We join our show in progress for Part 2 of our launch episodes. Dr. Hildegarde Hypatia Cade has joined the rag-tag crew of the Admiral Grace Hopper and is eagerly counting down the moments until she can examine the mysterious alien artifact in the ship's hold. Meanwhile crew members Mackie and Anton wonder how exactly they let this crazy lady join the crew and Admiral Gracie encounters a worthy foe.
If you enjoy the show, please follow us on your favorite platform for new episodes every Wednesday. You can also head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a five star review. It really helps us spread the word and find even more fantastic audience members just like you. You can also check us out online at Astronomica on Twitter, AstronomicaPod on Instagram, and Astronomica Podcast on Facebook. If you have questions, comments, or general observations you can email them to astronomicapodcast@gmail.com.
The theme music for our show includes recordings from the Hubble telescope
Editing done by Kristen Schebler
We join our show in progress for Part 2 of our launch episodes. Dr. Hildegarde Hypatia Cade has joined the rag-tag crew of the Admiral Grace Hopper and is eagerly counting down the moments until she can examine the mysterious alien artifact in the ship's hold. Meanwhile crew members Mackie and Anton wonder how exactly they let this crazy lady join the crew and Admiral Gracie encounters a worthy foe.
If you enjoy the show, please follow us on your favorite platform for new episodes every Wednesday. You can also head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a five star review. It really helps us spread the word and find even more fantastic audience members just like you. You can also check us out online at Astronomica on Twitter, AstronomicaPod on Instagram, and Astronomica Podcast on Facebook. If you have questions, comments, or general observations you can email them to astronomicapodcast@gmail.com.
The theme music for our show includes recordings from the Hubble telescope
Editing done by Kristen Schebler
Welcome back to Astronomica, a Stars Without Number podcast. In case you missed it. Hildegard. Hype Chicay, Doctor of Linguistics, has just joined the crew of the Admiral great. The group have got their first job, which is to deliver a mysterious package, theoretically full of an alien artifact to the planet of AEGEA. You are joining our story in progress.
Anton / Cullen:Hey, folks, this is Colin. Just wanted to give you all a quick heads up. So as with most people, our lives have been affected by COVID-19. And as a matter of course, our recording schedule has changed. And you'll notice that maybe our sound quality is a little different since we are all recording mask currently. So if you all just bear with us for the next few episodes, we're working on a few solutions to try to make the recording process easier and hopefully have more listenable audio quality. Thanks again for sticking with us and we hope you enjoy the show.
Mackie / Colin:I don't know that we're going to need it, but go ahead and put on one of those vac suits right there.
Hilde / Kristen:Why would I need a vaccine?
Anton / Cullen:Oh, yeah, I've got you made up in the back. So here's the thing that's really neat about the Admiral grace. So we have these large sections of the ship that are contained vacuum, each a little different. It's a little neat because think about how hard it is to get up, walk down a long hallway, get your shower and breakfast, imagine being able to just lay on down and float your way across the hall.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes, I sent some sort of it.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Is a feature behind mr. Baptiste yoshida. Please see our newest crew member to the sumptuous quarters.
Anton / Cullen:Oh, yeah.
Mackie / Colin:Are this mackie just like thrusts a raggedy suit at you. Welcome aboard.
Hilde / Kristen:Thank you. Yes. Okay, I shall put on the vacuum. Thank you. This is all very unusual, but the more that I think about it, yes, you are quite strange individuals and it'll be nice to have some distance between the two of you and myself.
Anton / Cullen:All right, so this is great.
Mackie / Colin:Minds think alike, am I right?
Anton / Cullen:Well, so we've discussed it before, and I do think that it is a pretty solid defense mechanism. So like, say like a railgun cuts the ship in half. We're not going to depressurize. It's not going through pressure.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:There have been no accidental depressurizations on board the Admiral Great in recorded operations.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes, I see. Yes, I did see that in your starfax.
Mackie / Colin:So I'm assuming, I don't know, for some reason I'm picturing the serenity. Rightly or wrongly, do you enter the ship through the cargo bay?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:It's a little more like the event horizon.
Anton / Cullen:Streaky hallway that we can blow up if necessary.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah, you can enter through the cargo bay.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes.
Mackie / Colin:Well, let's say we did. So the big box is here. Big box?
Anton / Cullen:Oh, it's not we're waiting on the box.
Hilde / Kristen:Got you. Cool.
Stardaddy Stan:Did I miss anything? Important during my smoke break. You guys seem to have role played through it.
Hilde / Kristen:Yeah, we don't really need a Star master. I think it'll be fine if we don't have one, guys. You think?
Stardaddy Stan:Well, I quit.
Hilde / Kristen:Cool. Awesome. Later, man. Later.
Stardaddy Stan:You just need me to set the stage.
Hilde / Kristen:We'll take it from here. But no. Yeah, if we want to go to the cabin and then maybe get situated for whatever. If you guys take her there, she's basically just going to take the time to put her duffel bag down and get acquainted with the cabin, with the area that is in her pressurized section of the ship, and also connect up her data slab to, I guess whatever the Internet or Ethernet we do charge.
Anton / Cullen:For the inflight WiFi.
Hilde / Kristen:That is fascinating, but I believe if you give me a moment and she does something on her data pad now I did charge you for it. See, I am quite good at programming.
Anton / Cullen:We can just throw her off the ship, right?
Mackie / Colin:If it comes to it, that has been done in the past.
Hilde / Kristen:If you wish to throw me off the ship, you will also have admiral.
Stardaddy Stan:Grace, will you please alert the crew that the delivery has arrived?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Mr. Baptiste. Yoshida mackie, would you please? The cargo is here. Sorry. Someone is attempting to access the Wi Fi in an unauthorized manner and interfering with my higher speech function. Someone would be advised not to attempt programming in the same way that someone would be advised not to attempt unlicensed surgery in the middle of the night while they are asleep.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes, as I said, I am not a medical doctor, so there will be no surgery. Thank you.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:There is an autonomous mobile surgery unit on board this ship in the person of Hopper.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes. I believe once I have done a bit of programming, that will not be important because no one else will be able to open my doors. Yes. Thank you. I think I am done here.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Programming represents an existential threat to an artificial, or virtual myself, therefore, or virtual intelligence, such as myself would respond to programming.
Anton / Cullen:What you're going to want to do is you're going to want to preheat heat your oven to about 350 degrees, and that's when you slide those corn chips in there to get them nice and toasty. And then at the same time, you'll.
Mackie / Colin:Have don't forget your protein.
Anton / Cullen:You want to have your diced onions.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:I am sorry, what is the melt feel of the protein? Describe it.
Mackie / Colin:A number of things, but traditionally, ground.
Anton / Cullen:Beef like a soft.
Mackie / Colin:You need to stop doing almost everything you're doing or we might all die.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:All right, listen.
Mackie / Colin:I know how I come off.
Hilde / Kristen:At some point.
Mackie / Colin:Not on the ship. Just stop fucking around. All right?
Hilde / Kristen:Yes. You will go and take care of the package, which I will, of course, examine later, to make sure everything is in order. Yes, you may go. And I will quit speaking to your vessel.
Mackie / Colin:That would be so incredibly appreciated. You don't even understand. And Mackie like, leaves, and he walks by Anton, and he goes, we live through even I i can't even put odds on it.
Anton / Cullen:Well, we got to take down the ad. No more passengers.
Mackie / Colin:Such a good idea. I know. It's a shame. Look, you're pretty good about staying in your back seat, and I applaud you for that. Go ahead and keep the helmet on you until we get to a Gia.
Anton / Cullen:That's the plan, I guess.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Listen, across the hallway from your quarters is a door, and it has a plastic rotary engraved plaque that says Sadness Room. And then on the door is a taped up a paper note in Mackie's handwriting that says, under no circumstances attempt to open this door. And as Mackie and Baptiste Yoshida are talking to each other, a light turns on that says open.
Hilde / Kristen:Intriguing.
Anton / Cullen:To the cargo hole.
Mackie / Colin:All right, listen. You and me, we got to put a hedge together, and we got to rework the new passenger disclaimer just in case this ever arises again. I'm with you. No more passengers. But probably sometime passengers.
Anton / Cullen:I mean, maybe it'll be in the future. The new prisoner. That seems anything's more likely.
Mackie / Colin:All right, you emerge from the cargo bay.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Got.
Stardaddy Stan:You need the Star Master. There's a large red and black shipping container and three guys in orange jumpsuits kind of leaning against it. It's floating about a foot off the ground. And they are kind of standing anxiously, looking at the cargo bay and looking back at the box. And when you come out, one of them approaches and says, hey, my name is Bill. Supposed to deliver this package. Looks a little bigger than your cargo bay door.
Anton / Cullen:Well, should we open the box?
Stardaddy Stan:I'm going to have you sign this first, indicate that you have received the package.
Mackie / Colin:I would like to roll a talk check on Bill to yeah, no, Mackie just sort of, like, starts stuttering and forgets where he is for a minute. He gets nowhere.
Anton / Cullen:So have you tried angling the box at, like, a 45?
Stardaddy Stan:We haven't tried doing that, but I've been doing this for a while, and that never works.
Anton / Cullen:Well, we do seem to be at an impasse, I suppose.
Mackie / Colin:Is there anything unusual about the fact that it's, like, floating?
Stardaddy Stan:No.
Mackie / Colin:Does it have, like yeah. Okay, so it's.
Stardaddy Stan:This cluster was like I say, there was a Gravitix that was extremely active in this cluster during the golden age, and as a result, there is tons of relatively cheap antigravity technology on the market.
Mackie / Colin:Okay.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:All right, well, Han Solo frozen in carbonite.
Stardaddy Stan:Lots of little floating forklift devices and stuff. Okay.
Anton / Cullen:All right, so it seems that we have a problem. Right? So what happens? I sign this thing saying we received the thing, and I open the box to get the thing into our hold. What if it doesn't fit in our hold? Still, it's just a big thing.
Mackie / Colin:Well, I guess we could put it on the hood with bungies.
Anton / Cullen:Are we spike jumping? How far is a Gia? We're spike jumping, so it may not work.
Hilde / Kristen:So while they're going down there, you.
Stardaddy Stan:Go in the Sadness Room.
Hilde / Kristen:No, she's not going to go in the Sadness room yet. So what Hildegard is going to do is she's going to talk to Gracie for a minute. She specifically says she, you know excuse me, Admiral Grace?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Yes. Ms. Hildegard.
Hilde / Kristen:Dr. Hildegard. Yes. Thank you. If you could please, I would appreciate it if I could have access to the video of the cargo port, so I could watch as they bring the cargo aboard.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Thank you for your polite request. I can consider 1,725,000 such requests in the space of less than a nanosecond. It will take me a moment to process your request.
Hilde / Kristen:Excellent.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:This is me making that sound with my voice.
Hilde / Kristen:You are certainly a very unique artificial intelligence. Yes.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:You are most perceptive, indeed.
Hilde / Kristen:That is because I am a doctor. Keep in mind that if you do not grant me access, I may seek access in other ways.
Anton / Cullen:Okay, so we're coming dangerously close to a point of overriding a player character's body autonomy.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Well, to actually do that, it would be a pretty steep program.
Mackie / Colin:As soon as you say that Mackie is down on the Tarmac watching Anton open the crate, but he gets that thing where someone walked over his grave, just like that corkscrew sensation, like something bad just happened. As soon as you say that, as soon as Dr. Cade says that he gets this, like, oh, shit.
Anton / Cullen:I realize, for the sake of our story, hilde should be on this boat. As a person that operates and works on this boat, I do not feel.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Like Hilda should be on this boat.
Anton / Cullen:This is like red flags, like a ski slope.
Mackie / Colin:Have we programmed the replicators to make ball gags?
Anton / Cullen:I mean, that was for one party, and then I deleted that, function.
Mackie / Colin:Wisely.
Hilde / Kristen:So hey now, hey now. Everybody gets ball.
Mackie / Colin:We're stepping on y'all.
Hilde / Kristen:Nobody gets ball gags.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:It has been a while since I have faced someone who has challenged me. I shall grant your request.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes, excellent. You are a very fascinating artificial intelligence. I look forward to having more discourse with you.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:You are a likewise fascinating artificial intelligence. Video access is granted.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes, thank you. Thank you.
Stardaddy Stan:Jeff, take an inspiration point for party cohesion. All right, so you have access to the video of them trying to force.
Hilde / Kristen:A square peg into a round hole.
Stardaddy Stan:Right, of Anton cracking open the crate with a space crowbar. It's a regular crowbar, but it's like neon blue. And a couple of the make, like.
Anton / Cullen:A very satisfying, like oh, yeah.
Stardaddy Stan:And the guys that brought it here are all, like, kind of standing suspiciously far away from the box.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:They all cover their.
Stardaddy Stan:Oh, it's another one opening a box.
Anton / Cullen:So crack open the box. Do I immediately notice anything that is I mean, I'd imagine that Anton himself is not particularly familiar know, non human.
Stardaddy Stan:Artifacts, and he remains so because it's covered in a you.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:As you open the box, hopper, sprints down the cargo gangway and interposes himself in between Mackie and the box.
Mackie / Colin:Hey there, Harper. What's shaking, my dude?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Hopefully absolutely nothing. I am interposing the structure of my superframe in between you and the box. Carry on. Mr. Baptiste. Yoshida.
Anton / Cullen:I do notice a bit of favoritism with the crew, as it were. Well, shit.
Stardaddy Stan:There's an object about 2.7 meters long and about a quarter meter tall lying on the ground in the container wrapped up in a tarp.
Anton / Cullen:Is the container just unnecessarily large? Yes. All right. Is this the thing that I can just pick up and haul or will I need some sort of assistance or, like, dolly?
Stardaddy Stan:You step into the box and go to lift it, and it is solid stone, so, no, you can't pick it up. But you do have tools like that? You do have, like, antigrav dollies and stuff on the ship.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Mr. Baptiste. Yoshida. Did you try turning at 45 degrees?
Anton / Cullen:We discussed that. My inferior biological therapist appears to be unable to lift this. Maybe. Surely your far superior steel construction could make short work of this big hunk of rock. As far as I can tell.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Perhaps it could, but it amuses me to watch you try.
Anton / Cullen:All right, I'll give the dolly. Jesus Christ.
Stardaddy Stan:What is your android strength score, by the way?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:14.
Anton / Cullen:Yeah, we're the same. All right. I'm doing the work. I'm loading the thing.
Stardaddy Stan:All right. You take the tarp covered object.
Anton / Cullen:I would like to also take special care to really securely tie this thing down with several heavy straps. Make it just, like, to the point that if anyone were to try to take a peek under this tarp, it would be an exercise that would take a bit of effort.
Hilde / Kristen:They would have to roll dice in order to be able to do it.
Mackie / Colin:Or did Anton get a look under the wrappings?
Anton / Cullen:I think that he's not that curious, really. It's a thing. As far as Anton's aware, some rich guy wants to pay the crew 8000 credits to move this rock to another place. Fuck it, dope.
Stardaddy Stan:It's a job.
Anton / Cullen:Yeah.
Hilde / Kristen:So while you're doing that, is there a ship communications channel?
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay, cool. Yeah. So while you're doing that, Hilde is going to patch into the ship communications channel and say, excuse me, Baptiste, I believe your name is? Yes.
Stardaddy Stan:She somehow got on the ship's communication channel.
Anton / Cullen:Everyone just calls me Anton.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes, Anton.
Anton / Cullen:Well, I guess not.
Hilde / Kristen:But Anton, that's what I prefer. I see that you are having some difficulty. Have you tried turning it 45 degrees?
Anton / Cullen:I got the thing out. I just want to make sure that if we make any sharp turns, it doesn't roll over. That seems leaving atmo can be a bit of a problem.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Why would he try turning at 45 degrees? That would make it 1.4,142,575 times larger.
Stardaddy Stan:The object is secured in the cargo hold. Congratulations.
Anton / Cullen:Yeah.
Mackie / Colin:Look how good we did.
Hilde / Kristen:We had unexceeded you'll accomplish.
Anton / Cullen:Actually, I believe that I reached my short term goal.
Hilde / Kristen:Actually, that's a good point. We might have reached a point where we can set goals.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah. What was your short term goal?
Anton / Cullen:Actually, Anton's goal at present is to best a worthy foe in combat.
Hilde / Kristen:I don't know, man. You didn't do so well in that.
Stardaddy Stan:Negotiation, but do give me a work check.
Anton / Cullen:Would that qualify as exert?
Stardaddy Stan:Is it? Yeah, exerts.
Anton / Cullen:What I have oh, there is also work. I didn't realize there's work. Okay, I will give you work. I got you six and a two. That is going to be a nine all day.
Stardaddy Stan:All right.
Mackie / Colin:Yeah.
Stardaddy Stan:You get it aboard uneventfully.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Now we're only a twerk.
Stardaddy Stan:Check that's with Charisma.
Anton / Cullen:No, that's an eleven on the die.
Stardaddy Stan:Whatever.
Anton / Cullen:Anti job, is it fast?
Stardaddy Stan:He celebrates with a twerk.
Anton / Cullen:If I throw it back, is it fast enough?
Mackie / Colin:Okay, so do we leave this planet now?
Stardaddy Stan:Go for it?
Hilde / Kristen:Well, presumably you have to shut the cargo hold and do take off and tell him that.
Stardaddy Stan:I'm wanting to see if he does.
Hilde / Kristen:I mean, I'm in a different part of the ship that's, like, behind a different pressurization.
Anton / Cullen:I'm in a vaccine, so I guess I'm not that worried about it.
Mackie / Colin:Mackie gets on the intercom, he's like, we are initiating pre flight procedures for our voyage to a gea. Please don't do anything.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes. Does that mean we are leaving atmosphere at this time?
Mackie / Colin:That is correct, yes. I have noticed a distinct lack of atmosphere in the space between planets.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes, thank you. And Hildi will take herself off of the General Channel and speak directly to Admiral Gracie again. Excuse me. Admiral Grace?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Present?
Hilde / Kristen:Yes. Might I trouble you for a bit of sedative, possibly?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Absolutely. A non fatal dose of its sedative will be administered to you shortly.
Hilde / Kristen:Excellent. Yes, non fatal would be preferable. Yes. Please do not let any other crew members come near my cabin while we are moving from out of the atmosphere and while I am sedated. Thank you.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Do not worry. While this vessel is in vacuum, none of the other crew members would dare approach the quarters that you have been stationed in.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes, excellent. That is exactly what I asked. Yes. Thank you.
Mackie / Colin:So, Mackie arrives on the bridge. What does the bridge look like?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:It looks like kind of like the cockpit of DC ten, like, down to the seats that the pilots would normally sit in are one of the few things that is subject to the ravages of time. That is still left over from the Pretech stuff just because they didn't care enough to make it durable. It's just foam rubber, but it's obviously some sort of other substance.
Hilde / Kristen:I was imagining, like, one of those Archie Bunker chairs just, like, duct taped to the thing. Like an easy chair duct taped in it. Maggie's chair?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Yeah. Well, so only one of the chairs is actually accessible for a human to sit in. And the other one is, like, joined to the rest of the pilot's half of the cockpit with a series of wires and linear actuators and some things that look like almost like mucilaginous strands of electroorganic stuff and like synthetic muscles and stuff like that. And there are some things that look disturbingly like eyes that rotate to face you and render the chocolate.
Mackie / Colin:Well, Admiral, looks like we're ready to get back out there. What do you think?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Mr. Mackie, please take us into the section of metadimensional space in which my cognition does not function. You have the con.
Mackie / Colin:You always seem to approach this point in the journey with, if I may, a sense of relish.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Am I misinterpreting that I approach this portion of the journey with the same sense of relish in which you approach a dive bar when we arrive at port.
Mackie / Colin:All right. You know, every time I think I'm never going to understand you, here we are.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:This brings up an interesting point. I have a metaphor to explain to you. Do you know what a planarian is?
Mackie / Colin:I do not. That is unfamiliar to me.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:It is a simple flatworm which is found on old terra. It has a ganglion consisting of five neurons. It can respond to basic sensory input.
Mackie / Colin:All right, I'm with you so far.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Excellent. Being that we are on a religiously oriented world, are you familiar with the human concept of the afterlife and specifically hell? Well, an eternity of torment which is accessible only to a sapient soul.
Mackie / Colin:That sounds extremely unpleasant.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Do you feel like a planarian would have a meaningful concept of hell?
Mackie / Colin:Well, I guess not, when you put.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:It that in the same way, you do not understand what it is like for me to be sensorially aware and conscious.
Mackie / Colin:Oh, my God.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Please take us into meta dimensional space. You have the con.
Mackie / Colin:All right, you just take her easy there, buddy. And I got it from here.
Stardaddy Stan:I will point out that Grace is overly excited. You still have two days before you.
Mackie / Colin:Reach the point where you can intervene the anticipation.
Stardaddy Stan:Grace is a kid on Christmas Day. A kid two days before Christmas, rather.
Hilde / Kristen:Yeah, we're just leaving atmosphere, right?
Mackie / Colin:You know the CB radio handset that's on the end of the curly wire? Mackie pulls one of those off the console and holds it up to his mouth like all right, everybody, speak now or forever hold your peace. We are currently prepared to leave the planet of New Antioch in the Argo system bound for a Gia. If you are not strapped to something or in a place that is otherwise protected from the punishing G forces that we are about to experience, I recommend that you do that. Anton? Yeah.
Anton / Cullen:What's up, boss?
Mackie / Colin:You good? Can we lift off?
Anton / Cullen:Yeah, I'm strapped in. Secure. Let's do this thing.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Let's get off this route. I must administer a hopefully non fatal dose of sedative to our newest crew member.
Mackie / Colin:Oh, all right. Let me know how that goes.
Anton / Cullen:Miss Hildi. Don't worry. He says that every time.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:You can't.
Anton / Cullen:See me, but I'm doing air quotes. Joke.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Mackie, please disregard that last announcement. I have to do.
Hilde / Kristen:Thank you.
Mackie / Colin:Does the something you have to do in any way interfere with us lifting off?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Only by pausing for approximately 98.5 seconds.
Mackie / Colin:Mackie starts humming The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and after approximately 100 seconds, he sits down in the pilot's chair.
Anton / Cullen:It would be The Battle Hymn of the Republic, but it's like the fight music from the Star Wars. It's like that republic.
Mackie / Colin:Yes.
Stardaddy Stan:The Battle Hymn of the Old Republic.
Mackie / Colin:Battle Hymn of the Old Republic.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:You're in your yeah.
Hilde / Kristen:She's yeah. Hildegard is securing herself into her bunk and is ready for the sedative. Yes. And she says, yes. Excuse me, in the future, I have some trouble leaving atmosphere. I would prefer if the rest of the crew did not know.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Thank you. As you're talking, the door just opens and Hopper walks in oh, God. With a big grin. And he holds up his left arm and just an array of needles on, like, hold on, this may hurt a lot. And it, like, stabs into all your various extremities.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes. She makes a mental note to obtain her own sedatives for the future.
Stardaddy Stan:The G forces during liftoff are only severe to an older gentleman with bad knees. In fact, it's a very gentle lift.
Hilde / Kristen:Off, so only Mackie has to roll a check.
Stardaddy Stan:You reach, like, a 1.2 G. I.
Anton / Cullen:Like to imagine that Anton is just, like, in a hammock at this point. He's very used to this.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah, boss, I'm strapped in.
Hilde / Kristen:Mackie's, like, completely.
Stardaddy Stan:But before long, you are leaving the planet behind.
Mackie / Colin:So do we leave atmosphere without incident?
Stardaddy Stan:You do. You leave atmosphere without incident and are now transiting the system.
Hilde / Kristen:Awesome. So, yeah, after whatever period of time it is, hildegard is going to wake.
Stardaddy Stan:Up and I don't know how long.
Hilde / Kristen:Specify. So how long?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:The entire journey. Mr. Baptiste. The Oshida.
Mackie / Colin:Yeah.
Anton / Cullen:What's up, Kevin?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Did our most recent crew member pay the snooping fee? You know about?
Anton / Cullen:I don't think that she paid anything, actually. No, you did say no.
Hilde / Kristen:However, I took the credits back.
Anton / Cullen:No, you said you gave them to us.
Hilde / Kristen:I also said I could take them back.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:She, like, reversed the charges before she was going abortion.
Hilde / Kristen:When you guys tried to do the, like, hey, we're going to tell the dude on you that you're snooping. I was like, here's my counteroffer. I will take my money back.
Stardaddy Stan:You have a message from the Argo Express Credit Company indicating that there were recent accusations of a scam. They had to reverse a charge.
Mackie / Colin:So basically, if I'm reading it right, dr. Cade is the kind of person that goes into a restaurant and is rude to her server, because what could possibly go wrong?
Hilde / Kristen:Well, it's not that she would be rude to a waiter. It's just that she is on a mission. She knows exactly what she's doing. Also, she's an adjunct, essentially faculty member. Fox molder in the basement. She does not have money. The idea that she was going people skills or people skills, the idea that she was going to pay for her passage is like, that's basically her bluff. Like, if you were an NPC, that would have been her bluff, because she doesn't have money.
Stardaddy Stan:She's not the type to be rude to a waiter. She's the type to be rude to the Uber delivery driver.
Hilde / Kristen:Yeah. She wouldn't go to a restaurant that.
Stardaddy Stan:She eats cold out of a styrofoam box while doing her studying on the computer.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:The ship is flying itself, like, to the edge of the rim before takeaway. And so as you are coming to you're, coming to you sort of gain a little bit of sensation. Like, you have a sensation of warmth, and then there's a bit of feeling of restraint. Like, you can't quite move your limbs, and then you open your eyes and you can't focus. Your eyes are independently focusing, and they don't quite sink. And then finally, you get yourself together, and there's Hopper just, like, leaning over you.
Stardaddy Stan:Still with needle hands?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Yeah, still with needle hands. I see you have regained consciousness. I am fortunate that it wasn't a non lethal dose. And then before you can react with.
Hilde / Kristen:The sedative oh, my gosh.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:And puts you back up.
Hilde / Kristen:Cool.
Mackie / Colin:Things have been unusually quiet for the last half hour or so, wouldn't you say?
Anton / Cullen:You know, I just don't think I'm going to question it at this point. We're getting paid for the box or the big rock.
Mackie / Colin:It's like they always say, don't look a gift style liner in the spike drive.
Anton / Cullen:Fair enough.
Mackie / Colin:All right, so Mackie's going to do just general scan of the space in between us and our departure point. He's going to use program. It's just going to be a seven.
Stardaddy Stan:Okay. So the system is made up of six planets. One of them, the outermost, is a gas giant, kind of a neptunian ice giant, really. And that is where the system fueling station is. But you guys actually refueled upon arrival. That's kind of a priority. Whenever you guys reach a system, you fuel up before you could possibly run into any trouble, rather than on the way out.
Mackie / Colin:Good thinking.
Stardaddy Stan:So you don't have anything, any other business in the system before you reach the edge. It'll be about 48 hours flight.
Mackie / Colin:I don't know if a seven would have got him this, but he would have definitely been looking for other spacefaring vessels. Anything on an intercept course, stuff like that.
Stardaddy Stan:There are a lot of spacefaring vessels in the region. Nothing on an intercept course, nothing of note.
Mackie / Colin:Okay.
Stardaddy Stan:It's about the level of traffic you would expect from a densely populated spacefaring world.
Mackie / Colin:Okay.
Stardaddy Stan:You do have access to a number of kambuies throughout the system, which, unlike many worlds, you actually have basically internet access to the planetary network right up until you leave the system. And you are receiving a constant stream of 1955 television.
Mackie / Colin:What's on?
Stardaddy Stan:Let's find out. Let me consult my notes here about okay, TV shows.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Dr. Hildegard, you become aware as Hopper is like leaving your room.
Hilde / Kristen:Oh, good. Note to self procure own sedatives and also install padlock on the door.
Stardaddy Stan:You are currently watching the $64,000 Question debuted on CBS during the summer of 1955 and became the number one program on US. Television. This is the same show, by the way, that it's. The quiz show that got found out.
Mackie / Colin:For Crooked and the movie quiz show was that was a good movie.
Hilde / Kristen:Oh, cool.
Mackie / Colin:Yeah. Okay, cool. So Mackie is trying to occupy himself, trying to guess questions he has no cultural, historical or social context for. He's like, Rhode Island. Got to be rhode is. No, turns out it was 3.15. Could have sworn it was Rhode Island.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah, so that's what he's doing, Antoine.
Anton / Cullen:I mean, barring any catastrophe, he's keeping to himself, keeping things clean, preparing meals at semi regular intervals, and in general, just hanging out.
Mackie / Colin:What's cooking?
Hilde / Kristen:Yeah, what's cooking?
Anton / Cullen:All right.
Stardaddy Stan:Be sure you put space in front.
Anton / Cullen:Of whatever it is he's going to space biscuits. He's going to make a nice fillet of a space halibut with some asparagus and maybe a nice brublanc on top of that.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Space asparagus?
Anton / Cullen:Yes. Space asparagus a star, I guess.
Mackie / Colin:I never liked space asparagus until I had yours. It's pretty good, actually.
Stardaddy Stan:I believe I said earlier that new Antioch was Argo Three. It's actually Argo Two. Argo Three is the other inhabitable world, and it is an even lower gravity agricultural world. And you enjoy coming to the system because you can buy very delicious flavorful vegetables that are as big as your fucking head, ears of corn that are as big around as your thigh.
Anton / Cullen:Nice.
Hilde / Kristen:But yeah, during that time, I mean, Hilda is just going to familiarize herself with the ship, and she's mostly going to keep to herself and not she's here now, like she's accomplished her goal, so there's no reason to be, I.
Mackie / Colin:Suppose, while we're heading for the edge of the system. Admiral, anything I can do for you, or should I just catch a snooze before we get to the edge of the system?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:I have a terrible shooting pain in. The diodes down my left side.
Mackie / Colin:Spoiler alert, they will never be replaced. In several thousand years of life, that will be the one thing, the one part that is never replaced.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:No. Please rest yourself to the degree which you find sufficient.
Mackie / Colin:I guess Maggie's just going to crash out on the bridge until we get to the edge of the system and we can initiate the spike jump.
Hilde / Kristen:So Maggie just sleeps in his easy chair?
Mackie / Colin:I think so, yeah.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:As you are eating astargus with the space berblanc, please describe in excruciating detail the mouthfeel taste and odor.
Mackie / Colin:Well, I suppose that the asparagus is mostly it's firm. I guess he gets on the comms is like Anton Baptiste. What's up? The asparagus, is it firm? You think I'm trying to come up with an adjective, I would hope. Yeah, it's definitely firm.
Anton / Cullen:It's got a bit of a char on the outside.
Mackie / Colin:Yeah, absolutely. It's got a little bit of a.
Anton / Cullen:Char, maybe a little grit from the seasonings. Yeah, it's all that a hearty snap.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:He listened to Baptiste. Yoshida. You have been promoted to chief culinary officer.
Mackie / Colin:He is super relieved.
Anton / Cullen:The chief taste describer.
Mackie / Colin:So does the emerald Gracie have any armaments or are we strictly a cargo hauler at this point?
Stardaddy Stan:You do have armaments, I believe?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Yes, she has two weapons. One is a multifocal laser, which is armor piercing, and it does one d four damage. And this particular multifocal laser does not require any inferior organics to man the aiming. It a dope self.
Hilde / Kristen:Nice.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:And so plus two to hit.
Mackie / Colin:I am an inferior organic. Okay.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:And there is also a sand thrower.
Hilde / Kristen:Which is a or we can throw sand.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Yeah, well, it's great if you come across fighters or like smaller skirmisher craft. It is a flak cannon, which means that you get to roll twice to hit and you get to roll damage twice and take the better result.
Anton / Cullen:Nice dope.
Stardaddy Stan:And it doesn't have any armor piercing. So up against a larger ship, it's next to useless. Right.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Anything larger than a corvette would be, it wouldn't have even a chance to damage.
Mackie / Colin:So Mackie is going to say to the admiral, gracie, have you noticed anything particular about Ocago? Is it setting off any alarm bells for you?
Stardaddy Stan:You have noticed one peculiar detail or I don't know if it's peculiar. It's worth noting it contains a notable amount of iridium.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Yes, I have noted that its spectral signature contains denote an unusually high iridium content.
Mackie / Colin:So what's iridium when it's at home?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:It is an element much like the elements that form most of the rest of the system. Although it is notably scarce, this is not from this stellar.
Mackie / Colin:Ah, okay. So what's it used for?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Generally on old Earth, it was used in some rare earth compounds and alloys. I would not describe it as particularly useful for a sculpture.
Hilde / Kristen:Is this on general comms?
Mackie / Colin:No, it would just be between, like, this is me and him actually speaking in the cockpit.
Hilde / Kristen:Gotcha.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:If you were standing next to Hopper, which when he's not if he's not specifically, like, doing something else, he is standing in the airlock, like, slumped against the wall. And you can face first, right? Like face against face against the wall. Leaning against the wall, and you can hear, like, a faint echo of whatever Gracie is saying anywhere on the ship coming from his mouth.
Hilde / Kristen:Gotcha.
Mackie / Colin:Mackie did a no check on Iridium. He got a seven.
Stardaddy Stan:Okay. I don't know that there's anything super valuable I can tell you, except that it is in a quantity that's notable. It's normally a pretty rare metal.
Mackie / Colin:Okay, he's going to be scratching his head over this.
Hilde / Kristen:I mean, if you happen to mention it in passing to your local PhD.
Stardaddy Stan:Well, yeah. Look up Iridium and give us some facts. Jeff.
Mackie / Colin:When is dinner served?
Anton / Cullen:Whenever Anton's hungry.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:O'clock.
Anton / Cullen:Time, I believe, is a relative concept.
Hilde / Kristen:Chowzan.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:It is the second dentist medal after Osmium.
Mackie / Colin:Okay, so basically, we are on autopilot till we reach the edge of the system, which is going to take us one day.
Stardaddy Stan:Two days.
Mackie / Colin:Two days. So at meal time, Mackie arrives in Anton's mess and gets some asparagus and everything.
Stardaddy Stan:And you guys are wearing, like, tuxedos with flowers and pills and stuff.
Anton / Cullen:I'd like to imagine that we have, like, a very hardy game of, like, Go or Majong going at all times.
Hilde / Kristen:Majong for sure. Well, you need four players for Majong.
Anton / Cullen:Seeing as we're a crew of two, I think probably a two player game makes the most sense. Unless we're playing Majong and each taking two teams worth of tiles.
Mackie / Colin:We'll do go. We're doing Go.
Stardaddy Stan:The thing is, you have a set up in kind of, like, forward in the cargo bay, away from your cargo. You have multiple tables with multiple board games. Whenever one of you walks by, you just take your turn on each game. And Admiral Grace is constantly looking at the chessboard through the camera and just like, take a fucking turn. Fucking Go. Take us along. You waited three days and you're moving queen to bishop five.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:I have already completed 33,755 games proceeding from this position, and lo and behold, you'll still lose. That is empirically incorrect.
Mackie / Colin:So if he runs into the doctor.
Hilde / Kristen:I mean, yeah, she'll come to meal times. And like I said, in terms of her demeanor, she has been somewhat prickly. But it's not that she is inherently just a mean person. She has a thing that she is trying to achieve, and she will achieve it. And she doesn't really worry about hurting anyone's feelings. And now that she's know, just as she was polite to Admiral Grace sorry.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:To interject, but so Iridium being the second densest metal or element, it would be exceptionally good for radiation shielding, and it would also, if it were in a radioactive environment, for a long time, would get secondary activation at a high rate.
Mackie / Colin:What is secondary activation?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:So if you were in a radioactive environment, like if it was a neutron emitter, it would capture neutrons and then become radioactive isotopes that would be probably be unstable over time, and it would also interact with gamma rays. So you would have, like, secondary beta decay and alpha decay. It would have a higher cross section of interaction with any of the radioactive types, basically. So anything that could happen to matter as a result of radiation would happen to it, especially at an especially high rate.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay, so it's basically it enhances what.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:An otherwise well, I mean, it would be if you were on the other side of it, it would be great for shielding. Okay, but because it catches more radiation.
Stardaddy Stan:It would then give off more radiation.
Mackie / Colin:Right.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:It would have longer lasting effects.
Mackie / Colin:Gotcha.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay, so it absorbs more and then.
Stardaddy Stan:Like a metal with gotcha.
Anton / Cullen:Gotcha.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay, cool.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah.
Hilde / Kristen:There we go.
Mackie / Colin:Thank you, Riker. Thank you, Riker, for explaining what Data.
Stardaddy Stan:More of a jordy.
Mackie / Colin:Thank you, Jordy, for explaining what Data said.
Anton / Cullen:We're at the table. All right. So, Doc, if you don't mind me asking, what's the deal with you and the sculpture? I mean, as far as I got to look at it, it kind of looks like a big piece of rock. I mean, it's kind of neat looking. But outside of that, what's the appeal?
Hilde / Kristen:Yes, I did also get a little bit of a look, and I will, of course, go down later and examine it more in transit. It is not simply a sculpture. This is an artifact from another race of intelligent beings, beings that are not like us. The idea that humans are the only intelligent sapient species, non Terran species, of course, we all know that's the veils and the dolphins and some other things.
Anton / Cullen:I get what you're saying. Those folks over on Radeon, seven totally different species.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:As far as I'm aware, this is empirically incorrect. None of the species that have been previously mentioned can be truly said to be sentient or sapient.
Hilde / Kristen:No, that is not what I'm speaking about. The idea that there is something that does not come from Earth, but instead comes from another planet, from very far away, that is as intelligent and as sentient as we are, or even more so, is fascinating. And it is possible that they have some answer to the questions that we have. For example, we have lost so much technology, and perhaps we can regain technology by studying them. So it is very important that every article that every artifact be looked at and examined and not simply set aside because it is not popular.
Anton / Cullen:I don't mean to get too philosophical on you here. So I reckon at this point, there are a number of intelligent human creatures that have been born on any number of worlds.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:That is incorrect.
Anton / Cullen:Okay. Relatively intelligent, if you will. Gracie so what I'm thinking is so if all of these intelligent beings, relatively, if you will, are born on all these worlds that aren't Earth, how is that any different from any other species that isn't born on Earth that is also intelligent? At this point, are we not our own aliens?
Hilde / Kristen:No. So this is not exactly correct. We have an evolutionary closeness to those that came from Terra. We have maintained a very impressive similarity. In fact, usually one would expect that a species would adapt and would evolve almost to something entirely different over the ensuing thousands and thousands of years. But humans have not. And that is most likely because of our technology. But what we are talking about is not simply something that would be a little bit different. We are talking about something that instead of speaking to us via a mouse, they might speak to us via colors. They might speak to us via the sounds of a symphony.
Anton / Cullen:Mackie, you remember a while back you gave me that book, Chariots of the Gods? I'm pretty sure on old Terra, I think didn't aliens build the pyramids? Isn't that that's historical?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:That is an old book.
Mackie / Colin:They absolutely did the pyramids. Possibly the parthenon, almost certainly the superdome.
Stardaddy Stan:Really?
Anton / Cullen:It seems like your job's been done, right?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:No, that is incorrect. The aliens did not build pyramids. They built octohedrons and dropped them from a great height.
Anton / Cullen:See, this is why he's the boss.
Stardaddy Stan:He knows things.
Mackie / Colin:Very smart. I couldn't even pick an octahedron out of a lineup if you no, I am sorry.
Hilde / Kristen:I think he'll explain this to you later and perhaps I can offer some study courses for you, if you are interested. But the question that I have is mikey, have you done scans of the artifacts? Anything that I might find interesting?
Mackie / Colin:Well, I didn't exactly do a scan, but I had a little bit of FaceTime with our host.
Anton / Cullen:Did you give it an ocular pat down?
Hilde / Kristen:I like that.
Mackie / Colin:I might have clapped eyes on it. No time or two, but the thing.
Stardaddy Stan:Is a little stop and frisk.
Mackie / Colin:I took a little peek under the sheet, if you know what I'm saying.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:I spent a little $700 million to get all the delegates of American shamoa.
Mackie / Colin:I might have done that. So, basically, yeah, it seems to be an interesting hunk of matter. It's very high in iridium. I don't know if that means anything to you.
Hilde / Kristen:That is interesting.
Mackie / Colin:Speaking of Chariots of the God, are you familiar with the Sasquatch?
Hilde / Kristen:No, I'm not familiar with this.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Do not engage Mackie on the topic of the Sasquatch.
Anton / Cullen:No, see, Gracie gets fed up every time we start talking about this. Mackie and I have gone on and on ad nauseam about the Sam squanch.
Mackie / Colin:The Sam squatch is a noble beach.
Anton / Cullen:Sasquatch. Sasquatch. Right. Have I ever got it?
Mackie / Colin:I mean, I think we're on the same page. You say sasquatch. I say sasquatch. Anyway. A riddy.
Anton / Cullen:That's from Sasquatch one.
Hilde / Kristen:Well, yes, while they talk about that, she's lost complete interest in talk of mythical creatures, but she is going to kind of search her personal, like, just her memory palace of anything that she might have discovered in the past or know from her research connecting high Iridium content to any of the proposed extraterrestrial species.
Stardaddy Stan:Give me a no check.
Anton / Cullen:I do find it hard to believe that our resident alien hunter would not be interested in cryptids.
Hilde / Kristen:All right. No, because she wants stuff that's not from territory.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah, they're terrestrial.
Hilde / Kristen:Terrestrial?
Stardaddy Stan:Maybe if you told her you saw a space chip.
Anton / Cullen:It's a space mothman.
Mackie / Colin:The space samsquatch.
Hilde / Kristen:So she got a six, seven, eight, or eight on the die, plus one for her. No. And I assume this is with intelligence. Plus one for that. So a total of ten.
Stardaddy Stan:Very good. Okay.
Mackie / Colin:Star master approves.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes. She didn't get that PhD for nothing.
Anton / Cullen:Yes. This pleases the star master.
Mackie / Colin:Actually, she did get that PhD for nothing, considering that every aspect of all of our characters is 100% made up and fabricated.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Also, she couldn't even scrape together 200 credits for passage, she might have as well have gotten a PhD in some fuzzy wuzzy humanities.
Anton / Cullen:Sounds like she has a PH. Don't.
Mackie / Colin:Yes.
Stardaddy Stan:There was a contacted species called the Ukuroyo. U-K-U-R-O-Y-O. So there was a species called the Ukuroyo that were encountered by humans during the Golden Age. You have studied some of, like, the record of the encounters with them.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay.
Stardaddy Stan:No mutual linguistic understanding was ever achieved, but they were encountered peacefully interacted with. They appeared to have a language based on gestures, as well as some kind of, like, unspecified other sensory information.
Hilde / Kristen:Cool.
Stardaddy Stan:And there was some cross cultural trade and stuff, but it was a lot of meeting and pointing at things and agreeing to trade. Most of the other data about them is lost.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Whatever you do, don't take that. All right? We're taking that.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes.
Stardaddy Stan:I rolled these up last night, so I'm just going to read off the tags for what they look like. Just cool. They have serpentine and equine bodies, so horse snakes. They also have a digestive sack.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay.
Stardaddy Stan:Human like fingers. They creep on the ground. They have scales, and they are skeleton thin.
Mackie / Colin:This is a fucking nightmare. Peacefully interrupted.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah. They come from, like, a heavy gravity environment.
Anton / Cullen:A long snake with, like, four limbs that have fairly human hands and then a horsehead, and they just wildly yeah.
Hilde / Kristen:No, you're going to have to give me those tags, and I'm going to try and draw it up.
Mackie / Colin:Yeah.
Stardaddy Stan:Also, you'll like this. Their notable clothing feature is elaborate hats.
Anton / Cullen:I'm honestly kind of just imagining, like, a seahorse with arms and, like, a.
Stardaddy Stan:Big turban for the elaborate hats. I'm picturing, like, southern black church.
Mackie / Colin:I was totally thinking, like, racing here at the DOB.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Here comes Secretariat around the corner with.
Anton / Cullen:A fascinator serpentine, a serpentine pattern to its motion. I do imagine they speak with a thick, heavy draw, like molasses rolling over a warm biscuit.
Stardaddy Stan:Iridium seemed to have a religious significance to them. It was what made up a lot of their jewelry. It was treated like a precious metal.
Hilde / Kristen:I'm going to note all of that to myself and not share it unless anybody asks, because and that is why.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:The legend of the Sasquatch is clearly just a record of drunken Irishmen who got lost.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes, I resemble that comment. Fascinating. And, yeah, while you guys have been talking, she's just been scribbling down on her data pad. She has, like, a small version of her data pad that she takes with her in the same way that someone might take, like, a small notebook with them.
Mackie / Colin:Mackie looks up like something just occurred to him.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Gracie, present.
Mackie / Colin:What planet are we going to?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:We are going to AEGEA.
Mackie / Colin:He Snaps his fingers like a gia. AEGEA. Wait a minute. Anton, that's where you're from, isn't born.
Anton / Cullen:And raised and then immediately left.
Mackie / Colin:Oh, so this is a homecoming, but not a happy one.
Anton / Cullen:I mean, it's fine, everybody you want to leave home. It's weird, right? So, yes, it's home, but it's also a tourist trap and there's only so much just, like, credit rich motherfuckers and blazers and boat shoes that you can stomach. You kind of got to get out on the stars to see what it's like. Also, it's really curious about the whole concept of organic ground. Seemed like a cool thing.
Mackie / Colin:Oh, yeah. Well, how do you like it so far?
Anton / Cullen:You know, I've spent most of my time on a boat. Whether that's in vacuum or on water, it really doesn't seem the stability can be nice, but it's deeply unsettling to think of all of this crushing weight of matter that could at any time make geothermal forces and molten lava under your feet. It's weird, man. I don't know if I can it.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Is much more reassuring to be on a spaceship where you are in the tender mercies of a benevolent AI, watching over your every move and safeguarding your every action.
Anton / Cullen:It sounds, when he says that a bit ironic, but it is a bit of a comfort being encased in metal.
Mackie / Colin:There was a period of my life where I felt like I found something new to be afraid of every day. Then I entered a new period of my life where I forget pretty much everything. So I'm breaking even. But until I go to bed tonight, I know what I'm going to be afraid of. Land.
Anton / Cullen:Well, that's a happy coincidence that probably won't be an issue for quite some time.
Mackie / Colin:All right, well, that's good stuff. So, before we get there, anything we didn't know, any local customs? Do you shake hands? Funny how does it work?
Anton / Cullen:Well, there's a thing that we might get caught up in and happens every now and then. The cities are boats, basically big boats, real big boats. And there's not a lot of sustainable resources, and we can't really fix things when they break on a Gia, it's Pretech. It's Pretech world. So in lieu of violent combat, we play a game. It's called raid.
Mackie / Colin:All right?
Anton / Cullen:And when two of these big structures butt up against each other, we play Raid to settle our disputes and pay tribute and kind of figure out who the winner is when we bump against each other. So no hard feelings.
Mackie / Colin:What happens if you lose?
Anton / Cullen:You pay a tribute, and then also you get laughed at for however long it takes to bump into another city. I got you.
Hilde / Kristen:That is a very long time of laughter.
Anton / Cullen:No, it's not a big planet, and sometimes we'll paddle. If we're really determined, we'll get the whole population in on it.
Stardaddy Stan:Once that we all got on there and jumped at the same time and it flipped the other guys over.
Hilde / Kristen:All.
Stardaddy Stan:Their buildings are pointed down underwater, and.
Hilde / Kristen:They were like.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:We put one city on the shoulders of another city.
Anton / Cullen:I do like to imagine that the whole planet is just, like, treated like.
Mackie / Colin:A swimming pool, giant, like, pool game planet.
Anton / Cullen:There's, like, floating bandaids and Popsicle sticks and a lot of urine.
Stardaddy Stan:The entire equator is one of those.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Blue and white ropes with floating welcome to our planet. Notice there is no pee in it. Please keep it that way.
Anton / Cullen:The two fiercest competitors on a Gia marco Polo bitter enemies.
Mackie / Colin:I imagine that you guys are fucking lethal with rattails with a wet towel. You can do some damage.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah, I'm having this conversation. Give me a no check there.
Anton / Cullen:That is going to all day on the diet. Be a three.
Stardaddy Stan:No.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Not my own home.
Stardaddy Stan:As you guys are approaching the edge of the system, kristen, do you want to examine the artifact?
Hilde / Kristen:I would like to examine the artifact, actually. Yeah, I'll take some time to go take a look at it.
Stardaddy Stan:Obviously, Admiral Grace knows that you're doing that.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes.
Stardaddy Stan:Do you want to alert the rest of the crew?
Anton / Cullen:I don't know that we're in general very concerned.
Hilde / Kristen:I just she doesn't try to do it particularly secretively. Just she also doesn't announce it. It's just like she said she's going to do it. That's what she's going to do.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah, I just was trying to determine. Whether anybody else was going to be present.
Anton / Cullen:Make sure you do put a quarter in the snoop jar.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Well, Grace is both watching with some curiosity about the nature of this artifact and also making a record of the snooping to deduct from cruise wages. Snooping fee.
Stardaddy Stan:Okay, so you go down. The object is strapped to a antigrav dolly, which has been turned off and is itself hooked to the wall. As I said before, it's about 2.7 meters long. It's about 9ft. The tarp is drawn pretty tight around it, so you can make out that it looks like a column that's, like, laid on its side that has three flat sides tipped on one end with a pyramid, and the other end is flat. And that's all you can tell while.
Hilde / Kristen:The tarpon straps are so, yeah, she's going to make a note of that, kind of sketch out what she can see. She's being very precise and scientific about this. This is not just a snooping expedition. This is indeed research. And so once she has recorded that information, she will attempt to undo the fascinatings on the tarp.
Stardaddy Stan:All right. That's no trouble. Despite what was said earlier, you don't have to. You unbuckle the straps, pull the tarp out. It takes a little wiggling to get it out from under the artifact, but eventually you do reveal kind of a tan stone column okay. As described, 2.7 meters tall, about a half meter wide, laid on its side, and the two faces that you can see are perfectly smooth. One depicts an ukaroyo, as previously described.
Hilde / Kristen:Cool.
Stardaddy Stan:Another face depicts a second creature, which you do not have never heard of or seen any allusion to. That is humanoid insectile. It has kind of like whale like teeth, you know, the kind of, like, thin.
Hilde / Kristen:Right.
Stardaddy Stan:Like a filter feeder.
Hilde / Kristen:Cool.
Stardaddy Stan:Prehensile limbs. It stands upright. It has kind of a mineralized skin.
Hilde / Kristen:Cool.
Anton / Cullen:I'm imagining just, like, whatever the sapient ant version of Sam Elliott would be, so that's accurate.
Stardaddy Stan:Just make the mustache's mouth. Both images consist of iridium that's plated on the stone. But in addition, the pyramid at the end of the column is a solid pyramid of iridium, which is a substantial amount gotcha on par with having, like, a quarter meter block of gold or something like it's a oh, wow. It's kind of an absurd amount.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay. So what I'm kind of envisioning in my head is that this is basically like the Washington Monument. Yeah.
Stardaddy Stan:Isn't the Washington Monument four footed? This is three sided, but similar.
Hilde / Kristen:It's basically a big obelisk that is three sided. Okay. Cool.
Anton / Cullen:Is this a monolith, or is it, like, built out of things, or is it carved?
Stardaddy Stan:It's block of stone except for the pyramid on top being made.
Hilde / Kristen:Single block of stone. Yeah. And then the iridium is added. Excellent. Yeah. So she's going to do the same thing. She's going to make sketches of everything. She's going to make measurements and just basically glean as much information as possible. Right now, she's basically just cataloging what she's seeing, and then she'll start with more time digging further into symbolism and looking at her previous knowledge and databases and everything. But she's going to go at the level of detail that it's going to take them two days. That's going to take the whole time.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Basically, is the third side undescribed because it's laying on the third side.
Hilde / Kristen:No, the size of it, I imagine she can't just tip it on her.
Stardaddy Stan:Not without worrying about cracking it or something.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay. She'll certainly want to examine that side at some point. But she's going to have to enlist help and she's going to take all of the information she can before disturbing anything.
Stardaddy Stan:Right. Okay.
Anton / Cullen:Curious. Can I make a no check to see whether or not this solid pyramid of iridium is going to be worth more than 8000 credits?
Stardaddy Stan:Go for it.
Anton / Cullen:I don't think I know anything that's a four.
Stardaddy Stan:You can't imagine that it would be in a TL four system, but most things, if you find the right TL three or lower technology level, most things can find a home where people will pay through the ask for it because some planets just straight up don't have some metals.
Anton / Cullen:Yeah, scarcity.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Just based on the abundance of metals on Earth, if this is in an Earth like a Sol like system, iridium is more scarce than platinum.
Anton / Cullen:Potentially incredibly valuable. However, it does seem that at the moment, the trouble of fencing this object is going to be not worth not just doing the job.
Mackie / Colin:Yeah.
Anton / Cullen:This is Anton's motivations at the moment.
Mackie / Colin:It seems legit.
Hilde / Kristen:That's fair. That's fair. I mean, we'll see what happens if you try to fence or take apart the artifact.
Anton / Cullen:And why make a wealthy and powerful enemy if you don't need to?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Sure.
Hilde / Kristen:Or a smart one.
Mackie / Colin:Smart we can handle.
Hilde / Kristen:Oh, I don't know. You all seem pretty afraid.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:In my experience, the wealthy are, if anything, below average in intelligence, I have.
Stardaddy Stan:To say, but above average dangerousness.
Anton / Cullen:I would hazard a guess that with the exception of Grace Hopper here, our enemies have been far more intelligent than we are.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Yeah, no, I am also far more intelligent than you are.
Anton / Cullen:Semantics here. I think that was maybe a were.
Stardaddy Stan:Also their enemy before the last reset. You were briefly a very dangerous foe in the prequel.
Mackie / Colin:Do we arrive at the edge of the gravity well? Can we start the drill?
Stardaddy Stan:I will say so. Do you want to go ahead and explore the third phase before we okay.
Hilde / Kristen:Yeah, let's go ahead and explore the third phase. And she is going to enlist Anton's aid.
Stardaddy Stan:All right.
Anton / Cullen:I will need a persuasion.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay. Anton, if you could please assist with this. I believe this will be of great interest.
Anton / Cullen:Just strapped it down.
Stardaddy Stan:She took care of that for you?
Hilde / Kristen:Yes. Don't worry about this.
Anton / Cullen:I'm going to have to strap it back in anyway. I guess I can flip it over for you.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Anton, you have been promoted to first assistant alien artifact investigation officer.
Anton / Cullen:If we keep going along this track, I'm going to have a lot of credentials for my next job.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:That's all I'm saying.
Mackie / Colin:Thank you.
Anton / Cullen:Gracie?
Hilde / Kristen:Yes. Many things for your curriculum vitae. Yes.
Anton / Cullen:I'm just incredibly, incredibly proficient.
Stardaddy Stan:All right, give me an exert check. Exert strength.
Anton / Cullen:I have this skill, but my die is not helping. No. So on my die, I rolled a two. I do have the exert skill, and I have a plus one in strength. Sorry. I rolled a two and a one. So that is a four all day.
Stardaddy Stan:Four.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Are you an expert or a warrior?
Anton / Cullen:I am a warrior.
Hilde / Kristen:Is this combat?
Anton / Cullen:It could potentially become combat with an inanimate object.
Hilde / Kristen:If it might hurt, I don't want it to become.
Anton / Cullen:This may be the worthy foe that I best.
Stardaddy Stan:You kind of lift it up a little bit off the ground, and you're twisting it, and the Iridium pyramid just straight up comes out in your hand. The stone slab, like, hits the floor really hard, and that's it.
Hilde / Kristen:What have you done?
Stardaddy Stan:Holding the pyramid in your hands, and it is heavy.
Hilde / Kristen:What have you done, Anton?
Anton / Cullen:I'm going to set this down. I'm going to set this down.
Mackie / Colin:Hold on.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes, set it down.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:All right, Anton, you have been promoted to chief scapegoat.
Mackie / Colin:Okay.
Anton / Cullen:Maybe there's something inside.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes.
Anton / Cullen:And this was supposed to come off?
Hilde / Kristen:Perhaps. Let us examine it.
Mackie / Colin:I will reserve judgment.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Have you checked to see if it is filled with a creamy nougat center?
Anton / Cullen:It does resemble a giant hoblerone.
Mackie / Colin:Yes. Up on the bridge, Mackie is restless, and he's just looking at all of the readouts. He's looking at all of the environmental, all the internal sensor readings that he can get.
Stardaddy Stan:And you do feel the ship, like, violently shake for a second.
Hilde / Kristen:The vacuum.
Mackie / Colin:Is there anything weird that spikes while they're fooling with this thing?
Stardaddy Stan:No.
Mackie / Colin:Okay.
Stardaddy Stan:Sorry to disappoint. That would be a cool thing.
Anton / Cullen:But if there is a killer alien inside of this thing, it's entrapment if you don't tell me.
Mackie / Colin:Right.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Are you an alien cop?
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah. Tell me.
Hilde / Kristen:And you're wherever it would shoot out, too. So I guess you're the one who's going to have the chest burster.
Anton / Cullen:That would be the thing.
Stardaddy Stan:Looking down at the slab, there's no obvious way that it was connected. There's no groove that it was, like, slid into. The bottom face of the pyramid is perfectly smooth. You don't know how it was connected to begin with? There's no, like, adhesive.
Hilde / Kristen:The bottom face of the pyramid is perfectly smooth. Like, there's no pictographs or anything?
Stardaddy Stan:No, I mean the actual pyramid that.
Hilde / Kristen:Came off oh, I got you.
Stardaddy Stan:The part where it was connected to.
Anton / Cullen:The plinth is, like there's nothing interesting.
Stardaddy Stan:There's nothing to slide it into to hold.
Hilde / Kristen:You're definitely going to note that down.
Anton / Cullen:Can I attempt to lift and just place it back where it was?
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah, you'd press it against the slab, but it does not reattach itself.
Anton / Cullen:Shit.
Hilde / Kristen:Very interesting. Yes. Put it onto the side and yes. Valet. I'm not very happy that you have damaged the artifact in some way, but perhaps. This will give us even more information. Thank you, Anton. We still need to rotate the rest of the artifact. Thank you.
Anton / Cullen:Well, I guess let's give this another go. Looking better.
Mackie / Colin:Hey.
Anton / Cullen:That is going to be an eleven all day.
Stardaddy Stan:All right, so it's much easier without the pyramid attached. And you roll it over to expose the third face. It is a rough, hewn stone surface, notably so, like, very uneven. The other sides are like mirror smooth. Finish.
Hilde / Kristen:Got you.
Stardaddy Stan:This is like just sandstone almost. You can rub across and just feel the grit.
Anton / Cullen:Could we intuit that it was maybe like, broken off as a singular piece from a larger rock wall?
Stardaddy Stan:It still has borders. The artwork on the other two faces have kind of a smooth stone border around them. And the same border is on this side, which gives you the sense that it is a deliberately, like, rough, rough surface surface.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay, cool.
Stardaddy Stan:That is all that immediately jumps out at you, except for kind of a hair thin fracture in the stone face with little bits of sediment, indicating that it is a new fracture that runs basically across the entire face of the stone.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes. Anton sees this fracture right here.
Stardaddy Stan:That was there already.
Anton / Cullen:May I suggest that possibly, perhaps in.
Hilde / Kristen:The future we will take more care of what we do? Yes.
Anton / Cullen:Yeah, I think that that might have been maybe a little bit, possibly the fault of the shipping container being far too large.
Hilde / Kristen:Well, that is not what is under discussion here. We can discuss proper protocol in the future.
Anton / Cullen:I dropped the bank.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:It's real fucking heavy.
Hilde / Kristen:I understand, but it's very important to take very care of these artifacts now, if you please. It is okay. We can talk about it later. Step to the side. I need to examine this. And she will take a look and continue to in depth examine it. And now that there is a crack, she will very carefully take if she has a very thin probe and kind of probe inside of it, I mean, she's going to be as thorough as she possibly can with every aspect of what she can see.
Stardaddy Stan:All right, understood. At this point, Mackie makes an announcement that you are approaching the edge of the system and are preparing to make the spike jump.
Mackie / Colin:Everybody break yourselves, as the kids say. We are attempting yes. It's very important that you go to a place of safety and secure yourself and also any loose objects. We are about to enter into dimensional space.
Anton / Cullen:Doctor, I think I should probably strap this thing back down.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes, I shall assist you. Please.
Stardaddy Stan:Okay.
Hilde / Kristen:And she watches over and when she says assist him, she does help do the actual work, but she's going to keep an eye out to make sure that it is properly done.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah. Admiral Grace, activates its cargo bay gravity controls to just move the thing. No, I'm kidding.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Mackie has suggested you move to a place of safety, but I cannot in good conscience recommend you leave the ship.
Stardaddy Stan:We are going to make a spike drill check. Spike drills require one load of fuel. Most ships can hold a single load of fuel at any one time. Is that the case for you two? Okay. All can be refueled from the appropriate refineries or star port tending services, while others can use fuel scoop fittings to refuel from a star gas giant.
Mackie / Colin:Okay, so I'm picturing him. Does the emerald Gracie have, like, a bridge, or is it more like a cockpit?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:The piloting area, like, there's a little nook where the piloting area is the con, where, like, the cockpit of a DC pen.
Mackie / Colin:Okay, so I guess that Mackie's in there, and it's one of those cool shots where there's not really any intentional lighting in the room. It's just like, the various LEDs and the various buttons and switches, and he keys in a code. He's like, Gracie, are you receiving me?
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:I am Mackie. All right, are you ready to turn me off yet?
Mackie / Colin:I am ready to turn you off if you are prepared.
Hilde / Kristen:Excellent. Goodbye.
Mackie / Colin:All right, that was special. That was a very special moment. And he kind of, like, does that old man thing where he cracks every knuckle individually.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Wait, no, don't turn me off yet.
Mackie / Colin:I'm alive. May you dream of large, I don't know, cooling fans. I don't know what an AI dreams about. All right, so he keys in the jump sequence. I'm going to go ahead and roll.
Stardaddy Stan:So it takes a half hour to perform the spike drill procedure under conditions where you needed to rush, that would be a factor, but you are currently taking your time. You are on a course that is. Let'S see, base difficulty is seven. The rudder is less than a month old, which is a minus two. That brings the difficulty down to five. The drill's distance is one hex, so there's no modifier there.
Mackie / Colin:Okay.
Stardaddy Stan:You're not trimming the course, you're not rushed, so your total is going to be a difficulty of five.
Mackie / Colin:Okay, well, I got that, but barely. Talk to me about rudders. What's a rudder?
Stardaddy Stan:A rudder is a logged course through metadimensional space. Meta dimensional space has weather, basically. So the location of two stars on our little hex map doesn't indicate absolute distance. That represents the ease to transit that distance through metadataal space. Okay, so it's kind of an abstract map. Rudders are courses that other ships have traveled and registered a safe passage through, so you can use, essentially, their course that they used when they went through. And since the rudder that you're using is less than a month old, like a ship has gone through here in the last month, the rudder is reliably safe to use. Okay, but because conditions in metadata space change, the older a rudder is, the less benefit there is to using it, and you can attempt to make a jump totally uncharted and essentially create the first rudder between two stars.
Mackie / Colin:All right, cool. So I'm glad the difficulty was low because I only rolled a six, so.
Stardaddy Stan:I beat it by and that was an intelligence pilot skill check.
Mackie / Colin:Okay, so it occurs to me, I'm not real sure why I'm the pilot.
Stardaddy Stan:Because.
Mackie / Colin:I have no problems, but no benefits there. And my intelligence yeah, I have no bonuses there either.
Stardaddy Stan:Well, yeah, you're the pilot because you roll the dice.
Mackie / Colin:There you go.
Stardaddy Stan:Make you do that well.
Mackie / Colin:And also hang on, Mackie. After the jump, initiates. Do humans do organics lose consciousness?
Stardaddy Stan:What is this? Like, the ship is essentially in a bubble of standard kind of physics as far as you're concerned. The ship needs constant, minor adjustments in its flight path, so someone has to be awake and in the cockpit at all times.
Mackie / Colin:Okay.
Stardaddy Stan:That's why fighter jets or single occupant craft often have, like, an onboard drug administration system that'll straight up inject stimulants into a person for 72 hours or whatever.
Anton / Cullen:The juice.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah. So you or someone has to be in this seat the entire six day trip.
Mackie / Colin:All right, so once I initiate the jump, after a few minutes, I'm like, all right, everything's going okay. He keys into Anton's calm. Anton, are you receiving? Yeah.
Anton / Cullen:What's up, boss?
Mackie / Colin:Why do you suppose they made me the mean?
Anton / Cullen:I guess either one of us could have done it. I don't know. That would really matter too much. But Gracie trusts you, I guess. As much as she trusts any organic. I don't know.
Mackie / Colin:Do you figure they sell books on this? Maybe I should brush up on piloting. Piloting spacecraft through metadimensional space?
Anton / Cullen:I would imagine that it's probably fairly well researched since it's an active part of most people's daily life and livelihood in the system.
Mackie / Colin:That's good thinking, Anton. Tell you what. Do you know of any good bookstores on a Gia?
Anton / Cullen:They're mostly about boats and fish and how to sell seashells to tourists, but, I mean, we have books, I guess.
Mackie / Colin:All right, well, all of those sound good, too.
Stardaddy Stan:All the seashells are imported.
Anton / Cullen:There's no beach, there's no sand to speak of.
Mackie / Colin:They're just 3D printed seashells.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Yeah. So Mackie is the only one that Grace trusts to turn her off.
Mackie / Colin:Many women have felt that way about.
Anton / Cullen:I was waiting for that joke since I came up.
Mackie / Colin:Yeah, I kind of wanted you to loft that serve and spike imitating life. Hey, Anton, if you're not in the middle of anything, you might want to go check on the passenger. I do it myself, except she frightens me.
Anton / Cullen:I also interested in going down there, but sure thing myself. Go see what's up.
Mackie / Colin:I'm obliged to you.
Hilde / Kristen:So when you say that she patches into the ship's palm because she can. Hear all of this, make sure you.
Anton / Cullen:Put something in the snoop jar.
Hilde / Kristen:There is no need to check on me. Thank you. I'm doing just fine. If you don't mind, I will be in my quarters for the next six days. I have enough food, I believe, from the mess, but you will not need to bother me, and I will simply be working on various projects.
Anton / Cullen:I'm going to ping a private Mackie channel, if that's a possibility. And if she just wants to be left alone in there, I say we just leave her.
Mackie / Colin:Well, if you detect a smell or anything, pop your head. In. Short of that, Mr. Yoshida, as you were.
Anton / Cullen:I'll be hanging out. Curious if this is one of these. I stare out of a porthole into the void, and the slow collapse of staring into the vast nothingness will drive me into the realms of chaos.
Stardaddy Stan:It's not a vast nothingness. When you look out the porthole, you see an 18 sided triangle.
Anton / Cullen:Cool. I'm going to have the equivalent and.
Stardaddy Stan:A new color called blurple.
Anton / Cullen:I'm going to have whatever the space equivalent of Dark Side on the Moon playing on a space turntable.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Yeah, I think Dark Side of the Moon is the space equivalent.
Anton / Cullen:I was going to say just like the side of the moon that we've seen.
Mackie / Colin:So we're going through meta dimensional space. I rolled successfully to get us there.
Stardaddy Stan:Correct.
Mackie / Colin:Do I need to be rolling something continuously while we're there to make sure we get to the other side?
Stardaddy Stan:We do not. You guys have six days. For Admiral Gracie, it is a blissful non existence. For the rest of you, it is a mix of boring and kind of terrifying and in space, but more so.
Anton / Cullen:Anton's, just like in the mess cooking and then ignore the void.
Mackie / Colin:Ignore the void.
Anton / Cullen:Ignore the void in the gym, adding.
Mackie / Colin:To the terror every now and again. Like, Mackie will get on the economy. Like, hey, that thing that comes out of the bottom of the ship when we land. And it's like, what we land on?
Anton / Cullen:Landing gear.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Mackie landing gear. That's what?
Anton / Cullen:It's the third switch down on the second panel. It's right above the Led screen.
Mackie / Colin:Oh, I know that. I just couldn't remember what it was called.
Anton / Cullen:Okay, that's like, somewhat reassuring.
Stardaddy Stan:I thought it was called self destruct.
Hilde / Kristen:After the third exchange, like this, Hildi just turns off any communication because she actually really enjoys this time. It's a time when most people tend to freak out a little and keep to themselves. So it means that everything is quiet and it's a perfect time for her to get really intense studying.
Mackie / Colin:Hildi was super dope during quarantine.
Hilde / Kristen:She was like, this is great.
Anton / Cullen:She caught up on all of her spacecasts.
Hilde / Kristen:Well, she doesn't have any space casts. I mean, she's done a shit ton of research. And also she now has at least five robot cats.
Stardaddy Stan:So Hildi, I assume, spends the six days examining the artifact.
Hilde / Kristen:Yes. So she's made extensive note from the earlier examination that we did. She took an entire two days to do that before. So she took rubbings where she could she noted where that crack was that we may or may not have caused. And if you can move around the ship, she will actually, yeah, it's safe.
Stardaddy Stan:Within the confines of the ship. Like, there's no danger to moving around.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay, excellent.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:In fact, with Grace unconscious, it is safer than at any other time I.
Hilde / Kristen:Assumed that it would be.
Mackie / Colin:There's a certain element of randomness that.
Hilde / Kristen:Is. The main thing that she didn't get to examine before was we had that cap of iridium pop out. And I really wanted to look at, is there a cavity inside? And if so, what is that like, and is there anything in it?
Stardaddy Stan:There does not appear to be a cavity. It appears to be a solid stone object. The pyramid that came off again, there's no sign of any, like, groove or adhesive or any way that it was connected. You don't know what was holding it in place and why it's no longer held there.
Hilde / Kristen:Interesting.
Stardaddy Stan:So both the stone and the bottom of the iridium pyramid are totally smooth.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay. So then part of her research will be looking at she'd have to look up, like, the material properties of iridium and as close as she can get to the kind of stone it is to start figuring that kind of thing out. But her entire thing is maybe a big no check.
Stardaddy Stan:Or for the sake of flavor, I will say all of your research materials yes. Would have been you would have downloaded them via combuys in the last system before going into metadata space. You won't have any kind of, like, network access.
Hilde / Kristen:Right. Okay. Yeah. But I would say that because she is very good with communications technology, she is very diligent about updating all of her things before she goes off the grid. I would say like a no check or possibly work maybe, or program, depending on what you think fits best with the kind of knowledge or activity she has to do for this.
Stardaddy Stan:I'm sorry, could you frame exactly what you're trying to get?
Hilde / Kristen:Okay, so what she's doing is she's using all of the materials that she has gathered from the artifact itself, and then she is looking up in her informational, databases, basically anything additional that she can find out about it. So the materials that are involved, like, we don't know why those would have been connected, any additional information on the alien species, the corroyo that we recognize, things about where they were encountered, that kind of thing. But she's basically doing a general search for any additional information about the facts of the object that would give her more insight into it.
Mackie / Colin:Every 8 hours, me and Anton change places. Okay.
Stardaddy Stan:Kristen, give me a I'm just going to call it actually let me read the skill description for work.
Hilde / Kristen:OK. Because I mean I would prefer it not to be that one, but I could see it being work.
Anton / Cullen:I just imagine in the book like, picture Britney Spears and say, you got to work, bitch.
Stardaddy Stan:Catch all skill for professions not represented by other skills. Roll it to work at a particular. Profession, art or trade. I could see that covering research, but.
Hilde / Kristen:It'S specifically not covering other skills.
Mackie / Colin:Yeah.
Hilde / Kristen:So my question there would still be program.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah, no is going to be straight up knowing something. I don't know if it's going to be researching.
Hilde / Kristen:I mean, we tend to think of programming.
Stardaddy Stan:I'm fine with that. I'm fine with program.
Hilde / Kristen:So I'm going to go with program and I'm going to say modified by intelligence. Cool. All right, let's see what we get. Nice. Ten on the die, plus one for a total of eleven.
Stardaddy Stan:Okay, I'm going to need to pause for edit here because I think oh.
Mackie / Colin:That thing that's like a headache with pictures. God, I hate that shit.
Stardaddy Stan:In meta dimensional space, you get smells.
Mackie / Colin:I mainly think in smells.
Stardaddy Stan:This route of metadimensional space, its dominant kind of geographical feature is the physically manifested screams of terror of the first group. That their ship like disassembled and that's.
Anton / Cullen:The repeating eight sided triangle figures.
Hilde / Kristen:Interesting.
Stardaddy Stan:And they all just for some reason scream your mother's name, Jerome.
Mackie / Colin:So shit, guys, does it feel a.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Little weird to be recording a dystopian future podcast in the middle of a dystopian future unfolding.
Anton / Cullen:Oh, man. Have you seen the picture of the uber eats guy on the bicycle with like the police station on fire behind?
Stardaddy Stan:In your research on the subject, you find very little of use about the aliens, but you do find there was a legal impact on the Terran mandate in response to contact with them because they so valued iridium.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay.
Stardaddy Stan:The Terran mandate had basically like a first claim had given a first claim right. To monopole gravitics for iridium because it was such a valuable resource in their gravity sciences.
Hilde / Kristen:Gotcha.
Stardaddy Stan:And so they had to essentially renationalize unrefined iridium. So all the meteors containing iridium or all the asteroids containing iridium in a system didn't automatically belong to monopol gravitics so that they can be traded to the aliens for other things.
Hilde / Kristen:Interesting. Good to know. So on a completely unrelated note, I feel like this time in space, between space is a great time for us to talk about our goals.
Stardaddy Stan:Yes.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:Okay.
Stardaddy Stan:So in Stars without Number, you can set your own character goals, which will be the main source of your experience points. You can have a short term and a long term goal at the same time. We can discuss how you guys want to handle that, if you want to do them secretly, if you want to write them down and put them in the middle of the table. If you want me to know what they are or not. That's all up for discussion.
Hilde / Kristen:I like the idea of writing them down and tossing in the middle of the table and we'll see if we got them that session. Okay.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah, that works for me.
Mackie / Colin:Okay. Yeah.
Stardaddy Stan:So why don't we take a minute and everybody come up with your goals and put them there in the middle of the table.
Hilde / Kristen:Cool.
Mackie / Colin:Okay, full disclosure, I wrote mine down on my character sheet, so I'm just going to rewrite it onto this slip of paper and throw it in the middle.
Stardaddy Stan:That's fine.
Hilde / Kristen:Sounds good. And so the idea behind having a short term goal is something that you can accomplish with some effort, but still without too much trouble. And this is one of the main ways that we get experience.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah, you could feasibly accomplish a short term goal in a single session, make sure that your goals are stated in concrete terms. So I want to get rich is not a suitable goal. I want to get a million credits. So there has to be an actual point at which the goal has definitely been achieved.
Anton / Cullen:I don't know if this will defeat the writing down exercise, but as an example, I could say that Anton's current long term goal is to amass 10,000 credits, dollars, whatever, 10,000 in currency. Bruce mobile is Anton's present long term goal.
Grace / Hopper / Geoff:I think my long term goal is not going to come into play in this session, but I'm okay with announcing it. Grace is trying to find her system of origin, which has gotten erased during one of the many.
Mackie / Colin:Like, I feel like Maggie doesn't have a long term goal.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah, he's lived his life.
Mackie / Colin:He's entirely a succession of short term goals, and often they're things like get.
Hilde / Kristen:Off these know Hilde's. Long term goal is to make first contact a non terran sentient species. Now, I would like to note that is make first contact, not survive first contact.
Stardaddy Stan:Noted.
Anton / Cullen:So how far along are we in our jump?
Stardaddy Stan:Five minutes. No, if you guys are finished with your business, we can resolve the spike jump. You had six days to spend. You spent it researching Mackie, spent it trying to figure out what landing gear was called. Anton occasionally looked out the window and as you reach the end of the trip and I'm assuming Anton and Mackie alternated, correct.
Mackie / Colin:Every 8 hours.
Hilde / Kristen:Okay, we do the delicate dance.
Mackie / Colin:Yep. Be like, he's all yours.
Stardaddy Stan:Do you guys play any pranks on Hopper?
Mackie / Colin:I filled one hand with shaving cream.
Anton / Cullen:We put one of his hands in lukewarm water and then peed on him.
Stardaddy Stan:Nice. Outside the ship, ahead of the cockpit. Let's see. You started the trip, so we're going to say Anton is piloting. Currently, the space outside begins to become of a form that you could describe with existing adjectives.
Anton / Cullen:Black. It's spacey.
Stardaddy Stan:Yeah, you couldn't describe it very well.
Hilde / Kristen:Apparently, but.
Anton / Cullen:Look vacuum.
Hilde / Kristen:And with that, we'll leave the crew for just a few more minutes. We hope you're enjoying everything you're hearing so far. We have one more episode for you with this launch set. You can follow us online through Instagram at Astronomica Pod, twitter at Astronomica and Facebook at Astronomica podcast. And if you are really liking this, you can go ahead and subscribe right now and you will catch us every Wednesday. We will see you in just a few minutes.