Clio Aite Teases “On the Clock” for Nov. 13-15 During a Five-Hour History Chat

PHASE CONNECT — Clio Aite pointed viewers to an officially posted teaser for an event called “On the Clock,” set for Nov. 13 to 15, during a chat stream that ran about five hours on Sunday. The teaser tells everyone to clear their schedules and report to their desks because something big is clocking in. Clio joked that she was getting a real job, said she would not answer specific questions, and asked viewers to look forward to it.

She said the coming week would let her finally talk about and show six to twelve months of work that has been in planning, that her regular stream flow might be disrupted, and that a schedule would be posted. The stream was billed as a talk about history, and the first big topic was Total War: Medieval III. Clio went through a presentation by the game’s lead designer, Luke Holmes, at the University of Edinburgh’s history and games lab on turning history into a playable game, including its list of historical consultants: Peter H. Wilson on the Holy Roman Empire, Jonathan Phillips on the Crusades and Toby Capwell on arms and armor. She said she owns a book by Wilson on the Thirty Years’ War.

“Next week is a very special week.” — Clio Aite, on the week ahead

Clio read out a line from the presentation that there is no neutral interpretation of history, but she did not play the 38-minute video, saying she did not want to take views from the people who made it. She plans to watch it after the stream and talk it over with viewers later.

The rest of the stream wandered. Clio showed a story about a wombat that climbs into visitors’ cars at a park and sits in the seat, and a sewage pit in her garden led to a discussion of septic tanks and where the slang “Seppo” comes from. She mixed up the history of syphilis, corrected herself after looking it up, and moved on to Roman doctors who prescribed holidays to the sick. Later she played a guessing game on photos of stadium food, which turned into a long tangent on football ticket prices, then ran through daily online quiz games including Scramle and Farflung.

There were three Super Chats. Near the five-hour mark Clio sorted out a delayed going-live post, then ended the stream to move viewers to a new one for a sponsored session of Anno 117.