Avery/GM: Welcome to episode 60 of Beyond the Furthest Stars.
(intro music plays, fades down, ambience fades up)
Avery/GM: So you've dropped out of warp and you get a ping from the Ursa Major from Alioth.
Alioth: Greetings, Polaris. Please proceed to the Ursa Major. We must begin the body installation process immediately.
Bee/Polaris: I don't know, is Alioth broadcasting this to the entirety of the Cassiopeia or just at Polaris?
Avery/GM: Yes. Just, yeah, just to
Bee/Polaris: wait, which one?
Oh, okay.
Avery/GM: Sorry. Just to everyone,
Bee/Polaris: all of it. Okay.
Avery/GM: Polaris will
to the bridge.
Bee/Polaris: Okay. Polaris will type, uh, thumbs up, , and send it from the bridge.
Avery/GM: Any other questions you wanna ask Muse before we end This scene
Bee/Polaris: seems like we're going neurotoxin not happy about it, but you know what, can you do ?
Avery/GM: You don't have to, you can go in guns blazing or robot dinosaur blazing.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, but that's gonna take time. And also we have to. The quickest way would be to figure out how to supernova the nearest star, but
Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I mean, since it's only their local base, then, yeah, supernova probably is the way to go.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, but we have to figure out how to do that. We're just five goons in a ship.
Avery/GM: It's physics, just increase mass.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah, increase the heat and the pressure enough so it starts producing iron and boom!
Bee/Polaris: Okay, I guess. I guess.
Avery/GM: Easy! Sorry, that's the nerdy, not fun answer.
Bee/Polaris: I guess!
Chris/Ollie: Totally easy, just affect the physics of a star. No problem.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. We, we don't know how to do that on such a scale that we, I guess we can do like a, some sort of, I feel like they noticed that though.
I was gonna say like a, a Dyson sphere sort of deal.
Chris/Ollie: Oh, I'm sure that,
Bee/Polaris: but they wouldn't notice us putting panels around their star .
Chris/Ollie: Well, if anyone knows how to quickly supernova star, it's probably the custodians
Bee/Polaris: that is not true. ,
Chris/Ollie: maybe Bear, I don't think ,
Bee/Polaris: I mean, bear could probably run some theories, but he probably doesn't know how to do that. his main thing is weapons, not necessarily. Physics. Alioth is the science one.
Avery/GM: Alioth, probably figure it out.
Chris/Ollie: Weapons, physics, same thing.
Bee/Polaris: I, I guess.
Avery/GM: One robot's physics is another robot's weapon.
Chris/Ollie: True.
Bee/Polaris: The last one's just a pilot. Anyway.
Avery/GM: Okay. Well, you are all on the Ursa Major in the factory room. You check the status of the bodies that were being built and it is 100 percent ready to go.
Um, there are four pristine looking robot bodies right here. One of them has space for, uh, an AI crystal for coil. And then the other three were pretty much actually, I'm going to Bee, I'm going to let you decide this. Do the bodies all look the same as before or did they change?
Bee/Polaris: Man, now that you bring it up, I'm like, but, uh, a cool comeback redesign would be so cool.
Zach/Zahn: I was going to say this time you said there wrote that I've developed robot bodies, not cyborg bodies like they were before.
Bee/Polaris: No, they're the same bodies.
Avery/GM: Yeah. They're, they look real enough. Yeah.
Bee/Polaris: Probably like the same. Yeah. They'll get an outfit change or something.
Avery/GM: An outfit change.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah. New hairstyle. New outfit.
Avery/GM: New hair. Yeah. New hair. New outfit. Yeah. Totally.
Bee/Polaris: Same general look so that they're still recognizable. Actually, Alioth looks the same because Alioth does not care.
Avery/GM: Very good. You spend a few minutes uploading each custodian to the proper body and they activate and are you putting the coil cube in yet or no?
Bee/Polaris: Yeah,
Zach/Zahn: I just don't see why not.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, he's our friend now.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah, as long as the body doesn't have any like built in weapons or anything.
Bee/Polaris: Nope, no weapons yet. And also he's our friend because we reunited, we let him meet his hero.
Avery/GM: This is true. And yeah, Alioth powers up first and looks down at its hands and is just like,
Alioth: This body is acceptable. Your work on this is appreciated.
Bee/Polaris: It's the same.
Avery/GM: Alioth holds its hand up to you, kind of like to your visor.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah.
Avery/GM: And it's just like,
Alioth: As you can see, this body's left index finger is slightly longer than the corresponding middle finger, by approximately 3 millimeters.
Bee/Polaris: Okay, I wouldn't notice that. Why would I notice that?
Alioth: Isn't it obvious?
Bee/Polaris: No. I don't generally pay attention to the length of people's fingers.
Alioth: As I said previously, this is acceptable.
Avery/GM: And Alioth turns to you, Zahn, and just says,
Alioth: Your work on this endeavor has been... noted.
Avery/GM: And then Alioth just turns and starts to walk out of the room.
Bee/Polaris: To the lab!
Zach/Zahn: The, the lights on Zahn's visors dim halfway to be like a squint, or like a glare. Where it's just like, really? That's, that's all I get for this.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Alioth is an asshole. Well, more specifically, Alioth doesn't like organic beings and doesn't generally care.
Zach/Zahn: Zahn, as, as Alioth's like walking out of the room, he just shakes his head and he's like, you're welcome. But like, under his breath, kind of quietly. So whether or not Alioth hears it or not is up to them.
Bee/Polaris: Oh, Alioth heard it, because Alioth is interface to the ship. Alioth probably just doesn't care.
Avery/GM: Merak and Bear though, they, they do turn to you and say, thank you. This is actually very well done. We do appreciate being back in bodies that we can control rather than stuck in a computer.
Zach/Zahn: No problemo.
Bee/Polaris: I know what you mean.
Avery/GM: Well, then that's it. Any, anything you want to ask or talk to the custodians about?
Bee/Polaris: No, hold on. Let me see if there's actually important stuff that I think we need. to talk to them about. Let me look at our itinerary.
Chris/Ollie: Well, anything they know about Prodians.
Bee/Polaris: True. Well, I don't think they know anything about Prodians, because the Custodians were in the Milky Way when the Prodians left.
Chris/Ollie: Oh, after they'd already left. True.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I'm looking at our itinerary to see if we have anything to ask them.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I'm thinking like look in my notes.
Bee/Polaris: Oh, uh, Polaris will Well, this is an Alioth question, so Polaris goes to find Alioth.
Avery/GM: Oh yeah, he's not quite out of the room yet, so you can stop him real quick. Alioth is probably Just getting to the door of the, of the factory.
Bee/Polaris: Polaris will pipe up and say, Alioth.
Avery/GM: It stops and looks at you.
Bee/Polaris: Do you by chance have any record or knowledge of the experiments of psionic beings in the Milky Way?
Avery/GM: Alioth kind of just stares at you for a minute. You're not sure if it's ignoring you or what, and then says,
Alioth: Yes, that is actually one of the files we saved to our memory banks when we left the Pan Solar Union. Why?
Bee/Polaris: Do you by chance have the Formula for a compound called GemyDryl
Alioth: yes, I believe I do come to my lab later and I will have some for you. What do you need it for? Polaris. Have you been experimenting with illicit substances? Not that I care what you do during your spare time, but if you are taking any pharmaceutical concoctions, you should let us know.
Failure to do so could flaw the data
Bee/Polaris: and I'm aware, but we both know that any substances that I would try would not last very long in my body.
Alioth: This is also true. Very well, I will have some synthesized for you in the lab in a couple of hours.
Chris/Ollie: I'm not disappointed you did drugs, Polaris. I'm disappointed you didn't tell me.
Bee/Polaris: So that I could run more da so I could run tests.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I'm just disappointed you didn't give me data.
Bee/Polaris: Ah, Alioth, best parent ever. Uh, Polaris kind of just shrugs and is like, well, that solves that problem.
Avery/GM: Yeah, it's actually surprisingly easy.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Polaris will send a message to Marty so that she's not worried.
working herself to death. Actually, Polaris will, uh, send a message to Alioth after they left and says, can you actually send that formula and whatever components are needed that can be found in this universe? All of that information, can you send that to And then he'll give Oswald's email, because he saw the email in the, in the inbox, but he just didn't look at the actual, like, what was said.
Avery/GM: Oh, you saw Oswald's email address.
Bee/Polaris: Yes. So just send all that information. So he can just get right on that.
Avery/GM: Sure. Alioth just sends back a thumbs up emoji.
Bee/Polaris: Also Polaris will say, and say it's from, from Marty and Polaris and all of us, whatever.
Zach/Zahn: No, just Marty. Just say it's from just Marty.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris will say, and say it's, uh, information from Marty.
Alioth: Very well.
Zach/Zahn: Cause we want Marty to, uh, to continue clowning on this guy.
Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Well, they're friends now, but they made up in the, yeah, they're friends now.
Zach/Zahn: Aww.
Bee/Polaris: A little, a little light ribbing is fine. A little light academic ribbing.
Avery/GM: Alioth responds back.
Alioth: Is this some sort of human teasing ritual?
Bee/Polaris: As far as I'm aware. I'm not entirely sure. I kind of thought that we were enemies. But Marty said that we are friends. I'm still confused on the matter. Why are you asking me? You raised me!
Alioth: If you could gather data on this phenomena, I would find it most helpful.
Bee/Polaris: I'm not going to do that because I know that you don't care about humans. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to gather data the data, and I'm gonna send it to you, and then you're gonna immediately throw it out without reading it.
Alioth: Only if I determined the data to be irrelevant. Which it most likely would be.
Bee/Polaris: Yes, because everything is irrelevant when it contains humans. To you.
Alioth: Not everything.
Bee/Polaris: Well, I'm not human. Well, not fully human.
Avery/GM: Allioth just is like,
Alioth: Very well.
Bee/Polaris: Yep.
Avery/GM: And walks away.
Bee/Polaris: Oh, that was all said out loud? Cool. You guys were privy to that conversation..
Avery/GM: No, no, no, no, no. No. Allioth just said that out loud. Very well.
Chris/Ollie: We just see them dramatically staring at each other.
Avery/GM: No, the rest of the conversation was text.
Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool.
Avery/GM: Or like audio chat that only you could hear.
Bee/Polaris: Cool, got that one. Done. Is there anything else we need to ask them? I don't think we know anything about murdering gods.
Avery/GM: The only dumb question is the one you never ask.
Bee/Polaris: How am I supposed to know if I don't know how dumb I can get with the questions? Does anyone else have any good dumb questions we can ask?
Zach/Zahn: Good dumb questions?
Avery/GM: Like I said, there's no dumb questions except the one you don't ask.
Bee/Polaris: That's not true. There are plenty of dumb questions.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I'm just thinking, like, if we were gonna, like, poison the, the, uh, Rhea person somehow, probably, like, using the Gemydryl. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. So that's why I'm, I'm waiting till we can talk with Marty to be like, well, what exactly does the gemadryl do? Because
Bee/Polaris: I don't think we could, because that's synthesized to stabilize psionic abilities.
Chris/Ollie: Well, I don't know. That's just, it's just a question for Marty.
Bee/Polaris: Oh, I mean, Polaris knows because he read the thing about it, right?
Avery/GM: Yeah, no, you, you read what it does and yeah, it, that is what it will do. It will stabilize Psi's condition or Rho's condition, um, for, you know, X amount of time.
Chris/Ollie: Well, yeah, cause what I'm thinking, like, are, are the Prodians genetically modified in the first place or are they all natty because if you, if you have the stabilization, you could make it unstabilized, but yeah, if they're natty, then they're just, that's not going to be a problem.
Bee/Polaris: I'm pretty sure they're all natty. So that's what
Avery/GM: No, yeah, they are in, yeah, the point Hermes is trying to get across is like, they've evolved to be these things.
Bee/Polaris: Yes.
Avery/GM: And so this is all part of their natural evolution. What else are we doing today? Oh, wait, you activated the coil cube, right? Coil powers up.
Bee/Polaris: Didn't we have a quest for him?
Avery/GM: I think you were going to send him back to the hegemony to get Hermes other crystal.
Bee/Polaris: Right!
Avery/GM: Coil powers up and his hands immediately go to the top of his head. Did you build a robot cowboy hat with this body.
Bee/Polaris: We still have his hat. We just give him back his hat
Avery/GM: feels, his head feels the hat. He's like, oh, okay. Got my hat. Excellent. Well, you kept your end of the bargain. I suppose I should do the same. I am a robot cowboy of my word. You guys got a, a ship I can use. I mean, I can't really get back to Tartarus without it. I mean
Bee/Polaris: Oh, not really.
Chris/Ollie: I just so happened to have a spare shuttle.
Bee/Polaris: What, when did you get a spare shuttle?
Avery/GM: You bought
Chris/Ollie: I just bought two shuttles. No,
Bee/Polaris: no. I, yeah, I know, I know this Polaris probably did not.
Chris/Ollie: Oh, really?
Avery/GM: Didn't notice the two shuttles in the hangar bay.
Bee/Polaris: Well, because Polaris probably would have been up at the bridge.
Chris/Ollie: Sahara's quick delivery is quite something. It's not as good as Jungles was.
Bee/Polaris: How do you know what Jungles was? How old are you?
Chris/Ollie: Honestly, I do not know. Time is a bit hazy before my awakening.
Bee/Polaris: That's fair.
Chris/Ollie: But I just seem to know that, somehow. Procurement was one of my duties aboard the starship. This is possibly the reason.
Avery/GM: Ollie's glitching!
Bee/Polaris: Ollie's actually a sleeper agent for Jungle.
Avery/GM: Well Ollie, to that comment coil says, you'd really lend me one of your shuttles?
Chris/Ollie: absolutely, anything to make Hermes whole. And do not worry about bringing it back. If the mission necessitates its destruction do not hesitate.
Avery/GM: Mighty kind of you!
Bee/Polaris: I'm still stuck on the fact that you have more shuttles. When did you get more shuttles and how did you pilot them? Just directly into the, directly into the Cassiopeia.
Zach/Zahn: Probably like an autopilot kind of system thing that's a Shuttle it's like, Oh yeah, deliver it here.
Chris/Ollie: Ollie probably just split himself and then piloted it remotely. Oh, actually it was some assembly required. So it was a really small package and just had my drones build it. .
Bee/Polaris: That's what Ollie was doing the entire time we were on our way back to the, to the Ursa Major.
Avery/GM: A Lego set.
Zach/Zahn: Oh God.
Bee/Polaris: They're just really big boxes or just like a million super small boxes.
Avery/GM: Ollie, I can't move in the cargo bay. What is all this stuff?
Chris/Ollie: 100 percent modular. Oh no, it's gummy ships from, uh, kingdom hearts.
Avery/GM: Oh yeah. Coil just says, uh, well, I'll get started as soon as you're, uh, as soon as you're wanting me to leave.
Bee/Polaris: I mean, that's kind of up to you, you know? I mean, you can leave now or do you eat? Cause I mean, it's around lunchtime. So.
Avery/GM: Coil just says, Oh no, I'll, I'll be fine without any food. I do occasionally imbibe the, uh, occasional alcoholic drink. You know, just to keep up the persona, you know. Heh heh.
Bee/Polaris: Why?
Avery/GM: Uh, uh, it's my, my programming.
Bee/Polaris: Oh. Okay, fair.
Avery/GM: I mean, I guess I don't have to.
Bee/Polaris: Well, I mean, like, why alcoh why, like, real alcohol? You could always just get something that looks like alcohol, and it's probably cheaper.
Avery/GM: Oh. You know, that, that, that, you make a good point. I, I probably could, could go a little cheaper, probably actually would cut down on the, the expenses. That's true. That's a good idea. You ever think of becoming a, a, a cowboy?
Bee/Polaris: No. Oh. Well... Polaris had a kombucha girl moment. I mean,
Chris/Ollie: does Polaris know what a cow is?
Bee/Polaris: No, he does not know what a cow is. I mean, I have the outfit. I have a lot of costumes. Also, what's a cow? Polaris will put his like hands in like a prayer motion to his visor. And then he'll like point his hands towards Coil. And he'll say, what is a cow? And follow up question. What is a boy?
Avery/GM: Well, I mean, a cow is. I, I don't, I don't, it's just a word that's in my, my programming, cowboy. I mean, boy, boy is like a tiny human, you know,
Bee/Polaris: are all tiny humans, boys. I thought they were children.
Avery/GM: I mean, no, like some, some children are boys and some children are girls and summer, you know, along the spectrum. And you know, it's,
Bee/Polaris: I was raised by robots.
Avery/GM: Well, why are you asking another robot to explain this to you? You got a bunch of human and organic friends around you.
Bee/Polaris: I literally, Zahn is the only one here. Hey Zahn. Polaris turns around and looks at Zahn zaun, what is a boy? And what is a cow?
Zach/Zahn: Well, the boy part is easy. So I am a man. A child version of a man is referred to as a boy. I didn't make the words. That's just the way. Like, uh, yeah, uh, you know. He's giving the arms up kind of thing. He's like, uh, shrug. I'm just telling you, like, what it is. I don't know why it is, you know what I mean?
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, that's fair. Now, another question. Because that has led to another question that I have. How do you tell what is a boy and what isn't a boy and what is a man and what isn't a man?
Zach/Zahn: By age. So how many years a person's, or at least a human, has been around.
Bee/Polaris: So wait, is Marty a boy or a man?
Zach/Zahn: You know, I'm going to leave that for Marty to identify as how they choose.
Bee/Polaris: I'm very confused.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Ollie in the back, Googling what is a woman, accessing Red Pill content.
Bee/Polaris: Oh no! Oh no! No! Ollie becomes a moderator on the incel forums.
Chris/Ollie: I mean, he can split himself a few times. He's probably all the moderators.
Bee/Polaris: Oh no!
Avery/GM: Coil's like, you know what, just forget I asked. Forget I asked. Look, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get going. Ollie, where is this shuttle of yours?
Chris/Ollie: Coil doesn't have access to like any of the ship maps or anything.
Avery/GM: No.
Chris/Ollie: Well then, I'll just give him the physical directions to the whatever hangar it's in.
Avery/GM: Sure. Okay.
Chris/Ollie: They're probably still on the, what was it? We were on the Cass, right?
Avery/GM: Yeah. So he's got a spacewalk.
Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Well, he's a, he's a robot. He's fine.
Avery/GM: Yeah. It's fine.
Chris/Ollie: They are in Shuttle Hanger A on the Cassiopeia and then whichever directions the Cassiopeia is.
Avery/GM: Uh, Coil tips his hat to you and it's like, well then I'll, uh, ride off into the sunset. And, uh, starts walking away.
Bee/Polaris: On what?
Avery/GM: It's a figure of speech. Look, could,
Bee/Polaris: sorry,
Avery/GM: I'm going to need you to look up idioms. And just, just study some idioms, okay? They're really fun. They're really fun grammatical tools.
Bee/Polaris: Okay. I don't know what those are, but alright.
Avery/GM: And yeah, and Coil is, uh, out of sight very quickly.
Chris/Ollie: Also, Ollie will notify Hermes that Coil is coming to take the, uh, the shuttle. So he doesn't just, like, show up on the outside of the ship trying to get in.
Avery/GM: Let me in!
Chris/Ollie: Let me
Avery/GM: in! () You do hear an announcement on the intercom that just says,
Alioth: Polaris can Can you report to my lab immediately?
Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Polaris will go to the lab.
Avery/GM: So, as you step into Alioth's lab, you see Alioth kind of pacing, I guess you could say, around its lab. And it looks up at you as you enter and says, uh,
Alioth: Polaris, we have a slight problem.
Bee/Polaris: What do you mean?
Alioth: I cannot synthesize a gemma drill at this point in time.
Bee/Polaris: Why?
Alioth: The plant needed to make the medicines I doubt on the planet below 300 years ago. This was the only known planet that this plant grew on in this galaxy.
Bee/Polaris: So where do we get this plant?
Alioth: Hypothesis. It is possible that the wormhole phenomena you reported when discovering the Cassiopeia could be the key. We will need to send you and your friends through one of the wormholes.
Avery/GM: And that's where we're gonna end it.
(Ambience fades out, outro music plays, fades down)
Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show! Beyond the Furthest Stars is a one up podcast network production. Be sure to leave a review on iTunes or Spotify. Intro and outro music by Dustin Carpenter. Background music by TabletopAudio. com. Used under an attribution, non commercial license from Creative Commons. We'll be back in two weeks with our next episode.
Avery/GM: See you out there, beyond the furthest stars.