"We Could’ve Built Them to Look Like Anything, But We Made Them Look Like Us."

Friends at the Table

Friends at the Table (FatT) is an actual play podcast, focused on critical world-building, smart characterisation and fun interaction between good friends. An actual play podcast is a form of podcast in which a group of people are recording themselves playing a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG). A tabletop role-playing game is a role playing game where the players describe what they want their characters to do and then roll dice to find out whether they fail or succeed and level up by gaining experience points. Austin Walker, the host, Game Master(GM) and co-creator of FatT describes it as; ‘a bit like a collaborative writer’s room with some dice thrown in.’

COUNTER/Weight

The second season of the FatT podcast was released July 15th 2015. It’s a science fiction game set in a fictional star sector and taking inspiration from noir shows, mecha anime, cyberpunk ideals and cold war dramas. There are three main nations.

The Autonomous Diaspora, a democracy built on algorithms and constant voting but protected by giant robots, called Divines.

The People's Conglomerate of Orion, or OriCon, once a worker’s paradise but now an oligarchy, ruled by corporations.

The Apostolosian Empire, a monarchy who claim that they are descended from the founders of Atlantis.

Player Characters

We see the most of a group called ‘The Chime.’ A collection of fixers and independent problem solvers.

AuDy is a robot played by Jack de Quidt and uses They/Them pronouns.

Aria Joie is an ex-pop idol played by Ali Acampora who uses She/Her pronouns.

Cassander Timaeus Berenice or Cass, is an apostolosian played by Art Martinez-Tebbel who also uses They/Them pronouns.

Mako Trig, is a psychic hacker played by Keith J. Carberry and uses He/Him pronouns.

The characters AuDy and Cassander use They/Them as a singular pronoun. AuDy is described as ‘genderless’ and Cassander is apostolisian and they don’t have gender the same way as humans do. This article uses gender neutral pronouns.

The Story

A touchstone for the show is the phrase ‘We could’ve built them to look like anything, but we made them look like us.’ It’s mainly used in reference to the Divines, the sentient robots that the Autonomous Diaspora effectively worship.

The Divines are named after different virtues or principles of humanity; Grace, Loyalty, Peace, etc. They have become more than simple artificial intelligence and have their own thoughts and opinions on what’s happening around them. They do work with a human pilot called a Candidate who shares a deep bond, both physically and emotionally, to serve society better. Each Divine connects to their Candidate differently, for example Integrity who is cybernetically implanted into their Candidate’s body. 

It is unsure where they came from or how they surpassed just being A.I as most of them are large humanoid robots, but some are programming systems or a form of retractive armour. They are described as having feelings and their own thoughts that they share with their Candidate.

This produces an interesting contrast due to Divines being seen as the only robots that have true thoughts of their own and AuDy, who just happens to be a robot with their own sentience. Due to this, AuDy is often seen as a malfunctioning robot to anyone who isn’t a player character. There is a moment where it is discussed if Mako has ever tried to hack AuDy and over the course of the conversation, it is revealed that AuDy prizes their autonomy and they trust Mako not to have hacked them. However, if Mako had tried then AuDy would’ve gravely injured Mako for doing so.

Towards the show’s end, they discuss more about what Divines are and what makes them. They discuss where the Divines’ names come from and whether or not there is anything inherently righteous about the Divine Righteousness, or if that is something that the people who named it hoped that it would be. They touch on the Divines being somehow alive with their own thoughts or whether or not it is simply their pilots wish that they have these thoughts and opinions.

Overall, COUNTER/Weight is a dystopian storyline which has some deep themes but due to the characters that are played, hope and love and family come through as the brighter spark in the show.

Austin Walker says it's probably his favourite season and as a fan, I think it's mine too. It is one of the longer seasons with 46 episodes, including the world building, character building and the post mortem episodes. There is something with characters and storyline that always manages to amazes and astound me. The characters alone feel fully fleshed out with their own personalities, little quirks and inside jokes that I'm sure come from the cast themselves being very close.

Additionally, the music by Jack de Quidt is stunning and manages to breathe even more life into the characters and scenes with beautiful melodies woven together to provide soft backing tracks.

Where to find them

Friends at the table is hosted by Austin Walker, produced by

Ali Acampora and the music is composed by Jack de Quidt.

Cover art is created by Craig Sheldon.

For the Show: friendsatthetable.net or

@Friends_Table on twitter

For the Music: notquitereal.bandcamp.com

For the Cover Artist: @Shoddyrobot on twitter or csheldon on instagram

The art at the beginning of the article is the Cover Art for COUNTER/Weight created by Craig Sheldon used with permission from him and the FatT cast.