Avery/GM: Welcome to episode 39 of Beyond the Furthest Stars.
Amanda pulls the shuttle away slightly from the airlock and it is open to you. And then you get into the airlock and she pulls the ship back in and it connects. The pressure equalizes and your shuttle awaits.
Bee/Polaris: Yay! Okay, we get on our ship.
Chris/Ollie: Huzzah! Crisis averted.
Zach/Zahn: And as we get on, Zahn's gonna be like Amanda, get the fuck off.
Avery/GM: You see her handcuffed to the chair.
Bee/Polaris: Oh, Polaris just cuts the handcuffs.
Avery/GM: Okay.
Zach/Zahn: While, uh, your assistants in the Resurrection of my mother does not warrant a straight up murder. I am not obligated to save you either. Get the fuck off my ship.
Avery/GM: No, Zahn, you need to understand that.
Zach/Zahn: There's no understanding that needs to happen.
Get the fuck off the ship.
Avery/GM: It was the only way to save people on, on, on board was just to convert them to living machines.
Zach/Zahn: Yeah. I saw into her programming. She wasn't living and when she was her for the brief three seconds, she had an existential crisis and powered down because she couldn't,
Avery/GM: I know, I know.
And I was working on figuring it out.
Zach/Zahn: It's not living. Like that's, that's, that's the point that I'm getting at here. So, uh, proceed to. No longer be living on my ship.
Avery/GM: Two minutes till self destruct. She pulls out something that looks very familiar and it is the bomb that y'all rigged up with Ollie in episode three.
Bee/Polaris: Are you kidding me, bro? Okay, fine.
Avery/GM: She has, she's got some A cells wired together, or some plasma cells wired together. She's like, Zahn I am not going to blow up on that ship.
Zach/Zahn: Where, where is she standing?
Avery/GM: Uh, she's like next to the, the seat that you, that she was handcuffed in. So like towards like, kind of like the middle of the shuttle.
Zach/Zahn: She couldn't comically be standing like right in front of the
airlock. I was gonna grapple
launch her into the airlock.
Bee/Polaris: I meanolarisire still has his laser blade out. He could literally just cut off her arm.
Avery/GM: Yeah, I'm just presenting the options here.
Chris/Ollie: She did mention something. We didn't see any other brains in jars, right?
Avery/GM: No, you did see a biological specimen container, but y'all didn't actually look in there.
Chris/Ollie: Um, in all the data I downloaded, was there any mention of any other specimens like Eli?
Avery/GM: Yeah, looking, looking through the data you downloaded, they actually, when they got rid of the colony core of people, they harvested all the brains and kept them in that biological storage container
Zach/Zahn: fuck!
Avery/GM: For later use. Yeah.
Bee/Polaris: Ew.
Avery/GM: That's how they were going to save. The humans on the station.
Chris/Ollie: But were they all active? Because she mentioned she was trying to figure out the existential crisis once you are awakened as a robot. And Eli was the only one we saw. So I'm thinking, huh, how many times did you tell her she's a robot, see the crisis and then wipe her memory?
Over and over again.
Avery/GM: Those are that information is in there.
Bee/Polaris: That's fucked up.
Avery/GM: Whether you want to share it with Zahn or not is a different story, but it's in there. I, uh,
Zach/Zahn: Oh boy.
Chris/Ollie: I think I do. It's going to be over the chat though. Just going to,
Bee/Polaris: is it the chat with her?
Chris/Ollie: Yeah, it's without her.
Bee/Polaris: Okay.
Chris/Ollie: Just going to mention,
Zach/Zahn: is the bomb like.
A dead man switch or like, if she lets go of it.
Avery/GM: No, no, no. She just needs to connect. She needs to connect one wire.
Bee/Polaris: Polaris just cuts off her hand.
Avery/GM: Shit.
Zach/Zahn: I was going to shoot her in the hand, but that's also equally as effective.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah. You don't want to accidentally shoot the bomb.
Zach/Zahn: You don't want to cut the bomb.
Bee/Polaris: Well, a wrist is easier to aim for than like not shooting the bomb in her hand.
Avery/GM: Go ahead and enroll dexterity stab.
Bee/Polaris: Oh, I'm super good at that.
Zach/Zahn: Bee for the first time of this entire session. Oh, hey, that's a role I'm good at.
Bee/Polaris: No, I, well, yeah. Nine.
Avery/GM: The hand comes off, she screams in agony, and yeah, and she's, she crumples to the ground, like, holding her severed wrist.
Zach/Zahn: Then Zahn grabs her by her shirt collars and throws her off the ship.
Avery/GM: Okay, and you hear behind, as the door closes, And Amanda is stuck in the airlock. You hear one minute till self destruct.
Bee/Polaris: Polaris pockets the bomb.
Zach/Zahn: Polaris punch it. Get the fuck out of here.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris fucking guns it. Oh, I guess I could have punched her and like knocked her out.
Avery/GM: You could have.
Bee/Polaris: Cause I literally do like a D12 of damage.
Chris/Ollie: No, she needs to see her death coming.
Bee/Polaris: This does hurt more.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Ollie's just be like, good riddance.
Avery/GM: Plus, we got a free bomb!
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Polaris sends in chat to Amanda, thanks for the bomb, smiley face.
Chris/Ollie: Thanks for the bomb.
Avery/GM: Sure, roll a Dexterity pilot check.
Bee/Polaris: Oh.
Avery/GM: To get back to the Cass.
Bee/Polaris: I'm super good at Are you kidding me? That's my whole character build!
Zach/Zahn: I know!
Bee/Polaris: Ah, I rolled dog shit though!
Zach/Zahn: Have you used your, expert re roll?
Avery/GM: I was thing yet? I have not. It's not super, it's not super consequential, Bea. Um. Oh, okay. It's, it's more of just seeing how close to this explosion you get, you know?
Bee/Polaris: Oh, I'm gonna take the better role then. Oh, okay. I'm gonna re roll and take the better.
Okay, so you said what, Dexterity Pilot?
Avery/GM: Yes, please.
Bee/Polaris: Okay, um, what's eight plus five?
Avery/GM: 13.
Bee/Polaris: Okay, that.
Avery/GM: Cool.
Zach/Zahn: Okay, that.
Avery/GM: Yeah, 13, yeah, you, you, uh, make a beeline straight for the Cassiopeia and as like right as you land, like you time it perfectly, you land in the bay and you see a flash of light Kind of like from behind you as the station explodes into marvelous pieces of, of dust and the bigger chunks that are still there start orbiting the planet and will eventually decay and fall onto the planet.
Bruce, in your mind, you hear, *gasp* where, where did mother go?
Caden/Bruce: Can you not hear her anymore?
Avery/GM: No, everything has gone silent.
Caden/Bruce: I'm sorry. How do you feel?
Avery/GM: I don't know, it's never been this quiet before.
Caden/Bruce: Does it help if I talk to you?
Avery/GM: Perhaps later. I need to think. Thank you, kind one. And then the voice goes away.
Caden/Bruce: Okay.
Chris/Ollie: As long as it never discovers the truth.
Avery/GM: I mean, it's not really your fault, it's Zahn's dad's fault.
Chris/Ollie: True.
Caden/Bruce: We did nothing.
Avery/GM: And you literally could not have saved a giant tree.
Caden/Bruce: Nor would we have wanted to, but that's okay.
Bee/Polaris: Fuck no, I don't even want to save this seed.
Chris/Ollie: Have like, Bruce's son and your son have little fights
now?
Bee/Polaris: Also, Deef would fuckin destroy that seed.
Chris/Ollie: My son will take your son in a fight.
Bee/Polaris: I mean, my son has a lighter.
Chris/Ollie: True. That is kind of a hard counter.
Avery/GM: Um, yeah, so y'all are here, back on the Cassiopeia, Rho comes running into the, into the landing bay, and is just like, oh my gosh, that thing blew up, what did you do?
Bee/Polaris: We didn't do anything.
Avery/GM: And she's like, she's kinda like laughing, like, it was really cool to see. You know?
Bee/Polaris: Polaris puts a hand on her shoulder and just says, we did nothing.
Avery/GM: Y'all have obtained the Epios program, you killed Zahn's parents, destroyed the rest of the station.
Zach/Zahn: Yeah, now it's horrors can never spread across the galaxy.
Except for this seed..
Avery/GM: Except for Eden.
Zach/Zahn: But we promised a new experience, which will be the slow black hole death.
Chris/Ollie: I know, I mean, the plant said it itself. It's never heard it this quiet before. Totally new experience.
Bee/Polaris: Toss it in the airlock.
Zach/Zahn: Death is a new experience that everyone will experience at least once.
Avery/GM: Jesus.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah, except me. Except me, you pitiful fleshies.
Zach/Zahn: Ollie's died, what, twice now?
Bee/Polaris: Uh, only once, right?
Zach/Zahn: Well, he blew himself up the one time, but the EMP did
Chris/Ollie: yeah, that also killed me.
Zach/Zahn: Probably at least feel like he was dead.
Chris/Ollie: So yeah, I'm at two deaths.
Bee/Polaris: Gotcha. Okay.
Chris/Ollie: This is a minor inconvenience. Merely a flesh wound.
Bee/Polaris: Truly.
Zach/Zahn: A minor inconvenience.
Avery/GM: Ollie's KDR is the only one that can be more than one.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah. My ratio might end up being bad overall, but, uh, at least I can have a ratio.
Bee/Polaris: That won't stop me from trying.
Zach/Zahn: No, while you have two deaths, your, your kills are at least a little higher now, I think. So yeah, you're on board the Cassiopeia Rho has just come in to kind of see what y'all are all about.
Bee/Polaris: I mean, we were streaming. Would Ro not have seen what happened?
Avery/GM: Uh, she probably watched some of it, but probably like, when, when the stuff with Zahn's dad kind of started getting graphic, she probably turned away.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, fair. So she knows what happened.
Avery/GM: Yeah.
Bee/Polaris: Okay.
Avery/GM: She says, uh, By the way, that tree was really weird.
Bruce, it almost seemed like it was like, Talking to you.
Caden/Bruce: Uh, it was.
Avery/GM: Really? That's so cool.
Caden/Bruce: I mean,
Avery/GM: telepathic plants exist back home.
Caden/Bruce: I mean, right now it's currently ignoring me and I don't know why.
Zach/Zahn: Right. Zahn was there when you got a seed of it, right?
Avery/GM: Uh, yeah. It was like, as you all were going down the stairs, like it reached out.
Zach/Zahn: Oh yeah, Zahn was just down the stairs first.
Bee/Polaris: It was only Polaris, Ollie, and Bruce.
Avery/GM: Oh, okay.
Zach/Zahn: Oh, shiznit. So Zahn doesn't know about the seed. So yeah, he's just like, uh, what, how is it still alive? What do you mean it was ignoring, it's ignoring you right now?
Caden/Bruce: Um, I mean that it's thinking. And Bruce would like, pull out the container that has the seed in it.
Bee/Polaris: The Tupperware?
Caden/Bruce: The little Tupperware.
Zach/Zahn: Zahn's gonna visibly flinch and, like, deconstruct his helmet and he's gonna be like, WHY THE FUCK DID YOU BRING THAT THING?
Caden/Bruce: I, I promised it an adventure, and now it doesn't have a mother, and I figured since it likes to consume, maybe If it wanted to, it could be a help to me.
Bee/Polaris: Polaris, like, puts a, like, concerned emoji on his face, like, Bruce, what do you mean by that?
Caden/Bruce: Well, I cook, and it likes to eat. Okay, okay. So, what, what better thing to see if a new recipe works than a plant that is made to consume?
Bee/Polaris: I thought you were I thought you were going to use it to be rid of bodies.
Chris/Ollie: No, that's what Ollie was going to suggest.
Bee/Polaris: But that makes a lot more sense. Very on brand. Also, does it have taste buds?
Caden/Bruce: I don't know. Little seed, do you like what you eat?
Avery/GM: When I was part of the rest of my family, yes, we enjoyed the taste of many things.
Zach/Zahn: I don't like the phrasing of that.
Bee/Polaris: I don't like that either.
Zach/Zahn: At all.
Bee/Polaris: Very bad.
Avery/GM: Rho says, oh, we have telepathic plants back on Terra. It's actually Really cool. Uh, these things are mostly harmless.
Bee/Polaris: Rho, that doesn't inspire courage in me at all.
Avery/GM: Like, only like 10 percent of their offspring are flesh eating.
Bee/Polaris: Rho, this one is flesh eating.
Caden/Bruce: Would you consider eating vegetables as well as flesh?
Avery/GM: At this point, I'll take what I can get. But for now, I'm just a seed, so probably just water and soil would work for now.
Bee/Polaris: Bruce, you're gonna have to translate that. We can't hear that.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah, actually, I, Ollie is just can't hear anything from the plant. Ollie's just sitting there like, why, why are you all staring at the plant?
Zach/Zahn: It's uh, talking to Bruce.
Bee/Polaris: It can, it seems like it can only talk to meat beings, meat boys.
Chris/Ollie: His ears are gonna go down and be like, I will be at the nav console.
Bee/Polaris: Oh, Polaris is still Oh, Polaris is not still riding Ollie. Polaris pats Ollie on the head and says, It's okay. We can talk
Avery/GM: to you. Rho speaks up and says, Oh, by the way, as you were shuttling away, we got a communication from the Winstons, if you're ready to accept it. I told them to hold.
Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah.
Avery/GM: So I think they're, I think they're holding
Bee/Polaris: Well, Good Job on New Terra, team. And he's going to high five Amanda's hand before walking over to
Zach/Zahn: oh my god...
Avery/GM: Self Five!
Zach/Zahn: Zahn's gonna hold up a finger. and be like Polaris... What are... What are you gonna do with that hand?
Bee/Polaris: Sorry?
Zach/Zahn: What are you gonna do with it? Just get, get rid of it.
Bee/Polaris: Well, I mean, it's not like I can throw it in the trash. It's a hand.
Zach/Zahn: I don't know. Feed it, feed it to the fucking plant thing if
it's so happy about eating people.
Bee/Polaris: I mean, it's, it's a seed in a box. I don't think it can eat hands yet.
Zach/Zahn: Then I'm sure we've got an incinerator around here hydroponics bin.
Chris/Ollie: Ollie will eat it.
Bee/Polaris: Listen, until, no, cause we're going to have to clean that out of Ollie!. Listen, until we can find an appropriate way to dispose of this hand, I guess I'm just going to hang on to it.
Besides, sometimes I could use an extra hand. And then he like finger guns us. And then he finger guns as he's walking backwards to the communication bay.
Chris/Ollie: Finger guns with the hand.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah!
Avery/GM: Oh my gosh.
Zach/Zahn: Zahn's face literally scrunches up into the most, like, almost even more foul frown than when he just gave it his own father.
For that fucking dad joke.
Bee/Polaris: I'm your dad now, but not in a weird way. Anyway, I put Amanda's bomb in my inventory.
Avery/GM: Sure. You got more bombs! Okay, you've got an Amanda hand and Amanda bomb.
Yeah, so you're heading up to the bridge.
Bee/Polaris: I finger guns there.
Avery/GM: Cool.
Zach/Zahn: Yeah, I guess everyone should go to the bridge to receive this message from the fucking Winstons.
Avery/GM: So you come up, you push the button to receive the message from the Winstons. Lapis pops up on the screen and is just like, I just received word from the higher ups that you all have completed your mission.
You have the Epios program.
Zach/Zahn: How the fuck do you know that?? We just did it.
Bee/Polaris: Aren't they an omnipotent secret society?
Zach/Zahn: Yeah Zahn doesn't remember that.
Bee/Polaris: Polaris thumbs up at lapis with Amanda's hand.
Avery/GM: They, they, they give a sick look on their face and is just like, yeah, uh, to answer your question, Zahn, we know that cause we're literally called the oracles. We're supposed to know things.
Bee/Polaris: Except for the fact that you didn't know the one thing.
Avery/GM: Well, yes, we have limits, but sometimes the visions come through very clear. It's very nice and totally convenient for plot purposes.
Bee/Polaris: Indeed,
Zach/Zahn: Zahn just continues his frown and crosses his arms. He's like, yeah, we have it.
Avery/GM: Excellent. Well, if you're ready, you can rendezvous with, with Lazuli and the rest of the oracles at Ithaca. They're preparing for the, the incursion of the, uh, hegemony fleet any minute. So the sooner you get there, the better.
Bee/Polaris: Okay.
Avery/GM: And also. I'm sorry, I'm sure that probably wasn't easy on you, Zahn, uh, to go back home.
Zach/Zahn: Zahn like looks down and like flicks a switch on his wrist that makes his helmet rebuild. He's like, no,
Avery/GM: it wasn't. Well, the, the galaxy thanks you for your sacrifice.
Bee/Polaris: That super is like, that's super tone deaf. That's like super mean actually to say that.
Avery/GM: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm not always the best of people.
Anyway, uh, I'm sending you the coordinates for Ithaca now. So, uh, hopefully you'll, you'll get there soon.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah.
Avery/GM: And the transmission cuts.
Bee/Polaris: Polaris goes and puts a hand on John's shoulder. Not Amanda's hand.
Zach/Zahn: Good.
Bee/Polaris: How are you? Holding up?
Zach/Zahn: Fine.
Bee/Polaris: Are you lying to me?
Zach/Zahn: Yes.
Bee/Polaris: If you don't want to talk about it now, that's fine, but we can talk about it later if you want to.
Zach/Zahn: Yeah, I definitely need, uh, I Time.
Bee/Polaris: Polaris pat him on the shoulder, whenever you're ready, and then goes back to the pilot's chair because we gotta get the fuck up out of here!
Zach/Zahn: We gotta get out of here!
Bee/Polaris: We gotta get Skedaddle uh,
Zahn's
Zach/Zahn: gonna, Zahn's gonna head down to the uh, the workshop.
Avery/GM: Sure. Uh, what's everyone else doing?
Caden/Bruce: I wanna plant my seed.
Avery/GM: Sure. Uh, hydroponics bay or
Bee/Polaris: please, please plant it in a pot.
Caden/Bruce: Well, no, definitely. And it's like, I think Bruce would keep it by his blender.
Bee/Polaris: Okay.
Caden/Bruce: Honestly.
Bee/Polaris: Plant it in the blender.
Caden/Bruce: No.
Chris/Ollie: They fuse and become one.
Bee/Polaris: Oh my gosh, it's like a little cyborg.
Zach/Zahn: A little plant cyborg.
Caden/Bruce: Because we have fertilizer, right? Like we bought a bunch of other vegetables and such, so.
Avery/GM: Yeah, you, you bought, you bought a whole bunch of stuff back at the Space Vegas.
Caden/Bruce: Yeah, so he'll get like a little cup of like pot size, like a cup size pot and some fertilizer and some soil and he'll plant the seed and he'll put it beside the blender and he'll be like, Now, if you ever get Get lonely, you can talk, and I can talk to you through the blender.
This is a blender.
Avery/GM: Blender.
Caden/Bruce: Blender. Blender is friend. I am friend. We do not hurt each other. Understood?
Avery/GM: Of course. You are the kind one.
Zach/Zahn: Yeah.
Bee/Polaris: I mean, to be fair, the whole crew was nice to the plant after we realized it was sentient.
Avery/GM: After yeah. This is true. Cool. So yeah. So Zahn, you're down in the workshop. Where do I have that?
Chris/Ollie: Ollie is also going to go down to the workshop, going to dib deep within his chassis programming for any of the companion dog routines. And implement them all.
Zach/Zahn: Oh, God. Oh, no. Okay.
Bee/Polaris: He's trying to comfort.
Avery/GM: Yeah. Zahn, you come down to the workshop, and Ollie follows a few minutes later and does the whole dog comfort thing of kind of like, you know.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah, just like, come up and just rest his head on your leg as you're sitting there.
Zach/Zahn: Aww. I get, I give him some head scritches, and then I'm like, alright, Ollie, uh, this is appreciated. But I just get a little, uh. Alone tinker time to myself, you know,
Chris/Ollie: certainly. And he's going to go over and is there any other work bench here?
Avery/GM: There's like this computer station here. This was meant to also be a work bench
Chris/Ollie: because I want to get the, uh, turret off my back.
Avery/GM: We'll say that there's like a. There's a work, uh, weapons modification workbench in the, in the armory.
Chris/Ollie: That'd be great though. It's like, uh, not right now, Ollie. And he just steps over to the side and starts working right next to you. Yeah. I'd like to make the, uh, the turret like removable and detachable.
Avery/GM: Yeah. Um, go ahead and roll an intelligence fix check.
Chris/Ollie: 10.
Avery/GM: Yeah. You're able to do that. It takes about four hours to do. I've just started busy work and like, kind of like figuring out like, cause you're also doing it solo. So like. You know, you're having to like maneuver your little, uh, tentacle arms in weird ways and whatnot. But
Chris/Ollie: yeah, I got like a hand mirror.
Avery/GM: Yeah. Like, okay, wait mirror. So it's reversed.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Like when you're trying to look at something on your back with a hand mirror and then a mirror on the wall and you're like, wait, Why isn't this working? What?
Avery/GM: Exactly. Zahn, what are you doing over here at the workbench?
Zach/Zahn: Zahn is going to continue working on his old Kinesis module.
Avery/GM: Sure. Go ahead and roll, uh, intelligence fix.
Zach/Zahn: Eleven.
Avery/GM: Yeah. Yeah. It takes the same as Ollie. Kind of, it takes about four hours to, to put some more, um, Finishing touches on this, but after a little while you have this cool little kinesis module, which if I remember correctly, is basically meant to work sort of like the way mage hand works in D and D
Zach/Zahn: pretty much. Except with, it doesn't have the 10 pound weight limit.
Avery/GM: Yeah. You can lift a lot heavier stuff. Yeah. Not unlimited strength, but
Zach/Zahn: no,
Avery/GM: but pretty much anything you can move with your own physical body, you can move with this kinesis arm.
Zach/Zahn: Yeah.
Avery/GM: At a further distance too. So yeah, very good.
Zach/Zahn: And then I'd say like nothing bigger than like, I don't know, five feet. Like I can't pick up a person with it, but I can pick up like a container kind of stuff.
Avery/GM: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Uh, we'll stat it out. Later or something like that.
Zach/Zahn: Nice.
Avery/GM: And actually go ahead and roll. Okay. Anyway, uh, do you play the message that, that Bruce forwarded you or do you save it for later?
Zach/Zahn: Think Zahn needs to decompress a little more before diving into that can of worms.
Avery/GM: Sure. No worries. And Polaris, do you go straight for Ithaca or do you contact your parents or what do you do?
Bee/Polaris: I mean, straight to Ithaca because we're on a time crunch, but Polaris can like text his parents, I guess.
Avery/GM: No, no, no, I was just curious. I wasn't, you know, we haven't, we haven't checked in with the custodians in a while, so I wasn't sure.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I mean, he does need to. He'll just like send an update, like, I'm still alive. Uh, I'll be home soon? Question mark? Have to deal with something that's time sensitive.
Zach/Zahn: Like savin the universe.
Avery/GM: You get three thumbs up emojis, all in a row.
Bee/Polaris: Uh, Polaris probably should talk to Rho about not murdering his parents or attempting to.
Avery/GM: Oh, cause I said all in a row. Yeah, so you go, you, you go to warp, so to speak. Let's see, Ollie and Zahn are in the workshop. Bruce, are you doing anything else with your plant friend or in the uh, kitchen?
Caden/Bruce: Um, I think Bruce is gonna start making cocktails of water, which sounds really weird, I know, but basically he's gonna slowly try and introduce salt to the seed's diet without killing it.
Avery/GM: Oh, that's really sweet. Uh, intelligence work.
Caden/Bruce: It's gonna go as poorly as it sounds.
Avery/GM: I don't know, you're pretty good at work.
Caden/Bruce: And that is a 10.
Avery/GM: Yeah, you gradually increase the, the salt content of these cocktails and yeah, you schedule them out for like, you know, a, a, a good, like a good regimen of like slowly increasing it just like you said.
So. You are all set on that front. Um, do you feed the, the seed a little bit of water before you, uh, finish up?
Caden/Bruce: Oh, yeah.
Avery/GM: Um, it just says, Ooh, thank you. This will help.
Caden/Bruce: You're welcome, little seed. I hope so.
Avery/GM: Yeah. And then Polaris, you and Ro are alone on the bridge. As you go to warp and Ro says, are you sure you don't want me to get in the navigation pod?
Bee/Polaris: Again, you've been in there long enough. You don't ever have to go back in there. If it's easier for you, I can try and teach you to fly.
Avery/GM: That would be really cool. Um, and her face like, brightens up, like, so much.
Bee/Polaris: I will admit I don't actually know how, how to teach. So, uh, I can send over some of the books that I started reading when I was first learning.
Avery/GM: I, I do have another way. It's, it's kind of cheating, but if you're cool with it, I can just. Learn directly from you.
Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah, sure. Just don't go anywhere else.
Avery/GM: Oh, no, no, no. I wouldn't, I would not do that. I would not pry into your personal stuff.
Bee/Polaris: Okay, then you can go ahead.
Avery/GM: Okay, so she's gonna roll a telepathy check. Okay, that's really good. Um, yeah, she walks over to you and like, do you take your helmet off or no?
Bee/Polaris: Uh, initially he doesn't cause he doesn't know if he, she actually needs that. But like, if she requests him to, he will.
Avery/GM: She doesn't. I was just curious. Um, cause you see her like, grab like the sides of your helmet and kind of like bring your foreheads to touch.
Bee/Polaris: Okay. Yeah.
Avery/GM: Slightly.
Bee/Polaris: Yep.
Avery/GM: And you feel like a gentle pressure kind of on your brain. Almost like you're starting to feel like a headache come on for a minute and then the pressure releases and she steps back. She's like, Oh, that was cool. Wow. You know, a lot of cool stuff about flying.
Bee/Polaris: I really like ships.
Avery/GM: Like, do you, do you seriously do these like flips and turns like regularly?
Bee/Polaris: Yes.
Avery/GM: Wow. Okay. Yeah. My, she says, well, uh, I guess we don't have to worry about it right now. Cause we're in, you know, we're, we're in, in warp space, but maybe later I can, uh, fly us around.
Bee/Polaris: Sure. It's good to get practice.
Avery/GM: And Rho goes and starts to leave and is just like, Thank you for trusting me, Polaris.
I know that was probably hard to let someone dig around in your brain,
but.
Bee/Polaris: Not really. I, I, Don't have the same qualms most people do with that kind of stuff.
Avery/GM: Oh, okay. Well, I'm a little hungry, so I'm going to go see if Bruce has anything cooking up. So yeah. And she leaves anything anyone else is doing.
It's about a three day trip to Ithaca from your current location.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Along this trip, Ollie would also like to make a bunch of copies of the program, especially like one. Installed into the ship and one installed into himself
Avery/GM: for when you get Hermes back.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I am No, Hermes getting eaten alive by no virus.
Avery/GM: Yeah, go ahead and roll a uh, intelligence program check
Chris/Ollie: Uh 17,
Avery/GM: holy shit. I forgot how good you are. It's like
Chris/Ollie: When I actually get a higher roll Yeah, I mean rolling three and dropping the lowest is just bad Beyond powerful.
Avery/GM: Yeah. And then plus like all the extra stuff you can get. Yeah. No, you, yeah, you make plenty of copies of, of the Epios program. Um, you hardwire one into your database and do you just have it running constantly? Or do you have it programmed for like, if it set, like, if it senses.
Chris/Ollie: Like, yeah, have it set as like a fail safe. Like if it detects, uh, any breaches. Yeah. I don't know if I could. If I know the, you know, digital footprint of the Iaso program,
Avery/GM: you know, the digital footprint, cause you saw it run on the Cassiopeia before.
Chris/Ollie: Okay. Then yeah, anything, any activity like that is going to trigger this program to, to, you know, be constantly on until manually deactivated.
Avery/GM: Very good.
Chris/Ollie: And, uh, since I got a bunch of extra copies, I'd like to. Make a few like little flash drives that I can like inject install into a system if we come across it
Avery/GM: very good Yeah, you do it. You've got you've got countermeasures galore for for any kind of AI killing the virus So yes, thank you Bee for reminding me. I Yes,
Bee/Polaris: thumbs up.
Avery/GM: You would like to make that?
Bee/Polaris: Uh, yeah, let's go with the keychain because I feel like the other one would take a long time without a loom
Avery/GM: Yeah, sure, yeah, go ahead and roll a dexterity fix or dexterity work check.
Bee/Polaris: can it be fix?
Avery/GM: Are you putting it together with like random like pieces of like junk and other stuff that you have? Not junk, but like spare parts and things like that.
Bee/Polaris: Uh, yeah, I imagine it's kind of like, uh, like a watchmaker, uh,
Avery/GM: sure,
Bee/Polaris: rigging up something.
Avery/GM: Okay, we can have it be fixed. That's fine.
Bee/Polaris: Yay. Oh, no. You said dexterity fix?
Avery/GM: Uh, yeah, because you're working with like tiny pieces and stuff like that.
Bee/Polaris: It's seven.
Avery/GM: Seven? Ah,
Bee/Polaris: no.
Avery/GM: It's okay. This is what I'll give you.
Bee/Polaris: Oh, wait.
Avery/GM: You can either have
Bee/Polaris: Is this a different scene?
Avery/GM: Um, technically, yeah.
Bee/Polaris: Then I will re roll that please way better.
12.
Avery/GM: Okay. Okay. A 12. No, you finish this, uh, key chain and it's pretty and sparkly. And it even has the same feature that the original had.
Bee/Polaris: Sweet. I'm not going to do anything with it right now though.
Avery/GM: Okay. Very good. And sorry for everyone for speaking cryptically, but
Bee/Polaris: yeah, sorry. you'll find out later when Zahn actually tells the truth.
Zach/Zahn: What?
Bee/Polaris: About his fee fees.
Zach/Zahn: Fee fees? You mean feelings?
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, yeah, sorry!
Zach/Zahn: Oh, okay.
Caden/Bruce: During this break, uh, Bruce is trying to teach the seed different, like, food groups. Knowing that the seed cannot yet eat different food groups, but just trying to be like This is what carbs is, this is what fruits are, like these are vegetables, here are some different spices, and like
Avery/GM: Oh, this is great, I love this.
Caden/Bruce: You know, and it's just the kind of thing where it's just like, you don't have to consume food, you should enjoy food.
Avery/GM: I don't even think that's a role, really, you're just teaching it, so.
Caden/Bruce: Yeah, like every so often he'll be like, This is what a fruit is. Like, this is kind of like what the flavors you'd expect. And then just like, kind of like infuse the water with like a little bit of strawberry, you know, like,
Avery/GM: yeah. I will say surprisingly in the four days that it's been taken to travel, this thing has already started to sprout above the soil line.
Bee/Polaris: Oh, good. We can get rid of this hand.
And there
Avery/GM: are a few little leaves poking out.
And so as you're teaching it these things, you, you feed it this water with like strawberry infusion in it. And it's just like, Oh, that was quite lovely. I, I quite enjoy the sugary drinks that you're giving me.
Caden/Bruce: You just can't have all sugar. Otherwise it will rot your teeth. Do you have teeth?
Avery/GM: Not yet.
Bee/Polaris: I knew that was going to be the answer and I did not enjoy it anyway.
Caden/Bruce: When you start to have teeth, we're going to have to start to brush your teeth because we don't want them to rot, okay?
Avery/GM: What is brushing?
Caden/Bruce: We'll get to that when you start having teeth.
Avery/GM: Thank you, kind one. Shall I keep calling you kind one or should I just call you Bruce?
Caden/Bruce: I would prefer Bruce.
Avery/GM: Then I will call you Bruce.
Caden/Bruce: Okay, Eden. For now, we will work on the change of your taste buds to distinguish the difference between cinnamon and nutmeg. Okay?
Avery/GM: Uh, you see the plant kind of like give like a little, a little shake of its leaves, like Yay.
Caden/Bruce: And anyone walking into this room would just hear Bruce explaining these things.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Polaris would go in at one point for a glass of water and see Bruce talking to the plant and just slowly back away.
Avery/GM: Yeah. Uh, anything else that happens during this four days or do we want to move on to the next scene?
Bee/Polaris: I should actually probably talk to Rho about not murdering my parents real quick.
Avery/GM: Sure. Okay.
Bee/Polaris: At one point, players would approach Rho and say, do you mind if we talk about something
briefly?
Avery/GM: Of course. I was, I was actually just getting, uh, ready to, to kind of go in and do some exercises in the, uh, in the cargo bay, you know, still got to Just cause I'm a super powerful psychic doesn't mean I don't need to take care of my body.
Bee/Polaris: Understandable.
Avery/GM: And so you two are walking towards the cargo bay, or the landing bay. This is just a big open space that you know.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah.
Avery/GM: She's like, so what do you want to talk about? Are you, are you actually here to tell me that you actually are mad that I stabbed you the other day?
Bee/Polaris: What? No, you, no, because we got even. I mean, I technically stabbed you, and then you stabbed me, so it's only fair.
Avery/GM: Yeah, but I don't think I told you about the other part, which was that, like, the other day I was going to, like, steal your ship to get home.
Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah, well, I mean, I figured as much. I mean, it's only rational to, in a situation that you were like that.
Avery/GM: Yeah, Marty stopped me and convinced me that that would be really rude, and she was right, and so, of course, so I am sorry about that, if that's, if that's what this is about.
Bee/Polaris: I didn't even know about that, so why would I be mad about something I didn't know about?
Avery/GM: I, I don't know. I have a lot of anxiety about people being mad.
Bee/Polaris: I can tell. Yeah, I'm not
mad at you.
Avery/GM: Okay, uh, so what's up?
Bee/Polaris: So, I'm actually having this conversation, so you aren't mad at me?
Avery/GM: Oh,
Bee/Polaris: in a way.
Avery/GM: I have nothing to be mad at you for.
Bee/Polaris: Um, I mean, I didn't do anything, but you don't get along well with
my custodians.
Avery/GM: She kind of tenses a little bit. It's like, yeah, that's, that's one way to put it.
Bee/Polaris: I mean, we are. The plan is definitely to try and help you get home, but in order to do so, we are going to have to go back to the custodian's ship for things, and I would appreciate if you didn't try to murder them.
Avery/GM: Polaris, you wouldn't know this because you weren't inside my brain with Marty, um, back, um, at that institute place, but, um, I have actually Thanks to Marty's help, um, have made peace with a lot of my, um, anger towards them. Still not the biggest fan. Marty has taught me that getting revenge won't make me feel better. So, no worries. I will not murder the murderous AI.
Bee/Polaris: Polaris puts a question mark on the visor. Does Polaris know that they murdered a bunch of people?
Avery/GM: You put two and two together that they were the rogue AI that, um, that Rho's shipmates were looking for. I don't know if you've read all the details about what exactly happened.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I think that was what the custodians were going to talk to Polaris about. Right? Like polaris doesn't know.
Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah. So Roe cocks her head and it's like, did they not? Tell you what they did
Bee/Polaris: dot dot dot on the visor No but I imagine that they were going to before we left
Avery/GM: she kind of stops walking for a minute and kind of just like Leans her back against the wall. It's like kind of like just rest for a minute and it's just like okay Do you prefer to hear it from me or would you rather hear it from them?
Bee/Polaris: I simply don't know what's going on fair I have no emotional preference if that is what you're asking that.
Avery/GM: Yeah, that's kind of what I was asking So back home in the Milky Way, and I don't quite understand it all because they, they seemed to think that it had happened years and years ago, but it, it's pretty recent history for me.
Um, there was a planet where the Pan Solar Union was training their, some of their military, uh, units. You know, just a training base, pretty standard stuff. And my brother was on that planet and the, the reports are still kind of weird about what exactly happened, but essentially one of the AI in the, so you know how Navi was one AI. And had like all the other AIs kind of serving her.
Bee/Polaris: Yes.
Avery/GM: So that's kind of how we set up our AI clusters, um, back home is we put one in charge and then have the other one subservient to them. Well, the one that was in charge of Adis decided that humans in the Milky Way were on a path of self destruction and decided to speed up the process, so to speak, and had basically used the IASO program to destroy the AI nodes that were controlling the planet's fission reactors. And that set off a chain reaction that destroyed everyone and everything on the planet, including my brother. And at first it was thought that the AI had killed itself in the explosion, but then records were uncovered indicating that it had traveled outside of the galaxy. And according to Captain Alexio's records, before he abandoned ship, that's why they sent the Cassiopeia out this way was to lure them in with traces of home, you know, thinking that maybe if they still existed out, out here, that they would find it and would reveal themselves so that they could be trapped and destroyed.
So yeah, so that, that's kind of the context behind that whole, you know, psychic freakout I had a few weeks ago. Ha ha ha ha.
Bee/Polaris: That seems understandable. I, I mean, I, I can't say that I personally, I'm sorry for your loss.
Avery/GM: Like I said, I've, I've come to terms with it.
Bee/Polaris: Polaris kind of nods.
Avery/GM: Anyway, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go run for a little bit and try and clear my head if that's okay.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for talking to me.
Avery/GM: She, she pauses and is just like, Are you? Bia, I hope I didn't just ruin your relationship with your family.
Bee/Polaris: Oh, no, uh, I'll be fine. I, I'll be fine.
Avery/GM: She kind of narrows her eyes and is just like, And says it in the same way that you said it to Zahn. Are you lying?
Bee/Polaris: I am not lying to you. And he isn't , he's his, his hesitation is that he doesn't feel emotions the same way.
Avery/GM: Totally, yeah.
Bee/Polaris: Other people do. So he doesn't wanna, he his like rephrasing of things is him trying not to say something that would come off as cold.
Avery/GM: Yeah, totally.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Trying to be like, oh yeah, I feel sorry for you, but I really don't give a fuck about that entire planet at all.
Bee/Polaris: I mean, it's, yeah, I, essentially, but it's like, he doesn't understand the meaning of, like, the loss of a sibling because he doesn't have any, so he doesn't, like, he doesn't want to say, like, I don't actually understand, but, like, you know, sorry about that, sorry my murderous AI parents killed your brother, like, there's not much he can really say that's comforting about that.
Chris/Ollie: Fair.
Avery/GM: Fair. Valid.
Bee/Polaris: So he is fine. Unsettlingly so, but he's trying to emotion
Avery/GM: good. Very good. Okay. Yay. Ro and Polaris have made up.
Bee/Polaris: I mean, Polaris was never
Avery/GM: No, not
Bee/Polaris: had a grudge or anything against her.
Avery/GM: Have cleared the air.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I mean, Polaris was just worried about her, like, trying to murder his parents while he's trying to fix his
Avery/GM: Yeah.
Bee/Polaris: computer or something.
Avery/GM: What's that? The AI are being murdered? Uh oh.
Bee/Polaris: Damn it. I was almost done.
Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network production. Intro and outro music produced by Dustin Carpenter. Background music provided by TabletopAudio. com and used under an attribution, non commercial license from Creative Commons. Tracks used today include Secret Facility, Starforged, Space, and Starship Adrift.
We'll be back in two weeks with our next episode. See you out there. Beyond the Furthest Stars.