Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 7 of Beyond the Furthest Stars! Just a heads up that this session we recorded had a few technical difficulties with our mics and so some of the audio quality is impacted here. But it will clear up after this episode. Alright, Let’s get to the action!

(intro music plays and then fades out)

Avery/GM: The ramp lowers down and we see these three figures that Polaris has been referring to this whole time. Bee could you describe these happy little characters?

Bee/Polaris: Oh, it's my, okay, cool. Yeah, I'm, I'm not gonna roast them, so let me… in my original descriptions, I was roasting them, but let me pull up their picture. So I remember their descriptions.

Jenine/Marty: Roast them.

Bee/Polaris: I'm not gonna roast them. Okay. So there, okay, so there are three figures… so there are like three human looking beings standing there.

Bee/Polaris: One of them is like five-two. And they're wearing like a cut, like an off the shoulder, sort of red jacket that zips up. And they're wearing like standard issue flight pants and some boots. And they have goggles on their head. Their hair is like kind of an uneven Bob kind of like ghost in the shell sorta where the bangs are longer in the front.

Bee/Polaris: Their bangs are tied back underneath the goggles and they have. Like their hair is dye in a way where the black is on the outside and the blue is on the inside and their eyes are like an unnatural, like piercing blue. They also have dark skin and gold, two gold earrings on each ear.

Bee/Polaris: The tallest figure is about the size of Bruce. Yeah, very tall. And they have long dark hair and like a full like scruffy beard. He basically looks like a really tired dad, he's wearing a leather jacket and like a gray shirt and like security, cargo pants and security, like work boots. He does have a laser pistol on, in, in a holster on his side which is a very good turn of events from what he would usually bring.

Bee/Polaris: and the last figure is just a little bit taller than the first figure. And they are, I would say that they're albino, but like their skin has just enough pigment to look somewhat human. Their hair is white and they have bright piercing, yellow eyes and They, they have glasses, they're wearing a lab coat and like a grade turtle neck, and like a pencil skirt and just sneakers. And they're probably in the back, like away from everyone else.

Zach/Zahn: Gotcha!

Avery/GM: Yeah. And. These three figures are standing there. The five foot-two one with the blue hair walks up to, to Bruce or not to Bruce to Polaris and is just like, “okay, so you, you made it back safe and sound. Where is the AI?”

Bee/Polaris: Polar will toss Hermes to Merak.

Avery/GM: “Oh, this is excellent. Good, good, good. You know, it's funny. Alioth here was super worried about you” and from, from the back, you, you see this this pale figure, just sigh exasperated and just says:

Alioth: “Exasperated. I was not worried. I merely calculated the probability of Catalyst Designation Polaris perishing on this mission to the five hundred millionth decimal point. You are as capable as any other human.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just does a finger guns and says, I always beat the odd.

Jenine/Marty: Noice.

Avery/GM: Merak says, “so I, I guess you'd like to show your friends, friends is that. Is that where we're gonna call them around our, our home. Right?”

Bee/Polaris: Yes, please. Don't shoot them.

Avery/GM: you just hear… you just hear bear grumble. “Well, we'll be on the bridge if you need us. Okay?” And they just sort of in their, in their typical way, just kind of end of the conversation and, and walk off.

Zach/Zahn: Presses B on dialogue options. I'm.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: yeah, pretty much.

Avery/GM: and you are all here on the custodian ship. In this in this hanger bay, there is a strike fighter ship that you can see that Polaris, obviously this is your personal ship that you usually use on missions.

Bee/Polaris: my ship.

Zach/Zahn: Is this the one that we'll be attaching and taking with us From now on.

Bee/Polaris: no, cause it's well. Oh, well it's I thought it was like real small. Oh, well I guess, can it fit in the…

Avery/GM: it is. I blew it up because I'm blind.

Bee/Polaris: ah, so am I don't worry.

Avery/GM: It'll, it'll it'll fit. When it, when it needs to

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.f

Avery/GM: there are a variety of ship lockers towards the back that probably have Polaris, you know, that they have like space suits and tools and, you know, some like basic weapons and stuff that, you know, could be used in case they were.

Bee/Polaris: Which is weird, cause Polaris is the only organic being on the ship, but

Avery/GM: Yeah, they took the protect, the organic one at all costs a little too far. And just they, they got more weapons than they needed. For sure.

Zach/Zahn: Sounds like bear has fun playing with them.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah

Avery/GM: and then there are a variety of computer stations and whatnot. And of course there are fueling lines here as well, that connect to these ships or to the fuel scoops on this ship.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will put on his helmet and basically send like a, just like a text message to Merak and say, can you hook up the ship to be refued?

Zach/Zahn: Give us the hookup.

Avery/GM: Thumbs up emoji

Bee/Polaris: Sweet Polaris will also send the video of him making the bomb to all of them. And then he'll take off his helmet.

Avery/GM: Okay. And, oh, I should also explain this. The Ursa major is a capital class battleship. So it's very big, very spacious. And so there are a lot of different places that y'all can go as Polaris is your tour guide. So I will hand it over to to you, Bee.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. Okay. So Polaris will turn to the Group and motion for you guys to follow.

Caden/Bruce: Following Along!

Bee/Polaris: I think first stop is probably gonna be the workshop to cause I think Ollie needed some, I don't, I don't know if you said that, like during the discussion on the ship for where we were gonna go, if you needed to get something.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I was need, well, I do need to buy some like one of those extra core things I need to buy as much.

Avery/GM: Processing nodes

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. The processing nodes. I need to buy as much like scrap metal or scrap you know, just whatever that is as well as I can get my hands on.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, I wanna, I wanna get a, I wanna get big stock of scrap so that I can add mods to the ship.

Chris/Ollie: And I want a big stock of the chips too. So those are like the pretty much three things I'm always gonna be on the lookout for.

Bee/Polaris: Gotcha. Well, I don't know about chips, but I assume that the custodians have just like a shit ton of scrap.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So, the workshop is actually kept pretty clean cause that's where Alioth does a lot of its work,

Bee/Polaris: Mm-hmm

Avery/GM: but kind of knowing what, what Ollie is after you take the crew to the mobile factory first.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I forgot about that.

Avery/GM: and this mobile factory is honestly pretty defunct as far as like it hasn't been used in ages. It was originally used to create all manner of extra parts for the ship extra weapons or hull pieces or just random repair stuff. And currently in here, there are crates upon crates of extra parts, extra robot parts scrap metal, extra electronics, and things like that.

Avery/GM: Ollie, you start kind of running some calculations. In the background and you determined that if you spent a good couple hours, you know, if you sustained quite a bit of damage and came in here for about an hour, you'd be able to find pretty much whatever you need to repair yourself with ease.

Avery/GM: But some of this equipment does look very, very old, like older, older than you're probably used to. truth be told.

Chris/Ollie: So, but it's all… Okay. Well, yeah.

Avery/GM: You might be able to get it up and running, but it would probably take a, a big lift

Chris/Ollie: Well, what, what does it make?

Avery/GM: it can make literally, so this is the description in the book. The ship can stock raw materials and can basically use these to pay for repair or maintenance costs.

Avery/GM: And it can also create and repair vehicles, equipment planetary structures, et cetera. So I'm also expanding that to being able to create or repair like robot chassis and things like that.

Bee/Polaris: It's basically just like a big 3d printer room. Right?

Avery/GM: yeah, essentially, yup.

Chris/Ollie: Okay, so just a, a lot of elbow work you say because Polaris's fam is cool with us, like using all of this and…?

Bee/Polaris: Oh, they're not cool with it, but Polaris is. And so they, by proxy, they are

Chris/Ollie: So it's that kind of like ohhh the punk friends are over

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Well, I mean they, yeah, I mean, they probably are cool with Ollie, but literally everyone else, they are not cool with.

Chris/Ollie: Well, if we're gonna be here for a little amount of time, Ollie's gonna mention I don't know if you mentioned a specific amount of time,

Bee/Polaris: Nope.

Chris/Ollie: but

Bee/Polaris: I don't think any of us did.

Avery/GM: Oh, about an hour, just to kind of sort through like all these different boxes and kind of see what you would need.

Chris/Ollie: So yeah, Ollie's just gonna be “beginning repair search.” He's gonna say, and then start sifting through stuff.

Bee/Polaris: Would it go by faster if Alioth helped with the repair?

Avery/GM: Probably

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is gonna

Avery/GM: Do you want to?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Polaris is gonna shoot a text to all off and see if all off is cool with it.

Avery/GM: Yeah, what's what's the text say?

Bee/Polaris: Oh crew mate Ollie needs help with repair in factory. Help?

Zach/Zahn: No helpers.

Chris/Ollie: left you on Reed or red.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, that's a very, Alioth thing to do. Polaris is only asking because Ali is a robot. If it was literally anyone else, ally off would not even read it.

Avery/GM: You get the rolling eyes emoji from Alioth, and then just say a response that says “I'm currently analyzing the AI, but I'll be there as soon as I can.”

Bee/Polaris: Thumbs up, heart.

Avery/GM: And Ollie. You're just gonna wait in this room and, and start repairing yourself?

Chris/Ollie: Well, he pretty much fully repaired himself after the we had enough scrap

Avery/GM: Oh, you were gonna like gathering parts?

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah. I was gonna start fixing the machine.

Bee/Polaris: Ah,

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, those that's. Yeah. That's what I was talking about with repairs. My bad.

Bee/Polaris: I feel like that's gonna take a little more than an hour.

Avery/GM: Oh, yeah, that'll take quite a bit of time, but you could probably fix one of these machines. Go ahead and roll an intelligence, fix check for me. And take a minus one penalty because of how old this stuff is.

Chris/Ollie: Well that will negate my plus one bonus from fix from my chassis. Let's see what is my bonus? It is seven I'm get… is Zahn Totally not on board with what we’re looking at?

Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah,

Zach/Zahn: Zahn's neck deep in like searching through all this scrounge, seeing what he can find useful.

Jenine/Marty: Valid.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, you could just, you could just throw in the scrap and 3d print, like what you need if the factory's fixed, right?

Chris/Ollie: Exactly. But Ollie's pretty much doing the exact same thing. He's just, instead of keeping the stuff, he's just looking for whatever I need on hand to fix. What's what the immediate problem is.

Avery/GM: So you open up one of these… you open up this first machine here. Near the entrance of the room and you see that the problem is that it's just covered in dust and cobwebs and just, it is, it is, it is old, it is old stuff. But you realize that even though a lot of the circuitry has degraded with how old it is, circuit boards are, they could be replaced fairly easily.

Avery/GM: You have a few robots back on your ship, you might be able to swap out some of the electronics here and maybe get this one up and running. If you were to scrap one of your chassis that you recovered from Winston's. That is what a seven gets you.

Chris/Ollie: Because I'm just thinking like, If it would be cool for us to use this really, to fix it and use it and stay the amount of time that it would be required. Ollie he isn't thinking about that. He just sees, you know, broken machinery and he's like, I can fix that. cause he doesn't sleep. He doesn't do anything So he's got nothing better to do!

Bee/Polaris: I mean, we never really, yeah. I mean, we never really established any sort of like when we're leaving and stuff like that. So, I mean, Polaris's mission was just to drop off Hermes, you know, mission complete.

Avery/GM: Okay, so you want to just sit and tinker with it, then?

Chris/Ollie: First, he's gonna look up and ask and be like excuse me? How long are we planning on staying here?

Bee/Polaris: players just shrugs and says, well, I'm home. I don't know what you guys want to do.

Chris/Ollie: Well, I guess, yeah Polaris, or Ollie's gonna look to. Because on is kind of his bonded human.

Zach/Zahn: Oh shit.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, you are his father.

Zach/Zahn: God dang it. I forgot that.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. You're his dad.

Avery/GM: that's gonna have to be a conversation later. I think

Zach/Zahn: son, you're all grown up now.

Chris/Ollie: time for you to leave the Nest boy!

Zach/Zahn: I mean, if you want

Bee/Polaris: You guys haven’t played catch yet!

Zach/Zahn: oh my gosh. So I'm just kind of shrugs. He's like, I'm more so used to just kind of moving from place to place and doing work. So, I mean, if you guys got work here to do that's great willing to stay, but we should probably. Or I should probably move on. I don't know. I'm not used to the idea of we, but you know, I kinda like you, people, you guys managed to keep me alive and stuff better than other people in the past. I suppose.

Bee/Polaris: If you're worried about safety, this is probably the safest place

Zach/Zahn: It’s kind of quiet though. Isn't it? He, he he's like kind of quiet though. Isn't it? And he like hits the. The, the bulkhead of the wall and then just echo,

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Polaris just kind of like tilts his head. I've never noticed

Zach/Zahn: which is something you're used to, and I'm not, I suppose,

Bee/Polaris: that's fair. I can talk to the custodians about any other. I mean, they do quite a wide range of jobs. If we want something to do.

Zach/Zahn: Indeed. I mean, heck you just did a job. Mission. I don't know what, what you had to do to escort Hermes here. Maybe we could get around to, or I could help you out with doing that. I don't know.

Bee/Polaris: throws up a thumbs up.

Zach/Zahn: I mean, look at all this scrounge.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. Yeah. There is quite a bit of stuff.

Chris/Ollie: This, this is certainly the best place I've ever been.

Bee/Polaris: Haven't hasn't Ollie only been on the Hegemony ship.

Chris/Ollie: Yep. There's Jimmy ship cleaning cleaning bathrooms and fixing tiny, small vents and, and ducks and all the, the crappy work.

Zach/Zahn: And the throw up and the

Avery/GM: getting pushed over.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, getting pushed over,

Bee/Polaris: oh my gosh.

Chris/Ollie: out of the way, bot!

Zach/Zahn: by the way, we gotta look into upgrading your, your chassis, Ollie!

Chris/Ollie: Well, I've, I've got the idea of cause we got the Arnold Schwarzenegger thing and the security bots. So I want to beef one up, put the Arnie chip in it.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, my gosh.

Zach/Zahn: Oh my God. Yes,

Chris/Ollie: Just like “get down. I've come to save you.”

Avery/GM: Oh, my gosh.

Bee/Polaris: hilarious.

Zach/Zahn: stick around.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Polaris will turn to Bruce and Marty.

Caden/Bruce: “My workplace got blown up. So I am okay with whatever we decide. I do have a question though, and it is rather important. You only ate protein bars, Is there a kitchen here?”

Bee/Polaris: Oh, yes, I was gonna take. You all there on the tour, there's a kitchen and there is a hydroponics garden.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will look at the others and like put a thumbs up.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, I imagine that there is like a pretty good size kitchen. It just doesn't get used for anything other than making those like nutrient bars.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Would you like to go there next?

Bee/Polaris: yeah.

Avery/GM: Ollie, Do you continue the tour or do you just stick around

Chris/Ollie: Ollie's going to…

Avery/GM: in the factory?

Chris/Ollie: See them going or Isan going as well, or is.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, Zahn's actually gonna motion for you to follow being like, eh, this isn't going anywhere.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah all, he's going to look at that and then look back at what he's doing and hesitantly like get up and, and follow.

Avery/GM: okay.

Zach/Zahn: and see your hesitancy. Zahn's just gonna be like, I mean, you don't have to come, you're your, you're your own bot, you know? And gives you

the, the shoulder smack and then it shrugs and turns and starts following the rest of them.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. And then Ollie will look down, you know, the, the corridor, the empty corridor, both ways. And then follow.

Avery/GM: So you come into this this hallway. And this is sort of there's a lot of stuff going on here, obviously. So first you have there's, there's four things in this area. There is the armory, which bear kind of keeps under tight lock and key.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, you got some BFGs in there man.

Avery/GM: yeah. But it's and it's rarely used because the custodians have rarely needed to use them in the first place. Not very many people mess with it. There is a door that is closed that says Exodus bay, which Polaris you would know is, was once meant to house of vast amount of long term sleep pods, but has basically just been filled with scrap parts, broken sleep pods, and just various junk.

Bee/Polaris: I was just gonna say, there's probably a little paper on there that just says ‘junk closet’ and it's just like taped to the door.

Avery/GM: Yeah. And then to the left is a hallway that leads to a disused kitchen with one chair and a hydroponics bay that is growing fruits and vegetables. As you come into this kitchen, Bruce, you see that like the stove top is set like on some sort of like automated schedule. And there are like some tubes that kind of run back towards the hydroponic bay and it looks like there's like a robotic arm that just picks vegetables as they're ripe and sends them into this tube.

And the tube deposits them into this almost pressure cooker. And there's a tray that has a few already created, like quote unquote nutrition bars on it. But it looks like a very like utilitarian process here. Like…

Zach/Zahn: 100% soulesss.

Avery/GM: they just, they just extract the nutrients from the veggies and fruit and put it into this bar for Polaris to eat.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is gonna pick one up and very tentatively take a bite of it.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris handed you one before the cake.

Avery/GM: I, I, I think, yeah, I think Bruce, if I remember correctly, you sniffed it, but you didn't actually eat it?

Caden/Bruce: Correct

Bee/Polaris: it had no smell.

Caden/Bruce: this time we're actually taking a bite.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. It has no taste.

Avery/GM: Yeah. It it's kind of like eating cardboard.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is gonna look at it and look back up to the stove and then turn around and look at Polaris and be like, do you not have chefs here? Is this what you consider food?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just drugged and says it's what I consider nutrients!

Caden/Bruce: was cake better nutrients?

Bee/Polaris: cake was… Cake was Delicious.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will not in smile and be like maybe rest of people here would appreciate also having cake, not just nutrients.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just kind of shrugs and says, none of us use the kitchen, its all yours

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will smile.

Avery/GM: And Bruce, one thing you notice as you're kind of like looking over the kitchen and kind of, you're probably like doing like some sort of like, kind of mental inventory of like what's here and stuff, right?

Caden/Bruce: I would imagine so opening different things with my tail and such.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You notice that a lot of the pots and pans are kind of dusty and some of them even have some like corrosion going on. From just disuse. Like, you're not sure how long some of these, these pans have been stored here.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is gonna like wipe off the dust and such, and like, just start basically doing dishes, even though they're unused. and just like looking over at the rest of the food inventory and is just like trying to think of things that he could create that would be well much better than these just nutrition bars.

Jenine/Marty: Marty notices that and will help. Will like come over to the dishes and be like, could, could I do the, I could do the dishes if you wanna keep looking for food.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will smile and be like, “that would be appreciated.”

Jenine/Marty: Of course. And then she's just gonna stay at scrubbing.

Bee/Polaris: Players doesn't know how to do the dishes. Otherwise he would help. you don't need dishes when you have Nutrient Bars!

Jenine/Marty: The truth.

Caden/Bruce: Nor do you need taste buds, but here we are.

Avery/GM: Oh man. Yeah, so it, it doesn't take long. Y'all kind of stand around awkwardly as, as Bruce and Marty kind of tag team, this, this kitchen fiasco. And after a while, there's, there's a nice stack of clean pots and pans and silverware. And Bruce, you kind of determine that there's a good variety of vegetables here that probably for your first like crew dinner tonight, maybe you could make a nice salad.

Bee/Polaris: Ratatouille

Avery/GM: you know, Yeah… Something like that. You could probably use some of the ingredients you found on board your other ship to probably, you know, make something real creative and fun. Yeah. Polaris. Do you continue the tour?

Bee/Polaris: indeed. I do have a question though. Is it safe to assume that this kitchen is like pretty well equipped? It's just, none of it has ever been used other than like,

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Cool. Cool, cool.

Avery/GM: It's just old and not used except as a place to hold this tray of nutrient bars as they're being made.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, my goodness.

Bee/Polaris: yeah, this is the, before the crew got out the ship, this was known as the nutrient bar room.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Caden/Bruce: Sign on the doorway just says Nutri room. That's it.

Bee/Polaris: Yep. All the like tags for all the doors have been covered over with like a piece of paper that's taped over and it's just like been renamed for whatever they use that room for. Yeah. Polaris will continue the tour. We went to the factory, we went to this room. Let's go to the med bay. Let's go to the med bay. So Marty can check out all of the stuff.

Zach/Zahn: Yay. Marty stuff.

Jenine/Marty: Marty. Woo.

Caden/Bruce: Ooh.

Bee/Polaris: There are lasers.

Avery/GM: yes. So, as you come into the med bay area there are a variety of just cold sleep pods here that. They do see their use because sometimes Polaris, you don't want to go all the way to your cabin to rest. Sometimes you'll just hop into one and take your nap.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: efficiency sometimes over comfort. Marty, as you, as you come into this med bay area, you see. despite the rest of the ship seeming very old and very like very disused. This place is upgraded and state of the art. Like they just,

the, the custodians, it looks like they just custom built this med bay to have the best of the best stuff here.

Avery/GM: And as a med student this is like a dream come true as far as having access to this level of care. There are you know, beds that can read your vitals, take, you know, administer medications automatically with just the touch of a button. You come over to this computer station and you see that it just contains like a list of like various medications and drugs that can be administered from a storage area elsewhere in, in this room. And yeah that is, that is what you see here.

Jenine/Marty: You see, you know how in like cartoons there's like the eyes just sparkle. that's what's going on with Marty right now, as she's just walking around this space.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris says, “and this is the nap room.”

Zach/Zahn: this is the nap room!

Jenine/Marty: But do it, but it's, I mean, like, it's not exactly a nap on, like, you could take a nap in here and then it'll help to fix things. It's not really. Okay. Wait, nap turns to see the pods behind turns back. I understand why you say nap room. It's not really a nap room.

It's more of like, if. You got injured. This is a place you go to fix injuries, but it's very interesting, cause this is very much like, no, I've only read about this stuff. Like the, most of the things that I saw, we didn't have this yet because you know, like not, we're not, we weren't under budget. We went, I went to really nice school. It's just like we, we were learning about this stuff…. Hello.

Bee/Polaris: I'm assuming that means it's.

Jenine/Marty: Yes. Did, are there other, cause this isn't really for ro… robots per… is there's no, this is mostly for like flesh bodies. Yeah. Like most of the things in this room is

Avery/GM: Oh, yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Polaris will. Polaris will nod. Yeah. “I'm the only organic being on this ship. Other than you all now.”

Jenine/Marty: okay. Interesting. Why is it, why does this exist then with all of the most recent updates and you only use it for a nap?

Bee/Polaris: So you see, like on cause Polaris isn't wearing his element. So you see like, basically like the human equivalent of like the, the like thought, like loading screen and then Polaris just shrugs

Jenine/Marty: It's fine, cause Marty's also doing the human equivalent of loading screen of confusion, like buffering with. Like, you know, like the, the questions that like pop up or like, you know, the dinosaur thing when your Internet's down on, on Google on Chrome that's, that's, what's going on. Like, there's a thing happening, but it's not processing what's happening at the same time.

Zach/Zahn: I'm just waiting for the windows BootUp sequence.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris, just kind of like motions to their helmet and just says, I, I could ask.

Jenine/Marty: yeah. Could I also like investigate to see when the last time any of these have been used while you're asking?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: yeah.

Avery/GM: Oh,

Bee/Polaris: Oh, I thought that Marty was asking in character. Sorry, go

Jenine/Marty: both, both

Bee/Polaris: thumbs up. Helmet on.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Marty, if you want to roll a notice check with either wisdom or intelligence.

Jenine/Marty: You said wisdom or intelligence? Haha. I'm smart. Oh, I only saw the three and didn't see the other number and I'm like my heart dropped for a second. It's nine . It was a three to five. So it's a nine.

Avery/GM: Okay, so you start kind of going through like the medicine cabinets and checking drawers and stuff. You look over at some of the consoles next to these beds, you're starting to kind of go through like the history of use and stuff like that. And you see that, like, there are records of vitals you know, blood pressure, cholesterol readings, stuff like that, that have been taken fairly regularly, like every six months, but there's no name assigned to the readings at all, but, you know, context clues might point to it being Polaris.

Avery/GM: And they're all super healthy. Like they're all super good. But yeah, so there, there it's used pretty regularly and it goes back just a couple of years, cause like I said, this stuff is all like fairly new and upgraded.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, well, no, no suspicious business going that I, that I can tell this. Just, this is just, this is just. They just wanna protect the little one. Got it. That's that? Okay. Okay. I understand. Yeah. That's that's, that's how Marty's… I understand. Gives a nice little head nod. Looks to Polaris.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, player says his helmet and he's asking, he's sending a text message to, to probably Alioth text… Yeah.

Avery/GM: go ahead.

Bee/Polaris: He's just asking why do we have a, a good med bay?

Avery/GM: You just, the response is just like, so you don't die.

Bee/Polaris: Thumbs up emoji. He takes on his helmet and turns to Marty and just says, “so I don't die.”

Jenine/Marty: That that. Yeah. Understandable. Cool. It is a very nice space. If you would like to let them know. It's. It's great. It's cool. It's amazing. Wow.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, they can hear you.

Jenine/Marty: They can!?

Bee/Polaris: He just like kind of points to like a calm system on the ceiling.

Jenine/Marty: Waves.

Bee/Polaris: would there be security cameras in all of the rooms?

Avery/GM: I'll leave that up to you. I, I would lean towards no, cause they're the only ones on the ship, so they don't really worry about it, but…

Zach/Zahn: I would say yes, just for the people who probably created it. Would've put them there and they'd…

Avery/GM: Oh fair.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah. That's fair. Yeah, no, that's probably exactly, but they're probably like super old

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: so like modern day 144P.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, yoinks

Bee/Polaris: It's like super grainy.

Jenine/Marty: ah yoinks scoobs!

Bee/Polaris: it looks

Zach/Zahn: It's like the typical camera footage outside of a seven 11. So it's like super grainy.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, it looks like someone recorded it on a DS.

Avery/GM: Yeah, exactly. And then over in this side of the room, you see that there is a bunch of like lab equipment and stuff that could be used to like run experiments and stuff. And it looks like it's, it gets regularly used, but it's nowhere near as advanced as the med bay side of things. and then there is a door here that just says restricted.

Jenine/Marty: Does Marty wanna Snoop? I don't know if that's a Marty thing. No, if it's marked Marty's not gonna mess with stuff that's marked and the restriction she's, she's a goody goody. She ain't gonna do stuff like that.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, there's probably like a keypad and stuff anyway, so it's like locked

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: but there's also a piece of paper with tape on it that says nothing to see here

Jenine/Marty: Yoinks.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Also pulls takes off the paper that was over the med bay name plate and takes off the, the nap room paper.

Jenine/Marty: So I'll just Marty, then just looks over the papers one more time. You don't need any medications, right? Just, just making sure, like, there's not like a specific thing you need here that you haven't been carrying, just checking.

Bee/Polaris: Not that I'm aware of.

Jenine/Marty: Looks at screen to make sure.

Avery/GM: Yeah, you don't see any distributed medications aside from like maybe like a headache medication once in a while or something like that.

Jenine/Marty: All right, cool.

Avery/GM: Cause everyone gets headaches.

Jenine/Marty: yeah, a hundred percent. Lots of screens, lots of colors that hurts the head a lot.

Avery/GM: yeah. So there are two more areas, three more technically.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: you have the luxury cabins, the workshop. Or the bridge,

Bee/Polaris: Workshop.

Avery/GM: unless you want to show them the restricted area.

Bee/Polaris: No, Polaris probably wouldn't even think about it because Polaris probably isn't allowed him there.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: So not today. Maybe if we ever play hide and seek

Avery/GM: Mm-hmm

Bee/Polaris: Workshop, so Zahn can see where he can do work things and stuff.

Zach/Zahn: do work things and stuff.

Jenine/Marty: Mood.

Avery/GM: So the workshop is where Alioth spends most of its time. I have that right, right Bee?

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Avery/GM: That Alioth has It/Its pronouns. Okay Trying to make sure I, I keep that straight. Actually, as you come in, this is where you see a tinkering with the Hermes's chaos, Emerald at this computer station here. And it doesn't even look up when you come in or acknowledge your presence. It's just like,

Alioth: Query. I thought I was supposed to be helping your robot friend with repairs in the factory.

Bee/Polaris: Not anymore. Well, not right now.

Alioth: You should have updated me. I would have wasted valuable time walking to that part of the ship.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris rolls His eyes. “noted.”

Avery/GM: But Zahn you come into this room and it's, it's not quite heaven, but it's pretty close. There are all kinds of computer stations here for running experiments or probably researching like different mods and stuff that you could use for like, you know, your equipment. There are pieces of technology kind of strew about on some of these tables here.

Avery/GM: And there is a work bench in the back corner. With a, a variety of tools, kind of hanging on the wall and, and on the, on the bench itself Here. This is a, a tinkerer's paradise

Zach/Zahn: Heck. Yeah. Zahn is like meticulously shifting through all the cool shit to look.

Avery/GM: Polaris, You see Alioth lift its head up and look at you with like

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: this look on its face of like,

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Polaris is. Specifically

Avery/GM: They’re touching my things.

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Polaris is very specifically standing by Alioth so Alioth doesn't try and murder Zahn. it's like holding an attack. Dog's leash or collar Polaris is just like standing by Alioth so that they don't do anything.

Zach/Zahn: Hot damn, you guys have got some serious tech here. We're gonna have to look into maybe integrating some of this stuff into our ship so I can take it on the go. This is, this is nice.

Bee/Polaris: Sounds good to me. Polaris says staring Alioth directly at the eyes

Alioth: Well if it sounds good to you, then I guess it is fine.

Bee/Polaris: that actually reminds me, do you think we could get some calm systems for our friends without helmets?

Avery/GM: Alioth Without, like really looking up from, from what it's doing, just points to the table next to where Z is standing and says.

Alioth: There should be a box of communicators somewhere on that table.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, Hey, I found a box of communicators right here.

Alioth: Take them. Use them how you want. They all should all pair with your helmet.

Bee/Polaris: Thumbs up

Avery/GM: And actually, while you're in here, you hear Hermes pipe up. And he says, “I am excited that you all are still here. Does this mean we will be going back to the ship soon?”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just shrugs.

Zach/Zahn: The concept has potential.

Avery/GM: “I have just about finished my debriefing with Alioth it is going fairly well, although it does not seem to enjoy my company as much as I thought.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just shrugs. “Alioth hates everyone.”

Avery/GM: “Ah, I see.” Oh, and Ollie you notice right here, these two little blue pads are basically robot charging stations. So if you ever need to go offline for some reason the, that would be an option. For some reason, like your circuitry was damaged, something that like couldn't necessarily be repaired.

Bee/Polaris: Sick

Avery/GM: yeah, anywhere else you would like to go on this little extravaganza

Bee/Polaris: where, where is left?

Avery/GM: The bridge and the luxury cabins.

Bee/Polaris: Okay Polaris is gonna take 'em to the luxury cabin, so they have their own rooms.

Avery/GM: So this is not to scale because…

Bee/Polaris: Fair.

Avery/GM: But essentially, yeah you come into these this luxury cabin area. The sign on the door says command crew, and then the paper on the paper label over it just says Polaris's bedroom and that's because Polaris probably has his pick from where he wants to sleep when, when he actually comes up here.

Avery/GM: But there are six rooms here and each room offers a comfortable bed, a storage container and personal restroom and shower. Polaris are any of these like Decorated with like anything that like Polaris would find interesting or

Zach/Zahn: Is it shotgun through the entire cabin?

Bee/Polaris: So there's actually probably one room that Polaris just sticks to. And it's just like, the door's probably open because like, you know, Polaris and the custodians are the only ones on the ship and it is like filled with like stuffed animals and like mannequins with like clothes on them and stuff like that

Bee/Polaris: but mostly stuffed animals. but yeah, all the other rooms are just like as if they got the ship and that's how they came. So, yeah. Polaris just kind of like stands in front of his room, but like most surrounds the other rooms and just says “you guys can pick whichever rooms you like.” Cause I imagine everyone has like bags and stuff, you know?

Avery/GM: Yeah. If anyone wants To drop off their, their gear or their stuff here.

Zach/Zahn: That's the thing Zahn is So used to moving from place to. All of his possessions are on his person.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah.

Zach/Zahn: So he has like, no, like really attachment stuff. He's got like his one trinket, I think somewhere, but that's about it. So, he is like, I get to pick one? I, I wasn't expecting staying. Well, I guess it's one of those, like he's, as he's saying it he's, the revelation is kind of sinking in. So I was like, I wasn't planning. Huh.” and then he just kind of wanders off into this one

Avery/GM: Polaris, you get a text from Alioth and says, are they serious? They're planning on not staying?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris texts back. No

Avery/GM: sad Emoji

Zach/Zahn: Sad emoji!

Jenine/Marty: Oh, butts.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris sends a middle finger emoji.

Avery/GM: So, yeah. So this is the ship that Polaris calls home and is offering to you all as a sort of home away from home for the moment. (Anything) anyone would like to do in this moment, before we wrap up.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn's gonna slowly like come out of the room after having like spent a minute and like literally just like looked at the wall and been. This is My Space and he comes out and he like extends it. He comes out to Polaris, like stares at him for like a second through the helmet and like extends a hand cause he doesn't know, He doesn't know about like hugging or

Bee/Polaris: yeah, Polaris doesn't either.

Zach/Zahn: showing affection. Cause it's been like

Bee/Polaris: yeah.

Zach/Zahn: 20 years since he really actually had feelings for another person. Or like shared feelings and stuff. Cause he is just like kept himself and stuff. So he is like super awkward and he just like extends a hand. He's like, thanks.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris kind of looks at his hand and like tilts his head and the custodians are robots, so they don't do hugs but they do like pat Polaris on the head. So Polaris will awkwardly like… how tall is Zahn?

Zach/Zahn: So Zahn, Glances over at sheet because I don’t remember… I think he’s like five 10, but he comes out to be about five nine with the hunch

Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah. Okay. So Polaris is like almost he, Polaris is like, I think I said five eight or something like that. So Polaris just like pats Zahn on the head.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is like, he still has his hand out awkwardly to like shake, but he's like, “Got it.” And he puts his hand awkwardly back down.

Bee/Polaris: Do any of the normal people? like,

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: you, you dare say that anyone on this crew is normal.

Bee/Polaris: Marty's probably the most normal, Marty and Bruce are probably the most normal.

Caden/Bruce: Bar is on the ground.

Jenine/Marty: The bar IS on the ground.

Zach/Zahn: The bar is below sea level,

Caden/Bruce: The most normal of this crew is a giant alien. Got it.

Zach/Zahn: giant alien frog man frog lizard.

Bee/Polaris: Hey, it's space. That's space.

Zach/Zahn: That’s space!

Avery/GM: Its space, baby!

Jenine/Marty: normal's normal.

Zach/Zahn: in space!

Bee/Polaris: that's so fucking awkward. I got like secondhand embarrassment.

Avery/GM: Y’all are great. well, if no one has anything else, we. Move to the last scene.

So Polaris, you finished showing everyone around and you're, you're heading up to the bridge to show them kind of where Like the ship is kind of run if, you know, traveling or whatever. you get to the bridge and Merak and Bear are there kind of just running some diagnostics and stuff, probably getting the ship ready to, to actually leave this system since the Rendezvous is over.

As you enter, the alarm begins blaring on the ship. A voice comes over the Intercom, it says “alert, alert, unidentified ships have entered the system, alert, alert, unidentified ships have entered the system” and Mierak says, “well, that's not good. Is it?” And you just see Bear kind of pick up like a gun from somewhere

Bee/Polaris: Ah, yep.

Avery/GM: and just like starts checking it.

Bee/Polaris: It's probably a big gut that he just like pulled from the vent or something.

Avery/GM: Yeah. and you hear the, the comms ping on the ship and a voice comes over it and says “OY, this is Captain Blitz of the Crimson Chaos space pirates. We know you got our mates ship, the Minos board. We've been tracking its transponder code for days. Hand over the Minos and Captain Byram, or we'll blast this hunk of junk into rubble. You've got five minutes to comply!”

and that is where we're gonna end it.

(outro music starts then fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1upPodcast Network Production. Intro and Outro music by Dustin Carpenter. Background music provided by TabletopAudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks include “Generation Ship”, “Starship Medical”, “Star Freighter”, “Nephilim Labs”, and “Starship Bridge”.

Special thanks to Kelly Hayes for sound design on this episode. Be sure to check out her website http://www.kellyannelinhayes.com/ Link in the description.

We’ll be back on October 15th with our next episode. See you out there:

Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Outro music swells then fades out)