Alacas: A True Crime Podcast

I fooled you, I fooled you. I got pig iron, I got pig iron. I got all pig iron. 

  Sharing Links:  
 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pantheon/id1498984739
 https://www.buzzsprout.com/811181
 https://www.instagram.com/the_pantheon_remembers/
 https://open.spotify.com/show/6Pmngtn7BBnOeAiOzAriHJ
 https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-pantheon-57860820/
 https://podcasts.google.com/?  feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS84MTExODEucnNz 

Transcript

I must admit, Dimitri, that I have a fascination for the macabre. Most of us do. It is natural for us to marvel at a kidnapping, or the desolation of entire planets. Terrible news brings us terrible knowledge, by which we may learn how to better survive in the capricious world and, thus, with time fulfill the pangs of our hunger. A biological, evolutionary reason for me remembering the story that’s about to come spilling out of my mouth. But that’s boring.

Alcas. I first heard of the planet back when I was doing reconstruction work, and I only really knew about it because it was in our galactic neighborhood, a little anomaly that we astronomical types liked to marvel over between drinks at the bar. Its old claim to fame? Apart from being a barren rock, like ninety nine percent of cosmic bodies, the thing was covered all over in mercury. Yes, mercury, in the liquid for, deep enough to go up to your knees. Not that you’d ever want to stand in it, but still. Mercury! And none of the local mining ventures ever set up shop there, for who knows what reason. When we got deep into our cups, my friends and I used to plan out how we’d scoop up a whole tank load for sale on the common market. Plan never came to fruition for a whole slew of reasons. Fate, perhaps, if you believe in that sort of thing. Much the same fate that kept the HGC off of it. 

But Alcas existed as a sort of trivia fact in the back of my head for about a good three years, so when we dispatched a probe to the planet a few months ago to check up on it, perform some cursory observations to claim it for own, well, the images…

Isolated on the northern pole of the planet, one could see a great mess of brown figures poking their way out of the mercury sludge. An oddity, considering the rest of the thing was round. Our navigators brought the probe in closer, and… 

Bodies. Human bodies. At least five hundred of them, maybe six, laying face down in the moving metal. No sign of a ship anywhere, but a few escape shuttles were noted far off in the distance, their engines having overheated. No intact black box. No official registry in HGC records. Five hundred people. Real, biological people, just there. And gone. Their bodies only decaying by the force of solar radiation. Nearly as spooky a sight as taking a look at anywhere on the Forbidden World. 

Of course, me being me, I immediately assume some kind of deific subterfuge. But, when we scattered through the databases for further knowledge, it came out that my paranoia was rather unfounded. There was a reason there were no official records of the flight, and that was because the officials of the region were for a period, well, not HGC officials. During the war with the Benefactress, many of the regional colonies declared their independence upon dissolution of the old council, forming what was briefly known as the Northward Alliance. It was such a state that had records of the doomed flight.

Five hundred souls, given over to a massive Companion class ship, armed to the teeth. It came into orbit around Alcas to try and do repairs on a failing reactor core. The repairs failed, and the engines sputtered the ship into the local sun, wherein it became little more than plasma. The escape shuttles? Similar. Their engines were not quite quick enough to escape the planet’s gravity well, and so they spiraled to their demise. The crew bailed out in an attempt to make their deaths quicker, and that was, at the very least, successful. 

Sabatoge? No. Appears not. The factory wherein the reactor core’s coolant modules were produced was shut down a day after the mission died for failing to comply with safety protocols on their products. And not even the safety protocols regarding the Grand Benefactress. Just normal industrial regulations not followed up on in a time of crisis. And so a bunch of corpses populate Alcas. No suicide pact. No summonings of the Children. No… anything. Just a normal problem, wherein the cause of suffering was little more than some fool who was so desperate to end the threat posed to their soul by Our Lady of Shadows that they just fudged around a few digits to try and get some more weapons out on the frontlines. Stupidity, and little more. 

When the reality of what led to the five hundred corpses is laid out before you, there’s an instinct in your head that tells you that your new knowledge makes the situation less frightening. After all, five hundred random deaths are more terrifying than five hundred rational deaths, are they not? But why? Why is that less frightening, in the psychological sense? Does knowing the true leadup to the tragedy of Alcas mean that you are somehow more in control of similar situations in your own life? Perhaps public knowledge of the sacrifice might induce stronger regulation enforcement by the HGC. But will it? Are you stupid enough to think that you merely being informed lessens the danger of the world? Information must always be paired with action for it to be effective towards any goal. Always. And will you give that information action? No. Probably not. It’s just five hundred people, after all.

Just five hundred. 

And you are one.

Listen to the silence in your head. Kicking. Screaming. Shouting. You are a fraud, I say. A fraud against your own morals. Better you don the cloak of a true monster and just give it over with, I say. Tell your eyeless friend hello for me.

… (Pause intended) Okay. So, Dimitri, maybe it’s easier for us to be good if we picture the tragedy of Alcas as something supernatural. Make it seem like there’s more power people have in such situations than they really do, so they have an easier time crossing the threshold of willpower. Perhaps, Dimitri, we tell them the same thing we’ve told them over and over again. There were demons aboard the Companion class ship, yes. Demons born of diseased minds.