, right, it's the pen people, I think. So they've decided now is the time to start swearing at me, when I'm literally trying to save the cocking galaxy.
After the tide turns against the Unbidden and Jon gathers his forces for the final assault, he reminesces over his fleet's history, like General Security Fleet, Salvaged Fleet...
Jon: ...together with - oh, Fleet 23! Who could ever forget classic Fleet 23?
"We have destroyed the portal to Belgium! Never again will the bastard Beligans be able to threaten the galaxy! [...] 'The Tenets of Tabby have won much admiration,' is it going to be enough to offset the whole Death Star business? Because I'm not sure it actually is."
Jon discovers that he can just request independence from his Awakened Empire overlord, but due to diplomatic modifiers...
Jon: Any chance that I could... (mouses over "Cracked Our World: -3943") Probably they're not going to go for it.
Jon starts reverse-engineering the Awakened Empire's "Global Pacifier" Colossus weapon as part of his rebranding initiative.
Jon: Now, if I'm going to become the good guys of the galaxy - and I am - then my Death Star needs to stop blowing up planets, and instead just encase them in an impenetrable shield forever, which is better, definitely better.
After Jon wins a Domination Victory, he shares an unorthodox strategy with his viewers.
Jon: Because of course there's two ways to have 40% of all habitable planets: one, you actually take over 4/10ths of the galaxy, or two, have whatever percentage of the galaxy you do actually own, and then follow that up by blowing up all the other habitable planets, because eventually, you'll be up to 40% of the total! It's not exactly a good strategy, but it works.
"In the end, I think we can all agree, that I was the good guys. Because I saved the galaxy from the Unbidden. So whatever else was done, at various points, the thing to remember is: I saved the galaxy from Belgium. Alright? That, that there, that's the bit that matters."

Stellaris: Megacorp

Jon decides to experience the new expansion not as a regular MegaCorp, but as the Owlmerta Syndicate, an avian criminal syndicate run by a "Pirate King."
Jon: I've realized something, ladies and gentlemen, which is: every time I play Stellaris, I say "Okay, this time I'm going to play the good guys and not blatantly evil." And then, a couple of decades later, I'm the most evil bastard in the galaxy. So how about on this occasion, we get slightly ahead of the curve and just admit ahead of time, "Yeah, I'm probably just the bad guy, aren't I?"
The first thing Jon does after meeting his neighboring plant people is set up some Underground Clubs in their capital, bringing them the gift of music.
Jon: So I just snuck onto their planet at night, and set up an illegal rave, and they flippin' love it, alright? It is banging. With plants, every night. I'm not sure how plants at a rave works, precisely. Haven't been there myself. But I'm told the atmosphere there is incredible.
"First, let's just get this place scanned, and expand into it. Because while I wouldn't say that my empire looks entirely like a penis right now, it also doesn't look unlike a penis, so... just in case, I would like to change the shape of my empire as quickly as possible, so it stops looking like that."
Due to the fact that his Agri World may indeed grow corn, and in response to requests from the comments setion, Jon decides to rename his second colony from Abundance to Cornwall.
In Part 3, Jon discusses how megacorps get penalties that restrict how easily they can expand, and explains how in general, it's harder to play wide in version 2.2. Then he races his neighbors to claim a string of systems so he won't get penned-in and has access to the galactic rim.
Naturally, Jon gets the "dimension of suffering" event shortly after settling Cornwall.
Jon: I feel like maybe we should just close the portal? Like, our scientists have come to me and said "We've discovered a dimension of suffering, and it's located directly above our breadbasket, farming world." Maybe we should just, like, close that, that's probably the safest thing to do, right?
YouTube comment: (Hellish portal opens over Cornwall) King Connor, what did you do?
When sending an Insult to a rival empire, Jon's disappointed that it's more eloquent than personal.
Jon: Can we at least have said something about the tentacles?
"Also, perhaps worryingly, the Curators flagged this system up here as something of interest, without specifying what. But I can't help but notice that the Ganvius have not gone and colonized that sector, so I'm guessing that by 'of interest,' you mean 'oh god it's eating all our ships right now.' Let's not worry about that just for the time being..."
"Ooh, it's a mega-church! Fine, it's another megacorp except this time, yeah, it's more about converting everyone to Spiritualism, and would you believe they're actually Xenophiles so they can lure everyone into their church. Which is not going to work, because I'm sorry, but I find your neck really creepy, that's weird."
Jon ends up having terrible luck when it comes to keeping his Science Ships alive given all the Leviathans nearby.
Jon: Alright, recruit even more scientists, don't tell them what happened to the last scientists, now this time, please don't run into something that immediately murders you.
His bad luck continues when another world in his newly-colonized Prosperity system develops rhythmic pulses that devastate the planet's ecology. But Jon tries to put a good spin on things.
Jon: Meanwhile, the rhythmic pulses from the planet's core are, everyone agrees, pretty damn cool to dance to, so we've immediately started playing footage of the disaster in the plant dance clubs across Ganvius Prime.
"Also, weirdly the Citizen League of Ela Gaan have decided to actually lock me out of their empire, which is very odd because we're at +18 [Opinion] and, yeah, me and them pretty much agree on... everything. So, I'm really not sure what they've got against me, but alright. Maybe it's just things with tentacles on their faces. 'cause like, the Uthonians have tentacles and they hate me too."
When Jon does send a Science Ship over to that "of interest" system, sure enough, he finds another space monster sucking the life from a sun. And also sure enough...
Jon: So, we probably want to, like, get out of there actual-
(kaboom)
Jon: Nevermind. That is, what is that, the third Science Vessel that's exploded as the result of running into a Leviathan? I'm amazed people are still applying to this job!
Since he learned about one pointy-eared species after finding a xenophage's list of most flavorful sentients, Jon always refers to the Fareen Combine as the "tasty elves."
The xenophobic isolationist Maweer Caretakers greet Jon with "All we want is be left alone, is that such a difficult concept for a chicken to understand?"
Jon: Ooooh you shouldn't have said the C-word! Now we're gonna bomb you at some point, and it's gonna be your own fault!
In Part 5, Jon doesn't just claim a system five jumps away from his borders to keep the Ganvius from claiming a choice mining world, he also points out a chokepoint system for consideration if he wants to expand behind a Fallen Empire.
YouTube comment: Jon: "I'll play a Megacorp, they specialise in playing tall!" Also Jon: "I'll lock down a system 25 jumps away to make sure I have plenty of room to expand into in the future!"
Jon misses the planetary edict to make a world a more attractive host for the Galactic Market after nominating it for the role, and so shuffles a bunch of colonists back to his capital to increase the number of clerk jobs and thus trade value, even at the expense of the other aspects of his economy.
Jon: That's right, everybody needs to be working as a clerk. Whatever a clerk is, exactly. Alright, you guys just work in generic business building, just show up at nine, sit in your cubicle, pretend to type if anyone alien is being shown around, and we are going to be the Galctic Market, alright?
Jon's mystified when two xenophobic empires form the galaxy's first federation.
Jon: Yeah, these guys are xenophobe militarists, and next door the Rontor are xenophobe spiritualists. And apparently, all they can agree on is, they want to be left alone. And they want to be left so much alone, they've created a federation so they can want to be left alone togther, and maybe they'll invite other people who just want to be left alone into it.
Right when Jon's preparing to make the Gavinus a subsidiary, he gets the "Horizon Signal" event chain for the first time, and ends up exasperated by the constant interruptions.
Jon: Okay, how many more people do I need to feed this black hole before it actually gives me something flipping useful?
In Part 6, the Infinte Pond, delicious elves and some space dwarves form a federation of their own, but Jon doesn't approve of their red and black color scheme.
Jon: It's not evil, it's Materialist, but like, when you pick those colors, you can understand how people would come to the assumption that you're evil.
Jon does decide to claim the Aulderaan system to pen in the Uthonians, and promptly renames it Owlderaan.
The Uzhab Vortex isn't just an important chokepoint to hold against the Qiramulan Union, it also "occasionally reads me love poetry and does a little dance for me or something, so you know, it's nice to have it."
Jon does succeed in subjugating the Ganvius Bloc as his unwilling subsidiary, then discovers that they can't pay him much in the way of tribute.
Jon: You see, the problem with actually making subsidiaries in war is, I suspect I've actually destroyed these guys' economy. So right now their power is Pathetic, and... how exactly are they planning to recover? I think they're in a bit of a death spiral...
Jon sends the Foundling to investigate the "alien machine" anomaly, which results in an energy spike from a nearby star. Or in other words:
Jon: I'm sending a Science Vessel that was spat out by a poetic black hole to go and investigate a system that has just been probably negatively impacted by me pulling a random lever. There's no way this is all going to go wrong!
"There's more jobs than there are people. We need more actual people on this world to work our farms, so... we need to actually boost population. But I can't boost the population effectively right now because I don't actually have the, the food... to boost the population, without the population to grow the food ohhhhhhh bloody hell I've gone cross-eyed."
In Part 7, Jon notices that the nearby Valdari Trading Coalition has Pathetic fleet power and technology compared to his syndicate, and so decides he'd be doing them a favor by making them a subsidiary of his megacorp.
Jon: Don't think of this as conquest, think of this as... acquistion. Hostile acquisition, perhaps, but still acquisition, this is basically a promotion, alright? This is gonna work out brilliantly for you guys.
"Okay, now, now that we've got enough energy coming in off our slaves - I mean partners, down south..."
Jon continues to be baffled by the out-of-character Xenophobes on the other side of the galaxy.
Jon: Do you actually seriously have a migration treaty? You're xenophobes! You are xenophobes, alright? I guess you band together with other xenophobes to stop people from encroaching on your space, but you can't possibly want a migration treaty with other aliens, when - oh, never bloody mind.
With his subsidiaries secured, Jon goes to war with his other neighbors to redraw his borders, and in the process ends up having some moral dilemmas.
Jon: Right, so Rontus officially belongs to us, and by the way... is that a, is that a colony ship? (beat) Now, in some ways, bombing a colony ship feels kind of evil, doesn't it? So that feels like something you, you shouldn't do - is about to try to warp out? I assume it's trying to flee, okay, we will not pursue a colony ship, that's innocent civilians. Rontus Prime, however, that is totally a legitimate war target. Ooh, you've got - ooh. Venus flytraps. Bomb them! Bomb them from orbit! They've got Venus flytraps, and there's more of them growing!
On the other hand, Jon sees more of those plant aliens on the galactic slave market, and since they've got the Strong trait, they'd make good soldiers for his armies.
Jon: And honestly, if you are on a planet, and an invading force of Venus flytraps showed up, you would not stand and fight, you would give the hell up at that point!
Jon's excited to refurbish Fen Habbanis into his City Planet, but as its population continues to grow, he realizes he can't build any agricultural districts there to feed it.
Jon: We saw that in the flavor text - the problem, and the reason this planet fell apart in the first place, was because food was desperately required to keep it going, and they couldn't provide it. (cheerily) And the same thing's about to happen to me!
Part 9 is titled "Under the Knife" because Jon tries out gene-modding his empires' species to make them better at their jobs. Along with some "Ultimate Owl" warriors for his armies, Jon enhances his Romans into "Cunning Romans" to make them better researchers... then buys some more Romans from the galactic slave market and applies the default Roman gene template to all the Romans in his empire, undoing his progress.
Jon decides to do a land-grab against the Qiramulan while they're already bogged down in a multi-front war, brings all his subsidiaries and allies in, and immediately runs into a problem when he warps into the first system he's trying to claim.
Jon: Deploy the fleets and... I guess we technically can't actually take this territory, because... you guys [the Pellsimus Dynastic Union] have it right now. (beat) Um, yeah, what do we do about that, by the way? That's, that's gonna be a bit on the awkward side.
The good news is, the Qiramulan's war with the Pellsimus ends, so Jon's able to properly attack and occupy the system another empire had previously attacked and occupied. The bad news is, this frees up the Qiramulan to focus all their military on squashing Jon's invasion force.
Jon: Oh dear. I was kind of - okay guys, back out, back out for a second, we need to wait for reinforcements.
One of his neighbor's planets has had a branch office for Jon's criminal syndicate set up for so long that it's got the "Criminal Underworld" modifier, lowering its Trade Value. Which is actually bad for Jon, because he's more interested in that Trade Value than his branch office buildings.
Jon: Oh dear. Who knew that creating a massive illegal black market would have negative consequences?
It takes a bit of a slog, but Jon and the Qiramulan eventually settle their war with a Status Quo, meaning Jon gets a new prime Agri World to shore up his chronic food shortage!
Jon: Right, that war is over, but watch the food situation, because I'm hoping this will sort that out. Is this gonna sort this out? Aaand...
(a new month ticks over, and his monthly food production goes from -46 to -60)
Jon: It just got worse! Okay! So I'm guessing, this place just for the time being, is a little bit on the unhappy side, because of the - oh yeah, the Devastation. Yeah, that does make sense, there's quite a lot of Devastation right now, so right now you guys are... you're actually eating more food than you're producing. (beat) But, that's just for now! That's only for now, this is fine, as soon as that Devastation fades... which is gonna take a little bit of time to do, then, this will... this is gonna sort itself out, okay? This is going to be fine. This was a good idea for a war.
"Now do I want to get monthly food output increased by ten percent, or... I'd rather have ten percent trade value to be oh bloody hell! We're almost at starvation! Right, maybe I should go for Dietary Enrichment. Yes, that would be a good idea, I'm really glad I spotted that, sorry that's probably been stressing some of you out."
While subduing the Zik-Mok as his next subsidiary, Jon would like their worlds where he has branch offices to get high populations, so he can put down more buildings there. He just needs a way to encourage another empire's Pops to move around.
Jon: And the way to artificially boost other people's planets up to 50 [population], is by causing trouble on their main planet. So, I've got a plan! Which is, if we bomb their main world into dust...
To deal with his chronic economic problems, Jon decides to build as many Alloy Foundries as possible on Fen Habbanis.
Jon: Then we can mass-produce even more Alloys, sell them, make even more money, use that money to buy more Minerals, virtuous cycle of infinite money that is definitely not going to lead to a galactic market crash at any point!
YouTube comment: Let's watch Jon play Stellaris: Economic Collapse and Mass Starvation.
By Part 11, Jon has renamed his forge world "The Beast," because of the amount of times he's told himself he needs to "feed the beast."
Jon is struggling to keep up with his booming population's various needs, which isn't helped by his habit of picking new species to add to his empire by liberating Pops from the galactic slave market.
Jon: What I should really probably do is, just for a minute, stop buying more slaves. Aside from the fact that - ooh. We are a bit shy on consumer goods, if I bought just like one more slave - like, I can stop any time. I do not need to keep buying slaves, this is a choice that I make...
Once again, a pirate outpost pops up to wreck Jon's trade routes while he's attacking another neighbor.
Jon: Why does this always happen every time I go to war? And also, why did I not do the precise thing I mentioned last time, where I actually said "I'll leave a small force at home to deal with any problems that emerge?"
Jon ends his war against the Pelisimus, but instead of achieving his war aim of making them a new subsidiary, he settles for "status quo" after occupying all their systems. The net result is that they get to keep their homeworld, while everything else becomes a subject of Jon's empire that copies his ethics and government. But he can't put down any branch office's in their territory, because...
Jon: Oh no. Because you're literally me, you're actually a mega-corporation, aren't you? Balls! This means I accidentally turned them into a megacorp too, which means I can't actually plant any of my stuff on their systems! That's a shame. There were kind of enough megacorps in the galaxy, to be honest, we didn't need any more...
In Part 12, due to the Worm's influence, the next colony Jon settles shows signs of previous habitation, and while he's wary, he also wants to see how the event chain plays out.
Jon: Right. Who wants to work on Glacier, because we have just got jobs galore over here, including farmers! Who wants to work on the weird, supernatural Loop Farm, it's fine, it's definitely not a problem.
"Like, is this potentially a colony that we ourselves built, or maybe like, we're currently building the colony that's gonna go back 'round to the... Time is Up, and Yes is Water, and all of that business."
Jon starts a war with the Uthonians, but creating a new subsidiary is only a secondary objective. Instead, what he really wants is to get all his allies following his main fleet, so he can do something about the Voidspawn that has been camping the Prosperity system for the past eight episodes.
Jon: Alright, guys? This is it, this is the moment we've all been waiting for. Aside from those of you who thought you were coming for a war with the Uthonians. Uh, you guys probably aren't expecting this, but it's actually why we were here, the whole time.
Jon decides to give the new "Xeno-Compatability" Ascension Perk a try, because "I think it would be remiss of me not to take this one."
Jon: This basically means, we've figured out a way to of making, like, the alien doodad fit in the other alien thingy-ma-jib, and actually produce children.
Jon, a Criminal Syndicate, gets the "Smuggler Outpost" event chain on a primitive world he's observing.
Jon: Oh dear, well we are certainly not keen on smugglers and criminals in our own empire - oh. Hang on.
Admiral Jon versus the Voidspawn.
Jon: Okay, stay back for the time being, stay back for the- (klaxon) Nevermind, we are engaging, we are engaging! [...] Why are you guys not engaged! Guys! Engage! Bloody hell, we're not actually engaging with our full fleet!
"Yeah, go on then, we'll build a terrifying pyramid to the Worm, that's not weird at all."
When going through with "The Messenger" event chain, Jon responds with an "I'm sorry, you did WHAT?!" when the pop-up gets to the part about a retrovirus transforming his population. But he decides to roll with it.
Jon: (laughing) Y'know what? You only live once, let's do it! I'm a master of genetic engineering, if need be I can just change them back again. Right, what have I just done?
Jon wonders why his energy credits income has crashed before realizing it's due to the costs of war.
Jon: Oh, we're extremely dependent on the [alloys] trades I've made, and I've been spending too many alloys refreshing the fleet, so there's no alloys to actually sell. Ooh, that's, that's a problem. Yeah, yeah that's a major problem, actually. That should sort itself out next month, because now I do have enough alloys to meet my commitments, unless I don't have enough money to... purchase the minerals, that I need to sell that something something... I think we're okay. Probably. Yeah, I sold the alloys, but afterward I didn't have enough money to buy the minerals, but we've got a stockpile of minerals so, bloody hell the new economy is great!
At the end of the "Worm in Waiting" event chain, which drastically alters Jon's home system, he realizes:
Jon: So, is this now a - yep, that's now a black hole. So, again, if nobody told the Galactic Market station what was actually going on, we should really tell them, because they're probably really confused what's happened to the actual sun they were supposed to be floating around. Ohhhhh bloody hell...
Jon's extremely reluctant to trust Stellaris' sector AI, but he does decide to follow the comments section's advice to cut down his administrative costs by making some of his colonies into vassals, and so he lets the planet Cornwall become independent, "and when I say 'free' I mean, y'know, a subjugated vassal. But free-er than they are right now." An hour later, when he checks on his Cornish subjects, he makes an unpleasant discovery.
Jon: Happiness is currently at 4%, crime is at 22%... Okay, so as it turns out, they are completely incapable of governing themselves, great. [...] So you guys have basically entered a death spiral at this point, where something ran out, which led to a fall in stability, which led to... okay, so Cornwall's a failed state, I've basically just created a failed state inside the heart of my own empire, how's Glacier doing? Also a complete failed state, marvelous. So if you were one of the people in the comments who was encouraging me to get my admin cap down by creating vassals, I hope you're very proud of yourselves, because every dead Cornish person is on your conscience.
With the "Gene Warriors" army unlocked, Jon declares that "there's no way this can go wrong, like I've seen so many films with genetically-enhanced super soldier programs, and the never go horribly wrong, it always works out just fine." He does draw the line at gene-boosting the Venus flytraps, though.
Jon wants to make amends for how the Tenets of Tabby brutalized the adorable starfish molluscoid species, so he tries to forcibly vassalize an empire that had been bullying similar aliens in his current game in Operation: Save the Adorable Starfish.
Jon: I mean, that feels like the right thing to do to me. Like, I'm not being the bad guy here, these guys are the bad guys, I mean just look at that them, that's blatantly the bad guy.
Jon invites his Tiyal friends to join the war, but once again, despite the prompt indicating their willingness to join, they veto the war declaration.
Jon: Okay, we're not inviting the Tiyals again. You know what, we're just going to eat the Tiyals at some point, they're beginning to annoy me.
"Oh flip, we're invading Qiramulan space, and at the same time, the Qiramulan are trying to-" (ZAP) "NO! No, why would you have done that?! Did you just annihilate a colony ship, with a single shot?! Who gave that order?! That was civilians! It wasn't a war craft! Okay, I may possibly be the bad guy here."
The punchline of the war against the Sakyl is that even after Jon wins and makes the bugs another subsidiary that borders the adorable starfish, this doens't do anything to the "distance" penalty that prevented the starfish from becoming his Voluntary Vassal.
Jon keeps expanding his Forge World's alloy production, requiring another huge investment of minerals to refurbish an arcology.
Jon: The Beast will not destroy me, alright? It's either going to make me win, or it's going to make me lose. Like, there's no middle ground here, it's not going to just sit there as a passenger, it's either going to destroy me or let me conquer the entire galaxy, I'm not sure which.
"We could ship off the Technicians, we're probably okay for... when I say 'we're okay for Energy,' we're losing 262 a month right now, I'm not even quite sure why, but it seems bad."
"But I now know what the problem is - it's that I'm just not producing enough alloys, so get more foundry arcologies underway here. What's that? Unemployed people, you say? Well I think I know what's happening to you! To the Beast you go!"
The Tasty Elves declare the Tenets of Tabby their rival, making it quite likely that the elves' federation partner, the Infinite Pond, will conquer the Tabbies' empire.
Jon: I think Tabby might be about to be eaten by a duck. Which is quite ironic, because for Christmas we got Tabby a bag of treats that were duck-flavored and yeah, I think they're out for revenge.
On the bright side, Jon is ecstatic that the adorable starfish voluntarily become his subsidiary.
Jon: Oh, this is great! I finally made amends for the horrifying murder of the starfish in the Apocalypse run, alright? That sin has now been wiped from my conscience.
Jon subjugates the Rontor, making roughly a third of the galaxy his vassal, willing or otherwise. Which might actually be problematic.
Jon: We've got ourselves... possibly, worryingly too many vassals. I mean, I have got a good fleet, sure, but a single bad encounter with a leviathan, or a Great Khan, my fleet could be half-gone. And then my vassals together could be stronger than me, quite possibly. And that would be... worrying.
By Part 15, the situation in Cornwall deteriorates even further, to the point that Glacier declares a war of independence from its sister world.
Jon wants to see what's in the L-Cluster, but he's also wary enough to want to do it well away from his borders, in case there's something horrible in it. So he decides to claim a rival's system to take control of their L-Gate.
Jon: If it's a disaster, then it doesn't matter, because that's not my neighborhood. Basically, I'm going to use the L-Gates like a Weapon of Mass Destruction, and just trigger it on the far side of the galaxy from me, and then sit back and laugh as it eats everyone else, and then stop laughing if it - it wouldn't get to my side of the galaxy, would it? Okay, if it does, then we'll fight it off, but for the time being, we don't need to worry about it.
Starting a major war just to claim that one L-Gate system leads to ironic timing when Jon picks his next Ascension Perk.
Jon: You know what, I will want "Defender of the Galaxy," I'll just take it now, let's just get that done. That's useful, because it also gives you, yeah, everyone's opinion increased by 20. Because I'm planning to defend the galaxy, and apparently you don't need to have defended the galaxy for everyone to like you, you can just go around saying "Yep, Defender of the Galaxy," and everyone's like "Ah, you know what, that guy's alright. He's defending the galaxy. There's nothing to defend the galaxy from right now, aside from like him, he's basically what the galaxy needs defending from. But he's still alright!"
Sure enough, Jon gets the Gray Tempest event, and reads the pop-up explaining that it's not just coming out of the L-Gate he activated, but all of them.
Jon: Ooh, it's not just me, it's everything! Oh that's bad. What if they come to - UH-OH. What if they're somewhere else in the empire? (cackling) Oh, I've just basically ruined everything.
The bad news is that most of the L-Gates happen to be within or close to Jon's borders. The good news is that if the Tempest fleets clear out some of his vassals' systems, he'll get a chance to claim some territory he'd rather own personally.
Jon: This is a crisis, but is it not also an opportunity?
Jon's been supporting his economy by selling Consumer Goods for Energy Credits on the galactic marketplace, but after he hits the cap on his Consumer Goods stockpile, he dumps thousands of them. One in-game year later, Jon finally notices that he's been losing hundreds of credits a month because he's crashed the market for the things, and tries selling even more to fix his economy.
YouTube comment: And in economic news the empire is experiencing the worst recession it has ever seen with the treasury loosing almost 1k energy credits every month, and it appears that our leader hasn't noticed
Another comment: "Right so the Consumer Goods are selling for nothing. Well I'm prepared to be paid very little and sell a lot more." Can someone explain hyperinflation to Jon? XD
"Okay, so you've got two worlds called Nirium and one world named Narium. This, this is why you didn't do well on the galactic stage, alright? Confusion."
Jon's annoyed when he spots the Caravaneers but doesn't get the project to open communications, because "you're part of the DLC that's the paid part of the DLC, and you're refusing to speak with me."
Although it's a dangerous technology to pursue, Jon decides to upgrade his Droids to full-blown, self-aware Synths.
Jon: It should be fine, if they come to me and say they want rights, they can have rights, alright? They can have as many flipping rights as they want, no problem whatsoever. And if anyone wants to have sex with the robots, that's okay too! And if one of the robots somehow gets pregnant, with an artificial womb, and creates a half-robot, half-owl, half-Roman, half-starfish, that's okay! That's cool! I'm a hundred percent okay with all of that!
Jon kicks off Part 17 by announcing that he has a plan - "that's right, I've got a plan, everybody just flippin' panic, get it out of your system now."
While looking over the species in his empire, Jon's horrified to find six half-breed Lozavata subspecies, because it means people have been having sex with the giant Venus flytraps.
"Okay, that's good, apparently I'm so good at the stock market now that all my... generators produce more energy, because... reasons."
Jon decides to name a new Gaia World "Eden Prime," which means he has to rename a disappointing colony he founded a previous episode from that to "Eden Turned Out To Be Not That Great."
Since Jon doesn't want a War in Heaven happening on his side of the galaxy, he decides to nip one of the Fallen Empires in the bud and declares a war of conquest before it can wake up. One minute he's cheering about his "beautiful rainbow coalition" of allied empires following his main fleet, the next he notices that his war exhaustion has jumped from 20% to 99% because it's saying his side has lost 308 armies in ground battles.
Jon: What is going on here? The only way that's - oh NO. Please tell me that you idiots didn't decide to throw your troops at their world, and that's what's going on here?
This turns the war from a curb-stomp to a desperate race to conquer heavily-defended worlds before Jon's forced to peace out, and sadly he only manages to get the Archives when the war ends. He ships a ton of unemployed Pops there, realizes the planet is already overpopulated and underemployed, then realizes that thanks to his Social Welfare policy, all those unemployed Pops are giving him a ton of Unity to spend on Unity Ambitions.
Jon: I've accidentally been a genius!
By Part 19, Jon has a colony named Eden Prime Prime.
Jon finally gets to chat with the Caravaneers, and is eager to "blow my entire empire's economy on Loot Boxes, because that's got to be a good idea." Several minutes later...
Jon: I believe that was about a decade's worth of income from my entire empire I just spent on that. You know what? I think it's probably time to walk away, until they have more loot boxes for us.
During the second war against the Fallen Empire, the enemy uses Jump Drive to bypass Jon's fleet and slaughter his army as as it's packed in defenseless transports.
Jon: Okay. I'll give 'em, that was clever, that they just did that. 'cause now that they've done that, how am I supposed to land on their main world? Okay, you know what? If you're determined not to be invaded, I guess you won't be invaded, I guess what I'll do instead is devastate you down to the last man. I will bomb your people into non-cocking-existence! Is that what you want, because that's what's going to happen now!
After finally conquering the Fallen Empire, and gaining access to a new Ecumenopolis and several well-built planets with unique, powerful structures on them, Jon decides to... make them a vassal and give them away. While he's pleased with the resulting boost to his research speed, he eventually notices the food, mineral and consumer goods deficits he's now running.
Jon: I've got out of it a huge amount of money and - ooh. Apparently my economy was a little more dependent than I thought on The Archive...
Jon gets to name a colony The Robots Told Us To after he settles it to please the Ancient Caretakers.
The Ganvius are so bad at suppressing piracy, which keeps shutting down Jon's trade routes through their territory, that he considers freeing his subsidiary just so he can claim some of their uninhabited systems in a war of conquest and protect them properly.
When the War in Heaven starts, Jon ends up leading the League of Non-Aligned Powers, and as more and more nations break off their old alliances to join his, Jon's ecstatic that the Infinite Pond, Pax Romana, and Tenets of Tabby have all joined his sort-of-federation, so he's "got the full flipping sweep!" Which means that his greatest diplomatic triumph came during the game where he was explicitly trying to play as the "bad guy," instead of his earlier attempts at federation-building that devolved into exploding planets.
"I think the starfish are going around, taking planets for the Romans! Aww, that's lovely, Romans and starfish, hand-in-hand! Oh that's beautiful, there ought to be songs written about that."
Jon's able to slaughter most of the Zelvan's fleets by sending the Murder of the Fallen to bait them into following it into the L-Cluster, where the rest of his forces promptly form a firing line. He admits that "the AI could maybe do with a bit of work here, because they're pretty damn dumb."
Jon: Do they not know what is going on? They must realize this keeps happening. But no, they keep walking in. "Okay, fine, every other previous army was slaughtered, but this one won't be, oh no, hang on, yes they are."
Then the War in Heaven takes a dramatic turn when Jon notices that the other Fallen Empire is inches from taking the homeworld of the Tenets of Tabby, so Jon desperately redeploys to save his cat empire from being invaded by Xenomorph Armies. Unfortunately, it's not quite enough.
Jon: NO! No, they took Lux! The Tenets of Tabby's gone... it's gone... I couldn't save them... I'm genuinely really sad!
"Ooh, apparently we've got a critical shortage of Rare Crystals, which is surprising, because I thought we were like, you know, buying them. Are we not buying them? Why are we not buying them... right, apparently we're making a massive loss of them, uh, buy... wait, what? Where's... okay, apparently I've not got any money. This is fine, everything's under control..."
Between multiple war fronts and his fleets bugging out and refusing to fight, it takes several minutes for Jon to notice that the Beast is experiencing mass unrest and a crime wave, and why that's happening.
Jon: Ah, part of the problelm might be that I've got no Consumer Goods, that would upset everyone, yes.
First the War in Heaven refuses to end because of how war exhaustion and planetary occupation are applied to it, then Jon's efforts to secure a decisive victory are stymied by a neutral power closing its borders. So he has to start a side war.
Jon: You guys didn't have to be dicks. You could have just said, "Oh, I see you're just passing through, that's no problem whatsoever," but nooooo, nonononono, you had to go and make the war difficult. So now, it's your flipping war, have fun with it.
All the territory Jon gains from his total war completely drains Jon's economy, and all the Alloy sales have depreciated their value so he can't support himself that way. So he tries selling Consumer Goods to stay afloat.
Jon: Right, sell huge numbers of those immediately, just to keep us going, and then start actually selling some of them [each month], sell Consumer Goods, I'm making... yeah, I'm making a monthly gain of a thousand. So how about we just sell a few hundred of them at a minimum price of... okay, 0.36 because I literally just flooded the market. (beat) Set no minimum price, do it anyway!
YouTube comment: Ok, so I have a Master's degree in Economics. Watching you flood the markets for food and alloys, and try to stabilize by... flooding the market further... it hurts.
"Yeah, at this point basically we're just feeding slaves to xenomorphs, but some of the xenomorphs have gotten really sad and they're running away. So that's... that's good. And now the slaves are just going to beat the xenomorphs to death, job flippin' done. I'm so sorry. Can we maybe free the slaves after we're done with this war? Because I feel like they deserve to be freed."
Even after a ceasefire with Awakened Empire and completely conquering the other, the War in Heaven continues because all of the defeated Xenophobes' vassals are still fighting.
Jon: So to be clear at this point, we have a War in Heaven going on that does not involve any Fallen Empires, at all. It involves one federation versus a bunch of thralls, who are blatantly not thralls because... they can't be thralls! They're not thralls, because they don't have anyone to be thralling to! In fact, what's going on?! Why is this war still happening?!
As Jon's economy continues to collapse, he breaks down all the starbases in his conquered territory, docks his fleets to reduce upkeep costs, and hits the galactic market to dump more Alloys.
Jon: But that should have a good impact on the deficit, hopefully... Okay it had no impact whatsoever, literally no impact, that did not help in the slightest. [...] Okay, Plan B: accept bankruptcy.
In the War in Heaven's aftermath, Jon gives away most of his conquered territory to allies or creates vassals from them, leaving him the leader of a federation that emcompasses most of the galaxy. Which he promptly leaves, because as a criminal megacorp, federations "aren't really my thing."
YouTube comment: Jon has now:
- Conquered less advanced civilizations and expanded his own territory
- Found the empire too large to handle, had to release large parts of it as autonomous states.
- Left these states poor and undeveloped
- Led an alliance of major powers in a large war
- Left the alliance in peacetime to recover 50 fleet capacity/week and control his borders
This is a perfect recreation of the British empire. Well done
This leaves the League of Non-Aligned powers under the leadership of the robotic Shazarak, who Jon has always got along with.
Jon: I do like the Shazarak, me and the Shazarak get on just fine. (opens diplomacy tab to see a -76 opinion from them) I just didn't feel like I was - oh. We were getting on just fine. Then apparently we weren't anymore... Right. Well, we're not at war with each other, and they're probably not going to be stupid enough to attack me. Or at lest - oh, I really hope they're not. Right. Anyway...
The Xenophile Awakened Empire defeats the Earth Custodianship with a superweapon that deploys an impenetrable force field around its target. Or in other words:
Jon: Basically, a giant empire of sentient robots whose only desire is to collect bio-trophies and make them comfortable forever, has been locked behind a force field where they will never again see another biological entity, and thus they have nothing to pamper. Okay, that's possibly the cruelest thing you could possibly have done, you xenophile bastards, but whatever, go for it.
Jon sets up a branch office on repose, with an Executive Retreat so everyone can come and pet Tabby, but since "Tabby is not really much of a dancer, I'm going to replace the Dance Club, which I think she'd find a bit loud and frightening, with some Illicit Research Labs, where we can develop new food and treats to give to Tabby."
First Jon is delighted to finally get the Prethoryn Scourge rather than another Unbidden invasion, then his decision to spare one of the Awakened Empires pays off when the Zelvan Arbitrators proceed to all but solo the first wave of the endgame crisis.
Jon: Right, I'm goin' home, I'm just going to actually go home, in fact, because I feel like the Zelvans are going to do this for me. I laid the ground work, dammit, I'm perfectly happy to let the Zelvans do the heavy lifting.
After Jon's anti-Scourge fleets help wipe out the invaders proper in a shockingly swift war, he decides for his next game, he'll be "whacking every difficulty slider like very, very far up, alright, no more Mister Nice Game. Next time we play this, it's going to be something bloody extreme, alright?"

Stellaris - The Impossible Run

During his "Impossible Run," Jon notices that his Space Romans on the other side of the galaxy are being steadily destroyed by some Determined Exterminators, and is happy to welcome their refugees. He immediately colonizes a "New Rome" just for the humans, but notices that the planet has the "abandoned terraforming equipment" modifier, and since doing nothing will saddle the colony with a happiness penalty, he decides to push the button and hope for the best. A short time later and the once-temperate world is a desert full of mutant horrors that are eating the Roman colonists.
Jon: So in conclusion, I invited a bunch of refugees into my empire, set up a wonderful habitat for them, and then activated completely untested technology, which has unleashed a terrifying, horrible war on their world, when they were fleeing a terrible, horrifying war... Okay, so, this is fine, I'm a monster.
The sixth episode of the Impossible Run is titled "I Have a Plan." Cue anxiety in the comments section.
Jon decides to plunge his corner of the galaxy into a multi-front war so he can grab a few neighboring systems, but with the main objective of securing a ten-year peace treaty against his most threatening neighbor so he can try a corporate takeover war against a rival megacorp on the other side of the galaxy.
Jon: I mean, it's probably a catastrophically stupid military adventure, but I want to do it anyway. And it basically gives me a legitimate excuse to bully the Hulfassans for being a bunch of dicks.
The end result of the "peace treaty" war is that Jon attains his objectives, while the allies he dragged into the fight lose several systems to their rivals due to Jon settling for a "status quo" result rather than a full victory.
Jon: I'm kind of screwing over the Baviir right now... I'm really screwing over the Baviir right now. But, I would get what I want, and in many ways that's the most important thing.
Highlights of the war against the T'Jell Monopoly include Jon declaring war on a nation on the other side of the galaxy before sending his fleet on the two-year voyage to enemy territory, sending his actual troop transports even later, two enemy fleets spazzing out and twirling in place, and his own fleet getting stuck in combat against enemy ships they're not attacking, forcing Jon to use the "emergency FTL" feature to break off the combat, and then realizing that he has no idea where he just sent his invasion force to. But somehow it all works out and the Snivlet Friendship takes over two profitable new branch offices! And then Jon checks what's happening in the galactic east.
Jon: I just fought a war to get ahold of the branch office on The Brightest Quack, which I've just invested heavily into. The Brightest Quack is now just a single jump away from the killbots.
Jon explains why having Pristine Jewel, a Gaia World on the other side of the galaxy from his homeworld, is so important:
Jon: (matter-of-factly) It's worth it for me to hedge my bets, because at some point, I'm going to be destroyed.
While planning his campaign against the Zero Index, Jon realizes that the positive diplomacy modifiers from having a shared enemy are going to do wonders for his international relations.
Jon: So as it turns out, a giant swarm of killbots who everyone agrees are dicks, that's going to be how the galaxy makes friends, because everyone will agree they have a common enemy - aw, that's brilliant, the Zero Index have accidentally saved me.
Jon insists that the Zero Index's robot population are not being Purged from the worlds he conquered, because he's not using skull icons during the process. "These are killbots, we're deactivating them. This is no more murder than unplugging a toaster."
Jon moves a ton of Pops around to build up Fen Habannis, his City Planet, and experiences a crash in his food and consumer goods production. Luckily he has edicts to compensate.
Jon: Education! Hurray! Recycling! Hurray! Healthcare! Hurray! Capacity Overload! Hurray! Farming Subsidies! Ah, marvelous. Right, I've solved all my problems by throwing money at them, great.
After spending most of an episode on reorganizing his empire and watcing the Zero Index dwindle away, Jon suddenly gets the "Subspace Echoes" event pop-up.
Jon: ...Uh oh. Oh no. Oh nonononononono - okay, so... It's been going well. I mean, we had a good run. We had a great run. Absolutely spectacular run. We have done so, so well, so far. It's been great. I hope you enjoyed this series, it's been a good series as far as I'm concerned.
"It's going to be okay, it's not going to be okay, it might be okay."
When he sees the invaders' predicted entry points on the galactic rim, Jon has an unwelcome realization:
Jon: If I'd just left the Zero Index alone, and basically let them dominate that entire quadrant of the galaxy, there is actually a decent chance the Zero Index would have been able to give the Swarm a decent fight, and potentially at the bare minimum have slowed them down enough that I'd have time to get myself set up properly, but, ah, that's not going to be a thing anymore, because the Zero Index is about to cease to exist. So basically, by saving the galaxy, I have doomed it.
To prepare for the fight against the Scourge, Jon switches his empire's trade policy from "Consumer Benefits" to "Marketplace of Ideas" to try to get some Ascension perks. Fifteen minutes later...
Jon: One other advantage, actually, this is a bit of a morbid one... yeah, as these guys start destroying occupied systems with actual, you know, planets on them, and as a result of that, there'll be a massive refugee crisis across the galaxy. And when that happens, yeah, all those people, probably, will flee to me because I've got open borders, so as a result of that, yeah, massive increase in Pops, we can get them to work on Fen Habannis, so... That'll give me a bit of an advantage too, also what the hell just happened to my economy?
YouTube Comment: Jon did more damage to his empire than the Scourge did.
So while the Prethoryn Scourge begins consuming the galaxy, Jon spends an hour-long episode trying to stabilize his tanking economy by shuffling Pops around, revamping his infrastructure, belatedly automating the menial jobs, and making some questionable trade deals.
Jon: I can prop up my economy by selling my own empire! Which is probably not a great idea, but screw it, if they're willing to pay I'm willing to sell it.
"This is how we're going to defeat the Scourge, if we defeat them, which we won't, but this is how we'll give them at least a fair battle."
"Yes, we have got ourselves some beautiful, beautiful refugees! Good, good-good-good, I mean I'm very, very sad and sorry for your loss."
In Part 11, Jon has saved his economy from himself and is climbing the tech ladder so that he can build fleets designed to hard-counter the Scourge. So naturally he decides now's the time to open the L-Gates and hope something horrible spills out into Scourge space.
Jon: Because, when you're being invaded by bears, what you need is, like, different types of bears, bears that hate each other. We're just going to set the bears against the bears and everything's going to be fine, alright, when winter rolls around all the bears will freeze to death.
It only takes a couple of minutes for Jon to realize that maybe unleashing unending hordes of nanomachine fleets that can strike from any L-Gate in the galaxy, and not just the L-Gates near the Prethoryn Scourge, might not have been such a good idea.
YouTube Comment: In this episode Jon falls back on the Godzilla Threshold.
EDIT: Never mind, he falls back on the true and tried tactic of unleashing bears on the fire fighters during a forest fire.
Once he researches Experimental Subspace Navigation, Jon manages to hop a Science Ship into Scourge space to start the "Wounded Queen" event, acquiring his very own Domesticated Prethoryn Queen! ...Deep, deep inside enemy territory, and unable to make a jump to bypass the Hyperspace Lanes crawling with Scrouge doomstacks. What follows is several minutes of Jon trying to sneak the Queen out while the Scourge is busy, which ends with Jon's fledgling Domesticated Prethoryn fleet getting curb-stomped. But then minutes later, some of those ships manage to escape to friendly territory, allowing him to rebuild his own swarm! Except it turns out that the ships are actually pretty crap for their fleet cost. So to free up his Naval Capacity, Jon throws his tamed Prethoryns against the Scourge and gets them all killed... and notices that his Naval Capacity hasn't gone down.
Jon: Right, possibly I've just killed a free fleet. But that's okay, it was useless anyway.
Jon starts an episode with another installment of "Things That Jon Got Wrong," and explains that he's been misinterpreting one of the game's Traditions thinking that it only applies its increased ship firing rate to fleets within his borders, when it actually triggers if you're in a defensive war. "But it's been making me feel better, alright? There's been a really important psychological benefit to me thinking that for the past few decades."
Already struggling to contain both the Prethoryn Scourge and the Gray Tempest, Jon's response to the Great Khan arising is a Rapid-Fire "No!"... at least until he sees which Marauders have woken up and how close they are to the Scourge.
Jon: Okay, never mind, this is gonna work out beautifully! They're just going to absolutely eat Tabby, and then they're going to be very, very useful indeed! Okay, marvelous! I take back all of the "no!"s, it's now nothing but "yes!"
Unfortunately, this doesn't go according to plan either, because of who the Raltek Horde decides to antagonize.
Jon: Yeah, the Great Khan decided to basically run straight into an Awakened Ascendancy, so that's... that's unfortunate for you, isn't it?
Jon decides he'll combat the Scourge with a Colossus, not to blow up planets but to pacify them with an impenetrable force field, so future generations can study the Scourge trapped below.
Jon: Just to make the point, this giant world-destroying monstrosity shall be called Salvation. This is a Salvation-class Colossus, and that means we're the good guys.
"Also, I just noticed that um, yeah, Rubicon is producing 144 Trade Value that we're not collecting right now because I never actually upgraded the station. So that's good, that's good, well done me, basically."
Jon realizes that battleships and heavy cruisers aren't the best anti-piracy task force, but he has a more appropriate fleet to spare - the survivors of his tamed Prethoryn brood.
Jon: They're completely garbage, we don't want them as part of the main fleet, so, we can just basically leave them here as a message: don't be a pirate, or we will eat you.
A planetary event involving a strange portal ends up leading to a "Dimension of Suffering."
Jon: You know what, give it a few years, it'll probably be nicer than where we live.
For a Cry Laughing sort of funny, Jon spends a great deal of time and resources successfully defending the Selnoc system, using its Gateway to instantly reinforce his anti-Scourge fleet. When he sees several Scourge swarms idling in neighboring systems, he decides to send his forces on a jaunt across the galaxy, at which point the Scourge dogpiles Selnoc. And Jon realizes his trouble goes beyond a single lost system.
Jon: Oh flip... the Gateways! Okay, they can't use the Gateway network... unless they own both sides, or it is an unclaimed Gateway. Now they do own a Gateway. They own a Gateway over... yeah, they own a Gateway up there. And now they've taken - oh, no wonder they were desperately waiting for a chance to get Selnoc! Now they've got a Gateway, they can now teleport troops from one side of the empire to the other... and I have no way of stopping them.
And then he notices that they're trying to take Terminal Egress, which would give them access to the galaxy's L-Gate network as well.
Jon: Oh no, what have I done?! I've accidentally doomed us all! The Gateway network's actually gonna hand them the keys to the entire cocking galaxy! Aw, they're all going! Oh no! Nononono - what do I do?!
To plug his Minerals deficit, Jon belatedly settles all the Worm-created habitable worlds in his home system: New Snorf, New New Snorf, New New New Snorf...
Having lost his chokepoint system, and abandoning Terminal Egress to turtle in his home territories, Jon decides to focus on fortifying the route from the L-Gate within his borders. Then he notices something.
Jon: There is however one, um, small problem I've just realized, by the way. I was thinking we could just hold out here in the south down at Howoz and we'd be fine. Because y'know, obviously they're coming from the south. But, um... they're actually not. Because I remembered, of course, over in Reshell... there's also a wormhole. Guess where the wormhole goes - oh, it's literally right next to Scourge space. In fact there are actually three fleets inside that space, right now, possibly going straight towards the wormhole, so... that's great, that's just great, thank you for leading them into my space, that's just brilliant. So! We're going to be attacked by both sides, because by sheer coincidence we've got flipping wormholes all over our cocking empire.
By this point the comments section is wondering when Jon will start tossing pens around, promising wonder weapons to win the war, and insisting that a general will lead a counter-attack from the north to salvage the situation.
Jon decides to take a break from cowering in his home systems to invade a neighboring Fallen Empire for its technology and infrastructure, hence the episode title, "Screw It, Let's Start Another War, That Will Fix Everything." And instead of landing armies on all the Fallen Empire's colonies, he sends in a Colossus with a Global Pacifier to seal them behind impenetrable force fields.
Jon: Bear in mind, this is not murder, it's not a Death Star. The people living on this planet, they can just, you know, keep living here, whoever they are. I hope they're very, very happey indeed.... No, we're not saying "Tap on the glass and watch them squirm," that is not the Xenophile way!
He also tries to claim the moral high ground by attacking the Fallen Empire's own Colossus.
Jon: How about we go and save the galaxy by destroying the only other Death Star out there, because I'd say we can all agree I'm the only person who can be trusted with a Death Star.
Jon really wants The Core and all its incredibly-advanced production buildings, but another empire is invading at the same time, and manages to land ground troops first. But he's sure the game mechanics are in his favor.
Jon: I mean I think as I've got the starbase, I get everything by default, because starbases take precedence over everything. Plus, I have a claim down on this system which I got down ages ago, so I think it goes to me. [...] If so, that would be a huge pile of alloys and money, that basically is just for free, it's beautiful!
(Smash Cut to...)
Jon: The Core has just been occupied by the Kilik Cooperative!
Then Jon decides that he doesn't need the Core after all, and to end the war and his secure his claims on the Fallen Empire's territory, uses his Colossus on two planets other star nations are currently occupying.
Jon: Are you guys gonna object to this? Is this a war crime?
Now that his fleets are upgraded with Fallen Empire technology, Jon goes on the offensive with enough firepower to massacre Scourge fleets even when they try to catch him out of position.
Jon: Oh yeah, they thought they could get around the back of me, but oh dear, this plan's boomeranged on you, hasn't it? Like a space - wait, would a boomerang - no a boomerang wouldn't - wait, hang on - no, a boomerang wouldn't work in space, presumably...
With the tide turning, the other empires in the galaxy begin retaking Scourge territory and sending their fleets to support Jon on the front line against the swarm-
Jon: Nope, never mind, they decided to retreat before anything interesting happened, because of course they have. Oh, but guess who has shown up just in time! It's the flipping Iztrans and they have fifty thousand, which is not nothing! So guys, if you'd like to - guys? Guys, would you like to get involved? No, they've decided they can't be bothered, they're just going to stay back and let me do all the work.
As Jon leads the counter-invasion of Scourge space, and carves its fleets into chunks...
Jon: You know, I like to think back on Snorf right now, Scourge flesh has just become - well it was a delicacy, but then we just kind of flooded the market with it, so now it's what everybody eats, you know it's just good, cheap, wholesome food.
With the Scourge all but exterminated from the galactic northeast, Jon realizes the fight isn't quite over yet.
Jon: I'm going to be honest at this point, I may have slightly forgotten something. A little bit of Scourge territory that I may have overlooked. The bit that in fact... (pans over to his own empire) repeatedly keeps attacking Tiny Sands and still has two massive fleets and also all of their infrastructure. That's basically where they live now, yes. In fact they're also just desperately colonizing everything they can over here. Right, we should probably go deal with that.
"Yeah, basically the Scourge have managed to successfully hide - and when I say 'hide', you know, 'parked directly north of my core empire' - about 1.6 million strength. And I just didn't notice."
Jon has a dramatic moment narrating Strike Force Phoenix assaulting the last Scourge system, "unless I've forgotten about one again, that is entirely feasible." Sure enough, the crisis isn't quite over because there's one little system tucked away next to the Brightest Quack.
Jon: I've no idea why the Ducks didn't take care of this, by the way, it is literally two jumps away from their flipping capital!
To celebrate his victory, Jon puts up an Executive Retreat on Repose, so everyone can go relax by petting the Tabbies.

One-Off Videos

Jon does a video for Imperator: Rome's 1.3 "Livy" update at the request of Paradox Interactive, and very clearly specifies that it's a sponsored video.
Jon: And I thought to myself, "Well, I already like Imperator: Rome - you know, I made a fifteen-part series about it the moment it flipping came out - so I see no reason to turn down free money." So, that's where we are right now, so we're gonna make this video, and then Claire and I are off to Disney World! ...Okay, it wasn't that much, but it would probably stretch to Disneyland Paris.
Paradox once again sponsors Jon to make a video showing off updates to one of their games, in this case the Federations expansion for Stellaris. He decides to play as the Space Toad Holy Union, a Mega-Church of frogs. And in addition to showing off the new diplomatic features, Jon's doing a One System Challenge.
- "The one time I start a challenge where I can't expand, naturally there's Alloys just floating around in the next system. And then, beyond that, two Zro, one of the rarest and most valuable strategic resources in the game, and I can't go and take it."
- Jon points out that now, you have to gain experience working within a federation to unlock its special features.
  Jon: Basically, we're just kind of setting it up, alright? We're all learning where the photocopier is, where the kettle is, how to use the stupid new locks on the doors...
- The Space Toads put a branch office down and start up a Private Mining Consortium on a lithoid planet.
  Jon: Oh. Okay, how offensive is it to go digging up rocks on a rock world? Like, what are we... oh blimey, if they kick us off in a month, we'll know why.
- Jon's delighted to see the Tenets of Tabby again, and quickly works to improve relations with the felines.
  Jon: Oh, Tabby, you're a good cat, but I understand you are suspicous of me. Don't worry, I'm going to send over some diplomats, they're gonna tickle you under your neck - I know you like that - and you'll totally come around.
- Jon's Snivlet allies get attacked, and Jon rushes his fleet to the rescue!
  Jon: Don't worry, Snivlet friends, I can help! I've actually got a fleet... it's not spectacular, but it's not terrible either! Just give me two minutes and I'll be right with you!
  (cut to the enemy invasion force)
  Jon: Oh. Slight concern. It would appear that, uh, the guys who attacked us are in possession of... Fallen Imperial tech. Probably a gift from one of the nearby Fallen Empires. That... that's a concern, actually. Right, so! Good luck with this one, Snivlets!
- When showing off the various initiatives available to the Galactic Community, Jon puts all his diplomatic weight beyond Regulatory Facilitation, which improves planetary productivity at the cost of habitability. Or in other words:
  Jon: And after literally a decade of arguing about it, we have all come to agree at the UN that we are going to do slightly more polluting! (beat) Okay, we might need to do some work on the Senate, yet, I'm not sure it's necessarily working precisely as we were originally hoping.

Funny / Many A True Nerd Paradox Games

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