Joshua Noel, TJ Blackwell, and Liz Clyde dive into the mind-bending Egghead Island arc of One Piece, where the gang grapples with the wild concept of dividing one's mind while still holding onto their essence. It’s a thought-provoking ride that kicks off with the crew’s unexpected arrival on this high-tech island, where they meet the genius Vegapunk—who, spoiler alert, is way more complex than just your average mad scientist. The trio shares their latest geeky obsessions before jumping into the meat of the discussion, where they dissect the intricate web of connections to the overarching One Piece narrative. With a blend of humor and insightful commentary, they navigate through action-packed moments, character developments, and the ethical quandaries that arise from Vegapunk's experiments. If you’re ready for a chat that balances depth with clever banter, this episode is your ticket to the high seas of intellectual fun!

A deep dive into the Egghead Island arc of One Piece reveals a rich tapestry of themes and character development, as Joshua Noel, TJ Blackwell, and Liz Clyde take listeners on a journey through the latest happenings in this beloved series. The podcast opens with a philosophical musing on identity, posing the question: how many times can one divide their mind and still be oneself? This existential inquiry sets the stage for the distinctive personality of Vegapunk, the arc's enigmatic genius, who has literally divided his consciousness into multiple entities. As the trio discusses their favorite moments from the arc, they highlight the blend of humor, action, and profound narrative that One Piece is known for, showcasing Luffy's awakening power and the introduction of mechanical sea beasts that add a futuristic twist to the pirate adventure. Each host brings their unique perspective, with Liz drawing parallels between Vegapunk's multiple identities and themes found in other narratives, while TJ comments on the pacing of the arc, praising its ability to keep the stakes high without dragging on too long. The episode is a treasure trove for fans, filled with insights on character backstories and the implications of scientific ethics within the world of One Piece, making it a must-listen for anyone following the Straw Hat crew's journey.

Takeaways:

• The Egghead Island arc of One Piece dives deep into Vegapunk's character, exploring the complexities of his genius and the ethical dilemmas of scientific research.
• The crew's arrival at Egghead Island brings unexpected twists, including encounters with mechanical sea beasts that blend technology with the fantastical elements of One Piece.
• This arc serves as a turning point in the One Piece narrative, unveiling crucial information about the Void Century and the implications it holds for the overarching storyline.
• Luffy's awakened power leads to a playful yet intense battle, showcasing the blend of humor and action that fans have come to love about One Piece.
• Listeners are reminded that while knowledge is vital, its application and the ethical boundaries crossed in pursuit of it can lead to significant consequences, as seen with Vegapunk's experiments.
• The discussions around the arc highlight the thematic elements of friendship, betrayal, and the importance of historical knowledge, making it a rich narrative experience for fans.

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How many times could you divide up your own mind and still be the same person? That intellectually stimulating question is pretty much the entire premise of the next arc of One Piece.

We're going to be talking about the Egghead Island. I am Joshua Noel here with Liz Klein and TJ Tiberius Juan Blackwell to talk about some One Piece. But before we do, we're going to.

We're going to shout out some of what we've been geeking out on lately. Make sure we show our geek cred. People know that we, we really are the nerds that we say we are.

Man, this sucks because, like, there's so much stuff I want to be geeking out on, but job related stuff has caused me not to have time. The only thing I'm actually geeking out on is sometimes it just gets so wound up during the day.

The only thing that seems to relax me is playing Kingdom Hearts at night. So I'm sorry, Will, but the only actual answer right now is Kingdom Hearts.

Still.

Yeah, I apologize. Dj, what about you? For those listening, I beat. Oh, that's a fun one.

I work with someone now who's a manager that I have found out that I have beat Kingdom Hearts twice every year since two years before they were born. Kingdom Hearts 2 does not include the first one. That would probably be four years before they were born. Anyway, go ahead. Sorry.

I started reading Made in Abyss, which, you know, I've heard a lot about. It's like, oh, it's just kids. They send the kids to die. It's super gory. The world building in. That is so good. It's insane. It's incredible.

So I wasn't expecting that. Was not expecting. Also, the new Magic the Gathering set is Marvel Superheroes. That's been really cool.

We're right in the release pipeline for that now. It's awesome.

Nice.

Yeah.

You showed me some of the cards. They looked really cool. Yeah. Liz, what about you?

I have been watching Witch Hat Atelier. It's very cutesy, very nice.

Did you just like stutter really bad or is that like those words? Okay.

Witch Hat atelier.

I did understand two of the words.

That's correct. Atelier. What?

I mean, did you not understand you so I know Witch Hat.

I've heard those words. Yeah.

Okay. I'm like. You've never heard. It's just like a homestead almost.

Nope.

Okay.

I'm uncultured. It's fine if it's not mentioned in Kingdom Hearts.

Another word for like studio.

Yeah. Home.

All right, well, in that case, rate and review Our show, wherever you get your podcasts, if you know of places to rate and review, that's cool. I have a studio. I just don't call it a studio. It's like an office. Rate and review. My office with no space.

But I'm about to go to Comic Con and get stuff up there. Okay. Also going to shout out one of our financial supporters, Gunner Burgum. We might be saying your name wrong.

You still haven't corrected us, so I'm just going to keep pronouncing it the same way until you do. If you want your own shout out, you can also support. Support our show. Like, potentially someone named Gunner. Hey, going to your website in the show.

There's a link in the show description. Has the website go there, rate, review, check out other merch, support our show, all the good stuff, all the one space over there.

We are about to do Egghead.

If you want to hear our other One Piece reviews, you can also click on a link in the show's description to see a playlist of all of our One Piece related episodes. So be sure to do that as well. But for now, we're jumping in, talking about One Piece, the Egghead island arc.

This is going to be a hard one, so I'm going to throw it to tj. If you had to explain the context of, like, what is One Piece about? And what are we doing on Egghead Island?

For those who haven't caught up all the way, let's say that they've watched, like, the Netflix live action. That's their context for One Piece. What do they need to know going into this?

Well, One Piece is the story of Luffy and his crew trying to find the One Piece. And Egghead island is where Vegapunk lives.

Vegapunk is, up to this point, an extremely mysterious, enigmatic super genius who kind of is just the smartest person alive. Which means, well, he works for the world government and is under their hoof and has to, you know, do what they say, that kind of thing.

And we come to Egghead island to try and figure some. Some stuff out and get a few more tasks while we're there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I kind of have to travel island to island anyway. Yeah, they just kind of end up here. And man, what a place to end up.

What a place to end up.

Yeah. Liz, anything to add or.

No.

Okay, so do you want to talk about our first encounters and reactions, like, to the beginning of the arc? And like, for me, it's kind of weird. I feel like you hear Vegapunk randomly throughout, usually with bad guys.

So, you know, I just assume he's probably a bad guy. I don't know. I don't think about things that much. I should know Oda a little bit better than I do, but I just don't think like that.

I just read the story and experience as it is. I don't do a lot of speculating with one piece. For some reason, I think maybe I gave up on it. That might be the problem.

But early on, they have like these like the mechanic versions of like the. What are they called? They're not sea monsters.

Sea beasts.

Yeah, yeah, they have like, mechanical version that. And I'm like, oh, this is about to be cool. Because I like robots and stuff. I'm still like a little kid pirates plus robot stuff. This is awesome.

And then it's like Vegapunk's revealed to be this woman. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that checks out.

That's usually the kind of twist that you have in, like, modern storytelling is you just assumed that the super smart bad guy doctor is a man and oh, no, he's a woman. And it's like, oh, yep, yeah, that checks out. But man, it was way more complicated than that and way more interesting.

It wasn't just a. Oh, see, you guys are misogynist because you didn't think it was a woman. Nope, it's a woman and a man. A couple other women. Guy has literally just. His brain got so freaking huge.

He just started dividing it up so he could handle all the knowledge he has. And he divides them up into. I don't know if they're robots, people, clones, clones, I guess, of himself.

All those that just look different than him and just started dividing his brain up. And they all actually share a brain, so it's not like completely separate people.

So, like sharing a knowledge based with different personalities of himself that are just divided up going around this island. And I'm like, okay, man, that's cool. And then you get the one fight scene where Luffy's awakening power thing.

And I was like, okay, this might be one of my, like, maybe not one of my favorite arcs, but it might objectively be one of the coolest just for the stuff that's in it, you know? That was mine. I was like, man, this whole time. Like, that was my reaction the whole time. Just like, man, that's cool.

Yeah, yeah. It feels like just an arc full of payoff. Yeah, like, oh, we're going to. Oh, oh, oh. It answers a bunch of questions. Not enough of them.

Not all of them.

Yeah.

But it is super, super fun to see everyone get to go all out.

Yeah.

And like, the kind of continue a trend that I feel like we've been seeing where, like, whole Cake island, you realize you didn't have all of Sanji's backstory, so we're getting a little bit more Sanji. And then wano. We get a little bit more of, like, Zoro's background. We get a little bit more of that.

So it's kind of like they're continuing a little bit of that trend, and now we're seeing a little bit more Robin's background. I kind of hope Frankie ends up being next. Hope we just randomly learn more about Frankie's background. Somehow.

There's more. It's more than the water 7 stuff. You guys remember 20 years ago when we talked about Frankie? We're doing it again.

I mean, they could. It seems like that's what they do. I don't know. But, Liz, what about you? What are your first reactions?

Honestly, first reaction, I was like, it's giving Harry Potter. Whenever Voldemort, like, divided his soul. That's what I compared Vegapunk to. But it was. It was fun.

I liked the little Einstein homage that they had with that and his quirkiness and fun stuff. Definitely. How he divided himself up is kind of crazy because as you said, like, it just doesn't make sense. Did he want to be a woman?

Did he want to be a robot? Did he want to be just a bottomless pit of someone who just eats and poops?

Because that's the one I would choose to do if I had to be one of his ultimate. His alternate universe. But yeah, each one of them has their own personality, which is really fun.

And you get to know all of them, and they make up one database, which is. It's kind of crazy because he. Obviously, you have the original one, but he doesn't treat himself as the original one.

They literally talk as if they are all Vega punk and unified. Almost like the Holy Spirit. Three in one.

They are seven and one.

Yeah. Correct.

Like, part of it, I feel like, makes sense because, like, I don't know if I just randomly had that ability. I'd probably. Especially because I, like, this is how I do. Like, my Bible commentaries.

I like some that are, like, from a female Perspective, from different nationality perspective, different countries. Because, like, they're just dealing with different issues.

So they read the same text and they're like, oh, hey, I noticed this that you didn't notice. And I'm like, oh, I feel like I learn a lot that way. So, like, I could see, like, some of it.

Like, yeah, take part of my brain, put it into, like, female Joshua. See what I learned from that perspective. From different perspectives. That'd be kind of cool. But then some of them are just weird.

Like, yeah, I'm just. Literally all I do is eat and poop. Why don't you need that perspective? I don't get that one.

Well, because they. The other ones, the researchers, they don't have time for bodily functions. So she eats and poops for all seven of them.

I like eating too much.

It's effective. It's effective.

Yeah.

It's fair.

All right, tj, did you give any. You gave some of your first reactions already, right?

A little, but not really.

No. Go ahead.

The Zark rules the mechanical sea beasts. And seeing the first Vegapunk, it was a lot like yours. I was like, oh, wow, Vegapunk's hot. Okay.

Weird.

Sure. Weird choice. And then, you know, Zoro gets to just tear through the sea beasts, and the other Vegapunks are like, hey, seven, stop doing that.

Are you stupid? You don't know who that is. But that was a really fun introduction to the arc. At the time, I was really hoping that we were going to Elbaf, but.

Elbaf is cool too.

Now that. Now that we have been to Elbaf, I'm okay with it. Just every. This feels like the most well paced arc of One piece.

Yeah, I think I agree.

I feel like the most. There's the least downtime in Egghead.

Yeah. Like, it didn't drag on too long, but a lot still happens. And it actually answers all these questions.

I feel like it did introduce some new questions, but I feel like for a long time we were having arcs that were asking more questions than they were answering. Yeah, I felt like this one probably answered more than it asked. Or 50.

It's close. We got.

Not as bad as, like, Dressrosa killed me. The basing was awful. And I just left with way more questions than you started with.

Yeah, it's like, hey, here's. Oh, you need to know what the Gorosei do. Watch this.

And then there was no 40 episode fight scene either.

None.

And there could have been nice. Even the coolest fight truly could have been.

There really could have been. They have fought way less powerful people than two of the Gorosei and Kizaru again and Rob Lucci again. Yeah, but it's all. It all ends pretty quick.

It's pretty nice.

Even the anime. Yeah, it's great.

It's pretty great. Also, maybe pound for pound, might be the coolest arc. Yeah. Might be the coolest arc. Just because. Oh, Rob Lucci's back. Oh, that's awesome.

Oh, he awakened his devil. Oh, that's awesome.

You know, I mean, I feel the same way because I'm like, definitely, definitely not my favorite. Like, I'm still like, the war where Ace dies.

Marineford.

Yeah, thanks, Marine Ford Alabasta Dressrosa. Those are. Those are still, like, my favorite, but this is probably the coolest. Like. Like. Yeah, like, it's not dress. What's Chopper's Island?

I don't like Dressrosa. I was trying to think about that one. Drum Island. Yeah, that's what I meant. Drum Island. Emotionally, man, crazy. Docking reindeer. Awesome.

Not as cool as giant robotic sea beast. Cool level. Like, emotional factor. Yeah, they're different.

Yeah. And that's like, the cool thing in Egghead island is mechanical sea beasts. You have the Seraphim. You have food machines of Egghead Island.

It's like, oh, you know, pretty much dreams of reality here. You can do whatever you want. It's like. It's like the Willy Wonka's chocolate factory of one piece. Yeah.

And you find out that a lot of this technologically advanced stuff just existed before, and the government hit it, and you're like, of course they did. Checks out. And it's just. It's just cool. Yeah, definitely one of the coolest.

Like, not, like, the most emotionally rewarding or anything to me, but, man, is it cool. It's just robots and fights, and Luffy literally just decides, oh, when I awaken my power, I turned the world into Looney Tunes.

And then I beat the crap out of him. It's just great, you know?

It is really funny.

Rob Lucci sound effects show. Everything, though. Like, it's definitely just Looney Tunes.

Yeah. Rob Lucci shows up and he's like, sorry, straw hat. I've gotten a lot stronger since last time. Listen, man, you should have showed up earlier.

You should have caught up before wano. Probably.

Yeah.

Destroyed.

It's awesome.

So funny. And, you know, you feel bad for him. Naturally, you feel bad for him.

Yeah, well, and this was the point when I started, like, going back and forth between watching the anime and reading the manga. So I Could just keep up because I have too much going on to always sit down and watch show. And I just learned to read manga finally.

And I'm like, the. What I loved with the anime, though.

Like, not just like sound effects and everything, but like, Luffy is legitimately, like, laughing that whole fight. Like he's just having fun. I'm like, this is.

Yeah.

This is why we watch One Piece right here.

Yeah. And it. Honestly, it's scary. It's really scary.

Yeah, it is. I would not want to fight him. So how would you guys say this hasn't talked in a while, that this story impacts the overall story of One Piece?

Like, as far as just this island.

You said it before. It answers a lot of questions that we speculated but did not know with the history.

And I mean, specifically, it's near the end of Egghead island, but we learn the most we've ever learned about the Void Century and what happened. And I mean, that's why the whole. What are they called? Elders showed up to try and stop, you know, the broadcast and Vegapunk and destroys everything.

I think at the very beginning. Right. We saw. Right before this arc, we saw that beam of light. So they already destroyed one island, right? Is that how this arc started?

Pretty much the Death Star.

And so, yeah, so we already knew they destroyed from Robin's backstory islands and whatnot. But you're kind of like seeing it unfold in more real time actions of how they make the decisions and who's the. You want to go with theme?

The faces behind even the Elders of this whole arc.

I like it. I like it. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna ask TJ to. Well, yeah, I'm asking TJ a question and then go back to list again. Okay. Tj, you mentioned the Seraphim.

Do you want to explain who they are?

Yeah.

So the Seraphim are. Are they robots? Are they technically robots? Are they just like little clones?

I think they're like robot.

They like robots.

Yeah. Maybe let's call them androids, because that's a little both. Yeah.

I think we're just supposed to know that Vegapunk is so much smarter than us that we can't even comprehend what his creations are.

Yeah, but they're Seraphim, is what they are. But it's a byproduct. Not a byproduct. It's a product of when the Shichibukai, the Seven Warlords were, you know, relevant.

And of course, at the time, Egghead was like, Egghead Vegapunk. It's like I know what we should do with these guys. And he just took them and turned their power into these little Android bodies.

So we get to see kind of what Mihawk can do and Boa. And who cares? I don't care about the rest of the Mihawk. Seraphim is so cool. That's cool.

But we get to see a lot of that and how powerful they are in relation to where we are currently. Which is a really convenient way to kind of track where we are progression wise.

You know, you don't have to come up with a reason for them to be here.

And it threw me a little bit just because, like, older video games and how they used to work, you know, like Marvel ultimate alliance. Like, my brain's like, oh, yeah, we're gonna have a Doombot here. Then here is like, you, Venom Bot. You know, whatever. Just a thing.

It's like the coolest bad guys, but as Bot. So that when you easily defeat them, there's a reason that they were so easy. That's just not what happened. They are just not easily defeated.

They weren't just there to look cool. They were actually pretty good creations. Pretty sick. All right, Liz, what happens in this arc?

If you were to give, like, a five minute breakdown, what is the story of Egghead island we already mentioned? They show up to the island, beat up some giant robot sea beasts, take it from there.

Hold on. I will say, just for posterity's sake, the other Seraphim, it's Boa, Mihawk, Jinbe, and Kuma, which is.

Oh, yeah, Jinbe. What? Kuma? We'll get to Kuma. Yeah.

Can we just talk about how the. The female one still has a crush on Luffy? Just like her adult version, it's genetically coded. It's. It was so fun.

Yeah, yeah.

She got all sparkly eyed and didn't even know why. Poor girl. So pretty much, they. I forget, how do they get the egghead? Do they just stumble upon it or were they wanting to go there? Thank you, tj.

Appreciate you. Like, they were like, running. And that was the closest island, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Because they're trying to get away from the end of Wano. They're like green bull.

Oh, no.

Okay, that's what I thought. Okay, so they stumbled upon Egghead. They've heard the name Vegapunk before with the whole, like, smile and Caesar and all that stuff.

So they're not completely unfamiliar with who this guy is. But as the One Piece crew does, the Luffy crew does.

They made friends and the boys were enamored by the robots and the futuristic stuff and the food you can just press and eat. Correct. So in true fashions, they made friends, and then they discovered information they're not supposed to know.

And now that they're friends with all these vagabunks, they have to protect them. Because this is what we do now. We're not going to just, you know, dip out and take the easy way.

So then pretty much the whole arc is them trying to save Vagapunk, get him off the island so they can protect him. Blah blah, blah, blah. Navy comes, People turn on Vagapunk. I mean, dude had to face his best friend, which was very sad near the end.

I'm not sure if we're talking about that yet. And then, I mean, it's getting broadcast to the world because Shaka, the government lies.

So the government is letting the world know that the Straw Hats are on Vegapunk Island. They've captured Vega Punk. All that stuff painted them as villains.

Because you can see that the world government is trying to destroy the whole island. And they're going to use the One Piece as a scapegoat. Not the One Piece.

I don't know why I keep on calling Luffy's cruise the One Piece Pregnancy Marine. You know what I mean? But they're using the Straw Hats Pirates as a scapegoat, but because of that. The Giant Pirates. What are they called again?

The Giant Pirates.

Okay, thanks.

That's what I've been calling. Okay.

Okay. Well, I know, like, their. Their island is. I didn't know if we called them by the island.

No, that's. That's. Their name is the Giant Pirates.

Okay. Just making sure, guys.

They're very original.

I'm giving birth in, like, 40 days. Okay. I'm struggling, so I feel like a giant pirate right now, probably. Let me join their crew.

So the Giant Pirates, they heard that Luffy was on Egghead. They knew. It didn't sound right because they know Luffy. So they came to assist.

They come literally in the clutches of the moment to help fight off the elders and try and get them off the island. Then we find this Mega Transformer robot that I knew Josh would be. That's his favorite one.

So cool.

It's so cool. We saw at the very beginning, but it just looked like a rustic pile of bolts. But he was actually infused with the old Joy Boys hockey.

And so whenever it was time for him to pretty much protect. Protect Joy Boy. When Luffy goes into fifth gear, he awakens and, like, pretty much Just saves the day.

So throughout what I appreciated most about this arc, as someone who does not love long, drawn out fight scenes, this fight scene was broken up with a lot of backstories and with a lot of like, other fight scenes and a lot of like, back and forth of what's happening around the island. So it wasn't just straight Luffy fighting the elders.

And then because everything was broadcasted, we got to see a lot of like, old friends watching the broadcast and kind of doing like updates with that. So it was a good episode. Probably one of my favorite arcs to date too. Just because it was like almost like a reminiscing arc.

But we got to learn a lot of things we didn't know before and it wasn't drawn out.

Yeah, it kind of. It feels like just the whole arc is celebrating getting through as much of the story.

It does feel like it's a turning point of like, you could see something new is about to happen now that they have left Egghead Island. Like it's. The curtain has been unveiled to the whole world and you can't undo the broadcast.

So, like, you have the sense of expectation of what is going to happen next because it's never going to be the same. They can't just go to another island and fight a bad guy. Because now the Navy is like, what do we do now? Who's the good guy? Who's the bad guy?

Yeah. And also big, big arc for big news. Morgan.

Yeah. The only thing caveat I want to throw in, I felt pretty similar after the execution of Ace at Marineford that I was like, oh, man.

Yeah, now we're really getting moving. Then Dressrosa happened shortly after that. So I was like, yeah. Are we really getting moving? I don't know.

I hope so. It would be really funny though, if the next arc after Egghead was 400 chapters.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like this. This is Suit Rosa. It's gonna be almost the same thing as Dressrosa. Yeah.

Yeah. Right before Mary Geoise is this other island. It's called Suit Rosa.

Just gonna be awful. Yeah. But no, I mean, I do. I do think like at the end it does this is feel like we're coming to a climax. Right.

We're seeing all these familiar faces from like 20 plus years of content and we're seeing like questions we've been asking for a really long time getting answered.

Luffy's power levels to the point where I'm like, oh, it was creative, but, like, at a certain point, how much more powerful can you actually make a character? You know? Like, it's like, at some point, it's got to be near the end, right?

It's gotta be close.

Yeah. And, man, everything's just full blast going. Cool. We're finally learning about, like, the monoliths and stuff, too, like. Yeah, yeah. Oh, polyglyphs.

Yeah, but they. You're also gonna see.

I don't know if it counts as part of this arc or if it's just, like, in between stories, but we're seeing some of, like, the other pirates of the same of the new generation come either to an end or, like, their story coming to climax and stuff. And we're like, I don't feel like you'd be doing that if there was a lot of story left, you know?

Yeah, we're gonna talk about some of that in other episodes. It's just.

Yeah, it was getting obliterated.

Yep. That's a. That's a whole episode.

Sorry. Sorry.

So I loved it. It was honestly, like, I didn't hate Kid, but it was just so cool. It was hard not to enjoy what happened, you know? Like, that was awesome.

Look at some of the faces behind what's going on.

I like that we kind of see some of the faces behind Robin and we learn a little bit more of her story and why she was on the run and wanted whenever we first met her forever ago. Tj, do you want to speak some to that? And, like, what's going on with Robin? What do we learn about her story here?

So in. The problem with Egghead is that they are trying to. Buster call it naturally.

That allows us to, through that lens, learn a lot more about Robin's backstory when she lived, whatever that island was called. And it got Buster called because of the knowledge that they had of the Void century. And that was. So we get to see a lot of Robin's backstory.

And, yeah, it's sad. And San Juan Wolf is there. Who else that recurs? It's hard to remember, but that is huge.

Robin.

You know, we've been dealing with who is robin for literally 20 years. So learning some about her and why it was so hard for her to say she wants to live. But, man, it is rough.

And also continued in the next arc, even though they don't really focus on it. Feels like it kind of got swept under the rug.

Am I mispronouncing when I say Jaguar D. Saul, or is it actually just Jaguar?

I think they just call him Saul.

Yeah, but I loved his part in that and saving her. And we learned why she loves books and knowledge.

And you're like, oh, like, her character just makes so much more sense when you're like, oh, wait a minute. Her whole people were destroyed for knowledge, and that's why she clings to knowledge. And you're like, yup, checks out.

Yeah. And it also makes a lot of sense, like, oh, why can Robin read poneglyphs?

Because she came from the island that they destroyed for learning how to read Ponticols.

Yeah, it's like a lot of the thing which one piece always says that we were like, oh, that's just convenient. He happens to have a crew member who could do this. And you're like, nope, it wasn't convenient.

Here were all the clues the whole time and why it's a thing. And you're like, oh, okay. It checks out. Sorry for questioning you, Oda. My bad.

Yep. Also, there are two survivors of this Buster call.

Who, I can't remember.

Saul.

Oh, yeah, duh.

Robin and Saul.

Duh.

Maybe three. Because Vegapunk is also shown to be on that island at times. But he wasn't there for. During the bus to call.

Yeah, he wasn't there during the bus to call. He came to visit Clover's grave, which was his friend who asked for help. And that's when he discovered.

I'm not sure when we learned about the bus to call, but, like, they were literally throwing books in, like, a puddle of water. Like, a little, like, not the ocean or anything, but it was a still, like, big puddle of water.

And when Vega punk went to go visit his friend's grave because he kind of felt guilty of not helping him with the research because he chose to be a government dog versus a scientist at that point because he needed the funding. That's when he discovered all the books that they saved pretty much. And he kind of from there, picked up where the.

The island left off because he said something along the lines of, whoever continues this work would be a fool or a dead man or something like that. And he continued, and he was both.

And that's why Egghead Island's getting Buster called.

Yeah, but I mean, which it does bring up, like, there are so many good, like, ethical questions that deal with science. So many, like, ethical questions that deal with science.

Like, that get brought up that it's not like, you know, science first faith or science first magic, you know, like. Or is AI bad? Like, the usual stuff you get.

But, like, it's like, hey, if you want to do scientific research, sometimes it takes funding, and your only option is the government. Do you go along to play along so you could do something you think matters? And it's like, oh, wait a minute.

Yeah, that's a real question that scientists actually have to deal with in our world. Or like, there are so many just, like, little things.

The other one, which is the other faces behind you question you have, like, Bonnie has this incurable whatever, Vegapunk, probably the only one who can help cure it, and then makes a deal with Kuma, her dad, to decide, hey, you do this. Let me do some questionably morally questionable things to you, and then I'll heal your daughter.

Because he's like, in order to do a lot of scientific research, someone's got to be the first test. And it's like, oh, yeah, that's not great.

But also, we do want science to advance and to be able to do this cool stuff, but are we willing to pay the price? And, like, you just get a lot of really interesting questions. I feel like, not like, the surface level that we tend to get in other ips.

Yeah. That shows us why Kuma agreed to become a pacifista and why they all exist. It is heartbreaking seeing Kuma and Bonnie's backstory.

Yeah. And then Bonnie wants to kill Vague because you did this to my dad. And then you find out, yeah, your dad chose that, and it was for you.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's crazy. Crazy. Well, just a few more questions before we wrap up. Liz is the most philosophical among us. We'll let her answer this first one.

Vegapunk keeps dividing his mind up and doing all this, like, weird experiments on himself. And we're not sure if they're clones, robots. What are the vegapunks who are 7 but 1? Are they still human?

I did not feel like they were human just because when we lost some of them, I didn't have that connection. You know what I mean? Like, it didn't give, like, the same connection as if. As if we lost Ace. Right.

Granted, Ace was, like, one of the biggest loss ever, but even then, like, when we've lost other, like, minor characters in the past, it was just kind of like it didn't feel as, like, devastating. And I think they don't give off the human vibe because there are some that are robots. And so you Kind of just assume they're either Android.

And at one point, I just kind of mainly view them as a copy of the original Vegapunk. Even though they don't view it as that, it's still a bummer whenever we lose them.

But, yeah, it's weird because I kind of. I want to say yes, but I kind of don't.

The point of the Vegapunks, the Stella's, is that he's kind of partitioning out his personality, his needs, but they all retain some level of otherness. They're not just the one thing. For example, none of us mentioned it, but a big part of this arc is betrayal.

One of the Vegapunks betrays Vegapunk, which, just for the record, the different personalities are the good one, the evil one, the hungry one, greed and violence. The evil one is not the one that betrayed Vegapunk, it's the greedy one.

You know, I don't even think we have to talk about that. That one is definitely a good thing to think about, but the art says what it needs to say.

They're human.

Ish.

Yeah, I think part of it too, if I'm remembering right. It's like the mind is like in a central location that they're all kind of able to learn from.

So it's not like killing one of them, he loses part of his brain or anything. Like, it doesn't feel like he loses any that much. Like, I don't know.

It's very different from the Star wars clone situation where each clone, when they die, like, especially if you're watching the Clone wars, it's like, oh, yeah, those clones were human. Like, that was. That hurt. Whereas in this, it would almost be like if I had a clone of myself and my clone was.

His whole job is to edit podcasts, do paperwork, get the mail, and clean house two of me. And when that one dies, like, yeah, it's gonna suck, but, like, how much are we all gonna really be upset for me? Like, oh, man, Josh lost his clone.

That's gonna do all his work for him. But it's not as sad. Yeah, yeah. So the other one. And then we do have to wrap up.

But I want to hear Yalls answer to this, because I don't have an answer to this. Does knowledge have intrinsic value? Because a lot of what Vega punk does is like, we need to have knowledge because knowledge is valuable.

And he crosses a lot of lines because he thinks it has value in of itself. TJ disagrees.

What does this thing that's literally like the Parable of the seeds where like you spread the seeds and it gets like choked up by the ground. It's not going to grow and produce. So no,.

Like cross a lot of lines just so he could learn something. Because learning in itself was mattered more to him than anything else.

So to me personally, as the real me that lives every day, I'm inclined to say yes. Logically, no, of course not. Because being unable to apply the knowledge is a whole different thing. That's why I think the question's a little wrong.

I do think realistically it is valuable to learn the knowledge in case you might use it. Knowledge is valuable, but that value is not intrinsic to the knowledge.

Yeah.

So here's the thing. A heart pacemaker is valuable, but without it being used for the function, it's not going to save anyone's life.

It's just a piece of like plastic or whatever. It's made up of a hard pacemaker.

Yeah. I think the question really is like, how much value do you put on it?

And I think that was a lot of my problem with some of Vegapunk's action is like, it felt like when we get his backstory, it was like he wanted knowledge so that he could help people. And it was like, okay, that makes sense. Knowledge other than help people.

And then he just put so much emphasis on the knowledge that he was hurting people. He wasn't helping people anymore because, well, once I learned the stuff I can help people, then it's like, yeah.

So I feel like it really comes back to me complaining about utilitarianism and really has nothing to do with how valuable knowledge is or not. And just. Yeah, even if you think the end goal is good, yeah, learning stuff is good.

But if your goal was to help people and you're now hurting people, maybe you cross the line somewhere. You need to rethink how you're doing things.

I mean, that's tell as old as time when you can compare that to these clinical trials, like these drugs that people voluntarily sign up for for money, but it ends up making them worse or ends up doing more harm than good. But we're literally experimenting on humans and animals. But this is how you find the cure or this is how you advance science.

If it wasn't for clinical trials, we wouldn't have had so much medically advances today. So it's one of those lines of where do you stop?

I'm gonna use a really stupid example.

I think many people might argue having the knowledge of the rule books of killer bullies and the quest for the magical carrot is not really all that valuable. It's technically knowledge.

But my thing is, I think especially, well, you know, I played with all of you, but TJ and I really get into the, like, arguments about the rules, like, pulling the stuff out, and, like, it gets really, really nerdy. Like, really nerdy for this card game. But I feel like, personally, I have grown because of those arguments where we are taking the rulebooks out.

Well, technically, it's worded this way, so I think that means I can apply the card like this. He said, no, that would never mean that it would apply this way. And it allows us to actually think, what do we mean by our words?

And then we actually gain valuable knowledge about linguistics from knowledge of a silly little card game. And it helps us apply better in real life.

See, the thing is, for killer bodies, it's almost an exegesis eisegesis kind of hermeneutic moment because we're talking about the rules as written versus the rules as intelligence intended. What is the author's intention behind this as opposed to the way it's written? So.

Which ironically, so many times when I listen to Supreme Court arguments, I'm just like, that's just me and TJ talking about the rules for the kitty and killer bottles.

I mean, well, in that case, because literally, people have texted me from our church staff asking me about the handbook and what it says, because I'm probably one of the few people. I do think knowledge is good.

I'll read the handbook three or four times, and I'll, like, revisit the handbook and just kind of, like, read through it just because you don't know what you don't know.

And like, my old job, who they like to change the handbook three times, they kept on changing the handbook because I kept on saying, nope, it doesn't say this, so you can't enforce it. And then so they would change it, which is why I'm no longer at the other job, because I'm like, make a decision and stick to it.

So that point of even if it's not useful to other people doesn't mean, like, knowledge is useless because it's how you apply it. I don't need to know the handbook until maybe a year or two down the road when something happens. And I'm like, oh, well, actually, this is how.

This is what it says. So you can't apply it there. Like someone was mad that someone was taking leave for camp.

And I'm like, well, it says you have ministry time and they're like, well, that's only for pastors. I'm like, the handbook doesn't say ministry time is only for pastors. So an admin was going to camp, not using vacation time.

And so they changed the handbook because of that. But it's just one of those things of you need to know. You need to know the rules to sidestep the rules. In my case, yeah.

Or same thing I with killer bunnies. So Josh can cheat better or, you.

Know, learn linguistics better or understand other types of arguments better. Like, I feel like it's just how you use knowledge, how you think about why we're learning these things.

Another example, I have to be a little more vague on attendance policies for a place that I work at. I learned something a long time ago about an availability sheet that people are supposed to fill out and sign that says they have to actually have.

If the availability changed, they have to have it confirmed. They don't just get to change their availability whenever they feel like it. Now I'm in another store. Those sheets were never assigned.

People just change their visibility all the time, which why he can't get a schedule done. And I'm like, well, why didn't you do this? He didn't know about it.

That's where I'm like, yeah, like, it's not helpful to just have that knowledge so that I just know this random fun fact. But it does end up being helpful when I'm like, oh, hey, we can solve a problem by using this.

Well, and if you want to hear more about knowledge versus wisdom, we're talking a little bit about that in our bonus question. But for now, I think it's time to wrap up. Are you guys cool with that?

Sure.

Cool. Because we are a little bit over time. So we're going to go ahead and go to our wrap up. I mentioned it.

We're going to talk a little bit about the difference of knowledge and wisdom a little deeper in context of Vegapunk, especially in like, you know, Egghead island stuff. So if you want to hear more of that, go to our website. We'll have a bonus question you guys can hear. Let's talk a little bit more about that.

For now though, if we had to give a recommendation. Tj, what are you recommending to our good audience here?

One piece. No, really, it's funny. There is a one piece card game. I don't recommend playing that. It's cool, but really it can be really expensive.

Magic the Gathering. It's a pretty good time to get into it. It's very Accessible at a base level, you can get on Magic the Gathering arena and play for free.

Literally free forever. So there's never been a better time to get into it.

Well, since we brought it up, my recommendation is going to be Killer Bunnies. Specifically killer Bunnies.

In the question for the Magical Carrot Light, Hot Topic sells the lite version and it's a good way to start off and kind of learn. It's a lot more simple than TJ and I busting out several rule books and arguing about what they mean. It's a much more simple version.

And then if you like them, you can go to the crazy level that TJ and I go to. If you really want to, it's fun. Start with light and see if you want to.

It's fun.

And then text me if you want to play.

Josh takes five rule books, I take five rule books and we start looking.

Where is this card at? Alright, Liz, what's your recommendation for everybody?

Well, gosh, since you do two did games, I guess I'll do Machi Kuro 2 specifically.

It's a really fun card game similar to To Kill a Bunnies where like you'll get a different game every single time depending on which cards gets drawn out. And so you're trying to like buy property and whatnot and each card does different things.

But what I like most about it is it can just be for two players and it takes like 30 minutes. So it's a really great Machi Kuro. I'll. I'll send you a link. It's two because it's a new version of it now.

But Taylor and I wanted something we could just play casually together if like, you know, a little bored. But we didn't want to think it's a really fun game. But you can play up to five players.

Tj, when's your next day off?

It's Asian inspired, so you know it's superior.

Next week you want to come play Monchengu?

I think we got it. Like Barnes and Nobles or like Books of Millions, you know, those little like obscure games that get you.

Nice, nice. I actually, I love car games. I will almost definitely try that. All right, guys, those are our recommendations. Thank you again so much for listening.

And we want to shout out one of our financial supporters, possibly Gunner Burgum is how we say it. Gunner, thank you so much for supporting our show. Means a lot. Please let me know if I'm saying your name right.

I would appreciate that because what's your own shout out and for me to try to guess how to pronounce your name or just write a crazy name you know a pronounce and then watch me try. You can become an official Mr. Official Member of Systematic Geology on our website. The link is in the show's description.

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You can leave a one time financial gift without becoming a member. A lot of stuff without doing the subscription thing. That's not your gig. Still worth checking out the website.

Another link in the show's description is the link to that playlist of all of our one piece episodes. If you want to hear more, make sure you click on that and hear us talk about other one piece stuff. Remember though, we are all a chosen people.

A geekdom of Priest.